Women In Art

Women in ART

Stolen work by Leonardo da Vinci recovered after four-year hunt

October 5th, 2007

One of the most valuable paintings ever stolen in Britain, a portrait of the Madonna by Leonardo da Vinci, has been recovered by detectives more than four years after it was seized from a Scottish castle. In an audacious theft in August 2003, two men posing as tourists overpowered a young tour guide at Drumlanrig castle in Dumfriesshire and - in clear view of CCTV cameras - lifted the painting off the wall and escaped in a white VW Golf.Their getaway was photographed by other visitors but the thieves eluded capture despite an international investigation. Soon after the police investigation was wound down in 2005, the painting was added to the top 10 of the most-sought stolen art works in the world by the US Federal Bureau of Investigations.The painting, Madonna of the Yarnwinder, has been valued at more than Ј30m and was the centrepiece of the private collection of the Duke of Buccleuch, one of Britain's richest landowners, who died last month at the age of 83. His family had owned the painting for 200 years.Police in south-west Scotland said last night they had recovered the painting, in an operation also involving detectives from the Scottish drugs enforcement agency, the Scottish organised crime agency and Strathclyde police.Detective Chief Inspector Mickey Dalgleish, who led the investigation, said the force was "extremely pleased" at its recovery. "For four years police staff have worked tirelessly on the theft and with help from the public we have been able to track down and locate the painting."The masterpiece, which shows the Madonna holding an infant Jesus with a cross-shaped yarnwinder, was painted between 1500 and 1510 by Leonardo da Vinci for Florimand Robertet, secretary of state to the King of France, Louis XII.But there are doubts about its authenticity, with some speculation that it may be the work of his students.
The Guardian

Mikhail Aleksandrovich Vrubel

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. But I think 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. 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, where he studied under direction of Pavel Tchistyakov. Even 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.

1905 he created the mosaics on the hotel "Metropol" in Moscow, the centre piece of the facade overlooking Teatralnaya Ploschad is taken by the mosaic panel, 'Princess Gryoza' (PrinWhile 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 where he could best follow innovative trends in art. 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.

The large painting of Seated Demon in the Garden(1890) is to see in Moscow, in Tretyakov Gallery. This painting brought notoriety to Vrubel. Most conservative critics accused him of "wild ugliness", whereas the art patron Savva Mamontov praised the Demon series as "fascinating symphonies of a genius" and commissioned Vrubel to paint decorations for his private opera and mansions of his friends. 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. At the end he had a severe nervous breakdown, and had to be hospitalized to a 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.

By the way if you love movie, 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.

Turner, Joseph Mallord William and the Impressionists

"The Sunrise, Norham Castle" (circa 1845); is an unfinished oil painting. But for me it is beautiful just in the way it is finished. This painting is in the collection of Tate Britain in London.

This painting was never exhibited in Turner's lifetime; its current popularity has developed since Turner's death. It has been seen as anticipating modern, abstract painting, by transcending its time and subject matter in a shimmer of light. In fact, not only was it never shown in public during Turner's life, but he may have considered it unfinished. Far from being a direct and instinctive response to its subject, it was an imaginary transformation of past experience and recollection. Turner had first painted Norham Castle in 1797, and he continued to be drawn to it as a subject throughout his life.

In his time JMW Turner was ridiculed and mocked. Audiences of those times wanted near-photographic realism in the treatment of material objects, not an exploration of the subtle interplay of light and atmosphere. They wanted a magic window onto idealized bucolic scenes, not the artist's visceral reaction to the elemental violence of actual nature.

Times have changed. The Impressionists have taught us to appreciate the subtleties of the fleeting moment captured by the artist's brush. Now that we have photography to do the job of simply recording events and objects, we are able to more fully appreciate the role of the artist in interpreting those things and capturing the spirit of a subject, rather than merely the material facts. Only a few connoisseurs of his time recognize his role in anticipating the great art movements of the twentieth century.