Lyrical Abstraction

Lyrical Abstraction is a French style of abstract painting current in the 1945 -1960. Very close to Art Informel, presents the European equivalent to Abstract Expressionism. The name Tachisme is sometimes used to describe the style.

In 1947 the painter Georges Mathieu organized the exhibition "Abstraction lyrique" in Paris. The term that Mathieu chose for the exhibition, pointing clearly to the gap separating "cold" geometric abstraction from a "hot" organic and lyrical form of abstraction. Works by Wols, Hartung and Riopelle were exhibited.

Lyrical Abstraction is a French style of abstract painting current in the 1945 -1960. Very close to Art Informel, presents the European equivalent to Abstract Expressionism. The name Tachisme is sometimes used to describe the style.

In 1947 the painter Georges Mathieu organized the exhibition "Abstraction lyrique" in Paris. The term that Mathieu chose for the exhibition, pointing clearly to the gap separating "cold" geometric abstraction from a "hot" organic and lyrical form of abstraction. Works by Wols, Hartung and Riopelle were exhibited. Read More...

Optical Art

Op Art made its appearance in the United States and Europe in the late 1950s. Op Art, also called Optical Art, was popular along side Pop Art. Branching from the geometric abstraction movement, Op Art includes paintings concerned with surface kinetics. It was a movement which exploits the fallibility of the eye through the use of optical illusions. The viewer gets the impression of movement by flashing and vibration, or alternatively of swelling or warping. Two techniques used to achieve this effect are perspective illusion and chromatic tension. Artists used colors, lines and shapes repetitive and simple ways to create perceived movement and to trick the viewer's eye. Many of first, the better known pieces were made in only black and white.

Op Art was encompassing artists of very different nationalities, including Soto (Venezuelan), Agam (Israeli), Vasarely (Hungarian) and Riley (English). The aim of Op Art was to produce illusions of depth, relief and motion; it would blur or stir the eye, but never by resorting to actual movement (as in Kinetic Art).

The term first appeared in print in Time Magazine in October 1964. Victor Vasarely's 1930s works such as Zebra (1938), which is made up entirely of diagonal black and white stripes curved in a way to give a three-dimensional impression of a seated zebra, should be considered the first works of Op Art.

The Parisian gallery owner Denise Rene was the very first person to show Op Art to the public.

In 1965 The Museum of Modern Art in New York put on a major Op Art exhibition, The Responsive Eye. This show did a great deal to make op art prominent, and many of the artists now considered important in the style exhibited there.

Op art subsequently became tremendously popular, and Op Art images were used in a number of commercial contexts. The artist Vasarely helped the most to popularize Op Art projects and research; he produced many of his works within the architecture and planning of large cities. Bridget Riley is perhaps the best known of the Op artists. Taking Vasarely's lead, she made a number of paintings consisting only of black and white lines. Read More...

The paintings on display in the Marche and Romagna to the palace of Reduced

From June 25 to August 28, 2011 35 paintings from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century from the collection Altomani-Ciaron tell the story of two neighboring territories that have flourished over the centuries art gone far beyond regional boundaries. In the varied and often contradictory world that goes under the name of Italian antiques are also active experts of international standing, who are responsible to track, restore, study and possibly return to their original works of art that the time has dispersed and confined in 'oblivion.

A move is a feeling that, by the enchantment of beauty, is sometimes reflected in an ethics of memory. From this same feeling comes The Lands of the painting between the Marche and Romagna, a choice anthology of ancient paintings, which gathers 35 works from the collection Altomani-Ciaron, held in Cesena (FC), the Municipal Gallery of Art Palace of the Reduced by 25 June to August 28, 2011.

From Madonna and Child by the Master of Castrocaro to that of Giovanni Francesco da Rimini, a virgin to a newly discovered by Cagnacci of Sassoferrato, a major modelletto Bargellini by Ludovico Carracci's altarpiece paintings depicting the Resurrection to two recently discovered, one of ' Albani and other Pomarancio, the paintings on display tell the story of two adjacent territories, the Marches and the Romagna, which for many centuries have suffered along with the influences of nearby schools Bolognese, Venetian, Roman, but at the same time allowed also the flowering of artistic personalities who have managed to extend their ideas beyond regional limits. Are also two unpublished Virtues painted by Elizabeth Sirani for Malvasia and two unfinished paintings by Simone Cantarini, to mention just a few of the gems of the collection.

