Two years ago, in a desperate attempt to cope with Covid social restrictions, we embarked on an art recreation adventure that spiraled wildly out of control. This year, during a much needed spring break, and at the request of my kids—who somehow managed to forget all the screaming involved and remember the photo shoots as “fun”—we revisited the project again, though on a more limited scale. It was a welcome escape from the wreck that was my life in March. Thanks to the distractions of moving, I never got around to posting these pictures to the blog. I'd say I'm sorry, but I would tell a lie. Everything in its own time, right? Right. And it's been kind of nice, looking back at some fun projects from a less stressful part of my life.
Anyway. Enough talking. Enjoy. Outtakes included and clearly marked.
Two Women at a Window
Bartolome Esteban Murillo
Oil on Canvas, 1655-1660
Murillo was a Spanish Baroque painter famous for his prolific religious paintings as well as his works depicting women, children, and scenes of daily life. His style is slightly luminous but realistic, and reflects the influence of the Flemish masters.
I like this painting because of the expression in the women’s faces. It is easy to imagine them admiring and laughing at some handsome young men in the street. The girls were good sports, hanging out of the window in subzero temperatures.
Self-Portrait at 26
Albrecht Durer
Oil on wood, 1498
This is one of three official self-portraits of Durer, a rather confident and prolific German artist during the Renaissance. His works include engravings, altarpieces, portraits, watercolors, and books. He is credited with introducing the Classical themes of the Renaissance into Northern European art. Reflecting the multi-faceted priorities and disciplines of the Renaissance, Durer also wrote multiple theoretical treatises on mathematics, perspective, and ideal proportions.
His self-portraits showcase his dramatic style as well as his high opinion of himself as an artist. Self Portrait at 26 depicts Durer as a wealthy and respected artist after his first trip to Italy in 1498. This wasn’t hyperbole on his part, as he was widely recognized across Europe by this point.
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Depiction of Barbara van Beck
Richard Gaywood.
Engraving, approximately 1660.
Barbara van Beck was a German woman born in 1629 with hypertrichosis, a disorder that causes excessive body hair. Her parents put her on display and charged people to gawk at her, but mitigated their terrible-parent status by also providing her with an education, something that many girls did not receive in that era. As an adult she was known both for her appearance and for playing the harpsichord. After 1668 there is no mention of her, and it is presumed that she died.
Richard Gaywood was a prolific English engraver known mostly for his portraits and the frontis pieces and title pages for books. Engraving is the process of carving lines into a hard, flat material, usually metal. Prints can be made by applying ink to the engraving and pressing it to paper.
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Le Despere (Desperation or The Desperate Man)
Gustave Courbet
Oil on canvas, 1843-45.
Gustave Courbet was a French artist who led the Realism movement, rejecting the Romanticism and conventions of the previous generation. His first paintings were of peasants and workers, often painted in the grand scale reserved for religious and historical subjects. He felt that artists could only accurately depict the present, not the past or future, and that based only on their own experience. For Courbet, Realism was not about capturing every exact detail perfectly, but rather about the emotional reality of the scene, the roughness and harshness of life, and that is seen in his brushwork.
Courbet’s earlier work reflected his concern for the vulgar and often exploited members of society, drawing comparisons with Jean-Francois Millet and his most famous work, The Gleaners (which we did last year). An active socialist, Courbet was exiled from France due to his involvement in the Paris Commune, a socialist group that took over Paris for two months in 1871 and refused to accept the authority of the French government.
Rocking the goatee.
Le Despere is a self portrait of Courbet. If you decide to look up more of his works, be warned that there are a couple of graphic nudes that will pop up. Realism, after all, isn’t about sexless dolls leaning on columns or surrounded by cherubs. Unfortunately.
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In the Grass
Arthur Hughes
Oil on canvas, 1864-65.
If this looks familiar, it's because we have previously dabbled with Romanticism in general and Hughes in particular. Romanticism was an artistic movement that focused on emotion, nature, and individualism, and glorified the past. It was a reaction to and rebuke of the Industrial Revolution. Hughes was also influenced by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, which is reflected in his saturated colors, rich detail, and the casual pose of his subject. Interestingly, the women in Pre-Raphaelite art are often red-heads, a trend we’ve seen as we worked through these recreations. This isn't a surprising twist, as Romanticism was concerned with emotion and symbolism, and red hair is symbolic of passion and a touch of wildness.
Arthur Hughes led a fairly standard artistic life: he was born, he painted, he married one of his model/muses, and he died. Upon his death he left over 700 drawings and paintings and 750 book illustrations. He illustrated The Princess and the Goblin as well as two of Christina Rossetti’s (acclaimed poet and sister of Pre-Raphaelite Dante Gabriel Rossetti) books of poetry.
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Perseus with the Head of Medusa
Benvenuto Cellini
Bronze sculpture, 1545-1554.
