UniGuide

The Lovers, 1928
Marc Chagall (1887 – 1985), French (born Russian)

"Never love anyone who treats you like you're ordinary." (by Oscar Wilde)

Happy Valentine's Day!

Coastal landscape in the moonlight, 1851
Knud Baade (1808 – 1879), Norwegian

"We're all islands shouting lies to each other across seas of misunderstanding". (Rudyard Kipling, The Light that Failed)

Knud Andreassen Baade was a master of lyrical moonlight motifs, which are characterized by strong and dramatic contrasts between light and shadow. In his works notable a decisive influence of such Romantic painters as Caspar David Friedrich and Johann Christian Dahll.

Memories of Christmas
Antonio García Mencía (1853 - 1915), Spain

Merry Christmas! We hope you have a safe and relaxing holiday season!

For many countries, Christmas is the biggest holiday of the year. It is so embedded in our culture that it is no longer just a religious holiday, but a cultural and commercial one as well. It wasn’t always that way, though – people didn’t start celebrating Christmas on a large scale until the 1300s. Christmas itself has also changed a lot since then. It used to be more like a festival, almost like a carnival. The tradition we all know today didn’t come around until the 1800s

The Road to Giverny in Winter, 1885
Claude Monet (1840 - 1926), French

Monet rented a house in Giverny in 1883 and bought it a few years later. He loved his estate and spent a lot of time painting it, as well as the land around it as you see here. In some ways his land was one of his works of art – he always had some project to change or improve it. He lived there for the rest of his life, and died there when he was 86 years old. Monet's house is now one of the main attractions in Giverny and was restored to be just how it was when he was alive to look after it.

A Christmas Carol, 1867
Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828 – 1882), British

In the bleak mid-winter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter
Long ago.
Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him
Nor earth sustain... (by Christina Rossetti)

Dante Gabriel Rossetti was a poet, illustrator, painter and translator, and was the brother of poet Christina Rossetti. He created a method of painting in watercolours, using thick pigments mixed with gum to give rich effects similar to medieval illuminations.
He founded in 1848 with William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais the ‘Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood’, which name alluded to their preference for late medieval and early Renaissance art that came ‘before Raphael’.

Lovers on a Moonlight Lane, 1873
John Atkinson Grimshaw (1836 – 1893), British

John Grimshaw is considered to be one of the best painters of moonlit scenes. Instead of painting directly from nature, he used photographs as a basis, to veil his imperfect knowledge of perspective.

Girl with doll, 1908 - 1909
Gabrielle Münter (1877 – 1962), German

Gabrielle Münter once noted, “It is all too easily forgotten that a woman can be a creative artist with a real, original talent of her own.” She studied at the city’s progressive Phalanx School, under the famed Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky. Other teachers scoffed at her work, but Kandinsky accepted her (actually - invited her) into his studio and gave her both speed and confidence. In 1911, Münter, Kandinsky, Alexej von Jawlenksy, and Franz Marc founded the Expressionist group Der Blaue Reiter. Their group championed the connection between visual art and music, spiritually-based color theory, and Bavarian folk art.

Winter landscape with bullfinches, 1891
Bruno Liljefors (1860 – 1939), Swedish

Bruno Andreas Liljefors was highly esteemed for his pioneering wildlife paintings. Winter scenes are central to his imagery. Snow-covered landscapes with birds or animals recur in many variations throughout his oeuvre. His depictions of birds in particular are considered iconic for their groundbreaking combination of Impressionistic brushstrokes and carefully observed realism.

Schubert at the Piano, 1899
Gustav Klimt (1862 - 1918), Austrian

Franz Schubert happened to be Klimt's own favourite composer. This canvas was commissioned by the Greek industrialist Nikolaus Dumba for the music room at his luxury apartment. Klimt painted here the female onlookers in more contemporary dress, thus ignoring any kind of historical accuracy. Although the representation of Schubert is quite accurate based on other his images. Unfortunately the original artwork was destroyed in a fire that was set by retreating N***s in 1945 at the castle Schloss Immendor, where these paintings were placed for safekeeping. It was good that copies existed before the fire. Music Magazine, December 1934 has this picture on its cover.

Madonna of Foligno, 1511 – 1512
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (1483 – 1520), Italian

This masterpiece was originally a paint on a wooden piece as a request from the First Secretary to Julius II, Sigismondo de’ Conti and was displayed in the Santa Maria church in Aracoeli on one of the high alters. Conti commissioned the painting to commemorate his survival during a disaster. His house was struck by lightning but nobody was damaged. The miraculous event is represented in the landscape at the center of the painting where a rainbow symbolizes the divine protection of the Virgin with child surrounded by cherubs overlooking the towers of Foligno. This painting shows Conti in a long red cape on the right with St. Jerome, and St. John the Baptist and St. Francis on the opposite side. The angel is holding a sign with nothing written on it; maybe this was because Sigismondo died before he could tell Raphael what "thank you" to the Virgin he wanted written there.

Snow at Mukojima, 1931
Kawase Hasui (1883 – 1957), Japanese

Hasui was known for his spectacular snow, rain and night scenes. This great master of the shin hanga (new prints) school spent most of his adult life as a woodblock printmaker. He was one of the first artists to record the unknown rural places and urban corners that he found so captivating. Hasui traveled widely in Japan and his prints are based upon small, quick sketches and watercolors taken from nature.

George Henry (1858 – 1943), British
Edward Atkinson Hornel (1864 – 1933), Scottish

This painting shows a sacred ceremony from Celtic-Druidism. The chief has just cut the mistletoe from the sacred oak with the golden sickle, and given it to the man in white riding the white bulls. Celtic druids believed that mistletoe was magical and could heal various ailments. Henry and Hornel collaborated on this painting because like many of their contemporaries, they were interested in re-exploring Celtic culture.