John Fowles (1926-2005)

John Fowles (1926-2005)

• L'Obsédé (L'Amateur) (The Collector) (1963)
• Le Mage (The Magus) (1965)
• Sarah et le lieutenant français (The French Lieutenant's Woman) (1969)

philip glass - einstein on the beach

philip glass  1937- .... Einstein on the Beach 

Glyndebourne: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (on Sunday 26 June 2011) - video

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg 1861-1867 création 1868 Munich

Sainte Colombe - Tombeau - Les Regrets - Tombeau - Les Regrets

Sainte Colombe  1640-1700

Knocking on Heaven's Door by Bob Dylan

Knocking on Heaven's Door by Bob Dylan

Billy the Kid photograph sold at auction in Colorado

 for $2.3m

Henri matisse

Henri matisse,Tea, 1919
Painting, Oil on canvas, 55 1/4 x 83 1/4 in. (140.34 x 211.3 cm)
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Simon Vouet (1590-1648)

Simon Vouet 1590-1649

Simon Vouet (1590-1648)
Autoportrait, 1626 ou 1627
Huile sur toile - 45 x 36,5 cm
Lyon, Musée des Beaux-Arts

(  link  ) 

Tableau attribué à Simon Vouet

Portrait présumé de Virginia da Vezzo
( épouse et muse du peintre et peintre elle-même  )

Huile sur toile, , 75 x 61,5 cm, vers 1625-1626

Première moitié du XVII^ème siècle

Vic -sur-Seille : Portrait de femme attribué à... par Mika-57

Né à Paris, fils de Laurent Vouet, peintre des Écuries du Roi sous Henri IV, Simon Vouet a commencé sa carrière comme portraitiste en Angleterre. Sa carrière se divise en deux temps. Le séjour italien -qui s’achève en 1627 avec le retour en France de l’artiste- et la période parisienne, de 1627 à sa mort.

Simon Vouet s’est installé à Rome en 1613. Peintre de portraits, de compositions religieuses et de scènes de genre, il est très influencé par le réalisme et le chiaroscuro du Caravage, mais aussi par l’école bolonaise et par le traitement de la couleur des peintres vénitiens.

 
Il devient membre de l’Académie de Saint-Luc et reçoit la protection ainsi que de nombreuses commandes du pape Urbain VIII. Considéré comme le chef de file des peintres français à Rome (Vignon, Valentin, Mellin…), il ouvre une école de peinture d’après le modèle vivant. Il a d'ailleurs été le premier artiste français à recevoir une prestigieuse commande pour la basilique Saint-Pierre de Rome en 1624 : "L’Adoration de la croix", peinture murale aujourd’hui détruite, dont il ne subsiste que des esquisses fragmentaires. La peinture de Vouet évolue alors vers un art plus ample et plus clair, annonçant les grandes commandes parisiennes de la seconde partie de sa carrière.

Ses succès poussent Louis XIII à le rappeler en 1627 pour être son premier peintre. Après quinze fécondes années en Italie où il s’était marié avec une romaine, Virginia da Vezzo, Vouet va ouvrir à Paris un autre chapitre de sa glorieuse carrière. Il importe en France le style baroque italien et l’adapte aux grandes décorations de l’époque. Il réalise des portraits, des cartons de tapisserie et des peintures pour les palais du Louvre, du Luxembourg et pour le château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye.

 
Simon Vouet est l’emblème d’une peinture baroque française. Ses compositions relèvent d’une manière large et enlevée que rythment le mouvement et des coloris éclatants. Vouet y fait preuve d’une science véritable du dessin et d’un profond attachement à l’observation du réel.

Nombre d’artistes célèbres de la seconde moitié du XVII^ème siècle ont été des élèves de son atelier parisien. Y ont, entre autres, été formés Charles Le Brun, Eustache Le Sueur et Pierre Mignard. Vouet jouit d’une très grande renommée auprès de ses contemporains. En créant une synthèse entre le baroque italien et le classicisme français, il a dominé la scène artistique jusqu’à sa mort.

De ce fait, le rôle de Vouet aura été prépondérant. Le Brun saura être son digne successeur. Plus que tout autre, Simon Vouet aura contribué à faire de Paris sous le règne de Louis XIII l'une des capitales artistiques de l’Europe.

