Share your Favorite Paintings

Started by Livenotonevil, July 19, 2018, 03:23:14 PM

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Livenotonevil

I decided to start a thread to this topic, and felt like sharing a few of my favorites. Feel free to share yours below. I don't consider these Sacred Images, but they are beautiful.

Satan, Sin, and Death by William Hogarth (contains minor nudity)
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/images/work/T/T00/T00790_10.jpg

Behold the Lamb of God, by Alexander Ivanov (also contains minor nudity)
https://incarnationandmodernity.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/alexander-andreyevich-ivanov_the-apparition-of-the-messiah_-1837-57_-tretyakov-gallery-moscow.jpg

Burying the Child, by Lilian Lucy Davidson
http://irishamerica.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/BuryingTheChild_LilianLucyDavidson.jpg
May God forgive me for my consistent sins of the flesh and any blasphemous and carnal desire, as well as forgive me whenever I act prideful, against the desire of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, to be a Temple of the Holy Spirit.

Matto

I Love Watching Butterflies . . ..

PerEvangelicaDicta

I'm so pleased you continue to post a bit here, Matto.  I read your comments elsewhere. 
They shall not be confounded in the evil time; and in the days of famine they shall be filled
Psalms 36:19

Sempronius

The description to this painting by Titian is very good




The Man with the Glove is so called for lack of a more definite name. Nothing is told by Titian's biographers about the original of the portrait, and the mystery gives a certain romantic interest to the picture. Not being limited by any actual facts we can invent a story of our own about the person, or as many stories as we like, each according to his fancy.

The sitter certainly makes a good figure for the hero of a romance. He is young and handsome, well dressed, with an unmistakable air of breeding, and singularly expressive eyes. Such eyes usually belong to a shy, sensitive nature, and have a haunting quality like those of some woodland creature.

The title of The Man with the Glove is appropriate in emphasizing an important feature of the costume. In the days of this portrait, gloves were worn only by persons of wealth and distinction, and were a distinguishing mark of elegance. Though somewhat clumsily made, according to our modern notions, they were large enough to preserve the characteristic shape of the hand, and give easy play to the fingers. They formed, too, a poetic element in the social life of the age of chivalry. It was by throwing down [62] his glove (or gauntlet) that one knight challenged another; while a glove was also sometimes a love-token between a knight and his lady.

The glove has its artistic purpose in the picture, casting the left hand into shadow, to contrast with the ungloved right hand. The texture of the leather is skilfully rendered, and harmonizes pleasantly with the serious color scheme of the composition.

Besides the gloves, the daintily ruffled shirt, the seal ring, and the long neck chain, show the sitter to be a young man of fashion. Not that he is in the least a fop, but he belongs to that station in life where fine raiment is a matter of course, and he wears it as one to the manner born. His hands are delicately modelled, but they are not the plump hands of an idler. They are rather flexible and sensitive, with long fingers like the hands of an artist.

The glossy hair falls over the ears, and is brushed forward and cut in a straight line across the forehead. The style suits well the open frankness of the countenance. We must note Titian's rendering of both hair and hands as points of excellence in the portrait. There is a great deal of individuality in the texture of a person's hair and the shape of his hands, but many artists have apparently overlooked this fact. Van Dyck, for instance, used a model who furnished the hands for his portraits, irrespective of the sitter. Titian, in his best work, counted nothing too trivial for faithful artistic treatment.

If we were to try to explain why The Man with the Glove is a great work of art we should find the first reason, perhaps, in the fact that the man seems actually alive. The portrait has what the critics call vitality, in a remarkable degree. Again, the painter has revealed in the face the inner life of the man himself; the portrait is a revelation of his personality.

It has been said that every man wears an habitual mask in the presence of his fellows. It is only when he is taken unaware that the mask drops, and the man's real self looks out of his face. The portrait painter's art must catch the sitter's expression in such a moment of unconsciousness. The great artist must be a seer as well as a painter, to penetrate the secrets of human character.

The young man of our picture is one of those reticent natures capable of intense feeling. In this moment of unconsciousness his very soul seems to look forth from his eyes. It is the soul of a poet, though he may not possess the gift of song. He has the poet's imagination as a dreamer of noble dreams.

