Fantastic, Surreal, Mysterious and Imaginary Art

Michael Sowa and his pigs.

2012-01-16T11:16:00.000-08:00

Pork Soup by Michael Sowa

One of my favourite imaginary, kind of surreal films is Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain. Widely knows as Amélie. Above Amélie bed in her bedroom are hanging pictures/ prints of Michael Sowa. One of the pictures is "Fowl with Pearls" and another is 'Filmhoud". Michael Sowa is a German surrealist illustrator and painters. He belongs to the most noted illustrators in Germany. A wider public got aware of him through his illustrations for Axel Hacke’s publications. He used a pseudonym Heinz Obein.

In 1995 Michael Sowa was awarded with the Olaf-Gulbransson-Preis, in 2004 he received the Berlin Bookprice in the category Children’s Books for ‘Prinz Tamino’. Besides many book projects he works for newspapers such as Die Zeit and The New Yorker.

His work has been exhibited in the Wilhelm-Busch-Museum Hannover, in the Kunsthalle Oldenburg, at The Liebenweintrum in Burghausen and repetedly in Japan. In 2009 his 130 works were show in Japan, in Tokyo, Kyoto and Yokohama.

His works/ imagination has something similar with René Magritte's work. There is one fundamental difference between them, Sowa is a better painter (qua technique) than Magritte. Magritte was more illustrator than painter. His paintings are really badly made from the point of view of an perfectionist- painter par excellent like me.

I have been trying to find some more personal/ biographical information about Michael Sowa but couldn't really find a lot about him. He was born in 1945 in Berlin, finished Art Pedagogic College. His name is a Polish one. Sowa means Owl in Polish.

There is a book available on Amazon entitled Sowa's Ark, with a collection of over fifty farm animal-centric images.

A miniature pig splashes around in a bowl of soup; a duck leads a wheelbarrow down a lane; a woman gently strokes her daughter's face with a live rabbit in a dimly lit room. This work provides a journey into the imagination of artist Michael Sowa where a menagerie of bizarre animals take on complex personae. Using rich textures and inventive techniques of paint and varnish, these pictures achieve the otherworldly look of a surrealist fairy tale. - From Amazon description

His work is full of eccentric, humours, bizarre, fabulous stories most of them about animals. I love paintings which tell stories. His technique is 'magnifique'.

Here is the cover of his book from Amazon.

I just order Sowa's Ark. Soon I will post more about him.

Below are some images of his paintings, which I really like.

School of Fish

The Bear by Michael Sowa

Flying Pig by Michael Sowa

2012 Calendar - Betelgeuse and Mintaka

2011-12-12T15:07:00.000-08:00

2012 Calendar

Betelgeuse and Mintaka Calendar

From my Series Blueberryland

2011-12-12T14:58:00.000-08:00

Blueberryland – The adventure in the Blueberry Hole

Blueberryland is full of unpredictable and unexpected phenomena.

The Adventure in the Blueberry Hole - acrylics on canvas 40 cm x 40 cm
by Kasia B.Turajczyk

Just when Blueberryer and Blueberryess wanted to go for a nice, evening walk suddenly out of the blue a golden and blue hole opened its mouth and both of them were taken into a new adventure. Maybe they could even wake up in a new Universe? Can they survive inside the blueberry hole? Is there a way to escape from it? Is the blueberry hole less dangerous than an ordinary black hole? Can Blueberryer rescue his Blueberryess without his Golden bike?

A detail from The Adventure in the Blueberry Hole

A great trio from the past - surreal female artists: Remedios Varo, Kati Horn and Leonora Carrington.

2011-11-20T15:16:00.000-08:00

Before June 15, 2011 I had never heard about Remedios Varo, Leonora Carrington or Kati Horna. It just so happened that I had been reading about Leonora Carrington in Time magazine (June 13, 2011) in the Milestones section. She had passed away at the age of 94. Not that I knew Leonora Carrington very well. But because she was a partner to Max Ernst and I am a big fan of his art it made me curious about hers. I decided to begin a search for this female surrealist painter, sculptor and writer; very much unknown to me. First I went through all my books about surrealism, about modern art history. I found nothing. I searched in the books that I posses about Max Ernst, nothing either. The next step was getting online of course. I wanted to discover more about her and her art work. Most of the posts I could find online mentioned her death. Independent, Guardian, Telegraph all the papers were telling the story about Britain's lost and unknown great surrealist painter. “English surrealist painter and sculptor regarded as a national treasure in Mexico” (from The Guardian). Within her own family, Leonora Carrington was rarely mentioned, the rebel who had run off to be an artist’s model. But when Joanna Moorhead tracked down her long-lost cousin in Mexico, her eyes were opened to the extraordinary story of the last surviving member of the great Surrealists (from the Daily Telegraph). And so on and so on.

I went to Amazon and did a search for surreal female artists. I ordered three books which were available about female surreal artists. One is an album including paintings of most surreal female artists. The other two are wonderfully written and illustrated books. One is a biography about Remedios Varo (maybe more about her artistic achievement) written by Janet A. Kaplan. The last one is about the friendship and artistic creation of three surreal artists from European backgrounds who all lived and worked in Mexico. I discovered that Leonora Carrington had two very good friends in Remedios Varo and Kati Horna. Remedios Varo was a surreal artist and writer like Leonora Carrington herself. Kati Horna was an exceptionally brilliant photographer. Kati Horna as well as Remedios Varo were/are incredibly original and talented artists. They are as great as Max Ernst, Man Ray, Joan Miro, Salvador Dali, Meret Oppenheim or Andre Masson, Paul Klee or Rene Magritte (who by the way wasn’t really a good painter – he was a great illustrator). They are absolutely better than Frida Kahlo (from my point of view).

From the great trio: Carrington, Horna and Varo; works of Remedios Varo and Kati Horna speek/ convince me most.

Kati Horna, Stairway to the Cathedral, photo-montage; Spain 1937

Remedios Varo, Harmony, 1956, oil on masonite.

Remedios Varo, Phenomenon of Weightlessnes, 1963; oil on canvas

The book about Remedios Varo included almost all her work. I fell in love immediately with her paintings. They are amazingly mysterious, scientifically imaginary, mathematically sophisticated and aesthetically absolutely beautiful.
You can probably imagine my feeling of embarrassment, surprise and disbelief that not even in one of the thousands books about art that I own could I find even one mention of her. After seeing her incredibly original art I felt kind of stupid and ashamed that I didn’t know Remedios Varo before. Expect lots of posts about her in the near future from me……..maybe even tomorrow!

From my new surreal/fantastic series - The Blueberry Lovers

2011-09-26T06:00:00.000-07:00

This is the first painting from the surreal/fantastic series 'The Blueberry Lovers'. We have a boy called Blueberryer and a girl called Blueberryess. They are very much in love. But Blueberry Land is full of sophisticated robots, dangerous insects, unforeseen and unpredictable phenomena. Blueberry Land is also a land of mad scientists with their insane but at the same time brilliant inventions. The Quantum Blueberry Land.

This is the beginning of their story:

There is a golden night in Blueberry Land. The Blueberryer is cycling on his golden bike. He is in a hurry; he is worried about his Blueberryess. She is hidden in a golden cage. She was hidden there by a vicious Spider-witch. The witch wants to suck the delicious blueberry sweet-scented juicy life from the Blueberryess. Can the Blueberry Biker arrive in time to rescue his lover? Can they live together happily ever after in Blueberry Land?

"Blueberry Biker on his way to his lover hidden in a golden cage"

Own technique on canvas, 40 cm x 40 cm; 2011 (sold)

Detail - Blueberry Biker

Detail - the spider's golden cage

Visionary art in Cornwall - Tom Paddle

2011-06-10T05:36:00.000-07:00

I have a ritual when it comes to my own birthday; I like to be on the road. Generally, I think that a birthday, for various reasons, practical as philosophical, is an event which is best not to talk about, which should be quickly erased from ones memory. This year we had planned to go to Florence, Tuscany, but we ended up in Cornwall, South West England, instead. It was absolutely beautiful, very windy, wild, historical and highly artistic. We stayed in the Artist Residence Hotel in Penzance which was run by artists. The staff was extremely friendly. - I sincerely recommend it.

We decided to devote the last day to the arts. Within the framework of Cornwall Open Studios, we visited two group exhibition in West Cornwall, and one individual studio in Mid Cornwall. The last studio that we visited was an unusual one. From a list of two hundred and five artists and craftspeople, I wanted to see this the most. Why? Because it was the studio of a visionary artist. This was the only visionary painter I could find in the whole catalogue. And so it happened that we went to Sunnyside Cottage in Trescoll, Lockengate, close to the Eden Project. There we met Tom Paddle.
Tom Paddle is a remarkable person, not unusual for someone from the peace-happiness-flower-power-generation. He told us that he has always been immersed in the study and practices of paganism and the occult – gods and goddesses, mythology and folklore. He is surrounded by a magical, beautiful nature.

My art is my life. Everything I paint is a reflection of my surroundings in the beautiful Cornish countryside. My inspiration comes from looking for shapes and patterns in nature however mundane. Similarly, when I paint, I allow images to emerge from the random patterns on a semi-blank canvas and have always found the practice similar to "automatic writing" of psychics

He is also a naturalist and herbalist. He spends much of his time in the woods. He is also a trout and sea trout fisherman. He is a very diverse person. He is also known as a musician playing Celtic folk and mediaeval music, and he has a collection of historical instruments. He also writes poetry and fiction and performs as a storyteller with a gang of bawdy puppets. Woo, he is a real Renaissance Man.

Back to his art; he is a very good craftsman, an excellent one. Personally, I am not a big fan of visionary art. I find that lots of art works that belong to or are classified as visionary art are very kitschy and “cheap”. In contrast to the surrealists, they tend to be rather serious and lacking in humour. There is no place for playful idiocy. However, I have to admit that I really like most of Tom’s paintings. The majority of his paintings are created in acrylics or water color crayons or a mixture. He paints lots of visionary landscapes, scenes and gods/goddesses, and other creatures from diverse mythologies, the early history of our planet and folklore. His technical skills are excellent. For myself, I love his portraits, faces of the goddesses, spirits of nature, shamans and other creatures. They are really magical. We bought a print of one of his visionary portraits; Woodspirit. Here is the image of this work.

Woodspirit by Tom Paddle

I think he is a good portraitist. But decide for yourself, here are two other images of Tom's paintings, the one I liked.

Puck - Woodland God

Pneuma - The Breath of Life

Here is the link to his website with diverse work: http://www.tompaddleart.co.uk

The enigmatic poet of Nostalgia and Melancholia:Giorgio De Chirico; Part II

2011-05-29T15:16:00.000-07:00

Click here for part I of De Chirico the enigmatic poet.

In Paris from 1911 until the outbreak of the First World War Giorgio de Chirico developed his ‘metaphysical painting’. Those artworks are very enigmatic, self-consciously enigmatic. There is lots of inspiration and influence from mythology, philosophy, Freudian psychoanalysis and probably his own experience. De Chirico was born in Greece in 1888 from Italian parents. He was born in the city of Volos, an ancient mythological city, the city where the expedition and the adventure of Jason and the Argonauts search for the Golden Fleece began. De Chirico identified himself with the gallant heroes of old Greece, and especially with Odysseus; I assume for his symbolic meaning: imagination and allegory.

Most of De Chirico's paintings from 1911 until 1917 are very sad, I would say. There is almost a feeling of no familiarity, a feeling of something inexplicably unpleasant, and a feeling of mysterious melancholy. Without any doubt they are great in a strange way. There is lots of feeling of the ancient past, lots of meeting between words, objects, architecture, history, and the sound of silence, the weirdness of the perspective, persons, the imagination, and fantasy. It is a perfect, beautiful match between a poet and an artist.

There is one painting I absolutely adore. I didn’t see it in the flesh unfortunately. Maybe if I had, my perception of it would be different. It is ‘The Disquieting Muses’ from 1916.

The Disquieting Muses - oil on canvas, 1916

In the background appears the Castello Estense or the Castle of Saint Michele of Ferrara. Ferrara was considered by De Chirico as a metaphysical city. In the centre of the painting are two tailors’ dummies, waiting for something unexpected, for someone to rescue them from the nostalgia, thinking about a glorious past, talking to their own unconscious. Who knows? Moreover the answer isn’t important at all, what is important is the melancholically beautiful poetry of De Chirico's imagination.

The enigmatic poet of Nostalgia and Melancholia - Giorgio De Chirico

2011-05-28T14:48:00.000-07:00

Surrealism was very concerned with this essential quest “The wish for absolute freedom”. In particular the early fathers of surrealism wanted to set people free. They were as serious and dogmatic as the Catholic Church in its most rigid period (most of the time I would say). The natural clan leader was André Breton. He borrowed the word ‘sur-reality’ from Apollinaire. That was in 1917 after he had watched the ballet “Parade”. I read somewhere (probably in one of Robert Hughes books, he is the only art critic that I read, I like his style, although I don’t always share his feelings) that Andre Breton behaved like a demanding and touchy Pope. The group around Breton had dogmas, rituals, catechism, saints and excommunications. N.B., how can you propagate “the Idea of absolute freedom”and at the some time act like a tyrant? A very obvious contradiction. Maybe ‘Absolute freedom’ is only possible if you don’t have your own will and your own thoughts. You surround yourself in all aspects of your being, both physically and psychically with something, someone….you free yourself from feelings and thoughts….and act like a collective. (I just thought of Star Trek the next generation and the Borg Collective.)

Back to the early years of Surrealism and the Surrealists, to the period that they didn't call themselves surrealists. Giorgio De Chirico is seen as the most original and by some the best surreal painter of all time. That sounds odd if you consider the fact that De Chirico represented the early surreal trend and only for a very short period, between 1911 and 1917. After that time, in the eyes of the surrealists, he had so betrayed his talent as to have become an UNPERSON. His work and his style changed more than anyone could have imagined, from the essence of disquieting poetry to candid, mock-classical art. He also faked his own early work, starting soon after 1920, and kept doing so to the absolute confusion of art dealers and collectors. I agree that this is an obscure kind of behaviour, and an obscene betrayal of the psychic integrity of his paintings from 1911-1917.

During his stay in Paris from 1911 till 1917 and during his ‘romance’ with the surreal art scene he created absolutely fabulously enigmatic surreal paintings. De Chirico has been influenced by Freud's ideas, by the art of Arnold Bӧcklin (I will blog about him very soon) and Max Klinger and by the philosophy of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. In his own words from the Paris period he concluded:

“To become truly immortal a work of art must escape all human limits: logic and common sense will only interfere. But once these barriers are broken it will enter the regions of childhood vision and dream. It is most important that we should rid art of all that it has contained of recognizable material to date, all familiar subject matter, all traditional ideas, all popular symbols must be banished forthwith”.

A Melancholy of the Beautiful Day - 1913

Being true to his own feelings and his beliefs he shaped his ‘Nostalgias’ and ‘Melancholies’ in a real unreal, theatrical landscape (mostly from Turin) with his dummies/mannequins lost (immersed) in their enigmatic existences and their surreal unconsciousness.

