Frida Kahlo Profile

Frida Kahlo Profile

Jun 26, 2023 | Artists, David Jay Brown, Profiles

Carolyn and I have admired the work of Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, who is known for her bold and vibrant self-portraits that express pain, passion, and inner strength. Kahlo is considered one of Mexico’s greatest artists, where she is celebrated for her attention to indigenous culture and her tenacity in the face of hardship, as well as by feminists for her defiance in breaking harsh gender-biased social conventions and her honest depiction of the female experience. She is a powerful inspiration to many.

Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón was born in 1907 in Coyoacán, a village on the outskirts of Mexico City. Her father was a photographer from Germany, and her mother was from Oaxaca, with indigenous and Spanish roots. Kahlo was raised with three sisters, and she described the atmosphere in her childhood home as often “very, very sad,” because both of her parents were often sick, and “their marriage was devoid of love.”

When Kahlo was six years old, she contracted polio, which made her right leg grow shorter and thinner than the left. The illness also caused her to be isolated from her peers for months, and this caused her to begin school later than her peers. In 1922, Kahlo was accepted to the elite National Preparatory School, where she focused on natural sciences with the aim of becoming a physician, and she performed well academically.

However, Kahlo enjoyed creating art from an early age. She received drawing instruction from her father’s friend, who was a printmaker, and she filled notebooks with her sketches. In 1925, Kahlo began to work outside of school to help her family. After briefly working as a stenographer, she became a paid engraving apprentice for her father’s friend.

A severe bus accident at the age of 18 confined Kahlo to bed for three months, and this caused her to live her life in chronic pain. She had spinal injuries and a broken pelvis, as well a fractured collarbone and two ribs. Her right foot was also crushed, her right leg broken in eleven places, and a piece of handrail impaled her.

While Kahlo was recovering from this terrible accident, in her bedridden state, she began to paint. Kahlo’s mother provided her with a specially made easel, which enabled her to paint in bed, and her father lent her some of his oil paints. She had a mirror positioned above the easel, so that she could see her reflection.

Painting became a way for Kahlo to reflect on her life, and to explore questions about her identity and existence. She said, “I paint myself because I am often alone, and I am the subject I know best.” She later stated that the accident and the isolating recovery period made her desire “to begin again, painting things just as [she] saw them with [her] own eyes and nothing more.” Most of the paintings Kahlo made during this time were portraits of herself, her sisters, and her school friends. They are noted as an expression of her internal struggles, and physical and mental suffering. Kahlo’s early paintings and letters show that she drew inspiration from European artists, in particular Renaissance masters, and from avant-garde movements such as Cubism.

In 1929 Kahlo moved to the city of Cuernavaca in South-Central Mexico, where she lived with her husband, Mexican artist Diego Rivera, and was inspired by the city. Here she changed her artistic style and drew inspiration from Mexican folk art. Kahlo’s identification with the people of Mexico, and her profound interest in its culture, remained important facets of her art throughout the rest of her life.

In 1930 Kahlo and her husband moved to San Francisco, where they spent six months, and she was introduced to American artists. Kahlo further developed her folk style of painting here, and she participated in a public exhibition of her work for the first time, with the San Francisco Society of Women Artists. Kahlo then moved to Detroit, where she experimented with different painting techniques, and her work was featured in several exhibitions, although she disliked the capitalist culture of the United States and experienced numerous health problems.

In 1934 Kahlo returned to Mexico City, where she focused on regaining her health, and only painted several paintings over the next three years. She began painting productively again in 1937. In 1938 she made the first significant sale of her paintings when film star Edward G. Robinson purchased four of her paintings. That same year she met French Surrealist André Breton who was impressed by her work, and he arranged for her to have exhibitions of her work at galleries in Paris and New York City. He described her work as “a ribbon around a bomb.”

That same year Kahlo traveled to New York City to attend the opening of her exhibit, which was attended by Georgia O’Keeffe and other famous figures. Kahlo received much positive attention in the press for this exhibit and sold half of her 25 paintings exhibited there. She also received commissions from A. Conger Goodyear, the president of the Museum of Modern Art, and author and politician Clare Boothe Luce.

In 1939 Kahlo sailed to Paris, to follow up on André Breton’s invitation for an exhibition, where things didn’t go quite as well. When she arrived, she found that Breton had not cleared her paintings from the customs and no longer even owned a gallery. However, with the aid of Marcel Duchamp, Kahlo was able to arrange for an exhibition at another gallery, but further problems arose when the gallery refused to show all but two of her paintings, considering them to be too shocking for audiences, and the exhibition didn’t receive much attention.

Kahlo’s paintings touched on female issues such as abortion, miscarriage, birth, and breastfeeding, things considered to be taboo and never spoken of in public back then. Nonetheless, one of her paintings, The Frame, was purchased by the Louvre, which made her the first Mexican artist to be featured in their collection. She was also warmly received by other Parisian artists, such as Pablo Picasso and Joan Miró.

During the 1940s Kahlo had more successful exhibitions in the United States, in Boston and New York, as well as in Mexico City, and her artwork gained wider appreciation in Mexico, although she struggled to make a living from her artwork. In 1943, Kahlo accepted a teaching position at the Escuela Nacional de Pintura, Escultura y Grabado in Mexico City.

