Fine Art Posters

College dorms and the apartments of recent college graduates are notorious for looking absolutely terrible. The households of most dorms appear to suffer all of the interior decorating abilities of hand grenades, and their rooms and apartments usually appear to be decorated with this speedy but unaesthetic technique. So how do you provide your first apartment from coming across as like your high school bedroom, full of dirty clothes and torn Metallica posters? Though this may surprise some of the guys out there, when you invite girls over they really don’t want to trip over your dirty clothes and see posters of semi-nude women on the wall. Contrary to popular belief (especially popular among college freshman men), pictures of naked women do not draw the interest of real naked women. I know, it’s a shocker.

There are a number of ways to class up your apartment. Picking your clothes off the floor and learning to use a hamper is a good start, but you still have to do something about the wall decorations. Posters of the Backstreet Boys or Jenny McCarthy just won’t do. Fine art posters offer a nice alternative to the standard poster or photograph-adorned walls usually found in beforehand apartments, as they cost an inexpensive way to add a touch of class to a dorm room or apartment.

Fine art posters can work in any room, according to dingy, cinder-block dorm room to posh apartment. Since they’re easily available from poster and framing shops for $10 or so, it’s simple to find a fine art poster to fit your style and location. Monet, Van Gough, and Rembrandt posters are always popular picks, and it pays to put some thought into what astronomical art posters will give the impression best in certain locations. “Sunflowers” may be a great way to brighten up a dark bathroom, while it may clash with a living room that’s already painted bright green, as it’s not costs it to repaint your living room to accommodate a $10 poster. Vintage absinthe or alcohol are popular art posters as well, and they’re great for adding a stylistic touch to your home bar (even if your home bar is a handful of bottles kept on an end table).

Though fine art posters will look sharp unframed, it’s usually a great touch if you can give an inexpensive frame for them. Since they’re big this can sometimes be tough, though one-piece glass or Plexiglas frames are nice ways to cover the posters while not overshadowing them or breaking the bank.

Fine Art Poster

College dorms and the apartments of recent college graduates are notorious for looking absolutely terrible. The residents of most dorms appear to have all of the interior decorating abilities of hand grenades, and their rooms and apartments usually appear to be decorated with this speedy but unaesthetic technique. So how do you make your first apartment from looking like your high school bedroom, full of dirty clothes and torn Metallica posters? Though this may surprise some of the guys out there, when you invite girls over they really don’t want to trip over your dirty clothes and see posters of semi-nude women on the wall. Contrary to popular belief (especially popular among college freshman men), pictures of naked women do not attract real naked women. I know, it’s a shocker.

There are a number of ways to class up your apartment. Picking your clothes off the floor and learning to use a hamper is a good start, but you still have to do something about the wall decorations. Posters of the Backstreet Boys or Jenny McCarthy just won’t do. Fine art posters offer a nice alternative to the standard poster or photograph-adorned walls usually found in first apartments, as they offer an inexpensive way to add a touch of class to a dorm room or apartment.

Fine art posters can work in any room, from dingy, cinder-block dorm room to posh apartment. Since they’re easily available from poster and framing shops for $10 or so, it’s simple to find a fine art poster to fit your style and location. Monet, Van Gough, and Rembrandt posters are always popular picks, and it pays to put some thought into what fine art posters will look best in certain locations. “Sunflowers” may be a great way to brighten up a dark bathroom, while it may clash with a living room that’s already painted bright green, as it’s not worth it to repaint your living room to accommodate a $10 poster. Vintage absinthe or alcohol are popular art posters as well, and they’re great for adding a stylistic touch to your home bar (even if your home bar is a handful of bottles kept on an end table).

Though fine art posters will look good unframed, it’s usually a nice touch if you can find an inexpensive frame for them. Since they’re big this can sometimes be tough, though one-piece glass or Plexiglas frames are nice ways to protect the posters while not overshadowing them or breaking the bank.

Neoclassicism Painting

Between the 18th and 20th centuries, a few quite distinctive trends were absorbed into the category of Neoclassicism, and it during these times that the movement as a whole came to absorb the classical inspirations that created a revival of ideals. These ideals, though standards from ages past, were defined by the artists synthesis of these elements into new works of art. It does not recreate styles of art from scratch, but instead shows the artists control over a particular body of classical works. By drawing from the classics of the past, Neoclassicism was paying tribute to eras of awareness that perhaps slipped away, but to regain some sense of these classical influences.