The Red Tower - 1913

I haven’t see a lot of De Chirico's paintings, the original ones. I think most of them have been bought by private collectors. There are a few in MOMA in New York, some of them really poetical. Three in the Tate Modern in London, a few in German Museums (I am sure some in Stuttgart), two in Belgium in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels. In the Guggenheim Museum in Venice are The Red Tower and The Nostalgia of the Poet. Those are the paintings that I have seen. I discovered also a few paintings in different cities in US. But I didn’t see them. I love the one in Guggenheim in Venice The Red Tower

The two Mannequins - 1920

Cont. tomorrow

Blueberry Fantasy by Kasia B. Turajczyk

2010-09-10T15:42:00.000-07:00

Maybe I should not post to this blog my own work, and I should not write about it either.
But in this case I can’t resist it. I think this painting has something fantastic, something enigmatic and mysterious.
After a few years spent reading and watching and doing research about fantastic and fantasy art and all the genres in between I am coming more and more to understand and recognise all the boundaries and confusions between and about fantasy art and the fantastic elements in art. In his famous book "Au coeur du fantastique" Roger Caillos said that fantasy is secret and mysterious . I am not sure he was right about that. There are lots of paintings in the fantasy art genre which are full of fantastic elements and full of weird and crazy imaginary creatures with absolutely no mysterious or secret ambience what so ever. It could be just the problem of the onomastics or the semantic. I don’t know since I can’t ask Caillos any more precisely what he meant when he used mystery and secret as synonyms for fantasy.
Back to my painting “The Blueberry Fantasy”; which I categorised as a mysterious painting and I am not only the one. All the people who have seen it found The Blueberry Fantasy a very surrealistic and secret work. Every time someone looks at it they find new mysterious creatures, shapes and shadows. And people love it. As proud as I am (read it as sarcasm) I present my mysterious paintings amongst all the other great works by famous painters.
Voila!

Blueberry Fantasy - acrylics on canvas, 90cmx90cm

Jacek Yerka and Toruń

2010-08-11T03:56:00.000-07:00

I wrote this text a year ago and had forgotten to post it. Postpone today!

A few weeks ago I visited Toruń, a very old and historic city in Poland. The city is famous for having preserved almost intact its medieval spatial layout and many Gothic buildings, all built from brick, including monumental churches, the Town Hall and many burgher houses. I went there to see an exhibition of my ex-mother in law, a famous Polish film Movie star, the late Helena Grossówna. When lying in bed at the hotel during the night, I was thinking about all the famous people who were born and worked in this city. Nicolaus Copernicus was born in Toruń on 19 February 1473. At that time Toruń was part of Royal Prussia, a region of the Kingdom of Poland. Helenka Grossówna was born in Toruń too, in 1904. In her time Toruń wasn’t Polish anymore, the city was part of the German Empire. After the Second World War Toruń returned to Poland. I started to think about famous painters born in Toruń. At first I couldn’t remember any, and then suddenly Eureka! Jacek Yerka of course. He was born and studied in Toruń and he is one of the most famous fantastic artists of his time all over the world. The perfect subject for my surreal-fantasy art blog.
Jacek Yerka was born in Torun in 1952 studied art at the University in Toruń. It was a time (and probably still is) when technique was less important, and no one studied the old Masters. But Yerka did, he learnt directly from the masters of Northern Europe - the Van Eycks, Dierck Bouts, Robert Campin, Bosch, and surrealists such as Magritte.
Yerka said:

I did the first painting in my life a year before going to college, where I began studying graphics. My instructors always tried to get me to paint in the more contemporary abstract style, and move away from my fascination with realism. I saw this as an attempt to stifle my own creative style and steadfastly refused to fall in line. Eventually, my teachers relented.

His paintings are acrylic on canvas, pastels and drawings on paper.
His works are neo-surreal, fairy tale like, fantastic and sometimes more Sci-Fi than fantastic. The colours are now and then very brutal and powerful and occasionally very delicate, but nevertheless very expressive. The details are amazingly excellent. You really sense the hand of a Master, (F.E.: Between Heaven and Hell, The Way). As a painter I can tell you how time consuming it is to make these kinds of paintings.

I don’t like every work of his, but I definitely respect his imagination and his technique. I even think of buying one of his paintings of his grandmother’s kitchen. I hope he will make a few new paintings with this motif. Especially I like “Between Heaven and Hell”, "Cupboard Sunset", "Indian Summer", "the Strawberry Grove" and the "Illegal Production of Light".
Yerka's work has been exhibited in Poland, Germany, Monaco, France, and the United States. His works are also to be seen in Polish art museums. Yerka's work can also be seen in Mind Fields, a book in which Harlan Ellison has provided narration for each of Yerka's selected pieces.
In 1995 the artist was awarded the prestigious World Fantasy Award for the best artist.

On his website you can read more about Jacek Yerka, by Jacek Yerka.
http://www.yerkaland.com/bio_en.php
By the way the website is an excellent one, congratulations!

Below are a few images of my favourite paintings by Jacek Yerka.

The Strawberry Grove

The cupboard sunset

The winter wave

The road

Recruiting art talent enhance the creative process: Timur Baysal - Taron - Interview - pt.1

2010-06-30T12:09:00.000-07:00

Very interesting and cool interview with an original and talented artist names Taron or Timur Baysal. Great imagination.
.
Recruiting art talent enhance the creative process: Timur Baysal - Taron - Interview - pt.1

"Imaginarium" - Surrealist shirt featured today by RIPTapparel

2010-04-30T15:26:00.000-07:00

Today riptapparel.com is featuring a surrealist photo illustration tee called "imaginarium".
The artist that created the shirt is known for his dreamy collage-type illustrations. His name is Alex Bazinet, although he goes by the name Inner Monster and riptapparel has featured him on their site before.They only sell a shirt for 24 hours and at this moment only 7 hours left.

Here is the image of the T-shirt and the link to RIPTapparel page with the image://riptapparel.com/images/imaginarium.jpg

Two other nice images from this guy

Frans Verbeeck and the Mockery of Human Follies

2010-02-21T07:56:00.000-08:00

“The Mockery of Human Follies” is one of those mysterious paintings that don’t allow me to stop thinking about them. In the first place because it is an excellent art work (in my humble opinion) and in the second place (maybe it should be the first place) because it is a satirical-moralistic-fantastic painting in the Medieval tradition. And I am addicted to medieval art.

My first impression of the painting is that it is a realistic-satirical work a’la Breugel. I see a scene of the life of peasants in a village, with a wonderful renaissance landscape in the background. But then I discover all the unusual things. The faces of the pictured people are odd, some of the ugly, some of them not, but almost everyone is smiling. And the smile isn’t an innocent, nice smile; it is definitely a rascally-devilish smile. There are lots of strange scenes, unexpected moments, shows and associations in this painting. I see lots of resemblance with Erasmus famous book “Lof der Zotheid” (In Praise of Folly, in English). Erasmus used words to describe the folly of humans; the painter of “The mockery of humans follies” used the language of the colours of his paints.

The Dorotheum in Vienna attributed the painting to Frans Verbeeck. He belonged together with Hieronymus Bosch, Peter Breugel and Adriaen Brouwer to the group of the XVI century Flemish painters who painted satirical-moralising work. The fantasy and satire go hand in hand in lots of pictures, drawings, carvings, decorations, sculptures, miniatures, illuminated manuscripts in the art work of the medieval time. The Flemish painters did not have to invent all the monstrous creatures by themselves. They could fall back on a rich and broad collection of peculiar species, exotic monsters and extremely weird people from the medieval artists. What they probably did was add some new symbols, pictures of farmers and poor people, and of course lots of hidden eroticism behind the realistic scenes.

Frans Verbeeck is mentioned in the book written by Carel van Mander about important Netherlands and German painters. The book was written probably in the XVI century. Carel van Mander died in 1606. The first edition is from 1764. Frans Verbeeck was born and worked in Mechelen in Belgium. He died in 1570, but we don’t know his date of birth. His paintings can be admired in the Centre for Old Art 't Vliegend Peert in Mechelen in Belgium.

The painting, “The Mockery of Human Follies” was for sale in 2007 at an auction by Dorotheum in Vienna. The guide price was between €65.000 and €75.000. It was sold of course. I would love to have the painting on my own wall, look at it every day, discover new stories, hidden metaphors, hidden symbols. I'm still trying to work out the significance of the tiny people present in such numbers. Are they us? And are the huge people the gods playing with us? laughing at us? or it is just us, the human species playing with other humans? Please let me know if you have any more information about this painting. My curiosity requires answers!

Dragons and Saints at V&A Museum in London

2010-02-03T12:00:00.000-08:00

Last Monday, which was February 1st, I spent a few hours at the V&A Museum in London. That wasn't really enough to see all of the new Medieval and Renaissance galleries, but I had a plane to catch back to Amsterdam in the early evening. You will really need a whole day to study the splendid collection of textiles, paintings, sculpture, glass, metalwork, prints, manuscripts, furniture, ceramics and jewellery.

I very much like the concept of telling the story of European art and culture from AD 300–1600; from the decline of the Roman Empire to the end of the Renaissance period, by using not only strictly art pieces from those periods but also everyday objects, design objects and even pieces of building and churches. There is even one of Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks to admire!

However of course I was searching for fantasy and fantastic elements in the paintings, drawings, sculptures, stained glass windows and so on. Here some photos with interesting and wonderful pieces from the collection.

St Margaret and the Dragon, about 1530-1540 (from the Church of Saint Germain, France.)
As the legend has it she made a miraculous escape from the belly of the Dragon.

St. George from a church in Ulm (Germany) about circa 1480-1490. This is a figure of St. George in limewood, and carved from one piece of wood. St George was a saint from the East, but as the result of the crusades he became popular throughout Europe. Having rescued a princess by slaying a dragon, he personified the ideals of chivalry and was often depicted with the tamed or dead beast beside him.

By the way, this Dragon doesn't really look enough Dragon -like. It is more a dog-old man figure then a danger dragon. But at the same time it is more original than the St. Margaret's Dragon.

This is an image of a Lamp of a Dragon, from Padua, around 1500.

Once upon a time in Devon, Dunchideock

2010-01-12T13:39:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time in the Galaxy of Milky Way, the Homo Sapiens Civilisation was coming to its end……after the time of prosperity and the LONG SUN ERA, the WHITE ICE AGE has fallen over the planet Earth.

Four Season - Winter and Automn in Dunchideock

2010-01-01T08:25:00.000-08:00

Autoumn in Dunchideock by Kasia B. Turajczyk

Winter in Dunchideock by Kasia B. Turajczyk

My fantasy abstract paintings from the series Four Seasons. (it has nothing to do with The Four Seasons of Vivaldi; however I love his four violin concertos, especially when listen to the concertos in Venice)
I painted first "Autumn in Dunchideock" acrylic painting , without the intention of it being a part of a series. But yesterday I painted Winter in Dunchideock and now I am sure that spring and summer will fallow.
In both paintings I used acrylics plus lots of weird materials. My fantasies about the seasons, vou la!

Merry Christmas from Mintaka

2009-12-16T10:28:00.001-08:00

Here is a special message from Mintaka:

My name is Mintaka. I am stranger here; I was born in the Nebula of Orion.
Your species is dominant, but weird. The only time in the long calendar of the year when you are kind, forgiving, charitable and pleasant for each other is the Christmas time. It is the only time when “men and women open their shut-up hearts freely”. (One of your famous writers pointed this out a long time ago).
I am not sure I understand that. Why don’t you behave in such a way on all the other days of the year? I am watching them and waiting to see you brave and beautiful. Maybe one day….

Mintaka meditating about the meaning of Christmas;
mixed media made by Kasia. B. Turajczyk

http://www.zazzle.co.uk/merry_christmas_by_mintaka_card-137920601369759674?gl=kasiamuminek&rf=238205687190890047

Calendar 2010, Betelgeuse and Mintaka, new version

2009-12-01T14:05:00.000-08:00

2010 Calendar - Betelgeuse and Mintaka by kasiamuminek
See other Fantasy Calendars

Fantasy Art Calendar 2010 - Betelgeuse and Mintaka

2009-11-30T07:22:00.000-08:00

2010 Calendar - Betelgeuse and Mintaka by kasiamuminek

please fallow this link to buy the calendar:
http://www.zazzle.co.uk/2010_calendar_betelgeuse_and_mintaka-158787483448671897

My new digital images for my book about Betelgeuse and Mintaka

2009-11-29T01:53:00.000-08:00

Recently I made a few new images for my story about Betelgeuse and Mintaka, the Boltzmann Dragons. I would love to share these with you and hear your comments and criticisms about them.

I am not sure if I explained the Boltzmann Brain paradox (problem) before. This concept was one of the sources/inspiration for my story about the Shepherds of Seven from Orion and the two creatures that arrived by accident on Earth, Betelgeuse and Mintaka. They are kind of dragon like creatures, but only because my imagination created them so. They are particles, fluctuations, brain-accumulations of the knowledge of the billions of years old cosmos.
The Boltzamann Brain (Boltzmann Paradox) hypothesis/idea is named after the Austrian physicist Ludwig Boltzmann (1844-1906) who advanced an idea that the known universe arose as a random fluctuation, similar to a process through which self-aware entities - Boltzmann brains - might arise. Such a self-aware entity may arise due only to random fluctuations out of a state of chaos.

From Wikipedia:

The concept arises from the need to explain why we observe such a large degree of organization in the universe. The second law of thermodynamics states that the entropy in the universe will always increase. We may think of the most likely state of the universe as one of high entropy, closer to uniform and without order. So why is the observed entropy so low?

Boltzmann proposed that we and our observed low-entropy world are a random fluctuation in a higher-entropy universe. Even in a near-equilibrium state, there will be stochastic fluctuations in the level of entropy. The most common fluctuations will be relatively small, resulting in only small amounts of organization, while larger fluctuations and their resulting greater levels of organization will be comparatively more rare. Large fluctuations would be almost inconceivably rare, but this can be explained by the enormous size of the universe and by the idea that if we are the results of a fluctuation, there is a "selection bias": We observe this very unlikely universe because the unlikely conditions are necessary for us to be here, an expression of the anthropic principle.

This leads to the Boltzmann brain concept: If our current level of organization, having many self-aware entities, is a result of a random fluctuation, it is much less likely than a level of organization which is only just able to create a single self-aware entity. For every universe with the level of organization we see, there should be an enormous number of lone Boltzmann brains floating around in unorganized environments. This refutes the observer argument above: the organization I see is vastly more than what is required to explain my consciousness, and therefore it is highly unlikely that I am the result of a stochastic fluctuation.

The Boltzmann brains paradox is that it is more likely that a brain randomly forms out of the chaos with false memories of its life than that the universe around us would have billions of self-aware brains.

Don Page, a famous physicist, recently wrote this about the Boltzmann Problem:

"Unless our universe is decaying at an astronomical rate (i.e., on the present cosmological timescale of Giga years, rather than on the quantum recurrence timescale of googolplexes), it would apparently produce an infinite number of observers per commoving volume by thermal or vacuum fluctuations (Boltzmann brains). If the number of ordinary observers per commoving volume is finite, this scenario seems to imply zero likelihood for us to be ordinary observers and minuscule likelihoods for our actual observations.”

If that is true, it would mean that you and me, you reading this and I writing this, are more likely to be some momentary fluctuation in a field of matter and energy out in space than persons with a real past and possible future (if we are lucky or unlucky enough). My and your memories and the world we think we see around us are illusions.

“Hence, our observations suggest that this scenario is incorrect and that perhaps our universe is decaying at an astronomical rate.”

