Thursday, June 11, 2009

More to Love at the High: Monet Water Lilies

Atlanta-area artists, art lovers and students are blessed to have the High Museum of Art. Even as museums around the globe have limited the scope of their exhibitions, the High continues to awe and inspire us.

Quintessentially, last weekend the High added two more new exhibits to its already stellar lineup.

In a collaboration with New York’s Museum of Modern Art, the High’s latest blockbuster features four masterpieces by the French impressionist Claude Monet, including the renowned “Reflections of Clouds on the Water-Lily Pond,” which, at 42-feet-wide, is the largest “Water Lilies” painting in the U.S.

Also new is “On the Beach,” an exhibition of 20 monumental photographs by Richard Misrach, a recognized pioneer of large-format color photography. Spanning four galleries, the show marks the largest collection of Misrach’s bird’s-eye images of the ocean, sunbathers and swimmers.

EXHIBITIONS NOW ON VIEW:
  • Monet Water Lilies from the Museum of Modern Art, through August 23.
  • Richard Misrach: On the Beach, through August 23
  • Louvre Atlanta: The Louvre and the Masterpiece, through Sept 12
  • Anthony Ames, Architect: Residential Landscapes, through August 23, 2009
  • Evolution: Five Decades of Printmaking by David C. Driskell, through August 2, 2009
UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS
  • Leonardo da Vinci: Hand of the Genius, in October 2009. The High will unveil for the first time outside of Florence, Italy, two sculptural works newly attributed to Leonardo da Vinci.
  • The Allure of the Automobile, in Spring 2010. The High premieres the first exhibition to consider the stylistic development of automobiles in the context of prominent design movements such as Art Moderne and Postwar Modernity.
Visit the BINDERS website at www.bindersart.com!

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

The 4th Most Expensive Painting in the World

Vincent van Gogh painted four of the seven previous works on our bottom-to-top listing of the “10 most expensive paintings in the world.” A remarkable achievement by an artist who didn’t sell any paintings during his turbulent lifetime.

4. “Portrait of Dr. Gachet” by Vincent van Gogh, sold in 1990 for 82.5 million. Inflation-adjusted price $136.1 million.



Painted in June 1890 in Auyers-sur-Oise near Paris, the portrait depicts Doctor Paul Gachet who cared for Van Gogh during the artist's last months.

Just before painting it, van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo, “Ah! portraiture, portraiture with the thought, the soul of the model in it, that is what I think must come.

Dr. Gachet is shown sitting at a table and leaning his head onto his right arm. The oil painting measures 22 x 23 in. (67 × 56 cm).

Van Gogh did two portraits of Gachet, both with emphasis is on Gachet's melancholic disposition. In a letter to Theo, Van Gogh's first impression was that Gachet was “sicker than I am, I think, or shall we say just as much.”

Despite his recurrent bouts of mental illness, the Dutch painter was neither the raving lunatic nor isolated recluse that many imagine. Van Gogh was quite popular and active in art circles, and well regarded by other artists of his day. A pioneer of Post-Impressionism, Van Gogh’s work influenced Abstract Expressionism the 1950s, and today he continues to exert a noticeable impact on new generation of artists.

The painting of Dr. Gachet became shrouded in mystery soon after it sold for a record auction price at Christie’s in 1990. The Australian- born financier who acquired it in 1997 later sold it to parties as yet unknown. The second version of the painting is at Musee d’Orsay in Paris.

Previous Top-10 Listings:
5. “Moulin de la Galette“ by Pierre-Auguste Renior. Read more>
6. “Garçon à la Pipe” by Pablo Picasso. Read more>
7. “Irises” by Vincent van Gogh. Read more>
8. “Dora Maar au Chat” by Pablo Picasso. Read more>
9. “Portrait of Joseph Roulin” by Vincent van Gogh. Read more>
10. “Portrait de l’Artiste sans Barbe” by Vincent van Gogh. Read more>

Visit the BINDERS website at www.bindersart.com!

