Museum Art Recreation Challenge Part 3

El sueno de la razon produce monstruos

Print

Francisco Goya, 1797

This is a print from Los caprichos, a collection of 80 prints by Goya that satirize and criticize multiple aspects of 18th Century Spanish society. It depicts a person, possibly the artist himself, asleep with nightmare creatures besetting him.  The owls, bats, and other beasts represent folly and ignorance as the monsters that rise when reason and rationality sleep.

Goya is widely hailed as the last of the Old Masters and the first of the Moderns.  A Romantic painter and printer, he was also considered the most important Spanish artist of his time.

 

Brunnhilde, detail from The Rhinegold and the Valkyrie

Ink and Watercolor

Arthur Rackham, 1910.

Brunnhilde is a character from The Ring of the Nibelung, an opera written by Richard Wagner (yes, THAT Richard Wagner of "Ride of the Valkyries" fame--the piece actually comes from this opera).  The Ring of the Nibelung is a four-part opera that takes 15 hours to watch from beginning to end.  The four parts (Das Rheingold, Das Walkure, Siegfried, and Gottterdammerung) can be produced individually or as a whole, though the whole opera is often watched over four days.  It took Wagner 26 years to write the libretto (script) and music.

The opera spans three generations of fighting and trickery between Norse gods, mortals, and beasts to gain control of a magic ring that grants dominion over the world.  Brunnhilde is the leader of the Valkyries (Walkure).  The Valkyries are "choosers of the slain," shield maidens that ride over battlefields and choose those who will die heroically.  They carry their chosen heroes to Odin's hall, Valhalla, where they will feast and prepare for Ragnarok, the final battle of the gods.

Arthur Rackham is an English illustrator known for his intricate ink and watercolor drawings.  His unique style is heavily influenced by both Northern European art as well as Japanese block-printing.  Most of his work is featured in editions of beloved children's books such as Rip Van Winkle, Peter Pan, Gulliver's Travels, Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm, and, of course, The Ring of the Nibelung.

Circe Offering the Cup to Ulysses

Oil on Canvas

John William Waterhouse, 1891.

Familiar to fans of Greco-Roman mythology, this is a depiction of the witch Circe offering her magic brew to Ulysses (Odysseus in Greek), hoping to turn him into a pig as she has already done to the rest of his unfortunate crew.  Unbeknownst to her, Ulysses has already been warned by the god Mercury (Hermes) and has inoculated himself against her magic.

John William Waterhouse was an English painter known for his paintings of women from mythology, ancient history, and Arthurian legend as well as from famous works by Shakespeare and Tennyson.  One of his favorite subjects was Ophelia.  His work was influenced by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a movement that emphasized great detail, rich colors, and complicated compositions.

Girl at Mirror

Oil

Norman Rockwell, 1954

This is a captured poignant moment of a girl on the cusp of womanhood and the uncertainties of the future, of the girl deciding the type of woman she wants to be amid all the pressures and expectations of society.  That's what Rockwell intended, anyway.  However, not only did his model, Mary (age 11), not understand her intended motivation, but Rockwell also caught flack for adding a movie star (Jane Russell) into the magazine--the criticism being that little girls can aspire to more than being pretty movie stars.  Even so, the painting became iconic, and Mary and Richard remained friends until his death.

Norman Rockwell was a prolific American painter who created more than 4,000 original works in his lifetime.  His work came to represent a nostalgic, patriotic view of the United States in the mid-20th century, and is celebrated for its unique attention to detail and wistful feel.

Vitruvian Man

Ink sketch

Leonardo da Vinci, 1490

This is a sketch of the ideal human proportions based on the work of the Roman architect Vitruvius.  The title is misleading, though, because the proportions are based off of da Vinci's measurements, not Vitruvius' deductions. Most notably, the center point of both the circle and square is at the groin, rather than the naval. As with many of his works, Vitruvian Man is yet another example of da Vinci's reverence for and fascination with the human body, whose structure and working he saw as an analogy for the universe.

The print also showcases notes made in da Vinci's famous mirror-writing, which he used when he did not want people reading his notes. 

La Scapigliata (Lady with Disheveled Hair) or Head of a Woman

Oil

Leonardo da Vinci, 1508.

This famous image is from an unfinished painting most commonly assumed to have been commissioned by a noblewoman as a depiction of the Madonna. Da Vinci was the original Renaissance Man, with interests ranging from painting to Botany, astronomy, engineering, sculpture, invention, anatomy, literature, cartography, and everything in between.  He was somewhat notorious for losing interest before completing projects, particularly his paintings, and it would sometimes take him years to finish a single work.

This sketch/painting is an excellent example of da Vinci's use of sfumato ("smoke"), a painting technique that emphasizes soft, smoky shading to provide shape instead of hard lines. This is a technique also on display in the Mona Lisa. Da Vinci was one the most prominent painters to use sfumato, which is considered by some to be one of the four major techniques of painting colors in the Renaissance--the other three are chiarascuro, cangiante, and unione.

