Edvard Munch: Escaping…

Edvard Munch - Spring Ploughing - 1918 - Oil on canvas - Munch Museum, Oslo (click photo for larger image)Norwegian Symbolist painter (1863-1944) Edvard Munch had a profound effect on subsequent painters in Europe and the United States, even as his particular style dated quickly after the First World War. 

Pioneering German Expressionist painters such as Kirchner, Kandinsky, Beckmann, and others concerned with expressing individual psychology through intense color and semi-abstraction found considerable inspiration in Munch's melancholy yet strident canvases.

Munch's somber, resonant color, as well as his rendering of the human figure in semi-abstract tonalities, would prove enduring expressive and stylistic hallmarks of Symbolism, Expressionism, Fauvism, and even Surrealism. 

On his death in 1944, it was learned that Munch had bequeathed his remaining work to the city of Oslo. Numbering about 1,100 paintings, 4,500 drawings, and 18,000 prints, the collection was provided its own museum in 1963, where it serves as a testament to Munch's lasting legacy. 

Munch was a troubled soul who spent time in the hospital for mental issues more than once. In the years following one of Munch's hospital stays, the artist removed himself from the lifestyle of carousing and heavy drinking and devoted his days to his art and to the countryside of his homeland. While at one time the artist referred to his paintings as "my children," he later began referring to them as "my children with nature." A new-found inspiration, in the form of farm hands, animals, and the Norwegian landscape, took Munch's art in an entirely new direction, one celebrating life and work, rather than anxiety and loss.

In Spring Ploughing, one can see the inspiration Munch took from the much younger Franz Marc, whose Expressionist paintings were originally inspired by Munch, and who had a penchant for painting animals in their natural surroundings. 

Munch's period of creating truly original Symbolist-cum-Expressionist works had since passed, indicated by similar works of this time and their innocent subject matter. Nevertheless, the maturity of this painting's brushwork and palette clearly demonstrate the hand of a master.

Gustave Klimt: The Cycle of Life

Gustav Klimt - Death and Life - 1916 - Oil on canvas - 178 x 198 cm - Private collection, Vienna (click photo for larger image) Gustave Klimt (1862-1918) was an Austrian Symbolist painter and one of the most prominent members (as well as a co-founder) of the Vienna Secession movement. His major works include paintings, murals, sketches, and other art objects, many of which are on display in the Vienna Secession gallery. Klimt's primary subject was the female body, and his works are marked by a frank eroticism.

The work featured here was created before the world was set on fire by the Great War and before Klimt’s death due to the Spanish flu. Ironically enough, death personifications in art are mostly recalled in the context of Middle-Age’s plague epidemics.

“Next to Death (who holds a club!), gazing at “life” with a malicious grin we see the human surge which conveys a vibrant and hopeful impression. Naked bodies are huddled together and surrounded by a colorful abundance of flowers and ornamentation. Every age group is represented, from the baby to the grandmother, in this depiction of the never-ending circle of life. Death may be able to swipe individuals from life, but life itself, humanity as a whole, will always elude his grasp. In a bold composition, the image represents a universal allegory through which the Viennese artist exemplified the cycle of human life. The circle of life repeats itself.” (Daily Art Magazine) This work Won first prize at an international exhibit in Rome. 

Did You Know?

Contrary to popular belief, Michelangelo (1475-1564) did not paint the Sistine Ceiling lying on his back, suspended inches from the ceiling. He built a special, movable scaffolding device, which is still in use today. The ceiling was unveiled unfinished in November 1509. It was restored 1979-1999.

Hidden Picasso Nude Revealed Using Artificial Intelligence

Released 12:02 PM EDT October 11, 2021 by CNN Cable News

Pablo Picasso - A Crouching Woman (click photo for larger image)A nude portrait of a crouching woman, hidden beneath the surface of a Pablo Picasso painting, has been revealed using artificial intelligence, advanced imaging technology and 3D printing.

Dubbed "The Lonesome Crouching Nude," the recreation is the work of Oxia Palus, a company that uses technology to resurrect lost art, according to a statement sent to CNN on Monday.

Picasso painted over the figure when making "The Blind Man's Meal" in 1903. The nude had been partially revealed by a superimposed X-ray fluorescence (XRF) image, but Oxia Palus has now "brought the hidden work to life back to life," according to the statement.

