Like the Putz painting very much!
Category: Uncategorized
- Nikolai Petrovich Bogdanov-Belsky, (1868-1945), Country Boys, signed in Cyrillic and dated 1916 l.l., oil on canvas, 153 by 124cm, 60 1/4 by 48 3/4 in., Source: Sotheby’s.
Bogdanov-Belsky’s Best: Pre-revolution
Bogdanov-Belsky’s pre-revolutionary works include some of his most striking canvases, the scale alone often an indication of his artistic confidence. The present lot is an exceptional example of the qualities that mark out these rare, early paintings – tight brushwork, vivid blues and greens, and an impact that would grow gradually more diffuse with the looser strokes and muted palette that appear at times in his later works. Source: Sotheby’s.
![Screenshot_2018-11-04 6bogdanov-belsky-nikolai-petrovi-figures-sothebys-l12111lot6f6xfen-e1541387788711 jpg (JPEG Image, 31[...]](https://atsunnyside.files.wordpress.com/2018/11/screenshot_2018-11-04-6bogdanov-belsky-nikolai-petrovi-figures-sothebys-l12111lot6f6xfen-e1541387788711-jpg-jpeg-image-31.jpg?w=580)
Faces Reflect Coming Chaos
In the present lot there is an unmistakable sense of resolve in the boys’ expressions. Their tightly-pursed lips and concentration ground the pair to a pre-Revolutionary epoch: alert in the face of uncertainty rather than the glazed look of Soviet youth.Source: Sotheby’s.
![aScreenshot_2018-11-04 screenshot_2018-11-04-bogdanov-belsky-nikolai-petrovi-figures-sothebys-l12111lot6f6xfen jpg (JPEG Ima[...]](https://atsunnyside.files.wordpress.com/2018/11/ascreenshot_2018-11-04-screenshot_2018-11-04-bogdanov-belsky-nikolai-petrovi-figures-sothebys-l12111lot6f6xfen-jpg-jpeg-ima.jpg?w=766&h=1482)
Nikolai Petrovich Bogdanov-Belsky, (1868-1945), View original post 262 more words
, September Evening, (1891), Musée d’Orsay, Maurice Denis CC BY-SA 2.0 fr (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/fr/deed.en)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
Who Is Maurice Denis?
Maurice Denis (November 1870 – 1943) was a French painter, decorative artist and writer who was an important figure in the transitional period between impressionism and modern art. He was associated with Les Nabis then the Symbolist movement, and then with a return to neo-classicism. His theories contributed to the foundations of cubism, fauvism, and abstract art. Following the First World War, he founded the Ateliers d’Art Sacré (Workshops of Sacred Art), decorated the interiors of churches, and worked for a revival of religious art. Maurice Denis died November 13, 1943.
, September Evening, (1891), Musée d’Orsay, Maurice Denis CC BY-SA 2.0 fr (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/fr/deed.en)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
Click for Enlarged Detail:
Details:
- Name: Maurice Denis
- Title: September Evening…
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Die Kerzen brennen fröhlich weiter…
Richly romantic!
Giovanni Migliara: Scene veneziana (ca. 1830)
Perücke, Spiegel und Masken
Die Angst geht um in Schön-Venedig,
Denn hübsche Frauen, jung und ledig,
Verschwinden spurlos in der Nacht;
Es trifft nur bessrer Häuser Töchter,
Ein Mörder geht, nur diese möcht er,
Ist bald schon schrecklicher Verdacht.
Man findet lange keine Leichen,
Wie sich die Taten aber gleichen:
Ist immer stiller Mondenschein,
Kein Wind weht her aus der Lagune,
Das Wasser ruht an Pfahl und Buhne,
Die Gondeln schimmern schwarz und fein.
Vergeblich ihre Eltern warnen,
Dass sich die schlimmsten Teufel tarnen,
Auf Bälle gehn die Töchter doch;
Dort steht er, der die Angst verbreitet,
Maskiert und tadellos gekleidet,
Das Haar gepudert noch und noch.
Er schaut sie an und spricht sehr vage
Und tanzen kann er ohne Frage,
Er scheint aus einem noblen Haus,
Ist höflich und auch gut erzogen –
Wie sehr der Anschein doch gelogen,
Er sucht ja schon…
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Very interesting!
