h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Time to plug a another free research site.

Your Paintings is a website which "aims to show the entire UK national collection of oil paintings, the stories behind the paintings, and where to see them for real."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/

Now I know nothing whatsoever about fine art, but I enjoy staring at some of it every now and again.


A few personal favourites:

I enjoy the light in paintings by Joseph Wright:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/paintings/a-philosopher-giving-that-lecture-on-the-orrery-in-which-a61182


You can't beat a good Holbein portrait. This is the one with the weird distended skull - a technique now used to paint advertisers' logos on to sports fields.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/paintings/jean-de-dinteville-and-georges-de-selve-the-ambassadors-114631


And Turner's seascapes are just genius:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/paintings/hurrah-for-the-whaler-erebus-another-fish-202354


I browse the site every now and then, particularly when I'm looking for a new Windows background


Oh, and it's a BBC initiative, so check it out now before they close it down

That looks like a great site, I've added it to my favourites and will hope it's still there when I get a chance to sit down for a proper look.



Deb

Thanks! Looks like a wonderful site.

I'm always puzzled as to why everyone loves Turner. Maybe it's because I'm visually impaired, but he just seems out of focus. I know I'm showing my ignorance here, but I looked at a lot of Turners in the Tate, I believe it was, and he just makes me want to clean my glasses. Maybe somebody can explain what I'm supposed to be seeing.

Turner paints what we see when we take our glasses off. If you want focus, get a camera

Ah! I see. (Or rather, don't.)

Turner is art for the short-sighted.

Like this fellow:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3Kfd1glU0E

My favorite painting of all time is by my most revered artist, Diego Velazquez. It's called Las Meninas:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c8/Diego_Vel%C3%A1zquez_-_Las_Meninas_%28detail%29_-_WGA24449.jpg

Velazquez and King Philip were personal friends, and Velazquez has painted his warm regard into his on face. The King and Queen (their faces shown indistinctly in the mirror on the far wall of the studio) have come to visit their daughter, who is standing for her portrait. Two maids-in-waiting attend the princess; one is trying to coax a smile out of the child while the other curtseys to the Royals with a wary expression on her face.

The princess's expression seems more suited to looking at the painter than to her parents, and King Philip is (also) climbing some stairs, backlit at the far wall. The princess has a retinue -- a nun and priest in the background, a dwarf named Maria Bolas who regards the Royals square on without the least bit of deference.

Finally, the prince can be seen kicking a wearily compliant mastiff. It's a magnificent painting, with multiple stories in multiple dimensions.

That weird dress with the elongated side panels is called a menuda, and it weighed a ton, Court ladies wore it in Spain, France and England right through the reign of George II.

I admire some of Turner's paintings -- others I find muddy. When it came to expressionism, I think Caspar Friedrich had it won hands down.
http://foglobe.com/data_images/main/caspar-david-friedrich/caspar-david-friedrich-01.jpg

Oh, those are lovely! And thanks for the explanation on that Velazquez.

Love the Friedrich! Reminds me of Hurley's photographs of Shackleton's Antarctic expedition:

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=shackleton+hurley+photos&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=7MF_Uv6VH86n0wXg6oHAAg&ved=0CCwQsAQ&biw=966&bih=584

Re-posting link:

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=shackleton+hurley+photos&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=7MF_Uv6VH86n0wXg6oHAAg&ved=0CCwQsAQ&biw=966&bih=584

For you, Dmitri:

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/119/119-h/119-h.htm#ch11

CHAPTER XI
[I Paint a "Turner"]



The summer days passed pleasantly in Heidelberg. We had a skilled trainer, and under his instructions we were getting our legs in the right condition for the contemplated pedestrian tours; we were well satisfied with the progress which we had made in the German language, [1. See Appendix D for information concerning this fearful tongue.] and more than satisfied with what we had accomplished in art. We had had the best instructors in drawing and painting in Germany—Haemmerling, Vogel, Mueller, Dietz, and Schumann. Haemmerling taught us landscape-painting. Vogel taught us figure-drawing, Mueller taught us to do still-life, and Dietz and Schumann gave us a finishing course in two specialties—battle-pieces and shipwrecks. Whatever I am in Art I owe to these men. I have something of the manner of each and all of them; but they all said that I had also a manner of my own, and that it was conspicuous. They said there was a marked individuality about my style—insomuch that if I ever painted the commonest type of a dog, I should be sure to throw a something into the aspect of that dog which would keep him from being mistaken for the creation of any other artist. Secretly I wanted to believe all these kind sayings, but I could not; I was afraid that my masters' partiality for me, and pride in me, biased their judgment. So I resolved to make a test. Privately, and unknown to any one, I painted my great picture, "Heidelberg Castle Illuminated"—my first really important work in oils—and had it hung up in the midst of a wilderness of oil-pictures in the Art Exhibition, with no name attached to it. To my great gratification it was instantly recognized as mine. All the town flocked to see it, and people even came from neighboring localities to visit it. It made more stir than any other work in the Exhibition. But the most gratifying thing of all was, that chance strangers, passing through, who had not heard of my picture, were not only drawn to it, as by a lodestone, the moment they entered the gallery, but always took it for a "Turner."

Gah - still doesn't work.

Will this work, Icy?

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=shackleton+hurley+photos&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=7MF_Uv6VH86n0wXg6oHAAg&ved=0CCwQsAQ&biw=966&bih=58

And , Bel. Yes, Mark Twain, my favourite art critic.

[Amy P]

I love Turner. But I've heard that he used a new type of red paint, and it was a disaster. The red just disappeared after a few years. So those atmospheric green and blue paintings originally had red in them too.

The blur was deliberate, though.

*arrives fashionably late*

I found the painting I bought a post card of at during a London meetup afternoon activity at The National Gallery.

Sassoferato: 'The Virgin in Prayer'

The thing I enjoy about this painting is how very peaceful she looks and I love that vibrant blue in the painting (I believe it had been restored).

Oh, a link:

http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/sassoferrato-the-virgin-in-prayer

Duh, from Icy's site (better picture):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/paintings/the-virgin-in-prayer-116053

Not too long ago, I made a trip into Houston just for me. I took a couple of hours to wander through the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH). One of the paintings that I really liked that day was fortunately available in a nice lithograph at the gift shop. As I just searched for an image of it to share, I found this write up of a similar trip to the MFAH by another suburban art fan.

Here's the blog post featuring an image of the painting, "The Corn Poppy" by Kees van Dongen.

http://birdwoman-thenatureofthings.blogspot.com/2012/05/afternoon-at-museum.html