Art is the Solution

Love and Pain Source: Google Art Project I don’t know much about the Norwegian artist Edvard Munch— painter of the famous painting The Scream— however, when I encountered this painting, Love and Pain , I was immediately struck by it. I stumbled upon Love and Pain while doing research on another piece of art. It’s a simple, but beautiful painting. The piece depicts a red haired woman kissing the neck of a pale man dressed in black. Many people view the painting in a sinister light; in fact, it’s sometimes called Vampire . The dark background and the woman’s interest in the man’s neck contribute to this interpretation. However, the artist himself stated that this interpretation was incorrect. Munch maintained that Love and Pain was simply a painting of a man and woman embracing. Although it is an ambiguous painting overall, I have a very simple interpretation. The painting is entitled Love and Pain . I believe the red haired woman represents love, and the dark haired man represents...

Dragon Fresco Source: MET Museum A few days ago, I wrote about Paolo Uccello’s famous painting Saint George and the Dragon . I like that painting in particular because it includes a rather ferocious looking dragon. As a person who grew up reading fantasy novels, dragons have always had a special place in my heart, and they are also prevalent in art; I talked a little bit about the significance of dragons in my post about Uccello’s painting, but I want to go into more detail today. I was inspired to write about this topic after I encountered the painting on the right on the MET Museum website. This dragon—which was a fresco in a thirteenth century Spanish monastery until it was removed to the museum—intrigued me. Although clearly recognizable, the dragon is somewhat abstract, tending toward the clean, geometric designs that characterize arabesque art, a style that emerged during the Moorish occupation of Spain. In interpreting the fresco, the MET Museum notes, “medieval beasts, whet...

The Dream Source: Google Cultural Institute To me, this painting is a poem in visual form. What I mean by that is that The Dream is an object of great beauty, but it doesn’t make much sense from a narrative perspective. If you ask me, the painting exists for the sake of beauty alone. It doesn’t necessarily have a message; instead, the painting is exactly what its title suggests: an extravagant, otherworldly dream. Henri Rousseau, the painter, is an interesting figure in the history of French painting. He was a naïve artist, meaning that he didn’t have formal artistic training. Perhaps as a consequence of this, his work has a very specific look, characterized by a lack of shading or definition, the use of bright colors, and an absence of three dimensional space. To twenty first century viewers, his work probably feels very modern. There is an element of directness and candor to his work that feels fresh and original. The Dream is one of his famous jungle paintings, based off of ...

Disparate Femenino Source: Museo Prado If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, you probably know that Francisco Goya is my favorite artist. Goya is famous for his many prints, and his print series Los Disparates is perhaps his most enigmatic and interesting of all the series he produced. Disparate Femenino (which translates as Feminine Folly ) is usually considered to be the first print in this series. It depicts a group of women tossing two dolls in the air while a man and a donkey lay in the blanket. The print is similar to a tapestry cartoon (a painting created as a model for a textile tapestry) that Goya created nearly twenty years before. The tapestry cartoon, entitled The Straw Manikin , depicts four women tossing a manikin in a blanket, referencing a popular carnival game. However, there are deeper implications here. As the Prado Museum notes, “its carnival origins are visible in the use of masks and joking, but the blanket-tossing of a doll is used he...

The Small Cowper Madonna Source: National Gallery of Art If you ask the average European or American to name all the famous painters they could think of, the name Raphael would probably be among the first on the list. Raphael Sanzio (usually just called Raphael) is one of the most famous painters of the Renaissance period and, more generally, in the history of art. Raphael has never been one of my favorite painters, but it’s hard to deny that his paintings are extraordinarily beautiful. Raphael possessed profound artistic talent and a masterful understanding of the human form. Unsurprisingly for the time period, most of Raphael’s paintings were religious in subject matter; in particular, Raphael returned to the Madonna as a subject many times throughout his career. This Madonna, known as the Small Cowper Madonna , is—in my opinion—Raphael’s finest depiction of the mother of God. It is an incredibly beautiful painting, exhibiting Raphael’s technical mastery and adherence to Renaissa...

