Famous Artists and their Art work

Leonardo Da Vinci
In 1452, Leonardo Da Vinci was born in an Italian town called Vinci. He lived in a time period called the Renaissance, when everyone was interested in art. Even though Da Vinci was a great artist, he became famous because of all the other things he could do. He was a sculptor, a scientist, an inventor, an architect, a musician, and a mathematician. When he was twenty, he helped his teacher finish a painting called The Baptism of Christ. When he was thirty, he moved to Milan. That is where he painted most of his pictures. DaVinci's paintings were done in the Realist style.

                                                                             Madonna and Child

                                                                     The Virgin of the Rocks

                                                                            The Last Supper

                                                                 The upper room of the Last Supper






Marc Chagall
Marc Chagall was born on July 7, 1887 in Vitebsk, Russia. In 1932 he moved to France. He lived in the United States from 1941 to 1948, and then returned to France. He died in France on March 28. 1985.

His painting styles are Expressionism and Cubism. In his paintings, he often painted violinists because he played the violin and also in memory of his uncle, who also played. He was also famous for his paintings of Russian-Jewish villages.

                                                                I and the Village

                                                          The Praying Jew

                                                          Over Vitebsk

                                                                               The Violinist

Fashion and Art

Art and design were more closely tied at the turn of the twentieth century than they are today. Artists did not see the difference between creating an original work of art, such as a painting, and designing a textile pattern that would be reproduced many times over. Each was a valid creative act in their eyes.

The famed French couturier Paul Poiret moved in artistic circles, employed Parisian artists, and collected their work. He went to art galleries and showed his artistic sensibilities by preferring Impressionist paintings at a time when they were new and unappreciated by the public at large. Poiret became very interested in modern art and said, "I have always liked painters. It seems to me that we are in the same trade and that they are my colleagues."

The Fauvist painter Francis Picabia was his friend, and they shared a love of bright color with other painters Maurice Vlaminck and Andre Derain, whom he knew from sailing excursions on the Seine in Chatou. Among other artists whose work he collected were Picasso, Matisse, Dufy, Rouault, and Utrillo.

Poiret also loved the theater and throughout his career designed costumes for the theater that served as a springboard for his couture designs. He was famous for his parties, elaborate costume dramas with decorations by modern artists.

Poiret’s theatrical background explains his great interest in the Ballet Russes, whose first appearance in Paris in 1909 impressed Poiret so much. With their colorful designs by Leon Bakst, echoing Russian peasant art, the costumes and sets expressed for Poiret not only the exoticism celebrated by painters like Picasso, but the appeal of spontaneity, a concept at the heart of much modern art. Immediately he began including "oriental" motifs in his dress designs.

The fashion press employed fine artists to illustrate the designs of the day. A new technique in printing–pochoir–allowed fashion illustrators to show broad, abstract expanses of bright color and a simple line. Poiret realized its potential from the beginning and employed printmaker Paul Iribe to illustrate his radically simplified gowns. In 1908 Iribe illustrated ten Poiret gowns in a limited edition titled les Robes de Paul Poiret; racontées par Paul Iribe.

Poiret was only the best known and best documented of couturiers with connections to the art world. Many other couturiers in the first half of the twentieth century were not only collectors, but also friends of artists. Some collaborated with modern artists in the design of couture or in other artistic projects, especially for ballet and the stage.

The interest of artists in fashion was not restricted to France. From the artists of the Glasgow School in the nineteenth century, to the Russian Constructivists, Bakst, the Wiener Werkstatte, many participated in other aspects of art and design–including illustration, theater design, decorative arts, and even advertising art. Couturiers traditionally participated in events that showcased the decorative arts, taking part in international expositions since the first appearance of the designer Charles Worth at the Crystal Palace Exhibition in London in 1851. Poiret belonged to the Société des Artistes Décorateurs, founded in 1901 for the promotion and display of modern French art.

Through the first half of the twentieth century, fashion design tracked and echoed trends in modern art. The developing aesthetic of modernism can be followed in the progression of fashion design from the heavily corseted S-curved silhouettes that reflected Art Nouveau interpretation of the female form early in the century to the first uncorseted, tubular, simplified silhouette that arrived before the First World War and continued into the 1920s, to the streamlined, body-hugging dresses of the 1930s.

Designers in the early years of the century could choose fabrics with designs from the stylized organic motifs of Art Nouveau or the flat, abstract designs of the Vienna Secession movement–both styles having originated in the 1890s. Cubist painters, whose canvases presented greatly abstracted objects to a shocked world, influenced fashion silhouettes. Tubular dresses and rounded cloche hats turned women’s bodies into geometric shapes that echoed those found in modern paintings.

The chemise dresses of the early 20s were a perfect foil for surface design. Taking advantage of the plain tubular shape as a painter’s canvas, each garment could be highly decorated with beading and ornamentation. Underlying this would be a textile pattern based on Japanese, Egyptian, Persian, or Viennese design.

In the late 1920s, a new streamlined design aesthetic dubbed Moderne (now known as Art Deco) combined Cubism’s geometric base with sinuous embellishments. Once again, textile patterns and fashion design echoed the trend. Shiny fabrics only enhanced the connection with the "speed" of modern life–and art.

The dresses, coats, bathing suits, and evening wraps found in the Tirocchi shop, when placed chronologically, chart for the observer not only the changing silhouette of fashion, but reflect the fact that fashion was part of an aesthetic that was part and parcel of its time. From the chemise and cloche of the 1920s, echoing Cubist concerns, to the evening dresses of the 1930s, with the body-skimming silhouettes and reflective surfaces, each garment has a particular relationship to the art of its time.

The designers of these garments–and by extension Anna and Laura Tirocchi and their clientele–were reflecting the developing aesthetic of the early twentieth century and asking the question, "What does it mean to be modern?" The Twentieth Century felt "new" to people. Advances in technology increased the speed of life and the speed of change. Artists and designers responded to this new age with their work. The Tirocchis and their customers watched modern trends with interest, and did their best to wrap themselves in clothes of a new age.

Nail Art

The history of nail fashion begins al the way back in 3000 B.C. There is evidence that the Chinese used a type of enamel on their fingers that once applied, after leaving for several hours, it would turn the nail a reddish/ pink color.  In India, dye derived from the Henna plant was used on the fingernails, and this left a type of reddish brown stain.

Nail art began to advance in modern society, beginning in the 19th century. In 1830, the orange wood stick was developed in Europe and this began to modernize the process of a nail manicure. Towards the end of the 19th century, salons increased across the United States, attributed in part to the popularization of the manicure. 

When the automobile began mass production in the 1920s, automobile paint also inspired a more modern nail polish. While popular celebrities had often sported only unpolished nails, this changed by 1925 when nail polish entered the popular market in a shade of red. When this happened, the “moon manicure” became wildly popular. This manicure method involved painting the middle of the nail, but leaving the moon of the nail, at the bottom, unpainted. Sometimes the tip was left unpainted as well.  
As the century wore on, nail fashion continued to grow. Nail polish began to be used to communicate certain trends and subcultures as well. Thus, nail art became an important cultural signifier. Black nail polish, for example became popular among Goths, rock stars and punks in the 1970s and it often still is a common trend today among these groups. More recently, nail polish has gained popularity among men as well. Though clear manicures on men are more common, sometimes colors have been sported on the men’s nails.

Nail art is the practice of painting decorative designs on your fingernails, is a fun way to brighten up your everyday look or accessorize a special occasion outfit. There are a variety of nail art designs available, ranging from subtle and understated to funky and outrageous. For example, you could choose to paint flowers on your nails for a date or spell out the name of your favorite athletic team on the day of the big game. While the more intricate designs are best left to a professional, it’s possible to create simple nail art at home.

The key to any successful nail art design is starting with clean and well-shaped nails. Nails should be neatly trimmed and filed before painting. Even the most accomplished artist can’t create an attractive design on nails that have been bitten down to stubs. If your natural nails are beyond repair, consider applying artificial acrylic nails before painting your nail art design.

There are three methods often used for placing nail art designs on the nails. These include nail art stickers, freehand drawing using nail polish, or airbrushing using an airbrush and a stencil. Using these three different methods, it is possible to place virtually any type of design imaginable on the nails; many people choose to place a small jewel sticker on the nails, while others will choose nail art designs such as flowers or seasonal images.

Pop Art:

While the term Pop Art is widely known nowadays, its artistic scope and the issues it raises are nonetheless frequently misunderstood. Pop Art in Britain refers to a group of artists who began appearing on the scene in the mid-1950s. This identity was formed around The Independent Group, an intellectual circle consisting of the painters Eduardo Palazzo and Richard Hamilton, the architectural partnership of Alison and Peter Smithson, and the art critic Lawrence Alloway. In its theoretical explorations, The Independent Group focused on a theoretical exploration of technology, hence the recurring references to science-fiction in British Pop Art. 

American Pop Art had no explicit linkups with British Pop Art and refers to a tendency that arose from individual initiatives. Though it was not a structured movement in the sense of a group putting on collective shows, it does however have certain coherence. In general terms, it emerged from the work of Robert Rauschenberg and, chiefly, Jasper Johns, and is characterized by an interest in ordinary objects, irony, and a faith in the potency of images. American Pop Art has its home specifically in New York, where at the outset artists such as Claes Oldenburg and Jim Dine, Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol exhibited, then James Rosenquist, George Segal and Tom Wesselman... 

Abbreviation of Popular Art, the Pop Art movement used common everyday objects to portray elements of popular culture, primarily images in advertising and television. The term Pop art was first used by English critic, Lawrence Allow in 1958 in an edition of Architectural Digest. He was describing all post-war work centered on consumerism and materialism, and that rejected the psychological allusions of Abstract Expressionism. An attempt to bring art back into American daily life, it rejected abstract painting because of its sophisticated and elite nature. Pop Art shattered the divide between the commercial arts and the fine arts.

The Pop Art movement originated in England in the 1950s and traveled overseas to the United States during the 1960s. Richard Hamilton and Eduardo Paolozzi, both members of the Independent Group, pioneered the movement in London in the 1950s. In the 1960s, the movement was carried by Peter Blake, Patrick Caulfield, David Hockney, Allen Jones, and Peter Phillips. In the early sixties, Pop art found its way to the United States, seen in the work of Jim Dine, Roy Lichtenstein, and Robert Rauschenberg. It developed in the United States as a response to the wealth of the post World War II era and the growing materialism and consumerism in society. The most recognized Pop Artist, Andy Warhol, used a photo-realistic, mass production printmaking technique called seriagraphy to produce his commentaries on media, fame, and advertising.

Pop Art made commentary on contemporary society and culture, particularly consumerism, by using popular images and icons and incorporating and re-defining them in the art world. Often subjects were derived from advertising and product packaging, celebrities, and comic strips. The images are presented with a combination of humor, criticism and irony. In doing this, the movement put art into terms of everyday, contemporary life. It also helped to decrease the gap between "high art" and "low art" and eliminated the distinction between fine art and commercial art methods.

Philippines Art

Fine Art

  

                                 Four Trees

                           Starry Night


                                     

                Irises, Saint-Remy      

           Farm Garden With Sunflower

          Starry Night Over The Rhone 

                           Rest Print

                             Nature Morte

            Rhythm, Joie de Vivre

      The Seated Man, or the Architect

                            Moon Light



                   Almond Branches in Bloom

Michelangelo, the Genius Artist

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) was possibly the greatest artist that ever lived. Besides his inherent genius, which alone would have paved the road to his greatness, two events helped him rise even higher: to be born during the most fertile period in Western art in the most artistically developed country of the time: Renaissance Italy.

Not only was Michelangelo a sculptor — his preferred art — he was also a supreme fresco painter — The Creation and The Last Judgement, both in the Sistine Chapel are his — as well as an architect and poet.

He began his career in Florence while the city was at its height, under Lorenzo the Magnificent and moved to and fro Rome, soon to reach its apogee under a series of great popes: Julius II and Leon X, the latter a Medici and a Florentine.

Birth and Early Life

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, his full name, was born on 6 March 1475 at Caprese, while his father was still Podestà of Chiusi and Caprese, a charge he fulfilled until 30 March of the same year, after which the family returned to Settignano, not far from Florence. His mother was Francesca di Neri del Miniato del Sera, who died  in 1481, while Michelangelo was still a child.

At last, in 1488, his father gave in and, realising his son’s interest for painting could not be quenched, enrolled him in the workshop of Domenico Ghirlandaio for a period of three years, where, against the normal practice of the times, Michelangelo received a salary.

Apparently it was during this period he began his career as a sculptor. He had access to the collection of Sculptures in the Medici Garden, a connection which eventually drew him into the Medici circle.

After the death of Julius II in 1513, the two Medici popes, Leo X (1513-21) and Clement VII (1523-34) preferred to keep Michelangelo well away from Rome and from the tomb of Julius II, so that he could work on the Medici church of San Lorenzo in Florence. This work was aborted too, although Michelangelo was able to fulfill some of his architectural and sculptural projects in the Laurentian Library and the New Sacristy, or Medici Chapel, of San Lorenzo. The Medici Chapel fell not far short of being completed: two of the Medici tombs intended for the Chapel were installed Tomb of Giuliano de' Medici and Tomb of Lorenzo de' Medici, and for the 3rd Michelangelo had carved his last great Madonna (unfinished) when he left Florence forever in 1534.
 

It was during this period, while he was planning the tombs in the New Sacristy, that the sacking of Rome occurred (1527), and when Florence was besieged shortly after, he helped in fortifying the city, which finally came back into Medici hands in 1530. While the siege was still on, he managed to get away for a while to look after his own property. He incurred the displeasure of Alessandro de Medici, who was murdered by Lorenzino in 1537. This event he commemorated in his bust of Brutus.
 

In September 1534, Michelangelo settled down finally in Rome, and he was to stay there for the rest of his life, despite flattering invitations from Cosimo I Medici at Florence. The new Pope, a Farnese who took the name of Paul III, confirmed the commission that Clement VII had already given him for a large fresco of The Last Judgment over the altar of the Sistine Chapel. Far from being an extension of the ceiling, this was entirely a novel statement. Between 2 projects about 20 years had passed, full of political events and personal sorrows. The mood of The Last Judgment is somber; the vengeful naked Christ is not a figure of consolation, and even the Saved struggle painfully towards Salvation. The work was officially unveiled on 31 October 1541.
 

Michelangelo's last paintings were frescos of the Cappella Paolina just beside the Sistine Chapel, completed in 1550, when he was 75 years old, The Conversion of Paul and The Crucifixion of St. Peter. Michelangelo's crowning achievement, however, was architectural. In 1537-39, he received commission to reshape Campidoglio, the top of Rome's Capitoline Hill, into a squire. Although not completed until long after his death, the project was carried out essentially as he had designed it. In 1546, Michelangelo was appointed architect to St. Peter's. The cathedral was constructed according to Donato Bramante’s plan, but Michelangelo became ultimately responsible for its dome and the altar end of the building on the exterior.
 

He continued in his last years to write poetry, he carved the two extraordinary, haunting and pathetic late Pietas, one of them The Rondanini Pieta in Milan, on which he was working 6 days before his death. He died on 18th of February 1564 at the age of 89 and was buried in Florence according to his wishes.
 

