Andrew Wyeth is most famous for the painting featured in this post, entitled Christina's World. Wyeth's detractors claim that the painter staged a "discovery"of hundreds of illicit, decades old paintings of his own making, featuring his muse and lover, Helga Testorf. The following is the transcript of an interview with the widow of the famous …
The Minoans of ancient Greece embodied one the world’s first great civilizations, with innovations that pervaded nearly every facet of their lives. The Egyptians, across the sea and equally great in their own right, had a rich, ancient culture that undoubtedly influenced all who encountered it. When the two civilizations collided, an exchange of goods …
Continue reading Egyptian Influence on Minoan Religion and Culture
The Art Deco Movement of 1925 - 1940 marks a time of exuberant excess, and is characterized by bright and linear ornamentation in visual art, geometric elegance in fashion, and hard-edged decoration in architecture. Artists, architects and designers of the time sought to embellish all things tangible, from the largest skyscraper facades to the smallest …
Continue reading Art Deco: An Artistic Response to Industrialization
Section 1: The Work and its Historical/Cultural Context Arguably the most famous piece by painter and drafter John William Waterhouse, The Lady of Shallot depicts an emotionally evocative scene on an ancient theme: the fabled medieval city of Camelot. The work's creation in 1888 was inspired by a poem by the same name which …
Continue reading Analysis of William Waterhouse’s Various Renditions of the Lady of Shallot
It’s dramatic. It’s beautiful. It’s 3 naked men in poses of defenselessness! Classical Greek art embodies the most basic, visceral drive behind the creation of beautiful things by humans. Other than the strictly formulary and objective art of the Egyptians, the ancient Greeks did not have the benefit of any predecessor …
Continue reading Laocoon and His Sons: Ancient Greek Art as a Model for Cultural Identity
Browsing through some photos of Gothic cathedrals, I was stricken by a resemblance between the Gothic architectural style and its look-alike components in human anatomy. Interior of the Chartres Cathedral The ribbed vaulting of the Chartres Cathedral in France, bears a striking resemblance to an interior body cavity, …
Continue reading Gothic Architecture: Ridiculously Anatomical
As often as I take for granted the comforts and conveniences of today, I also contrive to understand how our culture came to be as it is now. Compelled by an unspeakable desire to connect with my earliest ancestors, to I decided to do a mini-research study into the beginnings of art and civilization. Since …
The Thinker 