#naturalist painter

[xpuigc-bloc]

Malcolm T. Liepke

[liturgical-agenda]

detail from The Familiar Birds, 1921 by Émile Friant

[jadafitch]

APRIL! 

[myteaplace]

Orpheus’ Sorrow, 1876, Pascal Adolphe Jean Dagnan-Bouveret  (1852-1929)

[the-cricket-chirps]

Albrecht Dürer

The Great Piece of Turf

1503

Watercolor and gouache heighted with white, mounted on cardboard.

[art-portraits]

Portrait of Alexander von Humboldt

Artist: Joseph Karl Stieler (German, 1781–1858)

Date: 1843

Medium: Oil on Canvas

Collection: Charlottenhof Palace, Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation Berlin-Brandenburg, Germany

Alexander von Humboldt

Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt (14 September 1769 – 6 May 1859) was a German polymath, geographer, naturalist, explorer, and proponent of Romantic philosophy and science. He was the younger brother of the Prussian minister, philosopher, and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835). Humboldt's quantitative work on botanical geography laid the foundation for the field of biogeography, while his advocacy of long-term systematic geophysical measurement pioneered modern geomagnetic and meteorological monitoring. Humboldt and Carl Ritter are both regarded as the founders of modern geography as they established it as an independent scientific discipline.

[i12bent]

Johannes Boesen (August 5, 1847 - 1916) was a Danish landscape painter in the tradition from Vilhelm Kyhn. He trained at the Academy, traveled abroad, exhibited at Charlottenborg and even sold to the Royal family, but by now he is largely forgotten as so many naturalist artists.

Above: Forest Scene with Road and Deer, 1878 - oil on canvas (Privately owned)

[therealmarsond]

[makingqueerhistory]

Selected Works from Henry Scott Tuke

Henry Scott Tuke was an English painter renowned for his maritime scenes and depictions of young men, often in a naturalistic and intimate style. There is something nostalgic about many of Tuke's works — his vibrant use of color and light perfectly captures the idyllic and carefree essence of youth.

In his personal and professional life, Tuke met and befriended many fellow artists such as John Singer Sargent, and talented poets, including Oscar Wilde and John Addington Symonds. He traveled often in circles with other Uranian — the term in use at the time for gay men — artists. While Tuke's art prominently features nude young men, his works aren't sexually explicit. Most of his works show young men in the foreground but the star is clearly the sea.

Tuke's legacy is celebrated for its artistic merit and its subtle challenge to the conventions of his time, particularly posthumously. Around the 1970s, his body of work was rediscovered by gay artists, art collectors, and art historians — including Sir Elton John!

You can find these works and more in our gallery!

[bacchuschucklefuck]

Hells Yeah I love the light source u chose for this piece!! works real well with the eye glow. also really love the highlight u did on his sleeve garter I enjoy looking at it so much

@bacchuschucklefuck this was a really fun challenge, I loved figuring out the colors and details on him!

[antonio-m]

Self-portraits by Émile Friant (1863-1932). French naturalist painter. Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nancy, FR. oil on canvas

[xpuigc-bloc]

Leah Giberson 

Palm Springs Poodle Cut  

2019

[whencyclopedia]

Black Figure Pottery

Black Figure Pottery is a type of Greek pottery named after the colour of the scenes painted on vessels. It was first produced in Corinth c. 700 BCE and then adopted by pottery painters in Attica, where it would become the dominant decorative style from 625 BCE. Athenian vases then dominated the Mediterranean pottery market for the next 150 years.

Besides Attica and Corinth, Laconia was a third, albeit minor, producer of the style in the first half of the 6th century BCE. The more than 20,000 surviving black figure vases and vessels of varied form make it possible not only to identify artists and studios, but they also provide the oldest and most diverse representations of Greek mythology, battle scenes, and religious, social, and sporting practices. The pottery vessels are also an important tool in determining the chronology of archaeological sites and the history of ancient Greece in general. The style was eventually replaced by red-figure pottery.

Development

Evolving from the earlier geometric designs on pottery, the black-figure technique depicted animals (more favoured in Corinth) and human silhouette figures (preferred by Athenian painters) in naturalistic detail. Before the firing process, a brilliant black pigment of potash, iron clay, and vinegar (as a fixative) was thickly applied to entire vases or part of the vessel. This black gloss also gave a slight relief effect. Parts of the painted area were then scraped away where not required, leaving a design in silhouette. Additional details such as muscles and hair were added to the figures using a sharp instrument to incise through the black to reveal the clay vessel beneath and by adding touches of red and white paint. Vessel borders and edges were often decorated with floral, lotus, and palmette designs.

