EtCetera: painting

Showing posts with label painting. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Cave of The Storm Nymphs

Edward Poynter, 1903

On The Sea
by John Keats
It keeps eternal whisperings around
Desolate shores, and with its mighty swell
Gluts twice ten thousand Caverns, till the spell
Of Hecate leaves them their old shadowy sound.
Often 'tis in such gentle temper found,
That scarcely will the very smallest shell
Be moved for days from where it sometime fell.
When last the winds of Heaven were unbound.
Oh, ye! who have your eyeballs vexed and tired,
Feast them upon the wideness of the Sea;
Oh ye! whose ears are dinned with uproar rude,
Or fed too much with cloying melody---
Sit ye near some old Cavern's Mouth and brood,
Until ye start, as if the sea nymphs quired!

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Caspar David Friedrich - Wanderer above the Sea of Fog (1818)

Monday, September 17, 2012

Unknown Beauty

I don't know who painted this, but it's lovely. If you are, or know, the artist please let me know.
I found it here and it put me in mind of the poem below.

UNKNOWN BEAUTY

She is sweet like my heart,
She is fragrant like my soul,
As sparkling as my eyes,
Tender and gentle
And lush like my sweet dreams;
As intense as my desires
She seizes my deep Self
In flames of pleasing pains,
In glows of unfulfilled desires
And I shudder within in poetic riots.

She is noble within like gold
And dazzles like diamond
In smooth black exterior;
She is all smiles like flowers,
All tender moods like full-moon
And inviting charm inside;
She rouses soul from deep slumber
To streaks of fresh light
That seeks to stream from far horizons;
New worlds open up
Where blend desires in mad dance
And hearts sing heart to heart.

Though unknown beauty,
I know her in every single fibre,
All inside and outside like my Self
As she indeed knows me;
I feel her entreaties from her eyes,
I hear her desires from her heart;
She speaks in silence and calls in shyness
And rouses sharp pangs of sweet desires.

She is an angel in her shyness,
She is an angel in her silence,
She is an angel in her desires
And an angel in her feminine softness
And liquid young fragrance
That visit my soul in joyous dreams;
She melts in my eyes
And streams to my heart
And seizes my soul,
She speaks from a pleasing halo
Where like a living sacred deity,
She spreads her charms deep to my Self.

She is calm in the eye of desires’ storm,
She is still while heart shouts for warmth;
Warmth calls warmth and desire meets desire
And we both meet in cool still distance.

The unknown beauty somehow attuned to my self,
I seek her and she me in unknown bond.

Praveen Kumar

Saturday, September 1, 2012

Evelyn De Morgan, 1855-1919

On her seventeenth birthday, August 30th 1872, Evelyn De Morgan wrote in her diary: “At the beginning of each year I say ‘I will do something’ and at the end I have done nothing. Art is eternal, but life is short”.
The De Morgan Foundation

Helen of Troy (1898)

Medea (1889)

Dryad (1884-5)

Thursday, August 9, 2012

John William Godward (1861 - 1922)

About the artist

Saturday, July 14, 2012

Transition in Rose - Aaron Westerberg

The artist's web site

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Richard Hall - Gathering at Church Entrance

Richard Hall was a naturalized French citizen, born in Finland of Swedish parents. His late academic style of painting includes landscapes, portraits, and genre scenes.

This large canvas depicts French parishioners outside the abbey church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés in Paris. Painted in the era’s prevailing naturalistic style, the scene is a quiet confirmation of 19th-century class distinctions evident through costume and subtle gesture. Fur-trimmed coats, feathered hats, and the large stiff winged headdress of a nun contrast with the coarse clothing of the poor who huddle on the church steps. The two women at left attend to a baby whose elegant clothing suggest the infant’s baptism; their finery is contrasted with a working class mother standing nearby, who holds her baby wrapped in a heavy brown blanket.

Link to source