ArtCorner

Edgar Degas certainly had an artistic fetish for dancers in his paintings, and his recently discovered plaster sculptures are no different. There are original wax sculptures and those that are bronze cast. The original waxes sculpted by Degas were cast and shown in Athens at the Herakleidon Museum back in April, which cannot be compared in reputation to the recently completed showing at Tel Aviv Museum of Art in June. There is much acclaim about this discovery, which is heralded as one of the greatest art finds of the century.

The Discovery

Were the sculptures gathering dust in some antique store or library? Actually, the plasters were found in a storeroom at the Valsuani Foundry on the south-western outskirts of Paris. The proprietor, Leonardo Benatov, sold the plasters to Art dealer Walter Maibaum who shipped them to New York in 2007. Of the 73 sculptures, 22 are still in residence at Maibaum’s. The others were sold, including various recasts of the plasters creating a percentile of shrinkage. The Little Dancer, the most valuable original, will be shown, but its recast sold at Sotheby’s in 2009 for 13.3 Million euro. Another 46 recasts were created to be sold for 2 million U.S. dollars a piece.

Shrinkage and Aesthetic

The less rare an item becomes the more of a coffee table conversation piece it becomes. A two million dollar conversation piece certainly raises many questions.

While these reclaimed plasters may be a true art find of the century, some of our art museums seem to be exploiting the aesthetic of a so-called “greatest art find of our century.” While the average consumer and art lover certainly cannot afford an original Degas plaster or its recasting, it can be understood as to why reproductions and museum showings provide us the opportunity to admire and explore the aesthetic the artist intended to communicate with his viewer. Yet, who would suppose that Degas’ dancers be sold as if they are red hot irons impersonating golden statues of pharaohs or vital organs on the black market?

With bronzes set to show in New Orleans in 2011, and considerations for viewing in Boston, Seattle, and other major cities, curators and art lovers may be getting ahead of themselves. Some claim that the bronzes have not been appropriately studied, while others like John Bullard, New Orleans Museum director and curator of the show at his venue, is convinced of the sculptures’ authenticity. “No internationally recognized Degas sculpture experts have publicly voiced concern over them. If they have problems, they should speak out,” he shared with the Art Newspaper.

Concern is currently controversial, and controversy always surrounds the greatest discoveries of our time, whether some of them are fakes or true works of Degas. Regardless, controversial subjects intrigue and create a mystique inside an audience, and our curiosity is piqued. The sculptures are dancers and move with the fluid grace of Degas’ paintings. The artist’s fetish remains timeless and unchangeable. Whether you seek to preserve aesthetics in art through originals or  any of its recast incarnations, what the viewer takes away is unchanged and priceless.

In 2005, viewers had the opportunity to experience Van Gogh works from the Kröller-Müller Museum in Atlanta, Georgia. The Kröller-Müller Museum is pairing with the Van Gogh Museum for a second time to showcase the artist’s works in three locations in Japan from 2010-2011.

The exhibition will show in the following three locations in Japan:

01.10.2010/20.12.2010 Tokyo The National Art Center
01.01.2011/13.02.2011 Fukuoka Kyusyu National Museum
22.02.2011/10.04.2011 Nagoya Nagoya City Art Museum

Radiography, infrared reflectography, pigment analysis, and other methods of research will reveal a more in-depth look at Van Gogh’s process. Van Gogh’s works are characterized by strong use of line, muted and vivid palette colors, swirling strokes, and somewhat distorted perspectives inside seemingly fantastical works of art. Though perhaps viewed as fantastical as a post-impressionist, Van Gogh also relied on realism.

Van Gogh’s Influences

Van Gogh will not show alone. Many works of the artist’s contemporaries and predecessors will be shown alongside Van Gogh in the tour. Viewers will have the opportunity to see works that directly influenced Van Gogh, (Rembrandt and Rubens) while getting to know the works of his contemporary painters (Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Paul Signac, Emile Bernard and Paul Gauguin). Van Gogh worked at Cormon’s studio for months, where he met students who would also become renowned contemporaries. Neo-Impressionism also made its debut around the time that Van Gogh became a serious practicing artist, having not taken up painting until his late twenties.

