REVOLTIONARY RENE MAGRITTE

To continue in our Surrealist Masterclass, we will learn about the amazing artist, 

Rene Magritte

 A Belgian surrealist painter, Rene Magritte was renowned for his witty, thought-provoking paintings which took ordinary objects in unexpected contexts which challenged the viewers perception of reality. His work provoked questions about the nature of reality and representation.  He began drawing lesson at age 10 at the royal academy of Fine Art in Brussels. During this time his mother committed suicide by drowning. Her body was not discovered until 16 days later. Magritte was present at the time they retrieved her body from the water. When her body was discovered, her dress was covering her face. This image has been repeated in several of Magritte's paintings where the people he painted have cloth obscuring their faces. Many of Magritte's paintings have an alluring, almost fantastic appeal with a subject matter of images with gruesome detail.

 

The use of objects as other than what they seem typifies his work which shows a pipe that looks as though it is a model for a tobacco store advertisement. Magritte painted below the pipe, Ceci n'est nas une pipe..."this is not a pipe," which seems a contradiction but actually is true: the painting in not a pipe, it is an image of a pipe. When asked about this image Magritte said, "Of course this is not a pipe---just try to fill it with of tobacco."

In 1922-23, Magritte worked as a draughtsman in a wallpaper factory and he was a poster and advertisement designer until 1926, when a contract with Galerie Le Centaure in Brussels made it possible for him to paint full time. In 1927m he held his first solo exhibition in Brussels. it was poorly reviewed.

 Depressed by his failure, he moved to Paris where he became friends with Anton Benton and became involved in a Surrealist group.  An illusionistic, dream-like quality is characteristic of Magritte's version of Surrealism. he became a leading member of the group and remained in Paris for 3 years. In 1929, he was pit under contract at the Goeman's Gallery in Paris.

   

Magritte married Georgette Berger in June 1922. Childhood sweethearts, he first met Georgette when she was 13 and he was 15. They met again in Brussels 7 years later when Georgette, who also studied art, became his model, his muse, and his wife. He was madly in love with her until 1936, when Magritte's marriage became troubled. He met a young performance artist, Sheila Lege, and began a short-lived affair with her. He arranged for his friend, Paul Colinet, to entertain and distract Georgette, but this led to an affair between Georgette and Paul. Sadly, they separated and did not reconcile until 1940 and then lived happily together until the day Magritte died. She lived on after him for 10 more years before she passed away.

In 1945, Magritte joined the Belgium Communist party. his political beliefs distinguished him form many of his surrealists pers. Magritte's support for the communist party tied him neatly to his love for the ubiquitous bowler hat which became s constant fixture of his wardrobe. The hat made him appear just like his fellow comrades, having the opposite effect of say, Salvador Dali's moustache! The hat also became a permanent fixture in his artwork as well.

Unlike many of his surrealist peers, Magritte didn't rely on automatic techniques or dreamlike abstraction. Instead, he applied precision of a realist painter to surreal ideas, creatin poetic puzzles that tease the boundaries between illusion and reality. His work is not simply what is seen, but about how it is seen. Pipes that are not pipes, men with obscured faces, skies inside eyes---his images remain ss enigmatic today as they were when first unveiled. You can see the recurring symbols, sly contradictions and quite provocations that define Magritte's unique legacy.

He once said, "It is irrelevant of the scene behind the easel differed from what was depicted upon it, but the main thing was to eliminate the difference between a view seen from outside and from inside a room."

His use of ordinary objects in unfamiliar spaces in unfamiliar spaces is joined to his desire to create poetic imagery. He called painting as, "the art of putting colors side by side in such a way that their real aspect is effaced, so that familiar objects ----the sky people, trees, mountains, furniture, the stars, solid structures, graffiti----became united in a single poetically disciplined image. The poetry pf this image dispenses with any symbolic significance, old or new.

As Curator Catlin Haskell wrote of Magritte's work: Magritte more than any other artist of the past century, made it his project to subvert our faith in visual similitude. As rapidly improving technology simplifies our ability to realistically distort images, it's more important than ever to consider what  is a pipe and what's not."

