ArtCorner

I ran across these recreations of Gustav Klimt‘s work on the Behance network and simply had to share them with you.

This collection of beautiful and artistic photos is called “La Esencia de Klimt” which translates to “Klimt’s Essence”.

As a long time admirer of the Austrian Art Nouveau painter, these fashionable, real-life recreations of his works captured my immediate attention. A group of talented folks have combined their photography, digital art, illustration, make-up, hair and styling (all found through Kattaca) to recreate some of Gustav’s most famous paintings.

I’ve added Klimt’s original paintings for contrast:

A new production called Red is set to debut on Broadway on April 1st, the play is about none other than the Abstract Expressionist Painter – Mark Rothko.

Red was written by screenwriter John Logan, maker of Gladiator, The Aviator and the Sweeney Todd movie, among others. The play focuses mainly about the discussions regarding abstract expressionist aesthetics that Rothko had with his studio assistant while the famous painter was working on some of the most revolutionary canvases of his generation.

Red is set in 1958 as New York artist Mark Rothko (Alfred Molina) receives the art world’s largest commission to create a series of murals for The Four Seasons restaurant in the new Seagram building on Park Avenue. Under the watchful gaze of his young assistant, Ken and the threatening presence of a new generation of artists, Rothko faces his greatest challenge yet: to create a definitive work for an extraordinary setting. Red is a moving and compelling account of one of the greatest artists of the 20th century, whose struggle to accept his growing riches and praise became his ultimate undoing.

Rothko is played by Alfred Molina – a rare actor who conveys intelligence with visceral intensity. He makes you believe that what Rothko says, no matter how abstract it is, is of mortal importance to the painter. Molina has developed a specialty depicting 20th century artists as he already played another formidable painter, Diego Rivera, in the movie “Frida” along side Salma Hayek.

The actors in the play get their hands dirty throwing paint around on stage, the moment you step into the theater you are struck by the smell of oil paint in the air. The smell of the oil and the rage of the painter makes Red an extremely powerful theatrical experience.

So, if you are in New York in the following weeks, stop by the Golden Theater on 45th Street and enjoy a glimpse into the mysterious world of the 1950’s Abstract Expressionism.

In honor of National Women’s History Month, the popular online gallery, overstockArt.com, is hosting the “Women in Art” Twitter® sweepstakes. The sweepstakes commences on International Women’s Day on Monday, March 8, 2010.

To participate in our FREE Oil Painting Giveaway. All you need to do is include the #overstockart tag in any tweet on twitter. Three winners will be selected at the end of the sweepstakes period. You can be creative with your tweet or re-tweet of our message, don't forget to follow @overstockart to find out if you've won.

You can tweet #overstockart as often as you like. Each of these tweets will be eligible and a winner will be chosen at random using an algorithm. No bots or automated scripts please, this is meant to be a bit of fun!

Three (3) winners can choose from any of our 20"x24" inch oil paintings featured in our Women's Gallery. After the oil painting is selected, we'll deliver it to your door!

Don't forget to follow @overstockart to find out if you've won.

Checkout our official sweepstakes page for the complete set of rules and to see if you are one of three lucky winners!

The month of March is Youth Art Month – an annual observance to emphasize the value of art education for all children and to encourage support for quality school art programs. one might ask, what is so important about art that we need an annual event to observe it?

If we sit and observe whenever little kids draw, finger paint or play, it’s intriguing how they seem without self-doubt, judgment or fear of doing it wrong. A preconceived expectation of the end product doesn’t seem to play a role in what they are engaged in and in that moment they simply get lost in the doing of it. It’s as if they approach their art, free of inhibitions and with an openness to take risks, experiment and most importantly have fun. It’s as if being fully present in the moment and entering that space of spontaneity, comes so easily.

I recently spoke to someone who runs a local community art school. She shared with me that they had noticed a decreased attendance in their children’s art classes. When I asked why, she speculated that it was the result of kids being less and less encouraged to do art for the sake of the experience and for play. Instead, in order for parents to feel they were getting their money’s worth they were expecting their kids to produce a nice finished product at the end of each class. If the art piece resembled something out of preschool, their child must not be learning something valuable.

Is it possible that in this day and age of video games and computers, where shapes are colored within the clean lines of digital images, we’ve suppressed the urge to color outside of the margins? Are our children losing touch of their innate nature to create something in the mud, draw in the sand and venture down the road of their own imaginations? Is the art of trial and error no longer valued?

As we “grow up” the courage to create slowly moves into the background of our lives and we measure what we produce with labels of “Success” or “Fail” with nothing in between. We develop an apprehensiveness towards taking risks and the fear of doing it wrong keeps us from looking foolish in the process. Is learning to suppress free expression, suppressing our own imaginative instincts that we were naturally born with when we first entered this world?

“All children are born artists, the problem is to remain an artist as we grow up.” – Pablo Picasso

I once heard a grade school teacher encourage parents to, “Praise the effort rather then the outcome.” We often have the bad habit of discounting the process in it self. Undermining the steps in the middle that hold moments of exploration while focusing too much on the end product. If we approach our careers or our art giving value to the effort perhaps we will resurrect the courage to create; remembering what it was like to drenched our fingers in paint and draw out of the lines.

Sir Ken Robinson said it best, the ecology of our education will need to change and adapt. Art and creativity will need to take an active and central role for this world to develop and the only way we can do it is by seeing our children for the hope that they are.