When it comes to Louis Icart, my particular favorites have always been the depictions of long lanky women in a smoky silhouette. There is something erroneous about these women, whom have be regarded to as the “Icart Girl,” over the centuries.

It has been said, that from the first moment Louis Icart could pick up a pencil, he loved to draw. His primitive scribbles, almost immediately turned into fundamental sketching, at a very early age. Icart was born in 1880, in the culturally fertile city, of Toulouse, in the Southern region of France. He was the first-born son to Jean and Elisabeth Icart. Icart’s actual birth name is Louis Justin Laurent Icart, but his intimate family members called him Helli.

It has been written, that while serving in World War I, Icart concentrated his energy into drawing, rather than the affairs of war. It is documented that the soldier Louis Icart, drew on everything and anything he could fine. Which included items and objects such as guns, helmets, canons, and paper from his bible.

After the war, Louis packed up his chief belongings and moved to one room studio, somewhere in Paris. To make money for himself, and for his mother and father in Toulouse, Icart began selling off many of his paper prints. That evidently endured his days, living in the muck and mud of the deadly trenches, of the Great War.

Parisians soon became enthralled with his personal replications during the war, therefore Louis quickly found himself in high demand from the Elitist class of Parisian society. Icart’s sketches and paintings were extremely influential, to the preliminary brilliance of the Art Deco era. In which the artesian inside Louis, truly found his personal niche and solitude, and now is characteristic icon of the art deco movement.

Icart  Gallery

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	Louis Icart  Amazon Price: $2.99
	Louis Icart 2 WOMEN WITH CAT Art Deco Fine Art Print Poster  Amazon Price: $19.89
	Louis Vierne: Premières  Amazon Price: $8.99
	Melodies: Spleens Et Detresses; 4 Poems; Etc  Amazon Price: $13.00 List Price: $20.98
	Louis Icart Erotica  Amazon Price: $35.00 List Price: $49.95

—This month’s artist Ukrainian born painter, Taras Loboda.

“The Lady in Red.”

Taras Loboda is a famed Ukrainian painter, with artistic talent that revivals even his fathers. Son of Ivan Ivanovich Loboda, Taras Loboda currently lives and works in Prague. This adoptive homeland, is where Taras loves to expand his artistic talents, and hone his impressive painting skills.

As a long time admirer of his work, I appreciate his use of of exquisite, vibrant, colors. Which tend to captivate audiences because of their rich, stunning appearances, and strong, uniformed reflection. The splendor of Taras Loboda, not only lies within the beauty of his models, but, in his personal replication of their exotic features. I applaud his ability to intensify a particular painting, by adding flavor and vigor to a particular feature of the model. Such as the model’s lips and eyes. I first became enthralled with Laboda’s “Lady in Red,” known as Titianna. Her sometimes brightly painted blue eyes and cherry lush lips, begged me to pay attention to other pieces of his collection.

Taras Loboda’s talent does not stop with his realistic portraits or still life paintings. He also has a beautiful landscape paintings, just as richly painted as some of these paintings featured here. However, in many of his landscape pieces, the passing horizon has an abstract, almost whimsical appeal. Which is a definitive contrast to the paintings featured above. This ability to switch his theatrical presentations from one style to another, is what truly sets him apart from other great artists.  To read more on how to start to painting like Taras Loboda, go to RKHenry’s Lady in Red.

Article by art historian RKHenry, Chicago

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Where the Sidewalk Ends

“There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.”

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.”

Yes we’ll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we’ll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know the place where the sidewalk ends.

One of the great things about Shel Silverstein is his love for children. He has a wonderful web site that features all sorts of children activities. He even has an educational section for school teachers. It is truly a remarkable site. I highly suggest that you check it out for yourself.

Great Weblinks to Explore

Here is an excerpt from Shel Silverstein’s dark humor has been highly controversial causing his books to even be banned in some libraries.

Silverstein’s writings are what set him apart from the normal author, his books generate lots of discussion.

Many are familiar with books like, Where the Sidewalk Ends, A Light in the Attic, The Giving Tree these are just a few favorites written by the versatile author Shel Silverstein.

Where the Sidewalk Ends

I’ll sing you a poem of a silly young king

Who played with the world at the end of a string,
But he only loved one single thing—
And that was just a peanut-butter sandwich.

His scepter and his royal gowns,
His regal throne and golden crowns
Were brown and sticky from the mounds
And drippings from each peanut-butter sandwich.

His subjects all were silly fools
For he had passed a royal rule
That all that they could learn in school
Was how to make a peanut-butter sandwich.