Magritte described his paintings as "visible images which conceal nothing, they evoke mystery and indeed, when one sees one of my pictures, one asks oneself this simple question, "What does it mean? It does not mean anything, because mystery means nothing either, it is unknowable."

Magritte died of pancreatic cancer on August 15, 1967, age 68. and was buried in Schaerbeek Cemetery, Evere, Brussels.

Here are my Magritte Creations!

Sorry for the delay in posting the challenge! I had another loss in my family and so the past few weeks I have been traveling back and forth involved in family matters! I am back now and hopefully no more delays! Thank you for patiently waiting for me! 

Can't wait to see your own Magritte creations!

Digital art created from DreamPrintFusion Digital Kits Quirky People and Spring Quirky People and images from Pixabay

PROTAGONIST POLLACK

Study of the Masters continued:

This week we are going to dive into the legacy of 

Jackson Pollack!

Jackson Pollock was an American painter who was a leading exponent of Abstract Expressionism. He is also one of the first American painters to be recognized as a Master of Modern Art. He was widely publicized for and received serious recognition for the radical poured or "dripped" technique he used to create his major works.

Jackson Pollock was not without his various demons which also contributed to his deeply personal and uncompromising commitment to painting.  He was described as gentle and contemplative when sober, violent when drunk. These extremes found a equilibrium in his art.

Pollock was his own worst enemy. He was an alcoholic and suffered from major depression. At his brother's insistence, he saw a psychoanalyst who suggested to him that he would benefit from the concepts of Carl Jung and use that in his artwork as therapy. He was motivated and inspired to use those concepts for the rest of his painting career. He moved to New York City and worked at the WPA Federal Art Project.  He signed a gallery contract with Peggy Gugenheim and was commissioned to paint a 8 x20 foot painting, Mural, for her entryway in her townhouse. This marked an important transitional point in Pollock's artistic career.

He met and married Lee Krasner and with her extensive knowledge and training in modern art, brought Pollock up to date on what contemporary art should be. She was responsible for introducing him to many collectors, critics and artist of his time. It was her judgement of his work that he trusted above all others. it has been said there would never have been Jackson Pollock without Lee Pollock. 

Pollock being the reclusive type, chose to move to the country in Spring City, New York. where he would go on to create his greatest work. This place is where he refined his technique of painting and discovered his famous "drip" method. 

Sadly, to note, he and Lee divorced years later as his infidelities and alcoholism became more than she could bare.

And yet, in this idyllic place, he wrestled with his demons and his critics daily. His work was fresh and provocative but his name was not among the critical work of the artists who had gained a prominent position in the world of art. Fame eluded him. His critics viewed his art as mere unorganized explosions of random energy and therefore meaningless...saying "this is not art---this is a joke in bad taste." And still in spite of what was being said of his work, he continued to fuel his passion to paint.

He discovered his "drip" technique by accident 

as he was painting one day and unintentionally splattered paint on the canvas. He used hardened brushes, sticks, and even basting syringes to create the effect he desired. He used the force of his whole body to paint. Pollock would move energetically around his canvas almost as if he were in a dance and would not stop until he saw what he wanted to see.

He was quoted as saying, " When I am in my painting, I am not aware of what I am doing. I have no fear of making changes, destroying images, because the painting has a life of its own. There is a pure harmony, an easy give and take, and the painting comes out well."

Life Magazine did a four-page spread of his work which finally brought him the acclaimed notoriety he was looking for. In the article they gave him the name "Jack the Dripper". 

In 1950, Hans Namuth, a young photographer filmed Pollack while he was painting to give people a view of how the now famous art was created. 

He said after the experience, "He completely forgot I was there. He did not even hear the click of the camara. He painted for a half an hour. He did not stop. How could one keep up that level of activity? Finally, Pollock looked up and said, this is it." 

In 1956, Pollock was killed in a tragic automobile accident caused by driving under the influence of alcohol. The accident happened less than a mile from his house. 