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

This Week @ Binders - June 8-14

ART CLASSES AND WORKSHOPS

Monday, June 8:
Guided Open Studio with Kay Powell
Every Monday • 10:30am-2pm or 6:30-8:30pm • Fee: $15/session. No sign up needed. Please pay the instructor.

Tuesday, June 9:
Painting - Design and Technique with Charles Y. Walls
Tuesdays, 6 sessions, May 26-June 30 • 1-4pm or 6-8:30pm
Fee: $140 per 6 session series

Bookmaking with Anne Elser
Tuesdays, 6 sessions, May 26-June 30 • 6-8:30pm • Fee: $140

Wednesday, June 10:
Copperplate Calligraphy with Anne Elser
Wednesdays, 6 sessions, June 10-July 15 • 6-8:30pm • Fee: $140

Watercolor Landscape Painting with Susan Bradford
6-8:30pm, Wednesdays, 6 sessions • May 20 - June 24 • Fee: $120

Thursday, June 11:
Visual Liberation with Pastels with Ryan Doss
Every Thursday • 6-8:30pm • Fee: $25/session • Sign up now!


Friday, June 12:

No events planned.

Saturday & Sunday, June 13 and 14:
Beginning Adult Watercolors with Barry Sholder
Sat. 11am-4pm and Sun. 12am-5pm • Fee: $140 • Sign up now!

See all upcoming Art Classes and Workshops at BINDERS

Please note: Classes on this schedule are in our Atlanta store unless otherwise indicated. For more information please contact: Kristina Breneman at 404.237.6331 ext. 203.

EXHIBITIONS AT THE LIMELIGHT GALLERY

Showing Through June 30:
Videre Art Show. The 5th annual art show featuring Dawn K Martin’s art students - a great opportunity to collect new work by Atlanta's rising artists!

Visit the BINDERS website at www.bindersart.com!

Friday, June 5, 2009

Decoding Da Vinci: What Happens When You Twitter the Mona Lisa?

(Extraced from Web Monkey Blog by Scott Gilbertson)

Given Twitter’s 140 character limit, it might seem next to impossible to send something as complex as the Mona Lisa. After all, 140 characters roughly translates to a mere 140 bytes of data, never mind the complexity of stuffing actual image data into text characters.

However, thanks to Mario Klingemann, Da Vinci’s best known work has been revamped into something Picasso might have loved.

Klingemann’s experimental image-encoding technique translates the image into Chinese characters and spits out a version of the Mona Lisa that’s reminiscent of a Cubist painting.



Using Chinese characters allowed him to send 210 bytes of data in only 140 UTF-8 characters — perfect for cramming 50% more data into Twitter. The resulting polygons convey the rough colors and shapes of the Mona Lisa, as in the left-hand image above.

But don’t expect this trick to work on your handy iPhone or Blackberry. Twitter doesn’t have the decoder, so you’d simply see the Chinese characters. But run the data through Klingemann’s decoder and the result and, voilà! — not exactly the Mona Lisa, but very impressive nonetheless.

To learn how Klingemann pulled it off, check out his highly technical explanation on Flickr (and if you like what you see, have a look at some of his other very creative “conceptual experiments.”)

Klingemann plans to release his code-cracking process to the world to see what other curious Twitter experimenters can come up with.

Follow BindersArt on Twitter!

Visit the BINDERS website at www.bindersart.com!

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

The 5th Most Expensive Painting in the World

This work by French artist Pierre-Auguste Renior is one of his happiest compositions, as well as one of Impressionism's most celebrated masterpieces. The previous five paintings on our Top 10 List were done by van Gogh (3) and Picasso (2).

5. “Moulin de la Galette” by Pierre-Auguste Renior, sold in 1990 for $78.1 million. Inflation-adjusted price $123.8 million.



Painted in 1876, Renior’s work is a snapshot of real life, depicting the “people of Paris” enjoying a carefree Sunday afternoon at the Moulin, a popular acacia-shaded courtyard in the Montmartre district of Paris. Here, working class Parisians would dress up and spend time into the evening, dancing, drinking, and eating galette, the crusty pastry that was Moulin’s specialty.

