Composition - examples of note

[Mike McCarty]

Or in reference to Boldini, might I also suggest the shopworn but still serviceable term, "creepy" ?

Certainly "flamboyant" comes to mind.

Here are a few compositions by the Italian Renaissance painter, frescoist, sculptor, architect, poet & archaeologist, Raphael 1483 - 1520.

I don't know how a fella gets all that done in just thirty seven years. At thirty seven I was still trying to master the ham and cheese omlette. I don't know much about his poetry or his archaeology, but he certainly had a body of work in his paintings.

Joanna of Aragon
Bindo Altoviti 23x17
Saint Michael and the Dragon 4 3/4" x 4 1/2"

And finally - Raphael experiencing a "time out."

[Mike McCarty]

Here are the paintings of John Waterhouse, 1849-1917.

From his Obituary:

"Mr Waterhouse was an eclectic painter. He painted Pre-Raphaelite pictures in a more modern manner. He was in fact a kind of academic Burne-Jones [1833-1898], like him in his types and moods, but with less insistence on design and more on atmosphere. His art was always agreeable, for he had taste and learning as well as considerable accomplishments; he was one of those painters whose pictures always seem to suggest that he must have done better in some other work. This means that he never quite

[Mike McCarty]

And a couple more for the heck of it ...

This first is obviously not the full composition. I would sure like to see the full image, this slice sure looks interesting.

The Magic Circle 72x50
Windswept 45x31

[Allan Rahbek]

Mike,
I think that Waterhouse's strength is his sense of decorative composition. He lived in the period when Art Nouveau was popular and I guess that was his luck. The persons are types, all young and beautiful, a sort of idealized, without too much personal character.

[Mike McCarty]

I think you're right about that Allan.

He painted always like a scholar and a gentleman, though not like a great artist."

I still don't understand why they had to say such things in a man's obituary. In all my years I've seen a lot of good, bad and ugly people die, I've listened to many lives explained, and I don't remember hearing such harshness spoken in print after a person's death. When you're alive then all is fair game, but it just seems like a small thing to show a man's life work some respect on the occasion of his death.

[Allan Rahbek]

Originally Posted by Mike McCarty

I still don't understand why they had to say such things in a man's obituary. In all my years I've seen a lot of good, bad and ugly people die, I've listened to many lives explained, and I don't remember hearing such harshness spoken in print after a person's death. When you're alive then all is fair game, but it just seems like a small thing to show a man's life work some respect on the occasion of his death.

Mike,
Maybe it was jealousy. If one is popular in his own time he will experience both pro's and contra's. His supporters would buy his art as long as he lived even though new trends had taken over. The critics would be frustrated and forget the good manners.
One of our own fine artists, Kr

[Mike McCarty]

Here is "El Jaleo" by John Singer Sargent, 1882, 93" x 138"
With various studies of the same.