The show will provide a rare opportunity to study Van Gogh’s work in-depth and, alone, is worth the trip to Japan

ArtistBe.com, also called ‘Artist Become’, is the new online community for contemporary artists around the world. ArtistBe.com is the latest venture by the popular online art gallery overstockArt.com, which announced its public beta launch last week.

ArtistBe.com is an online platform providing tools and resources to enable emerging and established artists to pursue their artistic and professional goals. ArtistBe.com membership is free and open to all. Members can create a profile and upload an unlimited quantity of their artwork. ArtistBe.com allows artists to exhibit, promote, share and sell their artwork via the online gallery. The actual launch date of ArtistBe.com has yet to be determined.

ArtistBe.com is looking for talented contemporary artists of all levels to join the community and become founding members of the site. The first 80 artists who join ArtistBe.com during its beta test will be able to list on ArtistBe.com for free.

“We are looking for early adopters to join us for the launch of what promises to be an expansive, vibrant community of contemporary artists,” said David Sasson, CEO of overstockArt.com. “ArtistBe.com will give its member artists the unique opportunity to share and sell their work to art enthusiasts around the world – something they cannot do by simply displaying their artwork at a local gallery.”

Artwork on ArtistBe.com can be purchased as an original piece of art, fine-art print or affordable poster. There is a large variety of framing options for all of the artwork sold on the site. Like overstockArt.com, ArtistBe.com has arranged its content into a variety of different galleries. Galleries are specified by artist, subject, style and type. The site is extremely user-friendly and easy to navigate.

“Since its inception in 2002, overstockArt.com has established itself as the go-to source on the web for purchasing art reproduction oil paintings,” stated Sasson. “Our goal for ArtistBe.com is in the same vain – to become the web’s go-to source for purchasing artwork from contemporary artists around the world.”

On June 23, 2010, if you have a few million dollars and happen to be in New York at Shotheby’s-Christie’s Auction House, perhaps you will go home with a Monet in your collection. To be more specific, Lot 254, or Giverny, La Roseraie De Monet. According to reporters, the painting was not seen by the general public since a 1936 exhibition in Paris. The painting has remained in the Monet family for decades since the artist’s son, Michel, purchased the painting in the twenties.

Like the other lilies, this Nymphèas was painted in Monet’s garden in northern France as a part of 250 works the artist painted nearing the end of his life.

The Water Lilies Series

These 250 works of water lilies are also known as Nymphèas. The works were painted during the last generation of his life. The subject matter reveals Monet’s flower garden and pond in Giverny, France, which was constructed by Monet himself. Though Monet was a true purveyor of Impressionism, it is known that he suffered from cataracts in old age, obviously affecting the execution of his artwork. The growing loss of his eyesight, however, assisted in the creation of one of the most treasured painting series in art history. Yet, the revolutionary brushstrokes, when compared to Monet’s earlier paintings, cannot be attributed to the classic interpretation of Impressionism or the artist’s deteriorating eyesight alone.

The viewer must remember that Monet’s series came not only from vision, but expression and execution of memory and emotion. To some degree Monet’s series is in the vein of Expressionism. Monet, through each brushstroke and palette color, re-envisions the garden that he cared for over the course of thirty years. In noting the true impression of each color, Monet integrates a bit of post-impressionist Pointillism in terms of technique but not style.

An artist will often squint at an artwork to dilute the object itself into a basic form or series of shades to better discern a color or to not impose definitive restrictions. Monet, though losing his eyesight, no longer squints. He uses a scientific approach and an emotional approach to execute the series, resulting in a revolutionary body of work that evokes a style-identity crisis in the art world, giving birth to supporting and opposing movements of art.

“The rush to live and to produce was alien to a period where calmness prevailed. M. Claude Monet belongs to quite a different age, one in which dizzying speed is the rule, where the creative person wants instant awareness of the universe and himself through quick and violent impressions…. He causes us to know and love beauty everywhere,” said art critic Roger Marx in a1909 article for the Gazete des Beauxes.

Marx adds, “M. Claude Monet pleases himself….his experience directed at recording the pleasures he experiences during the course of the day as he works in a single place…. The value of the theme lies in the potential for increasing the number of sensations aroused in the viewer and enriching their quality. His system is a familiar one, but M. Claude Monet has not heretofore undertaken to push its consequences quite so far.”

