goodbye for now

as this is not helping me study
or helping me become a better poet
i'll stop wasting my time
and make sure that I know it!

Edgar Degas

Dreamlike they dangle
from pastels so pure
with blurs filled with laughter
it's movement galore!
The dancers drift gracefully
throughout his career
Degas' women were truly
like Germans to beer.
He couldn't live without them
he found them to be
buds flighting from stems
of the lank willow tree.
Degas drew and he painted;
he studied the masters.
To keep himself minted,
monotyping was faster.
He made pictures from memory
never from sight
he would look for his subjects
late in the night.
"Imagination is key!"
Degas firmly asserted.
the other impressionists
up and deserted
Degas with his movement
his colors and women
they found no improvement
when he used colors like lemons.
In his late works,
naturalism receded
in colors and lines
he found expression was needed
so he loosened his grip
and painted with passion
and rolled with the history
That said he's in fashion.

Edouard Manet

Edouard Manet, the third on the list
a French artist,
called Post-impressionist.
He painted and printed
thousands or more
his "Young lady with bird"
looked like a chore.
Dark in tone, influenced by masters
he painted the people
and sometimes disasters.
An execution, a picnic, a bar, and some flowers
rowboats and musicians, and women on towers
A few of the many
motifs that he rendered
he flattened the space
until realism surrendered
his late work turned somber
and reflexive in tone
Until when he saw it
he let out a moan
and then Manet
with his paintbrush in hand
dropped and joined
the grand ole dead artist band.

Honore Daumier

A French Artist, Born 1808 died 1879, not too long of a life, easier to remember one might think...
He was a realist
His early work consisted of portraits, mostly graphite or lithographs, political caricatures and political cartoons

This newspaper ad shows two men on the street, dressed relatively nicely, one wears a top hat, carries a cane and is walking his little stupid looking dog.  The cobblestones on the street are detailed near the figures, then disappear into the background.  The man on the right is bent forward in an exaggerated gesture, almost a bow with extremely straight legs. Two men talk in the background.

This lithograph shows a murder scene, a man lies fallen off of his bed, two other men on the ground, dead also, the bedclothes hang off as pulled, the man is foreshortened with his legs facing the viewer, his neck bent up.  Very detailed, but a smoothness to his lines is evident.  This is developed in his later oil paintings.

Such as this, 1850 painting called the burden.  Here, he has let go of his precision in detail, focusing more on movement and gesture.  The child runs in the mother's shadow, obscured by the darkness. His face is nothing more than three small dots.  The woman's arm and neck are exaggerated, not naturalistically rendered. She is bent forward, her hands little more than two shapes pressed together, the light illuminates her breast and her bundle of things that she carries.

The LIST

Hey Everyone!
I will be posting ten (hopefully) artists every day, so if you are also studying for the LIST then this might help you too.   xoxo take a break from editing :)
Olivia

cortona

Ciao to my many followers, probably just Pierce, I love you!  I have been in Cortona now for almost 2 months.  It began very warm, the days were long and hot, perfect for evening runs or jaunts through the forest with the many wild boar friends of mine.  Many adventures I have had here.  But alas, now the weather is changing, cloudy days melt into cold, dark lightness as the sun departs across the vista.  Somehow each day woodchips, bronze dust, and plaster find their way into my hair, burrowing like lice or those lovely little aphids on plants or chiggers that dig their way into your skin.  Meanwhile my palms and the soft under part of my arms are permanently coated with charcoal and dark-room chemicals, so I become an inverse black person that smells like a bad case of formaldehyde.  Apart from all of this, Italy retains its charm and beauty, not phased a bit from the grunge and dirt that inhabit its lovely spaces.  Even rats here seem elegant and medieval, like they just ran out of the pages of a story book and if you look close enough,   they are actually made of water and pigment, kind of like the frescoes on every wall in every church here.  Buona notte tutti. Arrivaderci.

Firenze