The REAL Vincent van Gogh
Self Portrait with Bandaged Ear, 1989
Vincent van Gogh, (1853-1890)
New high-tech research shatters Van Gogh myths!
Vincent's Bedroom in Arles, 1888
Digital version shows what may be the original lilac walls.
Vincent's Bedroom in Arles, 1888
The painting as we know it with blue walls caused by faded red pigment.
Myth: In Van Gogh’s beloved painting of his bedroom in Arles, France, the walls were originally painted blue.
Truth: Not true! Van Gogh originally painted the walls a pale lilac, not blue! He experimented with new pigments. These new pigments, particularly the color red, proved to be unstable and the red pigment disappeared after a short time.
Van Gogh mixed this new red pigment with blue to make lilac. With time the red faded and left the blue. Hence, blue walls.
Why is this important? Van Gogh was very precise about complementary colors (colors that go well together and are pleasing to the eye.) The main color theme in the bedroom is yellow. The complementary color of yellow is purple, not blue. Van Gogh knew what he was doing!
Next time you see a Van Gogh and see the color blue…look closely…is there an abundance of yellow in the painting? Solve the mystery yourself!
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Myth: Van Gogh was a manic, possibly slightly deranged man who just spontaneously threw paint at the canvas.
Truth: He was a very experienced artist (he made 900 paintings in ten years) and doggedly honed his skills. He created very deliberate compositions.
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Myth: Van Gogh cut off his whole ear.
Truth: Not exactly. In a fit of madness Van Gogh only cut off a portion of his left ear lobe…not his entire ear as many believed.
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Red Vineyard at Arles, 1888
Vincent van Gogh
Myth: Van Gogh never sold a painting in his lifetime.
Truth: Van Gogh sold only one painting during his lifetime, Red Vineyard at Arles. This painting now resides at the Pushkin Museum in Moscow.
Sit back and marvel at the masterpieces of Vincent van Gogh.
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Art Venice, Art Venice, Art Venice
If you happen to be in Venice, Italy between June and November, you will see art everywhere…strange art, really ugly art, and beautiful, take-your-breath-away art! Art is in the museums, the palazzos, the canal-fronted warehouses, small intimate gardens! It’s everywhere!
The Venice Biennale, one of the most prestigious contemporary art shows in the world is happening! Artists from 88 countries are presenting sculpture, painting, video, installation, performance…all the art you can imagine.
But, alas, some of us can’t make it to Venice.
Don’t despair! We CAN experience it! Read on…
Triple Point Installation, 2013
Sarah Sze
American artist, Sarah Sze, shows “Triple Point”, a huge and wild collection of found objects from ladders and paint cans to scraps of paper. Sze has wrapped Venice’s ancient buildings with these objects.
It is startling. It’s ethereal.
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S.A.C.R.E.D. Installation, 2013
Ai Weiwei
S.A.C.R.E.D. (view of inside box), 2013
Ai Weiwei
Political art is alive and kicking at the Biennale!
Ai Weiwei is China’s best known artist. Only he protests the abuses of the Chinese government and Beijing officials don’t like him a bit.
In 2011, the Chinese condemned Ai’s art, burned his studio and held him in a secret prison for 81 days.
Ai wasn’t allowed to travel to Venice after his release from prison, so he clandestinely made his art pieces, then quietly transported them out of China to Venice.
The art work features six imposing steel boxes. The boxes have narrow slits in the windows, through which visitors peek privately onto eerily life-like scenes of robotic officers, dirty bathrooms and bleak food. A re-enactment of Ai’s 81 day detention.
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Artist Jeremy Deller with his mural
of a bird clutching a Land Rover
British artist, Jeremy Deller, takes aim at the royals and the wealthy.
This audacious artist zeroes in on a scandal in Britain in 2007. Prince Harry and a mate were out a-hunting on one of the royal estates and “maybe accidentally” shot two endangered birds…hen harriers. Although the caper couldn’t be proven, the British press had a merry old time with the story.
The cheeky Deller fills one wall at the Biennale with a huge mural of one of the owl-like birds clutching a miniature Land Rover in its talons.
As for the Land Rover, it is the object of the bird’s revenge, and Deller’s swipe at the haughty who ride them, particularly on London roads where he cycles.