The exhibition, which gathers around 35 paintings covering a period from the fifteenth to the early eighteenth century - with a prevalence of seventeenth-century paintings - is promoted by cultural institutions and services of the Municipality of Cesena and is curated by artist and historian 'Maximum Pulini art. And 'the second appointment reserved for large collections of antiques, a cycle exhibition which opened in 2010 at Cesena with the exhibition "The Study of Swaps", born from the original intention of creating a series of exhibitions and catalogs, dedicated to those that can be considered real hidden museums.

The Lands of the painting between the Marche and Romagna is a collection of sacred and profane (there are landscapes, portraits, religious subjects, etc. ..) that is configured as a rich anthology of memories and memories of places and people, stories individual and group that for more than three centuries have enriched this part of the peninsular.
The exhibition is accompanied by a catalog published by Artexplora, which contains an essay on the topic of loss and recovery of works of art and the important role played by some antique lighting. And 'thanks to these figures, in fact, working for decades in the world of antiques with the minutiae of a careful scholar, who was now possible to retrieve much of an artistic heritage that, following the Napoleonic suppression of religious orders and confiscation of their property (enacted in 1797), had taken the path of exile and diaspora.

"Rediscovering the work of an artist of the fourteenth century or the eighteenth century, who worked in our area, buy it at auction or in a palace of American English countryside, her education by researchers competent historians, who know how to reconstruct the tracks and maybe find the original location, is a mission of enormous value - underlined the curator of the exhibition, Maximum Pulini - One of the few ways through which continues to be possible to recover the history and development of a country. That this is accompanied by an economic interest, when that work is taken over by a banking institution, a museum or a wealthy private connoisseur, I find it not only legitimate but necessary to reward the work that is to encourage new research, to fund other future discoveries. "

All works reproduced, even those only transited from Pesaro gallery, have a precise reference to the history of the lands of the Marche and Romagna, and each of the paintings comes with a card that reconstructs the events, leaders by the same interpretation critical.

The exhibition and catalog make use of texts and contributions by Annamaria Ambrosini, Ivana Balducci, Alessandro Brogi, Albert Crispo, Davide Gasparotto, Claudio Gardens, Alexander Giovanardi, Alexander Marks, Gabriel Milantoni, Philip Panzavolta, Semenza Julia, Anna and Raffaella Tambini Zama . Read More...

Jewish Art

Judaism is the religion and culture of the Jewish people and it is also one of the oldest religious traditions still practiced today. Judaism is the first recorded and one of the three main monotheistic religions that arose in the Near East and dominated the spiritual life of the Western world (Judaism, Christianity and Islam).

Jews believe that God made a covenant with their ancestors, the Hebrew, and that they are God's chosen people. They await the coming of a savior - the Messiah, "the anointed one." Christians believe that Jesus of Nazareth was that Messiah. Muslims believe Muhammad to be God's (Allah's) last and greatest prophet.

The tenets and history of Judaism constitute the historical foundation of many other religions, including Christianity and Islam. From a cultural point of view, Jewish contributions to mankind are enormous. Besides the concept of monotheism, Jews contributed clear-cut standards of law - Ten Commandments. Although these values are collectively understood as the Judeo-Christian ethic, the scope of their influence extends far beyond Christians and Jews. Recognized objects of Judaic art date back to the dawn of history, even before the "common era." Only a few survived the attrition of time. Among them were beautifully illustrated manuscripts, mosaics of Beth Alpha (Israel) and segments of Duro-Europos (Syria), the ruins of an ancient synagogue.

The Jewish people trace their origin to the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. His twelve sons founded the twelve tribes of Israel. They migrated to Egypt, where they lived for several hundred years until harshly oppressed by one of the pharaohs. In the 13th century BCE the prophet Moses led them out of slavery in Egypt and back to the promised land of Canaan between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River (later called Palestine). The Hebrew Scriptures relate how, on their journey, God reaffirmed his special relationship with the Israelites and gave Moses the Ten Commandments, the Tablets of the Law, on Mount Sinai.