In 1945, the government commissioned Kahlo and some of her students to paint murals for a Coyoacán laundry service as part of a national scheme to help poor women who made their living as laundresses. Her financial situation improved when she received a 5000-peso national prize for her painting Moses in 1946, and when her painting The Two Fridas was purchased by the Museo de Arte Moderno in 1947.

Around this time, Kahlo’s health began to fail, and during her last years, she was largely confined to her home, where she painted mostly still lifes, portraying fruit and flowers with political symbols such as flags or doves. Realizing that Kahlo did not have much longer to live, photographer Lola Alvarez Bravo staged her first solo exhibition in Mexico at the Galería Arte Contemporaneo in 1953.

Although Kahlo was initially not expected to attend the opening of her exhibition, as her doctors had prescribed bed rest for her, she arranged for her four-poster bed to be moved from her home to the gallery. To the surprise of the guests, Kahlo arrived in an ambulance and was carried on a stretcher to the bed, where she stayed for the duration of the reception. The exhibition was a notable cultural event in Mexico, and it received attention around the world.

Kahlo died in 1954 at the age of 47. During her life, Kahlo created around 200 paintings, primarily still lifes and portraits of herself, her family and her friends. She also kept an illustrated diary and did dozens of drawings. Kahlo’s reputation as an artist grew much further posthumously. She gained more recognition in the late 1970s when feminist scholars began to question the exclusion of female and non-Western artists from the art historical canon and the Chicano Movement honored her as one of their icons.

In 1984, Kahlo’s reputation as an artist had grown to such an extent that Mexico declared her works part of the national cultural heritage, prohibiting their export from the country. As a result, her paintings rarely appear in international auctions. Regardless, Kahlo’s paintings have broken records for Latin American art. In 1990, she became the first Latin American artist to break the one-million-dollar threshold when her painting Diego and I was auctioned by Sotheby’s for $1,430,000. In 2006, her painting Roots sold for $5.6 million, and in 2016, Two Lovers in a Forest was auctioned for $8 million.

Kahlo has attracted so much popular interest that the term “Fridamania” has been coined to describe the phenomenon. She is considered “one of the most instantly recognizable artists,” whose face has been “used with the same regularity, and often with a shared symbolism, as images of Che Guevara or Bob Marley.” Kahlo’s life and art have also inspired a variety of merchandise, and her distinctive look and colorful style have been appropriated by the fashion world. On Instagram, her official account has 1.2 million followers.

A Hollywood film about Kahlo’s life, Frida, was released in 2002, and it earned six Academy Award nominations, winning for Best Makeup and Best Original Score. The 2017 Disney-Pixar animation Coco also featured a character based on Kahlo that was voiced by Natalia Cordova-Buckley. Kahlo has also become an icon for several minority groups and political movements, such as feminists, Chicanos, and the LGBTQ community, as she was openly bisexual and never ashamed to talk about her sexuality. Oriana Baddeley has written that Kahlo has become a signifier of non-conformity and “the archetype of a cultural minority,” who is regarded simultaneously as “a victim, crippled and abused” and as “a survivor who fights back.”

Some of the quotes that Frida Kahlo is known for include:

At the end of the day, we can endure much more than we think we can.

Feet, what do I need them for if I have wings to fly.

I paint flowers so they will not die.

I don’t paint dreams or nightmares; I paint my own reality.

Nothing is absolute. Everything changes, everything moves, everything revolves, everything flies and goes away.

I am not sick. I am broken. But I am happy to be alive as long as I can paint.

I paint my own reality. The only thing I know is that I paint because I need to, and I paint whatever passes through my head without any other consideration.

Nothing is worth more than laughter. It is strength to laugh and to abandon oneself, to be light. Tragedy is the most ridiculous thing.

by David Jay Brown

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Salvador Dali Profile

Salvador Dali Profile

Jun 19, 2023 | Artists, David Jay Brown, Profiles

Carolyn and I have appreciated the work of Spanish artist Salvador Dali, who is one of the most recognized surrealist artists in the world.

Salvador Dali was born in 1904 in Figueres, a town close to the French border of Spain. His father was an attorney, who had a strict disciplinary approach to parenting, which was tempered by Dali’s mother, who encouraged her son’s artistic endeavors.

Dali was named after his older brother, who died before he was born, and he was haunted by the thought of his dead brother throughout his life. Dali often referred to him in his writings and art, such as in his painting Portrait of My Dead Brother. When Dali was five years old, he was once standing over the grave of his brother with his parents, and they told him that he was the reincarnation of his brother, and this had a strong psychological impact on him. Dali also had a younger sister, who published a book about him in 1949 called Dali as Seen by His Sister.

In 1916, Dali discovered modern painting while on a vacation with his family and another family, who had an artist among them. Dali began doing charcoal drawings, and he attended the Municipal Drawing School in Figueres. In 1917 Dali’s father organized an exhibition of his art at their home.

In 1918, Dali had his first public exhibition of his drawings at the Municipal Theatre in Figueres. In 1921 Dali was introduced to the art styles of Futurism and Cubism by acquaintances, which had an influence on his work. Futurism aimed to capture the dynamism of the modern world, and Cubism brought multiple perspectives into a single image.