In other words it means our universe will die one day.

I hope I have given you some clues about the story I am writing about the two unusual creatures, Betelgeuse and Mintaka.

Here are some new images I made. I hope you will find them enjoyable and interesting.

Mikhail Vruble and his imagination

2009-08-23T01:31:00.000-07:00

One of my favour Russian painters is defiantly Mikhail Aleksandrovich Vrubel
(Russian: Михаил Александрович Врубель, March 17, 1856 - April 14, 1910).

He is usually regarded as the greatest Russian painter of the Symbolist movement. His art is so unique and original that he shouldn't be label to any movement at all. In reality, he deliberately stood aloof from contemporary art trends, so that the origin of his unusual manner should be sought probably in the Late Byzantine and Early Renaissance painting.

Seraph based on Pushkin poem

For me personally he is a personality with a great imagination, fantasy and originality. He perfectly fits in my private gallery of unusual, bizzar, different, fantastic in art.

Vrubel was born in the Omsk city (Siberia), in a military lawyer's family and graduated from the Law Faculty of St Petersburg University in 1880. Next year he entered the Imperial Academy of Arts. In his earliest works, he exhibited striking talent for drawing and highly idiosyncratic outlook. Although he still relished academic monumentality, he would later develop a penchant for fragmentory composition and "unfinished touch".

In 1884, he was summoned to replace the lost 12th-century murals and mosaics in the St. Cyril's Church of Kiev with the new ones. In order to execute this commission, he went to Venice to study the medieval Christian art. It was here that, in the words of an art historian, "his palette acquired new strong saturated tones resembling the iridescent play of precious stones". Most of his works painted in Venice have been lost, because the artist was more interested in creative process than in promoting his artwork. In 1886, he returned to Kiev, where he submitted some monumental designs to the newly-built St Volodymir Cathedral. The jury, however, failed to appreciate the striking novelty of his works, and they were rejected. At that period, he executed some delightful illustrations for Hamlet and Anna Karenina which had little in common with his later dark meditations on the Demon and Prophet themes.

While in Kiev, Vrubel started painting sketches and watercolours illustrating the Demon, a long Romantic poem by Mikhail Lermontov. The poem described the carnal passion of "an eternal nihilistic spirit" to a Georgian girl Tamara. At that period Vrubel developed a keen interest in Oriental arts, and particularly Persian carpets, and even attempted to imitate their texture in his paintings.

In 1890, Vrubel moved to Moscow. Like other artists associated with the Art Nouveau, he excelled not only in painting but also in applied arts, such as ceramics, majolics, and stained glass. He also produced architectural masks, stage sets, and costumes.

Seated Demon

In 1890 he finished his large painting of Seated Demon in the Garden (It is to see in Moscow, in Tretyakov Gallery). This painting brought notoriety to Vrubel. Most conservative critics accused him of "wild ugliness", I LOVE IT! Others like art patron Savva Mamontov praised the Demon series as "fascinating symphonies of a genius". Unfortunately the Demon, like other Vrubel's works, doesn't look as it did when it was painted, as the artist added bronze powder to his oils in order to achieve particularly luminous, glistening effects.

In 1896, he fell in love with the famous opera singer Nadezhda Zabela. Half a year later they married and settled in Moscow, where Zabela was invited by Mamontov to perform in his private opera theatre. While in Moscow, Vrubel designed stage sets and costumes for his wife, who sang the parts of the Snow Maiden, the Swan Princess, and Princess Volkhova in Rimsky-Korsakov's operas. Falling under the spell of Russian fairy tales, he executed some of his most acclaimed pieces, including Pan (1899), The Swan Princess (1900), and Lilacs (1900). In 1901, Vrubel returned to the demonic themes in the large canvas Demon Downcast. In order to astound the public with underlying spiritual message, he repeatedly repainted the demon's ominous face, even after the painting had been exhibited to the overwhelmed audience.

The last decade of his life was a very difficult one; he had a severe nervous breakdown, he was hospitalized in mental clinic. While there, he painted a mystical Pearl Oyster (1904) and striking variations on the themes of Pushkin's poem The Prophet. In 1906, overpowered by mental disease and approaching blindness, he had to give up painting.

Pan

By the way if you love movies, see Guillermo Del Toro's The Pan Labirynt. There is a such of atmosphere in this masterpiece that reminded me some of Vrubel's paintings.

James Ensor, medieval art and death.

2009-08-02T13:35:00.000-07:00

Medieval art is one of my favourite art periods, I just love it.

The whole spectrum of medieval art in Europe was dominated by the Christian ideology. The architecture, the astounding Gothic cathedrals, the sculptures, the tapestries, the manuscripts, the paintings, almost every form of visual display was associated with numerous aspects of cultural behaviour, custom and communication used to illustrate Christian philosophy and dogma.

I am not a Christian and I am not a religious person but I adore medieval art even if it is full of God, Saints, religious symbols, devils, angels, and bizarre creatures – maybe all those things are the reason for my adoration of this period.

I love the colours which the artists use in their paintings, manuscripts, tapestries and the roof carvings. I find irresistible the absence of perspective however I find more irresistible the imagination of the artists who created the most incredible fantastic/ surreal paintings and ideas about the heaven’s, hell’s and the world’s hierarchies.

I am fascinated by the fact that the people of the medieval period could have lived in such intimacy with death. Life was never-ending; death was a mere interruption of the continuum; after which the soul would await the Last Judgment (heaven or the hell).

The Dance of Death by Vincent of Kastav

One of the most interesting images of death in the medieval art besides the Last Judgment is the dance macabre, the Dance of Death. It is a strange fantasy for us, but probably very consistent with the medieval acknowledgement of death and life as a continuum.

The Dance of Death by Vincent of Kasta, fragment and copy

One of the best and astonishing images of the Dance of Death is in . It is a fresco made by Vincent of Kastav around 1474. It is a very strange yet wonderful image full of all classes of men, women, children, and between them skeletons walk in procession. There are ten characters in this dance; each one is accompanied by Death. In-between the skeletons dance the pope, the cardinal, the bishop, the king, the queen, the innkeeper, the child, the maimed, the knight, and finally the merchant, who stands by a table covered with goods. The skeletons are naked and some of them play music; bagpipes, mandolins and wind instruments. The merchant, who is last in joining the dance, tries to bribe Death by pointing at his money. His efforts are futile; Death will never spare a "dancer" in exchange for mere riches.

Now it is time for me to show how James Ensor fits in to medieval art and death.

James Ensor (April 13, 1860 – November 19, 1949), one of the most famous Belgian artists was obsessed with death, grotesque masquerades, and fantastic allegories. In some point in his artistic development he turned towards religious themes as well. He interpreted them as a personal disgust for the inhumanity of the world.

The most famous painting of him is the immense "Christ's Entry into Brussels". In this painting he took on religion, politics, and art by depicting Christ entering contemporary Brussels in a Mardi gras parade. It is a vast carnival crowd in grotesque masks advancing towards the viewer. Nearly lost amid the teeming throng is Christ on his donkey. Although Ensor was an atheist, he identified with Christ as a victim of mockery.

Christ's Entry into Brussels by James Ensor

His other famous painting "Tribulation of Saint Anthony" could be seen as a modern version of the famous painting "The Temptation of St. Anthony" by Hieronymus Bosch. The work features a hooded holy man inundated by Boschian creatures floating in swampy skies -- devils and demons that fart on him and defecate. In my humble opinion this is one of his masterpieces.

Tribulation of Saint Anthony by James Ensor

I think that Ensor owes debts to medieval art, medieval artists and the medieval view of the world. The attitudes and images of the period between 500-1.000 years ago are the origin of many of his paintings.

There is a major Ensor exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City at the moment. Unfortunately "Christ's Entry into Brussels" isn't included in the Show in MoMA. But I saw it once in the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.

The exhibition will travel to the Musée d'Orsay, Paris, October 2009–February 2010.

The Secret Garden

2009-07-21T08:24:00.000-07:00

Living in Dunchideock is similar to being in Paradise. Even if it is raining, what is usual for the last month. It is raining in Dunchideock today, too. Probably my wellies boots are very happy with this kind of weather.

Dunchideock is a small, old village, with the house itself dating from around the 15th century. But, the house as a house is only a house; walls, a ceiling, thatched roof, and a floor. The most important part of the property is the garden: a beautifully fabulous, magical and bewitching place. The garden and the house are surrounded by all kinds of nature including horses, rabbits, deer, pheasants, foxes, and veritable smorgasbords of birds which all emerge silently from the forest, hills, meadows and fields. The scent of life: the scent of a real, simple, rural life.
Dunchideock, the garden of Lyalls Cottage, the nature of South Devon are the inspiration of my new paintings. The new paintings are combination of my observation of the surrounding nature, my imagination, the happiness of creation, painting, experimenting, and transforming that which surrounds me and how I experience it.

Hereby I present my two kind of fantasy landscape arcylic paintings from the series
‘The Secret Garden of Lyalls Cottage’ .

The tree in the Secret Garden of Lyalls Cottage
by Kasia B. Turajczyk
50,8 cm x 40,2cm

The rainbow and the tree in the Secret Garden of Lyalls Cottage
by Kasia B. Turajczyk
50,8 cm x 40,2 cm

Playing with Magritte in the spirit of Breughel

2009-06-12T09:25:00.000-07:00

Life can be very surrealistic from time to time, in fact more often than you might expect. But surrealistic and at the same time optimistic doesn’t happen very often. But it happened to me on Sunday (May 30th 2009) in Brussels.
Reneé Magritte’s universe was conjured up on the Place Royal… giant creatures and live installations from Magritte’s paintings, a ballerina dancing on top of a piano, girls with baskets full of apples, and men with bowler hats all on a beautiful sunny day and with great music. The magical, surreal universe of Reneé Magritte came to life. The Musée Magritte Museum opened that door for us.
My partner and I were among the hundreds of fortunate people in Brussels to visit the new Musée Magritte Museum, before the official opening, and for free! René Magritte is without doubt one of the most important Belgian artists and one of the most influential ‘mass culture’ surrealist painters. He was possibly more of a thinker and illustrator than a painter. As a surrealist and a socialist he hoped to change the world and the mentality of the crowd, but he didn’t. Instead he became the most popular artist of the XX century. At the end of his life he also became very wealthy; he painted what the buyers wanted. What I personally like in his work is not his technique (Dali was absolutely a better painter), not the paintings by themselves, but the irony behind his surrealism. I love Magritte’s imagination and his jokes with his viewers - “Hey folks - I am taking you in!”. In some sense he had the same credo the I have; I believe that we are here on this planet by accident and not for long, actually and that our existence is meaningless, and that we shouldn’t take ourselves so damn seriously – it seems to me that Magritte thought about his own universe in much the same way. In fact I discovered at the weekend that during the second world war Magritte went so far as to paint works in the style of Picasso, Braque, Max Ernst and others. Some of these "forgeries" were subsequently sold in an auction at the Palace of Fine Arts in Brussels. He also forged money and he spent it successfully. (I like this man).

The great Surrealist René Magritte once said:

My painting is visible images which conceal nothing…. they evoke mystery and indeed when one sees one of my pictures, one asks oneself this simple question 'What does that mean'? It does not mean anything, because mystery means nothing either, it is unknowable.

Inspirited by Magritte, my partner Jim and one of my favourite painters, Peter Breughel the Elder, here is a new work of mine

“Playing with Magritte in the spirit of Breughel”.

This work is available for sale as a quality print and/or poster on RedBubble

View words about the new Musée Magritte Museum. The multidisciplinary collection contains more than 200 works consisting in oils on canvas, gouaches, drawings, sculptures and painted objects but also in advertising posters, music scores and vintage. Official opening of the museum was yesterday, June, 2nd 2009. The museum is situated close to the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, on Place Royale 1.

Graffiti in Exeter

2009-05-24T11:23:00.001-07:00

Exeter is an old, interesting and thereby very picturesque city. It was probably somewhat in March when I discovered this Fantasy Graffiti painting at the walls of the under-street passage for bikes and pedestrians. I took some photos. Maybe I didn't know where to look but I couldn’t find a signature or a sign so I do not know the creator.

I am a fan of graffiti art; some of the wall paintings are amazing, they are really excellent. I think that this kind of art (maybe abstract art, too) could be compared to jazz music - spontaneous, improvisational and real. I would once try again to paint on a wall, this time outdoor.

My passion for painting became prominent for the first time when I was 4 years old. It was somewhere in the summer time, our apartment has just been painted; you could still smell the fresh paints on the walls. The kitchen was full of fresh fruits: lots of different berries and currents – just imagine all the pure, beautiful colours and pigments. My parents weren’t at home and our nanny went to our neighbour (no idea why). Only me and my oldest brother and of course the walls and the fruits were there. I have no idea how I convinced my brother to help me with this performance but I did. We carried the boxes with the fruits to the living room and we started to cover the walls with the colourful juice leaking out the fruits,we pushed and rubbed them against the walls. What a happening! Unfortunately I don’t remember anything about what I felt and what kind of effect had my first spontaneous artistic creation “Graffiti Indoor” on others. I have been told that my parents weren’t happy and they punished me in the traditional way: they spanked me. But even that my bottom was hurt and painful it didn’t discourage me to try other indoor walls. I did it on and off almost my whole life, by and large. It is a pity that there are no photos, no documentation of my wall paintings.

Deszcz by Tomek Bagiński

2009-05-12T14:20:00.001-07:00

This Tomek Baginski is a absolutely talented artist.
This short movie is about are human condition, the loneliness and the absurdity of this loneliness and our existence.
Very tragic.

Witold Wojtkiewicz - phenomenal artist

2009-03-25T08:34:00.000-07:00

Witold Wojtkiewicz - A Knight’s Tale – pastel of paper (from the cycle Ceremonies, 1908- 09)

Witold Wojtkiewicz is the most original polish painter from the XX century. Probably he is absolutely unknown for the world outside Poland the day today. But in 1907 his art aroused enough interest of André Gide and Maurice Denise to organise in the same year an individual exhibition at Galerie Druet in Paris.

This are the words that Gidé wrote about the impression that Wojtkiewicz art made on him at the exhibition in Berlin, the first time that he saw it: “[…] his exhibition led me to the conclusion that he was quite alienated in his country.[..] This was obvious. The exhibition brought together works which although not devoid of value, gave us nothing new. […] when the astonishing significance of some of the canvases stopped us. They (the canvases of Wojtkiewicz) illuminated the slightly darkened room not with the brightness of the colours, as if the easy of profaner they may seem grey, but with the strange harmony of the tone, the painful fantasy of the drawing, and the pathetic and emotional interplay of colours”.

Gidé's words faithfully described the situation of Wojtkiewicz in Poland art climate of the time. The artist Wojtkiewicz was quite aware of the clearly different separateness of his art. It seems to me that he even emphasised it with his eccentricity and his unapproachableness (his impeccably foppish style of dressing).

He didn’t live a long life; born in 1879 in Warsaw, died in 1909 in Warsaw. Some people called him the precursor of surrealism; it could be true. His art was a phenomenon completely distinct in its time. It is distinguished by its advanced deformation of reality, which aims at emphasising the sadness and sometimes the absurd fictitiousness of human existence. In his art he combined grotesque with lyrics. His behaviour was always injected with a large dose of irony, as well as self-irony. His art, individual in every aspect, derived from his poetic imagination, was shaped, reached full maturity and was extinguished in less than seven years.

