A-Z Of Painting | Page 2 | Vital Football

A-Z Of Painting

N "(The) NIGHT Watch"- Very famous, and very large, painting by Rembrandt (Van Rijn). Commissioned in 1639, completed 1642. Officially named "Company of District II under the command of Captain Frans Bannink Cocq", more snappily nicknamed "Die Nachtwacht" in Dutch. At the time of the painting ,the civic guardsmen depicted had a mainly ceremonial role, and no longer that of active soldiers. Because of that, there has been speculation regarding a possible satirical element to the painting. Also one of the background figures is believed to be Rembrandt himself, and possibly his wife Saskia is in the picture too! Rembrandt may have regarded Capt. Cocq's company, as having a pantomime home guard element to them - not sure what "Stupid Boy" is in Dutch:p! Cocq seems to have liked the painting though.

Despite the widely-used title for the painting, the scene depicted actually takes place in the daytime, which became much more apparent when the painting was cleaned up!

The painting has also been the inspiration for sculptures, several films, and the song, "The Night Watch", by King Crimson which features on the "Starless and Bible Black" album (1974), clip on YouTube. The painting is now owned by the Amsterdam Museum, and is normally on display in the Rijksmuseum building .
 
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Saw some of his work - paintings and sculptures - at the original Tate gallery in London a few years ago. (y)

He was also the subject of a tribute song by Jonathon Richman and the Modern Lovers in 1976 (Clip on YouTube).
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Alternative "P" - for another "double"- PAINTER'S PALETTES - for oil paints, acrylic paints, etc., (see previous entries for "A" and "O"). The palette is usually a flat wooden board, on which the painter arranges and mixes paint. Watercolour palettes are usulally ceramic or plastic with rectangular, or wheel-type, paint wells and mixing areas. Used both types in Art class at Aston School.
 
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Now you've done it, Caz! Can't get the Ivor Novello song, We'll Gather Lilacs out of my head. Once heard a recording of it by Anne Ziegler and Webster Booth and it kept repeating in my brain for weeks!:confused:o_O

Owwww, I'm not keen on that song! Keep it in your head and don't pass it around!
 
M - as a student I had a poster of a bloke in a bowler hat with an apple in his face by Rene Magritte, Belgian Surrealist. We now have a set of placemats with the Edouard Manet painting, A Bar at the Folies-Bergere. Who said Rotherham folk weren't cultured!

And I thought I was cultured with David Bowie on my walls sat next to David Cassidy!
 
Saw some of his work - paintings and sculptures - at the original Tate gallery in London a few years ago. (y)

He was also the subject of a tribute song by Jonathon Richman and the Modern Lovers in 1976 (Clip on YouTube).
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Alternative "P" - for another "double"- PAINTER'S PALETTES - for oil paints, acrylic paints, etc., (see previous entries) the palette is usually a flat wooden board, on which the painter arranges and mixes paint. Watercolour palettes are usulally ceramic or plastic with rectangular, or wheel-type, paint wells and mixing areas. Used both types in Art class at Aston School.
I've got a Modern Lovers LP somewhere. Had Roadrunner and a track I liked called The New Teller.
 
Not familiar with the works of Quast.
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R REMBRANDT - Full name Rembrandt Harmenzoon van Rijn (1608-1669) . Artist from the Dutch "Golden Age" - painter, etcher, printmaker, etc., who produced many well-known works, including "The Night Watch" (see previous entry for "N"). Internationally influential figure in the art world, and one of the most famous painters of all time.
 
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S - Surrealism. Artistic movement which arose after WW1. It balances a rational vision of life with one that asserts the power of the unconscious and dreams. The movement’s artists find beauty in the unexpected and the uncanny, the disregarded and the unconventional. At the core of their work is the willingness to challenge imposed values and norms, and a search for freedom.
The word was coined by the French avant-garde poet Guillaume Apollinaire in the preface to a play performed in 1917. But it was André Breton, leader of a new grouping of poets and artists in Paris, who issued a manifesto defining the movement in 1924.
 
Yes, as well as being a writer/poet/ artist himself, Breton saw the Surrealists as part of a wider political movement againt the ruling establishment, and not just in the art world. Some of the original Surrealists were long-term supporters of the manifesto , others eventually went their own way. Breton was an interesting historical figure. (y)
 
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Just looked him up. For some reason he painted quite a few of surgeons removing things from peoples' heads! Very odd.

I had to look him up. I vaguely remember seeing something of his (though I did think his name was Caste!) in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam a few years ago. It was one with soldiers in a group. I don't remember seeing ones with him taking things from people's heads though!
 
Not familiar with the works of Quast.
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R REMBRANDT - Full name Rembrandt Harmenzoon van Rijn (1608-1669) . Artist from the Dutch "Golden Age" - painter, etcher, printmaker, etc., who produced many well-known works, including "The Night Watch" (see previous entry for "N"). Internationally influential figure in the art world, and one of the most famous painters of all time.


I saw the Night Watch at the Rijksmuseum too.
 
V - another for the Dutch Golden Age and the Rijksmuseum - Johannes Vermeer (1632 – 1675) specialized in domestic interior scenes of middle-class life. During his lifetime he was only a moderately successful provincial genre painter, produced relatively few paintings and evidently was not wealthy, leaving his wife and children in debt at his death. Many of his paintings are set in the same room lit from a window on one side and many are of women in domestic roles.
Now acknowledged as one of the greats, perhaps his best known painting is Girl With the Pearl Earrings.
 
W WHEAT Fields with Reaper at Sunrise - another by Vincent Van Gogh. Think I might have seen this one in the Van Gogh museum - or a copy somewhere else.
 
W WHEAT Fields with Reaper at Sunrise - another by Vincent Van Gogh. Think I might have seen this one in the Van Gogh museum - or a copy somewhere else.
I have a copy of a Van Gogh that I saw in Paris and thought it might be this but it isn't. It's called La Meridienne and it shows a sleeping couple with sickles in a wheat field. The main colour is golden yellow and I have it on the wall of a bedroom painted pale blue and think it works rather well.
 
.... alternative "W" - WATERCOLOUR PAINTING - the paints are made of pigments, suspended in a water-based solution., which are typically applied by brushes to paper. (Did watercolour painting at school and home). Famous watercolour paintings include those by Kandinsky, Klee, Schiele, Hopper, etc.