In 1922 Dali moved to Madrid. He studied at the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts, where he drew attention with his eccentric dress and long hair. At the school, Dali became involved with the Madrid avant-garde art group known as Ultra. He was expelled from the school twice, once in 1923 for inciting a student protest, and again in 1926, when he told a panel assessing him that none of them were competent to judge him.

Around this time, Dali made frequent trips to the Prado Museum, which he said was “incontestably the best museum of old paintings in the world.” Every Sunday Dali went to the Prado Museum to study the works of the great masters. Of this period in his life Dali said, “’This was the start of a monk-like period for me, devoted entirely to solitary work: visits to the Prado, where, pencil in hand, I analyzed all of the great masterpieces, studio work, models, research.” Dali began painting during this time, and his work was influenced by Futurist and Cubist styles.

In 1925 Dali had an exhibition of his work in Madrid, along with other artists. Seven of his paintings were done in the Cubist style and four were done in a more realist style. His work was praised by several leading critics, and that same year he also had his first solo exhibition, which met with critical and commercial success. In 1926 Dali traveled to Paris, where he met with Pablo Picasso, whose work he admired and had influenced him.

In 1927 Dali’s work began to become influenced by Surrealism, and this is where he found his calling. Surrealism was a movement in art and literature that sought to release the creative potential of the unconscious mind. Dali began creating paintings with dreamlike imagery and hallucinatory juxtapositions. After being influenced by his readings of Sigmund Freud, Dali began incorporating sexual imagery and symbolism into his work, which caused controversy and some rejection of his work at the time.

Around this time, Dali grew a neatly trimmed mustache, which became more flamboyant in the years that followed, and this became part of his trademark style and iconic image. Dali become known for his impeccably waxed mustache, which he styled into two thin, upward-pointing curves.

In 1929 Dali collaborated on a short surrealist film called An Andalusian Dog, and he continued with his paintings that explored themes of sexual anxiety and unconscious desires. In 1929 Dali had an exhibition of his work that was described as “the most hallucinatory that has been produced up to now,” and this exhibition was a commercial success.

Dali was deeply in touch with his subconscious and unconscious mind, and he used a variety of methods to induce altered states of consciousness. He was an avid lucid dreamer and practiced techniques to help with becoming awake in his dreams. Dali also experimented with different psychoactive substances, such as cannabis and hashish, and in the 1930s he used the psychedelic drug mescaline, which he believed gave him greater access to his subconscious mind. In response to an interviewer’s question about drugs, Dali famously said, “I don’t do drugs. I am drugs,” and “Take me, I am the drug, take me, I am hallucinogenic.”

In 1931 Dali painted one of his most famous paintings, The Persistence of Memory, which depicts a surrealistic landscape with melting pocket watches. Dali had numerous exhibitions of his work that were met with more commercial and critical success, as his fame as a surrealist painter grew.

In 1934, Dali took his first visit to the United States, where he had exhibitions and he received widespread press coverage. He delivered lectures on surrealism at the Museum of Modern Art and other venues, where he said, “The sole difference between myself and a madman is the fact that I am not mad!”

Dali was theatrical and flamboyant in his presentation to the world. In 1936, while at an exhibition of his work in London, he gave a lecture wearing a deep-sea diving suit and helmet. He arrived carrying a billiard cue and was leading a pair of Russian wolfhounds. Dali said that he just wanted to show that he “was plunging deeply into the human mind.”

In 1938 Dali met Sigmund Freud and he did a sketch of him. As Dali was sketching him, Freud whispered, “That boy looks like a fanatic.” This comment delighted Dali.

In 1939, during the German invasion of France during World War II, Dali fled with his wife Gala to Portugal, and then to New York in 1940, where they stayed for eight years.

In 1941, at a gallery in New York, Dali announced the death of the Surrealist movement and the return of classicism at his exhibition, however, critics didn’t think that there was actually any major change in Dali’s work.

In 1942, Dali’s autobiography The Secret Life of Dali was published, and it was reviewed widely in the New York and London press. In 1948, Dali and his wife moved back to their house in Port Lligat in Spain, where they spent much of their time over the next three decades, although they spent their winters in Paris and New York.

In the late 1940s Dali became introduced to Christian mysticism, and this influenced his artwork— such as his 1949 painting The Madonna of Port Lligat, which shows a surreal Virgin Mary with a floating baby Jesus in her lap. Dali then sought to integrate Christian mysticism with Einsteinian physics in his work. In paintings such as The Christ of Saint John on the Cross and The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory Dalí synthesized Christian iconography with images of material disintegration, that was inspired by nuclear physics.

In 1968, Dali bought a castle in Púbol, Spain for his wife Gala, who would retreat there for weeks at a time, and Dali agreed not to visit her there without written permission. This led to estrangement from his wife, who was his artistic muse and caused Dali to become depressed. Dali’s health began to fail around this time.

In 1980, Dali’s health deteriorated, and he was treated for a number of medical ailments. In 1983, Dali’s last painting, The Swallow’s Tail, was revealed. After this, Dali lost his ability to paint, due to a motor disorder. In 1984 Dali’s depression worsened and he refused food, leading to severe undernourishment. In 1989 Dali died at the age of 84.

