Meet The Artist: Vida Gábor

The paintings of Hungarian artist Vida Gábor’ provide a view into a world that disappeared during the course of the twentieth century.  The cultural heritage of Old Europe encased in dimly lit interiors. His touching and often humorous depictions of his native Budapest, with its ageing citizens often in crowded shops or studios surrounded by precious objects, combine a sense of humor and nostalgia that is perfectly matched by his self-taught technique more akin to the nineteenth century than the late twentieth.

Vida Gábor was born on January 24th, 1937 in Budapest. His mother was an opera singer and his father an architect. When he was 10 year old, his parents noticed that Vida was able to play on his flute just about any classical melody after hearing it just once. He was celebrated as a wunderkind and admitted to the “Ferenc Liszt Music Academy”. There he was a student of Professor Ferenc Hochstrasser.

In 1950 he began to paint auto-didactic pictures with water and oil paints. Gábor came from a well educated background.  A child prodigy in music, particularly in flute, he was educated at the Ferenc Liszt Music Academy studying under Ferenc Hochstrasser. In 1956, he began working as a flute soloist in the Philharmonic orchestra for the Budapest Opera and continued for 25 years. Although, he has always been painting and sculpting throughout his life, he decided to dedicate himself completely to painting in 1977.

Being a perfectionist, he decided to achieve the highest standards in this fine art and to create his own unique style.  His artistic ability has been influenced by his many talents and great technical skills. For example among his hobbies, he is a goldsmith, restorer of antique clocks, and an avid astronomer who builds his own telescopes among other things.
Vida Gabor is considered mostly as self taught. However he did not only learn existing painting processes and techniques, but he also invented many of his own. In fact, he had to design and make his own set of fine brushes and tools to satisfy his high standards. The technique that Gabor uses in his painting is referred to as Scumbling. Gábor’s technique involves the application of a thin layer of color placed over a darker under paint. The artist also has to apply numerous translucent layers on top of each other. It is a very complicated process and it shares some elements with Glazing.
Glazing is a technique of mixing color pigment with a mixture of oil, turpentine and varnish. The color floats in this medium and is therefore transparent. Each layer of paint has to dry first before adding the next one. The result is a very crisp, translucent enamel-like effect.
The artist usually spends several months to finish just one painting. He prefers to paint at night to fully focus on his composition. In fact, most of his paintings depict night scenes. The viewer will notice a source of light such as lamp or candle often used in his themes evoking emotions of warmth and magic.  The characters of his paintings are colorful folks in the tradition of the nineteenth century with no reference to anything that threatens the happy illusion based in Budapest’s proud past. His characters are very realistic and yet whimsical depicting a variety of scenes. He takes the viewer deep into his own world which combines reality with fantasy.

Meet The Artist: Marcus Stone

Ready For A Morning Ride

 

Marcus Stone. Self Portrait

Marcus Stone was a British painter and illustrator best known for his realistic depictions of garden parties, literary scenes, and sentimental portraits.

Notably, Stone also produced illustrations for books by Charles Dickens and Anthony Trollope. Born on July 4, 1840 in London, United Kingdom, he was the son of the renowned painter Frank Stone  ARA. Taught painting techniques and trained by his father, a precocious talent, Stone had already begun exhibiting his paintings at the Royal Academy by the time he was 18 years old.

A few years later he illustrated, with much success, books by Charles Dickens, Anthony Trollope, and other writers who were friends of his family.

On the Road from Waterloo to Paris, 1863

Although his works were presented to the public in 1858, only in 1863 Stone gained fame when his painting “On the Road from Waterloo to Paris” brought him wide recognition. In this painting and in his further work, to everyone’s admiration, he succeeds in depicting female figures and historical scenes.

Claudio, Deceived by Don John, Accuses Hero. 1861

An Interrupted Duel (fragment)

Le Roi Est Mort Vive le Roi!

Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn Observed By Queen Katherine

 

Married For Love

The Soldier’s Return 

The artist died on March 24, 1921 in London, United Kingdom. Today, his works are held in the collections of the Manchester Art Gallery, the Tate Gallery in London, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the de Young Museum in San Francisco, among others.

 

Marcus Stone on WikiArt

 

 

Meet The Artist: Alex Kupalian

Alba. The escape

Silhouette of a woman in a lace mantilla, reclining on a patterned carpet, either asleep, or dead. As you know, the great Spaniard Francisco Goya painted the Duchess of Alba nude in anticipation of love. The young Russian artist Alexander Kupalyan depicts Alba on her deathbed with his face partially covered. Why?

