Renoir in the 20th Century at LACMA

Girls at the Piano, Pierre-Auguste Renoir

An exhibition of Pierre-Auguste Renoir paintings will be held at Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) from February 14–May 9, 2010.

The exhibtion is titled Renoir in the 20th Century, focuses on the last three decades of Renoir’s career, when, following his rupture with Impressionism, he turned to an art that was decorative, classical, and informed by a highly personal interpretation of the Great Tradition.

Arts Heaven got a chance to visit this exhibition on the fifth day. It is truly a spectacular exhibition and to be in the same room as these wonderful oil paintings of Renoir was a blessing. The soft, smooth color palette that Renoir’s applied was remarkable.

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The National Gallery Exhibition of Fake Paintings

A fake painting of Hans Holbein

The BBC News Arts & Culture posted an announcement that The National Gallery, London will have an exhibition of their acquisitions of fake oil paintings.

The exhibition is billed as a celebration of “the remarkable collaboration of scientists, conservators and art historians” at the central London gallery.

In June 1874, the gallery paid more for a fake than a real Sandro Botticelli when two pieces were purchased at the same time.

More than 40 works of art will go on display at the gallery in June. Fakes, Mistakes and Discoveries opens on 30 June and runs until 12 September.

Gustav Klimt’s Most Expensive Painting

Did you know which oil painting from Gustav Klimt is the most expensive painting ever sold?

Answer: Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I

Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, Gustav Klimt

This painting was purchased by cosmetic magnate founder Ronald Lauder for the sum of $135 millions. This makes it the most expensive oil painting ever purchased.

The purchase put Gustav Klimt paintings above all others; Vincent Van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, and Rubens.

The previous most expensive painting and top money-getter was Pablo Picasso’s Garcon a la Pipe (Boy With a Pipe), which sold for $104 millions in 2004.

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The Meaning Of Vincent Van Gogh Starry Night

Vincent Van Gogh Starry Night

The painting by Vincent Van Gogh of the Starry Night has been duplicated time and time again by artists all over the world. It is one of the most recognizable pieces of art and is available in posters and many other forms in people’s homes. The Vincent Van Gogh Starry Night has a significant meaning because of where Van Gogh was when he painted the picture as well as his hopes and dreams prior.

When Van Gogh was younger, he was thinking about dedicating his life to those living in poverty through evangelization. This religious undertaking helped him to create the Starry Night painting that everyone knows today. He was in an asylum in 1889 when he painted the image of the night sky with stars sparkling in the moonlight. Count the stars and there will be 11 of them.

Genesis 37:9 reads, “…Behold, I have dreamed a dream more, and behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me.”  It is believed that the Van Gogh Starry Night is derived from this religious inspiration, which could very well be true because of the number of stars in the painting.

There are a significant amount of aspects to the Starry Night that attracts people to the painting beyond the bright colors of blue and yellow. The features are very exaggerated. Each of the stars has its own orb around them, helping people to view the movement as if Van Gogh was in a daydream when he wrote it. It could also have been part of his hallucinations and delusions, part of which makes the Starry Night such a significantly important piece in the art world.

The night sky and the crescent moon puts a person at ease, which, given where the Vincent Van Gogh Starry Night was created, an asylum, it reasons to believe that Van Gogh painted this  in order to put his mind at rest for a little while.

When the stars are followed down into the rolling hills of the horizon, this demonstrates the world that Vincent Van Gogh left behind when he entered into the asylum. The windows of the buildings are reminiscent of the homes he lived in as a child and there is a steeple of a church that was included in the Vincent Van Gogh Starry Night as a way of remembering how he had wanted to dedicate his life to religious actions.

A deeper look at the Starry Night and one can see that there is a very large structure in the darkness on the left. This is often thought to mean how Van Gogh felt isolated from the rest of the world. This was his view of life in general and could speak a lot about his peace of mind when he painted this image.  He had admitted himself into Saint Remy, however he still felt very isolated from the world. Most of his work during this time was of the asylum itself as well as the world outside of the asylum, usually at night.