Seven Sacraments Altarpiece Source: Wikipedia The art of the Northern Renaissance holds a special place in my heart. The Northern Renaissance (a term I’m using pretty loosely here) refers to an artistic movement in northern Europe that occurred at roughly the same time as the Italian Renaissance. Art of the Northern Renaissance is characterized by increased attention to the accurate portrayal of three dimensional space and greater realism in the depiction of the human form. However, art of the Northern Renaissance lacks the grandiose style of its Italian counterparts; instead, northern artists focused on more down-to-Earth scenes of everyday life and religious subjects. Rogier van der Weyden was one such northern artist; van der Weyden—whose work dates to the early fifteenth century—was among the first wave of Northern Renaissance artists, and his Seven Sacraments Altarpiece is a good example of the style. Painted altarpieces were especially popular between the thirteenth and si...

Betancinados Source: Princeton University As a medium, printmaking seems to have fallen out of fashion among modern artists (at least that’s my perception). However this print, entitled Betancinados , was created in 2016 by Puerto Rican artist Yiyo Tirado Rivera. The print is dominated by the face of Ramón Emeterio Betances, one of the celebrated leaders of the Grito de Lares, an armed rebellion against Spanish colonial forces. Although the revolt failed, Betances remains an enduring symbol of freedom and the cause of Puerto Rican independence. In Tirado’s print, Betances’ beard has been transformed into a charging army on horseback. This army is symbolic of both the Grito de Lares and, in a more abstract sense, the ideas it created. While the image can be read literally as Betances leading an army against Spain, the army can also be understood as Betances’ ideas, flowing from his mind out into the world. These men on horseback represent the intellectual descendents of Betances’ mo...

Conversion on the Way to Damascus Source: Wikipedia Caravaggio is one of my favorite artists. He was an Italian artist of the Baroque period, known for his controversial (and sometimes homicidal) behavior, his ignominious death, and his extraordinary paintings. His work is visually dramatic and rich in shadows; in terms of subject matter, his work is imbued with a gritty realism that makes it particularly appealing on an emotional level. If you’re interested in learning more about Caravaggio, I recommend reading this wonderful essay from Medium . Among his many fascinating paintings, Caravaggio’s Conversion on the Way to Damascus is one of my favorites. The painting depicts the conversion of Saint Paul. According to the New Testament, Paul (called Saul before his conversion) persecuted the Christians with fervor until, one day, God spoke to him. As the Acts of the Apostles describes: “As [Saul] neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fe...

Saint George and the Dragon Source: National Gallery Paintings of the lives of Christian saints are abundant in the history of Western art. These paintings were particularly popular because they were considered to be morally instructive, provided a way to form a personal connection with religion, and, most importantly, because they offered entertainment. This painting, Paolo Uccello’s Saint George and the Dragon , is particularly sensational. In fact, it’s one of the strangest paintings of the Renaissance period. As the name suggests, the painting depicts two episodes from the story of Saint George and the dragon. As the National Gallery of the UK explains: “The story is taken from a popular collection of saints’ lives, ‘The Golden Legend’...According to the legend, the citizens of Silene in Libya had managed to appease the dragon by feeding him two sheep every day. However, their supply of sheep began to run out and they decided to offer one sheep and one person, to be selecte...

El Nacimiento de Venus Source: La Fundación de las Artes Augusto Marín Without a doubt, Augusto Marín is one of the most important and famous Puerto Rican artists of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Although his style tends toward abstraction, Marín’s paintings often draw inspiration from more traditional themes and famed pieces of Western art. This painting, El Nacimiento de Venus (which translates to The Birth of Venus ), takes its impetus from Sandro Botticelli’s painting of the same name. Botticelli’s Birth of Venus is one of the most recognizable paintings of the Renaissance period; in fact, it’s one of the most famous paintings in the Western world. The subject matter comes from classical mythology, depicting the moment that that the goddess Venus emerged from the sea as a fully grown woman; Venus is traditionally considered to be born of the sea-foam. She is the goddess of love and fertility in the Roman pantheon. Birth of Venus Source: Google Art Projec...

Lady Macbeth Seizing the Daggers Source: Tate Museum Swiss artist Henry Fuseli can best be described as a painter of horror. Although his work encompassed a variety of topics, his most memorable pieces touch on the liminal space between ordinary life and the world of supernatural horrors. His work explores the dark places in the human psyche, exploring the turbulent landscape of the mind in dark and gory detail. His paintings draw their power from Fuseli’s expert understanding of visual drama. In fact, his masterpiece, The Nightmare , is one of the most quintessential images of the Romantic movement, an artistic movement that drew its inspiration from emotion and individualism. This painting, entitled Lady Macbeth Seizing the Daggers , is a particularly striking and evocative example of Fuseli’s work. The piece depicts the scene from Shakespeare’s Macbeth in which Macbeth encounters Lady Macbeth after murdering Duncan. Lady Macbeth demands that her husband, who is horrified by w...