The time seems to have come when he is just awakening to the possibilities of life. He faces the future seriously, but with no shrinking. One recalls the words of Gareth, in Tennyson's Idyll:

"Man am I grown, a man's work must I do.

Live pure, speak true, right wrong, follow the king—
Else wherefore born?"[20]
The lofty ideals of the knights of King Arthur's [66] Round Table are such as we feel sure this gentle spirit would make his own:—

"To reverence the king as if he were
Their conscience, and their conscience as their king,
To break the heathen and uphold the Christ,
To ride abroad redressing human wrongs,
To speak no slander, no nor listen to it,
To lead sweet lives in purest chastity,
To love one maiden only, cleave to her,
And worship her by years of noble deeds
Until they won her."[21]
It may be of these "noble deeds" of chivalry that our young man is dreaming, or it may be of that "one maiden " for whose sake they are to be done. Certainly these candid eyes see visions which we should be glad to see, and show us the depths of a knightly soul.

John Lamb

#4
Madonna and Child with St. John the Baptist and the Lamb (Bernardino Luini)

"Let all bitterness and animosity and indignation and defamation be removed from you, together with every evil. And become helpfully kind to one another, inwardly compassionate, forgiving among yourselves, just as God also graciously forgave you in the Anointed." – St. Paul

John Lamb

#5
Christ Appearing to Mary Magdalene (Rembrandt)


"Let all bitterness and animosity and indignation and defamation be removed from you, together with every evil. And become helpfully kind to one another, inwardly compassionate, forgiving among yourselves, just as God also graciously forgave you in the Anointed." – St. Paul

John Lamb

"Let all bitterness and animosity and indignation and defamation be removed from you, together with every evil. And become helpfully kind to one another, inwardly compassionate, forgiving among yourselves, just as God also graciously forgave you in the Anointed." – St. Paul

John Lamb

"Let all bitterness and animosity and indignation and defamation be removed from you, together with every evil. And become helpfully kind to one another, inwardly compassionate, forgiving among yourselves, just as God also graciously forgave you in the Anointed." – St. Paul

John Lamb

"Let all bitterness and animosity and indignation and defamation be removed from you, together with every evil. And become helpfully kind to one another, inwardly compassionate, forgiving among yourselves, just as God also graciously forgave you in the Anointed." – St. Paul

John Lamb

"Let all bitterness and animosity and indignation and defamation be removed from you, together with every evil. And become helpfully kind to one another, inwardly compassionate, forgiving among yourselves, just as God also graciously forgave you in the Anointed." – St. Paul

John Lamb

#10
The Lamentation (Giotto)

"Let all bitterness and animosity and indignation and defamation be removed from you, together with every evil. And become helpfully kind to one another, inwardly compassionate, forgiving among yourselves, just as God also graciously forgave you in the Anointed." – St. Paul

John Lamb

#11
The Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine (Fra Bartolomeo)

"Let all bitterness and animosity and indignation and defamation be removed from you, together with every evil. And become helpfully kind to one another, inwardly compassionate, forgiving among yourselves, just as God also graciously forgave you in the Anointed." – St. Paul

John Lamb

Saint John of the Cross (Zurbarán)

"Let all bitterness and animosity and indignation and defamation be removed from you, together with every evil. And become helpfully kind to one another, inwardly compassionate, forgiving among yourselves, just as God also graciously forgave you in the Anointed." – St. Paul

John Lamb

Baptism of Christ (Giovanni Bellini)

"Let all bitterness and animosity and indignation and defamation be removed from you, together with every evil. And become helpfully kind to one another, inwardly compassionate, forgiving among yourselves, just as God also graciously forgave you in the Anointed." – St. Paul

John Lamb

The Presentation of The Blessed Virgin Mary in The Temple

"Let all bitterness and animosity and indignation and defamation be removed from you, together with every evil. And become helpfully kind to one another, inwardly compassionate, forgiving among yourselves, just as God also graciously forgave you in the Anointed." – St. Paul