Cellini was an accomplished soldier, goldsmith, draftsman, musician and artist during the Italian Renaissance. Perseus is one of his most famous pieces. Commissioned by Cosimo de Medici, the Duke of Florence, it depicts the Greek hero Perseus after he decapitated Medusa. Medusa was a monster whose gaze turned men to stone. Interestingly, this statue was placed so that the three nearest statues were of men made of marble. Several of the surrounding sculptures (Judith and Holofernes, David, Hercules and Cacus) also depict characters who beheaded their enemies. A certain motif sends a message, am I right? The message: Don't **** with the Medicis.
Bronze was chosen specifically to make a statement about the wealth, skill, and technical abilities of Florence under the Medici family. Bronze had not been used in decades because it was difficult to work with—it had to be cast, a lengthy process, and it often had to be made in pieces that were later joined together. Cellini managed to cast it in one piece.
I love working with the blackout cloth, and this manic little Medusa is my favorite.
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Me and My Parrots
Frida Kahlo
Oil, 1941
Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderon, better known as Frida Kahlo, is one of the most well known Mexican artists. Her work draws heavily from the native culture of her beloved country and she is often considered a surrealist or magical realist because of the fantastical elements in her work. A lot of her work depicts Kahlo herself. Her struggles with chronic pain and life-long medical issues stemming from polio as a child and a bus accident at 18 also flavors many of her paintings.
Kahlo was very politically active, both as a communist and in the Mexicayotl movement, which sought to build a unifying Mexican identity. Though she achieved international recognition as an artist in life, she became iconic after her death.
Me and My Parrots is a self-portrait of Kahlo with some of her many pets. The birds are a textural and emotional contrast to Kahlo. She is smooth and simple and dignified, and the birds are detailed and ruffled and protective. The strong, bold colors and calm yet challenging stare are common in Kahlo’s work.
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Self Portrait (portrait de l’artiste sous les traits d’un moqueur)
Joseph Ducreux
Oils, 1793
Joseph Ducreux was a French noble, painter, pastelist, miniaturist, and engraver at the French court before the Revolution. He was first painter to the queen, and drew the last portrait of Louis XVI prior to his execution. He resumed his career at the end of the French Revolution. After 1760, though he catalogued his paintings meticulously, he didn’t sign many of them, which lead to many of his works being credited to other artists.
Ducreux was deeply interested in physiognomy, which is the idea that a person’s physical traits are indicative of their personality. His less formal portraits, and particularly his self portraits, reflect this interest. This painting, for example, shows the traits of a mocker. It is immediately identifiable and unique compared to the more reserved expressions and poses common in formal portraiture.
We have two versions. I forgot the "hair" in the first one, and I can't decide which version is better, so you get both.
Portrait of a Man in a Red Turban
Jan van Eyck
Oils, 1433
Jan can Eyck was a Dutch painter who is credited as being one of the most significant painters in Northern Renaissance art. Some of his most famous paintings include the Ghent Altarpiece, the Arnolfini Portrait, and his Portrait of a Man in a Red Turban, which is widely believed to be a self-portrait. His style in the beginning was heavily influenced by the earlier Gothics; over his life he focused more on naturalistic and realistic styles in his art, though he was not adverse to tweaking features to achieve more of an idealized look, particularly for women. He was widely sought after for both religious commissions and secular portraits by the growing merchant and middle class, and also painted at the courts of two monarchs.
Portrait of a Man in a Red Turban reflects van Eyck’s art at the height of his skills, with its incredible attention to detail and expression. The man looks directly at the viewer, almost in challenge, which was highly unusual in portraiture at this time. This, combined with van Eyck’s prominent signature Als Ich Can (“As Well as I Can” or “As Eyck Can”, a pun on his name) is what leads art historians to suspect that this is van Eyck himself, a piece to hang in his workshop and display his skills to prospective clients.
Though we call it a turban, the hat is actually a chaperon, with the ends tied up to keep them out of the artist’s way as he painted. The lines and folds of the chaperon would be difficult to realistically render, so it is likely that this particular hat was also meant to showcase van Eyck’s ability. The chaperon itself is a sign of the wearer’s wealth, and as such is a bit of a brag.
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Now for one of my favorites....
Salvador Dali and Gala
Nikola Golubovski
Acrylics
I can’t find much about Nikola Golubovski except that he seems to be a contemporary Macedonian artist who flirts with Impressionism and surrealism like Dali.
Salvador Dali (Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dali i’ Domenech) was a Spanish (Catalonian) surrealist known for his ability as well as the bizarre imagery in his paintings. Dali was fascinated by all types of art and made forays into many various genres from painting to jewelry to film, and his work often reflected his interests in dreams, the subconscious, sexuality, religion, and science. His most well known piece is The Persistence of Memory in 1931 (for us less artsy types, it’s the melting clocks).
