Well, well, I see you have returned for your Friday Afternoon Challenge! Today: “Interiors.”

[CTyankee]

Here are several different painters’ articulations of space/light and figures/actions. Do you know them?

And, as good DUbies of course, you do not cheat...

1.
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2.
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3.
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4.
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5.
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6.
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[Hekate]

1. Love the warm light in #2, and the So. California light in #4

Have no idea who did what, tho some guesses about when. I'm looking forward the the answers!

[jberryhill]

2. #2 is that Dutch guy who slept in a box

...and you can see the box in the picture.

#6 is the spa at the old Aladin Hotel and Casino in Vegas.

[CTyankee]

4. Didn't they all sleep in a box in the wall in those days?

[Hekate]

14. Very common back in the day. nt

[jberryhill]

23. Not the same box!

[CTyankee]

24. Oh, I don't know about that...there are little boxes and big boxes...

for some odd reason, they all procreated so...

[CaliforniaPeggy]

3. #5 is "The Birth of the Virgin".........I think!

#2 looks Dutch, or maybe Flemish.

[CTyankee]

5. good eye there...

as for #2, it is not...

[flying rabbit]

6. Pathetic attempt

#3 American guy painted in the 30s ish. I know his work, can't remember the name. #6 Ingres? Ah I got nuttin'

[CTyankee]

7. No Ingres and no to your guess on #3...but keep going, you'll get there!

[yardwork]

8. #2 is Pieter de Hooch, Interior with a Mother Delousing her Child

[CTyankee]

9. You're golden, yardwork! Did you study Dutch art of the 17th century?

[yardwork]

10. No! I thought maybe Vermeer and went looking for the title of the piece. Instead I found this.

Lucky research.

[CTyankee]

11. Yep a real genre piece from that era.

There were many, many pieces from that period I could have chosen from, but this one just called to me...

[yardwork]

13. It's very beautiful and then the title is a shocker. Very interesting.

I love the way that the floor glistens.

[CTyankee]

17. It's funny, but the title I had from the painting I downloaded was in French and I didn't know

the verb in the sentence "de hooch interieur avec une mere epouillant son enfant."

Now I know...

[blaze]

29. I LOVE this painting

but my love of it was lessened a bit because I thought the subject involved a mother or protector comforting a child in distress....

I really did laugh out loud when I read that it involved delousing!!

And I can't really explain why I am so attracted to this painting... the colors? the light? the detail?

I LOVE LOVE LOVE your weekly challenges!!!!!

[CTyankee]

35. This genre is nice is probably why. There is a quiet feeling. An intimate moment that we can

relate to. A comforting and comfortable feeling, with a warm light coming through the window.

It's kind of social history, how people in those days lived. There was the rise of the middle class in those days and this painting gives you interesting information about their furnishings...fabrics, flooring and walls...

[jberryhill]

25. Kid wouldn't need it if he didn't Pieter de Hooch!

[CTyankee]

37. yeah, that'll give ya head lice every time!

the hooch gets annoyed...

[jberryhill]

38. I didn't get 'em on my head though

And my mom didn't pick 'em out.

[CTyankee]

39. Hmm, funny how we never see an artist's rendering of his (or someone else's) "other" body

lice, altho I am sure it wasn't that rare back in the day, if ever.

sounds like you managed OK tho and lived to joke about it...geez, what people share online these days...

[jberryhill]

40. It's okay, you can't share 'em online

Incidentally, after looking at a bunch of Pieter de Hooch images (no, no, the actual Dutch guy), I find that this and many others are strikingly similar to a Dutch interior domestic scene which was the subject of a relatively cheap but large and gloriously framed print which hung in my parent's house as a child. No one knows what became of it, and we debate just what it looked like from our memories from time to time.

The stylistic elements are strikingly similar - tiled floor, fireplace, young child, sunlight streaming in, and I believe a breakfast table with a clay pipe on it. If I wanted to broaden my search beyond this Dutch guy, what else might I search on?

[CTyankee]

46. There is one helluva lot. Start looking under "golden age of Dutch painting."

What you are looking for is the genre of home interiors but I don't know how else to term it. There's also a bunch of interiors of taverns, lots of drinking and carousing pictured. Here is a good place to start: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Golden_Age_painting

Of course, this was Vermeer's specialty (he only did two exteriors). He is the Master. Jan Steen did interior domestic scenes, also.

If you like to travel, I do recommend the Barge trip of the Netherlands offered by Road Scholar, specifically aimed at art lovers. I went on this in October of 2011 and was overwhelmed by what I saw. We went into the towns where the artists lived and painted (Haarlem for Frans Hals, Delft, Rotterdam and of course Amsterdam for the Rijksmuseum and the vast Van Gogh Museum). The barge was a bit spartan but we had a great cook and fresh, if basic, meals and talks on the barge while we docked. It wasn't a bad way to see the country, either, just floating down canals (no sea sickness). And you can go to Rembrandt's house and see his studio and hisactual bed in the wall!

good luck! and let me know what you found out!

