A brief introduction
Art is incredibly important to me and learning about it is something I am very passionate about, therefore today I want to share with you some of my favorite artists and some of their artwork.
Jacques Louis David
"I will never, for the future, paint the portrait of a tyrant until his head lies before me on the scaffold."
Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825) was a French painter known for his Neoclassical style. His main inspirations were Caravaggio and Nicolas Poussin. He was, originally, a supporter of the French Revolution, a friend of Robespierre, and a member of the Jacobin Club. While others were fleeing the country David stayed behind to assist in the Revolution. His revolutionary influence is ultimately best represented by "The Death of Marat," (1793) that depicts the murder of the revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat. It does not feature the violent action of murder but the moments afterwards where the subject seems tranquil and almost asleep, in true Neoclassic fashion. In 1794 he hid the painting for fear it would be destroyed and later on David was put on trial and escaped death by renouncing his activities involving the French Revolution.
The pictures here featured were taken by my dad when we visited the Louvre this August.
Marina Abramović
"Theatre is fake... The knife is not real, the blood is not real, and the emotions are not real. Performance is just the opposite: the knife is real, the blood is real, and the emotions are real."
Marina Abramović is a Serbian conceptual and performance artist. In 2007, she founded the Marina Abramović Institute (MAI), a non-profit foundation for performance art. The masterpiece I want to talk about here is one I heard about a couple years ago and stuck with me ever since. It is entitled "The Artist Is Present", a completely silent and static piece of the duration of 736-hour and 30-minutes. In this piece spectators were invited to sit in front of Marina for any amount of time. Some sat for 5 minutes, some for a whole day. In the midst of the performance her former boyfriend Ulay, whom she had not seen for 20 years prior, sat in front of her. They held hands an exchanged some brief words (you can watch it here). The culmination of all of this makes it to be and incredibly moving performance. Though this was by far one of her least dangerous performance, for example in "Rhythm 0" she allowed the spectators to do anything to her body utilizing any of the 72 objects in front of her with no consequences, one person aimed a gun at her head.
Alexandre Cabanel
Alexandre Cabanel (1823–1889) was a French painter who adopted the academic style. His paintings are a huge inspiration for me, in particular 'The Fallen Angel'. To this respect you can here read a poem I wrote based on that painting. It is incredibly moving, fierce and alive and one day I hope to see it in person. Honourable mentions are Ophelia (1883), another favorite of mine, The birth of Venus (1863) and Nymph Abducted by a Satyr (1860).
Antonio Canova
"I have read that the ancients, when they had produced a sound, used to modulate it, heightening and lowering its pitch without departing from the rules of harmony. So must the artist do in working at the nude."
Antonio canova (1757–1822) was an Italian Neoclassical sculptor. He has a distinctive style where he combines ancient Roman and Greek influences. At the beginning we mentioned Jacques Louis David, who was pioneer of the neoclassical style when it came to painting but in the realm of sculture Canova became the main exponent of this style as well. His works are of "noble simplicity and quiet grandeur" typical of ancient Greek sculpture.
Here is a picture I personally took of "Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss", my favorite of his sculptures, again, when I visited the Louvre this August.
A brief conclusion
This is just a summary of who these people were or are but I highly encourage you to learn more about their life and works. I want to add that these are just a few of the amazing artists I hold very dear to my heart but I wanted to feature a range from painters, to sculptors, to performance artists.
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