Monet’s Garden

Among the many flowers and trees in his garden were yellow irises, tulips, roses, and water lilies, as well as holly, maple, weeping willows, sycamores, apple, and chestnut trees. The pond was handcrafted by Monet himself.

A Gift From France To Monet

Only months after Monet’s death, France constructed two oval rooms to showcase eight mural pieces. The show opened in May of 1927. Since this time, different pieces of the series have been scattered in exhibitions across the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Carnegie Museum of Art, among others.

Monet’s Influence

Monet’s Water Lilies certainly enrich the sensations of the viewer lucky enough to see the Nymphèas series in person. His use of color and stroke communicate the visual look and feel of the garden, but more importantly, animate the garden in a way never before experienced in art. This impact places Monet as a favorite among many, influencing artists such as Degas and Renoir.

If you cannot make it to Christie’s for the auction, you can have a Monet of your own from overstockart.com. Yes, there are a few Nymphèas. Now, get your canvas, get into your garden, and start painting!

Many artists, particularly painters, have made a name for themselves for their artistic ingenuity. They’ve painted and brought new meaning to an object or a scene or an event. However there are seldom artists who make use of their craft in addressing day to day issues, such as poverty, love, freedom, communication, bravery, work and everyday mundane activity of human life. Norman Rockwell is one of those few.

Norman Rockwell has made a great impact not only in terms of his art, but also in terms of his social contribution.

To give you a glimpse of who Norman Rockwell was and what he’s done that has made an indelible mark in history is to bring you back to the city of New York where he was born on February 1894. This is where he cultivated his gift under the tutelage of instructors from Chase Art School, the Academy of Design and finally the Art Students League. His artistic style was influenced by his instructors Thomas Fogarty, George Bridgman, and Frank Vincent Dumond.

Norman’s first major breakthrough came in 1912 at age eighteen with his first book illustration for Carl H. Claudy’s Tell Me Why: Stories about Mother Nature. This catapulted him to become the art editor of Boys’ Life published by the Boy Scouts of America. Unfortunately, his streak was cut abruptly with an imminent war.

Rockwell’s family moved to New Rochelle, New York (The same suburban town from the movie “Catch me if you Can” starring Leonardo De’Caprio) when Norman was 21 years old and shared a studio with the cartoonist Clyde Forsythe, who worked for The Saturday Evening Post. With Forsythe’s help, he submitted his first successful cover painting to the Post in 1916. Norman Rockwell published a total of 322 original covers for The Saturday Evening Post for over 47 years. Rockwell’s success on the cover of the Post led to covers for other magazines of the day, most notably LIFE Magazine.

In 1943, during the Second World War, Mr. Rockwell continued on to produce his most famous four part series of paintings of the most powerful war caricatures inspired by the famous Franklin D. Roosevelt’s speech – Four Freedoms. These masterpieces as described were the four principles for universal rights: Freedom from Want, Freedom of Speech, Freedom to Worship, and Freedom from Fear.

During his long career, he was commissioned to paint the portraits for Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, as well as those of foreign figures, including Gamal Abdel Nasser and Jawaharlal Nehru. One of his last works was a portrait of Judy Garland in 1969.

For “vivid and affectionate portraits of our country,” Rockwell received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States of America’s highest civilian honor, in 1977.

Rockwell died November 8, 1978 of emphysema at age 84 in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. First Lady Rosalynn Carter attended his funeral.

To see more of Norman Rockwell’s paintings, you can visit the Norman Rockwell Museum. The Museum’s collection is the world’s largest, including more than 700 original Rockwell paintings, drawings, and studies.

The break-in at the French capital’s Paris Museum of Modern Art has cost not only masterful works of five great artists; Picasso, Matisse, Georges Braque, Amedeo Modigliani and Fernand Léger  but it has compromised a piece of history in the hands of thieves.

But why these paintings and why these artists? There sure are a wide range of works to pick. But from among the many choices of paintings, the thieves have meticulously picked these works of art because these paintings cost more than jewels. The five cost an estimated amount of almost 1oo million Euros.

These paintings are very expensive not only because they were created by great men, but equally because of it’s historical impact in our society.

Henri Matisse’s La Pastorale (1905) is an important step in his discovery of an idyllic world of pure color and unshackled eros. The 1906 L’Olivier pres de l’Estaque (Olive tree near Estaque), painting by Georges Braque shows the influence of Matisse and the so-called “wild beasts”. While the most celebrated artist, Pablo Picasso’s pigeon aux petits-pois (spring 1912) brings the new era of “cubism”.

