art masterpieces

Henri Rousseau

florinorfolk — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 15:26:59 +0000

One artist who prefigured the Surrealists’ idea of fantasy with his fresh, naïve outlook on the world was the Frenchman, Henri Rousseau (1844-1910).

Sleeping Gypsy

Like Paul Klee, Rousseau defies all labels, and although he has been numbered among the Naïves or Primitives (two terms for untrained artists), he transcends this grouping. Known as Le Douanier, after a lifelong job in the Parisian customs office, Rousseau is a perfect example of the kind of artist in whom the Surrealists believed: the untaught genius whose eye could see much further than that of the trained artist.

dream

Eclaireur attaque par un tigre

Femme se promenant…

Paul Delvaux

florinorfolk — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 15:09:11 +0000

The Secret of Women

Robe de Mariee

Paul Delvaux (September 23, 1897 – July 20, 1994) was a Belgian painter, famous for his surrealist paintings with female nudes.

The paintings Delvaux became famous for usually feature numbers of nude women who stare as if hypnotized, gesturing mysteriously, sometimes reclining incongruously in a train station or wandering through classical buildings, accompanied by skeletons or puzzled scientists. Delvaux would repeat variations on these themes for the rest of his long life, although some departures can be noted. Among them are his paintings of 1945-47, rendered in a flattened style with distorted and forced perspective effects, and the series of crucifixions and deposition scenes enacted by skeletons, painted in the 1950s.

In the late 1950s he produced a number of night scenes in which trains are observed by a little girl seen from behind. These compositions contain nothing overtly surrealistic, yet the clarity of moonlit detail is hallucinatory in effect. Trains had always been a subject of special interest to Delvaux, who never forgot the wonder he felt as a small child at the sight of the first electric trams in Brussels.

In 1959 he executed a mural at the Palais du Congrès in Brussels, one of several large scale decorative commissions Delvaux undertook. He was named director of the Académie royal des Beaux-arts of Belgium in 1965. In 1982 the Paul Delvaux Museum opened in Saint-Idesbald.
Delvaux died in Veurne in 1994.

The Conversation

Sleeping Venus

Call of the Night

James Ensor

florinorfolk — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 17:13:00 +0000

(from : Wikipedia) James Sidney Edouard, Baron Ensor (April 13, 1860 – November 19, 1949) was a Belgian painter and printmaker, an important influence on expressionism and surrealism who lived in Ostend for almost his entire life. He was associated with the artistic group Les XX.

Ensor, Intrigue

Ensor, Strange Masks

Ensor, Masks

Gustav Klimt

florinorfolk — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 17:56:46 +0000

Danae, Gustav Klimt

Gustav Klimt (July 14, 1862 – February 6, 1918) was an Austrian Symbolist painter and one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Art Nouveau (Vienna Secession) movement. His major works include paintings, murals, sketches, and other art objects, many of which are on display in the Vienna Secession gallery. Klimt’s primary subject was the female body,^[1] and his works are marked by a frank eroticism–nowhere is this more apparent than in his numerous drawings in pencil. (source: Wikipedia)

Adele Bloch-Bauer

The Kiss

Rogier van der Weyden

florinorfolk — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 13:37:14 +0000

Rogier van der Weyden, also known as Rogier de le Pasture (1399/1400 – June 18, 1464) is, with Jan van Eyck, considered one of the greatest exponents of the school of Early Netherlandish painting.

Portrait of a Lady (ca.1455)

Braque Family Tryptich (part)

Raffael

florinorfolk — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 16:53:50 +0000

(from: Wikipedia) Raphael Sanzio, usually known by his first name alone (in Italian Raffaello)^[1] (April 6 or March 28, 1483 – April 6, 1520)^[2] was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance, celebrated for the perfection and grace of his paintings and drawings. Together with Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci he forms the traditional trinity of great masters of that period.

The dumb Lady

The Lady with the Unicorn

portrait of a young woman

The Brothers Limbourg

florinorfolk — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 09:22:51 +0000

The brothers Paul, Herman and Johan Limbourg were descendants of the Maelwael-Limbourg lineage. Their story begins in Nijmegen, where they were born at the end of the 14th century. Their glory days began in France, first at the Burgundian court of Philip the Bold, and later at the court of the powerful Duke Jean de Berry.

The Limbourg brothers, or in Dutch Gebroeders van Limburg (Herman, Paul, and Johan; fl. 1385 – 1416), were famous Dutch Renaissance miniature painters from the city of Nijmegen. They were active in the early 15th century in France and Burgundy. They created what is certainly the best known late medieval illuminated manuscript, the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry. (Wikipedia)

(All pictures copied from here)

January

February

March

April

Juin

Antoni Gaudi

florinorfolk — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 17:18:15 +0000

Antoni Plàcid Guillem Gaudí i Cornet (25 June 1852–10 June 1926) – in English usually referred to by the Spanish translation of his name, Antonio Gaudí – was a Spanish^[3] architect who belonged to the Modernist style (Art Nouveau) movement and was famous for his unique style and highly individualistic designs.

Casa Mila, Barcelona

La Sagrada Familia – Gaudis unfinished masterpiece in Barcelona

chimneys covered in mosaics

detail of tile mosaic at Palau Guell, Barcelona

Famous lizzard by Antoni Gaudi using mosaic technique called trencadis.

Tilman Riemenschneider

florinorfolk — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 17:12:37 +0000

Tilman Riemenschneider (c. 1460 – July 7, 1531) was a German sculptor and woodcarver active in Würzburg from 1483. He was one of the most prolific and versatile sculptors of the transition period between late Gothic and Renaissance, a master in stone and lindenwood.

Saint Barbara

Madonna
(in: Tauberbischofsheim, Germany)

Virgin Annunciate

grieving women

Chaim Soutine

florinorfolk — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 13:45:33 +0000

Chaïm Soutine (1893 – August 9, 1943) was a Jewish expressionist painter from Belarus.

Ceret landscape (Southern France)

little girl with doll

landscape

landscape in Southern France

landscape at Cagnes