In Europe, neoclassicism began as a reaction against the Baroque and Rococo styles, and a desired return to the art of Romanesque and Renaissance classicism. Each individual grouping of Neoclassicism, whether affecting architecture or the visual arts, has attempted to capture the ideas of times gone by to utilize them in forms of art that were considered modern at the time. In neoclassicist painting in particular, the subject matter seems to hearken back to those classical ideas by reviving those Greek to Renaissance themes, and forcing them into peculiar constraints that would recreate the elements into new formats.

The Neoclassical style of artwork was heavily present during both the American and French Revolutions, and revival in the interest of classical thought in the style of ancient Greece and Rome, at times affecting a more Byzantine stance in some countries. A counterbalance came in the form of the Romanticism movement, and it never replaced Neoclassicism so much as aided in the influencing of many artists throughout the 19th century and beyond. When the architecture began to dominate the main aspects of neoclassicism, and has been found to be academically selective of the best Roman models guided with self-restraint.

At first, the style had been grafted with other popular European forms of architecture, and this style became quite pronounced as neo-classically inspired furnishings were popular for the time. The style soon had international renown, and it was at this point that the architecture became strongly influenced by Roman designs after the discoveries at Pompeii, during excavations that took place at that time. Though all these designs seem a bit absurd and overcomplicated nowadays, there was a flush of Greek inspired work in the forms of busts and vases after 1800, and this was called the Greek revival.

Continuing to be a force after the turn of the 19th century, even as Romanticism and Gothic styles took favor, but it seemed anti-modern to influential critical circles by the late 19th century. In the mid-19th century, several European cities had grandiose examples of the neoclassical style of architecture, and even early American architecture reflected this movement in various national monuments, and some of those monuments were the Lincoln Memorial and the National Gallery in Washington D. C. Soon, however, World War II would shatter those preconceptions for the world round.

Covertly, there were many modernists that chose to express a neoclassical influence with subtle tribute here and there, and even Picasso played around with reincorporating neoclassical motifs into his work at one time. Even the Art Deco style was using these ideas on a very sly level of utilization, playing with classic Grecian lines and even breaking out in American culture through architecture and the dime by 1950, and became a strong ideology in the time between both World Wars. This literary and very literal side of the movement rejected the romanticism of Dada, for example, for the restraint of religion and reactionary politics.

It can be a difficult bout to sort through all these items to find the ideal artwork that you would enjoy, and there many whose catalogs are extensive to say the least, making it quite an effort to glimpse through all of those works to find the pieces that you would enjoy the most. Finding the particular classifications that art periods fall under, such as neoclassicism, can keep your interest guided by where you can find most amount of work that you can acquire. Keep in mind, however, that many of these pieces are quite priceless to many collectors, and that buying a print of a particular famed work mat be more cost-effective for your budget.

Surrealism Painting

Surrealists were a group of painters and artists that drew a large amount of inspiration from the potent impact from dreams. In the beginning, before this artistic movement was fully embraced, many civilized people questioned the value of these works of art. Though considered some of the more recent ground-breaking artwork yet to date by drawing on the psychoanalytic work of Freud and Jung, the Surrealist movement has not lost any of its’ prior affect on many a budding artist today, and influence from this art can be found in many of the works produced by the fresh artists of today.

Surrealism started as an outgrowth from another movement in the art world between the first and second World Wars. The movement that was later called Dada, and was most popular before the occurrence of WWI; many works of “anti-art” were produced as a reaction to the growing restrictions of the social world around at the time. Where Dada’s artwork was produced to deliberately defy the boundaries of reasonable interpretation, Surrealism expressed a more positive goal of combining a sense of the fantastic with a realistic eye, and creating a bold vision that took the idea of the surreal to the next level.

It is when reviewing the more creative and remarkable artists of this era, that one can come to realize the appeal and effect that the dreamy state of being has had on the art as a whole, and a person can come to grasp a more personal aspect to these unique interpretations of some of the issues that affect us today. Art is constantly being redefined from within, and it is solely upon the artist’s shoulders to weigh out the experience onto a canvas. It has been said that art imitates life and vice versa, but with Surrealism, the tables are certainly turned around when seen for oneself.

Artists and free thinking individuals such as; Andre Breton whom wrote the Surrealist Manifesto in 1924, to famed artist Pablo Picasso to whom Surrealistic success was achieved during his period of Cubism. Some of those artists who are now renowned as predecessors to the Surrealist movement began as affiliates of the Dadaism that was strongest during 1919 and the early 1920s, and some of those artists even took Surrealism to greater heights than before. Such as Marcel Duchamp who took to defying the boundaries in stride with his previous experience in the Dada movement.