The truth is, art thievery seem to be a growing problem in many museums and art restoration houses. And these very same artists seem to be the target.  The number of artworks already recorded by The Art Loss Register account 659 Picasso masterpieces, Matisse has 121 while Georges Braque has 89.

As these works of arts continue to decline in number because of thievery, probably, there will come a time when all these will just written words.

overstockArt.com is making purchasing art online a personalized and interactive experience with the launch of the “View in a Room” application.

The new tool will revolutionize the way people buy wall décor online. “View in a Room” allows customers to upload an image of a wall in their home and then place oil paintings that are available through the online retailer onto their walls. This new visualization tool essentially allows users to gauge how a painting will look on their wall before purchasing it and taking it home – something they cannot do in their local gallery.

“As an online retailer it is important to make shopping on our site a personal experience for our customers,” said David Sasson, CEO of overstockArt.com. “‘View in a Room’ makes shopping for art online a personal, interactive experience, as people can now virtually experience the art in their home before purchasing it.”

Although retail is a mature online category, shopping for wall décor online is not. As such, overstockArt.com has invested heavily in creating a unique experience shopping for art online. “This is what makes it exciting for us to offer tools that will revolutionize the buying process for an entire industry,” said Sasson. “This new tool is bridging the gap between the touch and feel experience of shopping at a brick and mortar store compared to the obvious advantages of shopping online.”

overstockArt.com feels confident its customers will embrace “View in a Room.” “We are expecting to increase our conversion rate by 30 percent with this new tool because it’s going to make shopping for art online that much easier,” said Sasson.

“View in a Room” has two final enhancements scheduled before it is completely rolled out. In early June users will be able to test out framing inside the system and by late June customers can share an image of the painting on their wall with their friends and family via e-mail or their social networks. The final enhancement will make purchasing art online a social experience as people will enlist their social networks to help them select which oil painting will look best hanging on their wall.

“Most things on the Web aren’t social quite yet, but that is changing and we are working to establish ourselves as an online retail leader by making shopping online not only a personal and interactive experience, but a social experience as well with this new tool,” stated Sasson.

On Tuesday night, Pablo Picasso was restored to what many consider his rightful place at the top of the most important artists in the world. A canvas that he painted in a single day in March 1932 was bought for $106.5 million (£70.3 million) at Christie’s in New York – making it the most expensive work of art ever sold at auction. The news must have turned dealers, auctioneers and art collectors delirious with delight as in the art world, at least, the good times appear to be back.

This is not the first time that Picasso has held this exalted record. In 2004, his Boy with a Pipe, which dates from 1905 at the height of his so-called Rose Period, sold at Sotheby’s in New York for a record-breaking $104.1 million. The extraordinary thing is that Picasso’s Nude, Green Leaves and Bust, which set the new record this week, looks nothing like Boy with a Pipe, in subject matter or style. Most people unfamiliar with modern art would surely assume that the two paintings had been made by different artists.

Nude, Green Leaves and Bust, which was last sold, for $19,800, to a family of American art collectors in 1951, is a very different proposition. It shows a naked woman lying asleep beneath a classical bust and a rampant philodendron plant – but it is not remotely realistic. The bold blocks of colors are flat and intense, bound by thick black outlines. The woman’s skin is an extraterrestrial lavender. Her arms are not anatomically correct, but instead curl beneath her head, mirroring the tendrils of the plant above her. A shadowy profile (a self-portrait?) floats among the folds of the blue cloth in the background, in between the plant and the bust. Overall, the painting has a distorted, dreamy, childlike aspect. Nearly three decades after Boy with a Pipe, Picasso was no longer interested in making paintings that even pretended to be life-like.

The story behind Nude, Green Leaves and Bust helps us to understand why it is considered such a wonderful work of art – and why Picasso, in the words of one of his dealers, illuminated the 20th century like a comet.

The woman is a portrait of Picasso’s muse and mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter, whom the artist met in the 1920s, when he was in his mid-40′s, and she was still a teenager. “When I met Picasso I was 17,” Marie-Thérèse said in an interview with Life magazine in 1968. “I was an innocent young gamine. I knew nothing – life, Picasso, nothing. I had gone shopping at the Galleries Lafayette, and Picasso saw me coming out of the metro. He simply grabbed me by the arm and said: ‘I’m Picasso! You and I are going to do great things together.’”