Two major museums are devoted to Dalí’s work: the Dalí Theatre-Museum in Figueres, Catalonia, Spain, and the Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida. Dalí’s life and work have had an important influence on pop art, other Surrealists, and many contemporary artists.

In 2003, a previously unreleased animated film that Dali created with Walt Disney in 1945 was released, about a love story between the mythic god of time Chronos and a woman named Dahlia. Dali was portrayed in a film by Robert Pattinson called Little Ashes in 2008, and by Adrien Brody in Midnight in Paris in 2011. The Salvador Dalí Desert in Bolivia and the Dalí Crater on the planet Mercury are named after him.

Some of the quotes that Salvador Dali is known for include:

Have no fear of perfection— you’ll never reach it.

At the age of six I wanted to be a cook. At seven I wanted to be Napoleon. And my ambition has been growing steadily ever since.

Every morning when I wake up, I experience an exquisite joy— the joy of being Salvador Dalí— and I ask myself in rapture: What wonderful things is this Salvador Dalí going to accomplish today?

A true artist is not one who is inspired, but one who inspires others.

What is important is to spread confusion, not eliminate it.

One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we have christened reality is an even greater illusion than the world of dreams.

It is not necessary for the public to know whether I am joking or whether I am serious, just as it is not necessary for me to know it myself.

Everything alters me, but nothing changes me.

by David Jay Brown

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Claude Monet Profile

Claude Monet Profile

May 22, 2023 | Artists, David Jay Brown, Profiles

Carolyn and I have appreciated the work of the French painter Claude Monet, who was a key figure in the Impressionist movement that transformed European painting in the second half of the nineteenth century.

Oscar-Claude Monet was born in 1840 in Paris. His father was a wholesale merchant, and his mother was a singer. In 1845 Monet’s family moved to Normandy, and his father wanted him to go into the family business of providing supplies to ships. However, Monet wanted to become an artist, and his mother supported his desire to be involved in the creative arts.

In 1851 Monet entered a secondary school of the arts. Although he had demonstrated skill in art from an early age, he was described as an “apathetic student.” At the age of 15 Monet began doing charcoal caricature drawings and portraits to earn money, and he started taking drawing lessons around this time as well. In 1858 Monet met another artist named Eugene Boudin, who taught him painting techniques and encouraged him with his art. At the time painting outside was relatively uncommon and Boudin taught Monet to paint outdoors and to pay attention to changing weather and light. Monet later said that Boudin was his “master,” and with regard to his later success that he “owed everything to him.”

From 1858 to 1860, Monet continued his studies at an academy in Paris, and then the following year he was called into the military service, where he served in Algeria from 1861 to 1862. The time that Monet spent in North Africa had a profound effect on him, and he said that the “light and vivid colors” there “contained the gem” of his future inspirations.

In 1862 Illness forced Monet to return to Paris, and it was during this time that he began his painting career. Monet often painted along the Seine River, alongside other painters, such as Renoir and Alfred Sisley. Monet and the other artists that he painted with sought to “articulate new standards of beauty in conventional subjects.”

It was during that time that Monet painted his first successful large-scale painting, known as Women in Garden, and in 1865 his paintings debuted at the Salon in Paris. This was the official annual art exhibition in France, where the best artists of the time would exhibit their work. After this exhibition, Monet submitted his paintings annually to the Salon until 1870, but they were only accepted by juries twice during this time, in 1866 and 1868.

In 1868, facing financial difficulties and severe depression, Monet jumped off a bridge into the Seine River, attempting to kill himself. Although he survived this suicide attempt, Monet struggled with depression for many years of his life.

For ten years Monet submitted no further paintings to the Salon, as his works were considered “radical,” and were “discouraged at all official levels.” During this time Monet’s father stopped financially supporting him because he disapproved of the woman that he was having a relationship with. Monet moved in with his aunt and immersed himself in his artwork, although he developed a problem with his eyesight that prevented him from working in the sunlight.

Monet painted numerous paintings of his family, and it was during this time that he began developing the style that was to become associated with his most well-known Impressionistic work. Impressionism is a style of painting characterized by small, visible brushstrokes that express a bare impression of form and unblended color, with an emphasis on the vivid depiction of natural light.

In 1874 Monet exhibited his paintings with an independent group called the Anonymous Society of Painters, Sculptors and Engravers, whose title was chosen to avoid association with any particular style or movement. This was a group that Monet helped to form, and they were unified in their independence from the Salon and their rejection of the prevailing influence of the European academies of art. Monet had the reputation of being the foremost landscape painter of this group, which also included Renoir, Pissarro, and Cézanne.

Although the first exhibition with this new group received some unfavorable reviews, one art critic used the term “impressionism,” in a derogatory manner, to describe the artwork. This term was taken from Monet’s painting Impression, Sunrise, which conservative critics described as “unfinished.” More progressive critics praised the style as a “revolution in painting,” although Monet failed to sell this painting at the exhibit. Nonetheless, it was the title of this painting that served as the inspiration for the name of the artistic movement for which he is so well known.