Claude Lorrain (1600-1682)

Claude Gellée, dit le Lorrain (1600-1682)
Le Christ apparaît à la Madeleine, 1681
Huile sur toile - 84,9 x 141,1 cm
Francfort-sur-leMain, Städelsches
Kunstinstitut und Städtische Galerie

( link )

Claude Lorrain (1600-1682)

                                    Marine avec combat sur un pontHuile sur toile - 73,5 x 96,5 cm

Nancy, Musée des Beaux-Arts

( link )

The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Rene Magritte

The Empire of Lights,1954

A nocturnal scene under a daytime sky.
It is only at second glance that one becomes aware of the surreal nature of this apparently so true-to-life scene.
Magritte interpreted it as follows:
"I have reproduced different concepts in The Empire of Lights, namely a nocturnal landscape and a sky as we see it during the daytime.
The landscape leads us to think of night, the sky of day. In my opinion, this simultaneity of day and night has the power to surprise and to charm.
This power I call poetry."

Murder in Mesopotamia by Agatha Christie

Murder in Mesopotamia is a work of detective fiction 
by Agatha Christie

Edward Burne-Jones - 1833-1898

Edward Burne-Jones  -  1833-1898  ( link )

Georgiana Burne-Jones, their children Margaret and Philip in the background

Goldfish Pool 1861 by Edward Burne-Jones. Gouache on paper.

William Morris’ design skills extended to dress. This model is wearing a dress which Morris designed for his future wife to wear in one of his paintings. The dress is unconventional for the time, but typical of the style popularised by the Pre-Raphaelites. The setting for this picture is possibly the Red House. Burne-Jones’ use of rich colours and his design for the frame owe much to Rossetti.

This is one of a series of beautiful women painted by Burne-Jones in the 1860s. It was commissioned by George Price Boyce in 1861. The model is sitting on the low wall of a pool filled with goldfish. William Morris designed the dress she is wearing for his future wife, Jane Burden, to pose in his paintings La Belle Iseult and Guinevere prior to their marriage in 1859. The setting for this picture is possibly William Morris’s new home - The Red House, Bexleyheath, Kent. The house was designed by Philip Webb in 1859 for Morris and his new wife Jane Burden.

Keeping to the medieval theme, Burne-Jones also designed medieval rosettes for the picture frame which was possibly made by his father, Edward Richard Jones.

This picture demonstrates Burne-Jones’s prime interest in colour. He used watercolour for much of his work in the 1860s because of the small scale it offered. Inspired by Rossetti’s unconventional technique he achieved a wide range of effects. He mixed watercolour with gum and scratched, sponged and blotted the wet colour.

Burne-Jones is a major late Pre-Raphaelite painter. This rare early watercolour has glowing jewel-like colours. The model is wearing an unconventional style of dress popularised by the Pre-Raphaelites.

Claude LORRAIN - Paysage avec une halte durant la fuite en Égypte, 1661 Saint-Pétersbourg, Musée de l'Ermitage

Claude GELLEE dit le Lorrain (1600 – 1682)

Claude LORRAIN - Paysage avec une halte durant la fuite en Égypte, 1661 

Saint-Pétersbourg, Musée de l'Ermitage

Rembrandt van Rijn 1606-1609

Rembrandt – Ronde de nuit (1642) Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Rembrandt van Rijn 1606-1609

A PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG WOMAN

1632
92 x 71 cm.
Gemäldegalerie der Akademie der Bildenden,
 Vienna

A PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG WOMAN,

                                                    PROBABLY MARIA TRIP

                                                                   1639107 x 82 cm.

Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

           PORTRAIT OF AGATHA BAS

1642
Buckingham Palace, London

Agatha Bas (1611-58) was a member of one of Amsterdam’s leading families, the daughter of Dirk Jacobszoon Bas, a director of the Dutch East India Company who had served as burgomaster of the city on several occasions. She married Nicholas van Bambeeck (1596-1661), a successful cloth merchant who was an immigrant from Flanders. Rembrandt had probably known Bambeeck for some time before he painted both his portrait and the companion portrait of Agatha. In 1640 both Rembrandt and Bambeeck invested in business of the art-dealer Hendrick van Uylenburgh.

