“Chinese Painting”

via the Metropolitan Museum of Art

“The Chinese way of appreciating a painting is often expressed by the words du hua, “to read a painting.” How does one do that?

Consider Night-Shining White by Han Gan (1977.78), an image of a horse. Originally little more than a foot square, it is now mounted as a handscroll that is twenty feet long as a result of the myriad inscriptions and seals (marks of ownership) that have been added over the centuries, some directly on the painted surface, so that the horse is all but overwhelmed by this enthusiastic display of appreciation. Miraculously, the animal’s energy shines . . . .”

1500 Artworks Confiscated By Nazi’s Found In Munich

“Nazi Looted Art Found in Munich Flat”

by Alexandra Hudson via Reuters

“The 1,500 art works, missing for more than 70 years, and discovered by chance by customs authorities in the southern German state of Bavaria in 2011, could be worth well over 1 billion euros ($1.35 billion), . . . . “

Musings on Arthur Pinajian

I had never heard of Arthur Pinajian before I read the Telegraph’s article, but I find myself fascinated with his art. Pinajian lived through two world wars and the great depression, born in 1914 during WWI and surviving until 1999, the end of the century. (1) Kurt Vonnegut’s novelic work “Bluebeard: The Autobiography of Rabo Karabekian,“ actually retells the story of Pinajian’s life, whose real life was really very private. (1) He was one of the great heroes of WWII, but he soon surrendered weapons for more artistic tools, when he began as a comic book artist for Marvel (3). However, Pinajian found himself more readily drawn to the abstractionist style of art and he eventually move to Long Island, fading into obscurity for the remainder of his life. (1) Pinajian another of the many artists more appreciated upon death than during life, and thousands of his paintings remained buried in garages and boxes until as late as the last decade. (2)

: The Artist: Arthur Pinajian

Typically, I am not overly fond of abstract art, in fact I don’t particularly like the painting shown at the top of The Telegraph’s article. However, in several of his works, Pinajian successfully pulls together both abstraction and realism. I appreciate how his works depict landscapes through simple brush strokes and vibrant mixed colors. He utilizes the coloring beautifully to depict contrast and depth, without losing any of the meaning which I feel so much abstract art does. Here are my particular favorites: