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Tag Archives: Art History

Painters of Light

Thomas Kinkade, “Painter of Light (TM)” passed away earlier this month.  His psychedelically colorful fantasy landscapes are too sugary for my taste, but he’s a fascinating cultural figure of our time.  It strikes me that his technically accomplished, rather surrealistic style would have been embraced by the contemporary art world if he had presented it [...]

Collector of Souls: Alice Neel

  Alice Neel (1900-1984) is always described as an artist that was slow to find recognition.  It’s true, but I think it’s also true that her brilliance was of a kind that is only achieved through maturity and persistence.  Our culture likes to think that a genius is a genius, that they must be incandescent in [...]

Freudian Analysis

Lucian Freud, who just died on July 20, 2011, devoted his long career to painting figures and portraits from life, perfectly ignoring all the art-world trends of his era. Many of his images are of people and/or animals sleeping.  He always painted directly from live models, often friends or family members rather than professionals, and [...]

The Artist’s Beard

This is a first for Drawing Life – a men’s style post.  Artists, writers, and musicians create not only a body of work but also a persona.  The possibilities are broad, but the options are naturally constrained by the face and body Nature has given.  As I have found myself becoming a bearish middle-aged man, [...]

Tripartite Being

The Sages will tell you That two fishes are in our sea Without any flesh or bones. Let them be cooked in their own water; Then they also will become a vast sea, The vastness of which no man can describe. Moreover, the Sages say That the two fishes are only one, not two; They [...]

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