In 1875, Monet returned to figure painting, and in 1880 he submitted two paintings to the Salon, one of which was accepted. Monet’s painting style began to shift around this time; he used less Impressionist techniques, utilized darker colors, and displayed natural environments, such as the Seine River, in harsh weather. For the rest of this decade, Monet focused on elemental aspects of nature, and he began to prosper financially with the success of his art, especially when his painting began to sell well in America.

Monet began to prefer working alone, and he thought that he did better work this way, after having “longed for solitude.” In 1883, Monet and his family rented a house and gardens in Giverny, which provided him with domestic stability. There was a barn on the property that doubled as a painting studio, as well as orchards and a small garden, and the surrounding landscape, provided many natural areas for Monet to paint.

In 1890 Monet purchased the house in Giverny, and his family worked to improve the property. They built up the gardens, as Monet had increasing success in selling his paintings. These gardens were Monet’s greatest source of inspiration for forty years. He imported plants from all over the world and diverted water from a nearby river to create a water garden. Monet wrote daily instructions to his gardener, precise designs and layouts for plantings, and as Monet’s wealth grew, his garden evolved.

Monet remained the architect of this magnificent garden, even after he hired seven gardeners, and he purchased additional land with a water meadow. The pond was enlarged in 1901 and 1910, with easels installed all around to allow different perspectives to be painted. At his house, Monet met with artists, writers, intellectuals, and politicians from around the world.

However, Monet’s neighbors weren’t exactly thrilled with his gardens; they were mostly cattle farmers who were afraid that his new aquatic plants would poison the water and kill their animals. Local authorities even told Monet to remove the plants, but he ignored them, and the water lilies became one of his greatest sources of inspiration. Over a period of thirty years, Monet created 250 paintings of water lilies.

During this time Monet began to develop cataracts, and his output decreased as he became withdrawn. This change in his vision affected his artwork, as the colors that he saw were no longer as bright, and his paintings began to feature more yellow and purple tones. However, he continued to paint, and he produced several panel paintings for the French Government from 1914 to 1918, and he completed work on a cycle of paintings between 1916 to 1921.

In 1923 Monet had surgery on his right eye, and the lens of his eye was removed, which let more light into the eye. Because the lens is part of the eye that filters out ultraviolet light, it is thought that Monet might have begun seeing ultraviolet wavelengths, which humans typically cannot see. After the surgery, Monet used more blues in his water lily paintings, which may indicate that he was seeing ultraviolet light.

Monet died in 1926 at the age of 86. He is buried at the Giverny church cemetery in France. Today Monet is recognized as the most well-known of the Impressionist painters, as a result of his numerous contributions to the movement, and the huge influence that he had on 19th-century art.

Monet was one of the most prolific French artists of all time, with over 2,500 oil paintings created to his name. Many of his paintings are in Parisian museums. The largest collection of Monet’s art can be seen at the Musée Marmottan Monet in Paris, where 130 of his pieces are on display. The Musée d’Orsay and Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris also hold significant collections. In 1978, Monet’s garden in Giverny was restored and opened to the public, where it can be visited today.

Although Monet destroyed around 500 of his own paintings when he was angry or dissatisfied with his work, his paintings have sold for fortunes. In 2008 his painting Le Pont du Chemin de fer à Argenteuil, an 1873 painting of a railway bridge spanning the Seine River, was bought for $41.4 million, and Le Bassin Aux Nymphéas, from his water lilies series, sold for $80.4 million, which represented one of the top 20 highest prices paid for a painting at the time. 

Some of the quotes that Claude Monet is known for include:

I must have flowers, always, and always.

Color is my daylong obsession, joy, and torment.

Every day I discover more and more beautiful things. It’s enough to drive one mad. I have such a desire to do everything, my head is bursting with it.

Everyone discusses my art and pretends to understand, as if it were necessary to understand, when it is simply necessary to love.

I would like to paint the way a bird sings.

My garden is my most beautiful masterpiece.

The richness I achieve comes from nature, the source of my inspiration.

I can only draw what I see.

When you go out to paint, try to forget what objects you have before you, a tree, a house, a field or whatever. Merely think here is a little square of blue, here an oblong of pink, here a streak of yellow, and paint it just as it looks to you, the exact color and shape.

The light constantly changes, and that alters the atmosphere and beauty of things every minute.

by David Jay Brown

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Vincent van Gogh Profile

Vincent van Gogh Profile

Apr 24, 2023 | Artists, David Jay Brown, Profiles

Carolyn and I have both really enjoyed the extraordinary artwork of Vincent van Gogh. The legendary Dutch post-impressionist artist is recognized as one of the greatest painters that ever lived, and he has become one of the most famous and influential figures in art history. Van Gogh’s paintings are among the most valuable in the world, and in many ways, he personifies the quintessential archetype of the mad and tormented artistic genius.

In the span of a decade, van Gogh created an astonishing 2,100 pieces of artwork. These pieces included landscapes, still lifes, portraits, and self-portraits, and they featured dramatic brushwork with bold and vivid colors. However, despite his immense talent, van Gogh was unsuccessful commercially, and this resulted in years of poverty and severe depression that ultimately led to his suicide. Recounting Van Gogh’s tragic life is extremely sad, and it’s so ironic that someone with such a profoundly unhappy life, with so many so-called “failures,” produced so many astoundingly beautiful works of art in such a short period of time.