For me he is one of the exceptionally original artists; the one with the magical, unrepeatable poetic language of imagination. Maybe he was after all more a writer and a poet than a painter?

I posted here four images of his paintings from different cycles. All of them are more of less surreal, fantastic, with an atmosphere of strangeness and tension of the scenes. All of them represented the creative act of an extremely personalised vision of the world.

Witold Wojtkiewicz - Marionettes – oil on canvas (from the cycle The Circus,1907)

Witold Wojtkiewicz - Winter Tale, Tournament – tempera of canvas
(from the cycle Children’s Poses, 1908)

Witold Wojtkiewicz - Abduction of the Princess – tempera of canvas (from the cycle Children’s Poses,1908)

Green Comet Approaches Earth

2009-03-02T14:41:00.000-08:00

This is not a Fantasy but this is such a fantastic story......

Author: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA

February 4, 2009: In 1996, a 7-year-old boy in China bent over the eyepiece of a small telescope and saw something that would change his life--a comet of flamboyant beauty, bright and puffy with an active tail. At first he thought he himself had discovered it, but no, he learned, two men named "Hale" and "Bopp" had beat him to it. Mastering his disappointment, young Quanzhi Ye resolved to find his own comet one day.

And one day, he did.

Fast forward to a summer afternoon in July 2007. Ye, now 19 years old and a student of meteorology at China's Sun Yat-sen University, bent over his desk to stare at a black-and-white star field. The photo was taken nights before by Taiwanese astronomer Chi Sheng Lin on "sky patrol" at the Lulin Observatory. Ye's finger moved from point to point--and stopped. One of the stars was not a star, it was a comet, and this time Ye saw it first.

Comet Lulin, named after the observatory in Taiwan where the discovery-photo was taken, is now approaching Earth. "It is a green beauty that could become visible to the naked eye any day now," says Ye.

Amateur astronomer Jack Newton sends this photo from his backyard observatory in Arizona:

"My retired eyes still cannot see the brightening comet," says Newton, "but my 14-inch telescope picked it up quite nicely on Feb. 1st."

The comet makes its closest approach to Earth (0.41 AU) on Feb. 24, 2009. Current estimates peg the maximum brightness at 4th or 5th magnitude, which means dark country skies would be required to see it. No one can say for sure, however, because this appears to be Lulin's first visit to the inner solar system and its first exposure to intense sunlight. Surprises are possible.

Lulin's green color comes from the gases that make up its Jupiter-sized atmosphere. Jets spewing from the comet's nucleus contain cyanogen (CN: a poisonous gas found in many comets) and diatomic carbon (C₂). Both substances glow green when illuminated by sunlight in the near-vacuum of space.

In 1910, many people panicked when astronomers revealed Earth would pass through the cyanogen-rich tail of Comet Halley. False alarm: The wispy tail of the comet couldn't penetrate Earth's dense atmosphere; even it if had penetrated, there wasn't enough cyanogen to cause real trouble. Comet Lulin will cause even less trouble than Halley did. At closest approach in late February, Lulin will stop 38 million miles short of Earth, utterly harmless.

To see Comet Lulin with your own eyes, set your alarm for 3 am. The comet rises a few hours before the sun and may be found about 1/3rd of the way up the southern sky before dawn. Here are some dates when it is especially easy to find:

Feb. 6th: Comet Lulin glides by Zubenelgenubi, a double star at the fulcrum of Libra's scales. Zubenelgenubi is not only fun to say (zuBEN-el-JA-newbee), but also a handy guide. You can see Zubenelgenubi with your unaided eye (it is about as bright as stars in the Big Dipper); binoculars pointed at the binary star reveal Comet Lulin in beautiful proximity. [sky map]

Feb. 16th: Comet Lulin passes Spica in the constellation Virgo. Spica is a star of first magnitude and a guidepost even city astronomers cannot miss. A finderscope pointed at Spica will capture Comet Lulin in the field of view, centering the optics within a nudge of both objects. [sky map]

Feb. 24th: Closest approach! On this special morning, Lulin will lie just a few degrees from Saturn in the constellation Leo. Saturn is obvious to the unaided eye, and Lulin could be as well. If this doesn't draw you out of bed, nothing will. [sky map]

Ye notes that Comet Lulin is remarkable not only for its rare beauty, but also for its rare manner of discovery. "This is a 'comet of collaboration' between Taiwanese and Chinese astronomers," he says. "The discovery could not have been made without a contribution from both sides of the Strait that separates our countries. Chi Sheng Lin and other members of the Lulin Observatory staff enabled me to get the images I wanted, while I analyzed the data and found the comet."

Somewhere this month, Ye imagines, another youngster will bend over an eyepiece, see Comet Lulin, and feel the same thrill he did gazing at Comet Hale-Bopp in 1996. And who knows where that might lead...?

"I hope that my experience might inspire other young people to pursue the same starry dreams as myself," says Ye.

Here is the link again http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/04feb_greencomet.htm

Surrealism - Visual Festival: Reality in a Blender

2009-01-18T08:07:00.001-08:00

I found a video with surreal and quasi-surreal images, paintings, photography and digital art by different and diverse artists.
This is not a bad one. Enjoy it!

"The Afterlife of Buildings" - Zacheta

2009-01-07T08:59:00.000-08:00

When visiting Poland in December 2008, I went with my young friend Gosia (who wants to attend the Art Academy in Lodz, Poland this year) to see the new exhibitions in Zacheta, in Warsaw. The Zacheta National Gallery of Art is the oldest exhibition site in Warsaw, with a tradition stretching back to the mid 19th Century. It is located in the heart of Warsaw. (The Zacheta building was one of the few to survive in Warsaw’s city center after the destruction of the Second World War).

They were a few very interesting exhibitions: such as “Welcome to Disco Zacheta - The Afterlife of Buildings” and “Up against the Wall”.
Personally I liked the first one the most. “The Afterlife of Buildings” project was recently presented in the Polish Pavilion of the 11th International Architecture Biennale and it is a provocative presentation of 6 important buildings constructed in Poland in recent years. The curators and artists consider what will happen to these buildings in the future, once the function for which they were constructed is no longer appropriate.
Some of the six buidlings are: the Warsaw University Library, the airport terminal in Warsaw and the sanctuary at Lichen (the biggest church in Poland).

What futures await all the buildings under the new circumstances of the new time? These buildings are important and prestigious today. They are presented in the form of pictures ‘before’ and ‘after’ these great changes. I have to tell you that the future is surrealistic! This project is absolutely amazing. You have to see it!

Zacheta, Warsaw, Poland – address:
pl. Malachowskiego 3
00-916 Warszawa
tel. (48 22) 827 58 54
fax (48 22) 827 78 86
Gallery opening hours: Tuesday–Sunday 12 a.m. – 8 p.m.Thursdays entrance free.

Merry Xmas from Betelgeuse and Mintaka

2008-12-23T14:00:00.000-08:00

Xmas Greetings from Betelgeuse and Mintaka!

As long as space endures,
And as long as sentient beings exist,
May I, too, remain
to dispel the misery of the world.

SHANTIDEVA

Fantastic art & fantasy art & surreal?

2008-11-23T14:48:00.000-08:00

Not doubt I am an alien from the end of a rainbow.

A new dream

(My new digital painting - mixed media: traditional oil painting, photography, photo shop)

I would like to spend my life gazing at the stars up in the sky wondering about ………..it is a surreal painting, fantasy art, fantastic art, imaginary art.........

Betelgeuse and Mintaka, the Boltzmann Dragons - introduction video version II

2008-11-11T01:33:00.000-08:00

A new version of Introduction Video "Betelgeuse and Mintaka, the Boltzmann Dragons"

I would love you to take the time to watch the new video and then the old one again and decide which version is better.

The old version:

2009 Calendar - Mintaka and Betelgeuse

2008-11-08T01:12:00.000-08:00

The 2009 Fantasy Calendar has just been released. I hope you like it.

The Fantasy Calendar as you can imagine is about imagination, dragons, fantasy, space and Betelgeuse and Mintka ofcourse. All the images come from the story "Betelgeuse and Mintaka, the Boltzmann Dragons". The are lost of new images, you will find them in the new video that I hope to finish soon.

2009 Fantasy Art Calendar by kasiamuminek

The same calendar has also been released by RedBubble.
2009 fantasyartcalendar by kasiamuminek

Have a look and compare the different shops and different prices :-))

Mintaka out of the egg

2008-10-29T07:51:00.000-07:00

Mintaka is awake for a few months by now and he grew up and changed his shape......and I forgot to tell you about this.
He looked at me today very upset and somehow sad and I had no choice than to promise him to put him online. And here he is, my sweet Mintaka with his funny-brush-like tail.
I didn't suspect an alien species of narcissism. Maybe he is already to long on Earth. Probably Jim had a bad influence over Mintaka. Ha......ha. It is not my influence on Mintaka, as an artist I am very humble of course. :-)))

Here he is, do you like him?

Mintaka, Kasia and sleepless night

2008-10-23T14:26:00.000-07:00

©kbt 2008 -mixed media

I am painting millions paintings in my brain

I don't sleep. I can't sleep.

As a substitute for a sleep I imagine that I paint and

Indeed I am painting millions paintings in my brain.

I am dreaming and Mintaka is watching over me.

My brain creates millions images and impressions in my memory

My memory is trying to remember my dreams and my visions.

My hands are drawing the encoded scraps of the past reality in my sleepless grey matter -

the wonderful past reality of those nights when I had been painting millions painting in my brain.

2009 Art Calendar- to buy.

2008-10-16T12:07:00.000-07:00

I just made a 2009 Art Calendar. It is avaiable to buy.
Soon a 2009 Dragon Calendar with Betelgeuse and Mintaka, will be ready, too.

Here the link to my shop where I sell the 2009 Art Calendar.

http://www.zazzle.com/kasiamuminek/gifts

Kenneth Clark: 'A Stick in the Mud...'

2008-09-28T05:54:00.001-07:00

I know this video has nothing to do with the Fantasy Art but nevertheless everything to do with Art.
And we are chatting here about art.

Kenneth Clark was an extraordinary man. With his passion for art, humans and his believe in the Goodness of homo sapience.

His TV program 'Civilisation: A Personal View' about art and in general the human civilisation was a very unusual one,a masterpiece.
"It is lack of confidence, more than anything else, that kills a civilisation. We can destroy ourselves by cynicism and disillusion, just as effectively as by bombs."

I just created a New Universe

2008-09-14T04:27:00.000-07:00

This is an image of the Universe, the one where Mintaka and Betelgeuse supposed to go.
I used my abstract painting - "Just at the right side"and manipulated with it.
(All my abstract paintings, fantasy art, surreal paintings and digital images will be soon to see on my new website.)
I like it very much actually, what about you?

My FantasyArt images

2008-09-13T04:15:00.001-07:00

Some Fantasy Art images, photos and paintings I made.

Weird World - based on a picture of the sky I took a year ago at the Beacon Hill. I manipulated the photo, I turned it around.
Fantasy - The green part of this image is a photo - I took it in Williton, it is a meadow/ a field a few minutes walk from our house here. The dark part I painted in the Adobe Photoshop.
Fantasy Evening in Cologne - I love Cologne, I think it is a wonderful city, great museums, very interesting collection of art, nice city for a long walk, the old part is small but cosy. And the Cathedral is just amazing. But about the photo - ordinary photo with some extra visual effects - the planets. When we stood at the other side of the river and were taking the photos of the evening, the bridge and the Dom I just thought/ had a vision "it will be wonderful if you could see beautiful big planets in the sky in that spring time...in Cologne (don't do any association with the song Spring Time for Hitler from the Producers (nota bene I love this movie)). Made in Photoshop too.
Panta Rhei - my oil on canvas painting. The inspiration for this painting was Callas, Maria Callas. I listened to her singing the most beautiful arias from the less popular operas and just painted. By the way Panta Rhei means " everything is in a state of flux". This is a famous aphorism and it comes from Simplicius but it used to used to characterize Heraclitus, one of the greatest Greek philosophers. Phanta Rhei: the ocean, the bird, and the doors to our desires and our dreams and our subconscious.
Wormhole - this is pure digital image. I was experimented with Photo Shop and discovered per accident lots of possibilities presented inside the Adobe Photoshop. I drew some stuff and than just used some tools I discovered. It is fun!

More digital images you can find at my facebook page:
http://www.new.facebook.com/home.php#/album.php?aid=20387&id=608063290

I would love to here your comments what do you think about my surreal/ digital/ fantasy art paintings/ work.

Some of the images are available as wallpapers. Here is the link to that page:
http://fantasydragonart.com/wallpaper_download.html

A new painitng of Betelgeuse

2008-08-24T14:49:00.000-07:00

My dragons are growing. They just got out of their eggs.
Here is Betelgeuse. He is wondering about the world around him.

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU

2008-08-15T19:50:00.001-07:00

This is amazing. A surreal art a'la Dada.

Tomasz Sętowski - update

2008-08-14T05:23:00.000-07:00

Tomasz Setwoski, Sunken World of Dreams, oil on canvas.

A quick update about Tomasz Sętowski.
If you are visiting Gdansk (the beautiful and famous city in North Poland) you should absolutely visit the Maritime Museum. The museum owns some very wonderful paintings of Setowski.

If you are by chance in Switzerland don’t forget to visit the Museum of Fantasy Art – actually the Centre d'Art Fantastique du château de Gruyères in Gruyères. This museum owns few paintings of Setowski, too. The castle Gruyères is one of the most prestigious in Switzerland and the medieval town is worth to visit too.

“The tour of the castle offers a walk through eight centuries of architecture, history and culture"

William Blake and his Great Red Dragons

2008-07-29T14:18:00.000-07:00

This is inexplicable but nevertheless I am fascinated by the poetry and art of William Blake.

William Blake, the visionary, even hallucinatory English painter and poet, who lived at the dawn of the technological era (1757-1827). I think he was a better poet than a painter, but this opinion is in the eye of the beholder. Unlike most artists of his era he did not draw from life, claiming that the visions that appeared before him were clearer and more vivid than his perception of external reality. He was a happy lunatic, an fantastic artist or maybe a realistic one? Though it is hard to classify Blake’s body of work in one genre, he heavily influenced the Romantic poets with recurring themes of good and evil, heaven and hell, knowledge and innocence, and external reality versus inner. Going against common conventions of the time, Blake believed in sexual and racial equality and justice for all, rejected the Old Testament’s teachings in favour of the New, and abhorred oppression in all its forms. He focused his creative efforts beyond the five senses, for,

If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern.—from The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Around 1805-1810, Blake was commissioned to create over a hundred paintings illustrating books from the Bible. Among these was a four-painting cycle of the Great Red Dragon (Satan) from the Book of Revelations in the Bible. The dragon is described as having seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven crowns. His tail drew one third of the stars of the sky, and threw them to the earth.

Here are the paintings from the cycle of the Great Red Dragon:

Zdzislaw Beksinski - date of birth

2008-07-24T03:44:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the mistake in the previous post about Beksinski date of birth. He was born in 1929 not in 1941. I have no idea why I did it. Google/ Blogger doesn't allow me to correct my mistake anymore, also a new mystery and misery of the wonderful program.

