Art-e-Facts — Daily Art Fixx - Art Blog: Modern Art, Art History, Painting, Illustration, Photography, Sculpture

Art-e-Facts: 5 Random Art Facts – XVII

1. “Art for art’s sake” is the English version of a French slogan, from the early 19th century, ”l’art pour l’art” , and expresses a philosophy that the intrinsic value of art, and the only “true” art, is divorced from any didactic, moral or utilitarian function. “The term is credited to Théophile Gautier (1811–1872). Such works are sometimes described as “autotelic”, from the Greek autoteles, “complete in itself”, a concept that has been expanded to embrace “inner-directed” or “self-motivated” human beings. A Latin version of this phrase, “Ars gratia artis”, is used as a slogan by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and appears in the circle around the roaring head of Leo the Lion in their motion picture logo. (Wikipedia)

2. Verism is the artistic preference of contemporary everyday subject matter instead of the heroic or legendary in art and literature; a form of realism. The word comes from Latin verus (true). Verism was often used by the Romans in marble sculptures of heads. Often described as “warts and all”, verism shows the imperfections of the subject, such as warts, wrinkles and furrows. (Wikipedia)

3. For decades, the Saturday Evening Post distinguished itself through its cover artwork. The most famous are by Norman Rockwell who created a total of 322 original covers for The Saturday Evening Post over 47 years. J.C. Leyendecker created over 320 covers, the most well known are his “New Year’s Baby” series which ran every year from 1908 to 1943.

4. In 2010, Picasso’s, Nude, Green Leaves and Bust sold for $106.5 million US to an anonymous buyer, setting a record for the sale of any work at auction. One of a series of highly prized, intimate portraits Picasso painted in 1932 of his lover, Marie-Thérèse Walter. (DAF)

5. Italy has by far the most art crime, with approximately 20,000 art thefts reported each year. Russia has the second most, with approximately 2000 art thefts reported per year. Italy’s government takes art crime very seriously and its Carabinieri are by far the most successful art squad worldwide, employing over 300 agents full time. (ARCA)

Art-e-Facts: 5 Random Art Facts XVI

1. Cloisonnism is a style of post-Impressionist painting with bold and flat forms separated by dark contours. The term was coined by critic Edouard Dujardin on occasion of the Salon des Indépendants, in March 1888. The name describes the technique of cloisonné, where wires (cloisons or “compartments”) are soldered to the body of the piece, filled with powdered glass, and then fired. Many of the same painters also described their works as Synthetism a closely related movement. The Yellow Christ by Paul Gauguin is often cited as a quintessential cloisonnist work. Gauguin reduced the image to areas of single colors separated by heavy black outlines. In such works he paid little attention to classical perspective and boldly eliminated subtle gradations of color — two of the most characteristic principles of post-Renaissance painting. (Wikipedia)

2. Les Automatistes were a group of Québécois artistic dissidents from Montreal, Canada. The movement was founded in the early 1940s by painter Paul-Émile Borduas. “Les Automatistes” were so called because they were influenced by Surrealism and its theory of automatism. Members included Marcel Barbeau, Roger Fauteux, Claude Gauvreau, Jean-Paul Riopelle, Pierre Gauvreau, Fernand Leduc, Jean-Paul Mousseau, and others. The group gained recognition and were exhibited in Paris and New York. Though it began as a visual arts group, it also spread to other forms of expression, such as drama, poetry and dance. (Wikipedia)

3. On December 8, 1980, famed American photographer Annie Leibovitz was sent to photograph John Lennon and Yoko Ono and created the now famous Lennon nude curled around a fully clothed Ono. Several hours after the photo shoot, Lennon was shot and killed. The photograph ran on the cover of Rolling Stone Lennon commemorative issue in January, 1981 and in 2005 was named best magazine cover from the past 40 years by the American Society of Magazine Editors.

4. Papier Collé (pasted paper) is a specific form of collage that is closer to drawing than painting. The Cubist painter Georges Braque first used it when he drew on imitation wood-grain paper that had been pasted onto white paper. Both Braque and Pablo Picasso made a number of papiers collés in the last three months of 1912 and in early 1913, with Picasso substituting the wood-grain paper favoured by Braque with pages from the newspaper Le Journal in an attempt to introduce the reality of everyday life into the pictures. (Tate)

5. Revolutionary Baroque painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was infamous for his unruly life. He was known for brawling and was arrested and imprisoned numerous times. In May of 1606, Caravaggio killed (possibly by accident) a man named Ranuccio Tomassoni. Wanted for murder, he fled Rome for Naples. In 1610, believing he would be pardoned for his crime, he began his journey back to Rome but never made it. Carvaggio’s death is the subject of much debate. No body was found and there were several accounts of his death including a religious assassination and malaria.