Neither More nor Less Source: MET Museum Today, I want to return to one of my favorite topics in art, Francisco Goya’s groundbreaking series of prints: Los Caprichos . Goya published Los Caprichos —a series of etchings that depict the social ills of contemporary Spanish culture, in 1799—at the dawn of a new century that would change Spain forever. This print, entitled Ni Mas ni Menos ( Neither More nor Less ), is part of the Capricho’s so-called asses sequence, which presents a series of images of donkeys acting in human roles. The print, number 41 in the series, offers a direct satire of an art form vital to Goya’s artistic career: portraiture. Here, we see a grinning ass posing for a portrait. The title of the print seems to be his instructions to the painter, a monkey; the donkey wants to be painted as “neither more nor less” than he actually is. Of course, as can be seen in the half finished portrait, this is not what the ass really wants. The monkey has painted a rather sol...

Untitled Source: Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico The beauty of the natural world is a common theme in Puerto Rican art. Painters like Francisco Oller, Miguel Pou, and Augusto Marin often celebrate the island’s natural abundance, especially the rich variety of plants grown on the island. This untitled painting by Puerto Rican artist Marta Pérez García continues in this tradition, albeit in a much less figurative style. García’s piece takes familiar elements of the Puerto Rican landscape—such as snakes, birds, lizards, and leaves—and strips them down to their essential elements. What remains is an abstracted vision of Puerto Rico, painted in vibrant shades of purple, blue, green, and orange. These colors are a large part of what makes the painting so attractive. The bright colors and rich textures of the untitled piece draw the viewer’s eye while creating an aura of warmth and energy. While this painting is a clear celebration of the natural world, there is also a darker element within...

Self-Portrait at Twenty-Eight Source: Wikipedia Albrecht Dürer was one of the most prolific artists of the Northern Renaissance. Dürer, who was German, is best known for his engravings and woodcuts. However, throughout the early years of his life, he also created several self-portraits. The last one, which Dürer painted when he was twenty-eight is the painting I’m going to discuss today. Like all of Dürer’s work, this self portrait is a painting of extraordinary beauty. It was executed with great skill and attention to detail, and it is a fantastic example of the artist’s technical mastery. From my perspective, however, self-portraits are primarily interesting because of what they can tell us about the artist’s view of themself. Here, we see Dürer facing the viewer head on; he wears a fur coat, and one hand is raised in a strange gesture that resembles the contemporary sign for a blessing. It is a rather strange painting, frontal portraits were uncommon at the time, with three-quar...

The Annunciation Source: Museo del Prado It’s my opinion that Fra Angelico’s Annunciation is one of the most beautiful paintings ever created. The rich blues and vibrant flashes of gold are a feast for the eyes, while the meticulous detail he brought to the flowers and plants is simply extraordinary. The painting was restored a couple of years ago, and it is now possible to see the full glory of Fra Angelico’s work. As his name suggests, Fra Angelico was a monk, and his paintings deal exclusively with religious subjects. Paintings like The Annunciation were devotional items, meant to inspire prayer and reflection. The Annunciation was one of Fra Angelico’s favorite subjects; he returned to it many times throughout his life. However, this Annunciation is probably the best. The subject matter comes from the Gospel of Luke; here, we the moment that the angel Gabriel appears to tell Mary that she will become pregnant with the Christ Child. Depictions of the Annunciation usually ...

The Transculturation of the Puerto Rican Source: Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico  Although artistic ideals and styles shift over time, one aspect of art remains constant: the artists of the past inspire the artists of the future. Carlos Irizarry’s painting The Transculturation of the Puerto Rican is a good example of this phenomenon. Irizarry drew his inspiration from Ramón Frade’s famous painting El Pan Nuestro de Cada Dia . Frade’s painting celebrates Puerto Rico’s traditional jíbaro lifestyle. The jíbaro way of life was primarily an agricultural culture in which subsistence farmers live off the land in a traditional way. Of course, this lifestyle is fraught with difficulties; however, it has long been romanticized by those who believe the jíbaro lifestyle has inherent honor and dignity. To some modern observers, the jíbaro lifestyle represents a simpler way of life that preserved the Puerto Rican culture and allowed everyday people to become self-sufficient property owners...

