Posts tagged masterminds

This Czech artist (1860-1939) is definitely one of the most iconic figures of the Art Nouveau worldwide. It is common nowadays to find its fantastic artwork in the-avant-garde cafés and its unique style is still as fascinating as in those times when he used it to engage new public for Paris’s newest theatrical productions. It is indeed through the affichism that he wrote primarly his name into the universal books of art, just along with his fellow-French movement-companion, Toulousse-Lautrec (with whom he shares the credit of being the precursors of modern advertisement). Nonetheless, Mucha’s posters (even with all its exuberant and natural-magical illustration lines) ain’t the limit of his creativity. Through his acute nationalism he got to develop some epic canvases (The Slav Epic) and decorative designs, as worthy of a seat in the Fine Arts pedestal (and of some inconvenient Nazi intervention that lead him, ultimately, to his death).

Fruit,

Four Seasons

 Savonnerie de Bagnolet.

Sarah Bernhardt, 1896.

 Age of love, 1936-1938.

 Age of reason, 1936-1938.

Age of Wisdom, 1938.

8th Sokol Festival, 1912.

Apotheosis of the Slavs [from The Slav Epic], 1926.

Maude Adams as Joan of Arc, 1909.

La Gismonda, 1894.

Thistle from the Sands, 1902.

Benedictine, 1898.

This Italian painter of the 16th Century (1527-1593) that became court portraitist of Ferdinand I in Vienna isn’t widely known for its very name (not in the scale of Michelangelo or Caravaggio, at least). Still, his artwork has the most peculiar and bizarre aesthetics, being another forerunner of both Surrealism and fantastical Romanticism.

Mixing the art of portrait-making with the astounding imagination of a “still life” [suddenly very much alive] he created wondrous images that have fascinated generations of artists and art lovers. His most conventional work is now barely remembered but whether his enigmatic portraits are the result of a sane mind, that’s still a debate every art critic would love to engage.

Vertumnus (portrait of Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor). 1590-1.

Winter. 1573.

Autumn. 1573.

Spring. 1573.

Summer. 1573.

The Librarian. 1566.

The Jurist. 1566.

Water. 1566.

Fire.  1566.

Air. 1566.

Vegetables.

Maybe one of the most famous artists ever, Van Gogh (1853-1890) has that type that incarnates the troubled-genius artistry, never understood by their peers and always molested by some inner demons (150 psychiatrist gathered in 2002 to make him a diagnosis, which finished on a debate between 30 possible affections). Whatever it might’ve been, he commited suicide at age 37. And yet, Van Gogh’s paintings are never obscure; on the contrary, enriched with the marvel of bright and pure colors, never mixed, his paintings recreate scenarios of wondrous illussions -or maybe the own artist’s delussions?

By the way, in case you don’t know why Van Gogh’s ear is famous, that’d be because he chopped it out himself after a) a quarrel with his fellow artist, Paul Gaugin, in which he first threatened Gaugin with a penknife or b) after the knowledge that his fellow brother, Théo, was getting married. Either way, this Dutch artist proved to have a severe temperament when turned upset.

The Starry Night. 1889.

Bedroom in Arles. 1888.

Portrait of Dr. Gachet. 1890.

The Church at Auvers. 1890.

Country road in Provence. 1890.

White House at Night. 1890.

Irises. 1889.

Self Portrait. 1889.

This dutch litographist (1898-1972) was quite rare and bizarre, speaking about its visual representations of… dreams? The absurd? Infinity? Impossible scenarios? Mixing together his abilities in wood carving, drawing, architecture, mathematic and decorative arts he created the most unusual scenes in a most particular style that still persist in the popular culture imaginarium.

In a wonderful representation of pre Op-Art, this artist incorpored paradoxical objects such as the Necker Cube, the Penrose triangle and other mathematical oddities like stellated dodecahedrons, polyhedra and geometric distortions and… yeah.

Waterfall. 1961.

Convex and Concave. 1955.

House of Stairs. 1951.

Reptiles. 1943.

Metamorphosis II. 1939-1940.

Relativity. 1953.