The following is a collection of the top posts of the week that we’ve shared on our facebook wall. We try and make our facebook posts informative and engaging as we love to hear what our fellow art lovin’ friends have to say about particular artists and their art.

So if you have a moment, check out our facebook page and share your passion for art and wall decor with us!

1. “I make no distinction between painting and poetry….” The poetic paintings of 20th century master Joan Miro (1893-1983) amuse, inspire and captivate audiences worldwide.

   Born in Barcelona, Spain, Miro studied art at School of Fine Arts at La Llotja and Gali’s Escola d’Art. His earliest works show the influence of the Fauve and Cubist movements which were fashionable in Spain during the early part of the century. In 1920, Miro traveled to Paris and painted with Surrealists Andr, Masson and Max Ernst. While frequently identified with the Surrealist movement, Miro never fully accepted the movement’s creed and refused to sign the Surrealist Manifesto.

   Miro’s vibrant canvases transport the viewer to alien worlds inhabited by all manner of whimsical creatures. His work has been characterized as psychic automatism, an expression of the subconscious in free form. By 1930 Miró had developed a lyrical style that remained fairly consistent. It is distinguished by the use of brilliant pure color and the playful juxtaposition of delicate lines with abstract, often amoebic shapes. Throughout his life, Miro felt a deep connection to his Catalan heritage and much of the symbolism that is so prevalent in his work is deeply rooted in this bond.

   In 1940 Miro returned to Spain and began to explore new media including large scale sculpture, ceramics, murals and tapestries. Following his first retrospective at The Museum of Modern Art in 1941, Miro achieved international acclaim and is recognized as a pioneer of Modernism. After 1941, Miró lived mainly in Majorca. He painted murals for hotels in New York City and Cincinnati and for the Graduate Center at Harvard. In 1958 he completed ceramic decorations for the UNESCO buildings in Paris. Many of his canvases are in the Museum of Modern Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, both in New York City.

2. Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) experimented with the Cubist style he co-founded throughout his career, varying the style to create new ways of expressing himself. Painted in 1932 when he was 50 years old, Pablo Picasso’s “Le Rêve” (“The Dream”), has long been famous as an example of his later Cubist works — and infamous for its erotic portrayal of his then young mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter.

   “The Dream” became something of a nightmare for owner Steve Wynn, who purchased “Le Rêve” in 2001 for an undisclosed sum, estimated to be about $60 million. The painting became the centerpiece of his collection, often on display at the Bellagio Las Vegas, but in 2006, Wynn was set to part with the painting for a record $139 million. Sharing the news of the recently finalized sale to friends, Wynn accidentally elbowed the painting, creating a half-dollar sized hole in the masterpiece. Wynn ultimately decided to release the buyer from the sale agreement and to repair and keep the painting himself, and “Le Rêve” remains part of Wynn’s private collection, which also includes works by artists Paul Cezanne, Paul Gauguin, Vincent Van Gogh, Édouard Manet, Henri Matisse, Andy Warhol, and Johannes Vermeer.

   Experience our collection of Picasso’s incomparable art.

3. “I have never painted a self-portrait. I am less interested in myself as a subject for a painting than I am in other people, above all women.” – Gustav Klimt Paintings.

   In his lifetime, Klimt (1862 – 1918) was known to have an exceeding love for two things: his home country, Austria, and women. Klimt was known among art circles as something of a womanizer (fathering at least fourteen illegitimate children), and it was this extreme admiration of women that motivated both his philandering and his artwork. The former, of course, eclipsed the latter, and today we have Klimt’s wonderful oeuvre of gilded and intricately adorned ladies.

   The names of the models and other women in his life do not always survive, partly because his most famous lover Emilie Flöge burnt much of his correspondence after his death from a stroke in 1918. One who has been identified by chance only recently was Hilde Roth, a beautiful Bohemian redhead from Budapest whose face can be seen in Lady with Hat and feather Boa, 1909.