Though some pieces can seem happenstance from a distance, the powerful intent of the artist to convey a new meaning through mixing up and recombining various creative influences, and even at times making new threads of thought from old ideas or objects is the goal of the artist. To defy the boundary that one has to each own their reality in life, and to put on a new sense of perspective, shaping the rest of a lifetime to come. Some of the more famed paintings are hard to find inexpensively, but buying prints can be the easiest solution to that problem.

There is still a great deal of work created today that draws heavily from the impact that Surrealist thought has made on art in general, and especially on how art can be defined on a truly individual front. The most world-renowned artists have already passed on, but their examples stand as firm points from which to gain an understanding of what Surrealism is, whether defined through a critical mind or as a sampling of how broad the area of art can be. Surrealism is an artistic expression of that state of mind that lies unexplained at the gateway of the subconscious.

Paintings: Realism

In literature as well as art realism is the depiction of subjects as they appear in practical, everyday life. Realism does not deal with interpretation or embellishment. The point of realism is to capture people or situations in a gritty and real way. Similar to realist photography, the realist painter does not place emphasis on stylization but is most interested in depicting situations just as they appear to the naked eye.

While realism depicts real characters in real situations, there tends to be emphasis placed on the sordid or ugly. In this way, realism is very much the opposite of idealism. In idealism the theory is that the reality and regular world around us is merely a reflection of a higher truth. With realism, however, it’s as though we’re saying “all I know for sure is what my eyes and other sense organs tell me”.

As a reaction to the idealism of Romanticism in France during the middle of the nineteenth century, realism became the popular cultural movement in many ways. Realism is often linked to demands for political and social reform, as well as ideas about democracy. Dominating the literature and visual arts of England, France and the United States between the years 1840 and 1880, realism was popular throughout many facets of life.

Realists tend to throw out such hubris as classical forms, theatrics and lofty esoteric subjects in favor of the most commonplace subjects and themes. A very famous example of a realist painting is Jean-Francois Millet’s ‘The Gleaners’ from the year 1857. This painting portrays three women working in the fields. The colors are very realistic, almost drab, by contrast to non-realist paintings.

Realism as an art movement appears as early as 2400 BC in India in the city of Lothal. Examples of this type of art can be found around the world and throughout art history. In a very broad sense, realism is art that shows any subject or object that has been observed and accurately depicted, though the entire art piece may not conform to realism conditions.

During the late sixteenth century the most prominent mode of art in European art was a form called mannerism, which showed artificial and elongated figures in very unreal, though graceful positions. Then an artist by the name of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio emerged and changed much of the direction of art simply by depicting real humans doing real things. His work shows images painted directly fro meveryday life and shows an immediacy that had never been seen before.

Dutch art had any realism entries, with their fondness for homely details and humble situations and subjects. Rembrandt is a very well known example of Dutch realism in paintings. The Barbizon School took realism in a whole new direction when, by observing and painting nature, the beginnings of Impressionism took shape.

Realism still plays a role in paintings and art of all kinds today. From film to television and the fine arts, realism is still a major player in the world of creative and expressive processes and productions. Throughout human history there have been those that wish to see things as they are and those that see in reality a hint of the divine. Realism went a long way in providing the one extreme with which we’ve discovered several in betweens in more modern and contemporary art.

Paintings: Synchromism

Synchromism paintings feature harmoniously balanced colors and a feeling of movement. It is believed that synchromist paintings evoke similar feelings and sensations as music. This is a basic tenet of the synchromism art movement. As such, these paintings make wonderfully pleasing additions to any modern art collection.

Founded in 1912 by Morgan Russell and Stanton MacDonald-Wright, synchromism was an art movement based no the idea that sound and color are phenomena that are similar in the way that the individual experiences and perceives them. Movement as well as organization of color into ‘color scales’ are the ways in which synchromism pieces correlate to musical art forms.

A basic tenet of synchromism is that color can be arranged or orchestrated in much the same way that notes of a symphony are arranged by composers. This harmonious arrangement of colors and shapes produces experiential results similar to that of listening to well balanced orchestral compositions.

Artists of the synchromism art movement believed that by painting in color scales could evoke sensations that were very musical in nature. Typically, synchromism pieces feature a strong rhythmic form or forms that then advance toward complexity in form and hue, moving in a particular direction.

In many cases, such explosion of color using color scales pours out in a radial pattern. It is most common for synchromism art works to have some sort of central vortex that bursts outward with color, into complex color harmonies.