[frazzled]

12. #3 is a Balthus

La Chambre, from 1954.

The prepubscent girl was the dead giveaway!

[CTyankee]

15. I viewed her as a little older than that, altho other Balthus's aren't.

And it was a more mature pose, also...if I recall my Balthus's correctly...

[Hekate]

16. It just strikes me as unattractive as well as perverse

I am unfamiliar with the artist. I take it he did a lot of that.

[CTyankee]

19. Yes, as I said this struck me as pretty strange and demented. Balthus must've been a wierd guy...

[frazzled]

20. Yes, perversity is ascribed to him

As well as a masterful use of light. He painted young girls almost obsessively, and the content seems undeniably erotic. But he denied he was a dirty old man.

Here's an article that might shed some light:


http://www.sfgate.com/books/article/Why-Did-Balthus-Keep-Painting-Young-Girls-2805372.php

[CTyankee]

22. The compositional use of interior light is what I found striking about this work.

The diagonals of the window light and the young woman's pose is striking in that regard. In other aspects, ugh...

[frazzled]

18. #6 another Gérôme

The Moorish Bath. 1870

Knew it had to be later 19th century French, because of its Orientalist subject. It was a hop skip and jump to Gérôme.

[CTyankee]

21. Yup. Good for you!

Gerome did some fantastic stuff, even tho the Orientalist era was horribly racist. But if we indict Gerome, in all fairness we must indict Matisse...and much of Western Art as well...

[nenagh]

26. CTyankee, if you see this...could you explain who the ladies are...

In painting 2?

I see the baby, plus wet nurse, presumably.. Looks like 2 nuns in veils..

But the languid lady in pink? The extraordinary lady at the door looks blown in by the wind...is she rushing? Did she miss the event? I can't find the painter.....



I simply love these choices......many thanks....

[CTyankee]

27. I think you mean #5.

This is a painting from the Renaissance, where such scenes were often painted. One lady has just given birth and the other women are midwives, helpers, etc. The woman rushing in was someone probably who was "sent out" to get fruit...women of that era were surrounded by other women who helped her give birth and in the events/needs following the birth. Others "visited," according to custom.

This scene is Biblical in its references.

[nenagh]

28. Thank you..it is number 5...

"The Birth of the Virgin"? Is that the name of the painting? Or was that a joke? Sorry to be such a dunce...

But the painting is captivating... and as you, who knows, says very much of a period....

Googling "Birth of the Virgin"... All those paintings were completely different... more like religious art.

I'm reading some more fanciful books on Anna, mother of Mary... though my books tend toward a New Age slant...

And I couldn't understand the differences...nonetheless thank you for at least an hour puzzling over a lovely and gentle painting...

[CTyankee]

32. Actually, this one is related to Birth of the Virgin in a way...

[CTyankee]

36. did you happen to notice that the flooring in #1 is the same pattern as the ceiling in #5?

Last edited Sat Jan 5, 2013, 09:49 AM - Edit history (1)

same era, but unconsequential otherwise...guess it was a popular pattern then!

[nenagh]

42. I'd have never spotted those tiles.... So unusual on the ceiling...from our POV...

Still wondering what the younger lady with the lace is saying to her companion...

She looks a little worried...and is gesturing with she hand...

Endlessly fascinating...as all the paintings are...

Thank you again, CTyankee...

How delightful it must be to understand what you are seeing...

[CTyankee]

44. well, I went on an art intensive in Florence, where I saw both of these works and I had

done a year of research into the Early Italian Renaissance, on my own, previous to that. I still go to Europe every year to see great art and I study all I can beforehand. I am retired so I have lots of time on my hands! And I am crazy about art...

[IcyPeas]

30. why is this in the Politics forum? just wondering

[CTyankee]

33. My bad, that's why...I didn't realize it till a few minutes ago and got a couple of pms about it.!

It was just an oops...

[velvet]

31. #4 is a Hocking.

A double portrait of some people ... whose names I forget.

[CTyankee]

34. I think you mean Hockney. You are correct.

mr. and Mrs. Clark and Percy...

[velvet]

41. oops!

Indeed I did. Hocking! I said to myself. Then I tried to remember his first name. Steven? Geoff? David! Of course, David Hocking! But I still felt uneasy, so I left off his first name just in case.

[velvet]

43. #5 ... Bitticelli?

Last edited Sat Jan 5, 2013, 05:56 AM - Edit history (3)

Kidding. I mean Botticelli.

And on reflection, could this be the Death of the Virgin? Possibly part of a series of frescoes culminating in the Virgin's Assumption into Heaven? I dunno who that baby is though. Perhaps the people in the foreground, with the exception of the figure on the right, who seems lifted straight from his "Venus", are a Florentine noblewoman and her attendants rather than biblical characters? "Venus Girl" and the woman on the bed are in direct communication, and I'm guessing she might be an angel coming to escort the Virgin into heaven.

[CTyankee]

45. I am going to post the answers to this Challenge over in General Discussion.

I mistakenly posted the Challenge yesterday here in Politics 2013. Sorry for the mix up, my bad!