Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge has a great topic this week: Old vs New. In keeping with Cee’s order, the old is on the left, new is on the right.
People
Flowers: Black-eyed susans
Cats: my grandcats
Tall man-made structures (ancient Egypt, modern Chicago)
Pink vehicles
Big churches (Cologne Cathedral, Moody Bible Church)
Art (Rembrandt, Warhol)
Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge this week has the topic Non-Alive Animals. Of course, any representation of an animal has a real animal in mind as the artist creates it. But the rendition may be very close in appearance to the real animal, or it may be whimsical, or abstract. It all depends on the craftsman’s talent and point of view.
It was hard to choose photos for this post – so many to choose from! Everywhere I go, locally or abroad, there is animal art. Animals have been subjects for every kind of art imaginable for thousands of years…
Such as the first known painting in the world, a painting of Egyptian geese on papyrus at the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities in Cairo,
and the god Horus, usually represented as a hawk, at the Temple of Horus in Edfu, Egypt.
Also at the Egyptian Museum is a throne of King Tutankhamun, whose tomb was not found until 1922, with most of its grave goods intact – it hadn’t been subjected to many tomb robberies!
The ancient Chinese civilization also had many animal representations, one of the most common being the guardian lion. This one is in front of a restaurant, House of Szechwan, in Des Plaines, Illinois.
Deriving from this Chinese custom, there are people today who have a pair of lions as lawn ornaments, like this one in Des Plaines. He might look more ferocious if freshly painted!
Here are another example of a Des Plaines lawn ornament, this cute little bird sitting on an orb.
There were many whimsical animals on display for sale or as decoration in the charming small town of Poulsbo, Washington, north of Tacoma.
In Evanston, Illinois, there is a little known museum called the American Toby Jug Museum, which we discovered during Chicago’s annual Open House in October. Toby Jugs are ceramic figures, usually depicting well known persons, but also animals. The history of the toby jug, or philpot, dates back to 18th century potters in Staffordshire, England and was popularized by colonists in the United States. The top of each toby jug has a spout for pouring, but nowadays, these figurines are primarily for ornamentation or collections.
After the wedding we attended near Poulsbo, Washington, we spent a day in Tacoma before returning to Seattle for our flight home. There is a beautiful Museum of Glass there, which has many objects designed by the famous Dale Chihuly, but there is also a fine collection of glass sculptures by other artists, such as this beautiful horse.
Horses are the subject of many works of art, including statues of famous heroes mounted on horses in many European cities, but I am only including two 2-dimensional renditions, one a drawing of a palomino I drew a few days ago, and another one at a short film display at the Ij (Eye) Museum in Amsterdam.
While in Amsterdam, we visited the Oude Kerk, the oldest building in Amsterdam, founded circa 1213 CE. Under the seats of the choir were unique carvings – some rather bawdy! – including this one of a pig.
Most people love animals, and there are many examples of whimsical animals to delight human sensibilities. In the gardens behind Melk Abbey in Austria are some cute creatures, mostly fantastical combinations of human and animal, but there was this turtle:
In Passau, Germany, which we had visited the previous day while on our Viking European cruise, while walking around town on our own, we came across a dachshund museum! Big and little dachshund statues were in front of it.
Who could resist being delighted by several painted cows in the town across from Mont St-Michel in France? Here is one of them, my personal favorite (I love that bright blue udder!).
Our daughter loves Hello Kitty, and for her bridal shower, Hello Kitty was the theme! I bought these as party favors.
Some animal sculptures are cute,
but some can be a bit intimidating!…
and some are reminders of favorite movies, such as this groundhog in Woodstock, Illinois, where Groundhog Day was filmed.
Cee’s fun Foto challenge continues with a color theme. This week is dark red including maroon and burgundy.
A couple of weeks ago we went to the Chicago Art Institute. There were three special exhibits I wanted to see: El Greco (16th century), Monet (19th century), and Malangatana (contemporary). There are many kinds of art and these artists illustrate how art has changed throughout history.
Doménikos Theotokópoulos, better known today by his Spanish moniker El Greco, was a painter, sculptor and architect of the Spanish Renaissance. He usually signed his paintings with his name in the Greek alphabet. He moved to Toledo, Spain in 1577, where he received several commissions. He worked there until his death and it was there that he painted his best known works. His dramatic style was not well understood nor well accepted by his contemporaries, but has found appreciation in recent times. On at least one occasion, his patron was displeased with the painting El Greco had produced according to his commission, and while the painting was accepted and hung in a church, he only received half the amount he was supposed to have been paid. His most common subjects were religious themes. (Information obtained from Wikipedia.)
Claude Monet is one of the most famous and beloved impressionist painters; in fact, he was one of the founders of the French Impressionist movement. His interest was to capture the natural environment of the French countryside, and he would often make several versions of the same scene in order to capture the changing light and passing of the seasons. In fact, the term “impressionism” comes from the title of his painting, Impression, soleil levant which was in the first exhibition mounted by Monet and his associates as an alternative to the traditional Salon de Paris. (Information obtained at the Chicago Art Institute and Wikipedia.)