The first painting to be dubbed a synchromism work, was Morgan Russell’s ‘Synchromy in Green’ which was exhibited in Paris at the Paris Salon des Independants in the year 1913. That same year, the first exhibition featuring primarily synchromist works by MacDonald-Wright and Russell was held in Munich, Germany. Following the synchromist exhibition in Munich, there were exhibits in both Paris and New York.

These first synchromist pieces were some of the first non-objective abstract paintings found in American art. These later became better known under the label of ‘avante-garde’. In this way, synchromism was the first American avant garde art movement that gained attention internationally.

Synchromism has been compared and contrasted to Orphism. Orphism refers to paintings that relate to the Greek god Orpheus, the symbol of song, the arts and the lyre. Though Orphism is rooted in cubism, this movement moved toward a lyrical abstraction that was more pure, in the sense that this form of painting was about synthesizing a sensation of bright colors.

Though there is little doubt that Orphism was an influence to later Synchromism, Synchromists would argue that it is an entirely unique art form. As Stanton MacDonald-Wright said, “synchromism has nothing to do with orphism and anybody who has read the first catalogue of synchromism … would realize that we poked fun at orphism.”

Several other American painters have been known to experiment with synchromism. Whether synchromism was a branch of orphism or its own unique art form, there is little doubt that the harmonious use of color and movement based composition inspired many artists and art forms. Among these artists were Andrew Dasburg, Thomas Hart Benton and Patrick Henry Bruce.

Though the majority of Thomas Hart Benton’s works centered on regionalism and murals, there was also a strong flair of synchromism. Benton’s interest and incorporation of synchromism was due mainly from having studied with synchromism artists such as Stanton MacDonald-Wright and Diego Rivera.

Paintings: Symbolism

Evoking a taste similar to the Romanticist tradition, but utilized mysticism and sensitivity through mythology and dream imagery, preceding the psychoanalytical work of Freud and Jung. With a strong philosophical touch, more so than a style of art, and Art Nouveau and Expressionist artists such as Edvard Munch. Beginning in France as a reaction to the movements of Naturalism and Realism, which seemed to capture the particular components of consensual reality, and presented spirituality and imagination reflecting some artists budding interest in religion and spirituality.

In literature, poet Charles Baudelaire was developing his work and the movement, and especially with such luminaries as Verlaine contributing to the collective effort of the literary movement during the 1860s and through to the 1870s. With the works of Edgar Allen Poe coming to popularity in the 1880s, the Symbolism movement in artwork represented an outgrowth into the darker and more gothic nature of Romanticism, and contrasted with Romanticism’s rebellious and impetuous sides. Symbolist writers wrote in very metaphoric and suggestive manner, to imbue the subjects with a sense of symbolic meaning, and made realistic images into representatives for more esoteric and primordial ideas.

In translating the language of dreams into artwork with symbolic leanings, discovering a visual style that draws upon that philosophical approach that captures a sense of art that has been influential on more than one movement artistically, and has evoked some of the more fantastic imagery to ever cross a canvas. The Symbolist Manifesto was published in 1886, leading to a description of the movement that included ideas such as being hostile towards plain and matter-of-fact meanings, and to express the ideal in a perceptible form was the sole purpose of this art form.

Symbolists that preferred poetic means of conveying their ideas, were known for their techniques of removing technical aspects to achieve a greater fluidity for their work, and became related with seeking use of symbolic images over raw description to evoke the state of the poet’s soul. Paul Verlaine was influential in an 1884 publication defining the essence of Symbolism, through many essays on the relevant poets of the day, and came to the conclusion of relating the works of this movement to the famed philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, whose own work delved into art as a means of refuge from the strife of the world.

These similarities, which presented a contemplative and artistic refuge using themes such as mortality and otherworldliness, created disparaging arguments between critic and artist alike. Leading to many Symbolist poets of the day to make their own publications and periodicals, and the literary Symbolism then reached its’ peak in the year 1886, with one particular periodical lasting until 1965. Though the two aspects of the movement were distinct, they would occasionally overlap each other, and became a continuation for mystical tendencies in a Romantic tradition, even flirting with the self-consciously dark Decadence movement.

There were several dissimilar groups of painters and visual artists within the Symbolism movement, and the artistic movement seemed to have a greater impact worldwide than the literary movement, reaching multiple artists and sculptors from such distinct parts as Russia. Many of the symbols found herein are not necessarily universal, but more personally affected with the artist’s obscure and private references, with some dreamlike subject matter influencing later Surrealists. Symbolism has had a strong link to music for a while, and mostly due to the enthusiasm for the work of Richard Wagner, whose own music reflected his influence from the philosopher Schopenhauer.

