Category: Eye Candy for Today
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Eye Candy for Today: Escher’s Three Worlds
Three Worlds, M.C. Escher Lithograph, roughly 14×10 inches (36x25cm). Image on Wikiart, larger here. While it’s not one of Escher’s more obvious brain twisting visual conundrums, it’s a teaser nonetheless — also beautiful, subtle, and one of my favorites. In addition to the thought provoking subject, superb drawing and beautifully handled reflection and surface perspective,…
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Eye Candy for Today: Canaletto’s drawing of the Porta Portello
The Porta Portello with the Brenta Canal in Padua, Canaletto (Giovanni Antonio Canal) On Google Art Project, high-res downloadable file on Wikimedia Commons, original is in the Albertina, Vienna. In pen and brown ink with brown and gray washes. Unfortunately, neither the museum or Google Art Project give the dimensions. To me it has the…
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Eye Candy for Today: Gerrit Dou’s astronomer
Astronomer by Candlelight, Gerrit Dou On Google Art Project; downloadable high-res file on Wikimedia Commons; original is in the Getty Museum. A small gem (roughly 13×8″, 33x20cm) of 17th century chiaroscuro by an under-appreciated Dutch master. For more, see this page on Essential Vermeer, and my previous Eye Candy post on a Gerrit Dou genre…
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Eye Candy for Today: Prud’hon’s Portrait of Constance Mayer
Portrait of Constance Mayer, Pierre-Paul Prud’hon On WikiArt, large version here. Original is in the collection of the Louvre, though I can’t find a listing for it on the museum’s new website. I had the pleasure of seeing this drawing in person at a show of Prud’hon’s work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art some…
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Eye Candy for Today: Jacob van Walscapelle still life
Still Life with Fruit, Jacob van Walscapelle In the Rijksmuseum. Image is zoomable (and downloadable if you get a free account). Also a downloadable (but I think oersaturated) image here. Not only is this beautifully composed and rendered, with the fruits and stems gradually revealing themselves as you peer into the darker corners, I love…
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Eye Candy for Today: Theodore Robinson’s Old Bridge
The Old Bridge, Theodore Robinson Image on Wikimedia Commons. Original is in the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza. This is one of my favorites by Robinson, who was among the earliest American painters to adopt the new style of the French Impressionists. It’s one of those paintings that you could divide up into a number of smaller compositions…