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phoenixmcarthur

@mmcarthur.bsky.social

3.5K followers 460 following 8.6K posts

Once an artist, always an artist, poetry junkie, wishful potter, voracious reader, lover of Indie and Obscure Rock, Jazz, Classical, Science & always the Resistance. 🧷💪 #ArtHeals

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phoenixmcarthur @mmcarthur.bsky.social · 23h

"We have art so that we shall not die of reality."
- Friedrich Nietzsche

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phoenixmcarthur @mmcarthur.bsky.social · 1m

Shibata Zeshin (1807–91, Japan) :
Mouse, c.19th century

Lacquer on paper | 19.4 x 16.8 cm

Lacquer artist, painter and printmaker. Although best known for his lacquer crafts, he became a successful artist in the Shijo style, which he studied under Suzuki Nanrei.

the British Museum

phoenixmcarthur @mmcarthur.bsky.social · 11m

Pierre Bonnard : The Bathroom, 1932

Oil on canvas
47-5/8 x 46-1/2 in | 121 x 118.2 cm

The Museum of Modern Art

More info in the alt text 👇

The scene is the bathroom of Bonnard’s own home and the woman naked at her toilette is the artist’s wife, Marthe, accompanied in the foreground by their dog, Pouce. Although Marthe appears in many of Bonnard’s paintings, seldom is her face fully visible, creating a sense of casual intimacy. Bonnard painted his unstretched canvases from memory, assisted only by small sketches. His technique and his use of color—applied in seemingly spontaneous, discrete strokes—are indebted to Impressionism, but the flatness of the image and the high-pitched hues of color in this work were in deep accord with the latest modernist practices.

phoenixmcarthur @mmcarthur.bsky.social · 18m

Franz Marc : Der Traum
(The Dream) 1912

oil on canvas
100.5 x 135.5 cm | 39.5 x 53.3 in

Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid

phoenixmcarthur @mmcarthur.bsky.social · 27m

Albrecht Dürer :
Studies of a Tree Bullfinch, c.1500

watercolor & gouache on paper on canvas

Bio in the alt text 👇

Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528, Nuremberg, Germany), was a painter, printmaker, and theorist of the German Renaissance. Born in Nuremberg, Dürer established his reputation and influence across Europe in his twenties due to his high-quality woodcut prints. He was in contact with the major Italian artists of his time, including Raphael, Giovanni Bellini and Leonardo da Vinci, and from 1512 was patronized by Emperor Maximilian I.

Dürer's vast body of work includes engravings, his preferred technique in his later prints, altarpieces, portraits and self-portraits, watercolours and books. The woodcuts series are stylistically more Gothic than the rest of his work, but revolutionised the potential of that medium, while his extraordinary handling of the burin expanded especially the tonal range of his engravings.

Dürer's introduction of classical motifs and of the nude into Northern art, through his knowledge of Italian artists and German humanists, has secured his reputation as one of the most important figures of the Northern Renaissance. This is reinforced by his theoretical treatises, which involve principles of mathematics for linear perspective and body proportions.

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phoenixmcarthur @mmcarthur.bsky.social · 11h

Today, we honour the heartbeat of this land — the First Peoples who have carried its songs, languages, and laws since time immemorial.

We are still here.
We are still rising.
We are still remembering who we are.

Indigenous Peoples’ Day is not just a date — it’s a remembering.
A return to the circle.
A chance for the world to listen again to the oldest teachings on Earth:
that everything is related,
that land and language are medicine,
and that our stories were never broken — only waiting to be heard again.

To all Nations, all Elders, all Youth, and all those walking the healing road —
mîkwêc for carrying the light forward.
Walk gently today. Celebrate who you are.
This day, and every day, belongs to you.

— Kanipawit Maskwa

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phoenixmcarthur @mmcarthur.bsky.social · 12h

Definitely true that!

phoenixmcarthur @mmcarthur.bsky.social · 12h

An artistically historic piece. Cool that you got to see it irl.

phoenixmcarthur @mmcarthur.bsky.social · 12h

Gene Kloss (American, 1903-96) :
Night Mass - Our Lady of Delores, Taos, 1937

Etching, aquatint, and drypoint on paper
30.6 × 22.7 cm | 12 × 8⅞ in

Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.

Architecture Exterior : religious, Our Lady of Sorrows
Ceremony : religion, mass
Architecture Exterior : religious, church
Landscape : New Mexico, Taos
Figure group
Landscape : time, night

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phoenixmcarthur @mmcarthur.bsky.social · 12h

Pablo Picasso : Guernica, 1937

Oil on canvas
349.3 cm × 776.5 cm |
137.4 in × 305.5 in

It is one of his best-known works, regarded by many art critics as the most moving and powerful anti-war painting in history.

Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid

Complete description in the 1st alt text 👇

The grey, black, and white painting, on a canvas 3.49 meters (11 ft 5 in) tall and 7.76 meters (25 ft 6 in) across, portrays the suffering wrought by violence and chaos. Prominently featured in the composition are a gored horse, a bull, screaming women, a dead baby, a dismembered soldier, and flames.

Picasso painted Guernica at his home in Paris in response to the 26 April 1937 bombing of Guernica, a town in the Basque Country in northern Spain, by Nazi Germany's Condor Legion and Fascist Italy. Upon completion, Guernica was exhibited at the Spanish pavilion at the 1937 Paris International Exposition and then at other venues around the world. The touring exhibition was used to raise funds for Spanish war relief. The painting soon became widely acclaimed, helping to bring worldwide attention to the Spanish Civil War that took place from 1936 to 1939.

It is widely thought that Surrealist photographer and anti-fascist activist Dora Maar, Picasso's romantic partner at the time, had a significant influence on the style and politicized theme of Guernica. Unlike Picasso, Maar was deeply involved in left-wing political activism when they met. Amar Singh, the Amar Gallery owner, states, “She influenced Picasso to paint Guernica – he had never entered political painting before.” Additionally, as a photographer, Dora Maar introduced Picasso to darkroom techniques during the year he created Guernica. Her oeuvre of black-and-white photography likely influenced his decision to forgo his characteristic use of color, rendering Guernica in stark monochrome.

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phoenixmcarthur @mmcarthur.bsky.social · 12h

Pablo Picasso :
The Dove of Peace, 1949

With Guernica hailed as one of the world's most moving anti-war paintings, Picasso was invited to design an image to represent peace.

Further description in the alt text 👇

Picasso's first Dove of Peace, chosen as the emblem for the First International Peace Conference in Paris in 1949, was a traditional, realistic picture of a pigeon which had been given to him by his great friend and rival, the French artist Henri Matisse.

Picasso later developed this image into a simple, graphic line drawing that is one of the world's most recognizable symbols of peace. He also named his fourth child 'Paloma', the Spanish word for 'dove'.

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phoenixmcarthur @mmcarthur.bsky.social · 13h

Simon Pasini (Italy b.1976) :
Solitude, n.d.

Oil on Canvas

A gray-haired man, arms folded on the table, staring into the beer - sitting at a small wooden booth, only solitude is solitude.

phoenixmcarthur @mmcarthur.bsky.social · 14h

Moïse Kisling (Polish–French, 1891-1953) :
Vase with a Red Flower, 1918-20

Oil on canvas
27 × 19.5 cm | 10.6 × 7.7 in

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phoenixmcarthur @mmcarthur.bsky.social · 15h

Hilma af Klimt

Swedish Artist & Mystic whose paintings are among the first abstract works in Western Art. They predate compositions by Kandinsky, Malevich & Mondrian. She belonged to 'The 5', a circle inspired by Theosophy, sharing a belief in trying to contact 'High Masters' - often by séances.

Group X, No. 1, Altarpiece (Grupp X, nr 1, Altarbild), from Altarpieces (Altarbilder), 1915

Oil and metal leaf on canvas
93 1/2 × 70 7/10 in | 237.5 × 179.5 cm

Guggenheim Museum, New York

Fire & Ice, No. 6 - Series US, Group VIII - 1913

“Series VII, No. 7d,” 1920
It utilizes graphite and oil on canvas as its mediums and belongs to the Abstract Art movement.
The genre of the artwork is abstract, highlighting the innovative and non-representational approach of the artist.

“The Ten Largest” (1907) at the Museum of Modern Art Stockholm, 2013

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phoenixmcarthur @mmcarthur.bsky.social · 15h

Sydney Bella Sparrow (American, born 1973) :
Pumpkin and Winding Stem, 2016

oil on linen on panel
22 x 16 inches

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phoenixmcarthur @mmcarthur.bsky.social · 15h

Nature has the best box of crayons.

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phoenixmcarthur @mmcarthur.bsky.social · 15h

Wassily Kandinsky : Untitled, 1940

Gouache on black paper

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phoenixmcarthur @mmcarthur.bsky.social · 15h

from a restored 1st century CE Dionysian fresco

The Baccantis before the Feast in the Triclinium in the Villa of the Mysteries, Pompeii, Campania, Italy

UNESCO World Heritage Site

A young woman gazes at the viewer while fixing her hair

A roman fresco from the Villa of the Mysteries in Pompeii showing the preparation of a young bride after the initiation rite in honor of Dionysus, 1st century BC

POMPEII, ITALY—Now that a two-year restoration project has been completed, the Villa of the Mysteries has reopened to visitors. The building’s paintings, which feature life-sized figures, are thought to depict the initiation rites of the cult of Dionysus. Wax that had been applied during an earlier restoration was removed, and the darkened images were brightened. “We know well that the world looks with great attention at everything that happens at Pompeii. Today, Italy is proud to say to the world that we have turned a page,” Dario Franceschini, the Italian culture minister, said in a press conference reported in The Telegraph. For an in-depth report on this work, see "Saving the Villa of the Mysteries."