The Fantastic Art of Beksinski

2008-07-23T04:32:00.000-07:00

I hope you have heard the name Zdzislaw Beksinski. One of the most talented Fantasy Artists from the last decades of XX Century. (Born in 1941, died in 2005).

I am writing a post about him, but for the time being I thought you would like to see a video about his art. Under the video you will find a link to a amazing book about him (it is from Amazon.com). Watch this inspiring video. The artwork is 100% better in reality than on the screen.

The best books over and by Leonardo da Vinci

2008-07-09T08:47:00.000-07:00

Here are my private selection of the best books over and by Leonardo da Vinci; especially for UK and Europe

Amazon.co.uk Widgets

Salvador Dali - Painting and Film

2008-06-27T14:25:00.000-07:00

I just came across this article in The New York Times about Dali films and paintings. At the moment at Museum of Modern Art in New York is a special exhibition about Dali "Dali: Painting and Film” continues through Sept. 15;

Reflections Through a Surrealistic Eye: Dalí and the Camera

Published: June 27, 200

By ROBERTA SMITH

Published: June 27, 2008

Nearly 80 years on, the famous image from “Un Chien Andalou,” which Salvador Dali and his art-school friend Luis Buñuel cobbled together in Paris in April 1929, remains one of the most shocking in all cinema. A woman’s face fills the screen. A man’s left hand widens the lids of her left eye; his right begins to draw a straight razor across it. Then there is, as it were, a jump cut. The razor slices through the eye of a dead cow and gelatinous ooze tumbles forth. Yick, and whew. Such special effects are crude by today’s digital standards. But the high point of the first genuinely Surrealist film can still be churning no matter how often you see it.

At the moment that can be as often you please, thanks to “Dalí: Painting and Film,” a strangely piecemeal, open-ended and inspiring exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. Organized by the Tate Modern in London in cooperation with the Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí in Figueres, Spain, it has been overseen by Jodi Hauptman, a curator of drawings at MoMA, and is accompanied by an extensive film program selected by Anne Morra, an assistant curator in film. The show tracks the traffic of images, themes and ideas between Dalí’s films, both realized and not, and his more static efforts, including paintings, drawings, letters, illustrated notes, scenarios and other ephemera.

“Un Chien Andalou” is projected continuously in the show’s first gallery, following a batch of paintings, collages and ink drawings that Dalí made from 1922 through 1931. They include a stately portrait of Buñuel from 1924 done in Picasso’s neo-Classical style, and hints of things to come. A painting and drawing from 1927 feature a severed hand, like the one seen in “Un Chien Andalou” lying on a busy Parisian street being poked with a stick by a moody young woman.

The penchant for decaying flesh so present in Dalí’s art is literalized quite bluntly in “Un Chien Andalou.” It takes the form of two dead donkeys laid out on the strings of grand pianos. Those are harnessed to a young man trying to force his attentions on the young woman who earlier dodged the straight razor, holding him back like a combination of guilt, social constraint and fear. The cluster of scurrying ants — like that stream from the stigmatalike wound in another hand in the film — recur throughout the exhibition, migrating across faces, gathering in corners, exploring bodily orifices. (Also on view is a detailed letter from Buñuel about how to transport ants from Spain to Paris and have them lively enough for purposes of filming.)

Born in the Catalan town of Figueres in 1904, Dalí was endowed with a litany of textbook neuroses. He was named for an older brother who died the year before he was born, and he never lived down the notion that he was a poor substitute; he learned early on to use outrageous behavior to mask his shyness, inferiority complex and sexual ambivalence.

At an early age he recognized painting as his salvation, demonstrating a gift for rendering that suggested Van Eyck’s exacting skill softened by the subtle lusciousness of Vermeer. He read Freud word for word, devoured avant-garde magazines. Inspired by Bosch, de Chirico and Miro, he began to paint Surrealism’s most optically precise and psychologically disturbing images almost before he ever went to Paris. His vast pristine plains interrupted by jagged mountains, architectural ruins and variously grotesque, fraught and sexual signs of life are among painting’s most convincing portraits of the mind and its discontents.

But Dalí’s devotion to painting was not exclusive. There was the continuing performance that was Dalí himself, with his gift for publicity and controversy, his relentless narcissism and frenetic imagination. There is his enormous body of writing: a novel, poetry, an autobiography and numerous theoretical essays. There were set designs, beginning in 1927 with those for “Mariana Pineda,” a play by another close art-school friend, the poet Federico García Lorca, and later for ballets by Massine and Balanchine.

He gravitated to film as soon as movies began to be shown regularly in theaters throughout Europe (including Figueres) in the late 1910s and early ’20s. Like many avant-garde artists in both Europe and America, he admired the work of Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd and the Marx Brothers, especially Harpo, the silent and, for him, most Surreal sibling. (Groucho Marx noted that Dalí “is in love with my brother — in a nice way.”)

But mainly Dalí grasped that film’s capacities — for depicting irrationality in action; for dissolving, continually mutating images; and for an intensely real unreality — were all ready-made for his sensibility and his desire to reach a mass audience. Dalí’s pristine, limitless plains were lifted almost verbatim from the implicitly surreal landscape of his beloved Catalonia, but they also had the artificiality of a Hollywood soundstage.

Nicely, the show at MoMA doesn’t sequester the films in pitch-black rooms. Their grainy or silvery grisailles flicker in full sight of Dalí’s often small, intensely colored paintings, which sit on the walls like brilliant boxed jewels.

As the exhibition ebbs and flows, the drawings and films gradually supersede the paintings. Subsequent galleries display nonstop projections of “L’Age d’Or,” which Buñuel and Dalí made in 1930, and the somewhat questionable “Destino,” the sprightly animated short of love and loss that Dalí worked on energetically for Walt Disney in 1946, only to have Disney pull the plug. It was resuscitated and completed in consultation with John Hench, one of Dalí’s original collaborators at Disney, in 2003, but a large batch of Dalí’s original sketches attest to the attempt to remain true to his ideas.

In the final gallery “Chaos and Creation,” a 1960 video of a Happening that Dalí staged with the photographer Philippe Halsman, involves some nearly naked women, a few very clean pigs and an intense dislike of Mondrian. It is both a period piece and a testament to an artist striving to keep up with his times.

“Adventures in Upper Mongolia — Homage to Raymond Roussel,” a largely abstract film conceived by Dalí and made by the Spanish director José Montes-Baquer in 1975 is more original. The narration of the film’s veil-like layers and suspended patches of rusts, golds and blues concerns a journey in search of hallucinogenic mushrooms. The label informs us that the motifs are microscopic images, much enlarged, of the oxidation on the brass details of some fountain pens, and moreover that Dalí urinated on them every day to accelerate the oxidation process. The film could have been made by a young Pictures appropriation artist in the 1980s.

The show’s drop-dead gallery is dominated by an enormous projection of the dream sequence Dalí designed for “Spellbound,” Alfred Hitchcock’s 1944 suspense classic starring Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck. One scene of a man with a giant pair of scissors cutting a huge curtain painted with multiple eyes echoes “Un Chien Andalou.” (In fact it had been planned before Dali signed on.) In her catalog essay about the film, Sara Cochran rightly considers this an indication of how completely contemporary culture and especially Hollywood had assimilated the style and motifs of Surrealism. For all its violence, the razor scene in “Un Chien Andalou” announced an intention not only to shock but to “open” the eye to a new way of seeing. MoMA’s fragmentary yet haunting show provides a fresh view of how Dalí, for all his outrageousness, never stopped trying to live according to the ambition he so brutally visualized.

The Lagend of Wawel Dragon

2008-06-24T07:37:00.000-07:00

I recently spent a few days in Cracow (Kraków is the Polish spelling), celebrating my birthday together with my partner. He had never been to Cracow and I thought he should visit at least once one of the most interesting, historic and magical cities in Poland. One day in May we arrived in Cracow. And of course we had to visit Wawel, the Royal Castle, the Cathedral and the Dragon’s Den. Yep; it is a serious thing, the Dragon’s Den under the Wawel Hill. As a creator of two extraordinary dragons, Betelgeuse and Mintaka, I could not of course ignore the fascinating legend of Cracow about the Wawel Dragon. I even made a short movie – I filmed the dragon’s den for you. I will publish it as soon as I can get my Sony camcorder software to download the video from my Sony Camcorder!

For now here is an illustration of the Wawel Dragon from Sebastian Münster's, Cosmographie Universalis from 1544,

As usual in European culture the Wawel Dragon is a monster. A carnivorous, gigantic beast, consuming young women, and he is particular fond of virgins (what is it that’s so special about virgins?!).
King Krak, a legendary king of Cracow, was very afraid that soon he would have to leave the newly founded town if no one could stop the Dragon eating young girls, killing civilians, pillaging their homes and devouring their livestock.
The bravest knights and warriors of the King took on the fight against the dragon but none of them succeed in vanquishing it. The King became desperate. When every girl in the city was eventually sacrificed except one, the King's daughter Wanda, the King promised his beautiful daughter's hand in marriage to anybody who could defeat the dragon. Great warriors from near and far fought for the prize and failed. One day, a poor cobbler's apprentice named Skuba Dratewka accepted the challenge. He stuffed a lamb with sulphur and put it outside the dragon's cave. The dragon ate it and soon became extremely thirsty. He turned to the Vistula River for relief and he drank and drank and drank. But no amount of water could quell his aching stomach, and after swelling up from drinking half of the Vistula River, he exploded! Skuba Dratewka married the King's daughter as promised and they lived happily ever after.
In Poland to this day people who are admired for dealing with tricky situations in a shrewd way are sometimes described in slang as ‘skubany’.

Betelgeuse and Mintaka, Part I - The First Contact

2008-06-04T08:17:00.000-07:00

The Evolution of the Dragon, by Ellliot Smith

2008-05-21T01:22:00.000-07:00

I did some search on Gutenberg.org about the subject fantasy art (for my book "Much Ado About Fantasy Art History) and found this scientific article (book) about dragons. The Evolution of the Dragon, by Elliot Smith (PROFESSOR OF ANATOMY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER) from 1919.
Very interesting one, maybe not for an average reader but for the more intellectual one....
If you are into ancient time, history, archaeology and anthropology maybe you will find it fascinating. Here a fragment from the article:

In the earliest records from Egypt and Babylonia it is customary to portray a king's beneficence by representing him initiating irrigation works. In course of time he came to be regarded, not merely as the giver of the water which made the desert fertile, but as himself the personification and the giver of the vital powers of water. The fertility of the land and the welfare of the people thus came to be regarded as dependent upon the king's vitality. Hence it was not illogical to kill him when his virility showed signs of failing and so imperilled the country's prosperity. But when the view developed that the dead king acquired a new grant of vitality in the other world he became the god Osiris, who was able to confer even greater boons of life-giving to the land and people than was the case before. He was the Nile, and he fertilized the land. The original dragon was a beneficent creature, the personification of water, and was identified with kings and gods.
But the enemy of Osiris became an evil dragon, and was identified with Set.

The dragon-myth, however, did not really begin to develop until an ageing king refused to be slain, and called upon the Great Mother, as the giver of life, to rejuvenate him. Her only elixir was human blood; and to obtain it she was compelled to make a human sacrifice. Her murderous act led to her being compared with and ultimately identified with a man-slaying lioness or a cobra. The story of the slaying of the dragon is a much distorted rumour of this incident; and in the process of elaboration the incidents were subjected to every kind of interpretation and also confusion with the legendary account of the conflict between Horus and Set.

When a substitute was obtained to replace the blood the slaying of a human victim was no longer logically necessary: but an explanation had to be found for the persistence of this incident in the story. Mankind (no longer a mere individual human sacrifice) had become sinful and rebellious (the act of rebellion being complaints that the king or god was growing old) and had to be destroyed as a punishment for this treason. The Great Mother continued to act as the avenger of the king or god. But the enemies of the god were also punished by Horus in the legend of Horus and Set. The two stories hence became confused the one with the other. The king Horus took the place of the Great Mother as the avenger of the gods. As she was identified with the moon, he became the Sun-god, and assumed many of the Great Mother's attributes, and also became her son. In the further development of the myth, when the Sun-god had completely usurped his mother's place, the infamy of her deeds of destruction seems to have led to her being confused with the rebellious men who were now called the followers of Set, Horus's enemy. Thus an evil dragon emerged from this blend of the attributes of the Great Mother and Set. This is the Babylonian Tiamat. From the amazingly complex jumble of this tissue of confusion all the incidents of the dragon-myth were derived.

When attributes of the Water-god or his enemy became assimilated with those of the Great Mother and the Warrior Sun-god, the animals with which these deities were identified came to be regarded individually and collectively as concrete expressions of the Water-god's powers. Thus the cow and the gazelle, the falcon and the eagle, the lion and the serpent, the fish and the crocodile became symbols of the life-giving and the life-destroying powers of water, and composite monsters or dragons were invented by combining parts of these various creatures to express the different manifestations of the vital powers of water. The process of elaboration of the attributes of these monsters led to the development of an amazingly complex myth: but the story became still further involved when the dragon's life-controlling powers became confused with man's vital spirit and identified with the good or evil genius which was regarded as the guest, welcome or unwelcome, of every individual's body, and the arbiter of his destiny. In my remarks on the ka and the fravashi I have merely hinted at the vast complexity of these elements of confusion.

Arcimboldo - an eccentric artis

2008-05-16T13:13:00.000-07:00

I am busy at the moment writing a book about Fantasy Art and its history. While searching online and reading reports and books on this subject, I have discovered that some artists, that for me so obviously (and without any doubt) should belong to the genre of unique fantasy art/fantastic artists haven’t been mention at all; either in books or reports. Extremely peculiar.

One of the artists that I haven’t come across in any of the sources I looked through is Giuseppe Arcimboldo. Maybe the reason that nobody has mentioned him is the fact that his art is very bizarre and very difficult to categorize. People love to pigeonhole everything. If something or somebody is very unique or uncanny or extremely original and difficult to put away in a drawer with other similar things than sometimes we just ignore it or forget it. This is only my speculation.

Back to the artist Giuseppe Arcimboldo. Arcimboldo was born in Milan in 1527 and grew up during the High Renaissance (Mannerism). He was extremely famous during his lifetime. He was a court painter of Emperor Ferdinand I (Habsburg), then Maximilian II and at the end Rudolph II. Part of Arcimboldo's duties included designing gala events for the imperial family. These were flashy affairs with gilded fountains and rivers of champagne, parades and promenades, flocks of coloured birds, music, theatre, tons of original artwork, sculptures, and much pageantry. Arcimboldo invented many unique special effects for these events such as an enormous hydro-mechanically powered musical instrument which acted like a modern colour organ; called the "Harpsichord of Colour." He was a man of many talents, and in the vein of other Renaissance great spirits (like Leonardo da Vinci) he served also as an architect, stage designer, engineer, water engineer and art specialist.

But as soon as he was dead he was totally forgotten. I can only speculate again about the reason, why people lost interest in his art. Perhaps he was misunderstood by the generations that followed? Maybe his sinister paintings weren’t enjoyable, interesting or intriguing? Or maybe they were too bamboozling, too insane for people of past centuries. Some of the contemporary reviews spoke about “the state of a deranged mind”. The interest in his abstruse and fantastic pictures, of which we only have a very few originals nowadays, revived only at the end of the 19th century. The surrealist movement brought him back into the public interest.

