A fine art, film, history and literature site oriented to, but not exclusively for, the gay community. Please be aware that there is mature content on this blog. Information on images and links to sources will be provided if known. Enjoy your visit and please subscribe.
Desdibujando Cristina Martel, “Paralelismos III”, Oil on Canvas
Desidbujando Cristina Martel was born 1975 in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain. He has a Master Degree in Graphic Design. He is a very prolific figurative painter who has shown in many exhibitions in the Canary Island galleries.
Photographer Unknown, (Thousands of Rooms)
Valin Mattheis, “A Black Dog Who Made the World a Wilderness”
Valin Mattheis is an artist living and working in San Francisco, California. He draws inspiration from a variety of sources, including the symbolist artists, existentialism, Jungian psychology, and religions and mythologies the world over. The two-dimensional compositions and skeletal archetypes seem somewhat reminiscent of medieval art references to the Black Death. While his work does explore that ageless desire to instil faith into the mystery of death, not all of it is darkness and despair. He says that more than anything, he “attempts to convey a sense of wonder or reverence or curiosity.”
Photographer Unknown, (The Narrow Hallway), Computer Graphics, Gay Film Gifs
The Motya Charioteer, Marble, Greek Origin, 460-450 BC, Found on the Sicilian Island of Motya in 1979, British Museum
The ‘Charioteer’ is a very rare surviving example of an original Greek victor’s statue and is believed to represent the winner of a chariot race that took place some 2,500 years ago. He was found in 1979 amid excavations on the tiny island of Motya on the western tip of Sicily, which was a Phoenician stronghold in ancient times and a region renowned for breeding horses.
The statue has been identified as a charioteer because of the long tunic he is wearing, the xystis. It was a garment that covered the entire body, and was fastened with a simple belt. Two straps crossed high at the racers back preventing the fabric from “ballooning” during the race.
The broad belt on to which the reins would have been fastened – on the statue were secured via fixings in the two holes in the belt at the front. This prevented the reins from being pulled out of the hands, but also dangerously, prevented the charioteer from being thrown free in any crash.
Today this amazing sculpture is regarded as a national treasure by Sicilians and thought by many to be one of the finest surviving examples of a classical sculpture anywhere in the world. It resembles the more famous Delphian charioteer, which is not very much older.
Native American Art by Russ Kruse
Russ Keck was born in Orange, Texas, and was adopted by the Kruse family when he was three years old. As a child, Russ was introduced to the Native American culture by his uncle, who kept cases full of arrowheads that he’d found on his land and nearby. This sparked his interest in Native American culture and he soon began to create bows and arrows. Seeing his interest in handcrafting objects, his adoptive father, a carpenter, taught him how to work with wood. Russ then taught himself to carve animals out of pieces of Ash, Mesquite, Birch, and Maple trees.
He began to research the origins of his biological family and discovered that he was descended from the Cherokee people. Finally having his suspicions proven right about the naturalness of his art, Russ then realized that creating this art was his heritage and his life’s calling.
Russ has sold his art to galleries, trading posts, and Native American shops in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Oregon, Utah, Colorado, and New York. In addition, he sells to collectors all over the United States, in Finland, and other European countries.
Remembrance of Summer
“Spring passes and one remembers one’s innocence.
Summer passes and one remembers one’s exuberance.
Autumn passes and one remembers one’s reverence.
Winter passes and one remembers one’s perseverance.”
― Yoko Ono
Jame Jones, “Beyond the Edge of Reason”, Stainless Steel, 3 Meters Wide
James Jones is fascinated by our ever changing notion of consciousness. By creating forms that juxtapose the scientific with the spiritual, the philosophical with the biological, James explores our belief systems and the systems within the mind/body that create our experience of the universe. The interrelated concepts of unity; opposites; balance; the internal and external; micro and macrocosms; the self and the soul are also examined through his sculptural work.
James’s recent sculptures involve the use of “zeros” and “ones” that can be seen as a metaphor for mutually dependent dualities such as on-off, male-female, all-nothing. By combining this visual language with a variety of forms, James attempts to further question our notion of consciousness.
Cesar Santos, “The Restorers”, Oil on Linen, 29 x 39 Inches
Cesar Santos’s art education is worldly, and his work has been seen around the globe, from the Annigoni Museum in Italy and the Beijing museum in China to Chelsea NY. Santos studied at Miami Dade College, where he earned his associate in arts degree in 2003. He then attended the New World School of the Arts before traveling to Florence, Italy. In 2006, Santos completed the Angel Academy of Art in Florence studying under Michael John Angel, a student of artist Pietro Annigoni.
Santos’ work reflects both classical and modern interpretations juxtaposed within one painting. His influences range from the Renaissance to the masters of the nineteenth century to Contemporary Art. With superb technique, he infuses a harmony between the natural and the conceptual to create works that are provocative and dramatic.
Jean Dominique Ingres, “Jupiter and Thetis”, Oil on Canvas, 1811, Musee Granet
“Jupiter and Thetis” is an 1811 painting by the French neoclassical painter Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, located in the Musee Granet, Aix-en Provence, France. The work painted by the artist when he was 31, severely and pointedly, contrasts the grandeur and might of a cloud-born Olympian male deity against that of the diminutive nymph. Ingres’ subject matter is from an episode of Homer’s Illiad when Thetis begs Jupiter to intervene and guide the fate of her son Achilles.
The painting is steeped in the traditions of both classical and neoclassical art, most notably in its grand scale of 136 x 101 inches. Ingres creates many visual contrasts between the god and the slithering nymph: Jupiter is shown facing the viewer frontally with both his arms and legs spread broadly across the canvas, while the color of his dress and flesh echos that of the marble at his feet. In contrast, Thetis is rendered in sensuous curves and portrayed in supplication to the mercy of a cruel god who holds the fate of her son in his hands.
Ingres kept ‘Jupiter and Thetis’ in his studio until 1834, when it was purchased when it was purchased by the state. In 1848, he mad a pencil copy. The painting was first exhibited at the 1811 Paris Salon, at a time when Ingres’ attention to line coupled with his disregard for anatomical reality was yet to find favor among critics.
Artist Unknown, (The Temporal Wave Effect), Computer Graphics, Animation Gifs
“Time is a wave or a black hole could not bend it; humanity rides the crest of an infinite number of waves that are perceived as linear in their limited frame of reference.”
―Ken Poirot
Photographer Unknown, (Directions: Forward and Down), Selfie
“I’ve always admired people who give accurate directions, and the tribe is small.”
―
Artist Unknown,(Stiles Stilinski and Derek Hale)
Reblogged with many thanks to the artist’s blog:
Photographer Unknown, “Chico in the Meadow”
“The Meadow… Only one of them succeeded in making a life here… He weathered. Before a backdrop of natural beauty, he lived a life from which everything was taken but a place. He lived so close to the real world it almost let him in.”
–James Galvin, The Meadow
