Tag: Art
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Mountain goats
Mountain goats Like in Nolde’s Flower garden – Woman with Purple Dress where a woman merges with her garden (see last week’s Union), in Marc’s painting it is mountain goats that become one with their environment. The symbiotic relationship of goats with their surrounding mountain landscape gets in Marc’s case an abstract expression in bright…
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Union
Union A woman is wrapped up in her garden; she integrates with the splendour of flowers. If she wasn’t mentioned in the title of the painting you probably would not have noticed her. A nice example of a painter’s expression of unification. Photo of the week: Emil Nolde, Flower garden – Woman with Purple Dress,…
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Graceful lady
Graceful lady Seen not at Baume-les-Dames but at Baume-les-Messieurs. For me it’s about the play of light and colour in this picture, the yellow and the grey.As for the elegant saint, she does give extra lustre to the image. Photo of the week: Eglise abbatiale, Baume-les-Messieurs, France 2023
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Madonna
Madonna Romanesque Madonnas are not sweet. They look grave. They are fully aware of the responsible task that has ‘fallen into their lap’. Besides, they are a high point in the history of Western sculpture. Photo of the week: Detail from a Romanesque Virgin and Child, 12th cent., Musée Abbaye Royal de Brou, France 2024
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The king’s face
The king’s face An impressive portrait of an unknown king from the façade of a 12th century church. He looks serious, responsible, but it is foremost the humane expression of his face that draws me to him. Photo of the week: King from the façade of the Notre-Dame-de-la-Coudre, 1150-1200, Musée du Louvre-Lens, France 2024
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The hairpin and the hermaphrodite
The hairpin and the hermaphrodite The angular and the rounded. Two striking examples of two different cultural and artistic traditions. Photo of the week: Pin, c.100-700, Perou, and Hermaphroditus, c.130-150, Alexandria-Egypt, Musée du Louvre-Lens, France 2024
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Munch’s carpet
Munch’s carpet Munch has portrayed Wilhelm Wartmann several times; this is a detail of his portrait at the Kunsthaus in Zürich, of which he was the director during most of the first half of the 20th century. We see his feet on the corner of a carpet. Who would paint a carpet in such a…
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3 x Lady Tanetmit
3 x Lady Tanetmit When looking at old Egyptian art with representation of human beings I am often touched by the delicate beauty and refinement of a face, a mouth, a look. The thousands of years that separate us disappear, and I feel like standing face to face with the image of a timeless, living…
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Fleurie
Fleurie This may be a trompe l’oeil, but the good wines of Burgundy never deceive us. Photo of the week: Vineyard trompe l’oeil, Fleurie, France 2013
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Meeting at the ‘galerie du temps’ …
Meeting at the ‘galerie du temps’ … … between the faint reflection of a modern woman and a terracotta woman of more than two and a half thousand years ago, as I saw it in the beautiful ‘galerie du temps’ of the Louvre-Lens museum in the north of France. Photo of the week: Statue-vase in…
καιρός remembered 