Author: ultrawolvesunderthefullmoon

https://www.instagram.com/wolvesofgray This blog is a refugee and a survivor of the Great Tumblr Inquisition of December 17th, 2018. I am gay artist, who received training at the Rhode Island School of Design, and now, a retired high-end fine art framer living in Maryland, USA. My interests and studies in life run a wide gamut from art to history and from the scientific to the esoteric. I have been building this blog of images and texts for the last eight years. My wish is that my posts pique the interest of viewers and encourage them to experience more.

Albino Black Rat Snake

Patternless Albino Black Rat Snake

The Patternless Albino Black Rat Snake is the result of an attempt to produce an Everglades Albino Snake by crossbreeding Everglades Rat Snakes with Albino Black Rat Snakes.

Rat snakes are members – along with kingsnakes, milk snakes, vine snakes and indigo snakes – of the subfamily Colubrinae of the family Colubridae. They are medium to large constrictors and are found throughout much of the Northern Hemisphere. They feed primarily on rodents and birds. With some species exceeding 3 m (10 ft) in total length, they can occupy the top levels of some food chains.

Many species make attractive and docile pets and one, the corn snake, is one of the most popular reptile pets in the world. Other species can be very skittish and sometimes aggressive, but bites are rarely serious. Like nearly all colubrids, rat snakes pose no threat to humans. Rat snakes were long thought to be completely nonvenomous, but recent studies have shown that some Old World species do possess small amounts of venom, enough to be considered negligible to humans.

Thanks to http://kajuraho.tumblr.com for the great image.

Luigi Benedicenti

Realism:  Paintings by Luigi Benedicenti

The work of Benedicenti is deeply rooted in the still-life tradition that sprouted in Europe in the late XVI century, embodied by such masters as Bosschaert the Elder and Bruegel the Elder, whose accurately descriptive paintings were often employed for scientific purposes. Notwithstanding Luigi Benedicenti has a strong independent personality which cannot be fully explained through the prism of his precursors.

After having deeply meditated on their works, absorbed the symbolic value, Luigi moved away from this genre. He came up with a completely new style, what the critic Claudio Malberti defined as ‘Realismo Estremo’ or ‘Extreme Realism’. Benedicenti replaces the fish and meat that used to decorate the dining rooms of the leisure class with contemporary Italian patisserie, ice cream and classy drinks.

Edward Hopper

Edward Hopper, “French Six-Day Bicycle Rider”, 1937, Oil on Canvas, 43.8 x 48.9 cm, Private Collection

In the 1800s, the invention of the safety bicycle initiated a cycling craze in America. Designed by English engineer Harry John Lawson in 1878, the first model of the ‘safety bike” was unlike previous bicycles in that the rider’s feet could reach the ground, which made it easier to stop. The pedals powered the rear wheel and kept the rider’s feet safely away from the front wheel. The chain drive allowed for much smaller wheels and replaced the need for the directly pedaled front wheel of previous bicycles.  Although the smaller wheels gave a harsher ride, the introduction of pneumatic tires, which replaced the previous solid ones, overcame that disadvantage.

Edward Hopper as a teenager in his hometown of Nyack, New York, was an avid cyclist. The freedom of both cycling and drawing freed him from the confines and boredom of small town life in the 1890s. During his early years, Hopper drew many bicycling scenes, two of which are “Study of a Man in the Bike Shop”, the interior of a bike shop whose owner is working on bike tires, and “Meditation: 10 Miles from Home”, a self portrait standing in knickers and argyle socks, staring at his bike’s flat front tire.

The inspiration for Hopper’s 1937 “French Six-Day Bicycle Rider” came from his watching bicycle races in New York’s Madison Square Garden. He remembered the rider, young and very French in appearance, who was resting while the his team mate was on the track. Early sketches for the painting show slightly different perspectives. In his notes for the final painting, Hopper chose to use the perspective from his 1921 etching, “The Night Shadows”, which depicts a street scene seen from an upper window. 

In his painting, Edward Hopper simplified the scene and focused on the emotional isolation of the rider. Strong diagonal lines cut across the scene. The young male assistant, whose slender form contrasts with the muscular rider, is shown opening the sleeping curtain. Bicycles on the left and right balance the scene which includes details from a biker’s kit: a helmet hung on a peg and a water bottle near the French flag on the hut’s roof. Next to the bicycles in the foreground sits a bucket containing a bottle.

Hopper finished the oil on canvas painting on March 5, 1937.

 

Christian Rohlfs

Christian Rohlfs, “The Village”, Oil on Canvas, 1913

Christian Rohlfs was born in Gross Niendorf, Kreis Segeberg in Prussia. He took up painting as a teenager while convalescing from an infection that was eventually to lead to the amputation of a leg in 1874. He began his formal artistic education in Berlin, before transferring, in 1870, to the Weimar Academy.

Initially Rohlfs painted large-scale landscapes, working through a variety of academic, naturalist, Impressionist, and Post-Impressionist styles. In 1901 he left Weimar for Hagen, where the collector Karl Ernst Osthaus had offered him a studio in the modern art museum he was setting up there. Meetings with Edvard Munch and Emil Nolde and the experience of seeing the works of Vincent van Gogh inspired him to move towards the expressionist style, in which he would work for the rest of his career.

Michal Karcz

Digital Photography by Michal Karcz

Some artists get to the point when their usual medium or technique starts to limit their visions. This is exactly what happened to a Polish artist Michal Karcz who found that painting and the ordinary dark room photography techniques didn’t allow him to fully realize his potential.

Born in 1977 in Warsaw, the graduate of the High School of the Arts was first passionate about painting. However, in the early 90’s, he became drawn to photography only to realize that the dark-room techniques alone were almost as limiting as the paintbrush and canvas. Luckily, the developing technology allowed him to combine the two with the help of some digital tools.

“This digital photography and software gave me the opportunity to generate unique realities that are impossible to create with ordinary dark room techniques.” – Michal Karcz

Jacques de l’Ange

Jacques de l’Ange, “Chained Prometheus”, c. 1640-1650, Oil on Canvas 52 x 62 cm, Private Collection

Jacques de l’Ange or the Monogrammist JAD (fl. 1630 – 1650) was a Flemish painter and draughtsman known for his genre scenes and history paintings executed in a Caravaggesque style. The artist was only rediscovered in the mid-1990s as his work was previously attributed to other Northern Caravaggists and in particular those of the Utrecht School.

Gregorian, “Brothers in Arms”

Gregorian, “Brothers in Arms” (Scenes from the movie “Vaya Con Dios”

“Brothers in Arms” is a 1985 song by Dire Straits, appearing as the closing track on the album of the same name. It is in G# minor. It was originally written in 1982, the year of the Falklands War. It was re-released in 2007 as a special edition to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the conflict and raise funds for veterans of it with posttraumatic stress disorder.

Through these fields of destruction
Baptisms of fire
I’ve witnessed your suffering
As the battle raged higher
And though they did hurt me so bad
In the fear and alarm
You did not desert me
My brothers in arms

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

Taha Alkan

Taha Alkan, “David’s Bow”, Computer Graphics 

Born in Sivas, Turkey in 1984, Taha Alkan is a graphic artist, digital painter and art director. He studied architecture at Uludag University in Bursa, Turkey, from 2004 to 2009. Alkan worked as a professional CG artist in the United States and as an art director with EAA-Emre Arofat in Turkey. He founded the Volumetrik Creative Workshop.

Alkan uses a multi-discipline design approach to provide creative digital artworks and 3-D visuals, as well as architectural designs. He has taken part in multiple exhibitions in New York, the Netherland, and Turkey.