The Art House

[Nentsia]

The concept is plain and simple: post a work of art (sculpture, painting, photograph - whatever), and tell us why you like it. Also don't forget to mention the creator and the title of the artwork.

Ps: try to keep the images within a reasonable size

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Title: Place de la Concorde
Year: 1875
Artist: Edgar Degas

I came across this painting in the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, or actually the building directly opposite to it which used to be the old headquarters of the Chiefs of Staff of the Russian army. I generally like impressionist paintings because they are the kind of paintings that I would actually enjoy having on my wall in my own house and would never grow tired of seeing over and over again, because they seem alive.

I liked this particular painting because of its strange composition, that suggests as if it was literally painted ad hoc there in the middle of a street in Paris, with some gentlemen coincidentally passing by and crossing the view. I also like these kind of scenes because they appear natural (no one seems to be posing, it doesn't look staged) and I like to think they give away a peek view into what ordinary life and society looked like in an age that none of us can really imagine what it was like.

[Flo]

I have always enjoyed the simplicity in the artwork of Jacob van Strij. I believe he is a dutchie as well

[His Wizardness]

Title: The Fire of Rome
Artist: Hubert Robert (1733-1808)
Created: *Unknown
(*: Seriously, I looked it up and no one knows when the painting was created.)
Description:
This painting for as much as I love history gives me a different reason why I like this work of art. The deep tone just encourages me to imagine the deep sounds of a roaring fire and the smoke in the air just gives me the heat that I would feel on the eve of 67 CE. If you look a little closer, you can actually see people attempting to escape to a boat on the canals of Rome.
In the background, you can see the Hubert really was emphasizing the beauty of Classical Roman architecture put once how stiff it was compared to more renaissance works. In short, the tone and the deep colors are what in my mind makes this painting so touching.

[Sal]

Title:  Puddle
Artist:  M. C. Escher (yet another Dutchie?)
Created: February 1952
Description:  This is a woodcut print, so I think it's pretty rad to remember that any part of this piece with color was carved out of a block of wood.  Even all those pine needles.  I've always liked this one because it was like an Escher Lite; a lot of his artwork at this point was the weird staircases, infinite loops and tessellations, but this one was a more simplified version.  You still get various perspectives (looking down at the puddle versus flipping the print upside down and looking at trees growing upwards), but it's very nicely hidden in what looks to be an otherwise very normal still life/scenery sort of print.  I also like the subject matter; we had a lot of trees and muddy backroads that looked like this where I grew up, and it reminds me of that (despite the fact that I suppose this piece represents somewhere in The Netherlands.)

[Sal]

Double-posting?  In my forum?  It could be here sooner than you think.

I remembered some other pretty different artists and art styles that I like, and they are not Dutch - wow!  I present to you: art I like that is named after the seasons.

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Title:  Autumn
Artist:  Eyvind Earle
Created: 1979
Description:  Serigraph (Screen Print).  In the artist's words:

"In early autumn long before the cold
When only here and there some trees turn red
After the summer's finally grown old
Autumn takes over sharp and clear and bold"

The style probably looks familiar to anyone who's ever watched the 1959 Disney classic Sleeping Beauty.  Earle was a background painter and stylist for Disney during the 1950s and worked on other big-name movies like Peter Pan and Lady and the Tramp.  His influence remains today and can be seen in more recent movies like Pocahontas, and non-Disney works like the game The Banner Saga.

Anyway, I've always been drawn to backgrounds in animation like this, and I finally came across the name of the guy some months back.  He has an online gallery of his works.  I like the sketchy, skeletal looks of the trees, and how things are constructed from simple shapes.

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Title: Winter
Artist: Alphonse Mucha
Created: 1896
Description:  From the Mucha Foundation website:

"Draped from head to toe in a pale green cape, the figure of Winter stands next to a snow-capped bush to shelter from the cold. In her hands she warms a small bird as three other birds  look on in envy. The simplicity and flatness of the composition is reminiscent of traditional Japanese woodcuts and reveals Mucha's debt to Japanese art."

I am a sucker for Art Nouveau, and Mucha is pretty much the golden child of that genre.  Some of Mucha's posters were designed to be advertisements (think chocolates, cigarettes and absinthe), while others were just art posters.  He did several poster series of women, including the anthropomorphic representations of The Arts and The Seasons.  Probably lesser known (because not as many people have posters of it in their house) was his series The Slav Epic, which depicts the epic history of his fellow Czechs and other Slavic mythologies.  

I like Winter (not to be confused with his 1897 and 1900 works, Winter and Winter, respectively... bruhhhh) in particular for the soft pastels.  This one is a lithograph, so also a print.  


Conclusion:  I like all types of prints, especially those that appear to have their roots in traditional Japanese woodblock themes/methods.