4. We are looking forward to an inspiring 2012! What do you predict will be your biggest inspiration this year?

   The beginning of a new year is the perfect time to evaluate the state of things and look forward to a new start. Whether 2011 was the best year yet or you’re happy it’s dead and gone, we can all welcome new opportunities for great things to come. A wonderful new year’s “resolution” could be to focus on the creativity inherent in our surroundings. In nature, music, conversations, facial expressions – art is truly everywhere you look.

   Nobody can predict what 2012 will hold, so why not create your own reality? Get inquisitive about life, work hard for the things you love, and look around plenty of the time to appreciate the beautiful things in life. Happy New Year!

This is it! We hope you will continue to enjoy reading our ArtCorner blog in the new year and come join us on facebook for more artistic discussions!

Mark Rothko managed to make viewers burst with feelings just by looking at his simplistic illuminating bands. He didn’t care about the color theories, or what the critiques say about his images. He sought to bring out of the viewer’s soul emotions of fear, love or hate. It is said that there were people who actually cried just by looking at his color associations. Some may say that the artist’s powerful passions for his creation may have charged the works of art with the painter’s emotions.

So how did Rothko manage to bring such feelings to the people who viewed his paintings? In the countless letters, he wrote in his life, Mark Rothko reveals his secrets.

Rothko used the entire spectrum of color. However, he tented to a particular hue depending on the phase through which he passed in his life. For example, in the mid-1950s, he preferred bright reds and yellows instead of dark blues or greens, which he used towards the end of his life, when he was rather depressed. Rothko usually mixed his paints himself. On the untreated, unprimed canvas, he brushed a thin layer of binder into which color pigments had been added. He then fixed this foundation with oils, which he allowed to spread around the unframed edges of the painting. Over these, Rothko applied overlapping color mixtures. These mixtures were strongly tinned. This is why their pigmentation barely adhered to the surface of the picture. The procedure gave his paintings transparency and luminance. The technique continues with the applying of the color layers. Rothko used to lay on the pigments with very light and fast brush strokes, by imagining that the colors were inserted into the painting. Thus, he created a symmetrical underlining that offered him the possibility of juggling with colors. More to say, Rothko gave a dramatic air to his paintings by creating a tension of contrast. Therefore, the colors sustained each other just by their association, their effect on the viewer as by the tension of fixation, which Rothko described as tragic.

From 1949 to 1956, the artist painted almost exclusively in oils, using mostly vertical formats. The sizes of the canvases exceeded 10 Feet in height. Rothko explained his choice in large-format paintings by making the viewer to stand to a certain distance in order to feel inserted in the atmosphere. “I realize that historically the function of painting large pictures is painting something very grandiose and pompous. The reason I paint them, however – I think it applies to other painters I know – is precisely because I want to be very intimate and human. To paint a small picture is to place a stereopticon view or with a reduction glass. However, you paint the larger picture, you are in it. It isn’t something you command.” Rothko made his paintings in order to be viewed from a certain distance, 45 centimeters. In this way, the viewer would feel inserted in the fields of color, which gave him certain feelings, of anger or happiness. This is why some cry at the pure glimpse of a Rothko painting.

Tangerine Tango, Pantone’s 2012 Color of the Year, is the “spirited reddish orange” shade that will be brightening up cosmetics, fashion and home trends this year. Design Expert Dawn Kail of overstockArt.com advises that it’s easy to brighten up your home design with the color Pantone describes as being “reminiscent of the radiant shading of a sunset.”

“Decorating with vibrant shades of orange, like Tangerine Tango, adds a playful, lively energy to the home,” said Kail. “In feng shui, the color orange is often called the ‘social’ color and is used in areas of the home where you want energy that promotes lively conversations and good times.”

Kail advises to start small when decorating with such a vibrant color, “I wouldn’t advise you to repaint every wall in a room or purchase all new furniture in tangerine tango, use the color to accessorize and accent your home. Doing too much will leave your room looking like a pumpkin patch.”

