Topic started by Udhaya (@ 63.89.188.180) on Mon Sep 17 14:02:48 .
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I’m not a student of art. I’m not a painter. I’m just a novice art lover who appreciates paintings for how they affect me. I have often found myself unable to explain why something affects me about a certain painting. I go to art museums at least couple of times a year and frequently wade through the internet art galleries. I have my favorites and I have come across those that puzzle or intrigue me.
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Responses:
- From: Udhaya (@ 63.89.188.180)
on: Mon Sep 17 14:04:40
I would like to begin with a work from the period marked Impressionism because it is much more accessible than most other periods. This Gustave Caillebotte painting, “Paris: A Rainy Day” greeted me at the entrance of the Chicage Art Museum when I visited it several years ago. It took over nearly an entire wall and was spectacular to look at. Go to the following link and double click on the image and it will expand to fill your screen:
http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/caillebotte/rainy.jpg
Please post your thoughts on what you think about this piece.
- From: nakkeerar (@ 12.148.251.114)
on: Mon Sep 17 14:18:41
Udhaya: This is another link to beautiful paintings.
http://www.oir.ucf.edu/wm/
picture paarkumbodhu "May fair Lady" padathu Adrey hepburn nyabagam varaanga.
- From: nakkeerar (@ 12.148.251.114)
on: Mon Sep 17 14:20:11
oops typo. "My Fair Lady".
- From: Udhaya (@ 63.89.188.180)
on: Mon Sep 17 14:41:27
nakkeerar,
Your link is a mirror site of the webmuseum I have cited. Anyway, thanks for the enthusiasm. We shall get to the picture you posted next. Do you have any comments on Caillebotte's painting?
- From: nakkeerar (@ 12.148.251.114)
on: Mon Sep 17 15:05:35
painting pathi en comments..
colors used kaNNukku idhamaaga irukku.
well-dressed husband& wife in the picture look at the same location. might be the place they are going to Or soemthing unsual they have seen and were talking abt it.
A mom &v her kid, one waitress, etc.
ekkachakkamaa people captured.
tharai slabs-la thaNNi thaengi irukkaradhu
partial sunlight ; adhula paleer reflection.
scene well captured.
- From: Udhaya (@ 63.89.188.180)
on: Mon Sep 17 15:27:28
Nakkeerar,
Thanks for your comments. I liked what you said about the couple staring at the same location. I was fascinated by how their stare leads the viewer beyond the confines of the painting itself.
Other things I love about the painting:
-The subdued colors to go with the gray atmosphere of a rainy day.
-The number of angles used in the painting. Even if these were present in the real scene, for the artist to pick this perspective to utilize the angles is a masterstroke. The V-shaped building and the unconventional way it slices the streets gives a piazza effect to the expanse where people walk about.
-That the lower left of the painting is nearly vacant except for the water contained in the slab grouts is a unique handling of the details. While the painting has a number of people in it, there is enough space in it to give individual attention to every object.
-The different directions taken by the people in the painting guide my eyes in so many directions within a single painting. I find wild movement within the painting yet a serene quality as if people are walking in slow motion is also present.
- From: Ramji (@ 205.177.170.127)
on: Mon Sep 17 16:20:14
Udhaya, I loved it so much I saved it and put it on my desktop as a background. Wish I didnt have those icons on my screen marring the scene.
But for the title, I might have felt at first sight it is Times Square. It appealed to me for:
1. the great color effect. You could almost feel the rain, the cloudy atmosphere, the wetness on the ground.
2. the way it has frozen the moment and the time period- the clothes, hats, the coach, the street lamp. Look at the pavement. It is not for cars.
3. the way it has captured the laid back easy life style. There is movement but no one is rushing.
Lovely idea Udhaya. We need Art and Music today more than ever before. They should rebuild the World Trade Centers and make them World Art & Music Centers.
- From: vj (@ kogate3.ko.com)
on: Tue Sep 18 11:38:47
This painting looks more like a photograph, as in, there is little "distortion" of reality using the brush. The colors are probably what a conventional film cannot reproduce, which explains the power of painting (apart from it being completely created as opposed to a photograph). Things I liked in addition to what's been mentioned:
(1) The person crossing the streets is looking down, and this adds strongly to the subdued (dim?) mood of the painting which helps us relate to our feelings on a rainy day.
(2) The bit of metal projecting out of the lamp-post - "harsh" realism
(3) The shadow of the lamp-post over the thin layer of water in the sidewalk. This is partly mysterious because we don't really see the sun out.
(4) The perspective - the partial hands and umbrella in the right side of the painting transports us into the rainy day.
- From: Udhaya (@ 63.89.188.180)
on: Tue Sep 18 11:47:25
Ramji, vj,
Thanks for your thoughts on the painting. As I had hoped you have brought more interpretation and added a fresh angle to my understanding of the painting.
- From: nalini (@ 169.144.224.250)
on: Tue Sep 18 11:50:19
The painting is spectacular for the mood and atmosphere it creates with the soft muted colors and the incredible details. There is a coziness about it that I love. The painting looks simple at first, but grows into a complex one. I discover amazing new things everytime I look at it. The perspective is one of the best I've seen in paintings.
A small part of me wishes it wasn't so meticulously done though - it almost looks like a photograph at first glance.
- From: stg (@ 207.207.190.40)
on: Wed Sep 19 05:42:19
Nothing is violent here.. the painting catches a sombre mood.. it has to as the painting is all about rain..Also we can see its only a drizzle as the faces of the people do not exhibit any extreme reaction .. fact they casually mind their own business. The sharp angles of the building and the umbrellas in in fact a welcome contrast to the sombre mood of the whole painting.
I recommend you to see the paintings of Vermeer and of course Vangoh also.
- From: Ramji (@ 205.177.170.136)
on: Wed Sep 19 07:16:09
Stg,
Good point well made. Why dont you choose a painting and give a link for discussion here?
- From: Udhaya (@ 63.89.188.180)
on: Wed Sep 19 12:08:49
stg,
Thanks for joining us with your take on the painting. Yes, we will definitely make our rounds to all the artists. The two you mentioned are some of my favorites too. Seeing your reaction to somber colors and your recommendation of Vermeer, makes me think you like a lot of light in your paintings.
Ramji,
Let's get to Nakkeerar's pick for our next painting and then Stg will get his turn. We'll all take turns with nominees to discuss so as to keep this thread varied and interesting.
- From: Udhaya (@ 63.89.188.180)
on: Wed Sep 19 12:12:04
nalini,
What you said about a certain cozyness felt from the painting is so true. I didn't realize that the extreme detail could come to almost hinder the look and feel of the painting to seem like a photograph. Again, these are points that woulndn't have occurred to me on my own. Thanks for sharing them.
- From: Ramji (@ 205.177.170.103)
on: Wed Sep 19 15:15:12
Nakkeerar:
Sorry, I did not mean to skip yours. Udhaya, thanks for pointing out.
- From: vj (@ kogate3.ko.com)
on: Thu Sep 20 10:39:42
What painting are we looking at next?
Udhaya: the use of the word ART to mean paintings took me by surprise -- I am aware that's a common usage in this part of the world, but, is this thread only for paintings?
- From: Ramji (@ 205.177.170.104)
on: Thu Sep 20 11:05:32
vj, We were not looking at any paint, just giving Nakkeerar the next turn. I think we have given enough time. Another painiting stg,vj or anyone?
dont you think ART in its broad sense will blur this thread's focus? At least we can start with paintings and later move on to others and Udhaya could coordinate the process.
- From: Vishvesh Obla (@ 63.65.68.246)
on: Thu Sep 20 11:18:25
I had never known such a gallery of the greatest paintings existed in the web and I must thank Udhaya for making it known through this forum. I am not even a novice in this area, but as great art impresses anyone it also has made some impressions on me too. I confine myself to Botticelli and Hans Memling.
D.H.Lawrence, an artist himself of some significance, apart from being one of the greatest novelists, makes an observation while he writes on the development of the human self :
At the cardiac plexus, there in the center of the breast, we have now a great sun of knowledge and being. Here there is no more of self. Here there is no longer the dark exultant knowledge that I am I. A change has come. Here I know no more of myself. Here I am not. Here I only know the delightful revelation that you are you. The wonder is no longer within me, my own dark, centrifugal, exultant self. The wonder is without me. The wonder is outside me. And I can no longer exult and know myself the dark, central sun of the universe. Now I look with wonder, with tenderness, with joyful yearning towards that which is outside me, beyond me, not me. Behold, that which was once negative has become the only positive. The other being is now the great positive reality, I myself am as nothing. Positivity has changed places.
If you want to see the portrayed look, then we must turn to the North, to the fair, wondering, blue-eyed infants of the Northern Masters. They seem so frail, so innocent and wondering, touching outwards to the mystery. They are not the same as the Southern child, nor the opposite. Their whole life mystery is different. Instead of consummating all things within themselves, as the dark little Southern infants do, the Northern Jesus-children reach out delicate little hands of wondering innocence towards delicate, flower-reverential mothers. Compare a Botticelli Madonna, with all her wounded and abnegating sensuality, with a Hans Memling Madonna, whose soul is pure and only reverential. Beyond me is the mystery and the glory, says the Northern mother : let me have no self, let me only seek that which is all-pure, all wonderful. But the Southern mother says : This is mine, this is my child, my wonder, my master, my lord, my scourge, my own…
Now, I must say that while I believe response to art is inborn, it is still a fact that it refines itself through a learned interpretation. When I look at the paintings of Botticelli and Memling with the above passage in my mind (Lawrence believed that our psyche is made up of two planes, both in a sharp contrast with each other but still contributing to each other in the fullness of the human self), I do see what Lawrence meant. Art must deal with certain inner dimensions of life, or at any rate, which is not something at the surface level. The artist, I believe, freezes in his work a particular moment of intense reality between himself and the object that captured his attention. This reality has various levels which depend on the artist’s level of maturity and one needs to qualify before making any further comment on saying why one painting is better than another. I am not into that. The paintings of the various Madonnas, yet, have a special significance to me, for as Lawrence observed, I could see the intense reality of living from the different planes of life that is signified by their faces and the infants faces as well. I personally feel that one would do better if one had something to start with like what I had in my mind while looking at Botticelli and Memling. (Incidentally Lawrence has made some wonderful observations on Van Gogh and the pre historic paintings of Etruscan civilization). They gave me some direction as to how I should look at it, instead of appreciating them for no valid response.
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