SASKIA VAN UYLENBURG IN A RED HAT

c. 1633-1642Germaldegalerie, Alte Meister Staatliche, Kustsammlungen, Kassel

Ambrosio Bosschaert - TULIPS IN A WAN-LI VASE c. 1619

Ambrosio Bosschaert - TULIPS IN A WAN-LI VASE c. 1619

Ambrosius BOSSCHAERT
Antwerp 1573- The Hague 1621
Only a few details of Bosschaert's life are known, and they add little to an understanding of his very special type of flower painting. He must have left Antwerp when quite young, as he was over the border in Middelburg during the period c.1593-1613. Although trained in Antwerp-and indeed his pictures always betray his Flemish upbringing - Bosschaert can be said to have had a decisive influence on still-life painting in the Netherlands. His own style was largely based on that of the Antwerp artist Jan (Velvet) Brueghel (1568-1625), and Bosschaert's intense proccupation with highly finished treatments of individual flowers in a vase set a standard which took a long time to surpass. His pictures are surprisingly rare and are much sought-after by present-day collectors.
from:
Christopher Wright, The Dutch Painters: 100 Seventeenth Century Masters, London, 1978

Willem Kalf - STILL LIFE WITH SILVER JUG

Willem Kalf

STILL LIFE WITH SILVER JUG c. 1655-1657
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Willem KALF
Rotterdam 1619 - Amsterdam 1693

Willem Kalf was born in Rotterdam in 1619. He was the greatest still-life painter of his generation. Occasionally, throughout his life, he painted small scenes of kitchens and barns, but his most typical and most popular works were the so-called pronken (ostentatious) still-lifes that showed costly artifacts of metal, glass and porcelain. Kalf was in Paris between 1642 and 1646. In 1651 he married, at Hoom, a talented woman, Comelia Fluvier, who was a diamond- engraver, calligrapher and poet. In 1653 he settled in Amsterdam, where he worked until his death in 1693.

from:
The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer, John Nash, London, 1972

The Secret Player, 1927, by René Magritte.

The Secret Player, 1927, by René Magritte. 

René Magritte (Belgian, 1898-1967) - The Key to Dreams, 1930

René Magritte - The Key to Dreams, 1930 

Oil on canvas.

81x60 cm.

Private collection

Giorgio de Chirico (Italian, b. Greece, 1888-1978)

Giorgio de Chirico (Italian, b. Greece, 1888-1978)

Self-Portrait ( Et quid amabo nisi quod aengma est?),1911.

Oil on canvas , 72.5x55 cm

Private collection

The Enigma of the Arrival and the Afternoon, 1911-12.

Oil on canvas.

70x86.5 cm

Private collection

The Nostalgia of the Infinite,1912.

Oil on canvas

135.2x64.8 cm

The Museum of modern Art, New York

Balthasar Klossowski de Rola, known as Balthus (French, 1908-2001)

Balthus - The Passage du Commerce Saint-André,1952-1954.

Oil on canvas, 294x330 cm

Private collection

Pieter Bruegel the Elder -The Harvesters, 1565

The Harvesters, 1565

Pieter Bruegel the Elder (Netherlandish, active by 1551, died 1569)

Oil on wood

This is one of six panels painted by Pieter Bruegel the Elder for the suburban Antwerp home of the wealthy merchant Niclaes Jongelinck, one of the artist's most enthusiastic patrons—Jongelinck owned no less than sixteen of Bruegel's works.

Dilettante Theatricals: or a Peep at the Green Room by James Gillray, 1803

Giovanna Baccelli by Thomas Gainsborough, exhibited 1782

Giovanna Zanerini, known on the stage as Baccelli, was for many years one of the principal ballerinas at the King's Theatre, Haymarket, where she first appeared in 1774. Her distinguished dancing career reached its peak in the brilliant season of 1780-1 when she appeared with Gaetan Vestris and his son AugUste in several important ballets devised by Noverre that took London by storm. The costume she is wearing in this picture seems to be adapted from one of these, namely that for her role in Les Amans Surpris, a ballet by Simonet first performed in London in December 1780, in which she partnered the younger Vestris in his first wildly successful appearance in England. The matching costumes of both Baccelli and Vestris were engraved by Thornthwaite after J. Roberts for Bell's British Theatre (15 May and 20 July 1781 respectively). She also danced with great success in her native Venice in 1783-4, and at the Paris Opera as late as 1788.

