In 2009, when I posted my painting ‘Yellow Canoe’oil on wood, 12 x 24 inon the now dormant blog artandperception.com, someone told me about Peter Doig‘s canoe paintings.Peter Doig, 100 Years ago, (Carrera) 2001
My painting was based on a montage of three photos: a Northwest Pacific canoe, New Mexico clouds, the clouds and their shadows reflected on the backdrop of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.
My painting expresses energy and Doig’s painting expresses the unease of drifting.
Quoting Nicholas Serota (former director of the Tate) : Doig’s paintings have a kind of mythic quality that’s both ancient and very, very modern. They seem to capture a contemporary sense of anxiety and melancholy and uncertainty. Lately, he’s gone more toward the sort of darkness we associate with Goya.
Paintings of Bindo Altoviti (1491 to 1557) by three different Renaissance artists illustrate what hands can tell about character.
Educated at the papal court and later, as a major papal banker, Bindo Altoviti knew Renaissance artists. Three of them – Raphael, Francesco Salviati and Jacopino del Conte – painted him at different times. Looking at these paintings, our eyes move from Bindo’s face, particularly his eyes, to his hands:
21 yrs old, painted by Raphael45 yrs old, pained by Francesco Salviati59 yrs old, painted by Jacopino del Conte,
A pictorial procession from a, reportedly, idealistic young aristocrat with his right hand resting on his heart, to a middle-aged power broker of turbulent Renaissance politics with both hands clasped together almost hidden at the bottom of the painting, to, lastly, an elderly patron of the arts with both hands freely extended, one holding a glove and the other pointing to a work of art.
It appears that these paintings of his hands express different facets of Bindo Altoviti’s character.
Renaissance artists were employed by the church and the rich. Bindo Altoviti had the artists create frescos for his palazzo in Rome, and his suburban villa. He was not only their patron but also their friend. For example, when Michelangelo had to flee from Florence, he gave him sanctuary in Rome.
An earlier post “Different hands, different spirits” has now been extended, by adding the full portraits of the sitters to allow viewing the interplay of eyes with hands there too.
At Wayne State University, Plum met Robert Wilbert, a major figure of Detroit’s creative art community. Milton Avery was another source of inspiration since, in the Fifties, Avery’s paintings were sold at the Donald Morris Gallery in Detroit. In Florida, Plum took a workshop with Janet Fish. Traveling internationally with his wife, Plum visited the Giorgio Morandi museum in Bologna Italy. Like Morandi, Plum had a number of artifacts that he rearranged for his still lifes.
Plums had numerous national and regional exhibitions and One-Person-Shows. His paintings are part of permanent collections, for example, at Grand Rapids Art Museum, Grand Rapids, MI and Wayne State University, Detroit, MI;
Together with his wife, Nancy Plum, Jens made a treasured contribution to the vibrant Lansing area art community.
The first and third picture shown here were captured by me with Nancy Plum’s permission in her late husband’s studio. The second picture came from a photo collection of Jens Plum’s paintings that Nancy made available to me.
Nancy Plum said: “I am a studio potter who works in stoneware and porcelain. Making pots is a way of life for me, as I attempt to capture a spirit that lies beyond their function.”
In 1960, Plum went back to Michigan to join her husband, the painter Jens Plum, professor at Michigan State University. Nancy Plum taught at pottery guilds, first in Ann Arbor and then in Lansing.
Nancy Plums’s ceramics are part of permanent collections, for example, at the Detroit Institute of Arts, MI; Mills College Gallery, Oakland, CA; Witte Museum, San Antonio, TX; St. Paul Gallery , St. Paul, MN. Plum had both One-Person as well as Regional and National Exhibitions.
Nancy’s ceramics shown here are part of my own collection.
Nancy was a member of the vibrant artist community surrounding her. With her knowledge of the visual arts – ceramics, sculpture and painting – Nancy had been a mentor to me.
Epitaph by Mark Chatterley: I considered Nancy the treasure for the community. She was an elegant lady who transferred her personality into clay.
Unlike yin-yang, the symbol of harmony between two opposites, the picture shown here is lacking obvious harmony. The left half, reminiscent of sun and water or blue sky, does not captivate my eye.
By contrast, the dark half circle on the right with its light perimeter makes me think of a view through the Kuiper belt into the distant universe; 95% of the matter of the universe, dark energy & dark matter, not perceived by our senses; and neurons in our brains not utilized.
The next image shows the painting with its proper orientation: The Swan, No 17. 1915; 150×150 cm by Hilma af Klint, a Swedish Painter (1862 – 1944).
Other af Klint paintings, currently on exhibit at the Guggenheim Museum, NYC, also have a ‘soft’ right and a ‘more solid’ left half. Why does viewing the painting in its proper orientation make me feel uncomfortable while I love looking at it horizontally rotated?
undated self-portrait
Hilma af Klint studied at the Royal Academy of the Fine Arts in Stockholm. During her life, she was known as painter of landscapes, portraits and botanical art.
Privately, inspired by mysticism, she started painting ‘abstract art’ in 1906, novel for Europe and Russia but practiced in other parts of the world such as in Australia by Aborigines.
During the next two years, af Klint painted large organic forms and mandelas in which blue, yellow and pink/red stood for female, male and sensual/ spiritual love, respectively. But in 1908, she stopped painting for four years. — Afterher amorous affair with Dr. Helleday, she decided to remain single. She took careof her mother who went blind. She gave up or changed her studio (different accounts).During those dry 4 years, she met Rudolf Steiner, a theosophical colleague, who advised to hide her abstract art for the next 50 years.
From 1912 – 1915,af Klint again painted abstract art but now in a more authoritative, geometric style. She executed “Paintings for the Temple’, a task commissioned by a spirit whom she called Amaliel. Other severely geometric paintings are the ‘transcendent’ swan series, among them the picture discussed at the beginning of this post.
Subsequently af Klint dedicated herself more fully to studying theosophy and anthroposophy.
1890 2010
Later, after reading Goethe’s color theory, af Klint painted with water-color, wet-on-wet, allowing the colors to flow into one another, very different from her earlier botanical paintings.
At the beginning of the 20th century esoteric spiritualism was also practiced by Kandinsky (1866-1944), Malevich (1879-1935), and Mondrian (1872-1944), other painters of abstract art.
Emotional responses to colors. Different artist imbue colors with different symbolism. Interestingly, Hilma af Klint and Franz Marc (1880-1916) associated blue with their own gender and yellow with the opposite gender.
He taught at the University of Detroit (1956-1963) and the 
Like 
Unlike yin-yang, the symbol of harmony between two opposites, the picture shown here is lacking obvious harmony. The left half, reminiscent of sun and water or blue sky, does not captivate my eye.
Other af Klint paintings, currently on exhibit at the Guggenheim Museum, NYC, also have a ‘soft’ right and a ‘more solid’ left half. Why does viewing the painting in its proper orientation make me feel uncomfortable while I love looking at it horizontally rotated?