Enliven your home decor with five decorating tips from Kail that make it easy to incorporate the color of the year into your look:

1. Color pairings – Traditionally an autumnal shade, Tangerine Tango can last all year when it is paired with popular neutral tones like white and gray. The reddish-orange color pairs well with other vivid shades of red, yellow and fuschia. You can also tone down the look by offsetting it with shades of mint and modern shades of blue. Add a sense of sophistication to your look by adding hints of gold.
2. Home décor – The easiest way to introduce the color of the year is with home accessories. Soft linens, like pillows, throws and bedding, in the bright orange shade will quickly add spice to a room. Vases, candleholder and even cabinet knobs and drawer pulls can be used to brighten neutral color schemes. Displaying vibrant pieces of art featuring the playful color quickly livens up a room. Either go with a piece that predominantly features the orange shades, like Paul Klee’s masterpiece “Head of Man.” Or display a piece with pops of the bright color, such as Gustav Klimt’s sensual painting “Water Serpents II.”
3. In the kitchen – For a dynamic burst of energy in the kitchen, incorporate Tangerine Tango colored appliances, like KitchenAid’s signature stand mixer in the hue. Add a bright splash of color to your walls and backsplashes with fine art. Hang a painting or try a textured ceramic art tile. Fine art trivet tiles featuring the shade, like Georgia O’Keeffe’s “Oriental Poppies,” can decorate your wall and your table.
4. Walls and windows – Brighten up your entryways, hallways and rooms by painting a wall in this vivacious orange. Or paint your front door in this welcoming shade. Wallpaper has returned, so why not add a punch of color to your walls with wallpaper that highlights this juicy hue. Or add a small burst of the brilliant shade to drapery panels and curtains.
5. Home furnishings – Add key pieces to a neutral room, like a vivid armchair or side table. In the bedroom, custom headboards in the bright shade or nightstands add a playful look.

“The orange color trend isn’t meant to dictate your home’s color scheme, it is more a directional suggestion,” said Kail. “All you have to do is add a splash of Tangerine Tango to add a fresh and fun spirit to the look of your home.”

See more of Kail’s suggestions for incorporating Tangerine Tango into your home on the overstockArt: Tangerine Tango Pinterest board.

The sunflower paintings of Vincent van Gogh could be called “Variations on the yellow theme”. Struck by many dark obsessions caused by depression, yellow was meant to illuminate van Gogh’s days. The psychologists could say that the painter clinched to this color in order to find the light that will draw him back from the darkness in his desperate moments.

The sunflower has a psychological affect that gives an impression of perpetual happiness. Therefore, these paintings seem timeless. Yellow and blue are the colors which, it seems bring the artists childhood and Dutch memories. It is a classic contrast of colors. This contrast gives profound emotions to the art: “The dome of the sky has an extraordinary blue; the color of the sunlight is that of pale sulfur, sweet and enchanting, as the combination between the heavenly blue and the yellow in Vermeer or Delft’s paintings. I fail to resume so beautiful,” writes Vincent to his brother Theo. In another letter, he claims to have found in Provence “a different kind of yellow.” Van Gogh was influenced by the Impressionists with his warm tones and “plain air” paintings.

The sunflowers series has beginnings in the Paris Period, in 1887. The specifics of these paintings is given by the arrangement of the flowers. They are lying on the ground, while the second set executed a year later in Arles shows bouquets of sunflowers in a vase. The predominant color in the arlesian palette acquires a distinctive brightness and freeing itself from the subject. In the artist’s mind, both sets were linked by the name of his friend Paul Gauguin, who acquired two of the Paris versions. Paul Gauguin, who was Vincent’s guest for two months in 1888, talks about the love Van Gogh had for yellow, in the “Essay about free art,” published in 1894: “The yellow-chrome Sun burst forth from the canvas, flooding houses and flowers. Oh yes, the good Vincent, that Dutch painter, a fondness for yellow; the sun baths bathed his soul. He was a man who feared darkness. He needed heat.” Gauguin also liked Vincent’s sunflower subjects, van Gogh recalls, and remembers that, in a picture, now stored in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, he makes the portrait of his friend trying to paint the yellow corollas.