He would not eat his sovereign steak,
He scorned his soup and kingly cake,
And told his courtly cook to bake
An extra-sticky peanut-butter sandwich.

And then one day he took a bit
And started chewing with delight,
But found his mouth was stuck quite tight
From that last bite of peanut-butter sandwich.

His brother pulled, his sister pried,
The wizard pushed, his mother cried,
“My boy’s committed suicide
From eating his last peanut-butter sandwich!”

The dentist came, and the royal doc.
The royal plumber banged and knocked,
But still those jaws stayed tightly locked.
Oh darn that sticky peanut-butter sandwich!

The carpenter, he tried with pliers,
The telephone man tried with wires,
The firemen, they tried with fire,
But couldn’t melt that peanut-butter sandwich.

With ropes and pulleys, drills and coil,
With steam and lubricating oil—
For twenty years of tears and toil—
They fought that awful peanut-butter sandwich.

Then all his royal subjects came.
They hooked his jaws with grapplin’ chains
And pulled both ways with might and main
Against that stubborn peanut-butter sandwich.

Each man and woman, girl and boy
Put down their ploughs and pots and toys
And pulled until kerack! Oh, joy—
They broke right through that peanut-butter sandwich

A puff of dust, a screech, a squeak—
The king’s jaw opened with a creak.
And then in voice so faint and weak—
The first words that they heard him speak
Were, “How about a peanut-butter sandwich?”

*******

Painter Marie Bashkirtseff

Marie wanted nothing more than to be considered an equal among her peers.  She was known for her free spirit and delightful charm.  When Marie Bashkirtseff died at the young age of twenty-four, she never dreamed that her paintings would be view as threat to civil obedience in Western European societies. How could anyone living in Europe, have imagined what was in store for them during 1930s and 40s. It was during that time period that Adolf Hitler rose to power in Germany, his adoptive home land. And so it was that in 1942, Adolf Hitler declared war on the art community. All but a few of Marie Bashkirtseff’s art work, survived Hitler’s infernos. Marie was viewed as a reformist and feminist in Adolf Hitler’s eyes. Since that was how he and many others viewed her, she was one of the first people on his list. The list that instructed Nazi soldiers to seek out and destroy any art work, or records of hers and of her life. Without the aid of her personal diary, most of her pieces would’ve been lost in Hitler’s fires for forever. But Marie was diligent about keeping recorded updates of her life. A habit she had developed very early on in life; and thankfully was diligent in keeping until she died in 1884. It is safe to say that her personal diary, is the only way we could have gathered accurate information about her that provided teaching material to use. Without her art work as a witness, it is real clear that Marie could’ve easily slipped through the cracks and faded away. But this journal of hers was a real golden opportunity for instructors to glance back to the person she truly was. This diary provides many of her critics and fans a window into her life. It also gives us the chance to feel the raw emotions, spent on some of her remaining masterpieces. In essence her personal journal is priceless to patrons and students, admirers and scholars the world over. It even appears to of had a life of it’s own too. Unlike so many distraught artist, during that time period who saw fit to take their own lives out of frustration. Marie’s diary chose to live on. It is a miracle it somehow survived.

A little tidbit on Marie Bashkirtseff;

Marie Bashkirtseff was born in 1858, even though her mother claimed she was born in 1859. She died at the age of 24. The cause or illness was listed as consumption. It wasn’t until the discovery of her diary/journal that the truth of her life was discovered.  At that time the Russian calendar was delayed by twelve days.  she was born on November 12, 1858 in Russia.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

	Marie Bashkirtseff: The Journal Of A Young Artist, 1860-1884 (1889)   Price: $24.78 List Price: $37.95
	A Meeting Giclee Poster Print by Marie Bashkirtseff, 18×24   Price: $49.99
	Journal of Marie Bashkirtseff (The Rialto series)   Price:

 

 

*******

The Women of Edvard Munch’s Collection

 

By RKHenry

Women, His Life Works 1863-1944

Madonna

The Three Stages of Woman

Jealousy

Puberty

Ashes

Paris Nude

Vampire

Lady from the Sea

The Weeping Nude

The Day After

Great Blog’s on Edvard Munch

• Edvard Munch: The Modern Life of the Soul
  Blog By Carter B. Horsley. Was Munch a great painter? The fairly large show suggests that his early work gave great promise of an artist absorbed with loneliness and focused on themes of alienation and loss, but it also includes many works….
• The Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery Blog
  Edvard Munch (1863-1944) is considered to be Norways greatest painter and was an enormously influential artist, both for his paintings and prints. Norway was remote from the mainstream of European art, but Munch responded early to Impressionism…..
• The dread of feeling too much; Edvard Munch and his women.
  The Scream, Edvard Munchs most dramatic and important work, is a potent symbol of terror, but terror of what; an existential loneliness? The death of God? The meaninglessness of materialism? Whatever, Munch projects this unbearable dread….
• Edvard Munch: 1863-1944
  Born on December 12, 1863, in the village of dalsbruk in Lten, Norway, Edvard Munch was a symbolist painter, printmaker and draughtsman…