The meaning of Vincent Van Gogh Starry Night has a lot to do with his mental state at the time that it was painted. Everyone views it as bright and uplifting, however when broken down piece by piece, it is often viewed as an ill man who is trying to have one last piece of contact with the outside world as he remembers it.

Rembrandt Reproductions: His Most Famous Paintings

Jacob Blessing by Rembrandt Van Rijn

Rembrandt reproductions are quite plentiful these days, and one should know what it is about him that makes his paintings reach this certain level of popularity. Born in 1606, Rembrandt lived in a period that is quite known as the Golden Age of the Dutch. As a Dutch painter, he was considered the greatest painter in Dutch history, and an almost equal amount of recognition is given to him by the history of European art. As a young painter, Rembrandt concerned himself more about portraits. His reputation has always remained quite high during his lifetime, and being the mentor of around 20 different important painters would tell you about it. He was also a known etcher, and he does his self-portraits with so much detail and truth to it that one could only say that he was an honest painter.

Rembrandt art reproductions would show how good the man is at painting, and the young painter might have over 500 works of art in his lifetime. He was 20 years old when he made the Musical Allegory. It was an intricately detailed piece of art and most people would have never believed that it was done by someone so young. This goes to show how brilliant the then young Rembrandt is. He has more than a hundred different paintings, etchings and drawings, but none would compare to one’s excitement about how a young soul could paint a very enticing masterpiece that was the Musical Allegory. During the year 1626, he has painted 3 brilliant paintings of note. Aside from the Musical Allegory, Rembrandt has painted History Painting and Tobit and Anna with the Kid.

In about a year or two, he sustained the reputation and painted many different people in portraits. He studied them, etched them, drew them and painted them. His drawings and many different studies such as that which shows an elephant and that which shows naked women are what he is very famous for. His etches show details at a high level, and his choice on subjects has made him quite popular. He etched portrait of himself, and you could see the fairness in the drawings that would mean that he was enjoying himself and not really bothered by the way he looks.

One of his last known paintings on canvas showing Simon with Jesus shows how he as a painter has improved through the years. The thought that he has given to his paintings would always reach a high, and his works would be looked at for people even after many centuries. As a renowned painter, Rembrandt has made his way to the hearts of many people, as inspiration and as an art master. Rembrandt reproductions could be printed and hand painted, thanks to the skill of many painters nowadays. However, the master of the art had come out in this world as a young artist and has blossomed through the ages of his years – staying appreciated is one of the most valuable gifts in this life that a painter could ever ask for, and Rembrandt, after more than four centuries, have gotten this appreciation.

The Starry Night Painting By Vincent Van Gogh

Starry Night, Vincent Van Gogh

When the name Vincent Van Gogh comes around the first painting people think about is The Starry Night. The reason is this painting was the peak of the artist’s achievements. Vincent Van Gogh to many surprise actually only sold one painting in his life time. However, after his death his work is widely sold as replicas today. The Starry Night painting is still one of the most well known images from modern culture since it is the most replicated and the most sought after for prints in a wide range of sizes.

So what makes the Starry Night such a timeless masterpiece? The fact that the night sky is filled with stars ablaze under their own bright light and how the clouds around these stars are swirling all over the top of the painting along with how bright the crescent shaped moon looks. All these elements are easy for people to relate to. Even young children can relate to how the sky looks in the painting. This kind of sky also keeps a person’s eyes moving all over the painting. Instead of just focusing on one part of the painting, a viewer can become involved in all parts of it.

The second part that makes the Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh so breathtaking is that fact that there is a small town right under the stars, clouds and crescent shaped moon. When you see a dark colored town under such a bright star lite night, your mind tends to relax and feel like you are right there in the painting looking out into that night sky. The painting can really give an adult a child like feeling and make them feel small and filled with imagination.

The third part that makes people stop and stare at this masterpiece is the tall church steeple over looking the town. If the person viewing this piece was religious they might assume that the church over looking the small town symbolized how God watches over all it’s people no matter the size. Either way anyone can see that the scale of the church steeple is larger than the rest of the painting and is an important element of the painting.

