(15) Bathroom Art

 

The fixtures of a bathroom has inspired quite a few painters ( six-bathrooms-from-famous-paintings ) and this was so for TOM WESSELMANN who painted "Bathtub 3" in 1963 (top card) and another American painter, STUART DAVIS, who painted "Odol" in 1924 already (he was born 40 years before Wesselmann). Now Odol was a mouthwash my grandparents already used, and I googled its origin which was 1892, the year Davis was born. Only Odol was a German product, but came to the US in 1912. I got the card as a reminder of my good childhood visits at my grandparents. I think they put their dentures with  drops of Odol into a glass similar to the one on Davis' painting, and it was sitting in front of a mirror, too.  While Odol is hanging in The Cincinnati Art Museum,  Bathtub3 was given to the Ludwig Museum in Cologne.  It is actually huge:  213 by 270 cm, and it is in fact a collage using different materials for shower curtain, bathmat etc. The woman in the tub with tiles is painted in oil. Odol on the other hand is only 62x44cm, also done oil.  I just generally love Wesselmann and Davis paintings, so there isn't much else to say. Now get cleaned.

More of bathroom art in post 11

(14) Modern Old

 

 I had kept some magazine pages about this incredible American painter Madeline von Foerster, a Californian, born 1973, who specializes in Flemish-style still lives with a fantasy twist, always including nature elements. I found these truly mind blowing in their accuracy, arrangement and uniqueness of chosen objects.

https://www.madelinevonfoerster.com/ if you click on her "technique", you will learn how a painting is made. Fascinating!

The painting above is called "Ex Mare", pretty straight forward. Don't we all collect things from the beach, but to have a live seagull, now that is funny.  There is just so much to discover and there are simply fun to stare at or trying to figure out the a WHY.

The "flowers" (left) are all inset eating plants. Good luck, dragon fly!  Down below is the "Orchid Cabinet"

I switched the magazine pages with Von Foersters works after a while, we are too spoiled with variety.

(13) Top of the Table

 

It was sad to say Good-Bye to Dürer's landscape with the watermill, but certainly time for a little something different.

And I truly love HILARY PECIS ( *1979, California) huge, colorful paintings of table tops and rooms. Though, granted, they are not best suited for the loo, I can't say exactly why. Too cheerful for this venue? Not thought provoking enough? On the loo, it does make more sense to hang something with a more deeper, inviting view that engages the eye in different directions. However, Hilary's fun still lives give a good optical jolt.  Interestingly I could not find this painting "Table Top Tangle" (2021) clipped from an old Juxtapose magazine anywhere online. Weird.

 

(12) Landscapes

 

It's a new year, so time for change, and since there is snow on Berlin's streets, we don't want to look at Paris' snow on the loo any longer. 

I do like looking at landscapes cause they draw you in and make your thoughts drift along nicely. Here we have above Jean Baptiste Camille COROT (1796- 1875) with his "White Route"- Saintry pres de Corbeil from 1873. It is absolutely adorable because of the mood it conveys. So tranquil, so innocent. Probably early spring. And if you look closely you see a man in the bushes probably peeing, in the distance some white house, and may be it's the white route because of the light sandy path. He painted this at age 77, not bad, ey?

But Albrecht DÜRER (1471- 1528) and his villages in "Drahtziehmühle nahe Nürnberg", a water color from 1494 !!! is just as adorable. So fine and here too conveying such a lovely tranquil mood.

Imagine, Corot painted his landscape almost 300 years after Dürer held his brush!

How both paintings lure you into the distances is just fantastic. When I try to paint distance it looks nothing like it, pathetic and childish. It looks easy, but try it at home. Sure the foreground has to be bigger than the objects in the back, which on a piece of paper is simply the upper portion. Anyway, I probably love these art works because of the silence it conveys, and living in Berlin in the 21st century, we rarely experience silence anymore....

(11) Paris in Winter

 

Time for a little snow in the loo. I found an old magazine page of a Montmartre scene in my art encyclopedia, most likely  because I love Maurice Utrillo (1883- 1955), the son of painter Suzanne Valadon. This one here is called "Le Lapin agile sous le neige" (1921) ; it depicts the old building of a former wine trader where the cabaret 'Nimble Hare' was housed. Interestingly enough it is still standing with tourists flocking to it today. 

 There is a great vintage photo online if you google Le Lapin Agile. What is difficult to make out of the tall building on the right on Utrillo's painting becomes clear when you see the photo of this former village hill street. A crumbling brick wall and vine growing up along it. Wow, Paris in those days! And I love snow paintings, too. This one exudes the cold yet is also colorful. I can hear the crackling of shoes squashing the snow of the four figures that have just passed the cabaret. Strangely enough I could not find this exact art work by Utrillo who painted this scene many times later. Or is the one on my magazine sheet a forgery? The provenance lists American philanthropist Joseph Gruss as the collector, who he died in 1993. Ultimately all the of the Lapin Agile paintings are very fetching.

Well, and then there is Mary Cassatt (1844-1926) and her "Woman Bathing" from 1890.

Not only is it a fitting bathroom image - back in those days, a porcelain bowl and a water jug is all that most people had for a quick wash - but it fits nicely with our cabaret building which exists since 1860. Certainly people living there would have washed themselves like Mary Cassatt's model did. The American Cassatt moved to Paris in 1866 and stayed there until her death.  This painting is hanging the Washington D.C.'s National Gallery of Art. I  love the blue and brown colors coming from a "color drypoint and aquatint" technique. Something to do with powder  and etching on a metal plate. I  - sadly - have no clue how this works.

Little Maurice was only 7 years old when Mary created this image, living with his mother in poor conditions in Montmartre while Mary had a fancy apartment in the 8th arrondissement near Champs d'Elysee. 

I like to think by chance their paths somehow crossed.

(10) Picasso with Gerda and Gino

 

Somehow I didn't like the Schiele above the Wegener (see post 11), and  then I found some old art cards which I thought fit better into this semi abstract scheme. Though Gerda Wegener's painting is hardly abstract, a little graphic perhaps. Well, I found a Picasso from 1908 who painted the "Harlequin's Family" (on the back of the card it said "Circus Family); they do not look one bit like any type of family. I can make out 2 creatures with arms and legs and a flag. In fact I am rather annoyed by that big black empty space on the upper left hand corner.   However it's a nice composition.

"The Silent Dancer" below is from 1912 and painted by the Italian artist Gino Severini (1883-1966) who did a lot of wonderful cubist works, many very coforful. Our dancer is also called "Ballerina in Blue" which makes more sense, though to me the dress is rather a Flamenco one.

I guess I preferred this trio over the one from Post 11 because of the color combination. Schiele's style was way too "in your face" compared to Wegener's delicate color scheme and topic.

I like finding similarities. In any case, I had neither heard of Gerda Wegener, nor of Gino Severini before, so exploring them was certainly educational. I cannot state enough how bloody boring our art museums have become, showcasing the same candidates over and over again across the globe.

(9) Austrian Danish

 

Today we have a nice mix of male and female artworks from two painters of the same generation. One is by famous Austrian artist Egon Schiele (1890 -1918) and the other by the not-so-famous (as is often the case with great women painters) artist Gerda Wegener from Denmark (1886 -1940). This time my bathroom tiles only got postcards as the vis-a´-vis view from the loo. And what a contrast they are.  Schiele's is the "Housewall on the River" from 1915 which I saw when visiting the Leopold Museum in Vienna last March. I chose that particular card because otherwise Schiele is more associated with his uniquely distorted portraits of people he knew. So finding this row of houses (or is it all one house?) was a surprise. I liked the distinct brown palette. The building reminded me of a the old house in the 1958 French movie "Mon Oncle" from which Jacques Tati walked to the hyper modern one where is nephew lived.... 

I can feel the different materials, especially that stone wall and the wooden shutters. The laundry in the middle makes for a nice contrast. But in 1915 we can imagine the actual condition this place must have been in: poverty and hardship. Supposedly, as I read more about it,  this is a certain church in the town of Schiele's mother by the river Moldau, but I cannot see a church here. Sometimes it is not helpful to read "facts" about an artwork. In this case, Schiele didn't paint the church tower. (If you google "Jodokuskirche in Krumau an der Moldau" you will see what he painted. Seems like a great place to visit in the Czech Republic) 

The card by Gerda Wegener depicts a "Summer Day" from 1927 with a few ladies lolloping about. As I read in Wikipedia, Wegener liked to paint Lesbian erotica. There are quite a few nice portraits I much prefer over this group painting (such as "Queen of Hearts", "Lili Elbe" or "Eva Heramb"), but who cares?

At first I hadn't noticed the painter lady on the left cause the naked bum gets all the attention, but once I understood the whole scene partaking in a Southern town (France?) on a river promenade, I thought it a jolly nice composition, even if the nakedness outdoors in view for all is highly unlikely. But then they say the 1920s were quite decadent, so  why not?  Interesting is the accordion lady, the darkness of the instrument takes away from the easy going pastel mood, or? Anyway, certainly an artist to discover more of.