The Lost Talent - Arts and Entertainment

M F Husain

Posted: 11th October 2010 by admin in Artist
Tags: Bharat Mata, Indian Artist, M F Husain, Picasso of India

Maqbool Fida Husain, popularly known as M F Husain, is one of the popular and highest paid Indian Artists. Forbes magazine called him the “Picasso of India”. He is also India’s most controversial painter for his nude Hindu deities’ paintings. He was on a self imposed exile from his home country from 2006.

In January, 2010, he was offered the citizenship of Qatar. Now, he lives in Dubai and London.

Birth, Education and Childhood

M F Husain was born in 1915 in a village called Pandharpur in Maharashtra in a Muslim Family. His early education was perfunctory but Husain’s love of drawing was evident even at this stage.

In 1937, he left for Mumbai determined to become an artist. In 1947, he joined Progressive Artists’ Group, founded by Francis Newton Souza. These artists wanted to break away from the nationalist traditions of the Bengal school of art, starting an Indian `avant-garde` in a more widespread manner, international manner.

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Bharat Mata

By 1955, he was one of the leading artists in India and had been awarded the Padma Shri. He also was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1973.

Work Life and Controversies

In 1971, M. F. Husain was a special invitee along with Pablo Picasso at the Sao Paulo Biennial.
He has participated in many international shows which include Contemporary Indian Art, Royal Academy of Arts, London 1982; Six Indian Painters, Tate Gallery, London 1985; Modem Indian Painting, Hirschhom Museum, Washington 1986 and Contemporary Indian Art, Grey Art Gallery, New York 1986.

In the 1990s some of Husain’s works became controversial because of their portrayal of Hindu deities in the nude manner. He was accused of hurting the sentiments of those who belong to Hindu Religion.
Another popular controversy was the Painting of Nude Bharat Mata. There were protests from some Hindu organizations for obscene depiction of Hindu goddesses in his paintings. There were also reportedly death threats. The artist left the country.

Ganesh

He was awarded the Padma Vibhushan in 1991. The Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) (USA, Massachusetts) showed a solo exhibition from 4 November 2006 to 3 June 2007.

He has also worked on films. He produced and directed “Gaja Gamini” with Madhuri Dixit and Meenaxi: A Tale of Three Cities with Tabu.

Gustav Klimt

Posted: 9th October 2010 by admin in Artist
Tags: Austrian symbolist painter, Death and Life, Gustav Klimt, Hope I, Nude Veritas, Vienna Secession movement

Gustav Klimt was an Austrian symbolist painter and illustrator. He was one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Secession movement.

He often received a lot of criticism due to depiction of sensuality and erotic in his paintings. His main subject was the female body that made him quite a controversial figure.

Birth, Education and Childhood

Gustav Klimt was born on July 14, 1862 in Baumgartner, near Vienna, the second of seven children: three boys and four girls. His father was a gold engraver. His childhood was spent in poverty as work was scarce and economic advancement was difficult for immigrants.

In 1876, Klimt was awarded a scholarship to the Vienna School of Arts and Crafts, where he studied until 1883, and received training as an architectural painter. His earlier work show an impact of conservative academic training that he received. Later he developed his own style.

Death and Life

His brother also got enrolled in the same school and there, two brothers with a friend, Franz Matsch, formed a team. By 1880, they had received numerous commissions as a team they called the “Company of Artists”, and helped their teacher in painting murals in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.

Work Life

Klimt began his professional career painting interior murals and ceilings in large public buildings on the Ringstraße including a successful series of “Allegories and Emblems”. Its success leads to a second large order, containing Klimt’s painting “Tragedy”, announcing all of his stylistic characteristics: gold paint, areas of detail and areas of abstract space, symbolism, the female figure.

In 1891, he became a member of the Co-operative Society of Austrian Artists. In 1892, death of his father and brother put him onto a bigger responsibility. He moved to a larger studio and turned to easel painting.
In 1897, The Secession Movement was formed, focusing on exposure for young, unconventional artists, bringing quality foreign art to Vienna and publishing a magazine. Klimt withdrew from the Vienna Secession eight years later, dismayed by the increasingly strong trend towards naturalism.

In 1894, Klimt was commissioned to create three paintings to decorate the ceiling of the Great Hall in the University of Vienna. Not completed until the turn of the century, his three paintings, Philosophy, Medicine and Jurisprudence were criticized for their radical themes and material, which was called “pornographic”. It was the last public commission accepted by him.

The Kiss

Klimt was largely interested in painting figures; these works constitute the only genre aside from figure-painting which seriously interested Klimt.

Klimt’s ‘Golden Phase’ was marked by positive critical reaction and success. His work is distinguished by elegant gold or colored decoration, spirals and swirls, and phallic shapes used to conceal the more erotic positions of the drawings.

His most famous works are the Nude Veritas, Judith I (1901), Hope I, The Kiss (1907–1908), Death and Life and Beethoven Frieze.

Henry Moore

Posted: 7th October 2010 by admin in Scuptor
Tags: bronze casting, direct carving, English artisan, Henry Moore, Wall Relief no. 1

Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials, typically stone such as marble, metal, glass, or wood, or plastic materials such as clay, textiles, polymers and softer metals. The term has been extended to works including sound, text and light.

One of the greatest sculptor artists was Henry Moore, an English artisan, who is legendary for his larger-than-life abstract monumental bronze sculptures. His best known sculptures are located around the world as public works of art.

Birth and Education

Moore was born on 30 July 1898 in Castleford, West Yorkshire, England. He spent more of his childhood in poverty. He attended infant and elementary schools in Castleford, where he began modeling in clay and carving in wood. He decided to become a sculptor at the age of 11 only after hearing of Michelangelo’s achievements.