From about 1779 she was the mistress of George Frederick Sackville, 3rd Duke of Dorset (1745-1799) with whom she lived in lavish style both at his seat at Knole, Sevenoaks, and in Paris during his term there as ambassador from 1783 until 1789. She and the Duke parted amicably in 1789, her independence secured by an annuity of £400 which the Duke had settled on her in 1785 (Kent Record Office, Sackville papers, U269/T91/7-8). She died on 7 May 1801, after a lengthy illness, at her lodgings in Sackville Street, Piccadilly, 'generally respected for her benevolence' (Gentleman's Magazine, June 1801, p.573).

Apart from Gainsborough, she was also painted by Ozias Humphry (exh. R.A. 1780, no.335; untraced), Reynolds (exh. R.A. 1783, no.206; Sackville collection, Knole), John Graham (exh. R.A. 1784, no.372; untraced) and later Gainsborough Dupont (Royal Collection). She was also twice sculpted by John Baptist Locatelli (a bust exh. R.A. 1781, no.516, and a full-length statue now at Knole). 

In this painting Gainsborough reaches one of the peaks of his mature portrait style, displaying not only his famed ability to catch a likeness, but also a brilliant fluency of brushwork and an increasing concern with compositional problems expressive of movement. When the painting was exhibited at the R.A. in 1782, it was chiefly praised as an excellent likeness, although at least one reviewer (quoted in Whitley, 1915, p.188) could not help commenting on the obvious fact that the lady is shown wearing stage-makeup: '...the artist was not only obliged to vivify and embellish; but, if he would be thought to copy the original, to lay on his colouring thickly. In this he has succeeded, for the face of this admirable dancer is evidently paint-painted'. The no less accomplished half-length of the Duke, still in the possession of the Sackville family (Waterhouse 1958, p.63, no.203, repr. pl.251) was also announced for the 1782 exhibition, but was not, in the event, shown. A receipt from Gainsborough is still preserved at Knole: 

'Recd. of His Grace the Duke of Dorset one hundred Guineas in full for two ¾ Portraits of his Grace, one full length of Madelle Baccelli, two Landskips and one sketch of Begger Boy and Girl £105. June 15 1784. Tho. Gainsborough'.

A small finished oil sketch for this painting (22X 15 ½ ins.) is in the collection of Sir Alfred Beit, Bart., Russborough. It has no tambourine in the lower left corner and there are other slight compositional variations. The chief of these are the much lower trees in the background which Gainsborough raised in the finished version to engulf the outstretched arm, thus throwing the magnificent head into greater relief.

http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?cgroupid=-1&workid=4957&searchid=8813&roomid=false&tabview=text&texttype=8

Mahler Symphony No.2 Finale by Chung, SPO (2010)

Mahler, Symphony no. 2, Resurrection, Final, part 1 ~ Sir Simon Rattle

Deutsch:
Aufersteh'n, ja aufersteh'n
Wirst du, Mein Staub,
Nach kurzer Ruh'!
Unsterblich Leben! Unsterblich Leben
wird der dich rief dir geben!
Wieder aufzublüh'n wirst du gesät!
Der Herr der Ernte geht
und sammelt Garben
uns ein, die starben!
O glaube, mein Herz, o glaube:
Es geht dir nichts verloren!
Dein ist, ja dein, was du gesehnt!
Dein, was du geliebt,
Was du gestritten!
O glaube
Du wardst nicht umsonst geboren!
Hast nicht umsonst gelebt, gelitten!
Was entstanden ist
Das muß vergehen!
Was vergangen, auferstehen!
Hör' auf zu beben!
Bereite dich zu leben!
O Schmerz! Du Alldurchdringer!
Dir bin ich entrungen!
O Tod! Du Allbezwinger!
Nun bist du bezwungen!
Mit Flügeln, die ich mir errungen,
In heißem Liebesstreben,
Werd'ich entschweben
Zum Licht, zu dem kein Aug'gedrungen!
Mit Flügeln, die ich mir errungen
Werde ich entschweben.
Sterben werd'ich, um zu leben!
Aufersteh'n, ja aufersteh'n
wirst du, mein Herz, in einem Nu!
Was du geschlagen
zu Gott wird es dich tragen!