On the other hand, symbolism was quite a fashion in the young generation of artists in those days. Therefore, Vincent tried to portray the essence of the chosen object and in so, avoiding mere photographic imitation. Van Gogh’s Sunflowers paintings capture the pastoral application of color and the confused arrangement of outstretched leaves. The light-blue background in some pictures comes to emphasize the flowers. Two clearly-marked styles are seen in these paintings: a continuous composition of wavy curves and complicated short and sharp dashes. The Sunflowers series made in Arles are painted on size 30 canvas. The artist made the paintings between August 1888 and January 1889. The paintings show sunflowers in all stages of life, from full bloom to withering. Some of the versions are no longer in their original state, for example, the Tokyo version. The paining was enlarged on all sides with strips of canvas, which were added at a later time. It is said the changes were made by the first owner, Emile Schuffenecker.

“Van Gogh’s Still Life: Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers” held the record for the most expensive painting in art history in 1987. On March 31, the Japanese magnate Yasuo Goto paid for the painting $39,921,750 at Christie’s London auction. The record was broken a few months later by Alan Bond, who bought Van Gogh’s “Irises”, for $53.9 million.

The following is a collection of the top posts of the week that we’ve shared on our facebook wall. We try and make our facebook posts informative and engaging as we love to hear what our fellow art lovin’ friends have to say about particular artists and their art.

So if you have a moment, check out our facebook page and share your passion for art and wall decor with us!

1. May all your dreams come true in the New Year!

   Born on New Year’s Eve of 1869 (d.1954) – 142 years ago – Henri Matisse once said, “What I dream of is an art of balance, of purity and serenity devoid of troubling or depressing subject matter”, and he dedicated over a half century of his life to fulfilling his dream.

   Matisse is often regarded as an artist devoted to pleasure and contentment, and his art, particularly his expressive abstractions, has a rhythmic balance of color and design that achieves pictorial harmony and communicates the artist’s joy in life. Matisse’s experimentation with different styles and techniques while exploring the expressiveness of color was instrumental in moving art beyond the imitation of nature to an artistic expression of emotion and ushering in the new age of Modern art. Celebrate Matisse’s birthday and usher in the New Year on a positive, uplifting note with a visit to our Matisse galley.

2. Gustav Klimt’s “Mother and Child”, a detail from “The Three Ages of Woman”, has become an iconic portrayal of maternal love and infantile contentment, an enduring expression of unconditional love.

   A forerunner of the Modernist and Art Deco movements, Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) used the female form as his primary subject, often depicting a lone woman ornately dressed, but “The Three Ages of Woman” includes three feminine subjects at different stages of life. Klimt often explored the cycle of life and death, love and regeneration in his art, and the blissfully content mother and infant daughter on the right side of the painting are juxtaposed by an aged woman, sorrowful and decrepit, to their left.

   “Mother and Child” is among our collection of Klimt’s beautifully expressive artworks.

3. The Japanese consider the orderly unfolding of a chrysanthemum’s petals to represent perfection, and Chinese philosopher Confucius suggested mums be used as an object of meditation. Capturing the beauty of a single red and gold bloom, Father of Impressionism Claude Monet pays tribute to this long celebrated flower in today’s featured work “Vase of Chrysanthemums”.

   In most gardens even the late bloomers retire for the winter, but grown indoors the chrysanthemum – the most popular container plants in the U. S – can be encouraged to brighten winter days with its colorful, attractive blooms.

   Our Floral gallery also blooms year round, with a colorful display of artwork that will brighten even the bleakest winter day.

4. “It often seems to me that night is still more richly coloured than the day; having hues of the most intense violets, blues and greens. If only you pay attention to it you will see that certain stars are lemon-yellow, others pink or a green, blue and forget-me-not brilliance… it is obvious that putting little white dots on the blue-black is not enough to paint a starry sky.” (Vincent Van Gogh, in a letter to his sister Wilhelmina)

   Always fascinated with color and light, Vincent Van Gogh (1853 – 1890) embraced the challenge of painting the night sky. Capturing the nighttime nuances of color and shadow, his night scenes, including today’s featured work “Starry Night Over the Rhone”, are among his best known works.