Vincent Willem van Gogh was born in 1853, in the predominantly Catholic province of North Brabant in the Netherlands. He was born into an upper-middle class family; his father was a minister, and his mother was a religious woman who came from a prosperous family. His brother Theo, who was to play an important role in his life, was born in 1857, and he also had another brother and three sisters. Van Gogh was described as being a “serious,” “quiet,” and “thoughtful” child who was “passionate about drawing.”

In 1860 Van Gogh attended his village school, after being educated at home by his mother and a governess. Four years later Van Gogh went to a boarding school in Zevenbergen, where he had a difficult time and felt “abandoned.” In 1866 he attended a Middle School in Tiburg, where he was also “deeply unhappy.” Van Gogh didn’t like school but he became interested in art at a young age, and was encouraged to draw by his mother.

In 1869 Van Gogh’s uncle arranged for him to get a job as an art dealer in The Hague, and in 1873 he was transferred to the London branch of the art dealership. This was a happy time for Van Gogh, as he was making good money, and according to Theo’s wife, this was “the best year in Vincent’s life.”
However, after being rejected by a woman he admired, Van Gogh grew more isolated and religiously fervent. Throughout his life, romantic rejection and loneliness plagued Van Gogh. In 1875 he was transferred to an art dealership in Paris, where he wasn’t as happy, and he became resentful of how the dealers commodified artwork. He was fired from this position after a year.

In 1876 Van Gogh returned to England to work as a substitute teacher in a small boarding school in Ramsgate, which didn’t last long; he left to become a minister’s assistant and then to work in a bookshop. He wasn’t happy at any of these jobs and mostly spent his time doodling and translating passages from the Bible. Van Gogh immersed himself in Christianity and became increasingly religious. In 1877, Van Gogh went to live with his uncle, a theologian, who supported his desire to become a pastor, but he failed his theology entrance exam at the University of Amsterdam, and he also didn’t pass a three-month course in Protestant missionary near Brussels, Belgium.

In 1880, at Theo’s suggestion, Van Gogh began devoting more attention to his art, and he went to study with the Dutch artist Willem Roelofs, who persuaded him to attend the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. In 1880 Van Gogh registered at the Académie, where he studied anatomy and the standard rules of modeling and perspective.

In 1881, Van Gogh returned home to stay with his parents. That year his recently widowed cousin, Cornelia “Kee” Vos-Stricker, arrived for a visit, and they took long walks together. Van Gogh declared his love for her and proposed marriage, but she declined, with the words, “no, nay, never,” largely because of Van Gogh’s inability to support himself. Van Gogh was emotionally crushed. He journeyed to Amsterdam but Kee wouldn’t see him, and her parents wrote that his “persistence is disgusting.”

In 1882, Van Gogh’s second cousin Mauve introduced him to oil painting and lent him the money to set up a studio. Van Gogh hired people off the street to serve as models. He liked working in this medium and was able to continue with money from Theo. That same year Van Gogh began living with an alcoholic prostitute and her daughter, which his family disapproved of. The woman drowned herself in a river years later.

In 1885, during a two-year stay in Nuenen, Van Gogh completed numerous watercolors, drawings, and almost 200 oil paintings. His paintings consisted mainly of somber earth tones, particularly dark brown, without the vivid and iconic bold colors that distinguished his later work.

In 1885 Van Gogh’s work was exhibited for the first time, in the shop windows of an art dealer in The Hague. That year he moved to Antwerp, where he lived in poverty, ate poorly, and spent the money that Theo sent him on art supplies and models instead of food. Van Gogh spent time studying the artwork in museums and he broadened the colors in his palette. He also began drinking absinthe heavily and suffered from a series of venereal diseases.

In 1886 Van Gogh moved to Paris where he shared Theo’s apartment and continued his painting. However, conflicts between the two brothers arose, and by the end of that year Theo said that he found living with his brother to be “almost unbearable.” Van Gogh moved to a suburb of Paris, and in 1887 there was an exhibit of his work in Paris.

In 1888 Van Gogh moved to Arles, where he entered into one of his most prolific periods. Here, Van Gogh completed 200 paintings and more than 100 drawings and watercolors. That year the post-Impressionist painter Paul Gauguin visited Arles and the two painted together, but they didn’t get along well, and their relationship got worse over time. It was during this time that the bizarre incident that Van Gogh is probably most famous for occurred— the severing of his own left ear.

The exact sequence of events remains a mystery, but it is said that Van Gogh was hearing voices in his head on the night that he cut off his left ear with a razor. There was severe bleeding and he bandaged the wound. Then Van Gogh wrapped the ear in paper and delivered it to a woman at a brothel that he had frequented. He was found unconscious the next morning and was brought to a hospital where he was treated. Van Gogh had no recollection of the event. His hospital diagnosis was “acute mania with generalized delirium.” Theo visited him and he recovered. Gauguin left Arles and Van Gogh never saw him again.

Van Gogh gave his painting Portrait of Doctor Felix Rey to his physician. His doctor was not very fond of the painting and gave it away. In 2016 the painting was estimated to be worth more than $50 million.

