Elle Décor Editor, Margaret Russell, listed her favorite design sites on the latest June issue. I think this can be a good reference to anyone who is seeking advice on decoration and looking for that décor spark.

Here is a list of blogs you should add to your favorites:

Another Shade of Gray: This blog includes tons of photos of gorgeous interiors.

Chameleon Interiors: Boston based designer, Chameleon Interiors shares her inspiration.

The Nestmaker: The site offers a daily decorating e-mail as well as archives of previous newsletters.

Style Court: The person behind this site sure is handy with a scanner! Click over to see gorgeous photos from magazines, ad campaigns, catalogs and more.

ArtCorner: Wall Decor at its very best. How and where to hang oil paintings in your home. Enjoy helpful tips to get your wall decor in order. Visit the stories behind the masterpieces and find great resources on art history, videos, art world trends and many many more.

A long legal battle that has been raging for the last three years has come to a close. The famous movie star, Elizabeth Taylor can keep a Van Gogh painting that may have been illegally seized by the Nazis.

Liz Taylor bought “View of the Asylum and Chapel at Saint-Remy,” 1889 oil painting at auction in 1963 for about $257,000. Today the painting is worth many times more, it is estimated in the tens of millions especially in this day and age’s booming art market.

The Orkin family, decendents of a Jewish woman who fled Germany in 1939, sued Taylor in 2004, claiming that the Nazis forced the sale of the painting and thus it should be returned to them under the 1998 U.S. Holocaust Victims Act.

The judge decided to let Liz Taylor keep the painting due to the long time the family waited before filing suit. The judge also commented about the painting’s tangled history with its creator:

“Vincent van Gogh said that paintings have a life of their own that derives from the painter’s soul. The confused and perhaps turbulent history of this painting may prove the truth of his observation.”

Art is on the rise. Almost every genera and style of visual art has soared in popularity as famous works of art are being bought and sold for record prices.

We are all used to the great impressionist and 19th century virtuosos like Van Gogh, Monet and Renoir recording 7 and 8 figure price tags. Recently it has been the contemporary artists that have pushed the limits as of how much one is willing the cough up for a handmade oil painting masterpiece.

The auctions held the past few days at Sotheby’s and Christie’s were events that placed contemporary art on the map right along their counterparts from the 19th century. Mark Rothko’s “White Center (Yellow, Pink and Lavender on Rose),” a luminous abstract painting from 1950, sold for $72.8 million – more than three times the previous auction record for the artist – at Sotheby’s major spring auction of contemporary art last Tuesday night.

The following night, the art world turned their attention to the auction floor at Christie’s as their contemporary art sale broke all the records. It was by far the most successful sale of postwar and contemporary art ever. Most notably the evening’s star painting – Andy Warhol’s “Green Car Crash (Green Burning Car I),” from 1963 was auctioned off at a record $71.8 million, shattering the record books for a Warhol.

I think it’s great that art is getting so much attention, that’s what’s important, not the dollars. Hopefully this will encourage parents to have their kids involved and entrenched in the arts. The benefits are far greater then you can imagine…

This is rare footage of 92 year old Georgia O’Keeffe as she traveled back to New Mexico to revisit her days at Ghost Ranch. It is interesting to get a first hand impression of her passion for New Mexico and the hardships and struggles she suffered moving across the Hudson and going out West.

In a time when everyone was searching for the great American novel or great American play, Georgia O’Keeffe was set out to explore the great American frontier. She wanted to depict a side of America that the people back in Manhattan didn’t know of.

Considered a new breed of American painters, Georgia O’Keeffe paintings portrayed the power and emotions of objects set in nature. During the 1920’s, she examined flowers in her paintings. Her purpose was to convey that nature in all its beauty was more powerful then the industrialization of the period. After spending a summer at Ghost Ranch, New Mexico, she began a life-long love affair with the area. Enthralled by the barren landscape and unrestrained skies she explored these subjects in her art. Just as with the flowers, she painted the desert area magnifying and capturing the stillness and remoteness, while expressing the sense of beauty that lies within the desert.

For many years, doctors and cognitive researchers have urged us to expose our children to fine classical music. CD’s and DVD’s are being marketed and sold worldwide preaching the ample affects music has on our children’s development.

Classical music represents the epitome of harmony and musical sensation. It is a creative enhancing technique such as music that can augment a child’s development. This is also true of a toddler’s first encounter with visual artistic greatness.

With that said, I set out to research what are the affects of great masterpieces such as famous oil paintings by Monet, Picasso and Van Gogh have on child development? Is the exposure to these great works of art like the affects of listening to Beethoven?

Oil paintings such as Claude Monet Impressionism have been proven to stimulate the senses and make children more aware of their surroundings and spiritual world. The presence of art alone, serves as a therapeutic device. (more…)

I found an interesting study about the paintings of Paul Gauguin. It turns out, Paul Gauguin used to embed faces inside his paintings.

In an artist’s study, it turns out that “There is always a face on the edge of the canvas watching from the background. Obvious faces, partial faces and impressionistic faces.”

This video is a never before seen exhibition of the hidden faces of Paul Gauguin: