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.

Mona Lisa's Mysteries

The Mona Lisa is 16th century oil painting created by the renowned Leonardo da Vinci. The work of art depicts an enigmatic woman gazing at the viewer, and it is said that if you move across the room while looking into her eyes, they’ll follow you. It is definitely one of the most popular paintings worldwide and has been the center of many artistic, religious, and theoretical debates. The French government currently owns the Mona Lisa and it is featured at the Musee du Louvre in Paris. The painting can also be referred to as La Gioconda or La Joconde.

The name of the painting stems from the name of the woman in the portrait, Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a wealthy businessman in Florence, Italy named Francesco del Giocondo. Mona means ‘my lady’ or ‘madam’ in modern Italian, so the title is simply Madam Lisa. Art historians agree that Leonardo da Vinci likely began painting the Mona Lisa in 1503, and completed it within 4 years. In 1516 the King of France, King Francois, bought the painting and it is thought that after Leonardo’s death the painting was cut down. Some speculators think that the original had columns on both sides of the lady, whereas other art critics believe that the painting was never cut down in size. It has been suggested that there were 2 versions of the Mona Lisa painting, but many historians reject the second version. The duplicate copy can be found at the Dulwich Picture Gallery. After the French revolution the painting was moved to the Louvre, and Napoleon had it placed in his bedroom for a short time before it was returned to the Louvre. The popularity of the Mona Lisa increased in the mid 19th century because of the Symbolist movement. The painting was thought to encompass a sort of feminine mystique.

In 1911 the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre. The art thief hid in a broom closet until the museum closed, stole the painting, hid it under his jacket and walked out the front door. Eduardo de Valfierno was the mastermind behind the theft and has planned to make copies of the original and sell them as the real thing. Eventually, in 1913, he was caught when trying to sell the original to a Florence art dealer. The Mona Lisa is most famous for her facial expression, her enigmatic smile and da Vinci’s mastering of tone and color in the painting. There is much mythology and interpretations relating to the painting that mystify the world. Many art critics and art history buffs suggest that the Mona Lisa is actually a portrait of da Vinci himself in feminine form. In addition, most viewers see the meaning behind Mona Lisa’s smile very differently.
Mona Lisa mysteries
A zoomed-in image of Mona Lisa's left eye revealed a single brush stroke in the eyebrow region, Cotte said.
"I am an engineer and scientist, so for me all has to be logical. It was not logical that Mona Lisa does not have any eyebrows or eyelashes," Cotte told LiveScience. "I discovered one hair of the eyebrow."
Another conundrum had been the position of the subject's right arm, which lies across her stomach. This was the first time, Cotte said, that a painter had rendered a subject's arm and wrist in such a position. While other artists had never understood da Vinci's reasoning, they copied it nonetheless.

"The wrist of the right hand is up high on the stomach. But if you look deeply in the infrared you understand that she holds a cover with her wrist," Cotte said.
Behind a painting
The infrared images also revealed da Vinci's preparatory drawings that lie behind layers of varnish and paint, showing that the Renaissance man was also human.
"If you look at the left hand you see the first position of the finger, and he changed his mind for another position," Cotte said. "Even Leonardo da Vinci had hesitation."
Other revelations include:

• Lace on Mona Lisa's dress
• The transparency of the veil shows da Vinci first painted a landscape and then used transparency techniques to paint the veil atop it.
• A change in the position of the left index and middle finger.
• The elbow was repaired from damage due to a rock thrown at the painting in 1956.
• The blanket covering Mona Lisa's knees also covers her stomach.
• The left finger was not completely finished.
• A blotch mark on the corner of the eye and chin are varnish accidents, countering claims that Mona Lisa was sick.
• And the Mona Lisa was painted on uncut poplar board, contrary to speculations.

In the larger picture, Cotte said when he stands back and looks up at the enlarged infrared image of Mona Lisa, her beauty and mystique are apparent.
"If you are in front of this huge enlargement of Mona Lisa, you understand instantly why Mona Lisa is so famous," Cotte said. He added, it's something you have to see with your own eyes.

GULJEE The famous Artist of pakistan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                      Gulgee, 1926-2007

For Gulgee, the famous and celebrated artist of Pakistan and the subcontinent, life has been a journey in more than one sense, giving him thrill and bliss that are both sensuous and ethereal. He has been to many places and done things that are varied and glorious. At the age of 79, though the visits have become fewer, he remains as zestful a traveler in the realm of the intellect and the senses as he was when the journey began quite early in life. In his inward journey, he remains and intrepid and ever curious.
Born in Peshawar, Gulgee went to Aligarh University to study civil engineering and came off with flying colours. His academic achievements in the university broke all past records and the outstanding stature attained remained unsurpassed. Higher studies took him to Columbia University where he completed post-graduate studies with straight A S and in record time, too. He was offered a full scholarship for doctoral studies by Harvard University, a recognition that any scholar would be proud of. When he successfully completed the academic spell in Harvard, partition had taken place and Pakistan emerged as an independent country.
Gulgee returned to Pakistan, after a short spell in Sweden, with the ambition to start a career that was close to his heart. It was not as an engineer but as an artist that the heart’s desire could be fulfilled. For a person who had prepared himself for a career that had bright prospects and immense prestige, to aspire to become an artist with an uncertain future was not only unusual but it also made him appear as a maverick.
Ismail Gulgee - The Gulgeez  Pride of Performance, Sitara-e-Imtiaz (twice), Hilal-e-Imtiaz, was an award-winning, globally famous Pakistani. He was Ismaili Nizari Muslim (Aga Khani) by faith. He was a qualified engineer in the U.S. and self-taught abstract painter and portrait painter. Before 1959, as portraitist, he painted the entire Afghan Royal Family. From about 1960 on, he was noted as an abstract painter influenced by the tradition of Islamic calligraphy and by the American "action painting" idiom.

The American-Pakistani artists Lubna Aga

Amongst the foremost contemporary American-Pakistani artists is Lubna Agha, whose images challenge the immovable qualities of traditional Islamic art and artifacts to provide a vibrant and ephemeral experience of two contradictory theme.

About Lubna Aga

An important figure in American Pakistan art circles, Lubna Agha’s work involves discourse with her personal history. Whereas the revival of miniature paintings and calligraphy characterize much of modern Pakistan art and contemporary Islamic paintings, Agha’s work draws inspiration from the rich tradition of the past where the meditative and ornamental qualities of the original media take on new meaning and intimacy.
Her art invokes a dialogue between the modern-abstract and the traditional forms and practices of Islamic paintings. This work taps into the profound energy found in ageless artifacts, architecture, manuscripts and motifs — from places as geographically disparate as South Asia and North Africa. She paints mainly on canvas and wood, applying an infinite number of painted pixels and organic shapes that evoke mosaic tiling, intricate carvings, and ornate metalwork.
The total copse of her work resists categorization. Deeply rooted in her personal history, the work is not constrained in the rigid constructions of a traditional heritage. The result is a contemporary visual language that is compelling, richly aesthetic, and stirring to the spirit.

Her paintings point to a new and personal direction in modern Islamic art. She has been the subject of numerous publications — critiques, monographs, and a biography. Her paintings are part of several private and public collections. Her work has been exhibited in art museums and galleries in her homelands of Pakistan and the United States, as well as Britain, Japan, Jordan, and Switzerland.     

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