In order to do so, the company used XRF imaging and image processing to reveal the outline of the hidden painting, and then trained artificial intelligence to add brushstrokes to the portrait in the style of Picasso. It then generated a height map of the portrait to give it texture, and printed the image onto canvas using 3D printing technology.

Oxia Palus was co-founded by George Cann and Anthony Bourached, a pair of PhD candidates in machine learning at University College London (UCL). Art is a store of complex information, and machine learning has developed to the point that it can help us analyze that information, Bourached told CNN. "We've got complex systems now that can help us understand our history and culture better," he said. “While X-ray images are useful in revealing images that were painted over, the AI adds another layer to our analysis”, Bourached added.

The nude dates from Picasso's Blue Period, early in his career, and the artist wouldn't have wanted to paint over the figure, according to Cann. "At the time that Picasso painted The Lonesome Crouching Nude and The Blind Man's Meal he was poor and artist materials were expensive, so he likely painted over the former work with reluctance," Cann said in the statement.

The figure of the woman also appears in Picasso's painting "La Vie" and a number of his sketches, which suggests the artist may have had an affinity for her, he added.

"I hope that Picasso would be happy in knowing the treasure he's hidden for future generations is finally being revealed, 48 years after his death and 118 years after the painting was concealed," Cann said in the statement.

Ty Murphy, a Picasso specialist at London-based due-diligence firm Domos Art Advisors, said the AI-produced painting looks like a Picasso Blue Period, but under close scrutiny an expert would probably be able to recognize that it wasn't an original. However, continued developments in machine learning and 3D printing should make for even more accurate work in the future, he added. "Give it time," said Murphy: "As soon as those technologies emerge they're going to be very convincing."

While some in the art world have criticized the approach, Murphy has no issue with using machine learning to produce new works. "History has shown us that people will always emulate the work of other artists," he said, adding: "It's an exploration of Picasso's mind."

David Dibosa, who leads the Masters course in Curating and Collections at Chelsea College of Arts in London, said anyone who enjoyed Picasso's work would be excited by the emergence of the image, and hailed the combination of technology at work in the piece. However, he questioned whether there was any need to print the portrait on canvas, asking whether it would have been more accessible if it were a digital piece. "There are many people who would never be able to see a limited edition artwork, even if it were shown in a museum nearby," said Dibosa. "By highlighting The Lonesome Crouching Nude as a digital discovery made for an online world," he said, "we could bring Picasso front and center to meet the new realities of the 21st century."

The artwork will be on display at the Deeep AI Art Fair in London from Wednesday to Sunday. 

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Paul Klee: A Transcendentalist

Paul Klee - Hammamet with Its Mosque - 1914 - Watercolor and graphite on paper mounted on cardboard - 9 3/8 × 8 3/4 in. (23.8 × 22.2 cm) - Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (click photo for larger image) Swiss Expressionist painter Paul Klee’s (1879-1940) was originally associated with the German Expressionist group Der Blaue Reiter, and subsequently taught at the Bauhaus, the widely influential German art school of the interwar period. Klee's diverse body of work cannot, however, be categorized according to any single artistic movement, or "school." His paintings, which are at times fantastic, childlike, or otherwise witty, served as an inspiration to many artists of the 20th century, and beyond.

Klee’s artistic legacy has been immense, even if many of his successors have not referenced his work openly as an apparent source or influence. During his lifetime, the Surrealists found Klee's seemingly random juxtaposition of text, abstract signs, and reductive symbols suggestive of the way the mind in dream state recombines disparate objects of everyday and brings forth new insights into how the unconscious wields power even over waking reality.

Klee's reputation grew considerably in the 1950s, by which time, for instance, the Abstract Expressionists (also known as the New York School) could view his work in New York exhibitions. Klee's use of signs and symbols particularly interested these artists, particularly those interested in mythology, the unconscious, and primitivism (as well as the art of the Naifs, Outsider Artists, and children). Klee's use of color as an expressive medium of human emotion also appealed to the Color Field painters. 

Finally, American artists maturing in the 1960s and 1970s, such as Ellsworth Kelly owed a debt to Klee for his pioneering color theory during the Bauhaus period. 

When Klee visited Tunisia in 1914, the walls of the city of Kairouan thoroughly impressed him. Standing in front of them, he famously said, "color possesses me..the color and I are one." Shortening his visit, he quickly returned to Europe to paint the works for which he became celebrated. The work featured here is among them.(Excerpted from TheArtStory.)