Abstract Paintings

By RKHenry

Photos courtesy of www.elfynlewis.com

Celf Hanging

.

Elfyn Lewis

 

Abstract master painter, Elfyn Lewis was born in North Wales, 1969. He started paving his way to greatness in 1996. When he redeveloped his unique talent, by turning away from his previous expressionist style to abstract. This change in styles, has gained him much praise. He is now positioned in the art community as a world-renown, highly sought after painter, in an already overcrowded industry. Elfyn’s piquant and distinctive style; is why his pieces are so figuratively conversed about, between art lovers like myself. His work has become a welcoming highlight, to the world abstract paintings. He is often featured as the crowd favorite in artistic expeditions, such as the one held from February to March 27, 2010. His collection Bylchau was by far the most critically praised, while on exhibit at the St David’s Hall, located in Cardiff, Wales.

 

*****

 

Elena Lee’s Landscapes

 

By RKHenry

←House With Mezonine

I often find myself often enticed by Lee’s stark, contrasting intensity. In many of her paintings, this intense mecca of color is fused together by her simplistic style. In 2000, Elena Lee painted a perfect example of this contrasting technique, in her titled piece known as“Irises.” (Featured below.)

With an admirable use of crimson-red for the background, an on-looker can genuinely see the delicacy of the Irises petals. Lee’s technical skills, allow her to narrate the soft alluring luster, of the King White Iris. In 2004, our world was graced with her painting called, “House With Mezonine”. Here again, Lee’s powerful resolution and self assurance in using color resonates through the painting. The orgy embracing the stalks of the Sunflowers, aligned with fusions of seascape sage and hearty fractions of royal purple, speaks volumes to her creative nature. Lee enhances divergences in the landscape, by accentuating the characteristics of each piece. Take the cottage, in the horizon for example. There it is, amongst exchanges of cocoa brown and charcoal black. The cottage is easily exaggerated, against the daring, brightly, lit, blue sky. Each sunflower is intimately structured, so their faces lean forward in the image. Which helps to bring out, the grain-yellow fields, were they are grow. I admire painters, who art remains memorable at the end of the day.

←Irises

Russian Art Gallery
Website if you are interested in purchasing  the painting,  “House With Mezonine.”

 

 

Artist Andy Short

By RKHenry

I love this one called “Eye Candy”

Portrait of a Model, 2008, Oil on Canvas

This Way by Andy Short

“I always felt there was something more,” said Andy. “Some friends suggested I should do an art course after they saw me doing some doodles, so I signed up for an art foundation course – I had never picked up a brush before, but I bought some oil paints and have never looked back.”—Andy Short, 2007

Andy Short

Relative unknown, contemporary artist in the United States, Andy Short of Penarth, Wales- loves to visit art galleries, gaining much of his inspiration from his artistic cohorts.

He loves to listen to the Black-Eye Peas on his IPod, but, prefers to listen to Classical music when he is painting.

He credits traveling and observing cultural differences, as an aid in developing new ideas for a painting.

Andy specializes in figurative, oil paintings, completed in strong dynamic colors and shadows. Bringing out a deeper depth perception, that most other artists are unable to accomplish.

Some of his masterpieces display bold colors, and stark lines. While other paintings can still be easily identified as his, but, may feature a more free-for-all style of painting.

Whatever the case may be, an Andy Short art show, is a must see.

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Related Links

• Welsh Artistery
  Cae-yr-eithin-tew, by Elfyn Lewis Abstract master painter, Elfyn Lewis was born in North Wales, 1969. He started to pave his way to greatness…

• The ’80s, Through Warhol’s Eyes The New York Observer:   I knew Andy Warhol for a short but lively stint in 1984 and ’85, while my then-fiancée was one of his best friends. We were out every night, all night. One night, my parents had their big summer party in Greenwich; I thought Andy would like it since I had invited a few top polo players, all the Argentine pros. He arrived late, in a long white stretch limo. As the driver opened…

 

The Lady in Red Download