Тhe artist, a young man in a white T-shirt smeared with paint, with a picture of Caravaggio on his chest:

 

Perhaps, it comes from childhood, which is remembered for an endless succession of funerals. Usually, the dead found their last shelter in our apartment, in the next room, literally behind the wall. At first I was terribly afraid of them, and then I got used to it. In the end, we all live in the presence of Love and Death. And it is still unknown who will knock on our door first. For me, Duchess Alba became the embodiment of Eros and Thanatos. And “Escape”… well, because the sunset was already burning down, the night was coming, and her soul would soon leave this earth, leaving only the perishable body on the carpet.

“Wave. Atlantis”, fragment. 2017

The entire wall is taken up by a huge canvas “Wave. Atlantis”. Some frantic boiling emerald color, echoing in its richness with the paintings of old masters. It turns out that Alexander passionately loves the sea. Ready to draw it endlessly. But he is not interested in just seascapes, he wants to penetrate into the very thickness of the water. He seemed to be looking into the abyss. It already remotely looks like a method. Kupalyan’s gaze is not directed towards heaven, not up, but precisely downward, into a black twilight, curling under his feet.

“Pompeii. Step into eternity ”, fragment. 2017

Gray ash, black scorched grass and coals crackling with the last, terrible sparkle. The killed land, killed nature, killed soul are constant motives, permanent images of Kupalyan’s works. And a dog covered with the ashes of Vesuvius and turned into a modest monument to human indifference and oblivion.

“When I wandered around the dead city, I was most struck by the fact that in Pompeii the dogs were kept on a very short leash, and when the eruption of Vesuvius began, the tied up animals could not escape from burning lava.”

“Black Christ”

Shape Of A New Life. Hiroshima. 2018

The series of works titles “The Death of Cities”, created especially for the exhibition at the VS Unio, presents the mystical world of dying civilizations through the language of painting, based on the artist’s impressions of traveling in Italy, the experience of training at the Academy of Fine Arts of Naples, encountering with the traces of cruel cataclysms and natural disasters.

“Shape Of A New Life. Hiroshima”. 2018

Thirst for serious meanings, an appeal to the eternal themes was relevant for thinking artists in different periods of the history of art. Serious easel painting requires solitude and silence. It always involves the voluntary rejection of many temptations and enticements. Few artists have such stamina these days. But Kupalyan’s art is encouraging evidence that masterpieces are still possible.

Guido Cagnacci, «il genio bizzaro»

Guido Cagnacci. The Rape of Lucretia.

Eccentric, not trustworthy person of dubious morals, keen to spend time in the company of models dressed in clothes of the opposite sex — these are the opinions about Guido Cagnacci (1601 – 1663) from the unkind mouths of his contemporaries.

Guido Cagnacci. Allegory of painting.

Several significant episodes of Cagnacci’s life describe the artist as quite an uncomfortable personality. Glorified by women, ruined by a woman. In 1628, Guido cast his wandering eye on a young widow, Theodora Stivivi, of aristocratic family. In doing so Guido “had offended the honor of the major families of Rimini”. Theodora’s relatives did not consent to marriage. A mess of legal quarrels led to a trial. Guido, a restless and quarrelsome temperament, kidnapped the woman from the convent in which she had been sheltered and tried to escape with her. The papal cops found the hiding lovers.  Guido’s own father condemned him. As a result, the troublesome painter was banned from the city of Rimini.

The Repentant Magdalene is an oil painting of the early 1660s. It shows Mary Magdalene, beside her remonstrating sister Martha, at the moment she repents, echoed by an allegorical pairing of Virtue, an angel, chasing out Vice, a devil.

This is not the usual idea of ​​Mary Magdalene, who became a follower of Christ, and then a saint. Mary Magdalene lies almost naked on the ground. Virtue, a fair-haired angel, pursues the devil, who bites his hand in anger when he casts a last glance at Magdalene.  The picture is a celebration of the triumph of virtue over vice, but the master with obvious pleasure describes worldly temptations  — an expensive suit, beautiful shoes and ornaments scattered on the floor. Amazing naturalism and eroticism of his paintings…

This image of Mary and Martha is absolutely original, and Cagnacci knew it only so well. No wonder he boastfully signed his work “GVIDVS CAGNACCIVS INVENTOR”, not the usual “pinxit” (painted) or “fecit” (done).

 Guido Cagnacci. Penitent Mary Magdalene.

In 1650, Guido traveled to Venice, and in 1658 appeared in Vienna. Emperor Leopold I became his patron. It is in free Venice that Cagnacchi creates his chamber paintings, mostly female nudes — carnal and sensual.

Guido Cagnacci. Susanna and the Elders

Among his favorite subjects was glorious Cleopatra. He painted quite a number of Cleopatras, so many that collected in one gallery it might be named “the cemetery of the dying Cleopatra.”  