Symbolism even grew to affect some of the literary fiction contributed by Oscar Wilde and Paul Adam, and has a pronounced ring when speaking about movements that have literarily and artistically that have crossed over into other inner groupings of artistic work. The waters of Symbolism have even filtered down the centuries into the state of motion pictures today, and early on held influence with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, as well as Russian actor and director Vsevolov Meyerhold’s method of acting that influenced early motion pictures.

It is difficult to overlook Symbolism’s influence and repercussions throughout the timeline to the current period of the world, as it drifts through many aspects taken for granted on a daily basis, and many pieces of work for many artists from writer T. S. Eliot to painter Pablo Picasso and even the state of horror films as well. A decidedly different state of the world now has interpreted and reinterpreted all this throughout these hundreds of years, and created more and more material reflections of the state of things as they happen to be.

Romanticism Paintings

Though sometimes referred to as the “anti-classical” movement in art, Romanticism is a style that focuses on the artist’s individualistic and emotionally wrought point of view, and is found to oppose the art movement known as Neoclassicism. Even though there have been many artists to combine elements of both. Some of the more renowned names around this movement, which utilized strong emotion to convey meaning, were Francisco de Goya and William Blake respectively. This particular art form became a reaction to the outgrowth of reason by homing in on imagination and feeling.

It is not difficult to see the value in the paintings by these artists, and there have been many examples of how other artists have influenced one another over time. As the whole category of Romanticism refers more to the trends of artists, poets, and philosophers of the late 18th and early 19th centuries than as much to an artistic movement. Though one has definitely influenced the other and vice versa rather equally as time went along, there are very few areas in modern life that can be said to stay untouched by the Romantic period, and many agree that this was a vital point in the world’s development as a whole.

Where the people of the period at the time were involved in an overwhelming interest in things of a rational or enlightened nature, the Romantic ideal favored intuition instead, and has been the subject of many differing characterizations of the movement for intellectual and literary histories. There are many varying attitudes on how Romanticism has affected the modern world, and what place this movement has had in the greater picture of history. Some cite Romanticism as being the originating moment of modernity, while others seem to think that it is a beginning to a resistance to the enlightened age, and still others date the movement as a direct aftermath of the French Revolution that is completely continuous with the present.

Romanticism was previously mentioned as affecting music and literature as well as art, but this is less understated than it might seem at first, Romanticism is very prominent in the music and literature of this period. As the age moved along, more than a few critics have considered composers such as Mozart, Hadyn, and Beethoven as being the three Romantic composers. In literature all over the world, the Romanticism movement deeply affected every writer from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe through to even the 20th century’s Ayn Rand, and many more writers between those times when Romanticism was most prominent.

As it became apparent that Romanticism was going to stay a strong influence for many years to come, many critics have taken to confirming that the Romantic period has been elemental in the progress of art to the present day, and that there is almost no famed artist who has not been in part affected by these potent periods of artwork and creative purpose. This rebellion against social and political standards of the age was instrumental in the changing over from those same standards, and created a lush place from which to draw inspiration for the next centuries to come.

Romanticism has become a piece of history that cannot be overlooked for very long as every place that one can turn has somehow been affected by the progress from this one particular time period, though that is certain for many artistic movements that have been present throughout time, and seems to put more clout into the common statement of art imitating life and life imitating art. Neo-Romanticism worked itself out through artists’ reevaluation of the earlier works by those like William Blake, and especially in areas like Britain, creating a new underground of writers, artists, and composers.

Neo-Romanticists have been considered the contrast to naturalism as Romanticism was considered the opposite to Neoclassicism in its’ heyday because of the movement seems to stress feeling and internal observation, as opposed to the naturalistic tendency to stress external observation, and utilize historic rural landscapes to react to the modern world of machines and its’ urbanization. Post-romanticism is an outgrowth of passionate art that refers to a postmodern re-enactment of romantic themes and motifs in contemporary art up to today, and combines the best of traditional artwork with a more modern flair.

In regards to the 20th century turns that Romanticism has made, Romantic realism has evolved out of Romanticism to incorporate elements of themes of value while referring to objective reality and the importance of technique, and was popularized though not coined by the writer and philosopher Ayn Rand. This lead to artists incorporating Romanticism and Realism, though they seemed more weighed to the Romanticist side of the equation, and is considered more as a branching of the Romanticism movement today.

Precisionism Paintings

Also known as Cubist Realism, and related to the Art Deco movement, Precisionism was developed in the United States after World War I. The term for this movement was coined in the 1920s, and influenced by the Cubist and Futurist movements; the main themes for these paintings were mainly regarding industrialization and modernization of the American landscape. These elements were depicted with the use of precise and sharply defined geometrical shapes, a reverence for the industrial age, but with social commentary not a directly fundamental part.