Michelangelo's prestige stands very high nowadays, as it did in his own age. He went out of favor for a time, especially in the 17th century, on account of a general preference for the works of Raphael, Correggio and Titian; but with the early Romantics in England, and the return to the Gothic, he made an impressive return. In the 20th century the unfinished, unresolved creations of the great master evoked especially great interest, maybe because in the 20th century “the aesthetic focus becomes not simply the created art object, but the inextricable relationship of the artist's personality and his work.”

Mona Lisa's eyes is a mysterious code

Hidden behind the Mona Lisa's eyes is a mysterious code made of letters and numbers, according to a controversial claim by members of Italy's national committee for cultural heritage.
Magnifying high-resolution images of the world’s most famous painting would reveal hidden letters and numbers added by Leonardo Da Vinci, said Silvano Vinceti, president of the Committee.
“To the naked eye, the symbols are hard to distinguish, but with a magnifying glass you can see the letters LV behind the right pupil (the left when watching the painting). They could stand for his name Leonardo Da Vinci,” Vinceti told the Italian news agency ANSA.
Even harder to decode would be the symbols in the left pupil (the right when watching the painting).
According to Vinceti, they appear to be the letters CE or simply the letter B. Other symbols would be hidden in the landscape, more precisely in the arch of the bridge.
“They seem to be the number 72, or it could be an L and the number 2,” Vinceti said.
While it is quickly spreading over the Internet to the delight of Dan Brown’s fans, the claim has not gained much support among Leonardo scholars.
“I can’t offer any comment on the scientific value of this 'finding' since the scientific basis to support it are missing,” Carlo Pedretti, the world's leading scholar in Leonardo studies, told Discovery News.
“Under the microscope, the eyes of the original Mona Lisa -- not those appearing in magnifying high-resolution images -- do not present any cryptic sign, such as numbers or letters, but only the craquelure (or cracking) also visible to the naked eye,” Pedretti, who heads the Armand Hammer Center for Leonardo Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, said.
Alessandro Vezzosi, the director of the Museo Ideale in the Tuscan town of Vinci, where Leonardo was born in 1452, agrees.
“Scientific tests such as non-invasive X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy have revealed many interesting features, but certainly no letters and numbers,” Vezzosi told Discovery News.
“People are so fascinated by this painting that they can see everything in it,” said Vezzosi, the curator of a traveling exhibition called “Mona Lisa Is Naked,” which explores the impact of the enigmatic lady on art while gathering portraits of a half-naked women with clear links to the famous (and clothed) Mona Lisa.
Completed toward the end of the life of Leonardo, who lived from 1452 to 1519, the Mona Lisa has raised
Some, including Vinceti, claimed that the woman with the enigmatic smile was a self-portrait, Leonardo Da Vinci in drag.
Others suggested that the sitter was either Caterina Sforza, the illegitimate daughter of Galeazzo Maria Sforza, Duke of Milan; Isabella of Aragon, the Duchess of Milan; or Costanza d'Avalos, Duchess of Francavilla, a mistress of Giuliano de Medici.
In 2005, Veit Probst, director of the Heidelberg University Library, found evidence in notes written in October 1503 in the margin of a book that Leonardo’s model was Lisa Gherardini, a member of a minor noble family of rural origins who married the merchant Francesco del Giocondo.
Attempts to solve the enigma around her smile, described by the 16th century artist and writer Giorgio Vasari as "more divine than human," have included theories that the noblewoman was happily pregnant, suffering from asthma, had facial paralysis or that the smile was the result of a compulsive gnashing of teeth.
Another disease attributed to Mona Lisa is an inherited cholesterol disorder called familial hypercholesterolemia.
The disorder is highlighted by a wart-like lesion of the skin near the left eye (the right when watching the painting) which is basically a cholesterol skin deposit called xanthelasma.
Interestingly, none of the known reproductions of the Mona Lisa feature such skin lesion.
"We might come to the conclusion that none of the copies which have come down to us were based upon a direct confrontation with the Louvre picture, and hence were more than likely copies of copies," the late art historian James Beck wrote in a 2007 paper on the subject.