"Ecstasy"
Vladislav Podkovinsky, 1894.
The painting "Ecstasy", exhibited immediately after completion of the work, immediately acquired a halo of scandalousness. Raging critics, who believed that the artist depicted the female orgasm, brought Podkovinsky to a nervous breakdown. The furious master came to the gallery and slashed the canvas with a knife.
𝓔𝓭𝓰𝓲 𝓐𝓻𝓽
“Skeletons fighting over smoked herring”
James Ensor, 1891.
James Ensor is considered an outstanding symbolist painter, one of the greatest representatives of avant-garde artists of the 20th century. A special place in the subject of his paintings are masks, which appear in 1879 as an attribute of carnival. But the most significant paintings on this theme were created in 1887-1891. One of them was called “The struggle of skeletons for smoked herring”.
𝓔𝓭𝓰𝓲 𝓐𝓻𝓽
“My dream, my bad dream”
Fritz Schwimbeck, 1915.
Since ancient times, the nightmare has been considered an evil spirit that comes during the dark hours of the night and suffocates people. This demon can take many forms, up to and including the most horrific creatures. For many years, this subject of night terrors was an unspoken taboo among people of art.
𝓔𝓭𝓰𝓲 𝓐𝓻𝓽
He should become the promotional face of the World Of Warcraft universe. He'd make a lot of money in the time he has left. Because sooner or later, the body's gonna pay for everything.
𝓔𝓭𝓰𝓲 𝓐𝓻𝓽
“A friendly embrace of the universe, the earth (Mexico), Me, Diego and Señor Holotl”
Frida Kahlo, 1949.
The couple divorced in 1939 but remarried under the influence of passion and admiration. Rivera once called Frida “the greatest fact of my life.” She, however, meaning almost killed her accident with a streetcar, said: “There were two accidents in my life: one was when the bus hit the streetcar, and the other was Diego. Diego was by far the worst.”
𝓔𝓭𝓰𝓲 𝓐𝓻𝓽
“The Drowned Woman”
Djordje Krstic, 1879.
Among the possible interpretations of what is happening in the painting is a fairly common plot of those times: an illegitimate child, the condemnation of society, the hopelessness of the situation, the despair that pushed the woman to suicide. In general, a social drama with a tragic ending.
𝓔𝓭𝓰𝓲 𝓐𝓻𝓽
“The Kiss”
Jan France de Beauver, 1916.
In 1914, De Beauver began illustrating Charles Baudelaire's Flowers of Evil for the wealthy art collector Speltinx. Under his contract with the client, he was obliged to paint 157 gouaches by 1924.It is this series of illustrations that is regarded as the artist's major work. The illustration The Kiss, painted in 1916, is one of the best paintings in this series.
𝓔𝓭𝓰𝓲 𝓐𝓻𝓽
“Woman with dead child”
Käthe Kohlwitz, 1908.
The artist depicted a breathless little body with its mother bent over it. Kolvitz's choice of brown and dark blue coloring also adds to the atmosphere. The figures seem to emerge from the blackening void and transport the viewer into the existential space of the mother's experiences.
𝓔𝓭𝓰𝓲 𝓐𝓻𝓽
“Self-Portrait”
Egon Schiele, 1911.
The artist's haggard, haggard figure, gaunt and angular, bristles with internal tension, visible through agitated pencil line and a white-colored surrounding aura. Schiele stares wildly, his large dark eyes glittering menacingly, his mouth open and his mop of hair standing up.
𝓔𝓭𝓰𝓲 𝓐𝓻𝓽
“Minotaur with a dead horse in front of a cave”
Pablo Picasso, 1953.
For Picasso, the bull-headed monster was a symbol of the duality of human nature, and in his painting he depicted lust and cruelty. Although the kindness of the Minotaur's eyes and his smile are strangely appealing, he holds a horse crushed by his own hands, reaching out toward a girl who looks at him in fright. To the left, out of the darkness of the cave, another pair of hands can be seen in a pleading gesture.
𝓔𝓭𝓰𝓲 𝓐𝓻𝓽
“Man in a Cauldron”
René Magritte, 1963.
It was the mystery, the sense of wonder that attracted Magritte and distinguished him from most of his fellow surrealists. He rigidly adhered to his canon of flat measurements and frozen images. What he wanted and what he achieved in his best works was not so much to challenge the viewer as to intrigue him to see life freed from the concrete and the present.
𝓔𝓭𝓰𝓲 𝓐𝓻𝓽
“Adam in Three Persons”
Rudolf Hausner, 1974-1975.
The vertical composition consists of three faces - three states of consciousness. The upper figure is a child, it symbolizes the starting point of everything, the beginning of life. Below it are two stages: sleep - Adam with closed eyes - and wakefulness.
𝓔𝓭𝓰𝓲 𝓐𝓻𝓽
“Leprosy”
Richard Cooper, 1910.
Lepers were particularly susceptible to bubonic plague and tuberculosis. The patient's weakened immune system would immediately fail. Therefore, people were afraid to meet the leper depicted in the painting, who wanders along the deserted street and rings a bell. The tragedy of the situation is intensified by the figure of a small child, who was left by the roadside by his parents who fled in a hurry.
𝓔𝓭𝓰𝓲 𝓐𝓻𝓽