Artwork for Fireworks!

Everyone enjoys those "top ten lists" and so I recently picked up a book called 50 Artists You Should Know. Familiar with many of the artists, I am sad to say that some of them I did not know, while others I simply recognized but could not really place them. Perhaps you would enjoy a few of what I considered to be the interesting highlights of their biographies. Their art works have endured through the centuries, withstanding not only the impact of time, but competition with technology as well. Such indefatigable talent! Way more impressive than any computer, i-pod, or plasma TV.

Jan Van Eyck is one of the earliest artists who is noted for his use of color. I do need to study him more. Raphael's life span was a mere 37 years but he was able to produce incredible masterpieces during his lifetime. And apparently there was quite the competition between Michaelangeleo and him. I can't imagine how either of them doubted their talent. Btw, despite Michaelangelo painting the Sistine Chapel, he really wanted to be known as a sculptor.

Peter Paul Rubens became a favorite of mine after I saw one of his original masterpieces up close and personal. He apparently had a penchant for painting voluptuous women, hence the term Rubens-esque was coined.

I am not so much into symbolist work but I just love the color and designs of Gustav Klimt's painting "The Kiss" featured to the right here.

Joseph Beuys said "every person should be an artist". I think he was a forerunner to quirky, spending 5 days in 1974 in a room with a coyote called Little John. He was greatly influenced by the Fluxus movement, which was a "made-up" word that suggests constant change.

Andy Warhol said someone once told him to paint what he liked and that's how we got all those Campbell Soup cans. Marcel Duchamp once signed a shovel in a department store and proclaimed it "Art."

And that Salvadore Dali said that everyone has a "right to his madness". I just prefer to keep mine a bit more on the positive, karmic, and colorful side of life. Those melting watches of his don't really help me pass the time.

I almost couldn't bear to post one of my humble little watercolor paintings after talking about the Masters. But I shall, just to add a fun splash of color. This is called "A Bee's View of the World". A psychedelic look at life probably after having a little too much honey.

Happy Fourth of July!!!

"It is Art that makes life. Makes interest. Makes importance. And I know of no substitute whatever for the force and beauty of it is process." -Henry James