Month: August 2015

Rene Capone

Watercolors by Rene Capone

Born in September of 1978 in Niskayuna, a small town in the mid-eastern area of New York state, Rene Carol Capone is an American figurative painter.. He attended the Parsons School of Design in New York City on a merit scholarship in the fine arts. Upon graduation in 2000, Capone moved to San Francisco to study at the San Francisco Art Institute. 

Known for his depiction of the human figure in mysterious, erotic, or whimsical circumstances, Capone often uses themes from his favorite myths and literary tales in which to place his characters. He began his career as an artist creating dreamlike, sensual, often homoerotic images of young men on deep, personal quests for love, identity, and their place in the world.

After a four year hiatus from his fine art work in which he studied the topic of child abuse, Rene Capone self-published his first authored and illustrated graphic novel, “The Legend of Hedgehog Boy”. More than just a queer fairytale of a boy in search of his identity, the tale dealt with the issue of child abuse and its consequences, both psychological and physical. The story argued in favor of self-expression and the reconstruction of one’s life after a traumatic event.

In 2014, Capone published this illustrated novel entitled “A Boy Named”, the story of boy, now more comfortable in his skin, on a quest for identity in his world. The tale is told through eighty-five illustrations by Capone as well as a collection of portraits of him taken by various photographers.  Also in 2014, Capone did thirteen  illustrations for Dorian Carbone’s children’s book “A Turtle Who Likes to Eat Fish”. 

An overall retrospective of Rene Capone’s work from 1999 to 2011 was published under the title “Any Given Moment: The Artwork of René Capone”. His most recent publication is a hardcover art book of Capone’s work from 1997 to 2018, entitled “A Boy Named Patience”, which was published in 2021. The artwork features the words of poet Dave Russo alongside the paintings. Capone’s artwork has also been  published on book covers, including publications in France and Israel,  and will be used for a series of books entitled “The Goldberg Variations”, issued by arnolandpress.com.

He took a four-year absence from creating fine art to dig deep within his psyche and painful childhood to create a series of paintings that inspired his graphic novel The Legend of Hedgehog Boy. The novel struck a deep chord within many readers, and it transformed the artist as well.– The Advocate

Guido Reni

Guido Reni, “Saint Sebastian”, 1625, Oil on Canvas, 76 x 61 cm, Aukland Art Gallery, Aukland

Born in November of 1575 in Bologna, a Papal State under Pope Gregory XIII, Guido Reni was an Italian painter of the Baroque period whose works show a classical influence. He primarily painted religious scenes, but also produced works of mythological and allegorical subjects. Reni became a prominent artist of the Bolognese School, headed by painter and etcher Lodovico Carracci, that rivaled Rome and Florence as the center of Italian painting. 

Guido Reni painted the martyrdom of Saint Sebastian several times. There are three other similar posed canvases by Reni in the museums of Bologna, Paris and Puerto Rico. The Auckland Art Gallery’s circa 1625 “Saint Sebastian” is the closest painted to the pose drawn from Michelangelo’s marble statue “Rebellious Slave”. There are, however, differences in this particular canvas: Saint Sebastian’s left hand is shown, his loincloth is smaller, and the landscape contains figures not shown in the other canvases. 

Notes: Guido Reni’s 1625 “Saint Sebastian” was originally in the private collection of the Dukes of Hamilton until its sale to the Aukland Art Gallery. The Duke of Hamilton, created in 1643, is the senior dukedom of the Peerage of Scotland, except for the Dukedom of Rothesay which is held by the Sovereign’s son. Since 1711, the title has been the Duke of Hamilton and Brandon in the Peerage of Great Britain. 

Guido Reni worked on an almost identical copy from 1620 to 1639 but left it unfinished. This is one of many paintings he left unfinished before his death in August of 1642. The canvas, with its slightly different coloring and larger size of 1.7 by 1.31 meters, is now housed in London’s Dulwich Picture Gallery.  

