Gustav Igler's "The Newborn"

Nationality: German

Born-Died: 1842-1908

Size: 29.33 × 34.6 in. (74.5 × 88 cm)

Creation Date: 1872

Media: Oil on canvas 

Location: Private collection

I don't recall ever seeing it before but it was in my files so I must have seen it.  When I saw it this morning, I though, "Wow, that's beautiful."  I was really struck by the color, the value contrast (meaning light and dark, not philosophical values), the gestures of the figures and the overall arrangement of the shapes.  Then, I started noticing the various narrative elements such as the cat NOT playing with the ball of string and instead staring at the boy drinking milk.  The little girl is lovingly gazing into the face of her new sibling and it seems as if the maid(?) is trying to return the child to the mother.  However, the mother isn't looking so good--she is quite shadowy.  The more I look at this image, the more questions I have.  What is the significance, if any, of the clock's time?  What is the basket above the bed?  Is the mother going to die?  I'm going to look at it a while longer.

Anton Raphael Mengs' "Maria Luisa of Parma"

Nationality: German

Born-Died: 1728 - 1779

Creation Date: 1756

Size: 59.8 x 43.3 inch (152 x 110 cm)

Media: Oil on canvas

Location: The Prado Museum, Madrid, Spain

Totally bizarre portrait, but sort of beautiful too.

Konrad Dielitz's "Wotan Takes Leave of Brunhild"

Nationality: German
Creation Date: 1892
Media: Typogravure(?) on Paper

Caspar David Friedrich's "Sea of Ice" or "The Wreck of Hope"

Nationality: German
Born-Died: 1774-1840

Creation Date: 1823-1824

Size: 38× 49.9 inch (96.7 × 126.9 cm)

Media: Oil on canvas

Location: Kunsthalle Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

Art I Hate and Why: Lovis Corinth's "Samson Blinded"

Nationality: German
Born-Died: 1858-1925

Creation Date: 1912

Media: Oil on canvas

Location: Nationalgalerie, Berlin , Germany

This is not merely an illustration of Samson, a character from the Old Testament.  Its value as art lies in the fact that what it represents is much more fundamental: a view of man—an opinion about the nature of all men embodied in the image of one man.  The view of man offered in this painting is the following: man is weak, groping blindly, crushed, sickly, incapable, brutish, and (at best) formerly powerful. 

Caspar David Friedrich's "Wanderer Above the Sea and Fog"

Nationality: GermanBorn/Died: 1774-1840

Creation Date: 1818
Size: 37.3 × 29.4 in. (98.4 × 74.8 cm)
Media: Oil on canvas
Location: Kunsthalle Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

Albert Bierstadt's "The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak"

Nationality: German-American
Born/Died: 1830–1902

Creation Date: 1863
Size: 73.5 × 120.75 in. (186.7 × 306.7 cm)
Media: Oil on canvas
Location: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, New York, USA

One of the most amazing paintings every made. Detail photographs by me.

Albrecht Dürer's "Self Portrait"

On this Day in the History of Art: Nathaniel Dance-Holland born (1735), Bertalan Székely born (1835), Paramount Pictures founded (1912), Saul Bass born (1930), “The Fountainhead” published (1943)

Nationality: German
Born-Died: 1471-1528
Creation Date: 1787
Size: 26.1 in × 19 in. (66.3 cm × 49 cm)
Media: Oil on wood panel
Location: Alte Pinakothek, Munich, Germany

Hans Holbein the Younger's "Portrait of a Lady with a Squirrel and a Starling (Anne Lovell?)"

On this Day in the History of Art: David Cox born (1783), Lorado Taft born (1860)

Nationality: German
Born/Died: 1497 or 1498 - 1543
Creation Date: c. 1527–1528
Size: 22 x 15.3 in. (56 x 38.8 cm)
Media: Oil and tempera on oak panel
Location: National Gallery, London, U.K.

Hans Holbein is undoubtedly my favorite painter from the Northern Renaissance and I am not sure why I haven't posted more of his work. In particular I like the idea of posting a week of his beautiful drawings.

I believe this woman is holding a European red squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris) as opposed to the Eastern gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) which is what I see in the US. Apparently, during this time period squirrels were commonly kept as pets. It also appears to have a tiny leash, which is adorable.

