Heat by Florine Stettheimer (1919, Oil on Canvas, 127 x 92.7 cm), Brooklyn Museum, New York)
Archive for painting
Heat – Florine Stettheimer
Posted in Art with tags Art, Brooklyn Museum, Florine Stettheimer, Heat, painting on May 27, 2026 by telescoperCats – Natalia Goncharova
Posted in Art with tags Art, cats, Natalia Goncharova, painting, Rayism, Rayonism on May 12, 2026 by telescoper
Cats (Rayist percep. in rose, black, and yellow) by Natalia Goncharova (1913, Oil on Canvas, 85.1 x 85.7 cm, Guggenheim Museum, New York).
This is a Rayist (or Rayonist) composition in which the artist tries to capture rays of light reflected off objects in the material world. Dynamic lines are added to suggest crystalline forms and the movement of light and energy. The style was influenced by scientific discoveries on the discovery of X-rays and radioactivity suggesting a reality beyond the direct perception of the naked eye.
The Red Disk – Joan Miró
Posted in Art with tags Art, Joan Miró, painting, The Red Disk on April 24, 2026 by telescoper
The Red Disk by Joan Miró (1960, Oil on Canvas, 45.7 × 54.9 cm, New Orleans Museum of Art).
From here:
Set against a dark blue, almost black surface, a white splotch of paint has been hurled out impulsively, and loses itself in innumerable spots and spatters, a cosmic gesture thrust against the empty void of nothingness – almost a metaphor of the artist’s creative activity. Some spots of colour flare up among this galaxy of creativity, of which the largest and most irregular is the red one which gave the painting its title. Minute symbols are scattered around the edges of the entire constellation – stars of hair and little hooks which give this action painting a new poetic dimension and connect it unmistakably with Miro’s world of symbols.
Estella Solomons
Posted in Art, History with tags 1916 Easter Rising, 1926 Census of Ireland, Art, Estella Frances Solomons, painting on April 20, 2026 by telescoperFollowing yesterday’s post about the 1926 Irish Census I fell down a metaphorical rabbit hole following a request from a former colleague (who happens to be Jewish) to help find a relative of his who lived in Dublin at the time of the census. I found the person, which was nice, but was then sent this article about an unrelated lady called Estella Solomons who was on the rebel side in the Easter Rising and helped the cause by hiding weapons in her garden. It turns out that there was a significant Jewish presence in Dublin back then. In the North Side, around Portobello, there was an area dubbed ‘Little Jerusalem’.
I hadn’t heard of Estella Solomons before yesterday but she was a significant artist whose work was featured in an exhibition at the National Gallery in Dublin in 2022 (which I did not see). There is also a Wikipedia page about her. I found the above self-portrait online. I find it very striking.
Estella Solomons was born in 1882 and died in 1968 at the age of 86. She was 34 at the time of the Easter Rising and would have been 44 at the time of the 1926 census. I did find her in the online census but her age is recorded as 40. She married the poet Seumas O’Sullivan in 1926 but she is listed as “single” on the census form, so presumably they married later in the year.
There are two other women at her 1926 address, both servants, so she was obviously quite well off, but no sign of her husband.
More surprisingly Estella’s sex is given in the 1926 census as Male. She is in the 1911 census too, but recorded there as Female. I did consider the possibility that she might have been living as a man, but that does not fit with other details of her life. I think it is just a mistake. Such records are not entirely free from errors.
I think this an example of the sort of confusion historians have to contend with when looking at historical documents!
Alegoría del Invierno – Remedios Varo
Posted in Art with tags Alegoría del Invierno, Allegory of Winter, Art, painting, Remedios Varo, Remedios Varo Uranga on December 29, 2025 by telescoper
Alegoría del Invierno (Allegory of Winter) by Remedios Varo Uranga, 1948, gouache on paper, 44 ×44 cm, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain.
Et in Arcadia Lego
Posted in Art with tags Art, Et in Arcadia Ego, Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, Lego, painting on May 27, 2025 by telescoper
Posted with apologies to the Italian Baroque artist Giovanni Francesco Barbieri (Guercino) on whose original Et in Arcadia Ego this is based.
The Opening of the Fifth Seal
Posted in Art with tags Art, El Greco, Opening of the Fifth Seal, painting on September 23, 2024 by telescoperI was trying to find a work of art with which to illustrate the start of teaching term and decided on this remarkable painting by El Greco, usually called The Opening of the Fifth Seal though it has been given other names. Actually it’s only part of the original painting – the upper section was destroyed in 1880 – which at least partly accounts for the unusual balance of the composition. What I find astonishing about this work, though, is that at first sight it looks for all the world like an early 20th Century expressionist work, complete with distorted figures and vivid colour palette. It’s very hard to believe that it was painted in the early years of the 17th Century! El Greco was 300 years ahead of his time.
by Doménikos Theotokópoulos (“El Greco“), painted between 1608 and 1614, 224.8 cm × 199.4 cm, oil on canvas, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
From Here – Bridget Riley
Posted in Art with tags Art, Bridget Riley, From Here, painting on August 21, 2024 by telescoper
by Bridget Riley (1994, 1576 × 2278 mm, Oil on Canvas, Private Collection)
The Escape Ladder – Joan Miró
Posted in Art with tags Art, Joan Miró, painting, The Escape Ladder on April 10, 2024 by telescoper
by Joan Miró (1940, gouache, watercolor, and ink on paper, 38cm × 46 cm, The Museum of Modern Art, New York City )
Thomas Cromwell and his Prayer-Book
Posted in Art, History with tags Art, Hans Holbein the Younger, Hardouyn Hours, Henry VIII, History, painting, Thomas Cromwell on April 1, 2024 by telescoper
The famous portrait of Thomas Cromwell by Hans Holbein the Younger shown above is in fact a copy; the original is lost. There is another copy in the National Portrait Gallery in London, but it’s not as good. The original was painted around 1533, during the period covered by the novel Wolf Hall (which I reviewed yesterday) and is mentioned in the book. Holbein is known for having sometimes painted excessively flattering portraits – most notably of Anne of Cleves – but he doesn’t seem to have done that here. Cromwell is portrayed as dour, stern-faced and more than a little scary. He probably wanted people to fear him, so wouldn’t have minded this.
As well as the nature of the likeness, the composition is interesting. The subject seems to be squashed into the frame, and hemmed in by the table that juts out towards the viewer. He is also looking out towards the viewer’s left, though not simply staring into space; his eyes are definitely focussed on something. I’m not sure what all this is intended to convey, except that the table carries an ornate prayer-book (the Book of Hours) as if to say “look, here’s a symbol of how devout this man is”.
Interesting, just last year scholars published research that argues that the copy of the Hardouyn Hours which can be found in the Library at Trinity College, Cambridge, is precisely the book depicted on the table. If so, it’s a rare and perhaps unique example of an artefact seen in a Tudor painting that survives to this day.
In the Dark 
