Mega Square
Скачать книги из серии Mega SquareForbidden Asia
Since The Turkish Baths (1863) by the French painter Ingres, the Far Eastern woman has, to many, been a symbol of out of reach or forbidden pleasures. Seafaring explorers, military adventurers and simple travellers from Europe over the centuries have all been enthralled by the exotic nature of the Asian woman, her foreignness accentuated by the gentle pallor of her skin. Thus arose the myth that she, of all women, was in possession of the knowledge of certain refined pleasures.
Caravaggio
After staying in Milan for his apprenticeship, Michelangelo da Caravaggio arrived in Rome in 1592. There he started to paint with both realism and psychological analysis of the sitters. Caravaggio was as temperamental in his painting as in his wild life. As he also responded to prestigious Church commissions, his dramatic style and his realism were seen as unacceptable. Chiaroscuro had existed well before he came on the scene, but it was Caravaggio who made the technique definitive, darkening the shadows and transfixing the subject in a blinding shaft of light. His influence was immense, firstly through those who were more or less directly his disciples. Famous during his lifetime, Caravaggio had a great influence upon Baroque art. The Genoese and Neapolitan Schools derived lessons from him, and the great movement of Spanish painting in the seventeenth century was connected with these schools. In the following generations the best endowed painters oscillated between the lessons of Caravaggio and the Carracci.
Pieter Bruegel
Pieter Brueghel was the first important member of a family of artists who were active for four generations. Firstly a drawer before becoming a painter later, he painted religious themes, such as Babel Tower, with very bright colours. Influenced by Hieronymus Bosch, he painted large, complex scenes of peasant life and scripture or spiritual allegories, often with crowds of subjects performing a variety of acts, yet his scenes are unified with an informal integrity and often with wit. In his work, he brought a new humanising spirit. Befriending the Humanists, Brueghel composed true philosophical landscapes in the heart of which man accepts passively his fate, caught in the track of time.
Claude Lorrain
Claude Gellée, called Claude Lorrain was neither a great man nor a lofty spirit like Poussin. His genius cannot, however, be denied and he was, like Poussin, a profoundly original inventor within the limitations of a classical ideal. He too spent most of his life in Rome though the art he created was not specifically Italian, but French. For more than two centuries afterwards everyone in France who felt called upon to depict the beauties of nature would think of Lorrain and study his works, whether it be Joseph Vernet in the eighteenth century or Corot in the nineteenth. Outside France it was the same; Lorrain was nowhere more admired than in England. There is an element of mystery in the vocation of this humble and almost illiterate peasant whose knowledge of French and Italian was equally poor, and who used to inscribe on his drawings notes in a strange broken Franco-Italian. This mystery is in some way symbolic of that with which he imbued his pictures, le mystère dans la lumière. This admirable landscapist drew from within himself the greatest number of extraordinary pictures, in which all is beauty, poetry and truth. He sometimes made from nature drawings so beautiful that several have been attributed to Poussin, but in his paintings his imagination dominates, growing in magnitude as he realised his genius. He understood by listening to Poussin and watching him paint that a sort of intellectual background would be an invaluable addition to his own imagination, visions, dreams and reveries.
Munch
Edvard Munch, born in 1863, was Norway's most popular artist. His brooding and anguished paintings, based on personal grief and obsessions, were instrumental in the development of Expressionism. During his childhood, the death of his parents, his brother and sister, and the mental illness of another sister, were of great influence on his convulsed and tortuous art. In his works, Munch turned again and again to the memory of illness, death and grief. During his career, Munch changed his idiom many times. At first, influenced by Impressionism and Post-impressionism, he turned to a highly personal style and content, increasingly concerned with images of illness and death. In the 1892s, his style developed a ‘Synthetist' idiom as seen in The Scream (1893) which is regarded as an icon and the portrayal of modern humanity's spiritual and existential anguish. He painted different versions of it. During the 1890s Munch favoured a shallow pictorial space, and used it in his frequently frontal pictures. His work often included the symbolic portrayal of such themes as misery, sickness, and death. and the poses of his figures in many of his portraits were chosen in order to capture their state of mind and psychological condition. It also lends a monumental, static quality to the paintings. In 1892, the Union of Berlin Artists invited Munch to exhibit at its November exhibition. His paintings invoked bitter controversy at the show, and after one week the exhibition closed. In the 1930s and 1940s, the Nazis labeled his work “degenerate art”, and removed his works from German museums. This deeply hurt the anti-fascist Munch, who had come to feel Germany was his second homeland. In 1908 Munch's anxiety became acute and he was hospitalized. He returned to Norway in 1909 and died in Oslo in 1944.
Fragonard
A painter and printmaker of the Rococo movement, Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806) is recognised as one of France’s most prolific artists. His genius however almost went forgotten after the Revolution due to the expanding influence of neo-classicism and the loss of his bourgeoisie clientele. He studied under the great Boucher and painted over 550 works in various genres including landscapes and portraits illustrating the erotic, the domestic and an abundance of religious scenery. His smooth brushstrokes never faltered in depicting the charm and wit of 18th century France. Fragonard’s talent lies in bringing his creations to life in a refined and decadent manner with Goncourt describing him as “the poet of the Ars Amatoria of the age”.
Kandinsky
Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) was a Russian painter credited as being among the first to truly venture into abstract art. He persisted in expressing his internal world of abstraction despite negative criticism from his peers. He veered away from painting that could be viewed as representational in order to express his emotions, leading to his unique use of colour and form. Although his works received heavy censure at the time, in later years they would become greatly influential.
The Pre-Raphaelites
In the Victorian era, England – swept along by the Industrial Revolution, the Pre-Raphaelite fold, William Morris, and the Arts and Crafts movement – aspired to return to traditional values. Wishing to resurrect the pure and noble forms of the Italian Renaissance, a group of painters including John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and Edward Burne-Jones, favoured Realism and Biblical themes. This work, with its informed text and rich illustrations, enthusiastically describes this singular movement which provided the inspiration for Art Noveau and Symbolism.
Pascin
Today still considered a “Bad Boy”, Pascin was a brilliant artist who lived and worked in the shadow of contemporaries such as Picasso, Modigliani, and several others. A specialist of the feminine form, his canvasses are as tormented as his party lifestyle. The artist, considered scandalous for the erotic character of his works, exhibited in numerous Salons, notably in Berlin, Paris, and New York.
Opium. The Flowers of Evil
Opium, once used for ritual purposes, is a substance which dulls pain and offers access to an artificial world, and has long been idealized by artists and markets. Baudelaire, Picasso, and Dickens were all inspired to create by the blue clouds of smoke. Known as either a sacred drug or the worst of poisons, opium rapidly became popular in Great Britain and a source of commerce with Imperial China. This illustrated work presents the history and quasi-religious rites of opium’s use.