Many people assume that this painting was the only one that featured a starry night Van Gogh ever painted. However that assumption is untrue. Van Gogh made two other very popular paintings that showed off his love for a piece full night sky.

The first painting he created before Starry Night is called Starry Night Over The Rhone. This painting shares a lot of the same elements the younger painting does. These elements include how the stars in the sky make their own source of light. Van Gogh also added the unique element of a reflection of that artificial light. Because of that reflection, the viewer will move their eyes around the painting and look at the river completely. The last element that is very much like that younger painting Starry Night is that the structures in the background behind the river are lit up in a warm glow of light. It shows that there might be a town behind the river or something else.

However, Starry Night Over The Rhone does have one element that the Starry Night doesn’t feature.  That element is that there is a couple walking along side of the river. Because of the addition of humans inside this painting, the piece gives the viewers a more down to earth feeling and a very natural quality.

The other painting that Van Gogh created and featured a starry night sky is called Cafe Terrace At Night. This one was painted in Arles in the year 1888. The yellow wall of the cafe begs for the viewers attention instead of having the viewer look over every part of the masterpiece. This piece also is more down to earth since it does feature a large number of people and provides the viewer with a real life feeling to the painting. This painting may feature a starry night but it is not the focus like the two paintings mentioned above.

All three Van Gogh paintings that feature a starry night are considered the best works of Van Gogh. People enjoy viewing the originals and the replica paintings all over the world. These paintings have inspired many numbers of things and continue to inspire so much more.

Claude Monet’s Boulevard des Capucines Oil Painting

Boulevard des Capucines by Claude Monet

In 1974, Nadar, a close friend of the great Impressionist Claude Monet, held the first ever Impressionist exhibition. One of the most notable works to be included in that show was a Monet painting that featured his impressions of a view from Nadar’s window. However, Monet actually painted two different paintings of Boulevard des Capucines, and many people are unsure which one was presented at that first exhibition. Currently those paintings reside in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow and the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City. Recently, some experts have begun to present evidence claiming that the Moscow painting was the one included in the exhibition.

Two of the key pieces of evidence are a set of reviews done on that exhibition. The first review was penned by Ernest Chesnaux in the Paris Journal on May 7, 1874. He described the paintings depiction of crowds, carriages, trees, and the use of shadow and light. He claims, however, that when one approaches the painting, these large objects fade into the background and the painting becomes simply an “indecipherable chaos” of scrapings from Monet’s palette. The second and far more sarcastic review was written by Louis Leroy and published in Le Charivari. He mocked the so-called brilliance of the piece. He said that Monet’s people looked like black tongue-lickings, and he said the work was done in a “slap-dash, any old way”.

When looking at the Chesnaux review, many contemporary critics claim that it could easily be applied to either painting. The boulevard in the painting in Kansas is under snow, however, and that snow would be inconsistent with many of Chesnaux’s descriptions of dust and light. The dust would have been subdued by the snow. The painting in Moscow, on the other hand, sports autumnal looking trees but with a sky that is crisp and wintry. This painting is much easier to match with the critic’s description of shadows and light.

The seemingly insignificant parts of the reviews where the critics referred to Monet’s black tongue lickings and slap dash methods are actually very relevant. When one looks at the Kansas painting, they will notice how fluid the painting appears. When they look at the Moscow painting, on the other hand, they will note the savagery that has been applied to the brush strokes. The fact that the Kansas painting is done in a manner that looks so easy has been used to suggest that this painting was actually a Monet re-do of his first attempt. Without dates, it is impossible to ascertain this fact for sure. However, it is a likely assumption.

The two works contain other small differences. The Kansas painting features a larger foreground while the Moscow painting has a more truncated background. The Kansas painting also has more Japanese influences. This fact along with some other notable differences makes it plausible to consider this one as the newer of the two works. Careful analysis of these two works in comparison to these reviews as well as analysis of the works themselves has lead critics to assume that the Moscow work was painted first. As the first painting it was most likely to have been the one that premiered at Nadar’s original Impressionist exhibition.