Si Sabrá mas el discipulo? Source: MET Museum Today, I want to return to one of my favorite topics in art, Francisco Goya’s groundbreaking series of prints: Los Caprichos . Goya published Los Caprichos —a series of etchings that depict the social ills of contemporary Spanish culture, in 1799—at the dawn of a new century that would change Spain forever. This print, the first in the Capricho’s so-called asses sequence—which presents a series of images of donkeys acting in human roles—provides a direct satire of Spanish education. Here, a donkey masquerades as a teacher, instructing other, young donkeys. A contemporary description (from the Ayala Commentary) sarcastically comments, “teachers who are asses cannot but produce students that are asses.” In this context, the word ass has the idiomatic double meaning of idiot and donkey, a play on the subject of the image. The image suggests the bad teachers make bad students, perpetuating the cycle of ignorance and indolent academic pract...

Ophelia Source: Tate Museum If you attended high school in the U.S., chances are you’re familiar with Shakespeare’s masterpiece: Hamlet . Because of Hamlet’s fame, the heroine of the play—Ophelia—has become one of the most famous female characters in Western literature. As such, she is a popular subject in art. John Everett Millais’ painting is perhaps the most famous image of Ophelia. His Ophelia is truly a pre-Raphaelite masterpiece, rich in detail and stunningly beautiful. The pre-Raphaelite movement was inspired by a desire to create serious and realistic art that was also pleasing to the eye. Pre-Raphaelite painters were not interested in “trivial” scenes of everyday life, preferring to focus on subjects that were rich in symbolism, including religious, mythological, literary, and historical scenes. They drew particular inspiration from Medieval art. Ophelia, therefore, was a perfect subject for pre-Raphaelite painters. Millais’ Ophelia depicts the heroine during her final ...

Birding Source: Pintrest I don’t agree with having outdoor cats, but I do find this painting to be very charming.  This whimsical painting, entitled Birding , depicts cats—in virtually every possible position (and there are a lot of positions possible for cats)—hunting birds. It doesn’t take itself too seriously. The painting is consciously fanciful; in a nutshell, it’s fun! The artist, Jamie Wyeth is a member of the famous Wyeth family, and is the son and grandson respectively of celebrated painters Andrew Wyeth and N.C. Wyeth. Although he’s probably not as well known as his relatives, he’s certainly a famous and talented painter in his own right. Wyeth has a flair for painting animals (in fact, one of his most famous paintings is entitled Portrait of Pig ), and that is certainly apparent in Birding . Here, Wyeth uses loose brushstrokes and a painterly style to convey the motion and energy of the cats. Although the scene itself is unrealistic, he succeeds in capturing t...

Don Quixote Source: pablopicasso.org The other day I wrote about a painting by Pablo Picasso that I don’t particularly care for, so today I wanted to show you a piece of art by Picasso that I actually do like: Don Quixote . This simple drawing is one of the most iconic images in Picasso’s oeuvre. In fact, I’m sure everyone reading this blog post has seen it before; it’s everywhere! Over the years, this drawing has become one of the quintessential symbols of Spain. It depicts Don Quixote de la Mancha— the eponymous character of Miguel de Cervantes’ famous novel—his horse and squire Sancho Panza. Windmills churn in the background, a reference to Don Quixote’s famous joust with the windmills, which he believed to be giants. Picasso created it for a French magazine, which featured the drawing on their cover in honor of the anniversary of the novel. Picasso was an incredibly prolific artist; in fact, he is estimated to have produced about 50,000 pieces of art during his lifetime. So, wh...

Y no hai Remedio Source: Khan Academy Yesterday, I discussed Pablo Picasso’s Cat Catching a Bird , a painting that represents the torments of war. Picasso painted in response to the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939; however, more than one hundred years earlier the great Spanish artist Francisco Goya tackled the same subject matter in response to a different conflict: the Peninsular War. Goya has often been referred to as a painter of the Enlightenment (and if you’re wondering where else you’ve heard that, I probably said it last week). And, while the Enlightenment movement clearly underpins his entire oeuvre , his catalog is much broader, from both a stylistic and thematic perspective. Y no hai Remedio —which translates to And It Can’t be Helped or literally And there is no Remedy—is darker and more sinister than Goya’s earlier work; however, like his Caprichos series it also represents a blistering criticism of contemporary Spanish life. Y no hai Remedio comes from The Disasters o...