   Painted en plein air from the riverbank in Arles, “Starry Night Over the Rhone” captures much more than just white dots on a blue-black background. The sparkling colors of a turbulent star studded night sky are juxtaposed with the new gaslights illuminating the town, with the reflections of both the natural and the artificial lights captured in the rippling waters of the Rhone.

   For our full gallery of Van Gogh’s oil paintings.

This is it! We hope you will continue to enjoy reading our ArtCorner blog in the new year and come join us on facebook for more artistic discussions!

Amedo Modigliani’s sex-appeal attracted women from the first moment he began to paint. The whole artistic process was impregnated with seduction. Beautiful and sensual, gentle and gallant, these are the characterizations of the women who fell in love with the lover, Modigliani.

When Modigliani arrived at Paris for the first time, he was a shy, young student. After only two years of living in the artistic capital of France, the boy turned into a man, sort of a suburb Prince. The “distinction” brought him numerous “love conquests.” He attracted women with a remarkable ease. Many of these ladies became famous, by immortalizing them on canvas. He sought for the features that defined those women, and through a single brush stroke he made their portraits, that through their simplicity, they became unique. Modi treated his lovers with a sense of dignity, even at extreme poverty and deteriorating health.

Modigliani’s life is punctuated by many stories, about his adventures escapades with women. Gilberte, Maud, Elvire, Margherita, Marie, Lucienne and Gaby are names who appear frequently in the Biographical texts about the artist. Furthermore, even Modi keeps them alive by immortalizing them on canvas, by dedicating them portraits and nudes.

Modi was adored by all the women legend has it, even by the house mistresses, who protected him. Among these is the famous Rosalie, the patron of Montparnasse Chez Rosalie. She tells the story:

“Poor Amedeo! Here, he was at home. When he was asleep under a tree or in a rut, they would bring him to me. Then they put him on a mattress in the back of the house, and he sit there until he woke up of drunkenness. And, God, how beautiful he was! All the women chased around after him!”

However, only the names of a few remained linked to the legend of the painter. Among these was Elvira, who was called Quique, the daughter of a prostitute from Marseille and an unknown father. She met Modi in a cafe in Montmartre. Amedeo immediately fell in love with her, saying that she was “made for love.” Between them grew a strong sexual and free love, such as in most of Modi’s relationships. Legend has it that one day the two were caught dancing naked in the garden of Amedeo’s workshop.

Modi’s heart was for a time dedicated to the eccentric English artist Nina Hamnett, who the painter met in 1914. The two had a romantic relationship kept away from his friend’s eyes, just like the story with Zabrowsky’s friend, Lunia Czechowska.

Another love story, however, tragic, is with the French singer, Simone Thiroux. She excessively protected Modi, had a total love, full of adoration. This suffocated Amedeo so much that became annoying for him. Simone gave Amedeo a son, but Modi did not want to recognize him. In desperation, Thiroux begged for his love in a farewell letter. Simone dies of tuberculosis, and the unrecognized child, Serge Gerard, will be given up for adoption.

So far, none of the women remained in Modi’s heart. The only lovers who have become his muses and to whom he dedicated countless portraits were English woman Beatrice Hastings, a writer with whom he spent two years, and the shy Jeanne Hebuterne. The rendezvous with Beatrice is confrontational, between two strong personalities, odd and difficult. The portraits in which we recognize her as a model are not sensual, tender or full of love, but rather harsh, with a slight comic tint. In one of the paintings with Beatrice, Modi makes refers to the character of Madame Pompadour, the famous mistress of Louis XV.

In the years, he spent with Beatrice, Amedeo had developed his techniques in painting portraits. Through several simplifications and accents, he could compose a simple, personal and unique work of art. The bodies and the faces become elongated features, elegant. The eyes are represented only by some black holes, affording them a timeless status. His portraits are presented in a frontal manner with an anonymous setting and remind us of the Byzantine icons.

If the relationship with Beatrice was tumultuous, inflammatory, his last and greatest love, Jeanne Hebuterne had provided him stability and tenderness. To her he dedicated most of his portraits, but never nudes.