The degrees of abstraction ran the spectrum as some works had photo realistic qualities, and though the movement had no presence outside of the United States, the artists that made up this particular grouping were a closely knit collective remaining active through to the 1930s. Georgia O’Keefe remained as one of the leading proponents of this style, and stayed so for many years afterwards until the 1960s, her husband was a highly regarded mentor for the group. In a post post-Expressionist phase of life in the art world, Precisionism has affected and influenced the movements of magic realism which utilizes aspects such as juxtaposing of forward movement with a sense of distance, and pop art in which themes from mass culture were used to define art much there forward.

Just after the 1950s began, the movement of pop art was clear in places such as Britain and the United States, and employed elements of advertising and comic books to create a foundation that might have been taken as a reaction to the then popular movement of abstract expressionism. Though the term wasn’t coined until 1958, it was later linked with Dadaism from the beginning of the century, and at one point was called Neo-Dada because of the strong influence from artist Marcel Duchamp. Later affecting artists like Andy Warhol and Jasper Johns, bringing the definition to come to mean one of low-cost mass-produced and gimmicky artwork, and stressing everyday values with common sources like product packaging and celebrity photographs.

By exploring that fraction of everyday imagery, the artists found themselves working with contemporary consumer culture, and this became apparent in parts of Britain, Spain, and Japan around the same point in time. In Britain in particular, where pop art seemed to stem from at that point in 1947, and many works began blurring the boundaries between art and advertising. Whereas in Spain, the movement became interrelated with the “new figurative”, the work arose from the roots of informalism which began to be a critical aspect in this part of the world.

In Japan, pop art has been seen and utilized throughout much of the country’s native artwork through such means as Anime and the “superflat” styles of art, and became the means through which the artists could further critique their own culture through a more satirical lens. When choosing a stimulating piece by these artists, it may be a more invigorating exercise to find some of those other artists to whom these later artists owe much of their inspiration towards their own work, and Precisionism is just as appropriate a place to start for you as anywhere else in the artistic spectrum.

Today, Precisionism can be seen as fundamental influence in commercial and popular art, but cannot be too overlooked as being one of a few different movements to affect our present day stance on art’s utility and functions. With the postmodern present coming to light, maybe we shall once again be drawn back to the past that we have come to take for granted too often, and reveal a new age to define a new century of experience.

All About Futurism Paintings

A 20th century art movement with its’ roots in Italian and Russian beginnings, Futurism is said to have largely began with the writing of a 1907 essay on music by the Italian composer Ferruccio Busoni, and explored every medium of art to convey its’ meanings. The Italian poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti was the first to produce an article in which was summed up the major principles that became the Manifesto of Futurism in 1909. It included the passionate loathing of ideas from he past, and with that enmity of political and artistic traditions, espoused a love for speed and technology.

The philosophy of Futurism regarded the car, the plane, and the industrial town as legendary of the technological triumph of mankind over nature. With Marinetti at the helm, a few artists of the time introduced the tenets of the philosophy to the visual arts, and represented the movement in its’ first phase in 1910. The Russian Futurists were fascinated with dynamism and the restlessness of modern urban life, purposefully seeking to provoke controversy and attract attention to their works through insulting reviews of the static art of the past, and the circle of Russian Futurists were predominantly literary as opposed to being overtly artistic.

Cubo-Futurism was a school of Russian Futurism formulated in 1913, and many of the works incorporated Cubism’s usage of angular forms combined with the Futurist predisposition for dynamism. The Futurist painter Kazimir Malevich was the artist to develop the style, but dismissed it for the inception of the artistic style known as Suprematism, that focused upon the fundamental geometric shapes as a form of non-objective art. Suprematism grew around Malevich, with most prominent works being produced between 1915 and 1918, but the movement had halted for the most part by 1934 in Stalinist Russia.

Though at one point, those Russian poets and artists that considered themselves Futurists had collaborated on works such a Futurist opera, but the Russian movement broke down from persecution for their belief in free thought with the start of the Stalinist age. Italian Futurists were strongly linked with the early fascists in the hope for modernizing the society and economy in the 1920s through to the 1930s, and Marinetti founded the Futurist Political Party in early 1918, which was later absorbed into Benito Mussolini’s National Fascist Party.

