Caspar David Friederich - Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog

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Inspired by Caspar David Friederich - Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog

If you Google Romantcism this painting is one of the first that will appear in the images. Romanticism was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe, and was in its peak in the early 1800’s. Standing on a high dark rock, while foggy mist swarms over the distant valleys and mountains beyond, a lone figure contemplates his place in the universe,

At the age of 13 Kasper was skating on the Baltic with his brother. He fell through the ice, and hisis brother came to his rescue. Caspar lived but his brother died. This emotional experience haunted him for most of life. He attempted suicide in his adulthood. It may be the reason for the somber feeling in his early paintings. He painted the Wanderer at the age 34. That was also the year he married Caroline Baumar. After his marriage, his paintings became lighter, adding more color and people. Although his people were usually looking away from the painter.

To see original - https://bit.ly/3Q5qn4u

Jean-François Millet - The Gleaners

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Inspired by - Jean-François Millet - The Gleaners

Jean-François Millet
The Gleaners - 1857 - Musée d'Orsay, Paris
Santa Classics - 2015
Millet once said, ’’The human side of art is what touches me most." In The Gleaners, he depicts poor women collecting grain from the fields after the harvest. Millet first hung The Gleaners at the Salon in 1857. It immediately drew negative criticism from the upper classes. Having recently gone through the revolution of 1848, it was viewed with trepidation. Critics said this Image glorified the working class. To them it was a reminder that French society was built on the shoulders of the working masses. They associated the representation with the growing movement of socialism. Also, this large size was usually reserved for religious or mythological subjects. But here was used to represent the plight of the poor. Because of this criticism, after the exhibition the painting was sold for 3,000 francs well below Millet’s asking price of 4,000 francs. Twenty years later, when Millet’s popularity was on the rise, it was sold for 300,000 francs.
Gleaning was the collecting of edible leftover’s, after the crop had been harvested. In France, this had been permitted by law since 1554 and remains on the books today. The reasoning for this stems from the Old Testament. “When you’re harvesting your field, if you forget a sheaf, don’t go back into the field to get it. Let the foreigners, orphans and widows take it. If you do this, the Eternal your God will bless everything you do.” Maybe this was not generosity, but the farmer’s hope for continued good harvests. To see original: https://bit.ly/3uYf19u

Georges de La Tour - The Cheat

The Cheat - 1650
Musée du Louvre

Also known as The Cheat with the Ace of Diamonds. Two versions of the painting circa 1630 and 1635. The version I have placed Santa in is from the Louvre. The other version is in the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth Texas. The Texas version is called The Cheat with the Ace of clubs because in the second version he changed the suit of the cheat card from a diamond to a club. This painting is a direct reference to The Cardsharps by Caravaggio (see blog post Dec 7). De La Tour was one of about 50 artists who showed there admiration for Caravaggio by copying this work of art.
In 1934, the Cheat was featured in the memorable exhibition of the Painters of Reality that brought French 17th-century painting back to glory and marked the revival of Georges de La Tour. This sparked a growing craze for the artist and the corpus of his works broadened.

To see the original: http://bit.ly/2gzgcbJ