Anton Pieck, “The Greatest Dutchman”

Anton Franciscus Pieck (19 April 1895 – 24 November 1987) was a Dutch painter, artist and graphic artist.

Anton Pieck was extraordinarily popular during his lifetime. From 1938 on he started designing Christmas cards for the children’s benefit organization Voor Het Kind, which were not only a success in his home country but also huge best-sellers in the United States. This lead to a huge industry which reduplicated his paintings as imagery on greeting cards, calendars and puzzles.

His illustrations of Grimm’s fairy tales directly led to Pieck’s most famous contribution to Dutch popular culture: theme park De Efteling. In the early 1950s he was asked to make designs for a fairy tale forest set in Kaatsheuvel. At first he wasn’t interested, since he assumed it would merely be a couple of cardboard sets. When the organizers convinced him they would build actual houses based on his designs, the artist eventually opened up to the idea. On 31 May 1952 the theme park Efteling opened for visitors. Pieck designed all the houses, buildings and animatronic inhabitants of the fairy tale forest, including Little Red Riding Hood at her grandma’s house, Sleeping Beauty’s castle, Frau Holle’s well and Hansel and Gretel’s gingerbread house. Lesser known tales like ‘The Six Servants’ were also included.ммм

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General audiences still love Pieck’s cosy and nostalgic drawings and buy this merchandising by the score. Surprisingly enough, many are too young to have ever experienced the time periods themselves. The majority even live in modern cities, far removed from these old-fashioned buildings next to nature. Yet many can relate to the simpler times in the “good old days”, as romanticized as they are. And thanks to De Efteling and the Autotron they can even visit it in real life, which might explain their success. These attractions function as some kind of time portal, much like the illustrations themselves. Pieck is so beloved with audiences that in 2004 he was voted to the 81th place during the election of “The Greatest Dutchman”.

Despite never having been accepted by highbrow art fans Anton Pieck’s popularity has endured, even after his death. De Efteling still attracts thousands of visitors to this day. Pieck’s books and paintings keep being reprinted much for the delight of his many admirers in his native country and abroad.More about the artist here.

The Art Of Passover

The eight-day festival of Passover is celebrated in the early spring, from the 15th through the 22nd of the Hebrew month of Nissan, April 10–18, 2017 (Hebrew year 5777).
Happy Passover to those who celebrate. !חג פסח שמח
For Jews around the world, the Pesach Seder is an excellent occasion to gather at a large table, eat, drink and recall the exodus from Egypt.

For the great painters of the Renaissance, the ritual served as an inexhaustible source of inspiration.

Here is how Leonardo da Vinci painted the Seder of 13 Nisan 3793 on the wall of the refectory of the Dominican convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan. The painting dates from 1495-1498:
Below is the engraving of Albrecht Dürer, created in 1523, from collection of the New York Metropolitan Museum. St John is easily recognized here not only by the absence of a beard, but also by his place at the festive table. It is unclear, though, where the Jesus’s favorite pupil hid his legs. Judas is conspicuously absent, perhaps not to spoil the festive mood.Still below, is the amusing painting of Paolo Veronese “The Feast in the House of Levi”. Originally it was also called “The Last Supper”, but it had to be renamed after the intervention of the Inquisition, accusing the artist of an unfaithful depiction of the event. Veronese’s Last Supper is different from the canonical description by the evangelists. The Seder begins after the stars come out, however Veronese’s Seder feast takes place in the light of the day. The main objection, though, was the “composition” of the participants  — too many people that shouldn’t have been in the presence of Jesus at His Last Supper. The problem went away when the feast has been moved to the “house of Levi”. The canvas of epic proportions (one and a half times larger than Leonardo’s fresco) occupies the entire wall of the Venetian Academy:
The famous canvas of Tintoretto (Jacopo Robusti), created in Venice almost 100 years after the masterpiece of Leonardo. The painting is exhibited in the Basilica of San Giorgio Maggiore on the island of the same name. In the best baroque traditions, it depicts Jesus and his disciples at the festive table in the 16th century Venetian trattoria. Curiously, the mighty Inquisition had no problem with Tintoretto who placed a number of extraneous persons onto the canvas. Perhaps, it was because the supper takes place with the stars out?
“The Last Supper” by the Russian artist Nikolai Ge below was presented to the public in the fall of 1863 in the Academy of Arts of St. Petersburg. Church censorship tried to ban it and demanded its removal from the exhibition. The day was saved by Tsar Alexander II intervention. The royal mecenat bought the painting from the artist. Grudgingly, the clerics had to forget about their claims for a while (although the synodal ban on the publication of reproductions in Russia persisted until the February Revolution of 1917).It should be noted that of the five masterpieces above, only Nikolai Ge’s correctly reflected the ritual of the Last Supper: Passover, the exodus of Jews from Egyptian bondage should be celebrated reclining (מסובין) rather than sitting on the chairs around the table. Accordingly, Jesus’s beloved disciple shouldn’t be depicted sitting on the Teacher’s lap as portrayed by Durer, but rather reclined beside Him.

