Tag: art history

Ichwan Noor

Ichwan Noor, Volkswagen Spheres and Cubes

Jakatara- based Indonesian sculptor Ichwan Noor takes the iconic components of vintage VW vehicles and warps them into perfect spheres and cubes. The large-scale sculptures leave the uncanny impression of being instantly recognizable, yet leaving you wondering just how the artist constructed them. It’s the immediate familiarity that initially attracted Noor to using the cars as a medium in the first place. “I see the VW Beetle as one of the most successful designs, one that people will always be familiar with,” he says about the ongoing sculpture series. The artist most recently exhibited a new Beetle Sphere at Art Stage Jakarta in 2016.

Claude Buck

Claude Buck, “Sunburst”, Gouache, Watercolor, Pencil, Pen and Colored Ink on Paper, 1913, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Renwick Gallery, Washington DC

Claude Buck was born in New York City on July 3, 1890. His father was a traditionally trained, commercial artist, and introduced Buck to drawing at age 4. The young Buck copied Greek classics at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and at age 14 entered the National Academy of Design, taking classes in still life with Emil Carlsen, figure drawing with Francis Jones, and figure painting George DeForest Brush. He studied there until age 22, receiving eight prizes. Buck then studied in Munich and upon his return began a busy schedule of exhibitions.

He moved to Chicago in 1919, teaching painting for some years at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago (SAIC), and becoming a leading member of an avant-garde symbolist artists’ group known as the Introspectives. The group, whose members shared an approach to expressing subjective emotion and experience in their work, included, both Rudolph Weisenborn and Emil Armin. Buck, a modernist, was influenced by writers Edgar Allen Poe and William Blake and eccentric visionary painters Ralph Blakelock and Albert Pinkham Ryder.

He often depicted allegories and literary themes drawn from Romantic sources such as Poe’s poetry, operas by Richard Wagner, as well as classical mythology and the New Testament. He made highly finished still lifes and “hyperrealistic” portraits to support himself and his family. Buck spent the last years of his life in Santa Cruz, and is often considered a California artist despite his deep connections to Chicago.

Otto Hettner

Otto Hettner, “Rowers”, Pre 1931, Oil on Canvas

Born in Dresden in January of 1875, Hermann Otto Hettner was a German illustrator, painter, engraver, and sculptor. Between 1897 and 1904, he studied at Karlsruhe’s Academy of Fine Arts, under painter and sculptor Robert Pötzelberger, and later at the Académie Julian in Paris. 

In 1904, Otto Hettner relocated to Florence, Italy, where, in October of 1905, Jeanne Alexandrine Thibert gave birth to his son Roland. He later married Jeanne Thibert in London in May of 1907; a daughter, Sabine Hettner, who would become a noted landscape and portrait painter, was born the following year. With his family, Hettner returned to Dresden in 1913 and studied at its Academy of Fine Arts. In 1916, he became an executive committee member of the Free Secession, an association of modern artists in Berlin, and,  in  1917, became Director of the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts, where he taught as a Full Professor until 1927. 

Hettner illustrated various books for publishers, including art dealer Paul Cassirer’s Pan-Presse imprint, Avalun-Verlag in Dresden, and Marses-Gesellschaft, an imprint collaboration between art historian Julius Meier-Graefe and avant-garde publisher Reinhard Piper. Among these works were lithographic illustrations done for Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s 1923 “Florindo”, a  1923 publication of the ancient Greek novel by Longus entitled “Daphnis and Chloe”, Spanish writer Miguel de Cervnates’s “La Galatea”, and author-journalist Heinrich von Kleist’s “The Earthquake of Chile”. 

Hermann Otto Hettner passed away in Dresden in April of 1931. His works are in private collections and can be seen in the public collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, New York’s Museum of Modern Art, and the Fine Art Museums of San Francisco.

Insert Image: Otto Hettner, “Bogenschütze”, 1901, Oil on Canvas,  100 x 80 cm, Kulturhistorische Museum, Magdeburg 

Rose Sanderson

Rose Sanderson: Painted Book Covers

Inspired by the natural world, especially that which is generally unnoticed or disregarded by others, most recent work focuses predominantly on the fragility of life and representations of freedom.