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[frog-ology]

Today in "historical naturalists had issues with frogs", I give you the first English description ever written for Amphibia:

"Among no animals do we meet with beings of a more singular form than in the Amphibia; some of which present appearances so unusual, so grotesque, and so formidable, that even the imagination of the poet or painter can hardly be supposed to exceed the realities of Nature."

- George Shaw, General Zoology, 1802

[blackswaneuroparedux]

If Caravaggio were alive today today, he would have loved the cinema; his paintings take a cinematic approach. We filmmakers became aware of his work in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and he certainly was an influence on us. The best part for us was that in many cases he painted religious subject-matter but the models were obviously people from the streets; he had prostitutes playing saints. There’s something in Caravaggio that shows a real street knowledge of the sinner; his sacred paintings are profane.

Martin Scorsese on Caravaggio

Michelangelo Merisi, known to most of us as “Caravaggio,” was born on September 29, 1571 in Milan, Italy, to parents who were from the small town of Caravaggio. In the span of his 38 years long life he revolutionised painting with innovations like a unique use of chiaroscuro - with dark shadows contrasting with dramatic areas of light - and a deep sense of realism that later inspired the Baroque movement. But most of all, he developed such an iconic style that most of us can probably look at a painting and know if it’s a Caravaggio, or Caravaggio-inspired. 

Merisi spent the first few years of his life in Milan, studying painting, and later moved to Rome, where his early talent impressed Cardinal Del Monte, who introduced the young painter to other high-profile Catholic figures who became commissioners of some of Caravaggio’s best work. It seemed there was no end to the artist’s creative genius. Caravaggio, much to his patron’s delight, would pump out one masterpiece after another. It seemed the more out of control his personal life became (cheating, brawling and murder were standard fare), the more his art would become more refined, more potent.

In the long list of masterpieces he left behind, both secular and religious works stand out. But it is perhaps in his religious works that the artistic transition of the master is more evident. Caravaggio is, in fact, known to have changed his style after harsh personal life experiences led him to reassess his outlook on life.

In May of 1606 Caravaggio took part in a deadly brawl in Rome and was charged with murder. He fled to Malta, in search of asylum from the Order of Saint John, a Catholic order dedicated to helping the sick and the poor. The order commissioned some of the most important late life works of the Milanese artist.

It is in these works that we notice the shift in Caravaggio’s art, from a strong focus on aesthetics to an interest in the spirituality of his subjects, which critics believe was motivated by his own introspection.

On the streets surrounding the churches and palaces, brawls and sword fights were regular occurrences. In the course of this desperate life Caravaggio created the most dramatic paintings of his age, using ordinary men and women - often prostitutes and the very poor - to model for his depictions of classic religious scenes.

By representing biblical characters in a naturalistic fashion, typically through signs of aging and poverty, Caravaggio's populist modernisation of religious parables were little short of trailblazing. Although not without his critics within the church, by effectively humanising the divine, Caravaggio made Christianity more relevant to the ordinary viewer.

For some, though, his art was too real. Bare shoulders, plunging necklines, severed heads; this raw humanity didn’t always fly in 17th century Rome. As a result, many of his pieces were rejected as altar pieces and as church hangings. One such piece, the Madonna of Loretto (now hanging in a church in Rome) was widely criticised upon its unveiling. The people of the day were shocked to behold the Mother of God leaning nonchalantly against a wall in her bare feet while holding baby Jesus in her arms.

It is ironic that the very art that today we consider “classical” and “iconic” to the Catholic faith was considered questionable and perhaps void of modesty and virtue. Yet, the fact remains that no individual artist has made such a lasting impression on the world of modern art. Truly, many have called Caravaggio the “first modern artist”. It is no surprise, then, that his style has sparked both widespread admiration and imitation throughout the centuries.

Before Pope John Paul II refined a theology of the body beautiful, Caravaggio's paintings suggested a reverence for the inherent beauty of human form.

Troubled though he may have been, his art speaks eloquently of the dignity of the mundane. Though the original medium may be weathered and cracked, the message of beauty still echoes down the centuries. And this same beauty still fuels, escapes and reduces artists to relentless seekers as surely and as forcefully as it did in Caravaggio's life.

[the-cricket-chirps]

Albrecht Durer

Three studies of a bullfinch

1543