The Tablets of the Law were housed in the profoundly sacred Ark of the Covenant, a gold-covered wooden box whose construction was prescribed in the Hebrew Scriptures. The Israelites carried the ark with them on their desert wanderings until they finally conquered Canaan and built a permanent temple in Jerusalem in the 10th century BCE under King Solomon. The menorah and ark were placed in the Temple. The Babylonians destroyed the First Temple in 586 BCE. About seventy years later, a Second Temple of Jerusalem, smaller, was built and later enlarged by Herod the Great, king of the region. It was destructed and plundered by the Romans in 70CE what was so vividly described by the Jewish chronicler Josephus.

The Jews had the Temple in Jerusalem with organized priesthood, but they also gathered in buildings, later known as synagogues. Contrary to many other religions, specialized architecture was less central in Judaism. Synagogue, with a role as place of study, could be any large room. Early Jewish spiritual life emphasized religious learning and an individual's direct relationship with God. Following the destruction of Jerusalem, there no longer was an organized priesthood and the role of synagogue expanded. They began to serve as places for prayer for the dispersed community.

Judaism's rich ceremonial affirmation of Jewish history and belief inspired the creation of scrolls, books and ritual objects. Because Jews were weak on abstractions, Biblical verbiage was set in concrete terms, with numerous personifications. Bezalel personified art. The name means "standing in the shadow of God." According to Hebrew Scriptures - Exodus, God gave him the intelligence, wisdom and skill "to create marvelous articles." Bezalel became an architect, sculptor and designer of holy garments. He was the first Jewish artist on record, known for making the Tabernacle that contained the Ark of the Covenant, constructed by prescription in the Scriptures. The menorah, typical ritual object kept with the Ark, has a form probably derived from the ancient near Eastern Tree of Life, symbolizing both the end of exile and the paradise to come. Torah scrolls, containing the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy), were read publicly and kept in curtained shrines.

Jews were forbidden to make images that might be worshiped as idols, but this prohibition against representational art was applied primarily to sculpture in the round in early Judaism. Jewish art during the Roman Empire combined both Near Eastern and classical Greek and Roman elements to depict Jewish subject matter, both symbolic and narrative. Since Christianity arose out of Judaism, its art incorporated many symbols and narrative representations drawn from the Hebrew Scriptures and other Jewish sources. Almost no examples of specifically Christian art exist before the early third century, and even then it continued to draw its styles and imagery from Jewish and classical traditions. This process is known as syncretism. Orant figures - worshipers with arms outstretched - for example, can be pagan, Jewish, or Christian, depending on the contest in which they occur. Perhaps the most important of these syncretic images is the Good Shepherd. In pagan art, he was Hermes the shepherd or Orpheus among the animals, but Jews and Christians saw him as the Good Shepherd of the Twenty-third Psalm: "The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I lack". Read More...

World's most expensive painting goes on show in UK

The world's most expensive painting ever sold at auction is going on show in the UK for the first time on Monday.

The work, called Nude, Green Leaves and Bust, was painted in 1932 by Pablo Picasso and is based on his muse, Marie-Therese Walter.

The painting, which was sold in New York last year for $106.5m (£65.5m), will go on display at the Tate Modern in London.

Tate director Nicholas Serota: "This is an outstanding painting by Picasso."

"I am delighted that through the generosity of the lender we are able to bring it to the British public for the first time."

Mr Serota said: "Nude, Green Leaves and Bust is one of the sequence of paintings of Picasso's muse, Marie-Therese Walter, made by the artist at Boisgeloup, Normandy, in the early months of 1932.

'Greatest achievements'
"They are widely regarded as amongst his greatest achievements of the inter-war period."

The painting has been borrowed from the unnamed private collector who bought it.

It is not known what security precautions have been taken at the gallery to protect it from thieves and vandals.

A Picasso exhibition will open at Tate Britain next year.

Picasso first met Ms Walter, a model in 1927 and she became his mistress. He began to paint her four years later.

She died in 1977, four years after Picasso. Read More...