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Showing posts with the label Max Beckmann

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Max BECKMANN - Departure (1932-1935)

on June 21, 2022

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Rogier van der Weyden - Annunciation (c. 1432-1435)

This work has been dismembered; the two side panels are in Turin, the central one in the Louvre. A game of glances that speak. Van Eyck precision. The light gently illuminates the walls and the canvas. The preciousness of the furniture and clothes is incredible. Van der Weyden participates with his religious sentiment in this work.

Peter BLAKE - On the balcony (1955-1957)

On the balcony 1955-1957 Oil painting on canvas (121x91 cm) Tate Gallery, London ******* The figures sitting on a park bench are surrounded by four paintings by some of Blake's companions and various commercial objects, including packets of cigarettes, newspapers and food packages. The structure of the painting is very simple and the attention to perspective is somewhat lacking; the real interest is to be found in the attention to the representation of the objects, which are the most important elements of the composition. At the time of its creation it was considered Blake's masterpiece for its strong visual impact and now communicates the full sense of cultural growth in the 1950s, putting the observer in front of a messy crowd of popular images. This representation of commercial objects paved the way for another great artistic movement: Pop Art. In the 1970s, Blake moved towards a more naturalistic style and by 1975 he also became a founding member of the Brotherhood of Rur...

Christian BOLTANSKI - Reserve of dead Swiss (1990)

Reserve of dead Swiss 1990 Photographs, metal boxes and electric spotlights (203 cm) Marian Goodman Gallery, New York ******* The work is a real construction of metal boxes for biscuits against a background of black and white photographs taken from obituaries of a local newspaper, dimly lit by electric spotlights. It is a real shrine to memory that arouses strong feelings of life and death, over which an atmosphere of peace hovers that borders on the religious and the eternal. In one of his previous works, Boltanski had used photographs of Jewish children, but here he wanted to investigate the theme of the inevitability of death, choosing photos of people belonging to an openly neutral country. Death is undoubtedly the most universal aspect of life. Boltanski is one of the most acclaimed artists of our time, thanks to his unique style, materials and subjects focused on the themes of death. Other works by him, very important and impactful, are composed of glass cases where childho...

Nicolas Poussin - Landscape with Polyphemus (1649)

An apparent, banal landscape. Art History is full of it. But nobody has the mythical, historical and mythological charm of this. Nicolas Poussin's painting is mythological. Mythical figures hidden in the bushes. A Polyphemus who seems an integral part of the mountain. Without a doubt we are faced with a vision and an invitation. We live in a world that is formed on the myth, let's see it in everyday life. They are not simple stories, it is the explanation of our being.

Matthias Stomer - Esau and Jacob (1640-1650)

Matthias Stomer, needless to say, is a great caravaggista. This work has such a marked balance that it will decide to use it almost identical also for other works, where it tells other stories. In the dark lit by a candle, all borrowed from Caravaggio, the bartering of lentils with the first parents takes place. Not a striking scene but the intimacy of a domestic, familiar place. So real that you can't miss the hare hunted. The speech is intense, you can hear it by looking carefully at the eyes of the brothers.

Guido Reni - The rape of Deianira (1620-1621)

Fascinated by the Myth, Guido Reni inaugurates a series of works intended to tell the story of Hercules. The main element of this canvas is not the attempt to kidnap the beautiful Deianira (wife of Hercules) by the centaur Nessus but it is the story itself. Guido Reni creates this picture so that we can remember the previous and subsequent events immortalized at this moment. Another great proof of how classical culture survives in the daily life of different eras.

Georges de La Tour - The cheater (c. 1635)

Work discovered in recent times (1926) highlights all the influence exercised by Caravaggio not only stylistically but also from the point of view of the contents. Inexorably it can be seen how the art of the Italian painter is unreachable. A brisk symbolism: the face of the unprepared and unwary young man is in light, a symbol of purity of purpose, while that of the cheater is in dim light. Courtesans are the center of action and offer action reading.