Portrait de Jaime Sabartes

Oil on Canvas

Pablo Picasso, 1901.

Also known as Le Bock (The Beer) or Le Poet (The Poet), this is a portrait of Picasso's childhood friend and fellow Spanish artist, Jaime Sabartes.  A study in solitude, it is considered the first painting of Picasso's Blue Period.  Picasso's own loss and depression were reflected in the colors and mood of his paintings during this time.

Born in 1881, Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish artist who spent most of his adult life in France.  He is well known for the various epochs of his work, most notably his Blue and Rose Periods, Neoclassicism, Surrealism, and Cubism.  He used colors as an expressive element, but not to create forms or define space. 

Afghan Girl

Photograph

Steve McCurry, 1984

This is more of an "inspired by" than a recreation, but I like the feel of it.  It is based off a famous photograph from the June 1985 cover of National Geographic, a portrait of a 12 year old Pashtun refugee from the Russian bombing of Afghanistan.  McCurry tried several times to find her in the 90s, but was unsuccessful until 2002.  He learned her name then as well--Sharbat Gula.  She never saw the photo that made her famous until 2002.

Sometimes referred to as "the first third-world Mona Lisa," the image has become emblematic of the women and children who are refugees from the last half century of war in the region.

Prayer at Valley Forge

Oil

Arnold Friberg, 1975.

This is a popular image of General Washington and his horse, Nelson, is based on the account of Nathaniel Randolph Snowden and Isaac Potts, who came across Washington kneeling in prayer at Valley Forge:

“In that woods, pointing to a close in view, I heard a plaintive sound as of a man at prayer. I tied my horse to a sapling & went quietly into the woods & to my astonishment I saw the great George Washington on his knees alone, with his sword on one side and his cocked hat on the other. He was at Prayer to the God of the Armies, beseeching to interpose with his Divine aid, as it was ye Crisis, & the cause of the country, of humanity & of the world. ‘Such a prayer I never heard from the lips of man. I left him alone praying.” (Nathaniel Randolph Snowden's (1770-1851) "Diary and Remembrances")

 

Arnold Friberg was an American illustrator and painter known for his religious and patriotic works; he is most famous for The Prayer at Valley Forge.  Friberg was also well regarded for his design paintings for The Ten Commandments (which earned him an Academy Award nomination) and a series of paintings of scenes from the Book of Mormon.  He grew up in Arizona and was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  When World War II began he joined the United States Army; he was offered the rank of captain to draw recruitment posters but declined, choosing instead to go to the front.  However, he did draw maps to aid in combat.

The Gleaners

Oil

Jean-Francois Millet

For what is today considered a straight-forward painting of peasant women picking up the last remnants of grain after the harvest, The Gleaners was very controversial when it was painted.  Critics claimed that it glorified the lower class worker, something that understandably made French aristocrats a little wary after the French Revolution...and the several subsequent minor revolutions.  Others appreciated the sympathetic and realistic portrayal of poverty.  The painting was also unusual because of its size--at 33 inches x 44 inches, it was trespassing into a size category usually intended for mythic and religious characters.  Instead of mighty gods or noble saints, the subjects are simple peasant women caught in the monotonous, back-breaking labor of harvest.

Millet was known for his depictions of rural farmers and landscapes.  Vincent Van Gogh, Claude Manet, and Georges Seurat were all inspired by his work, which later came to be classified as part of the Realism movement.  Millet was one of the founders of the Barbizon school, which was typified by its realistic imagery, soft colors and form.

The Favorite

Oil

Omar Rayyan, 2010

This was one that we stumbled across while searching for paintings, and I fell in love.  There isn't much I know about it except we had to recreate it.

A modern American artist influenced by the great masters of the Renaissance, Rayyan is best known for his surreal fantasy portraits.  He has also worked as an illustrator, including a book based on a poem by Christina Rossetti.

The Nightmare

Oil

Henry Fuseli, 1781

A tragically romantic painting with striking gothic overtones, The Nightmare depicts a sleeping woman with a demon sitting on her chest and a night-mare in the background.  When it was unveiled, the public was both fascinated and scandalized by the horror and subtle sensuality of the piece.  Fuseli, after the wild success of the original, painted several other versions that amped up the eroticism.

Henry Fuseli was a Swiss painter who changed his last name from Fussli to the more Italian-sounding Fuseli to be perceived as a more legitimate artist.  He was influenced by many styles and much of his work focused on the supernatural.  He was called "a master of light and shadow," and his paintings have the strong definition between light and dark that defines chiaroscuro.

Fuseli's interest in the supernatural is evident in this painting.  There is indeed a night-mare (a creature traditionally associated with bringing bad dreams and evil magic) in the painting, but the original term "nightmare" actually derives from "mara," a demon in Scandinavian folklore that tormented sleepers--usually of the female persuasion--by sitting on their chests and suffocating them.  Some critics also suggest that the demon is an incubus, a lust-demon, and this interpretation is heightened by the languorous position of the sleeper as well as the leer on the demon's face in later versions of the painting.