Joshua Reynolds

Joshua Reynolds,  “The Archers” (Colonel Acland and Lord Sydney), Oil on Canvas, 1769,  Tate Collection

This large double portrait depicts on a life-size scale two young aristocrats, Dudley Alexander Sydney Cosby, Lord Sydney (1732–1774), shown on the left, and Colonel John Dyke Acland (1746-1778) leaping forward on the right. Dressed in quasi-historical clothing invented by the artist, they are mimicking a medieval or Renaissance hunt; the dead game they leave in their trail underlining their noble blood and aristocratic right to hunt. The painting celebrates the men’s friendship by linking it to an imaginary chivalric past, when young lords pursued ‘manly’ activities together against a backdrop of ancient forest. The two subjects run and take aim in perfect rhythmic harmony; at one with each other and joint masters over nature.

Joshua Reynolds painted this portrait shortly after he took up duties as the first President of the newly opened Royal Academy of Arts and delivered the first of his famous ‘discourses’ on art. Reynolds’s sitter book confirms that the painting was executed in August – a month he usually reserved for personal projects rather than commissions – suggesting that it was made of his own volition, undoubtedly with an eye to the newly established Royal Academy annual exhibitions. The grand scale of the work, its dramatic, tightly organised composition and deliberate echo of the Italian painter Titian’s great mythological scenes all speak of Reynolds’s extraordinary determination to raise the profile and status of British art in these years. More particularly, this painting, his most ambitious male portrait to date, demonstrated his desire to elevate portraiture to the level of high art, alongside the genre of history painting, which was traditionally seen as superior.

The depiction of the two sitters hunting with bows and arrows points to a renewed enthusiasm for archery in aristocratic circles at this time. Aa attracted by its virile and romantic associations, the figure of the archer became a fashionable reference point for privileged young men and was a popular allegorical guise for contemporary portraits.

The painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy’s second annual exhibition of contemporary British art in 1770, after which it remained in Reynolds’s studio for several years. It was eventually purchased by Acland’s widow in 1779 to commemorate her husband who had died the previous year of a paralytic stroke, probably caused by war injuries.

Five Finger Death Punch, “Wrong Side of Heaven”

Five Finger Death Punch, “Wrong Side of Heaven”

Five Finger Death Punch (also initialized as FFDP or 5FDP) is an American heavy metal band from Las Vegas, Nevada. Formed in 2005, the group’s name is derived from classic martial arts cinema. The band originally consisted of vocalist Ivan Moody, guitarist Zoltan Bathory, guitarist Caleb Andrew Bingham, bassist Matt Snell, and drummer Jeremy Spencer. Bingham was replaced by guitarist Darrell Roberts in 2006, who was then replaced by Jason Hook in 2009. Bassist Matt Snell departed from the band in 2010 and was replaced by Chris Kael in 2011.

Five Finger Death Punch are the recipients of the Radio Contraband Rock Radio Awards for “Indie Artist of the Year” in 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014. They were also honored with the Radio Contraband Rock Radio Award for Album (American Capitalist) and Song of the Year (“Coming Down”) in 2012 and “Video of the Year” for “Wrong Side of Heaven” in 2014

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)

Gustav Willeit

 

Photography by Gustav Willeit

Born in the mountainous regions of northeast Italy, photographer Gustav Willeit seems fascinated by vertiginous landscapes. While he is used to taking alpine panoramas, he nonetheless very quickly feels the need to explore other locations, travelling all over the globe in search of unusual images. From 2000 to 2004 he studied at the prestigious photography school F+F Schule für Kunst und Mediendesign in Zurich, then worked as a photographer’s assistant before launching his freelance career in 2006.

Willeit has since participated in many solo and collective exhibitions in Europe. The power of his images is expressed through their inaccessible aspect, unusual points of view, and the intensity of the contrasts and chromatic nuances. When nature does not deploy its elements of its own accord, the artist uses digital techniques to recreate environments from his imagination, also inventing their titles. It is therefore difficult to make out reality from fantasy.

Thanks to http://archatlas.net : great architectural and nature photo source