Personally I like his bizarre paintings. They are such unique art works, unique concepts, the creations of a very eccentric, intelligent and sophisticated brain. The documents of the time bear witness to the fact that monarchs and his contemporaries in general were also enthusiastic about his art.

His most recognizable paintings are known as the The Four Seasons series. The artistic concept of these pictures from 1563 was unique and laid the foundation of Arcimboldo’s success as a painter. The Four Seasons consist of four paintings - Winter, Spring, Summer and Autumn. All of them depict faces and heads but not normal human heads, vegetable-fruit-flower-tree heads.

Other famous works by him are: Water and Fire (1566), The Lawyer (1566), The Cook (1570) another series of the Four Seasons from 1572, two series of Four Seasons in 1573. He painted The Four Seasons twice again in 1577.

In 1591 he painted two of his most famous pictures, Flora (c.1591) and Vertumnus (1590-1591. Vertumnus is a portrait of Rudolph II, showing him as Vertumnus, the ancient Roman god of vegetation and transformation. The painting Verumnus consists entirely of magnificent fruits, flowers and vegetables. Rudolph II awarded Arcimboldo one of his highest orders in 1592. Next year on 11 July 1593 the painter died.

The Winter 1572 (Private Collection, Bergamo)

Looking at Arcimboldo’s bizarre paintings I can’t escape from thoughts about the human brain and the endless possibilities of the uncontrolled imagination. How did a man born in the time of the Renaissance, in a time when nobody painted such paintings, decide to create monstrous images of human heads?

For example, have a look at the Winter - head from The Four Seasons. The profile of the man is made up from the knobby stump of a tree, with a broken branch for the nose, moss for the stubble on the chin and two parasitic mushrooms for the lips. Is this more or less sinister than the hellish monsters thought up by Hieronymus Bosch? Arcimboldo paints a parody that is at times almost plausible in its suggestions of death and decay in a living being. The Winter portrait, the image of the head can horrify people, but at the same time it is so amazingly beautiful. The balance of the colour-palette is astonishing and tremendous. What a great imagination Arcimboldo had, and what a great colourist he was!

These puzzle-visionary-capriccio images of all the Portraits-Heads-Faces made by Arcimboldo are incredibly unusual, surreal and fantastic. I am curious if there are viewers who won’t see any faces in his paintings, only flowers and vegetables?

Above is a painting from a series based on the Four Seasons; this one is called Summer. The nose of the person appears to be made out of a very ripe cucumber. The chin is from a pear, and the cheek is made from a peach. Look closely at the man's coat. Can you see the name of the artist woven into the collar of his jacket, and the date 1573 embroidered on the shoulder?

Tamara Lempicka – the master of mystification.

2008-05-08T03:28:00.001-07:00

Maybe you are wondering why I am talking here about Tamara Lempicka. She has nothing to do with Fantasy Art; not really.

She painted some surreal landscapes, at the end of her artistic career, but they were not especially outstanding or unusually beautiful. Personally I think they are not even average. But nevertheless she wasn't a surreal painter, she was an very original portraitist. But it is her life that is more interesting that her art. She was the master of mystification; she mastered the skill of disorientation, puzzlement and confusion to the highest level. There is no single thing from her biography she didn't colorize at all, sometimes for public relation purposes, sometimes out of vanity, indisputably that is why the story of her life is as difficult to put together as biographies of the masters of early gothic.

It is hard to tell you where Lempicka's paintings can be seen, firstly because they are owned predominantly by private collectors.

I had enormous luck once when I was in Vienna, I think it was in the autumn of 2004. Almost the whole collection of her paintings were to be found in BA – CA Kunst Forum. That exhibition was the first complete exhibition of her work. I was totally conquered by her work. As I was born in Poland I heard of course about her (she was one of the not so many famous female artists and not only that, she was Polish too!) but I never saw her work live. I expected lots of paintings in Art Deco style but I had no idea that she was not only very famous in her time for her lifestyle but also for her talent.

Some official text "She is best known for her pictures epitomising the flair and lifestyle of Art Deco: her Self-portrait in a green Bugatti stands as a symbol for the period, but Lempicka's exceptional artistic qualities have remained largely unappreciated. Today's art world is experiencing renewed interest in the figurative and realistic painting of the 20th century. The younger generation has rediscovered artists who, turning their backs on the official avant-gardes, developed independently and made their own way. Artists such as Frida Kahlo, Edward Hopper, Francis Picabia and Tamara de Lempicka have acquired new importance and relevancy in postmodern art history as well"

The BA-CA Kunstforum showed included around 60 major works from museums and private collections in Europe and the USA.

I found in her painting lots of cool erotic undercurrents. I will try to explain it: a combination of sultry sensuality and cool classicism, together with the influence of cubism give the paintings an original, unique erotic magic. It was a quite experience for me. I visited the exhibition twice, and spent a lot time inside the walls, admiring Lempicka's paintings. I was imagining the exciting time that she lived between the two World Wars, the time of decadence (almost every artist would love to be decadent), Paris, Hollywood, her marriages, her sexual affairs (lots of them). Her style of living was very different from contemporary moral norms. We have become more and more strait-laced. I am wondering why?

Where can you see Lempicka's work? Three paintings are owned and exposed in Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, in Paris. To know: "The Unfinished Man", "Kizette on the Balcony" and "Girl with Gloves". National Museum in Warsaw has owned three of her paintings, but unfortunately they do not expose it. (I guess it is possible to arrange a private 'meeting', I will try it very soon). The rest of her paintings are owned by private collections/collectors. If I am wrong, please let me know and correct me.

Dream

Marc Chagall, the visual poet!

2008-04-30T14:42:00.001-07:00

I gave an interview recently about Art, Fantasy Art, me - being an artist. At one point the interviewer asked me which artists from the Surrealist Stream impressed me, influenced me the most. I said nobody in particular. But after few minutes I came back to the question. There is one painter that I was really impressed with, and I still am. Chagall.

I made once a long time ago a water colour painting 'la Chagall. I sold it or gave it to somebody, can't remember. I don't have it any more. It was a nice one. The street where my grandparents lived, a row of houses, a farmer with horse and wagon, a flying angel, a violinist on top of a church, some toys from my childhood. The whole painting was like a picture from my childhood of my happy tie with my wonderful granny and grandad.

Later that same day I was thinking about Chagall. I love his art, his spirit, some of his creations.
A great free spirit, great imagination, incredible feeling for colours, unbelievably productive.
Maybe in the beginning of his stay in Paris he was influenced by cubism but for the rest his art was unique. He dreamed his life. He painted a life not a dream. He painted that which he saw and how he saw it. Using his imagination and the pallete of the colours he has been telling stories about his life, his loves, his wives, his parents, his friends, his people and their history (Jewish). He was a passionate inmate of this planet.

He got very angry when people called him surrealist. He answered: "Don't call me a fantastic artist! On the contrary, I am a realist. I love the World."

He lived in a world where the cows were flying in space; the fish were playing violins, where the lovers were connected in a passionate embrace in the clouds, where everything was possible. I love his world; his world is my world too. Period!

My favorite creation by Chagall is his first big work, the sketches, drawings and paintings for the Jewish Theater in Moscow. I just loved them. I saw all of them in the Jewish Museum in Amsterdam.

A big collection of Chagall work (not only the biblical paintings) can be found in Nice in his own museum; Musée National Message Biblique, Marc Chagall. Don't expect any information in English. Welcome to France!

Moma NY has a few paintings and a lot of sketches and drawings.

The Marc Chagall Museum in Vitebsk (Belarus) owns the following collection: the series of illustrations to Nicolai Gogol's poem "Dead Souls" (1923-1925), the series of colour lithographs on the theme of the Bible, made in 1956 and 1960, the cycle of colour lithographs "The 12 Tribes of Israel" (1960) and other works by Marc Chagall.

2008-04-30T13:58:00.001-07:00

La Mariee

Art Print

Chagall, Marc

Buy at AllPosters.com

Introduction Video to a fantas

2008-04-21T08:31:00.000-07:00

Introduction Video to my new story, in pictures as well as in word, about two extraordinary dragons, Betelgeuse and Mintaka from the Nebula in the Constellation of Orion.

Betelgeuse and Mintaka, the Boltzmann Babies.

Jan Szancer and Tomasz Setowski, only a randomness or not?

2008-04-15T13:42:00.001-07:00

Since I saw the first paintings of Tomasz Setowski, one thought was going and going and going through my cranium (or skull will be better?) that I already once, in the past saw this kind of style somewhere, somehow. Every time I have looked on an image of one of his paintings I had a kind of déjà vu. The fact that I couldn't find what is was or who, made me in some way mad. But few days ago......I got it.....Eureka. The mysterious person from the past has been Jan Marcin Szancer. I have no idea of Tomasz Setowski would admit it or not but his style has lots in common with Jan Szancer. And there is 99% of certainty that he saw as a child the illustrations in books made by Szancer. Every polish child knew, knows and will know " Akademię Pana Kleksa" written by Jan Brzechwa and illustrated by Szancer ( Academy of Mr Blot). It is a magical book, one of the most charming, fantastic, humorous, imaginary and intelligent children books. Believe me, I am an expert in the literature, and I read all the most important children books from all over the world (some in original language edition – Dutch, German, English, Polish and Russian).Those books about Mr Blot (they are 3 books about Mr Blot) belong to the fantasy books.

Jan Marcin Szancer (November 12,1902–March 24, 1973) was a famous Polish illustrator. He studied at Kraków's Academy of Fine Arts, and later in France and Italy. Szancer illustrated more than 240 books. Most of those books are children's books but there were also some serious illustrations for adult's books. Szancer possessed unlimited imagination. His illustrations teach, amuse, build a vision of a magic world of imagination and give us a chance to escape into another universe.

Here some more of Szancer's illustrations.

Tomasz Setowski-the next exhibition.

2008-04-15T06:29:00.001-07:00

Nadejscie wiosny - Tomasz Setowski ( the Arrival of the Spring)

For the 'lovers' of Tomasz Setowski's art, I have some new information.

The next his big exposition is in Dubai, in April. This is a great occasion to visit Dubai, the most hot and hip and sky-scraping place of this moment.

For those under us who are not exceptional rich but still would like to see the work of mr. Setkowski, I have a nice announcement. There is a great possibility in Poland to see his work and during the whole year round. Namely, in Częstochowa mr. Sętowski has own Gallery with his own paintings, of course. I am planning to be there at the end of May. I hope to see you there too.

Here the address, the name of the gallery and the phone/email.

Muzeum Wyobraźni - Galeria autorska Tomasza Sętowskiego
ul.Oławska 2
Częstochowa 42-200

tel: 034 366 66 28
email: muzeum_wyobrazni@O2.pl

Legendary Dragons and Fantasy Dragons

2008-04-10T08:15:00.000-07:00

They are hundreds different kind of dragons. I had no idea that there are more dragon’s races and species than homo sapience’s races. They have different names, different ancestors, different background, created in different culture and different time; they look different, they behave different, they smell probably different too. They are dragons with four legs, with two legs, with wings, without wings, with long neck or short neck, good dragons and bad dragons.
My favourite species under dragons is probably “Sean Connery”- Draco from the Dragonheart. He is smart, he has sophisticated sense of humour, he is lovely, he is brave and he has a very seductive Scottish accent. :-)))
Back to the “Real” Dragons, to the mind topic of this post.
How many variety of dragons did I found till now?

Check this list:

Fire dragon
Water dragon
Earth dragon
Storm dragon
Wyrm
Wyvern
Sea Serpent
Hydra
Lindwor
Amphisbaena
Amphitere
Hatchling - Baby dragon in the egg
Drake
Naga
Eastern Dragon ? (Chinese, Japanese – many of them water dragons, many of them without wings and don’t breath fire)
Western Dragon (the one with four legs, long neck and batlike wings; with preference for a sheep, an ox or a human – consumed monthly; breath fire!)

They are probably hundreds of dragon’s names that I didn’t mention here. And by the way, a new species of dragons pop up all the time. Great exemplars are the two new dragons Betelgeuse and Mintaka that I created recently. They belong to the Dragon Civilisation called The Shepherds of Seven.

Here they are in the outer space and here can you find more images http://dragonfantasyart.com

And then they are the Legendary dragons like:

Hydrus
Dragon of St. George
Drachenstein
Bazyliszek or Basilik
Beowulf
Quetzalcoatl
Apalala
TiamatF
Fafnir
Smok Wawelski
Sui-Riu
T'ien Lung

Cheers to all these Dragons!

Shoji Tanaka and Surreal Art

2008-04-01T10:48:00.001-07:00

Do you have any idea, even a fuzzy one, what you get if you mix together the spirit of Hieronymus Bosch's creations and the legacy of the medieval art plus the speck of Chagall's "world of dreams" plus Japanese background? No...........I haven't had any idea too.......till I found Shoji Tanaka.

Shoji Tanaka is a Japanese artist, genre Fantasy Art or maybe he will appreciate the name Fantastic Artist or Surreal Art (but I think he is not sensu stricto).

I have discovered (maybe I am wrong, please correct me if I am) that his paintings are hard to be found in galleries in Europe.

But there is something to see in USA, Main Street, Maroochy, Queensland. Never been there.

This year there is a great, great exhibition of Fantasy Art & Fantastic Art & Surreal Art in Japan, in Kyoto. Most of the Artist will be Japanese's artist. I would love to see it, I have been fascinated since 30 years by Japanese literature – incredible magical and beautiful.

I think it will be amazing to be there, but I am not sure how to accomplish it. The opening is today, the exhibition is open only one week and I still can't walk right after my foot-surgery in February..

Bye, bye Fantasy Art......

Shoji Tanaka

2008-04-01T10:46:00.000-07:00

Draconia - Shoji Tanaka

Ukulele Orchestra of GB - Life on Mars

2008-03-26T23:21:00.001-07:00

Life of Mars - Fantasy and Music..:-))

Surrealist Artist - Jaroslaw Kukowski

2008-03-24T16:30:00.000-07:00

His name is Jaroslaw Kukowski and you should know about him. Why? Because he is a great artist.
He was born on 11 April 1972 in Tczew, Poland. In his paintings he deals with moral and social issues in a controversial manner. Early in his artistic career, his works, which were regarded as symbolic, were filled with drama and sadness. Full of pain, deformed human figures along with mystic creatures were depicted against the background of surrealistic landscapes. He defined this series of works as Undreams. During another period, he lightened his palette when he became interested in nudes; nevertheless, even there, a viewer can perceive the brand of disintegration and passing time. In another stage of his artistic career, he moved back to his early works, but despite fairer colouring, his work became more and more ironic and provocative. In 2001, some of his works were removed from an exhibition in The Gallery SD following complaints from some members of the audience.

Jaroslaw Kukowski is one of 50 Artists featured in the first publication entitled Metamorphosis.The best publication about contemporary Surreal & Fantastic Artists. You should have IT.

Arthur C. Clarke- 2001: A Space Odyssey Trailer

2008-03-19T13:53:00.001-07:00

Just saw on BBC that Arthur C.Clarke dies today. He was born in my lovely Somerset,in Minehead.
Searching on YouTube found this video - Official 2001: A Space Odyssey Trailer
"A Space Odyssey" is Clarke's best-known book, a great book with a vision of extra-terrestrial civilisations. The movie is great, too. Absolutely one of the best of Kubrick's Movies

(From AFP news) Arthur C. Clarke was a visionary, born on December 16, 1917 first attracted attention after the Second World War when he wrote an article predicting satellites would make global broadcasts a reality -- years ahead of their time.

