painting of the month

The Passing Train -- Marianne Stokes (1890)

snow day

 

 

 

Pictured:  Approaching Snowstorm -- Tom Thomson (1915); After the Snowstorm -- Jonas Lie (1908); A Snowy Monday -- Lilla Cabot Perry (1926); The Magpie -- Claude Monet (1869);  Snow -- Hayami Gyoshū (1929)

henri celebration

Today in 1869 the great Henri Matisse was born in northern France, although later in life he would seek out the distinct light and color of the southern part of the country.  He eventually became a master of color and deceptively simple form and shape, and if you do enjoy his work it can have a curiously both enlivening and calming effect.

I discover the quality of colors in a purely instinctive way. -- Henri Matisse (1869 - 1954)

Pictured by Henri Matisse:  Interior with Goldfish Bowl (1914); The Music Lesson (1917); Conversation Under the Olive Trees (1921); Self-Portrait (circa 1900)

painting of the month

Sunburst in December -- Charles Burchfield (1915)

street scene, christmas morn

Childe Hassam -- 1892 (Smith College Museum of Art)

paris is always beautiful

Pictured:  A Parisian Balcony -- Konstantin Korovin (1908); Pont Neuf, Paris -- Xavier Martinez (1900); Summer Evening, Paris -- Childe Hassam (1889); Paris -- Raoul Dufy (1934); Paris Through the Window -- Marc Chagall (1913)

black cat power

Cats have inspired many a painting but this time of year belongs to the black cats, sometimes sleek and mysteriously beautiful, sometimes just as chubby and/or quirky as any other feline.  Black cats have a ridiculous reputation for bad luck...but not in Britain or Japan, where they're considered to bring good fortune.  So here's to celebrating these gorgeous creatures, during Halloween and beyond.

Pictured:  The Black Cat -- Hishida Shunso (1910); Two Black Cats Reclining -- Franz Marc (1913); Girl with Black Cat -- Giovanni Boldini (1885); The Black Cat -- Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1926); The Black Cat -- Gino Severini (1910/11)