In 1889 Van Gogh was placed in an asylum in Provence, France, where he continued his painting in a cell with barred windows. Flowing, swirling energies and blurring boundaries, such as in his iconic painting “The Starry Night,” characterize his work during this time.

In 1890 Van Gogh left the asylum and moved to a suburb of Paris near his doctor and Theo. Several months later Van Gogh shot himself in the chest with a revolver. There were no witnesses, and the shooting took place in the wheat field where he had just been painting. Van Gogh survived the shooting but died of an infection resulting from the wound around 30 hours later. According to Theo, his brother’s last words were, “The sadness will last forever.” He was buried in the municipal cemetery of Auvers-sur-Oise.

There has been much speculation as to the type of mental illness that Van Gogh suffered from and how this influenced his creativity. Many experts believe it was a type of bipolar disorder, while others have suggested temporal lobe epilepsy with bouts of depression. Whatever the etiology of the illness was, it was certainly a very high price that Van Gogh paid in order to bring us the glorious beauty that he did.

Van Gogh only sold one painting during his lifetime, Red Vineyard at Arles. The remainder of his more than 900 paintings were not sold or made famous until after his death when his reputation grew steadily among artists, art critics, dealers, and collectors. It’s so sadly ironic that Van Gogh suffered so much due to his lack of commercial success and romantic rejection, was considered a madman and a failure during his lifetime, and today he is regarded as one of the greatest artists who ever lived, as collective value to all of his work that is now estimated to be worth over 10 billion dollars.

Van Gogh’s paintings are located in many museums and art collections. The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam has many of his most iconic works. The museum houses the largest collection of his work worldwide, with 200 paintings, 400 drawings, and 700 letters. As one ascends through the museum, the artwork is presented in chronological order, and one can witness the transformation of his mind over time. More of Van Gogh’s work can be seen at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and the National Gallery of Art in London. Through all his personal torment and darkness, Van Gogh’s ecstatic soul is miraculously singing to us.

Some of the quotes that Vincent Van Gogh is known for include:

I dream my painting and I paint my dream.

Be clearly aware of the stars and infinity on high. Then life seems almost enchanted after all.

…and then, I have nature and art and poetry, and if that is not enough, what is enough?

Normality is a paved road: It’s comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow on it.

I put my heart and soul into my work, and I have lost my mind in the process.

What am I in the eyes of most people — a nonentity, an eccentric, or an unpleasant person — somebody who has no position in society and will never have; in short, the lowest of the low. All right, then — even if that were absolutely true, then I should one day to show by my work what such an eccentric, such a nobody, has in his heart. That is my ambition, based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Though I am often in the depths of misery, there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me. I see paintings or drawings in the poorest cottages, in the dirtiest corners. And my mind is driven towards these things with an irresistible momentum.

If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere.

The heart of man is very much the sea, it has its storms, it has its tides and in its depths it has its pearls too.

by David Jay Brown

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Gustav Klimt Profile

Gustav Klimt Profile

Apr 3, 2023 | Artists, David Jay Brown, Profiles

Carolyn and I have long admired the exquisite work of the late Austrian painter Gustav Klimt, who is Carolyn’s all-time favorite artist, along with Picasso.

Gustav Klimt was an influential Austrian symbolist artist who is known for his uniquely stylized paintings. His work had a lasting impact on the development of modern art, and his paintings are among the most recognizable and beloved pieces of art today.

Klimt’s most well known works date from the early 1900s. His paintings during this period focused on symbolism, eroticism, and the female form. Klimt used a variety of techniques and materials, including gold and silver leaf, to create his iconic works of art. His use of color, pattern, and symbolism helped to create an unmistakable style that influenced many of the artistic movements that followed.

Klimt was born in 1862 in the outskirts of Vienna, Austria. His father was an engraver and goldsmith, and his mother was an amateur musician, which likely had an important influence on Klimt’s art. Klimt attended the Vienna School of Arts and Crafts, where he learned the basics of painting and drawing, and was accepted into the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, where he studied for six years. During his early years as a painter, he created mostly landscape paintings and portraits in the academic style of the late 19th century, and was a successful painter of conventional architectural decorations. Klimt was also a talented architect and designer, who designed furniture and interior decorations, as well as a group of buildings in Vienna.

In 1897 Klimt co-founded the Vienna Secession group with other artists, architects, and designers. This was an art and design movement, which sought to promote modern artwork, architecture, and design in Vienna and elsewhere. Here Klimt was exposed to more modern, progressive styles of painting. He also studied the work of other great painters such as Rubens, Botticelli, and Klimt’s mentor, Hans Makart. Through this combination of formal training and studying the greats, Klimt was able to develop his own most original style of painting.

Klimt was also influenced by the mysticism of the Symbolist movement, and the medieval mosaics that he saw on his travels to Venice and Ravenna in 1903 were most inspiring. Some of his best-known works followed after this journey, including Kiss in 1908, and his portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, which was completed between 1903 and 1907.

Although Klimt’s artwork is associated with sensuous and erotic depictions of women, he never married. However, he found inspiration in Emilie Flöge, a well-known fashion designer who became his muse, life companion, business partner, and lover. They met in 1890 when she was 18 years old, and their unconventional relationship influenced each other’s work. Although the exact nature of their relationship isn’t clear, it is said to have proved stronger than marriage and lasted for twenty-seven years. Some art historians believe that the female model pictured in Klimt’s painting Kiss was Emilie Flöge, although the hair color suggests it might be the red-haired Hilde Roth, one of Klimt’s other lovers.

