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sagent-of-chaos · 2 months ago

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i feel absolutely nothing

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galleryofart · 29 days ago

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Flower Beds in Holland

Artist: Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853-1890)

Date: c. 1883

Medium: Oil on canvas on wood

Collection: National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, United States

Description

It seems likely that The Flower Beds in Holland was among the works that the artist abandoned in Nuenen when he made his precipitate departure for Antwerp in late 1885. These works were moved to Breda in 1886, when Van Gogh’s mother and sister Willemina moved to the town, and put in storage with a Breda carpenter, Adrianus Schrauwen. In 1902, although not their legal owner, Schrauwen sold a number of works to the brothers Couvreur, dealers in old furniture in Breda, who swiftly passed them to Kees Mouwen, a military clothing dealer, who seems to have jointly owned them with Willem van Bakel. From that source they were entrusted to the owner of the Oldenzeel gallery, Margareta Wilhelmina Oldenzeel-Schot, who exhibited them in 1904.

The painting shows rectangular plots of flowers, each in a single color, stretch toward us below a sky nearly filled with cream-white clouds in this horizontal landscape painting. Together, the monochromatic plots create the impression of a patchwork quilt, with large areas of pale pink, butter yellow, bright white, and baby blue. A person walks across the plots to our right. The horizon line comes almost halfway up the painting and is lined with dark brown houses with tall, pitched roofs. Two barren trees twist into the cloudy sky. The loose, short, parallel brushstrokes and touches of paint create a soft, hazy effect.

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allegorypaintings · 1 month ago

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Allegory

Artist: Piero di Cosimo (Florentine, 1462-1522)

Date: c. 1500

Medium: Oil on panel

Collection: National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, United States

Overview

Best known for his portraits, altarpieces, and religious and mythological narratives, Piero di Cosimo created only one surviving allegory. In this painted personification of abstract concepts, a winged woman, largely nude despite her two layers of mantles secured by knots, extends a sprig of juniper and daintily holds a rearing stallion by a string. She has been convincingly identified as Chastity, who effortlessly contains the forces of Lust embodied by her virile steed. The figures occupy a rocky island adorned with barren trees, surrounded by a misty waterscape. The double-tailed mermaid who energetically parts the seas before them may be understood as a siren symbolizing the dangers of carnal passion.

In the Renaissance, recondite allegories such as this often adorned the covers and reverses of portraits, testifying to the virtues of their sitters. Piero’s panel may originally have decorated his likeness of Simonetta Vespucci in the guise of Cleopatra (Musée Condé, Chantilly). The work’s spare execution and delicate gray tonalities, punctuated by the brilliant red of the lady’s costume, would befit this secondary function. The evocative, even impressionistic atmosphere that envelops the figures is typical of Piero, whose powers of fantastic invention are matched by careful attention to the natural prospect.