Lighthearted and full of evanescent color, Renior’s painting displays a richness of form and a fluidity of brush stroke. The dapple of light is a typically Impressionist feature.

Renior’s oil on canvas measures 52 x 69 in (131 × 175 cm). Nobody before him had thought of capturing some aspect of daily life in a canvas of such large dimensions. In this work, Renior also introduced portraits of friends, family, and other painters.

In 1991, the painting was owned by a Japanese industrialist who outrageously suggested he intended to cremate it with himself when he died. However, when his companies ran into severe financial difficulties, the bankers who held the painting as collateral for loans arranged a confidential sale through Sotheby's to an undisclosed buyer. Currently, the painting resides at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.

Previous Top-10 Listings:
6. “Garçon à la Pipe” by Pablo Picasso. Read more>
7. “Irises” by Vincent van Gogh. Read more>
8. “Dora Maar au Chat” by Pablo Picasso. Read more>
9. “Portrait of Joseph Roulin” by Vincent van Gogh. Read more>
10. “Portrait de l’Artiste sans Barbe” by Vincent van Gogh. Read more>

Visit our website at www.bindersart.com!

About Face: Portrait Exhibit at Mableton Art Center

The prestigious Portrait Society of Atlanta launches its 2009 Spring-Summer Juried Exhibition with a reception at the Mable House Art Center on June 6th, 7-9pm, in Mableton, GA.

Michael Del Priori, the esteemed portrait artist who juried the show will be on hand to help present awards to the winning portrait artists.

More than forty portraits (most of them oil paintings) will be on display. The exhibition is free and open to the public, and it will continue through July 6.

The Mable House Arts Complex is sure to surpise and impresses you. In addition to the Art Center, it also includes a performance Amphitheatre and History Center. Though slightly off-the-beaten-path in South Cobb County, it’s within 30 minutes of downtown Atlanta. And it is chock-full of exciting art events all year-round.

Visit www.mablehouse.org for a map and more information about this and other art happenings at Mable House.

Visit our website at www.bindersart.com!

Monday, June 1, 2009

This Week @ Binders - June 1-7

ART CLASSES AND WORKSHOPS

Monday, June 1:
Guided Open Studio with Kay Powell
Every Monday • 10:30am-2pm or 6:30-8:30pm • Fee: $15/session. No sign up needed. Please pay the instructor.

Tuesday, June 2:
Painting - Design and Technique with Charles Y. Walls
Tuesdays, 6 sessions, May 26-June 30 • 1-4pm or 6-8:30pm
Fee: $140 per 6 session series

Bookmaking with Anne Elser
Tuesdays, 6 sessions, May 26-June 30 • 6-8:30pm • Fee: $140

Wednesday, June 3:
Children’s Clay, Painting and Drawing with Rebecca Nagel • Every Wednesday • 4-5:30pm • Fee: $25/session • Sign up now!

Watercolor Landscape Painting with Susan Bradford
6-8:30pm, Wednesdays, 6 sessions • May 20 - June 24 • Fee: $120

Thursday, June 4:
Visual Liberation with Pastels with Ryan Doss
Every Thursday • 6-8:30pm • Fee: $25/session • Sign up now!


Friday, June 5:
No events planned.

Saturday & Sunday, June 6-7:
Beginning Drawing: Values, Tools and Ways of Seeing with Lisa Duncan • 2 sessions: 11am-4pm Saturday and 12-5pm Sunday • Fee: $110 • Sign up now!

Please note: Classes on this schedule are in our Atlanta store unless otherwise indicated. For more information please contact: Kristina Breneman at 404.237.6331 ext. 203.

EXHIBITIONS AT THE LIMELIGHT GALLERY

Thursday, June 4:
5pm-8pm • Videre-Opening Party! • Free!
Welcome to the 5th annual art show featuring Dawn K Martin’s art students. Great opportunity to collect new work by Atlanta's rising artists! Live music by Eddie Varsalona. Show continues through June 30.

Visit our website at www.bindersart.com!