Watch this video to see more art in Venice! Click here if unable to view the video.
Art of the Telephone
Telephones
Christian Marclay
Utterly compelling! Hard to tear myself away.
Hey! Are we really talking about…the telephone?
Watch this 30 second clip of Christian Marclay’s art video and you ‘ll be hooked (pun intended)!
Click here if unable to view the video.
Christian Marclay, 58, an acclaimed and highly trained artist, loves to combine popular culture with the deepest of human emotions.
The telephone in his video becomes the starring actor. The ring of the telephone creates the mood, foreboding and suspenseful. The hellos and goodbyes tell the story…the story we imagine.
Hooked?
Watch this to be enthralled with Marclay’s full (7 minute) art video, “Telephones.”
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Christian Marclay’s work is also featured in my blog “Time is Art – “The Clock”…a masterpiece.” Click here.
Lightning Strikes Art!
Alert! Alert! Lightning has struck in the world of art and science!
Lightning on the Cheyenne Ridge
Roger Edwards, Photograph
www.stormeyes.org
The question: Does art enhance science and math…and vice versa?
The answer: Yes! There are correlations between a Rembrandt portrait and a mathematical model…between Vincent van Gogh’s Starry Night and a gamma-ray telescope.
Art enhances our understanding of science, particularly the science of weather. We respond in new ways to Earth’s atmosphere and climate through the window of art.
Proof of this was shouted from the roof-tops, or rather from a towering glass atrium, as a cyclone of artworks from around the globe converged upon a mega art exhibition…the first National Weather Center Biennale in Norman, Oklahoma!
Flooded Car Lot
Tom Berenz, Oil on panel
www.tomberenz.com
The NWC Biennale was the brain child of three very accomplished whirlwinds in the professional art world and one top-notch scientist.
Alan Atkinson, Ph.D., Curator, The National Weather Center Biennale
Ghislain d’Humieres, Director, Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art
Erinn Gavaghan, Executive Director, Norman Arts Council
Dr. Berrien Moore III, Director, National Weather Center
Trouble Cometh
Kirby Kendrick, Acrylic on canvas
www.kirbykendrick.com
The challenge to artists was to create a work expressing the dynamic image of weather and its impact on the human experience.
The challenge was met!
Watch America’s most famous cyclone!
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Art is Everywhere, It’s Everywhere!
Yes! We can be surrounded by great design…as we work, travel, practice our religion, and just live.
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ART IN WORK
China Central Television Headquarters
Beijing, China, 2012
Rem Koolhass, Architect
This astonishing 54-story tower and it’s smaller companion building lean and loom like science-fiction creatures poised to stomp all over the surrounding Beijing business district.
Lots of glass and lots of see-through levels…some people in these spaces will be in constant eye contact but will rarely meet!
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ART IN TRAVEL
The Galatic Suite SpaceResort
Xavier Claramunt, Architect
Galactic Suite is the first-ever hotel designed for outer space.
Space travelers (I mean guests) are launched aboard a rocket ship. They pass the sound barrier and dock in the spaceship (a.k.a. resort), which is orbiting 300 miles above the Earth.
After settling into their own private module (well, not exactly settling, as Velcro suits will be provided allowing guests to attach themselves to the walls for dining and viewing), guests will orbit the Earth 15 times in 3 days.
Fifteen sunrises and sunsets…what a view!
The cost per person for a three-day-stay at Galactic Suite is $4.4 million. The hotel already has 38 bookings.
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ART IN RELIGION
La Sagrada Família "Holy Family" Catholic Church
Barcelona, Spain
Antoni Gaudí, Architect
La Sagrada Família is Antoni Gaudí’s unfinished masterpiece. Construction on this church began in 1882 and continues to progress.
It is impossible to know how much the church has cost so far and will cost to finish…and no one has ever known how long it will take.
“My client,” said Gaudí, meaning God, “is not in a hurry.”
Antoni Gaudí, Spain’s most famous architect and National Treasure, was fatally hit by a tram in 1926. Private donations have enabled construction of the Sagrada Família to carry on to this day.
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ART IN LIVING
Carton House, 2002
Oskar Leo Kaufmann, Architect
Artistic dignity for our people who actually have to sleep in cardboard on the street.
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Want to go to space without paying the $4.4 million?
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