Malangatana Ngwenya (1936-2011) was an artist and national hero in his native Mozambique. His paintings depicted vivid and colorful allegorical scenes, drawing from traditional religious practices, his cultural background, and life under Portuguese colonial rule. The paintings in the Art Institute’s exhibition were completed between 1959 and 1975, coinciding with Mozambique’s liberation struggle against Portuguese colonial rule.
Posted for Becky’s October Kinda Square #27 photo challenge.
Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge this week is anything painted.
Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge this week has the topic Anything Man-made.
Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge this week is my favorite color: Green!!
Here’s an essay I wrote years ago about green, in a series about colors. Yes, I know this is a PHOTO challenge but I am going to try to combine the photos and narrative.
Green is the best color because it is the color of nature: plants and trees are green.
Point Defiance Park, Tacoma, WA
When it rains, everything looks greener than ever.
Above Omaha Beach, Normandy, France the day after a rainstorm
In fact, “green” is the new code word for the environmentally conscious. If you are green, you are committed to recycling and conserving the natural resources of our Earth.
I knew I would find something like this in Copenhagen! In the hotel room, a recycling wastebasket!
Green is a combination of two primary colors, blue and yellow, so it has the coolness of blue and the brightness of yellow.
One of Monet’s most famous water lilies paintings shows how an artist mixes and juxtaposes colors to get the desired effect. Various shades of blue and green with splashes of brighter colors make this painting feel cool, lush and pleasing. This painting hangs at the Musee d’Orsay in Paris.
There are many hues of green, created by adding more blue for a deeper, darker green or more yellow for a lighter or brighter green.
This special exhibit at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam uses multi-media to take us into the world of Vincent Van Gogh.
Green is everywhere. It’s the color of land on a globe because the land looks green from space.
It’s the color of leaves in the summer …
and pine trees all year round. (Both photos taken in northern Wisconsin.)
It’s one of the colors of Christmas!
At Macy’s on State St. in Chicago, Dec. 2018
When I see a stand of evergreens, I smell the aroma associated with them – the sharp smell of pine. Pine candles are green and I love to smell them!
Scene on the Bearskin Bike Trail in northern Wisconsin
Green is the color of many good things to eat: lettuce, spinach, broccoli, peas, beans, sweet peppers. These foods are healthy too, so it’s important to eat them every day. Green represents how plants eat: chlorophyll makes leaves green and it is chlorophyll that captures energy from sunlight and converts it into food for the plant. We humans get some of this energy when we eat green foods.
This is a great book! I recommend it to anyone who desires to eat sensibly and environmentally friendly.
Humans can learn a lesson from the plants and capture sunlight for our own energy needs. In a greenhouse, sunlight comes in and keeps plants warm as well as provides energy for them to stay healthy. We too can be “green” by eating healthy foods, consuming renewable energy from the sun, and enjoying the beauties of nature: the brown earth, the green grass and plants, and the multitude of colors of flowers, birds, butterflies and other creatures.
Butterfly garden, Chicago Botanic Garden, July 2018
People who like green will use green for things in their daily life – drive a green car, wear green clothes, or maybe paint a door green!
Passau, Germany
American cemeteries are usually covered in green grass which is kept neatly mowed. Green is often conducive for quiet contemplation.
More than 9,000 men were buried at the American Cemetery at Omaha Beach in Normandy, France. All died during the Battle of Normandy which started on D-Day, June 6, 1944.
French cemeteries are not covered with green grass, but loved ones of the deceased often decorate their graves with flowering plants. This cemetery is at Merville-Franceville-Plage.
Lens-Artists’ Photo Challenge #42 is the topic Creativity.
I love to visit cities where I get a surprise free art show! In Lincoln, Nebraska last May, after visiting tourist attractions such as the Capitol and the Sunken Gardens, I Googled restaurants and found Lazlos, in the old part of downtown. After lunch, we walked around and across from the restaurant was an alley that local artists had decorated with murals, whimsical sculptures, and more. It reminded me of Black Cat Alley in Milwaukee, which we had visited the previous November. There were a variety of styles and media.
The face sculptures were done by Mary Kolar and the stars by Ann S.
This family was created by Julie McCullough out of discarded miscellaneous objects.
Andy Peters created a sculpture (at right) using the theme of the painting at left.
I think these are boats?
This 1960s-style mural took up a large section of wall.
I like the way this artist used the contours of the windows when painting this mural.
Jen Gay was the creator of this piece.
And here’s a warning!
A few days later, we spent 3 nights at an Airbnb in Denver hosted by artist Marlene Feinholz. Most of her paintings have local themes, but there are some unusual pieces too.
This space, essentially a “garden apartment” below her residence, used to be her studio, but she decided to move her studio upstairs and rent out the apartment to visitors to Denver. Most of the artwork (with the exception of a couple of Picassos she apparently picked up in Spain) was her own.
It has been awhile since I have posted my feature “Artful Photos” – series of photographs of art and artists. Granted, I have posted random street art from various places, but at an art museum I can focus on one theme or artist.
While we were in Santa Fe on June 12, we stopped in to view the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, where a collection of some of the artist’s best works are displayed. O’Keeffe moved to New Mexico after a visit to the Southwest and began incorporating the colors and shapes of the landscape in her paintings.
The great thing about this museum is that since it focuses on one artist, it is not too large and doesn’t take long to view the entire collection. It is the largest permanent collection of her work in the world.
Admission was $13 per adult; there is no Senior discount.
The museum is located at 217 Johnson St., Santa Fe, NM. To learn more, including how to visit her home & studio 60 miles north of Santa Fe, go to the museum’s website.
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Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986) started her artistic training at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1905.
This painting by O’Keeffe, Sky Above Clouds IV (1963, oil on canvas), hangs over a stairwell at the Chicago Art Institute, where it is part of the museum’s permanent collection. (All other paintings in this post were photographed at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, NM.)
Untitled (Cherry Blossoms), 1903, water color and graphite on paper
Three years later, she no longer had the funds for artistic training, so she became a commercial artist for two years, then spent seven years teaching in Virginia, Texas and South Carolina, and continued her studies during the summers.
Abstraction with Curve and Circle, (1915-1916), charcoal on paper
During this time, she was introduced to the principles and philosophies of Arthur Wesley Dow, who espoused created works of art based upon personal style, design, and interpretation of subjects. This caused a major change in the way she felt about and approached art and by 1915 began painting primarily in an abstract style.
The Black Iris (1926), oil on canvas
Autumn Trees – The Maple (1924), oil on canvas
She met Alfred Stieglitz, an art dealer and photographer, who exhibited her works in 1917, and who, in 1924, became her husband. By that time the couple was living and working in New York.
The Barns, Lake George (1926), oil on canvas
Untitled (City Night), 1970s, oil on canvas. In later years, O’Keeffe returned to the subject of early paintings done in the 1920s. This painting is unusual because it was painted decades after the original work, City Night (1926), which was about 1/2 the size of this one.
O’Keeffe is well-known for her paintings of flowers which appear to resemble female genitalia, although she always denied this.
Bleeding Heart (1932), pastel on paper-faced cardboard
Series I White and Blue Flower Shapes (1919), oil on board
Bella Donna (1939), oil on canvas
Abstraction (1945), charcoal on paper
O’Keeffe and Stieglitz lived together in New York until 1929, when O’Keeffe began spending part of the year in the Southwest, which inspired her paintings of New Mexico landscapes and images of animal skulls.
Mule’s Skull with Pink Poinsettias, (1936) oil on canvas
Ram’s Head, Blue Morning Glory, (1938), oil on canvas
After Stieglitz’s death, she moved to New Mexico permanently at Georgia O’Keeffe Home and Studio in Abiquiú, but spent the last years of her life in Santa Fe.
O’Keeffe and photographer Michael Namingha visited a place with unusual rock formations that she called “The Black Place.” She did a series of paintings based on this place.
Black Place, Gray and Pink, (1949), oil on canvas
Black Place III, (1949), oil on canvas
Purple Hills Ghost Ranch – 2/Purple Hills No. 8 (1934), oil on canvas
Back of Marie’s No 4 (1931), oil on canvas
Besides skulls and landscapes, she painted subjects from Native American cultures, such as these kachinas.
Kachina (1931), oil on wood
Kachinas (1934), charcoal on paper
In her 70s, Georgia O’Keeffe travelled around the world, the airplane rides inspiring her Sky Above Clouds paintings. She visited Cusco and Machu Picchu, Peru, which inspired the two paintings below.
Machu Picchu I, (1957), oil on canvas
Untitled (Sacsayhuamán), 1857, oil on canvas. This painting shows the detail of Inca walls that make up this ancient fort, Sacsayhuamán. The Inca did not use mortar between the stones, but rather cut the stones to fit together perfectly.
In 2014, O’Keeffe’s 1932 painting Jimson Weed sold for $44,405,000, more than three times the previous world auction record for any female artist. The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum was established in Santa Fe after her death.
(Note: Some of the information above was obtained from Wikipedia.)
Georgia O’Keeffe preparing salad for lunch, 1960 (Photo by Tony Vaccaro, gelatin silver print)
Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge – In this series, Cee picks a photo for each week and you can pick a topic from the items or colors from the photo.
This week’s possible topics are truck, mural, octopus, whale, animal, painting, orange, black, water, lighthouse, ocean, vivid, vintage, blue, etc. If you see other topics, you can use that too. Just tell us what your topic is.
Cee’s Photo for this week:
Vintage: In the barn at Buffalo Bill’s ranch near North Platte, Nebraska
Awning: Saugatuck, Michigan
Mural: Some Denver murals (click on individual photos to see full size)
Truck: Oatman, Arizona
Orange; Black; Painting: Painting by Marlene C. Feinholz, Denver
Orange; Painting; Animals: Painting by Marlene C. Feinholz, Denver
Orcas; blue; black; awning: Downtown Anchorage, Alaska
The title of my post was inspired by a famous song on Sesame Street:
Wanderlust & Wonderment 