As tensions grew within the various artistic faces that considered themselves Futurists, many Futurists became associated with fascism which later translated into Futurist architecture being born, and interesting examples of this style can be found today even though many Futurist architects were at odds in the fascist taste for Roman imperial patterns. Futurism has even influenced many other 20th century art movements such as Dadaism, Surrealism, and Art Deco styles. Futurism as a movement is considered extinct for the most part with the death of Marinetti in 1944.

As Futurism gave way to the actual future of things, the ideals of the artistic movement have remained significant in Western culture through the expressions of the commercial cinema and culture, and can even be as an influence in modern Japanese anime and cinema. The Cyberpunk genre of films and books owe much to the Futurist tenets, and the movement has even spawned Neo-Futurism, a style of theatre at utilizes on Futurism’s focuses to create a new form of theatre. Much of Futurism’s inspiration came from the previous movement of Cubism, that involved such famed artists as Pablo Picasso and Paul Cezanne, and created much of the basis for Futurism through its’ philosophy.

Expressionsim Paintings

When speaking on buying paintings of the Expressionist movement, it is always a good idea to review what elements make Expressionism unique, and to gain an understanding of some of the artists representative of this particular artistic movement. The agreed upon intention of Expressionist artwork is not reproduce a subject accurately, but to instead portray the inner state of the artist, with a tendency to distort reality for an emotional effect. The movement is closely associated with its’ beginnings in Germany, and has a few different but overlapping schools of thought within.

The term Expressionism was first used to describe the movement in the magazine produced in 1911 called “Der Sturm”, and was usually linked to paintings and graphic work that challenged academic traditions at the time. The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche later helped to define the area of modern expressionism better by clarifying the movement’s links to ancient art before any more modern interpretation had, and applied his own unique philosophy to the movement. He has been quoted stating that disordered and ordered elements are present in all works of art, but that the basic traits of Expressionism lay in the mainly disordered aspects.

The Expressionist point of view was usually conveyed through the use of bold colors, distorted forms, and a lack of perspective. Generally, a piece of expressionistic art is one that is expressive of intense emotion, and much of this kind of artwork occurs during times of social upheaval. Though it can be argued that an artist is expressive by nature, and that all artwork is truly expressionist, there are many who consider the movement particularly communicative of emotion. Later on, artists like Kandinsky changed 20th century Expressionist work through the formation of Abstract Expressionism.

The art historian Antonín Matějček was elemental in coining the term as the opposite to the Impressionist movement as well, and though Expressionism seems well defined as an artistic movement, there have never been a group of artists that called themselves Expressionists. The movement was primarily German and Austrian, and many of the different groups of thought were based around Germany at the time. Another artistic movement that heavily influenced Expressionism was Fauvism. This kind of artwork is characterized by primitive, less naturalistic forms, and includes the works of famed painters Paul Gauguin and Henri Matisse.

With this influence firmly in place, Expressionism grew into striking compositions that focused on representing emotional reactions through powerful use of color and dynamic approaches with subject matter, and seemed to counter the qualities centered on by the French Impressionism of the time. Where French Impressionism was to seek rendering the visual appearance of objects, Expressionism became an opposing movement seeking to capture emotions and subjective interpretation, and it was not important to reproduce a visually pleasing interpretation of the matter that the painting represented.

Expressionism has crossed over into many differing fields of artistic vision, with sculpture and filmmaking being primary examples today, and have influenced many people throughout the course of its’ existence as a movement in art. These visions have combined over time to create the comprehensive idea of what Expressionism has become, and many people have found this type of art very appealing and eye-catching. Throughout this century, much Expressionistic artwork has come to be representative of what art can come to be, and many people have been influenced by this very emotional artwork.

Landscape Painting Artist

There are a lot of people out there who think that landscape painting is nonsense. As a an artist, I admit that I respect them . Landscape painters are not just interior decorators, as so many people believe. Although many of our works do have their place in waiting rooms, dentist offices, and the living rooms of the middle class, nonetheless some of it is really and truly inspired work. This might all sound a bit touchy to you, the landscape artists do get touchy from time to time. After all, we are so used to not being taken seriously by our peers that it sometimes puts a chip on our shoulders.

But the fact is that I think that my art does what it is supposed to do: it makes people happy. As a landscape artist, I have specialized in pictures of sunny days, with rainbows from recently departed clouds and precipitation for many years. My work as a landscape artist depicts a type of day that, although rare, is almost universally longed for. Almost everyone has, at one point or another, seen one of these rainbows and a beautiful bright sky, and they know how much good luck and good cheer it can bring to them. Rather than painting complex emotions that might actually make someone feel worse rather than better, I paint something simple and joyous. This means that every time someone looks at the work of the landscape artists such as myself, they're going to feel good things. What is the point, after all, of art that does not make you feel happy? There is enough misery in the world as it is, if you ask me, and I would rather be a landscape artist who tries to change some of that misery to happiness during people's day to day lives.