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phoenixmcarthur @mmcarthur.bsky.social · 16h

Lyonel Feininger (American, 1871–1956) :
Gaberndorf II, 1924

Oil on canvas mounted on board,
39-7/16 x 30-3/4 inches

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art

“Gaberndorf II” belongs to the art movement known as Cubism and depicts a cityscape. The painting employs geometric shapes and a fragmented perspective characteristic of the Cubist style, transforming an urban scene into an abstract composition.

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phoenixmcarthur @mmcarthur.bsky.social · 23h

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phoenixmcarthur @mmcarthur.bsky.social · 23h

Kehinde Wiley :
Portrait of Aissatou Dialo Gueye II, 2021

oil on linen, 96 x 64 in.

Bio in the alt text 👇

The first African-American artist to have painted the official portrait of an American president (Barack Obama in 2018), Kehinde Wiley has established himself over the past two decades as one of the major figures in contemporary art with his hyper-realistic and colorful canvases exhibited at the National Gallery in London, the Petit Palais in Paris and the Cini Foundation in Venice.
Famous for his hyper-realistic depictions of contemporary African-American and African-diasporic figures that subvert the hierarchies and conventions of European and American portraiture, Wiley works in painting, sculpture and video and challenges and reorients art historical narratives, raising complex socio-political issues that have long remained taboo. He holds a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute, an MFA from Yale University and honorary doctorates from the Rhode Island School of Design and the San Francisco Art Institute.
He has had solo exhibitions throughout the United States and abroad, and his work is in the collections of more than 60 public institutions worldwide. Kehinde Wiley is the founder and president of Black Rock Senegal. He lives and works in Dakar, Lagos and New York.

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phoenixmcarthur @mmcarthur.bsky.social · 23h

"Black Amphora"
Han Dynasty,
200 BC-200 AD, China

Burnished pottery

Further description in the alt text 👇

This hand built amphora has a unique and elegant shape. Round at the base, divided into four raised spiralling sections at the body, two long handles extending to the mouth and neck which have been squared off. Small incised lines at the neck and around the spirals give definition to the design. The interplay of simple shapes make this jar feel very modern. Many of these pots were made and yet the design details remain the same; the MIA has three nearly identical jars. The same design occurs in smaller sizes and examples can be found in many museums.

phoenixmcarthur @mmcarthur.bsky.social · 23h

Peter Max :
Big Red Flowers #195, n.d.

Mixed Media on Paper
28" x 21"

Description in the alt text 👇

A collector favorite, Peter Max's 'Big Red Flowers' is a lush example of his kinetic, expressionistic brushwork and signature, bold, fauvist color.

Max's flowers fill the piece in a joyous burst - painted with spontaneity, motion and multi-colored brushstrokes. His color palette is an exuberant rainbow executed with energetic swirls and strokes. The work is perpetually in bloom and a joy to behold.

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phoenixmcarthur @mmcarthur.bsky.social · 23h

Marc Chagall :
The Circus Rider, 1927

Oil on canvas

23.8 × 18.9 cm | 9-3/8 × 7-7/16 in

The Art Institute of Chicago

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phoenixmcarthur @mmcarthur.bsky.social · 23h

Otto Dix :
Portrait of the Journalist Sylvia von Harden, 1926

"The New Objectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit) emerged as a style in Germany in the 1920s as a challenge to Expressionism. ...

More in the alt text 👇

As its name suggests, it offered a return to unsentimental reality and a focus on the objective world, as opposed to the more abstract, romantic, or idealistic tendencies of Expressionism. The style is most often associated with portraiture, and its leading practitioners included Max Beckmann, Otto Dix, and George Grosz. Their mercilessly naturalistic depictions, sometimes reminiscent of the meticulous processes of the Old Masters, frequently portrayed Weimar society in a caustically satirical manner."
~ MoMA, NY

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phoenixmcarthur @mmcarthur.bsky.social · 23h

George Tooker : Moon Rise, 1997

“[Tooker] often called a symbolic, or magic, realist, worked well outside the critical mainstream for much of his career, relegated to the margins by the rise of abstraction.

More in the alt text 👇

As doctrinaire modernism loosened its hold in the 1980s, however, he was rediscovered by a younger generation of artists, critics and curators, who embraced him as one of the most distinctive and mysterious American painters of the 20th century. He specialized in eerie situations with powerful mythic overtones. Luminous and poetic ...”

~ William Grimes, ©2011 NYT