His teacher noticed his talent and interest in medieval sculpture and granted him a scholarship to Castleford Secondary School.

Work Life

Moore’s early work is focused on direct carving, in which the form of the sculpture evolves as the artist repeatedly whittles away at the block. In July of 1929, Henry Moore got married to Irina Radetsky, a painting student at the Royal College of Art where he was teaching. Moore then created a gradual transition from direct carving to modern bronze casting.

Moore made many preparatory sketches and drawings for each sculpture. Most of these sketchbooks have survived and provide insight into Moore’s development. He placed great importance on drawing; even when he had arthritis, he still was able to draw.

Moore produced at least three significant examples of architectural sculpture during his career. In 1928, despite his own self-described “extreme reservations”, he accepted his first public commission for West Wind for the London Underground Building at 55 Broadway in London, joining the company of Jacob Epstein and Eric Gill. In 1952, he completed a four-part concrete screen for the Time-Life Building in New Bond Street, London, and in 1955 Moore turned to his first and only work in carved brick, “Wall Relief no. 1″ at the Bouwcentrum in Rotterdam. The brick relief was sculptured with 16,000 bricks by two Dutch bricklayers.

Auguste Rodin

Posted: 5th October 2010 by admin in Scuptor
Tags: Auguste Rodin, French sculptor, modern sculpture, The Age of Bronze, The Gates of Hell, The Thinker

Another Great name in the world of sculptures is of a French sculptor, Auguste Rodin. He is considered as the progenitor of modern sculpture.

Rodin was a naturalist, less concerned with monumental expression than with character and emotion. His sculpture emphasized the individual and the concreteness of flesh, and suggested emotion through detailed, textured surfaces, and the interplay of light and shadow. To a greater degree than his contemporaries, Rodin believed that an individual’s character was revealed by his physical features.

Birth and Education

Rodin was born on November 12, 1840 in Paris, France. At the age of 10, he became serious about his interest in drawing. His father tried to help him academically by sending him to his uncle’s boarding school in Beauvais in 1851. He remained there for three years, but still had difficulty reading and writing, and the time was soon approaching for him to learn a trade.

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The Gates of Hell

To take his drawing career seriously, he enrolled himself at a government school for craft and design, École Impériale de Dessin. There he kept himself very busy, attending classes at La Petite École, visiting museums to study antique sculpture, and attending the Gobelins tapestry manufactory, where he also studied drawing. During these early years he also discovered clay and found himself to be a very capable and promising sculptor.

Work Life

Rodin was greatly impressed by the works of Michelangelo. His first full-scale work, “The Age of Bronze,” completed in 1877. His most popular figurative bronze sculpture was “The Thinker”, which was finished between 1879 and 1889 as part of “The Gates of Hell.” He was also accused for taking the cast from a living model.

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The Gates of Hell

By 1900, he was a world-renowned artist. Wealthy private clients sought Rodin’s work after his World’s Fair exhibit, and he kept company with a variety of high-profile intellectuals and artists.

On November 17, 1917, at the age of 77, Auguste Rodin died as a well-known bronze sculpture artist.

Claude Monet

Posted: 3rd October 2010 by admin in Artist
Tags: Claude Monet, French impressionist painting, outdoor painting, Sunrise, The Woman in the Green Dress

Claude Monet was a founder of French impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement’s philosophy of expressing one’s perceptions before nature.

Birth, Education and Childhood

Claude Monet was born on 14 November 1840 in Paris. In 1845, his family moved to Le Havre in Normandy. His father wanted him to go into the family grocery business, but Monet wanted to become an artist. In 1851, he went to the Le Havre secondary school of the arts. He developed a reputation for the caricatures he loved to draw.

Sunrise

In 1858, Claude Monet meets Eugene Boudin who encouraged him for outdoor painting. It was a turning point of his life. In 1859, Monet went to Paris and entered the Swiss Academy. He met Pissaro and Courbet there. Monet was in Paris for several years and met other young painters who would become friends and fellow impressionists; among them was Édouard Manet.

In 1862, Monet joined the studio of Charles Gleyre, a Swiss painter who lived in Paris. The studio attracted a large number of talented artists. They shared new approaches to art and painting.

Work Life

In 1866, Monet painted Camille or The Woman in the Green Dress (La femme à la robe verte), which brought him recognition and was one of many works featuring his future wife, Camille Doncieux. In 1870, when the war started, he took refuge in London. In October or November 1871, he returned to France. Monet lived from December 1871 to 1878 at Argenteuil, where he painted some of his best known works.

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The Woman in the Green Dress

In 1872, he painted Impression, Sunrise (Impression, soleil levant) depicting a Le Havre landscape. From the painting’s title, art critic Louis Leroy coined the term “Impressionism”. In 1874, Monet took part in the first Impressionist exhibition, held at Nadar’s.

In 1883, Monet rented a house at Giverny, there he lived for 43 years, until his death.

In 1886, Durant Ruel presented 300 oil paint and pastel works by the impressionists of Paris. Monet also took part in the “Exposition des XX” in Brussels. Between 1883 and 1908, Monet traveled to the Mediterranean, where he painted landmarks, landscapes, and seascapes, such as Bordighera.

In 1918, Monet decided to donate twelve large canvasses of “Water lilies” to France. They were installed at the Orangerie in Paris in two oval rooms especially arranged for them. He finished them in 1926.

Personal Life

Monet died of lung cancer on 5 December 1926 at the age of 86 and is buried in the Giverny church cemetery. A few people attended his funeral as he insisted on a simple ceremony.

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