Seeing beauty in the seemingly ugly,  Rose Sanderson’s delicate, yet expressive paintings of insects, birds and anatomy, aim to provoke in an understated way; producing pieces that are empathetic, fresh and intriguing.

With backgrounds that give a feeling of decay (peeling layers of wallpaper, cracked surfaces; aged and ‘distressed’), combined with fine attention to detail in the subject matter, a vibrant mixture of traditional and experimental techniques are produced. Her use of old book covers relate to the cycles within nature, the subject upon them being part of a narrative; exploring life, death and existence.

Originally based in Bristol, Rose Sanderson has exhibited in a number of Cities within the UK, and others further afield including Amsterdam, Brussels, Munich, New York, Los Angeles, Melbourne, Hong Kong and Singapore. Originally an illustrator, completing her BA(hons) in 2003, she is now a recognised artist within the fine art world.

Bethsheba Grossman

Sculptures by Bethsheba Grossman

According to Bathsheba Grossman, a Santa Cruz, California artist, her art is about life in three dimensions: working with symmetry and balance, getting from the origin to infinity, and always finding beauty in geometry.

Using a background in mathematics and computer programming, Grossman creates intricate and complicated designs. 3D printing in bronze and stainless steel is her main medium – in many cases this is the only way her creations could be represented by an actual object. Traditional sculpture technology simply doesn’t operate on un-moldable objects.

Selling her designs through Shapeways and her site, Grossman’s pieces are widely available, as she eschews the limited editions common in tradional art-making.  Croudsourcing lets Grossman pursue her dream and continue to produce these facinating pieces.

Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso, “The Crucifixion”, Oil on Canvas, 1930, Musee Picasso, Paris

In this work, Picasso returns to his fascination with the ‘life in death’ paradox, encapsulated perfectly by the Western world’s foremost symbol: the Crucifixion. The whole notion of rebirth and transformation has fascinated artists for centuries, as they see themselves as actively participating in an alchemical process while recreating life in their chosen medium.

“The Crucifixion” has no particular religious significance, although its interpretation of pain and suffering is intensely captured and it is a fascinating forerunner, with the use of certain shapes and expressions, to Picasso’s most famous work, Guernica (1937).

Mithra is the orange and red solar figure to the right of the cross (to the viewer)…in between three Marias: the Holy Mother in white before Christ, Marie-Thérèse Walter in the middle and the blue, skeletal head of Mary Magdalene below Mithra.  The head of Stephaton to the left with his giant moon-like sponge “doubles as a crescent moon, an emblem of Virgin Mary.”

Omar Rayo

Omar Rayo, “Xaphan”, 1968, Oil on Canvas, 66 x 66 cm, Private Collection

Omar Rayo was an Columbian artist involved in various types of artwork, such as painting, sculpture, plastic, and caricature. He was best known for using Abstract Geometry as his style. Rayo was one of the foremost pioneers of Op Art. He studied drawing at Academie Zier of Buenos Aires. He was the winner of the 1970 Salon de Artistas Colombianos. His particular focus was Op Art, also known as Optical Art, a style which employs optical illusions that interact with viewers. Op Art is considered Abstract, with many pieces made only of black-and-white. Rayo was also known to use red and other colors.

Many of the artist’s paintings, engravings, and other artworks are placed in the Museum of Rayo de Dibujo y Grabado Latinamericano, which was founded on January 20, 1981, in Colombia. The museum featured more than 2,000 of Rayo’s works as well as 500 works by other Latin artists. For most of his career, Rayo supported and tried to publicize Latin artists, with his campaigns culminating in the museum. Along with artwork, the museum features a library, theater, and graphic arts workshop. Rayo funded most of the museum himself, with the help of the Colombian government. Some of his more famous works include Sin Titula, Xumux, and Gohei V.

Insert Image: Omar Rayo, “Cinta Roja”, 1964, Oil on Canvas, 57 x 52 cm, Private Collection

Temple of Hathor

Painted Ceiling of the Temple of Hathor, Egyot

Seen here is the incredibly well-preserved, painted ceiling at Egypt’s Temple of Hathor. It is the main temple at the Dendera Temple Complex which was built around 2250 BC and is regarded as one of the best-preserved temple complexes in Egypt. Dendera covers an area of about 40,000 square meters and is one of the most tourist-accessible ancient Egyptian places of worship.

