Art Reflection – Rosseau A Carnival Evening was a breakthrough piece for French Post-Impressionist, Henri Rousseau, a self-taught artist, a former tax collector. Rousseau’s work is quite literal and this piece in particular is quite mysterious. It is straight forward in execution and speculative in interpretation.  Rousseau’s style is termed Primitivism or Naïve Art and his works are a second career …

Art Reflection – Nevelson Big Black, a large, wooden, painted sculpture by Louise Nevelson, is posed here at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. It is a collage of found objects displayed in an array of 40 boxes and all painted black. This artist was born in 1899 in the Ukraine. She immigrated to the United States …

Art Reflection – A Fractal A fractal, first named by Benoit Mandelbrot in 1975, is a unique pattern found in nature. When you see a series of patterns repeating over and over again, at many different scales and where any small part resembles the whole, you are seeing a fractal, a true and astounding blessing of extravagance and structure from …

Art Reflection – Renoir This work was painted by French Impressionist, Pierre August Renoir, in 1876. It is one of the most celebrated masterpieces of modern art and is now housed at the Musee d’Orsay in Paris. Renoir lived near this community gathering place and carried his canvas there to paint outdoors in plein air. His loose brushstrokes and treatment of …

Art Reflection – Klee Paul Klee did this painting on a two week trip to Tunisia in April, 1914. It is one of 35 watercolors he did. He also did 13 drawings in those two weeks. On this trip Klee fell in love with light and color incorporating these into his evolving Cubist abstraction of geometric shapes. This trip and …

Art Reflection – Duccio di Buoninsegna This work by the artist Duccio of the early Italian Renaissance is a remarkably clear and precise gospel image of a healing act of Jesus. This composition from background to foreground takes our eyes to the central image of Jesus. The moment of his healing, restoring touch is frozen in time for us here. …

Art Reflection – Chagall Marc Chagall was born in Russia and into the Jewish faith. Many of his paintings use figure and abstraction to tell a visual story. Bella in Mourillon is a more representational work than many he created. The beautiful play of color in white and blue and hints of others sets a tone of coping and a scene of …

Art Reflection – El Greco This artist was born Domenikos Theotokopoulosin in Heraklion, Greece, in 1541. It is easy to understand how he became El Greco, “the Greek”, in his adopted country of Spain. El Greco did many paintings as commissions for churches. The Savior was commissioned by the church in Almadrones and now hangs in the Prado in Madrid. He paints …

Art Reflection – Wyeth Andrew Wyeth (1917 – 2009) was an American artist of Contemporary Realism. You may know his most famous painting, Christina’s World, a scene of his physically challenged neighbor seemingly struggling to reach a nearby house. It has been both a controversial piece and a powerful metaphor for many since 1948. Monday Morning holds Wyeth’s repeated notice of …

Art Reflection – Steele This painting follows timeless themes of path and horizon and has a rather unique story. The artist was the American Impressionist Theodore Clement Steele who was born and lived his life and art in Indiana. He began supporting himself by painting portraits when he was 16. This exact and walled-in style gave way to a career …