Instantly recognizable by his sharply waxed mustache, Dali was often deliberately ostentatious, shocking, and unpredictable in his opinions and behavior. He was at different times a communist, anarchist, apolitical, and monarchist; he wavered repeatedly between being a devout Catholic, a mystic, and anti-clerical. He was aware of his own notoriety and embraced it wholeheartedly. The love of his odd life was his wife and muse Gala, otherwise known as Elena Ivanovna Diakonova.
Surrealism was a cultural movement that began in Europe after World War I. It was focused on exploring the juxtaposition of the subconscious and reality. It was heavily influenced by Dadaism, a movement that began as a critique of the war and contemporary capitalist society, logic, and aesthetics that many of the involved artists saw as leading to the war. They protested by diving into the irrational and celebrating the anti-bourgeois.
This is a lot of background information for a picture of a woman riding a mustachioed snail.
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Unidentified Meme #1
No Idea
Probably oils.
We are coming to the end. Here is the first of two requested memes. I don’t know anything about the art, but it was fun to do. It looks like it’s from the Middle Ages to me because of the flatness of the composition and the religious and historical topic, which is probably the martyrdom of some innocents or possibly Saints.
In the interest of educational integrity, I just put in another 20 minutes in Google. I still got nothing.
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Unidentified Meme #2
Somebody
Oils. It's always oils.
The second meme recreation, which I also know nothing about. There are a lot of 18th and 19th century paintings of women. After half an hour on Google, I gave up and just enjoyed the meme. Five months later, that's still all I know.
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Young Beauty Wearing a Red Veil
Gustave Doyen
Oil on Canvas, 1880
Our second to final piece in this mini-adventure, this was painted by Gustave Doyen, a French painter in the late 19th and early 20th century. There isn’t a lot of readily available information on him or the painting, so you’re spared the long winded description. You're welcome.
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And now we come to the end...
The Last Supper
Leonardo Da Vinci
Oil and Tempura on gesso, 1495-1498
The Last Supper was painted over several years on a wall in the dining hall of the Santa Maria delle Grazie monastery in Milan, Italy. It was commissioned by da Vinci’s patron, Ludovico Sforza. The mural was not painted as a traditional fresco, where the paint would be applied directly to wet plaster and allowed to dry and become, in essence, part of the wall. Instead, da Vinci sealed the wall with layers of gesso, pitch, and mastic, then painted over it with oils and tempera, which is a quick-drying and translucent paint with egg yolks as a binder. This type of paint led to the degeneration of the painting over the centuries; this, combined with multiple restorations over the years, means that very little of the original painting is left. I've included two versions of the original so that you can see the detail.
As you could probably guess from the title, the painting depicts the last supper, when Christ and his disciples were marking the feast of the Passover. Christ has just announced that one of his disciples will betray him, and they are reacting in anger and shock. There are many unique details about this work, but I’ll limit myself to two: first, unlike many other paintings on this subject, Judas is not segregated in some way—he is in the thick of the group, shadowed but not separate. The other is that da Vinci used perspective to draw attention to Christ and his preparation to institute the sacrament: his face is the vanishing point of the painting, and the lines of his face, gaze, clothing, and lighting draw the viewer’s eye to the bread that will represent his body and sacrifice. Many of the apostles are based off of people da Vinci saw in Milan. One apocryphal story even claims that Judas is modeled on a prior that was critical of da Vinci.
This recreation was hands down the most challenging of either set. We had to conscript two other families, which stretched my costume box, and even then we’re still short of the thirteen needed. The kids were great and made it work anyway. My personal favorite part of prep was the beard drawing; several of the kids flaunted them for the rest of the day.
One of my favorite outtakes. "Really, Judas? Really?"
The best crew.
And now for a bonus...
Der Schrei der Natur (The Scream of Nature, German)
Skrik (Shriek, Norwegian)
The Scream (everybody else)
Edvard Munch
Oil, tempera, pastel and crayon on cardboard, 1893.
Expressionism is an artistic movement that seeks to "express the meaning of an emotional experience rather than reality" (thanks, Wikipedia), and that intention is clear in The Scream. Edvard Munch was supposedly inspired by an "infinite scream passing through nature" as he watched a dramatic red sunset. Like any good Expressionist, he had no compunction about distorting the realism in favor of capturing the subjective, emotional essence of the moment. Over the years Munch created four copies of his most recognizable work, two in pastels and two painted. Both painted versions were stolen and ultimately recovered.
The Scream is a fitting opus for Munch, who spent much of his life plagued by fears of congenital mental illness, anxiety, and poor physical health. After receiving treatment for a breakdown in 1908, his anxiety and mental health stabilized and he found some measure of peace in his work and life. His works were labeled as "degenerate" in Nazi-controlled Europe, but most survived the war and were ultimately returned to his native Norway.
And that's all, folks.
I don’t know if I’ll do it again next year, but if you run across a piece of art that makes you think of us, send it my way and call Manchester. Or memes. Memes could be fun.