Picasso and Marie-Thérèse soon began an affair, which rejuvenated the middle-aged artist and quickly suffused his work. He embarked on a run of sumptuously erotic canvases which are the visual equivalent of great love poems. These dazzling paintings, of which Nude, Green Leaves and Bust is a fine example, are characterized by bright, joyful colors and plump, suggestive forms. Their brushwork is lush and fluid. Marie-Thérèse is frequently presented naked and asleep, as though resting after sex.

For better or worse, Picasso took a wrecking ball to six centuries of art history – and, by grappling with the great Western tradition, he fashioned a revolutionary new visual language better known as the modern art era.

overstockArt.com, the leader in handmade oil painting art reproductions, released today its Mother’s Day Top 10 list. This year’s list names the top 10 oil paintings featuring images of motherhood.

Topping the chart is Claude Monet’s masterpiece Poppy Field in Argenteuil. Oil paintings by master artists Mary Cassatt, Gustav Klimt, Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir also made the list.

“Many master artists depicted images of motherhood in their oil paintings,” said Stacy Sasson, co-founder of overstockArt.com. “No other art form better exemplifies the tender, timeless bond between a mother and a child.”

The oil paintings that made the 2010 Mother’s Day Top 10 list are:

1. Poppy Field in Argenteuil, Claude Monet – In this colorful oil painting, originally created in 1873, Claude Monet painted his wife and son strolling together among the poppies.
2. Le tre eta della donna (Mother and Child), Gustav Klimt – Mother and Child is part of Klimt’s famous oil painting Three Ages of Woman. The painting depicts an image of a mother cradling her young son. The original was created in 1905, three years after the death of Klimt’s baby son, Otto.
3. Breakfast in Bed 1897, Mary Cassatt – The subject of mothers and children recurred in many of Cassatt’s works. In this piece, a child’s attention wanders as she is held in her mother’s loving embrace.
4. First Steps, Vincent van Gogh – From late 1889 to 1890, while van Gogh was a voluntary patient at the asylum in Saint-Rémy, he painted twenty-one copies of Jean-François Millet’s works. In January 1890, van Gogh transferred a photograph of Millet’s First Steps to canvas.
5. Maternity, Pablo Picasso – This stunning oil painting, originally created in 1905, depicts the intimate bond of mother and child.
6. Madame Monet and her Son, Claude Monet – This masterpiece, originally painted in 1875, depicts Monet’s first wife Claude and their eldest son, Jean.
7. Summertime, Mary Cassatt – Although never a mother herself, Cassatt principally painted children and scenes of motherhood. Summertime illustrates a mother and daughter enjoying a leisurely summer day boating. The original masterpiece was created in 1894.
8. Woman with a Parasol and Small Child on a Sunlit Hillside, Pierre-Auguste Renoir – Originally painted in 1874, this masterpiece depicts a mother relaxing in the grass while her young child wanders off in behind her in the tall grass.
9. Hope II, Gustav Klimt – Although images of women and children are frequent in the history of art, depictions of pregnancy are rare. In Hope II a woman lowers her head toward her swelling belly. The original masterpiece was created in 1907-08.
10. Pieta, Vincent van Gogh – Originally created in 1889 while van Gogh was staying at the asylum in Saint-Rémy, Pieta is the agonizing depiction of Mary in sorrow over her dead son.

The Mother’s Day Top 10 List was composed by pulling overstockArt.com sales data from April 2009 to March 2010. “Mother’s Day is our third busiest selling period of the year,” said Sasson. “People love giving their moms the gift of art for Mother’s Day – it is a wonderful expression of love that will last a lifetime.”

It’s a big season for Picasso in the northeast. MoMA has a show, the Philadelphia Museum of Art is doing a Picasso & Friends show. Later this spring the Metropolitan Museum of Art will exhibit 300 of its Picassos…

The Guggenheim is also taking part in the Picassopalooza by showing two great still-lifes as part of a seventh-floor collection portraying the importance of Picasso on the Modern Art World.

For some reason Picasso is back as the most popular artist of the past century. Picasso’s popularity is on the rise a trend that just does not seem to fade.