He became a model of an artist that successfully fused art with life. He believed that art was derived from the subconscious and saw himself the essential subject of his paintings. He judged his work on its inherent authenticity of personal expression.

Here is my Jackson Pollock Creation:

I found as I was creating this art piece there was no particular rules to follow and as I continued adding color and digitally "dripped" the images, a pattern began to form as if on its own. I have never created art like this before and found it very liberating, and as Pollock would have said himself, "the technique was very free and subconsciously flowing"! 

I hope you experience the same feeling as I did when you create your own Pollock Masterpiece. I cannot wait to see what you will come up with!

PECULIAR PICASSO

For the whole month of January, we will concentrate our artistic efforts as we did last year, to create art from the different perspectives of four abstract artists. This week we will explore the life and art of Pablo Picasso and discover what inspired him to create his unusual body of work. 

PABLO PICASSO

The Father of Cubism

Pablo Picasso was born in Spain in 1881. His father was a Professor of Drawing and by age 10, Picasso's adeptness for drawing began to manifest so quickly that he surpassed his Father's artistic abilities. He was Dyslexic and it is thought that this disorder fueled his unique artistic vision, allowing him to see and represent objects differently leading to his fragmented multi-perspective Cubist style. He also likely had Strabismus, (Crossed Eyes) which affected his depth of perception but enabled him to better capture two-dimensional visual cues which suited his revolutionary art. His learning difficulties encouraged him to express himself visually through creativity and art. His father shifted his own ambitions to that of his son and provided him with models and support for his first exhibition at the age of 13. 

   Picasso with his sister, Ola

In 1897, Pablo and his family moved to Madrid where Pablo became a student at the Royal Academy at San Fernando. He found the teaching to be "stupid" and gave up their instructional teachings to find his inspiration in the streets, the brothels, and the cafes of the city. He discovered the style of Spanish Painting at the Prado Museum where works by Murillo and Goya would capture his imagination.

                                          Picasso, 1904

He fell ill in 1899 with Scarlet Fever and left Madrid to convalesce at a friend's home in Barcelona. It took nearly a year for Picasso to recuperate from this illness that significantly impacted his mental state and would later lead  to his Blue Period, which produced the somber monocratic reflecting his emotional struggles.

                                       The Blue Period

Picasso had his first successful Art Exhibition in Barcelona in 1900, but his circle of artist friends had their eyes on Paris. He was eager to see how his art would be accepted in Paris, so he joined them in their effort to conquer Paris or at least a little corner on the streets of Montmartre. Just after two months in Paris, he returned to Spain with his friend, Casagemas, who was despondent about a failed love affair. Picasso left his friend in Madrid to work as a art editor for   a new art journal, Art Joven. Casagemas went back to Paris and attempted to shoot the woman he loved but instead turned the gun on himself and died. Picasso was very distraught at having lost his closest friend and felt a huge amount of remorse and guilt from what he felt as abandoning his friend to work at the Art Joven. 

The loss of his loyal friend deeply impacted Picasso and led him to his Blue Period where he painted two death portraits of Casagemas and also incorporated his grief into many other works of art.

Death Mask of Casagemas

Picasso moved permanently to Paris in 1904, where he gained much inspiration from the Traveling Circus and Saltimbanques, (acrobats and performers of the Circus). He became romantically involved with Fernande Oliver and  over the years, she inspired many of his works and was the subject of his painting, Woman With Leaves.

Woman With Leaves

Believe it or not, color never came easy to Picasso. He always reverted back to the Spanish monochromatic palette that he used as a child. The colors of the Blue Period were replaced by those of pottery, of flesh and the earth itself, which he called his Rose Period.  This led to one of his most famous paintings, Les Demoiselles in d'Avignon, (1907). His violent treatment of the female body and the masklike faces, inspired by his study of African art, made that work very controversial. Avignon was the name of a street in Barcelona where sailors frequented their favorite brothels. The painting was perceived as shocking and a direct assault of the beauty of a woman, as it conveyed very unconventional images of a women's body. Picasso rolled up the canvas and kept it out of sight for many years.

Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

The Rose Period

As I have discovered in the lives of most artists, none were untouched by human fragility, physical and mental challenges, controversy, and public scandal.  Picasso's life was no different. While living in Paris in 1911, he was arrested and questioned for the theft of the Mona Lisa. Suspicion for the crime fell on his association with his poet friend, Guilliaume Apollonaire, due to his links with Gery Pieret, a artist with a history of thefts from the gallery. Picasso had purchased several stolen paintings from Pieret in the past and afraid of a conviction, fled back to Spain. Picasso denied any association with Guilliaume and both were later cleared of any involvement in the paintings disappearance. This unfortunate incident combined with Picasso's return to Spain, would be the open door to Picasso's discovery of a whole new style of art. The genre of Cubism and the Art of Cubism Collage is the tearing of paper, newspaper, and wallpaper which is then pasted into compositions of art. Picasso's composition, Still Life with Chair Caning is said to be the first example and what we know today as Assemblage Art.

    Still Life With Chair Caning

From 1917 to 1929, Picasso took much of his inspiration from his travels in Italy and exhibited his work in the first Surrealist Exhibition in 1925. He developed new imagery in his style of painting to express himself emotionally, as it was said, "releasing the violence, the psychic fears and the eroticism that had been largely contained and sublimated in his work since 1909". Surrealism revived Picasso's attraction to primitivism and eroticism. 

In 1927, Picasso met 17 year old Marie-Therese Walter and bean a long standing affair with her. She became his "Golden Muse". He fathered a daughter with her named, Maya. Picasso loved younger women and after his affair with Mare-Therese he went on to have a relationship with the famous Surrealist photographer and painter Dora Marr, who influenced him greatly in the creation of his most famous work, Guernica.

                         Spanish Civil War-Guernica

Picasso had not used his work before as a voice to political aggression but Maar insisted that he should use his talent to be more politically creative. This large canvas embodies for many the inhumanity, brutality, and hopelessness of war. When asked to explain its symbolism, he said, "It isn't up to the painter to define the symbols. Otherwise, it would be better if he wrote them out in so many words. The public who look at the picture must interpret the symbols and as they understand them."

During WW11, Picasso remained in Paris during the German occupation of the city. Picasso's style did not fit the Nazi's idea of art and so while they were stealing other great works of art they left Picasso's work behind. Nevertheless, he was harassed by the Nazi's and once when they came to search his apartment, one officer saw a photograph of the painting, Guernica and asked, "Did you do that ?" to which he replied, "No....but you did"!

In 1944, after the liberation of Paris, Picasso, at the age of 63, had grown tired of Dora Maar and began a romantic relationship with a young art student, Francoise Gilot. She was 40 years younger than he was. They had two children, Claude and Paloma Picasso. Picasso went on to have many affairs with women of an age difference even greater than Gilot. In 1951, Picasso had an affair with Genevieve Laporte, who was 4 years younger than Gilot. By his 70's, many of his drawings and paintings depicted the theme as an old, grotesque dwarf as the doting lover of the beautiful young model. In 1952, Picasso met Jaqueline Rogue, who became his wife and remained with him to the rest of his life. he constructed a huge Gothic home and as a international celebrity, entertained many people who took as much interest in his life as they did in his art! 

Picasso also had a talent in writing and composed at least 300 poems and two plays. He painted 50,000 art pieces, 1,228 sculptures, and 12,000 drawings in his lifetime. Picasso passed away in 1973 at the age of 91.

                      Sculpture: A Glass of Absinthe

The enormous body of his work remains, and the legend lives on...a tribute to the vitality of the "disquieting" Spaniard with the "somber, piercing" eyes who superstitiously believed that work would keep him alive. For nearly 80 of his 90 years, he devoted himself to an artistic production that contributed significantly to and paralled the whxole development of modern art in the 20th century.

This interview of Picasso is in French which I could not translate! Our Parisian Friend Sim, could translate and tell us what he was saying!

Here are my Picasso Creations:

Digital art created from Conjurer of Dreams Picasso Set and Chez Simone Tresors Grunge Paper Pack