The ceiling of the main hall has retained much of its stunning original colour despite being painted thousands of years ago. According to Tour Egypt, the ceiling is “decorated as a complex and carefully aligned symbolic chart of the heavens, including signs of the zodiac (introduced by the Romans) and images of the sky goddess Nut who swallowed the sun disc each evening in order to give birth to it once again at dawn.”

Eric Astoul

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Ceramics by Eric Astoul

Associated with the ceramicist community of La Borne in central France, known for its distinct stoneware, Eric Astoul creates decorative earthenware vases and pots, as well as stone sculptures that contain rough geometrical forms and shapes. Astoul has traveled extensively throughout Europe and Africa, and is influenced by both the ancient and modern ceramics he has encountered in those continents. To create his stoneware, which features textured surfaces and both angular and curvilinear forms, he fires each piece for eight days in a wood-burning “Anagama” kiln, only the second of its kind in La Borne.

Joe Brubaker

Sculptures by Joe Brubaker

The wooden carved figures of Joe Brubaker echo sources of inspiration from Spanish colonial Santos and retablo objects to Egyptian tomb figure and Buddhist stone carvings. In recent works, Brubaker has gone beyond these early influences, crossing cultures on a broader basis. He has included forms reminiscent of ritual costumes and body decorations from indigenous peoples all over the world.

Incorporating scraps of metal and found materials, he has created a cast of characters that are at once strikingly universal and absolutely unique. For Brubaker, there is a moment when the work takes on its own personality. “I almost imagine myself as channeling some soul that’s out there and wants to come back”, he says. “It’s really an eerie moment, a Geppetto moment”.

His work is available for purchase through the Seager/Gray Gallery in Mill Valley, California.

Maxime Raynal

Maxime Raynal, “Nighttime Rain, Port la Nouvelle, France”

In this breathtaking long exposure photograph by Maxime Raynal, we see a night-time storm over the waters of Port la Nouvelle in southern France.
For those interested, the shutter was left open for 383 seconds (nearly 6.5 minutes!) with an aperture of f/13 and an ISO of 200. This means all of the lightning strikes seen in this photo didn’t occur at the exact same time, but over the duration that the shutter was open.

Hiroaki Samura

Hiroaki Samura, “Blade of the Immortal”

“Blade of the Immortal” is a Japanese manga series by Hiroaki Samura. The series is set in Japan during the mid-Tokugawa Shogunate period and follows the cursed samurai Manji, who has to kill 1000 evil men in order to regain his mortality.

The manga was originally published in Afternoon from June 25, 1993, to December 25, 2012. A 2008 anime adaption was produced Bee Train and Production I.G. Also in 2008, the novel “Blade of the Immortal: Legend of the Sword Demon” was released in Japan by Kodansha, and two years later in the United States by Dark Horse Comics. A live action film adaptation is scheduled for release in 2017.

Han Meilin

Han Meilin, “General Guan Yu”, Jingzhou, China

A colossal statue standing 58 meters (190 ft) tall and weighing over 1,320 tonnes has been unveiled in Jingzhou, China. The incredible statue depicts Guan Yu, a prominent historical figure in Chinese history that was a famous general during the Three Kingdoms period. The general was later deified in Chinese culture and is reverently referred to as Guan Gong or Guan Di and has come to symbolize brotherhood, integrity, loyalty and righteousness.

The statue was designed by Han Meilin who is known for his designs of the 2008 Beijing Olympics mascots. The legendary figure (48 m tall) stands atop a 10-meter tall pedestal that has been designed to look like an ancient warship. Inside the statue, visitors can explore an 8,000 sq m museum.

In his right hand, Guan Yu is seen holding his famous “Green Dragon Crescent Blade”, an axe-like weapon that weighs over 136 tonnes. Over 4,000 strips of bronze have been glued to the sculpture, which serves as the centrepiece for Jinghzhou’s Guan Yu Park.