Klimt’s final years were marked by a number of health issues. He suffered from a stroke in 1911, which left him partially paralyzed and unable to work with the same ability. He continued to paint, although a more somber and muted palette characterized his later works. Despite his health issues, Klimt’s work remained influential during this time, and his paintings were exhibited in several major cities throughout Europe, including Vienna, Berlin, and Paris. Klimt’s work was also featured in a major retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1935.

Klimt died in 1918. He was buried in Hietzing, Vienna, and numerous paintings by him were left unfinished after his death. Klimt’s influence continues to this day, with his works held in high regard by art historians and collectors alike. His works are among the most expensive paintings ever sold, with one of his paintings— the 1912 portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II, which was previously owned by talk show host Oprah Winfrey — selling for over $150 million.

In 1941 the Nazis stole Klimt’s famous painting, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, and acting on behalf of the German state, the portrait was given to the Galerie Belvedere in Austria. However, in 2006, after a seven-year legal claim, an arbitration committee in Vienna agreed that the painting, and others, had been stolen from the family and that it should be returned to Adele’s husband’s niece Maria Altmann, who sold the painting for $135 million, which at the time was a record price for a painting.

In 2012 the city of Vienna had many special exhibitions commemorating the 150th anniversary of Klimt’s birth. Klimt’s paintings have inspired numerous artists, as well as many creative people working in different artistic mediums. For example, his paintings have been used as the basis for films and video games. In 2014 the science fiction role-playing game Transistor used Klimt’s work as a part of the game’s aesthetic, and the 2010 film Shutter Island recreates Klimt’s famous painting Kiss.

Klimt’s works are now located in various museums, galleries, and collections around the world. In the United States, there are collections at the Museum of Modern Art and Neue Gallery in New York City, and the J. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu.

In 2021 an artificial intelligence program was used to digitally reconstruct three lost paintings by Klimt. These three paintings were stolen by the Nazis and were likely destroyed in a 1945 fire. However, thanks to an advanced AI program, these remarkable paintings have been reconstructed in full color from old black-and-white photographs.

Some of the quotes that Klimt is known for include:

No part of life is so small and insignificant that it does not offer space for artistic aspirations.

Even the most humble object, provided it is perfectly executed, increases the beauty of our earth.

There is no self-portrait of me. I am not interested in my person as an object of painting.

Whoever wants to know something about me, they should look attentively at my pictures and there seek to recognize what I am and what I want.

Truth is like fire; to tell the truth means to glow and burn.

All art is erotic.

There is always hope, as long as the canvases are empty.

by David Jay Brown

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Marc Chagall Profile

Marc Chagall Profile

Mar 16, 2023 | Artists, David Jay Brown, Profiles

Carolyn and I both love Marc Chagall’s wonderful artwork. His uniquely joyful paintings have a delightfully dreamlike and profoundly playful quality that always lifts my spirits.

Marc Chagall was born Moishe Shagal in 1887. He was born into a devoutly Jewish Lithuanian family in Belarus, which was a part of the Russian empire, and throughout his life he lived in Russia, France, and the United States.

In 1907 Chagall went to St. Petersburg, Russia to study painting and drawing, and he relocated in Paris as a teenager, to develop his artistic style. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the modernism movement strove to create forms of art that reflected the newly emerging industrial world, and Chagall experienced modernism’s “golden age” in the City of Lights.

Chagall is considered a pioneer of modernism, as well as a major Jewish artist. His artwork has been associated with a number of different styles, and he created works in a wide range of mediums, including painting, drawing, stained glass, book illustration, stage sets, ceramics, and tapestries. Some of the recurring themes in Chagall’s paintings include village scenes, peasant life, musicians, dancing, and circuses, with romantic and spiritual overtones.

In the late 1950s, Chagall learned the art of creating with stained glass, and he designed a number of windows at different international locations, including the Cathedral of Metz in France and the United Nations building in New York. Chagall’s gorgeous stained-glass windows are enchantingly beautiful, as the medium’s capacity for brilliant color seems perfectly suited for his celestial and religious imagery.

Chagall’s paintings are housed in a variety of locations around the world, including the Musée Marc Chagall in Nice, France, which Chagall helped to design. Throughout his 75-year career, Chagall produced an astonishing 10,000 works, with dozens of notable paintings. Chagall died in France in 1985. After he died, a stranger said the Jewish prayer for the dead (the kaddish) over his coffin. Chagall is remembered as a great pioneer of modern art and one of its most brilliant figurative painters.

Carolyn created a tribute to Chagall with her painting After Chagall. Many people have stated that Carolyn’s art reminds them of Chagall’s work.

Some quotes that Marc Chagall is remembered for include:

Great art picks up where nature ends.

If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing.

In our life there is a single color, as on an artist palette which provides the meaning of life and art. It is the color of love.

Color is all. When color is right, form is right. Color is everything, color is vibration like music; everything is vibration.

In the arts, as in life, everything is possible provided it is based on love.

by David Jay Brown

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