Drawn to Sri Lanka in 1956 by scuba diving, which the British author said was as near as he could get to the weightlessness of space, he lived in an "electronic cottage" from which he communicated with the world using computers and radios.

Clarke, who suffered from post-polio syndrome and was in later years confined to a wheelchair, was paid just 15 pounds for the theory that led to a satellite industry worth billions of dollars.

"People say I could have made a lot of money if I applied for a patent," Clarke recounted in the strong Somerset burr that he kept all his life. "I did not get a patent because I never thought it will happen in my lifetime."

After a varied career as an author, underwater explorer, space promoter and science populariser, he said in his last public message marking his 90th birthday in December he would like to be recalled mainly as an author.

"I want to be remembered most as a writer -- one who entertained readers, and, hopefully, stretched their imagination as well," Clarke said; "I have no regrets and no more personal ambition."

Chinese Red Dragon Statue

2008-03-15T17:07:00.000-07:00

I found this video on Viddler.com .
An interesting promotion method of
your own product.
I add this video on my blog for different
reason of course. And the reason is
the dragon.
Red Chinese Dragon Statue. His name is Secretsoarer Fyrescale! Peculiar.

Fantasy Art and Dragons

2008-03-13T10:21:00.000-07:00

I am very, very busy at the moment with a brand new internet project. It combines Art, Fantasy Art and Dragons from Orion in an Online World. I am very curious to discover in which direction it will develop and grow.

In the beginning I got a crazy idea, a vision, and a wild story in my brain. The story is about two baby dragons from another planet and another celestial time. The next step was the creation of the dragons. I just sat down and drew them. Jim liked them very much, his kids liked them too, my kids and friends liked them also, and I .........I just fell in love with them...I'm still in love.

Enough words about it, if you are curious just go to the page and keep in touch as things progress, I think the voyage will be very exciting. I hope you will enjoy my creation together with me.

http://fantasydragonart.com

Vampire versus Vampire, Dracula and Lilith

2008-03-04T14:28:00.001-08:00

The notion of vampirism has existed for millennia; cultures such as the Mesopotamians, Hebrews, Ancient Greeks, and Romans had tales of demons and spirits which are considered precursors to modern vampires. However, despite the occurrence of vampire-like creatures in these ancient civilizations, the folklore for the entity we know today as the vampire originates almost exclusively from early 18th century South-Eastern Europe, when verbal traditions of many ethnic groups of the region were recorded and published. In most cases, vampires are revenants of evil beings, suicide victims, or witches, but they can also be created by a malevolent spirit possessing a corpse or by being bitten by a vampire. Belief in such legends became so pervasive that in some areas it caused mass hysteria and even public executions of people believed to be vampires. (Info: Wiki)

The most beautiful vampire was without doubt Lilith from the painting by John Collier, 1892. The most gorgeous, seductive, full blood vampire!

The mythical Lilitu was probably born in the story tales in the ancient Babylonia. Lilitu was considered a demon and was often depicted as subsisting on the blood of babies. However, the Jewish counterparts were said to feast on men and women, as well as newborns.

Who was the most famous vampire?

I guess the “Little Dragon” alias Dracula. It means also the son of dragon or devil.
In real he was a nobleman, a prince, father of three sons. Vlad III was as prince maintained an independent policy in relation to the Ottoman Empire, and in Romania, he is viewed by many historicises as a prince with a deep sense of justice and a defender of Wallachia (part of Hungary) against Ottoman expansionism.
His absurdly cruel punishments earn him the nickname in later years of Vlad the Impaler, which echoed the mode of death that would destroy the legendary Count Dracula.

In the English-speaking world, Vlad III is best known for inspiring the name of the eponymous vampire in Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula. Stoker came across the name Dracula in a history book- which mistranslated it as “Wallachian for devil”- and substituted it for his character’s original name, Count Wampyr.
I wonder or the English would have been happy if the people of Wallachia had painted Queen Victoria as a very cruel, despotic, imperialistic witch. Probably not.

Boltzmann Babies

2008-02-29T14:57:00.001-08:00

My entry to the Simpleology competition for "Be the Next Best selling Author"

The Witcher Intro

2008-02-28T06:10:00.000-08:00

The Witcher Intro has been nominated by Visual Effects Society for the annual VES awards in the category of "Outstanding Pre-Rendered Visuals in a Video Game".

Outstanding production by Tomasz Baginski, Marcin Kobylecki, Grzegorz Kukus and Maciek Jackiewicz from Platige Image. Check out their other projects including the "Cathedral"

New surrealist painting - Bizarre Dream

2008-02-20T05:01:00.000-08:00

I just finished my new surrealist painting. Tell me what do you think about it? Feed back is actually not really a good thing for an artist. I have to admit I don't like criticism, I hate it. Negative critique has always discouraged me. Probably it is normal, especially if you are an artist; we have big egos but also very often we are very uncertain about our creations.

Here is the painting - "Bizarre Dream" or should it be Bizz Dream"?

Wyverns in Sampford Brett

2008-02-15T12:11:00.001-08:00

Sampford Brett is a very small village in the County of Somerset in South West England. My path often takes me through this village when I walk through the meadows, the woods and the fields around Williton (a village bigger than Sampford Brett). Sampford Brett is a village with some very old houses, with a beautiful garden (next to the church) that has stolen my heart and with an old church; a Gothic church naturally, The Church of St.George. Around the church there is an old cemetery (which is usual in the case of old churches in Europe). Some of the graves are extremely old. If you come across it by accident in the middle of the day, let's say in the summer, you will be delighted by the silence of this place, the beauty of the trees and the rose garden (by the entrance). Of course the present building of St. George Church cannot really be appreciated without some knowledge of how all this came about. This church is not the most amazing, or most beautiful medieval church in Somerset, but it has its own charm and attraction and an interesting history. The exact age of the church is uncertain but everything points to its foundation during the first q

uarter of the XIII century. By the end of the XIII century, the church consisted of a nave, chancel and a north transept. The tower was added in the XIV century, forming the main entrance to the church, and completing the basic structure which remained for almost five hundred years. In the XV century the use of the Perpendicular style of Gothic architecture was in full swing (and you can discover it in many medieval Somerset churches) and so the north transept of the St. George was extended, the walls of the nave and north transept were raised and new roofs added. Other major changes took place in XIX century. The style of this restoration is that of the early Victorian Gothic revival; very different in spirit and execution from the original. The results are still to be seen today, and they are the essence of the present church.

As you step from the porch into the nave your first sight of the interior of the church is an uninterrupted view through the nave and chancel to the east window. This is the body of the original church. The line of the roof still runs unbroken to the entrance to the chancel, confirming the medieval origin of the nave. The carved wooden roof bosses are part of the original roof. Although some of them are not in a very good state of preservation, they show great variety of style and subject matter. If you will look carefully you will find what I found, two creatures from the medieval bestiary; a pair of wyverns. Do you know what wyverns are? Wyverns are dragons with bat-like wings, long necks and only two legs. I also found in the roof of the nave a griffin and some vine leaves with a bunch of grapes. While you are outside the church if you look carefully up towards the tower you can discover a few remaining gargoyles; the evidence of the true Gothic style.

The most interesting and puzzling features of the church are the carved wooden bench ends. I couldn't believe that such a small unimportant village church in the middle of nowhere (who has heard of Sampford Brett?) could posses such incredibly wonderful artwork. No one knows how long they have been in the church, or how they came together as a collection. One of the wooden bench ends is associated with Florence Wyndham and the local legend about her. But expect more about this in my next post. See you soon.

Leonardo da Vinci and his Dragon

2008-02-10T11:49:00.000-08:00

You will probably ask yourself what Leonardo da Vinci has to do with Fantasy Art.

Leonardo was a visionary, an absolute visionary genius, like all the best Science Fiction writers, Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Issac Asimov, Stanisław Lem or Philip K. Dick. OK, but what has Leonardo to do with Fantasy Art, precisely speaking. You will be surprised what I discovered, he drew dragons and he even described in one of his notebooks how to paint/ draw a dragon “take for its head that of the mastiff of hound, with the eyes of a cat, the ears of porcupine, the nose of a greyhound, the brow of a lion, the temples of an old cock, the neck of water tortoise.”

Leonardo da Vinci is my hero, my master, my idol. I would love to be able to speak to him and to see him thinking and making sketches. In my dream, in my imagination it has happened already.

FantasyFairyArt

2008-02-08T14:55:00.001-08:00

I found this video on YouTube “Fantasy Fairy Art” made by lancecuttler.
Tell me what do you think about it?
The acoustic version of “Scarborough Fair” played by Riche Blackmore (from Deep Purple) is pretty; however I prefer the original version.
I think I like this video, the lights, the colours and the music – you can feel the magic.

The unspeakable beautiful city - Regensburg

2008-02-03T07:25:00.001-08:00

I have been thinking about the most beautiful, interesting "medieval" cities in Europe, ones that could be an inspiration for your fantasy.
All those cities in Europe with Gothic Cathedrals and churches have some medieval accents. But they are sacral buildings not secular ones. There are lots of Walled cities in Europe such as Avila and Girona in Spain, Rhodes in Greece, York in England. But what I was looking for was a city that still has (as much as possible in this time) the authentic character of medieval time and one I had visited and seen with my own eyes. I was thinking about all those cities I have seen with some medieval character: Bruges, Sienna, Salzburg, Dubrovnik, Krakow, Prague, Edinburgh of course, Torun (beautiful medieval city in Poland). And suddenly I knew the name of the most unspeakable beautiful medieval city in Europe that I have ever visited- Regensburg.
Regensburg is one of the oldest cities in Germany; it is older than 2.000 years. With a moving political history, an ancient Christian tradition, an old history of art, one of the oldest stone bridges in Europe (the Steinerne Brϋcke = Stone Bridge) Regensburg on the Danube is a city that you should visit once in your life. I visited it in August 1998 (?); there was a lot happening then, such as: Festival of Silent Movies, Regensburg festival, great concerts, street events, and the biggest event of all- visits to a great Irish Pub. J) Nevertheless the weather was unpleasant (the year of the wettest summer in Central and East Europe) I had a great time and enjoyed myself enormously.

In the medieval time there were many unusual secular monuments built in Regenesburg. The character of the 13^th and 14^th centuries was moulded by a great number of citadels which possessed armed, reinforced towers. These towers which served also as living accommodation gave the city a unique and mellow patina. Especially Patrician Tower "am Watmarkt" is a beautiful creation. Another outstanding example of municipal Gothic architecture is the Rathaus (Town Hall). In the morning The Town Hall Square, especially when it basks in the golden rays of the morning sun, is an incredible spot of beauty where the past and the present engage in a perfect harmony. There are lots of great sculptures in the Gothic Cathedral and in the other Gothic and Roman Churches. The small streets and lanes as one finds in the Goliathviertal (Goliath Quarter) are very rare and remind you of the medieval time. Regensburg, Bavaria's medieval jewel, is a place so precious, that it has been named a UNESCO World Heritage.

I did some search online; I couldn't find any big tourist websites (the best cities, the most interesting cities in Europe etc) recommending this city. There are some small websites recommending holidays in Bavaria, mentioning Regensburg. I lived in Germany, Munich for a while. I have seen all the big cities and lots of historical towns in West en East Germany and I can say with honesty that Regensburg is perhaps on the most outstanding cities in the whole Germany. Just go and visit it. Believe me.

Franz Sedlacek

2008-01-30T03:52:00.001-08:00

Last November I spent 3 weeks in Vienna. I had enough time to visit my favourite museums, galleries, cafés and all the other interesting places. As usual I also went to the Leopold Museum. Jim wanted to see all those famous Schiele paintings and I wanted to see the special exhibition "Between the Wars - Austrian Artist" from 1918 till 1938; ( By the way this exhibition has been extended until March 3, 2008).

At the exhibition "Between the Wars", they were lots of very good, interesting paintings and artists. Some of them I had never heard before. But one painter has totally stolen my heart, his name is Franz Sedlacek. Born in Wroclaw (now Poland) in 1891, he disappeared (missing presumed dead) in Poland in 1945.

His style is cool, in some way very quantum physics-like and magical. With Salvador Dali you can see the perfection, the sophisticated imagination but also a kind of fake. With Franz Sedlacek you see the imperfection, but also the passion for his work. He is honest in his own magical world.

The Kunsthandel Widder gallery in Vienna has lots of his drawings and few of his paintings in its collection. If I had some spare amount of money I would be extremely tempted to buy one of his paintings.

According to the books and the art critics his paintings belong to the style Magic Realism and Neue Sachlichkeit. Often his style was also described as Poetic or Allegoric Realism.

The term Magic Realism (Magischen Realismus) was first used by the German art critic Franz Roh to describe the style of the paintings at the exhibition in Mannheim in 1924.

(See an article about magic realism in Wiki – In my view it is not totally correct and in many ways confusing, but I am an alien so who am I to quibble).

Franz Sedlacek

2008-01-30T03:14:00.001-08:00

Lied in der Dammerung, Franz Sedlacek

Training Field, 1926

Sedlacek, Franz

Fantasy become reality and A Chimera

2008-01-26T13:06:00.001-08:00

This post is about Fantasy but not about Art. Or maybe it is about Fantasy in Art that became Reality.

I have been searching on the web for Gargoyles, Chimeras and grotesque form of Gothic Churches and sacred buildings and I found this. - Scientists have been starting produce chimeras—a hybrid creature that's part human, part animal.

I know it is old news but still incredibly fascinating. Chinese scientists at the Shanghai Second Medical University in 2003 successfully fused human cells with rabbit eggs. The embryos were reportedly the first human-animal chimeras successfully created. They were allowed to develop for several days in a laboratory dish before the scientists destroyed the embryos to harvest their stem cells.

A chimera is a mixture of several different species (human, animal, dragon, dinosaur, virus, bacteria) in one body – this will be in the future.

The mythological monster Chimera had two heads: one of a lion one of the goat, goat's body, and serpent's tail and according Homer "a snake behind, and snorting out the breath of the terrible flame of bright fire".

What once had been fantasy become reality....Chimera! It belongs to the Greek Mythology and to Gothic Churches. It belongs to the fantasy world of art, literature, mythology, sculpture and SF but not to the REALITY! Imagine I am just about to meet a Chimera somewhere. How would I react? "Hi, I am sorry that I have to say this, I loved you on the Gothic buildings but in reality you are disgusting and sickening....or How are you today? What a lovely day today, isn't it? Should we......"

Gothic Cathedrals and the Brick

2008-01-23T14:10:00.000-08:00

I love Gothic Churches (or should I say Gothic Cathedrals because the English speaking people use it as a synonym for all the Gothic churches, Cathedrals or not). They are a creation of a genius spirit, mind and fantasy. They are colossal, huge and arrogant in their gigantism, gigantology, gigantomachy. (what is the best description?!) The sphere inside the Gothic Church is only one of its kind and is very mysterious; and of course the architecture and the ornamentation is unique as well.

I can’t remember how old I was, 4 or 5 when I saw my first Gothic Church in real. I mean an old Gothic Church, not one in Neogothic style. It was in Gdansk in Poland. I was only a child but still I can remember my surprise that fairy like building could also exist in a real world. In my realm. (I grow up in a Communist country, with the communist architecture!) Of course when you are small and short everything seems huge.