Cat Catching a Bird Source: pablopicasso.org For years, I’ve thought of myself as a person who doesn’t really like Pablo Picasso’s art. It’s not that I don’t acknowledge his talent and the way he’s changed the artistic landscape; I just always thought that his work didn’t speak to me. Anyway, I thought that until one day I woke up and realized that the walls of my house were dotted with Picasso prints that I purchased. It turns out that I like Picasso after all, imagine my surprise! My appreciation for Picasso’s art snuck up on me, but I’m fairly certain I will never have a print of Cat Catching a Bird hanging in my house. This painting—which is the subject of today’s post—is unapologetically gritty. Here Picasso depicts a cat in the act of tearing a bird into bloody pieces. Although I personally consider cats to be lovable, cuddly animals, Picasso’s painting captures the wild side of the animal, personifying the wild and brutal hunter that lurks behind the house pet. ...

Ponce Massacre Source: Princeton Program in Latin American Studies In the history of human culture, art has served many different purposes. It commemorates past events, conveys political messages, expresses complex ideas, inspires religiosity, and adds a degree of beauty to the world. Today, I’m going to talk about a piece of art that serves as a historical record of a little-remembered event: the Ponce Massacre of 1937. Carlos Raquel Rivera’s linocut print, aptly entitled Ponce Massacre , commemorates the massacre of the same name that killed nineteen people in Ponce, Puerto Rico. On Palm Sunday, March 21, 1937, members of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party and other civilians gathered in the main plaza of the city of Ponce to stage a march in protest of the unjust imprisonment of Pedro Albizu Campos, a key figure in the Puerto Rican struggle for independence. All protesters were unarmed, and the organizers had obtained permits for the protest. However, On the day of the protest, ...

1898 Source: WorthPoint When I’m in need of inspiration for this blog, I often end up cruising around the internet, looking through digitized museum catalogs and other websites for ideas. I was doing that the other day when I came across an image of a linocut print by Carlos Raquel Rivera entitled 1898 . I was immediately stunned by the print, so I thought I’d take some time to chat with you about it today. Rivera was a Puerto Rican artist who is perhaps best known for his many prints. His work is characterized by dynamic compositional choices, surreal imagery, and, most importantly, bold political messages. 1898 is a prime example of one such political statement. The title, 1898 , refers to the year in which Puerto Rico became an American colony. Following the Spanish-American war, Spain ceded control of Puerto Rico to the United States as part of the peace negotiations. Rivera’s print succinctly summarizes this chain of events. 1898 depicts a Spaniard on a horse stabbing a Tai...

La Invocación Source: Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico For the past two days, I’ve been discussing the importance of the sugar industry in Puerto Rican art. Today, I want to finish up that discussion with a look at another painting by Puerto Rican artist Julio Tomás Martínez. La Invocación is one of Martínez’s most poignant paintings. It depicts the shadowy figure of a man silhouetted against a cloudy sky. He is standing on a hill, looking down on a sugar mill; his arms are stretched out to the sky, and he holds a machete in one hand. A bunch of plantains lay next to his feet. There are several layers of symbolism and meaning in this piece. As the title suggests, the central figure of the painting is making an invocation—although it is unclear to whom or to what the appeal is directed. The presence of the sugar mill and the man’s dramatic pose suggest despair and profound mental anguish. The machete, an important agricultural tool in the Caribbean, suggests that he is either a farmer ...

El Genio del Ingenio Source: Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico Yesterday, I took a look at Rafael Tufiño’s groundbreaking engraving, Cortador de Caña , which celebrates the lives of laborers in the sugarcane industry. The sugarcane industry was one of the mainstays of the Puerto Rican economy until the 1960s, and, as such was an important—although underrepresented—theme in Puerto Rican art. One of the strangest and most poignant of these artworks is El Genio del Ingenio , which the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico translates (non literally) as The Genie from the Sugar Mill . This bizarre painting was created by Puerto Rican artist Julio Tomás Martínez, one of the precursors of the surrealist movement. As Puerto Rican writer Olga Nolla explains, Martínez’s work can be characterized as “irredeemably Caribbean, because of his humor and his colorful, eclectic style” and was inspired by a deep seated passion for justice. Justice is at the heart of El Genio del Ingenio . The painting depicts a mo...