Tag: Realism

Sunday Evening Art Gallery — Hans Holbein the Younger

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Hans Holbein the Younger (1497-1543) was a German painter, draftsman, and designer, renowned for the precise rendering of his drawings and the compelling realism of his portraits, particularly those recording the court of King Henry VIII of England.

Henry VIII

Holbein the Younger was one of the most celebrated portraitists of the sixteenth century.

Jean De Dinteville and Georges de Selves

At an early age he won commissions to paint portraits of prominent merchants in Basel, and in later years he attracted powerful patrons in England, including Sir Thomas More.

Sir Thomas More

He also produced religious art, satire, and Reformation propaganda, and he made a significant contribution to the history of book design.

Anne of Cleves

Holbein’s art has sometimes been called realist, since he drew and painted with a rare precision.

Edward, Prince of Wales

He was never content with outward appearance, however; he embedded layers of symbolism, allusion, and paradox in his art, to the lasting fascination of scholars.

Jane Seymour

His portraits were renowned in their time for their likeness, and it is through his eyes that many famous figures of his day are pictured today.

Henry VIII

More of Hans Holbein the Younger‘s portraits can be found at https://www.hans-holbein.org/

Sunday Evening Art Gallery — Edward Hopper

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Edward Hopper (1882-1967) is widely acknowledged as one of the most important realist painters of twentieth-century America.

His vision of reality reflected his own temperament in the empty landscapes and city neighborhoods and single figures he chose to paint.

Hopper’s work demonstrates that realism is not merely a literal or photographic copying of what we see, but up to the artist’s interpretation.

His intense yet intimate interpretations of American life, shown in darkness or bright light, are minimal dramas threaded with maximum power.Hopper had a remarkable ability to invest the most ordinary scene — whether at a roadside gas pump, a nondescript diner or a bleak hotel room — with intense mystery, creating narratives that no viewer can ever quite unravel.

He was able to tap into the loneliness of the human condition through his art, something we all can identify with.

More of Edward Hopper‘s amazing work can be found at https://www.edwardhopper.net/. 

Sunday Evening Art Gallery Blog — Wolf Kahn

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 4 Comments

The unique blend of Realism and the formal discipline of Color Field painting sets the work of Wolf Kahn (1927-) apart.

 

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His convergence of light and color has been described as combining pictorial landscapes and painterly abstraction.

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It is precisely Kahn’s fusion of color, spontaneity and representation that has produced such a rich and expressive body of work.

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Splitting his time between his studios in New York and Vermont, Kahn renders his pastoral surroundings with a mixture of abstraction and representation and with a keen attentiveness to light and color.

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These lush, vibrant, oil-on-canvas paintings read as studies of form and color as much as meditations on the landscapes he has come to understand so well—and has helped others to know, too.

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Kahn offers some advice that, perhaps, might be of value to a younger generation of painters. “In order to make a living as an artist, you’ve got to be one of two things: A very nice guy, or a bad egg.”

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From the deft touch of his paintings, Wolf Kahn is definitely the first.

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Wolf Kahn’s amazing art can be found at http://www.wolfkahn.com/