Atlas Week: Bavarian Atlas

On this Day in the History of Art: Geoffrey Chaucer tells the Cantebury Tales (1397)

Because the Atlas Shrugged movie just came out I thought it would be fun to post a week of images of Atlas by various artists.
Location: Linderhof Palace, Germany
I do not know if this Atlas is made of stone or plaster. I hope it is made of plaster because the thought of some enormous stone sphere perched atop a building is frightening! Either way, this is a fantastic sculpture.

Alfred Seifert "A Young Beauty in a Doorway"

Unusual Depictions of Jesus Week: Hans Holbein's "The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb"

Throughout history Christan mythology has been depicted with great variety. Because images of Jesus are so common in the history of art, I thought it would be interesting to explore some of the more unusual works.

This painting of Jesus as dead from AD 1521-1522 is extremely unusual. It is life-sized and the horizontal format is tight to the body like a casket. The flesh is beginning to darken and decompose and the eyes and mouth of the corpse have gone gracelessly slack. The body, however, is gaunt, stiff and emaciated--particularly the hands. Effort has been made to depict Jesus as thoroughly dead without a trace of divinity. While many (but not all) depictions of Jesus as deceased present him as a muscular, sleeping man with minor wounds, Holbein went to great lengths to present the opposite view. I suspect Holbein's intention was to concretize the idea that Jesus most certainly did die like any human being would.

Unusual Depictions of Jesus Week: Jesus as a Pharmacist

Throughout history Christan mythology has been depicted with great variety. Because images of Jesus are so common in the history of art, I thought it would be interesting to explore some of the more unusual works.

I recently discovered that it was a trend in German-speaking Europe since the Middle Ages to depict Jesus as (of all things) a pharmacist or apothecary as it was known at the time. Apparently the metaphor involved distributing blessings and virtues as "cures" (in medicine jars), the weighing of morality in the same way a pharmacist or apothecary weighs ingredients for drugs, and similar symbols. These strange paintings were usually displayed in apothecary shops and I can't help but wonder if other professions had their own images of Jesus performing those tasks.

Franz Xavier Winterhalter's "Elisabeth of Bavaria, Empress of Austria"

Arno Breker Week: Despicable Man, Good Sculptor

Psyche

I'll have another "Arno Breker Week" soon because the more I look through images of his work, the more I find good ones to post and comment on. Tomorrow I'll start posting images I took on my recent trip to the Met.

Arno Breker Week: Despicable Man, Good Sculptor

This is a great pose. I believe this is a maquette (sort of a sculptural sketch) for a sculpture called Heinrich Heine.

Arno Breker Week: Despicable Man, Good Sculptor

I'm posting two amazing sculptures today by Breker. I know the image on the left is called Prometheus but I don't know the title for the other one. I like them both, but I think the image on the right has a more cohesive design--at least from the angle the photographs were taken.

One Objectivist's Art Object of the Day News:
I will be out of town this weekend for my wife's big exhibition in New York, so I offer two pieces today. I will probably post another entry later in the day on Sunday and I just may extend "Breker" week until I've exhausted what I consider to be his best work that I have images of.

Arno Breker Week: Despicable Man, Good Sculptor

Someone sent me a link to a very interesting website about Breker and his work. The more I looked through it, not only was his history very interesting, but there were many more wonderful pieces of art there. The website is in French and it located here.

A sad story to read there involved students protesting and barring the public's entrance to a Breker exhibition in the 1970's (I think--I tried to find the story again but the website is large and I couldn't find it.) Of course, I never saw the exhibit so it could have been a pro-Nazi affair, but I seriously doubt it. If it was not a pro-Nazi exhibition, those students should learn that there is not an art museum anywhere in the world that isn't full of artwork by murderers, racists, sexists, commissions from aggressive nations, socialists, tyrants and dictators with plans for world domination. Art expertise is precisely the ability to separate out the that which is essential to art from that which is non-essential.

Arno Breker Week: Despicable Man, Good Sculptor

I know nothing about this simple and elegant sculpture. I wish I had more photographs of it because I'm sure it was meant to represent some idea.

Arno Breker Week: Despicable Man, Good Sculptor

I have never seen the full image of this sculpture and there is a good chance none exists. Nonetheless, this is a beautiful detail shot.

UPDATE 7/30/2012:

Found it.  Actually, it was in my computer files all along.