SUNFLOWER

In my series about flowers I added  this sunflower.

A total of 7 flower paintings I have now ready.  They are painted on wooden panels. 30 cm x 40 cm.

WASTE-LAND 1

VARIATIONS ON A YOUNG MAN.

On the Internet I found an image of this young men. I don't know who made the picture and who the young man is but I liked the image and it seems other artists are doing that also.

The following image shows a painting made by a painter whose name I don't know either.

I recently started painting on aluminium plates for which this image seems perfectly fit. I could skip the background and only concentrate on the young man. The metallic part will give its own effect to the image.

VISIT TO NORDERNEY.

Recently I visited with my friend the island Norderney in the north of Germany.  An island which is quite loved by the inhabitans of Nordrheinwestfalen, a region near the dutch borderside. The connection with the train from the "Ruhrgebiet" is easy. You take the train in the direction to Emden and the train will stop at the ferryboat.  But we went by car....
  It had been a long time since I visited an island so I wanted to look around and take pictures with the idea of finding interesting topics to paint later at home. On the first day we went for a biketour around the island and stopped halfway where a big dune landscape starts. One can walk for 5 kilometers to the far right side of the island. We didn't went sofar.  I made a couple of pictures of the dunes and the coastline...   I like the emptyness of this space, the wide views and the reduced visual attractions of the whole setting...


So back home I started a serie of three paintings about the dunes. I used the aluminium plates for this.

The dunes are for itself interesting.

For the next painting, marram grass, I used a very limited pallet.

• Ultramarine Blue
• Cadmium red light
• Cadmium yellow light
• Titanium white
• Italian omber

 Ultramarine Blue, cad red light and cad yellow light are the primary colours.  And titanium white and italian omber to dempen the colours.    The idea for this pallet came from a painter on Youtube of whom I occasionally follow his steps. His channel is Draw Mix Pain. Working with a limited pallet is not new to me.  I do it often for a very practical reason. It asks extra labour to make my own colours. How to limit this labour is simple by using as little different colours as possible. With this kind of  limited pallet I can make almost any colour. The main colour in the painting is Ultramarine Blue. The sky, clouds, sand and marram grass are all variations on this blue.  Ultramarine Blue has its limits as you can see  in the image below.  The sky is complete different from the two above. Less sparkling...more subdued...
    

FEMME DE MILLIONS.

Amedeo Modigliani   "Reclining Nude"  or  "Nu couché" or "Femme de Millions"
Subtitle:  "200 Million Dollar"

On 10 November 2015 the news came out that a painting by Modigliani (Note 1) was sold by Christie's in New York for 170,4 million dollar.  The painting measures 60 by 90 centimeter.  It is sold to a chinese artcollector, Liu Yiqian, who tends to exhibit it in his museum in Shanghai.

(Image: Christie's  see note 2)
In an online article in the Guardian it is said that  "Amedeo Modigliani was high on hashish, wrecked by absinth, and desperately poor when he painted this hymne to lust in 1917-18." (note 3)  It was painted during World War I.

  This newsfact triggered something in me.  A kind of unbelieve about such a price for a work of art. And immediately I started to make my own "170,4 million of Artwork".  I used the image of Christie's as guide. A prepaired canvas large enough I had already standing ready.  I didn't took notice of the original size so I took a canvas of 85 x 115 centimeters. This canvas is a  little broader then the original so I decided to make the lower leg a tiny bit longer.

The colours I would used I had to do a little research for.  But understanding that Modigliani was poor  he might have been using only a few basic colours. (Like Picasso did in his Blue Period).

On internet I did a little research in other paintings by Modigliani and I could get an idea of how he painted.  I believe Modigliani painted it in a spontaneous moment  mainly in one flow.   The red blanket can be seen in other paintings as well.

The main colour in this painting is red. I used two types of red: cadmium red dark en cadmium red light. All colours are handmade. 

And after the latest fine-tuning my reclining Nude is ready.  I did some very small corrections mainly in darktones of the skin, some highlights on the skin, the face and the hair. Also by using glacé's.  Although my workimage was very poor I could get still a lot of information out of it..

Now only to find someone who pays 170 million dollar (or more because it is bigger then the original) for it.  I mean this as a joke. I liked making the painting..... and I signed it with my own name. I call it "Femme de Millions".  The original painting costed 170.4 million dollar.  The painting got a worldwide attention because of this price... And quoting Mr. Liu ".......Now, a chinese museum has a globally recognized masterpiece, and my fellow countrymen no longer have to leave the country to see a Western masterpiece....." (Note 4)  Also millions of people...

Here is the painting with the italian frame.

Who is the woman on the painting?
Probably the woman on the painting is Jeanne Hébuterne.  She was nineteen when they met in February 1917 and  "..........whose sweetness and modesty were noticed in the fancy artistic milieu of Montparnasse.  Among the damned Amedeo and delicate Jeanne was born a strong and deep love, intended as in a serial novel, to last until the death of both."  (Note 5)

(Image: Jeanne Hébuterne, 1918:  Note 6)





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NOTES

Note 1: Modigliani. 1884-1920. I give some information about him in reference to the painting.  He lived in Paris where the painting was made. He worked quite fast and a painting could be ready in 1 or 2 sessions.   In the time this painting was made the general opinion was that it was a kind of pornografy.  (wikipedia)

Note 2: Image.  I used the image of Christie's as reference for my painting. Later I found an image on a different website: Modigliani-foundation.org. This website seems serious but it showed the following image.

Because of the highly yellow woman and the saturated colour red in the blanket and in general an overexposure of yellow  this doesn't seem to catch the realistic colours of the painting.  The image of Christie's is more realistic.

Note 3: Jonathan Jones, The Guardian 10 november 2015  14:11 GMT.

Note 4: Article on the   nytimes.com by  Amy Qin, nov. 17, 2015.

Note 5: On guggenheim.org I found some info about Modigliani. "In march 1917 Modigliani met Jeanne Hébuterne, who became his companion and model."  In barbarainwonderlart.com it is said that they met in february 1917. 
The quoted part is from barbarainwonderlart.com  ".....all'epoca diciannovenne, la cui dolcezza e ritrosia si facevano notare nello stravagante ambiente artistico di Montparnasse.  Tra il dannato Amedeo e la delicata Jeanne nacque un amore forte e profondo, destinato, come in un romanzo d'appendice, a durare fino alla morte di entrambi."

Note 6: Image from barbarainwonderlart.com