Many other great masters painted the Last Supper, among them Daniele Crespi, Hans Holbein (Hans the Younger), Juan de Juanes, Ugolino da Siena, Duccio di Buoninsegna. 

Meet The Artist: Pedro Roldán Molina

An unusual technique, sunny colors, a fantastic country…

Pedro Roldán Molina is an internationally recognized and well-known Spanish artist. He was born in the province of Cordoba in Rute, Spain, in 1954. He studied art in Barcelona. His work can be seen in major museums around the world.

Currently, Pedro Roldán Molina lives and works in Granada, Spain.

An aura of a perfect dream…What you see and hear, to some extent, depends on what you are. I believe that each canvas, still life, landscape, in essence, is a self-portrait of the soul. (From a blog featuring  works of Pedro Roldán Molina.)

Meet The Artist: Steven Spazuk

It would seem that, in this age of modern technology even gives in to work progress – there are new kinds of hobbies, new musical instruments and new technologies in architecture. And the experienced viewer is already difficult to surprise. However, the human imagination is limitless and always able to present something new.

Canadian artist Steven Spazuk began his career using quite ordinary techniques. First, there were pencil drawings, then oil paintings and watercolors. This was followed by passion for airbrushing. Soon, it has become Stephen’s favorite method due to its soft, smooth shape, a certain lightness and ease.It would seem that, in this day and age, modern technology touches everything, art including. There are new kind of hobbies, new musical instruments and new technologies in architecture. It’s difficult to surprise an experiences art-lover. However, the human imagination is limitless and always able to present something new.

In 2001, Steven Spazuk began working with the burner, discovering a new dimension of creativity.“[This technique] changed my life, it gives me a great deal, it is unique. The spontaneity of the process — that’s the most interesting. Approaching the canvas, I do not know what will happen, what to follow and what’ll come out,” the artist says.

“I don’t control anything, I merely let the candle and its flame to do their job. And then look what happened. Usually what happens is these abstract shapes of soot in which I can see the picture. Looking at these shapes, I suddenly can see an elbow, knee, chest or leg –and then so be it,” says Steven.

Stephen’s unique set of tools includes brushes with metal bristles, needles, feathers.  This is a rather difficult technique, very time-consuming, so the author spends lots of time in his studio.

The idea of “playing with fire” came to the artist in his sleep. In his dream, Steven visited the gallery, where every picture was created using this technique. Incredible but true, in the dream he already knew how create such paintings. Many years since passed, the technique underwent many changes, became more varied and sophisticated.  That’s how it’s done:

Using a burner or a candle the artist gets soot on the sheet. Then, using the “traditional” tools, outlines a drawing adding contours.
And then remains a delicate job of of putting finishing touches with emphasis on smallest details.

Steven is a versatile artist:

Meet The Artist: Tomek Setowsky

Tomek Setowski (his web page is in Polish with lots of images) is a Polish artist born, by his own admission, “a very long time ego” in Kraków-Częstochowa Upland. He revealed his artistic talents at the tender age of three.His learning lasted for a long time…The young dreamer honed his painting skills over the years, displaying his works first at local galleries and then moving to the best showrooms of the world.For many years Setowski has been put under the wide notion of surrealism. Only recently it was decided that artists having a similar style fall under “magical realism” or “fantastic realism” and the artists themselves (what is often stressed by Setowski) are closer to Bosch than Salvador Dali. There are not many representatives of this trend in the world, for creating such works deserves a faultless, almost masterly technique and immense imagination. (From an article on Setowski here.)

Meet The Artist: Victor Nizovtsev

Victor Nizovtsev is a Russian painter, a master of whimsical and narrative art.

His favorite subjects include fantasy landscapes, russian folklore, theatre and mermaids. Fashion designer, decorative painter, fine artist – these are the occupations of one person whom we are going to talk about in the following post. Victor Nizovtsev  exhibits his wonderful artworks all over the world. For today he lives in the United States where he continues his successful career. This talented Russian-American artist is known for his unique and imaginative paintings that are highly symbolic and leave the lasting impression on the viewers.

His works impress with the fantastic magic tone, vibrant colors, the amazing glaze and ever wonderful characters. One can talk for a long time about his art, but it’s better to see it one time and you are welcome to do it.