PinnedMember-onlyI Look At This Painting EverydayEdward Hopper’s perfectly painted dilemma, yet I cannot say what it is exactly — For a few years now, I’ve had a postcard of this painting tacked to my study wall. It’s called Pennsylvania coal town and it was made by Edward Hopper in 1947. Whenever I stop my work and look up at this painting, I can’t help but feel that Hopper painted…Art4 min read
13 hours agoMember-onlyThe Expressiveness of a BrushstrokeExploring the meaningful qualities of painted marks in art — How is it possible for a brushstroke to be expressive? How can paint in itself register on an emotional level? There was once a time when artists made their paintings with a deliberate attempt to hide their brush marks, to blend and soften them so that, as much as possible…Art6 min read
3 days agoMember-onlyView of Toledo by El GrecoPulsating, mystical, invigorating — When the artist El Greco captured this view of the Spanish city of Toledo, he painted one of the earliest landscape works in modern Western art. And it is a remarkable landscape painting too. Through its wild sky and pulsating hills, the image seems to allude to an altered state…Art5 min read
4 days agoMember-onlyThis Painting Might Just Be the First Work of Modern ArtLe Déjeuner sur l’herbe by Édouard Manet — Take a moment to consider what one enraged art critic once said of this painting: “The nude hasn’t a good figure, unfortunately, and one can’t think of anything uglier than the man stretched out next to her, who hasn’t even thought of taking off, out of doors, his horrid padded…Art7 min read
Aug 12Member-onlyWhy You Should Feel Compassion for this Ugly DuchessSpare a moment to contemplate her extreme look — It is one of the most extraordinary paintings in the history of art. But why would an artist choose to paint it? Popularly known as The Ugly Duchess, the image shows an ageing woman. Perhaps you wouldn’t guess it at first, but this woman has a glint of love in…Art5 min read
Aug 10Member-onlySexual Ecstasy in a PaintingDecoding Gustav Klimt’s Danaë — When does a line become sensuous? When does a contour become carnal? Gustav Klimt liked lines and contours. Perhaps we can call them “Art Nouveau curves” — those whiplash lines that were particularly popular at the turn of the last century. The line is an approximate S curve, a sinuous…Art6 min read
Aug 4Member-onlyKandinsky Was My First Favourite ArtistWhy this painting stood out above the rest — The painting shown above is called Yellow-Red-Blue. It was painted by Wassily Kandinsky in 1925. It currently lives in the Georges Pompidou Center in Paris, France. What’s interesting about this painting is that it seems to cause confusion about how to hang it. On at least four separate occasions I’ve…Art4 min read
Aug 1Member-onlyThis Artist Outlived Her Famous Husband and Found GreatnessNotes on the painter Lee Krasner — Some artists are better known than others. For the painter Lee Krasner, it was always her husband, Jackson Pollock, who dominated the limelight. Yet when Pollock died in a car crash in 1956, Krasner moved into his barn studio at Springs and slowly began to be recognised as the pioneering…Art7 min read
Jul 29Member-only3 Inspiring Paintings that Will Win Your Heart and MindThree works of art to refresh your perspective — Why do we look at art? Speaking personally, I often turn to art to refresh my perspective. I enjoy letting my eyes flow over the surface of a painting, just looking and taking in the way the artist has chosen to reproduce the world. Take this captivating painting, made in…Art5 min read
Jul 25Member-onlyWhy Is This Woman Pinching the Nipple of the Other?Decoding a painting of two sisters in a bathtub — It is hard not to be intrigued by a painting like this. It shows two women sitting unclothed in a bathtub. The one on the right is named Gabrielle d’Estrées. Beside her is another woman — thought to be her sister — who is unambiguously pinching her nipple. Given their…Art5 min read