English:
Rise again, yes, rise again,
Will you My dust,
After a brief rest!
Immortal life! Immortal life
Will He who called you, give you.
To bloom again were you sown!
The Lord of the harvest goes
And gathers in, like sheaves,
Us together, who died.
O believe, my heart, O believe:
Nothing to you is lost!
Yours is, yes yours, is what you desired
Yours, what you have loved
What you have fought for!
O believe,
You were not born for nothing!
Have not for nothing, lived, suffered!
What was created
Must perish,
What perished, rise again!
Cease from trembling!
Prepare yourself to live!
O Pain, You piercer of all things,
From you, I have been wrested!
O Death, You masterer of all things,
Now, are you conquered!
With wings which I have won for myself,
In loves fierce striving,
I shall soar upwards
To the light which no eye has penetrated!
Its wing that I won is expanded,
and I fly up.
Die shall I in order to live.
Rise again, yes, rise again,
Will you, my heart, in an instant!
That for which you suffered,
To God will it lead you!

Mahler 2.Sinfonie (Finale) Part III

LS Lowry - Coming Home from the Mill

LS Lowry -

Coming Home from the Mill, 1928

Une galerie de peintures

L.S. Lowry (1887-1976) - Good Friday, Daisy Nook

 Good Friday, Daisy Nook

L.S. Lowry  ( link ), R.A. (1887-1976) was a curious character, dedicated to his art but always restrained by the Industrial movement that he portrayed. Lowry worked a ‘9 to 5’ job with Pall Mall Property Company in Manchester until his retirement in 1952, and painted only in his spare time. Despite this restraint, he was hugely successful even within his lifetime; the Manchester City Art Gallery purchased An Accident in 1930, he was signed up to the Lefevre Gallery in London in 1939, he was elected an R.A. in 1962 and by 1967, the General Post Office issued a stamp reproducing one of his paintings. Lowry had been appointed official artist at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953. He went on to turn down an O.B.E., a C.B.E., a C.H. (twice) and a knighthood on the grounds that he saw little point in receiving awards after the death of his mother.

The Football Match 1949

Jacopo Zucchi - 1540-1596

Jacopo Zucchi peintre manieriste

The Toilet of Bathsheba

after 1573

Oil on panel, 120 x 144,7 cm

Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Rome

Jacopo Zucchi - 1540-1596

Coral Fishing (or Amphitrites' Kingdom), also known as Allegory of the Discovery of America

Jacopo Zucchi,( link ) Pesca dei Coralli(1585),

 Roma, Galleria Borghese

D’après Jacopo Zucchi, La pêche des perles 1723

Musée Quillot Clermont Ferrand

Jean-Baptiste Siméon CHARDIN - Panier de prunes et verre d'eau

Jean-Baptiste Siméon CHARDIN (Paris, 1699 - Paris, 1779) (Peintre)

Panier de prunes et verre d'eau

Française, XVIIIe siècle, vers 1759
Peinture, Huile sur toile
38 x 46 cm
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rennes
Don de Mme Paul Lemonnier, 1913

Bob Dylan - Things have changed

Things Have Changed

A worried man with a worried mind
No one in front of me and nothing behind
There’s a woman on my lap and she’s drinking champagne
Got white skin, got assassin’s eyes
I’m looking up into the sapphire-tinted skies
I’m well dressed, waiting on the last train
Standing on the gallows with my head in a noose
Any minute now I’m expecting all hell to break loose
People are crazy and times are strange
I’m locked in tight, I’m out of range
I used to care, but things have changed
This place ain’t doing me any good
I’m in the wrong town, I should be in Hollywood
Just for a second there I thought I saw something move
Gonna take dancing lessons, do the jitterbug rag
Ain’t no shortcuts, gonna dress in drag
Only a fool in here would think he’s got anything to prove
Lot of water under the bridge, lot of other stuff too
Don’t get up gentlemen, I’m only passing through
People are crazy and times are strange
I’m locked in tight, I’m out of range
I used to care, but things have changed
I’ve been walking forty miles of bad road
If the Bible is right, the world will explode
I’ve been trying to get as far away from myself as I can
Some things are too hot to touch
The human mind can only stand so much
You can’t win with a losing hand
Feel like falling in love with the first woman I meet
Putting her in a wheelbarrow and wheeling her down the street
People are crazy and times are strange
I’m locked in tight, I’m out of range
I used to care, but things have changed
I hurt easy, I just don’t show it
You can hurt someone and not even know it
The next sixty seconds could be like an eternity
Gonna get low down, gonna fly high
All the truth in the world adds up to one big lie
I’m in love with a woman who don’t even appeal to me
Mr. Jinx and Miss Lucy, they jumped in the lake
I’m not that eager to make a mistake
People are crazy and times are strange
I’m locked in tight, I’m out of range
I used to care, but things have changed