Tabatha A. Yeatts

Writer

ART THURSDAY

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Visit Poetry Friday

Clouds Over Gulls 2
By Ambera Wellman

Devil's Paint Brush
By Ambera Wellman

Self Portrait as the Allegory of Painting, 1630
By Artemisia Gentileschi

Self-Portrait
By Tamara de Lempicka

Self Portrait
By Elisabeth Louise Vigee-Le Brun

Joe Decker takes gorgeous nature photographs. These two are from his Signatures of the Sun collection.

Lightfall
By Joe Decker

The Floor Strippers
By Gustave Caillebotte, 1875

Penelope Dullaghan and Brianna Privett started Illustration Friday to provide "a weekly creative outlet/participatory art exhibit for illustrators and artists of all skill levels. It was designed to challenge participants creatively. We believe that every person has a little creative bone in their body. Illustration Friday just gives a no-pressure, fun excuse to use it. No clients looking for a particular thing. No one judging the outcome of the work. It's a chance to experiment and explore and play with visual art." They welcome novices and pros alike.

The first work by Christian Lorenz Scheurer that I saw was 2:30 a.m. It totally drew me in, so I checked out some more of his stuff. He has a fantastic imagination and I love the way there's so much to explore in his pictures. Want to see more? Click here for Night Walk and Procession of Effigies.

2:30 a.m.
By Christian Lorenz Scheurer

Firefish of Takashiro
From Entropia: A Collection of Unusually Rare Stamps
By Christian Lorenz Scheurer

The Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures from the National Museum, Kabul exhibit just arrived in D.C. at the National Gallery of Art. In its honor, here are two pieces from the exhibit. I don't have info about the top one, unfortunately, but isn't it gorgeous!

One of a pair of pendants showing the Dragon Master, Tillya Tepe, Tomb II
Second quarter of the 1st century AD
Made of gold, turquoise, garnet, lapis lazuli, carnelian and pearls

Photo © Thierry Ollivier/Musée Guimet

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Latvian artist and musician Serge Sunne creates very interesting works.

Ghost Ship
By Serge Sunne

The Encounter
By Serge Sunne

Inner Landscape, a paper sculpture
By Elsita

Elsita says, "If we take care of our inner landscape, if we water our plants often and pay attention to what's going on inside we will always be ready and strong for anything negative coming from the outside world."

Within Reach
By Elsita

King Arthur, a segment from Heraldry and the Knights of the Round Table
By Norman Tellis

A Midsummer Night's Dream
By Norman Tellis

Carrot
By Roger Xavier

I have seen JMW Turner's works in person a couple of times and they knock my socks off.

Transept of Ewenny Priory, Glamorganshire, circa 1797

By Joseph Mallord William Turner

Here we have a painting circa 1910 by Emma Florence Harrison.
Ms. Harrison illustrated many of Christina Rossetti's poems, so this work may be an illustration for Rossetti's Dream Land.

Dream Land
By Emma Florence Harrison

the opening to Dream Land by Christina Rossetti:

Where sunless rivers weep
Their waves into the deep,
She sleeps a charmed sleep:
Awake her not.

Project for Hotel and Restaurant
By Sergey Tyukanov

Cheshire Cat
By Sergey Tyukanov

Meg Harper says she is interested in illustrating -- I can't wait to see what she does!

Pearl-Eyed Flamingo
By Meg Harper

Tat-Turtle
By Meg Harper

Artist Scott Wade lives on a caliche road (a mix of limestone dust, gravel, and clay) that coats his car windows with a white dust. He uses that dust to create temporary art. I couldn't resist sharing this Einstein. The impermanence of it reminded me of Tibetan monks making sand mandalas, so I am also including a Tibetan healing mandala below.

Impermanent Albert
By Scott Wade

A mandala is a picture that represents the world. Buddhist monks pray as they make these delicate artworks of sand. The monk-artists do not keep the mandalas, but dismantle them afterwards to symbolize the monks' belief in not becoming too attached to material things. After this mandala was dismantled, the monks poured it into a flowing body of water to symbolize sharing its blessings with everyone.

Tibetan Healing Mandala
By members of the Drepung Loseling Monastery

Work in Progress
By Susan Else

Ice Drop Abstract
By Harry W. Yeatts, Jr.

Light In A Cage
By Harry W. Yeatts, Jr.

Some Late Visitor at my Door (from The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe)
By Gustave Dore

And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me- filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating,
"'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door-
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;-
This it is, and nothing more."

I could pretty much fill a whole page with just Arthur Rackham's illustrations. They are beautiful and haunting, fascinating and mysterious. There was one from Romeo and Juliet that I wanted to post, but couldn't find. I'm not even sure what story this is illustrating, but it seems as if you could make one up just looking at it.

This Monet was found recently in the back of a car in Zurich, Switzerland. It had been stolen from Zurich's Buehrle Museum, along with three other paintings. A Van Gogh was also recovered, and the police are still searching for the other two paintings by Cezanne and Degas.

I am working feverishly on a biography of Joan of Arc. In this painting by Gaston Bussiere, angels and saints are offering young Joan encouragement, prayer, and a sword.

In Shakespeare's The Tempest, Miranda asks her father if his sorcery has sunk the vessel, saying:

O, I have suffered
With those that I saw suffer! a brave vessel
(Who had no doubt some noble creature in her)
Dashed all to pieces! O, the cry did knock
Against my very heart! Poor souls, they perished!
Had I been any god of power, I would
Have sunk the sea within the earth or ere
It should the good ship so have swallowed and
The fraughting souls within her.

Prospero answers her, "Be collected. / No more amazement. Tell your piteous heart / There's no harm done."

"Narcissus was so handsome everyone loved and desired him, but Narcissus was too proud to offer his love in return. His rejection of one would-be lover, Echo, turned her from an unhappy nymph into the barest wisp of what she had been. Echo shriveled up until all that was left of her was her voice, what we now call by her name.

Not all the would-be lovers of Narcissus were so passive. One of them took his complaint about rejection to the goddess of vengeance, Nemesis. The rejected suitor asked the goddess Nemesis to make Narcissus fall in love with himself, but simultaneously to be incapable of accepting his own love. Nemesis obliged....
On a hot day Narcissus bent down to drink from a clear, silvery pool. As he drank, he saw a beautiful image in the pool. He had never before caught a glimpse of himself. Narcissus fell in love with his own reflection. He tried to kiss and embrace it -- encouraged because he saw the other raising his lips to meet Narcissus' own -- but couldn't. Narcissus could do nothing except keep trying. In time he realized he was in love with his own reflection."

From Narcissus and Echo in Ovid's Metamorphoses: Tiresias Warns About Narcissus By N.S. Gill, About.com

One Thousand and One Arabian Nights is a favorite story of mine, so I especially enjoyed taking a look at Virginia Frances Sterrett's illustrations. You can read about Ms. Sterrett (1900-1931) here and see more Arabian Nights illustrations here.

Poetry Friday has been such a terrific experience that I decided to start Art Thursday as a kind of journal where I keep track of works that catch my eye.
I thought about beginning Art Thursday with something lovely, but this is the piece that got my attention yesterday. Not lovely, but arresting all the same.

Joseph Ducreux, 1735-1802
Self-Portrait, Yawning