To baffle the public . . .

Today is the birthday of Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (June 7, 1848 – May 8, 1903), painter and sculptor.


Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?
Paul Gauguin, 1897–1898
oil on canvas, 139.1 × 374.6 cm
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
"Paul Gauguin was a financially successful stockbroker and self-taught amateur artist when he began collecting works by the impressionists in the 1870s. Inspired by their example, he took up the study of painting under Camille Pissarro. Pissarro and Edgar Degas arranged for him to show his early painting efforts in the fourth impressionist exhibition in 1879 (as well as the annual impressionist exhibitions held through 1882). In 1882, after a stock market crash and recession rendered him unemployed and broke, Gauguin decided to abandon the business world to pursue life as an artist full-time." direct quote source (1)

He is considered a leading Post-Impressionist painter.

"I shut my eyes in order to see. "
- Paul Gauguin

"Life is merely a fraction of a second.
An infinitely small amount of time to fulfill
our desires, our dreams, our passions."
- Paul Gauguin

"The history of modern art is also the history of the progressive loss of art's audience. Art has increasingly become the concern of the artist and the bafflement of the public." - Paul Gauguin

To feel a sense of art . . .

Today is the birthday of Mary Stevenson Cassatt (May 22, 1844 – June 14, 1926), painter and printmaker. 

Mary Cassatt lived much of her adult life in France and she was the only American invited to exhibit with a group of independent artists later known as the Impressionists.

The Boating Party, 1893-94 

Oil on canvas 

35 7/16 x 46 1/8 in. (90 x 117.3 cm)

Mary Cassatt 

Chester Dale Collection

National Gallery of Art

Washington, D.C.

"If painting is no longer needed, it seems a pity that some of us are born into the world with such a passion for line and color." - Mary Cassatt

"Acceptence, under someone elses' terms, is worse than rejection." - Mary Cassatt

"I have touched with a sense of art some people – they felt the love and the life. Can you offer me anything to compare to that joy for an artist?" - Mary Cassatt

Cassatt images source (1)

To make what pleases you . . .

Happy Birthday to the artist, Jasper Johns, Jr.! He was born May 15, 1930 in Augusta, Georgia (USA). He is best known for his painting Flag (1954-55), which he painted after having a dream of the American flag.

"I make what it pleases me to make.. ..I have no ideas about what the paintings imply about the world. I don’t think that’s a painter’s business. He just paints paintings without a conscious reason. I intuitively paint flags." - Jasper Johns

"Sometimes I see it and then paint it. Other times I paint it and then see it. Both are impure situations, and I prefer neither. At every point in nature there is something to see. My work contains similar possibilities for the changing focus of the eye." - Jasper Johns

Flag 1954–55 

Jasper Johns

Encaustic, oil, and collage on fabric 

mounted on plywood (three panels)

42 1/4 x 60 5/8" (107.3 x 154 cm)

The Museum of Modern Art

New York, NY (USA)

Jasper Johns is represented by the Matthew Marks Gallery.

Flag image source (1)

Some ideas from the web . . .

Why Study Art?

Here are some ideas from the web.

Why Study Art?

"The arts have served to connect our imagination with the history of human existance. Studying civilization and creative expression throughout history and across cultures enables students to experience diversity and is multiculturalism in practice. The arts are a fundamental part of the cultural heritage of every student and as such, enhance the quality of life. They bring joy, enrichment, and fulfillment to every human being. Art allows students to acquire the tools and knowledge necessary to create individual responses to a variety of issues and is essential, not only in understanding life, but in living fully."

- direct quote source (1)

Why Study Art?

"To enjoy beautiful creations of artists who shape the world.

To learn about ourselves - our feelings, our ideas of what is beautiful and what values and beliefs we like to see in artworks.

To learn about other people - their feelings, their ideas of what is beautiful and what values and beliefs they liked to see in their art.

To learn about other cultures - the values and beliefs that shaped their visual arts."

- direct quote source (1)

Why Study Art?

"The arts have served to connect our imaginations with the history of human existence . . . Art is a basic component of a complete education. Art experience fosters aesthetic development; the ability to construct, create, decode, and describe. It provides avenues of communication, paves the way for reading, and motivates written expression. Art is a product, a process, and an essential element for creative thought and experience."

- direct quote source (1)

Dealing with monsters . . .

The Third of May
El Tres de Mayo

Francisco De Goya

1814

Oil on canvas
104 1/2 inches by 135 3/4 inches
266cm x 345cm
Prado Museum, Madrid

“Fantasy, abandoned by reason, produces impossible monsters; united with it, she is the mother of the arts and the origin of marvels.” Francisco De Goya

Perhaps we study art to reveal/tame the monsters of the world . . .

Image source (1)

To capture the inner flashes . . .

Today is the birthday of Gustave Moreau (April 6, 1826 – April 18, 1898), a French Symbolist painter, sculptor and watercolorist famous for his illustration of biblical and mythological figures.

He preferred to paint mythological subjects, symbolist work that is thought to be a forerunner of surrealism.

Gustave Moreau was the recipient of many honors, yet refused to sell his paintings except to friends. In 1892, he was given a painting professor position at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, where his pupils included Henri Matisse and Georges Rouault. After his death, his house in Paris (now the Musée Moreau), with his fine art collection, was bequeathed to the nation.

"I believe neither in what I touch nor what I see. I only believe in what I do not see, and solely in what I feel." - Gustave Moreau

"I have never looked for dream in reality or reality in dream. I have allowed my imagination free play, and I have not been led astray by it." - Gustave Moreau

The Rape of Europa 1869

Gustave Moreau

Musee d'Orsay, Paris, France

"No one could have less faith in the absolute and definitive importance of the work created by man, because I believe that this world is nothing but a dream." - Gustave Moreau

"I am less concerned with expressing the motions of the soul and mind than to render visible, so to speak, the inner flashes of intuition which have something divine in their apparent insignificance . . ." - Gustave Moreau

Moreau image source (1)

Art trivia . . .

On April 1, 1867, the Paris Exposition Universelle de 1867 opened and proved to be a historic event for the 19th century art movement known as Impressionism. The exposition drew over eleven million visitors, including exhibitors and employees. This exposition was the greatest up to its time of all international expositions, both with respect to its extent and to the scope of its plan.

Paris Exposition Universelle

(1867)

It was during the 1867 Paris Expo that a plan was first suggested for a group Impressionist exhibition and as a result of that plan, the first Impressionist exhibition was held in Paris in 1874. The Impressionists managed to hold seven subsequent shows until their final show in 1886.

Édouard Manet, rejected by the same 1867 exhibition, held his own retrospective nearby and painted a panoramic cityscape, Paris Exposition Universelle de 1867, which is considered one of the founding works of Impressionism.

Exposition Universelle de Paris

Édouard Manet

1867

Most references to Impressionist painting refers to the work produced between about 1867 and 1886 by a group of artists who shared a set of related approaches and techniques known as Impressionism. (Impressionism also describes art created in this style, but outside of the late 19th century time period.)

The central figures in the development of Impressionism in France were:

Frédéric Bazille (1841-1870)
Gustave Caillebotte (1848-1894)
Mary Cassatt (1844-1926)
Paul Cézanne (1839-1906)
Edgar Degas (1834-1917)
Armand Guillaumin (1841-1927)
Édouard Manet (1832-1883)
Claude Monet (1840-1926)
Berthe Morisot (1841-1895)
Camille Pissarro (1830-1903)
Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919)
Alfred Sisley (1839-1899)

Exposition Universelle image source (1)

Manet painting source (1)