At one point I was seriously considering reading Witiko, Stifter’s six hundred page book set in medieval Bohemia, for this year’s German Literature Month but in the end I plumped for this shorter book, a collection of stories and prose which was published in 2016 by Ariadne Press in California. The contents of Tales of Old Vienna and Other Prose were translated by Alexander Stillmark who also provides an introduction. This collection contains five short stories and four short prose works including a personal account of an eclipse of the sun in 1842. The first story in the collection is The Condor (1839), Stifter’s first published story, which is quite interesting initially but one which soon becomes a pretty standard nineteenth century story of doomed love. The shortest story, at only five pages, is Confidence an entertaining tale of unwitting parricide followed by suicide. But the bulk of the…
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Charming portrait!
Nikolai Petrovich Bogdanov-Belsky (1868-1945), The Schoolgirl, , signed in in Cyrillic l.l., oil on canvas, 158 by 119cm, 62 1/2 by 46 3/4 in., Image source: Sotheby’s.
Successful Exhibition 1917-1918
Nikolai Bogdanov-Belsky showed his paintings, including The Schoolgirl, at the 46th Itinerant Exhibition in 1917-1918, which was a time of great social and political upheaval. According to Sotheby’s catalogue, the success was surprising:
Against all odds the show was a great success:‘We assumed that during the revolutionary events people would be indifferent to art and that we would struggle to sell anything. Fortunately, we were wrong… our exhibition was well-attended and many of the works sold. […] Connoisseurs flocked to the venue, so much so that the exhibition administrator could hardly keep up with the purchases, and all this despite the high prices.’ (quoted in V.Vegenov, ‘N.P. Bogdanov-Belsky u «peredvizhnikov»’, Russkii vestnik, no.13 (79), 1943, p.4).
Nikolai Petrovich Bogdanov-Belsky, The Schoolgirl, (1868-1945), signed in in Cyrillic l.l., oil on canvas, 158…
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‘America’ by Franz Kafka (GLM VIII)
Although I would class Franz Kafka as one of my favourite authors I haven’t read anything by him for many years and I know very little about his life. The Trial was the first book that I read by Kafka which was then followed with The Castle, Amerika (I’m sure the copy I initially read retained the Germanic title though it must have been the same translation as here) and a few short stories including Metamorphosis, of course. I remember finding Amerika a bit dull in comparison to the other novels but recently I had begun to wonder what I’d make of it now—so I thought I’d read it for this year’s German Literature Month. My Penguin copy makes use of the 1938 translation by Willa and Edwin Muir together with an introduction by Edwin Muir and a short postscript by Max Brod, Kafka’s literary executor, both…
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Highspot for me this year was seeing the magnificent paintings of Joseph Wright in Derby.
According to ancient legend, the person who ‘invented’ painting was not a man, and did so by tracing the shadow of her boyfriend.
Dibutades, a maid of Corinth in Greece, was about to see her boyfriend sent away from the city on military service. As the daughter of a potter, she devised an ingenious way of making a portrait to remember him by: when he was asleep, she positioned a light to cast his shadow against a wall behind him, then she traced the outline of that shadow in the plaster. Once he had gone, her father then transformed his painted silhouette into the first relief sculpture by daubing clay within the silhouette.
Joseph Wright of Derby (1734–1797), The Corinthian Maid (c 1782-5), oil on canvas, 106.3 x 130.8 cm, The National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. Wikimedia Commons.
In 1778, William Hayley told this story succinctly in his poem
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Cornflower
Cornflower is the name of a flower (also known as bachelor’s button) so named because it grew in cornfields. It’s made up of corn (a grain or seed of a cereal crop such as oats, wheat, and barley) which comes from Proto-Germanic *kurną (corn, grain, cereal) derived from a PIE root word meaning “grain”; and flower. Cornflower blue is also a color of a bright blue with a tint of purple.
Origin: Proto-Indo-European
Variants:
- Kornflower (English)
There is another sky,
Ever serene and fair,
And there is another sunshine,
Though it be darkness there;
Never mind faded forests, Austin,
Never mind silent fields—
Here is a little forest,
Whose leaf is ever green;
Here is a brighter garden,
Where not a frost has been;
In its unfading flowers
I hear the bright bee hum:
Prithee, my brother,
Into my garden come!
by Emily Dickinson
penwithlit 