But the St. Mary’s Church is really a huge one. The Church is is the largest brick church in the world, and one of the largest Brick Gothic buildings in Europe. It is 105.5 m long, and the navie 66 m wide. Inside the church is room for 25,000 people. It is an aisled hall church with a transept (Build between 1343- 1496). The Polish name is Bazylika Mariacka. The long proper name should be this: Basilica of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The church was severely damaged in the World War II, during the storming of Danzig city by the Red Army in March 1945. Fortunately, most of the artworks from the interior survived, as they were evacuated for safekeeping to the villages surrounding the city. Many of these have returned to the church, but some are displayed in various museums around Poland. I read in some magazine that the Polish Church does everything to secure their return. I hoop so, because they belong to this building.

From the moment when I saw my first real Gothic Church, every time when we was visiting a new place, city, country, I always wanted to know if there is a Gothic church there. My Mum thought for a moment that I was a profound believer in god, in the Catholic god of course. But I wasn’t, I didn’t actually like the idea about such a powerful and horrific creator. I probably felt in love with the Gothic style, without knowing this. With the wonderful ornamentation, the gargoyles and the dragons. The mythical, mystical and profound creation of the medieval people.

The brick Gothic architecture is different to the French Gothic Style of building. Using less of more only bricks delimited the ornamentation possibilities of the architects. You can say that the Brick Gothic is a reduced style of Gothic architecture but you can also see it as a a different style of Gothic by using the bricks. The countries where the Brick Gothic was common were: North Germany and all the countries around the Baltic Sea; all are without natural rock resources.

Personally I prefer the rock Gothic, the real French Gothic with all the ornamentation, with the dragons, with the gargoyles. I will tell more about this subject in the next post.

(If you are interesting in more information about the history of this church, go to Wiki ; Wikipedia has an interesting article about the St. Mary’s Church in Gdansk; available in English).

The Last Judgment, Triptych by Hans Memling

2008-01-20T13:59:00.000-08:00

The Last Judgment by Hans Memling

Hans Memling isn't Hieronymus Bosch but he was absolutely one of the best primitives of his time.
And his altars still are the precious of some Gothic Churches. The triptych The Last Judgement belonged a long time to a Gothic Church in Gdansk. After the Second World War it has been moved to The National Museum in Gdansk. What you see in the Church St. Mary's Church in Gdansk is a copy, a great one.

Multi-media course on blogging

2008-01-17T15:21:00.000-08:00

I'm evaluating a multi-media course on blogging from the folks at Simpleology. For a while, they're letting you snag it for free if you post about it on your blog.

It covers:

The best blogging techniques.
How to get traffic to your blog.
How to turn your blog into money.

I'll let you know what I think once I've had a chance to check it out. Meanwhile, go grab yours while it's still free.

Gothic Cathedrals and dragons

2008-01-14T14:36:00.000-08:00

I love Gothic Art, especially Gothic Cathedrals. Tomorrow I will post a great post about both of them......it is to late now. Till tomorrow........
For now, the Gothic Cathedral in Polen, Krakow.....

Where to find the best-known works by Hieronymus Bosch

2008-01-09T11:43:00.001-08:00

When I was a little girl I promised myself that I would see all the most important museums in the world. (I still have the evidence of it, in my diary) I am 51 as I am writing this and I have to say that I have almost completed my desire! However, there still are a few that I wish to visit. Some of the museums I have visited several times and I will do it again and again. Do I love museums, yes I do. I love to see the original paintings, no copy can compete with the original. I love to see the museum's buildings too; I love to smell the explicit atmosphere of specific museums. They are so diverse, so unique.

But this is not what I wanted to tell you. I want to give you some information about Hieronymus Bosch's works, and where to find them.

The first painting, his best known work "The Garden of Earthly Delights", is to be found in the Prado in Madrid. Museo del Prado is one of my favourite museums, and not only because of the great collection of Hieronymus Bosch, but also because of the great collection of Spanish art of course.

What can you find more from Bosch (fantasy work) in Prado:

The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things;
completed in 1485.
Paradise and Hell; painted c.1510. The work consists the left and right panels of a minor triptych based on The Haywain Triptych (also in the Prado).

This painting is part of a series of four, the others are Terrestrial Paradise, Fall of the Damned and Hell.
Copy by a follower of Bosch The Temptation of St. Anthony.

The painting The Temptation of St. Anthony currently hangs in the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, in Lisbon

The triptych of the Temptation of St. Anthony
is to be found in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels. One of my favourite museums, too. If you are in Brussels don't forget to visit it. There are some utterly amazing art works hanging on the walls.

The Garden of Earthly Delights is not my favourite work of Bosch though. My preferred painting is without doubt a triptych (from an altar) The Last Judgment created sometime after 1482. This triptych currently resides at the Academie für Bildenden Künste in Vienna. Just saw it again last November spending two weeks with my darling Jim in my darling Vienna.

The other work of Bosch that I really like is the Ascent of the Blessed, painted sometime after 1490. It can be seen in the Palazzo Ducale, in Venice, Italy.

Hell Bosch, Hieronymus

Giclee Print

Buy at AllPosters.com

Hieronymus Bosch and his Fantasy Art

2008-01-06T04:59:00.000-08:00

In all books about art and all the books about fantasy art Hieronymus Bosch is mentioned as the father of surrealist art and the Fantasy Art genre. All those monsters, impossible structures of the machines and the bizarre landscapes he painted in his works, are a great example of Fantasy Art. His style was unique, strikingly free, and his symbolism, unforgettably vivid, remains unparalleled to this day.

Indeed Bosch had a tremendous fantasy or maybe even a tremendous fear of hell. Hieronymus took his work very seriously and absolutely not as an amusement. Marvellous and terrifying, he expressed an intense pessimism and reflected the anxieties of his time, one of great social and political upheaval.

It was his image of hell, his tragic view of human existence, dwelling upon the triumph of sin that forced him to paint all the horror. He was a very religious person and believed in hell, devils, monsters, life after death and all the other things that were ordinary and standard for the inhabitant of Catholic Europe in the XV and early XVI century.

He didn’t want to entertain people, he wanted to frighten them with his bizarre fantasy. I think the man himself must have been very morbid to have been so concerned with pain.

In 1488 he joined the highly respected Brotherhood of Our Lady, an arch-conservative religious group of some 40 influential citizens of 's-Hertogenbosch and some 7000 'outer-members' from all over Europe. Bosch lived at a time when the medieval period was giving way to a new age. His paintings undoubtedly reflect his concern for a changing world. Looked at in this way Bosch and his fantasies are curiously up to date.

Tomasz Setowski

2007-12-31T09:48:00.000-08:00

I've just got back from my Christmas holiday in Poland. My partner Jim and I spent the first night in the Marriott in Warsaw. We arrived in the late evening, and while searching for a restaurant in the Marriott to celebrate Jim's birthday I noticed some very unusual paintings on the walls. They were fantasy art paintings, it was incontrovertible. They name of the artist was Tomasz Setowski. I had never heard about him before this particular moment in the Marriott in Warsaw. They were paintings he created between 2000 and 2007. Some of the works have previously been displayed in New York, Dubai, Abu Dhabi and elswhere. He is a very original, extraordinary, unique, surrealist Polish painter and I have never heard about him. Not good!

And he is very famous, actually. The next day in the morning I saw more of his works hanging on the second floor in the Marriott Hotel. He is a great artist, not doubt about this, but I missed something in his paintings. His imagination is so cold, so far-away. With Hieronymus Bosch or Peter Breughel you can feel the fear or the grimness or the grotesque. But here in Sętowski's paintings I couldn't find any emotion. They were very individual fantasy paintings only maybe understood by their creator. But this is only my feeling; Tomasz Sętowski is a great painter of the magical realism school.

"Uncanny Valley" phenomenon

2007-12-26T12:15:00.000-08:00

What has an brain phenomenon known as the uncanny valley to do with fantasy art? It has a lot.
Fantasy art would not exist without fantasy fans. Fantasy fans, especially the fans of fantasy movies, love creepy human-like creatures and the uncanny feelings they experience when they see those creatures.
For example, the fans of The lord of the Ring films praised especially the character Gollum. Half animal, half human, he made viewer's skin crawl.
To understand why people react in this way to the creation of human-like scary characters and which part of our brain is responsible for the feeling of horror a few scientists from University College London investigated this phenomenon. They discovered by scanning the brains of subjects being show videos of a lifelike robot picking up a cup, as well as the same movement performed by less realistic robot and a person. The results reveal there is a network of neurons in the parietal cortex that was especially active in the case of the lifelike robot. This area of the brain is known to contain 'mirror neurons', which are active when someone imagines performing an action they are observing. While watching all three videos, people imagine picking up the cup themselves. This 'breach of expectation' could trigger extra brain activity and produce the uncanny feelings.
Karl McDorman, who researches human-robot interaction at Indiana University in Indianapolis, suggests that the uncanny valley phenomenon may stem from a 'fear of one's own mortality' and an 'evolved mechanism for avoiding pathogens'. ' The uncanny valley is about a mismatch in human expectations', he says.

Source: New Scientist No 2627

http://www.newscientist.com

2007-12-16T14:36:00.001-08:00

Shaman - Raven Dreamdancer

2007-12-12T13:08:00.000-08:00

I went yesterday to a shaman's concert. Here is the link to her website http://www.whole-earth.tv/
She is a good friend of me, Raven Dreamdancer. She is a sound Shaman, the first in this kind of style. The sound that she makes is beautiful. You close your eyes and you just fallow the sound and your imagination. It is a fantasy art pure sang.
I painted the most beautiful fantasy art painting that I ever made in my entire life.
Imagine the cosmos, the intense, unending, infinite, disinterested, endless, indisputable, careless, unjustified, absolute, unintentional, sleepless, independent, ruthless, unfeeling, insolence cosmos and than floating free sprites somewhere there. Just floating in this horrible cosmos.....beautiful

Dragons World

2007-12-08T03:05:00.001-08:00

The Truth about the Dragons. Make the fantasy real!

Beowulf

2007-12-06T00:35:00.000-08:00

Very soon, we are going to publish an old English epic, the epic of Beowulf, the most precious relic of Old English, and, indeed, of all early Germanic literature. I am sure that you would like to see the newest movie version too. Just released.

The following is a brief outline of some general facts of Beowulf.

The poem was originally transcribed in Old English sometime between 720 and 796 a.d. making it one of the oldest historical texts relating to this period in time.
The poem itself tells the story of a noble Swede (Beowulf) who saves a troubled group of Danes from a deformed monster known as ‘Grendel’ and its mother. Beowulf later encounters a dragon which mortally wounds him, thus ending the tale. During the years since, the story has been greatly Christianized to depict Beowulf as being a servant of the monotheistic God, and Grendel being a servant of ‘hell’, no doubt in an attempt to cover up the pagan origins of the text.
The story has numerous translations into modern English, most famous of which by Nobel Prize winning poet Seamus Heaney, which won the Whitbread prize in 1999. English, Old English and MP3 audio versions of the poem are available in the public domain. The story is also seen to have been an influence on the modern fantasy genre, most notable of which being J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy which bears many resemblances the Beowulf tale.

William Blake

2007-11-30T14:07:00.000-08:00

To see the world in a grain of sand,
and to see heaven in a wild flower
hold infinity in the palm of your hands,
and eternity in an hour.

William Blake

http://www.kasiaturajczyk.com/

Lord of the Ring, Tolkien

2007-11-30T13:45:00.000-08:00

I thought it is interesting to read especially because I love reading Tolkien. I am not English, I learn English at school it means that reading Tolkien, especially his essays are extra difficult for me than for people born in USA or England.
Hobbits ? I love it, the most beautiful, warm, funny book I even read; OK I am an expert, literature guru...I studed it, I am a specialist.

Enough aboaut me, enjoy the post ............... ng the Gates to Middle Earth by Chyna Dolores

"Ok... I admit it. I've never read "The Lord of the Rings". Ever. This includes all the works of Tolkien. Don't get me wrong, its not that I don't want to read his books - believe me I've tried to. I attempted to read "The Hobbit" and "Fellowship" on numerous occasions however; I can never get past the first chapter.
Most people look at me like I've suddenly grown a second head when I tell them that. But it's the truth. I love to read fantasy novels, they are one of my favourite genres. When it comes to Tolkien, though, it is a completely different story - my brain just won't comprehend it. It looks like, to me, that Tolkien had attempted to write a children's book for adults. It's like the words are written backwards and all jumbled up. I just can't read his style of writing.
So you know that when I heard they were making the movies, I was totally thrilled (to say the least). I would finally be able to understand why Tolkien is so popular; I would finally be able to know what the story was about. Honestly, I looked forward to the movie releases; and was not disappointed. Although I must say I'm even more impressed with the Director's Cut version of each movie.
I know that the director, Peter Jackson, took his artistic licence with some scenes of the story. I'm told that the elves never went to Helms Deep, that the Rohirrims held the fort on their own. But that kind of thing happens in movies - especially movies based upon novels. I know several fans of The Lord of the Rings are completely disappointed by parts of the movie such as this. Viewing the movie without having that background knowledge of the books forced me to watch the movies without bias.
The movie trilogy has opened up Tolkiens' work to a completely new audience. By bringing Tolkien's work to a new media people who don't usually read fantasy works, people like me who can't read his writing style and others have been allowed to enter his fantasy world. Something that opens up to doors to new people can't be that bad, right?
It's a shame knowing that I can't read the books, I've tried since watching the films but I have the same problem... I just can't read Tolkien's work. The movie adaptations of his books however, are a perfect supplement to getting around this problem. It's wonderful to finally be able to hear Tolkiens' work and be able to grasp the reasoning behind why he is known as the 'grandfather' of fantasy."

Fantasy Art contra Fantastic Art

2007-11-28T10:25:00.000-08:00

Fantastic art is a loosely defined art genre. Fantasy art is generally defined as not fine art at all. Defined by the experts, of course.

But for everyone who loves fantasy, who loves Lord of the Rings, Hieronymus Bosch, SF literature, Breughel, the pre-RaphaeliteBrotherhood, Salvador Dali, Rene Magritte and many others there is no such distinction between high art and low art, between fantastic art or fantasy art
.
Why is Salvador Dali an artist of fantastic art but not fantasy art?
What precisely is the difference between fantastic art and fantasy art?
Why are dragons, wizards, fairies and other fantastical and mythical creatures so different from robots, cyberspace and devils?
Are devils more or less realistic than dragons?
Is this only an academic dispute?

Here we will not draw any distinction between the two. I would just love to make a bridge between the two supposedly different genres.

Fantasy was, is and always will be an integral part of art.
Fantasy is an integral part of our life, too. Mankind has always dreamed, dreams now, and will continue to dream about something mystical, dark, different, divine and magical. Without dreams, imagination and fantasy our life will be nothing and we will be nowhere. Is this the truth or is this merely a statement? My statement without foundation?

Discover The World Of Fantasy Art

2007-11-25T14:59:00.000-08:00

Discover The World Of Fantasy Art
Satisfy Curiousity
A Gallery Of Surrealist Art; Fantastic Art; Fantasy Art
To People who want to know much more about the World of Fantasy Art
History about Fantasy Art