But you tell that to the judges of so-called talent in the art world, the ones that never even look at the works of a talented landscape artist. Although the normal people know that the landscape artist is someone they can always trust to cheer them up, all of these self-proclaimed experts think that art has to be complex and original to be good. I ask you, is there any points to “good art” that only serves to make you think without heightening your mood? I really cannot think of a point to it. If I wanted to make people think, after all, I would be a novelist and not a landscape artist.

The Fact of Portrait Artist

The history of art involves many movements which includes portrait painting, landscapes and non figurative art of modern times. The portrait artist has always been a prominent figure in the art world. Many artists have depended on money from patrons who commissioned portraits of themselves, their families and friends. Members of royalty and the aristocracy of Europe loved to pose in front of their country estates, their hunting dogs at their side.

Religious art was the dominant force in art over many centuries, with depictions of Christ and John the Baptist being favorite subjects for the portrait artist. The Renaissance was a golden period for portraits and Botticelli, Raphael and da Vinci were at the forefront. Leonardo's Mona Lisa is probably the most famous portrait in the world and no one is sure who she really was.

Dutch artists have been successful in this genre too, such as Jan van Eyck, Anthony van Dyck, Peter Paul Rubens and Rembrandt. Group portraits became popular, as exemplified in Rembrandt's Night Watch from 1642. English painters have contributed too, particularly in the works of Thomas Gainsborough and Sir Joshua Reynolds.

French Impressionist artists brought a new dimension to portrait painting, blending a realistic and individual view. Courbet, Manet, Renoir, Monet and Degas were leading examples of portrait artist, breaking down the barriers of convention of their times. Toulouse-Lautrec specialized in capturing the dancers at the theatres that he frequented. Post Impressionists such as Van Gogh and Gauguin were keen portraitists. As with a lot of artists over the years, Van Gogh struggled financially and painted many self-portraits in order to save money on hiring models.

Twentieth century movements experimented with portrait painting, especially in the case of the Cubists. Picasso, Braque and others approached portraits with a geometric method that shocked many art critics at the time. Matisse was another portrait artist who explored new techniques, applying bold colors to his figures.

One of the most collectible portrait painters of recent times is Andy Warhol and his most famous depictions are part of popular culture. He liked the patronage of the rich and famous, such as Marilyn Monroe and Jackie Kennedy. As a contemporary portrait artist, he took advantage of the mass production prints that bore his name.

Portraits fell out of favor in the latter part of the twentieth century, along with other realistic forms of art. Some artists are still celebrated in the genre however, such as the English painter, Francis Bacon and Lucien Freud.

Modern Art

When my wife suggested that I look into Modern art for our interior decorating scheme, I was pretty surprised. I was even more surprised to discover that I really had no idea what Modern art actually was until I started browsing through the artwork online. I was pleasantly surprised by what I found.

The first thing that comes to my mind when you mention Modern art is abstract painting. I can’t help it. The colorful images are just too closely linked to the concept of the modern age in my mind. Of course, part of the problem is that I connect “modern” with present-day. However, I guess that when it comes to art, “contemporary” is the term used for today’s projects. I think.

Anyway, I was thrilled that Modern art wasn’t comprised completely of abstract paintings and compositions that leave the lay person (like myself) scratching his head. I like to see images that are realistic and meaningful, not ones that are confusing and complex. I’m a simple gal and I want my art to be simple as well.

Fortunately, this genre is quite vast. I have found great images that were predecessors to the abstract movement but are quite easily interpreted by the eyes. There are many landscapes and portraits that are very intriguing in the realm of Modern art and I think that I am a new fan of this particular movement.

The Art Deco furnishings in some of the rooms in my home simply beckon images from the Modern art movement. I love that I can pair geometric designs in my furnishings right along with the geometric designs in the Modern art compositions that I can found. And I can still recognize what those designs actually represent.

I was also pleasantly surprised that the Modern art movement started in the late 19th century. This really appeals to the antique collector in me. While the Art Deco pieces in my home are quite old, I really love pairing interesting antiques from the 19th Century with Modern art pieces that coincide as well.

I’m glad that I took my wife’s advice. My eyes and my mind have both been opened to Modern art and I have a brand new appreciation for abstract images. I still like to keep things real, though. I’m very happy that I can still find images in Modern art that not only suit my home but suit my personal tastes as well.