Maurice Denis, The Muses, 1893
From the Musée d’Orsay:
In the guise of women dressed in contemporary clothing, Maurice Denis updates a subject taken from classical mythology – the muses who inspire the arts and sciences. But he transforms the theme profoundly, stripping the muses of the traditional attributes which allow them to be identified.
In the group of three women sitting in the foreground we can see the figure of Marthe, whom the painter married in June 1893 and who inspired his art until her death. In a device common in Denis’ work, she is shown twice: in profile in red and from the back, sitting on the chair. Maurice Denis has set the scene on the terrace of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, the town where he lived all his life. The century-old chestnut trees give the composition rhythm and decorative power. The regular strokes of the tree trunks are a pretext for a play of vertical lines which contrast with the curves and ornamental arabesques of the branches, the leaves strewn on the ground, and the patterns and folds of the dresses. The graphic play of lines and interlacing is intensified by the unreal, autumnal colours, painted in areas of flat colour and neatly outlined. The flattened space is that of a “sacred wood”, the setting for a revelation and the figures’ mysterious communication with nature and supernatural powers. An enigmatic tenth muse in the background (while traditionally there are only nine), with one arm raised to the light of the sky, convinces us of that.
St. Catherine, c.1599
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
Oil on canvas 173 x 133 cm
“M showed Catherine framed by the instruments of an imminent ugly death. Nothing transcendental emanated from the added aureole, the martyr’s palm or the brutal bladed wheel. The even more sinister and highly professional sword, a long blade designed for both cutting and thrusting, was probably M’s own, the one some year’s later seized by the authorities and sketched in his report by the confiscating officer. The painting was simply one of the finest M would ever do of a young woman, the only one in which female youth and beauty were the sole object of attention. He did Fillide as martyr saint without parted lips, bared tits and shafts of heavenly light. the girl’s direct gaze was more virile than any seen from M’s boys thus far, but it was a questioning look and shadowed by a deeply touching and vulnerable uncertainty. It locked into you – her questioning openness required a response, and that was the painting’s drama. Her finger rested on the long and already reddened blade. The dark bravura fall and finish of her rich skirt and shawl and the damask cushion framed and emphasized the unadorned face at their apex, the pale simplicity of the neck and shoulders in their white blouse. Catherine was M’s most undervalued painting. Bellori named Catherine with the Lute player for the new depth of colouring in M’s work – he was already starting, Bellori said, to strengthen his darks.” (M, Peter Robb, 1998)
Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson - A Studio in Montparnasse (1926)
la-pitonisa-tropical: 1927 Edwin Howland Blashfield (American, 1848-1936) ~ Spring Scattering Stars
Art for thought … Picasso’s Minotaur lying over a female centaur, 1933; plate 87 of the Vollard Suite, British Museum. Photo: Keizo Kitajima/Succession Picasso/DACS 2011
(via guardian.co.uk)
(Source: ewan-mcgregors)
Detail of William-Adolphe Bouguereau’s Pieta.
Utagawa Kunisada/Toyokuni III (1786-1865) Ichimura Uzaemon XIII as Tekomae Kakitsu from the series Yoi matsuri sugato, 1862/63. Oban.
source: http://www.toshidama-japanese-prints.com/item_324/Kunisada-Ichimura-Uzaemon-XIII-as-Tekomae-Kakitsu.htm
