Encaustic painting

Encaustic painting involves applying layers of molten pigmented beeswax (mixed with molten resin to increase hardness) and fusing each new layer to the one beneath it to simultaneously paint and sculpt a surface.

"The Scream" Sells for Record Breaking $119.9 Million

Edvard Munch's masterpiece "The Scream," one of the world's most recognizable works of art, sold for $120 million at Sotheby's on Wednesday, setting a new record as the most expensive piece of art ever sold at auction

Edvard Munch's "The Scream" is seen in this undated handout photograph released in London February 21, 2012. Sotheby's will offer the only privately owned version of Edvard Munch's painting "The Scream" at an auction in New York on May 2, and expects it to fetch more than $80 million. 

India becoming market for high end European art

Rising disposable incomes, exposure to unique art forms and greater social interaction are opening urban Indian homes to niche British interior accessory art like Amanda Brisbane sculptures, Wedgewood cutlery and Moorcroft objects'd art.

As Europe sinks deeper into recession, high end lifestyle art brands from across the continent are looking at India as a wide market to sell their products at cheaper prices in a "reverse trend" of pre-independence Indian economy, when Indian goods were sold for a pittance in Europe, says a leading UK-based home arts promoter of Indian origin.

"The Indian economy is growing and so are people's choices. Indians have become adventurous. We have been exporting haute objects' d art from England, and they think that India is a big high-end market for art," Sunil Sethi, one of UK's leading Indian collectors of designer objects' d arts and sculptures, told IANS.

He said, "Exporting niche art objects from Europe is easy now because the manufacturers and artists do not impose conditions on sale in developing countries abroad because of the economic slowdown, as was earlier."

"European buyers are not in a position to buy high end art any more and the countries have to find emerging markets. Indian economy is still strong. It is a reverse trend," he said.

Sethi, the founder of Interarts, promotes high end accessory art brands like Wedgewood, Royal Doulton, Moorcroft, Arthur Price, Poole Pottery from UK, Costaboda from Scandinavia, Svaja from Eastern Europe, Versace sculptures, Armani from Italy, Rosenthal from Germany, Lladro from Spain, Felix Valez bronze sculptures, Cyan Glass and Franz porcelain from Spain.

An Interarts showcase of home accessory art in the capital this weekend (April 27-28) at the Bikaner House in the capital displayed more than 100 limited edition objects'd art from Europe and the US - featuring the best of contemporary crystal, porcelain, bronze and glass sculptures and cutlery.

The prices range between Rs.2,500 and Rs.14 lakh.

A section dedicated to coloured glass sculptures by Amanda Brisbane, Will Shakespeare and Richard Golding - a few of Britain's best glass artists - was the centre of attraction.

Brisbane sculpts large forms from nature in single sheets of expensive shaded glass while Shakespeare crafts futuristic shape in crystalline fired glass. Golding, the founder of Okra Glass, fuses metal with glass.

The three, along with hot glass artist Ian MacDonald, cameo glass artist Helen Millard, glass revivalist Andrew Potter, glass designer Rebecca Morgan, the Isle of Wight Glass Studio and veterans like Simon Moore, represent UK's new face of glass art, a tradition which dates back to the country's ties with glass capitals Venice and Murano in Italy in the early medieval era.

However, historians say glass as a medium of crafting was used as early as 1500 BC.

"I started collecting in 1992. The first piece of glass that I bought was from Okra Glass. Over the years, my collection has grown and I befriended the artists , glass studios and large glassware chains to set up a export platform," Sethi said. Sethi with wife Purnima set up Interarts four years ago.

He has exhibited and sold British accessory art in Mumbai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Indore, Jaipur, Ludhiana and Chandigarh.

Vincent van Gogh Paintings

Vincent van Gogh Paintings

Vincent van Gogh's Starry Night over the Rhône  on canvas (28-1/2x36-1/4 inches) that is  d'Orsay in Paris. See more pictures of van Gogh's paintings.

In the most limited definition of the term, Impressionism as the objective study of light did not encourage so essentially a subjective study as the self-portrait but in the later expansion of the movement this self-representation was given renewed force by Cézanne and van Gogh. The latter has often been compared with Rembrandt in the number and expressiveness of his self-portraits but while Rembrandt's were distributed through a lifetime, van Gogh produced some thirty in all in the short space of five years --- from the end of the Brabant period (1885) to the last year of his life at St Rémy and Auvers. In each there is the same extraordinary intensity of expression concentrated in the eyes but otherwise there is a considerable variety. From the Paris period onwards he used different adaptations of Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist brushwork, separate patches of colour being applied with varying thickness and direction in a way that makes each painting a fresh experience.

                                   Almond Branches in Bloom – Painting by Vincent van Gogh

                                                         vincent-van-gogh-night-cafe

Claude Monet(1840—1926)

                                                                  This contest is fueled by the following news:

Oscar-Claude Monet(1840—1926) is a French painter and one of the founders of the French artistic movement of impressionism. Biography: Claude Oscar Monet was born on November 14, 1840 in Paris. When he was just five years old, his family relocated to Normandy, Le Havre. His father wanted Claude to become a grocer and join the family business, but the son, since childhood, took great interest in fine arts, in particular, took with pleasure in painting caricatures. On the sea coast of Normandy, Monet met Eugene Boudin, the popular landscape painter and one of the ambassadors of impressionism. Boudin taught the young Monet some techniques in painting nature. In 1860, Monet was called up to join the army and he served in Algeria only for two years instead of the stipulated seven-year term: he was ill with typhoid and the intervention of his aunt helped the artist to demobilize. Monet took admission in university in the arts faculty but was disillusioned with the approach towards painting taught in the university. Having left the educational institution, he joined a painting workshop, which was organized by Charles Gleyre. In the workshop, he made friends with artists such as Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Frederic Bazille. They were practically contemporaries and had similar views towards art and soon formed a core group of impressionists. The portrait “Camille” or “The Woman in the Green Dress”, painted in 1866, brought fame to the painter. Later on, Camille became the wife of the artist and they had a son “Jean”. After the start of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, Monet leaves for England, where he studies the works of John Constable and William Turner. After returning back to France at the end of 1872, Monet paints the popular landscape “Impression. Sunrise” (Impression, soleil levant). This is the painting, which gave the name to the group of impressionists and the art movement. The painting was displayed at the first impressionistic exhibition held in 1874. In 1879, Camille died of tuberculosis. In 1892, Monet remarries Alice Hoschede. Even before the marriage, Alice helped the artist by taking care of the house and bringing up the children from his first marriage. In 1883, Monet together with Alice leaves for Givenry in Upper Normandy, some 80 km northwest from Paris. Alice died in 1911. The artist endured a lot and also lost his elder son Jean, who died in 1914. In the beginning of the 1920s, Monet suffered from cataracts and had to undergo two operations. The artist died on December 5, 1926 in Giverny and was buried in a local church cemetery. The most popular paintings of Monet: * Impression. Sunrise – 1872; * Poplars, (Autumn)- 1891; * Woman with a parasol (Camille, wife of Monet, with son)- 1875; * Monet’s Garden at Vetheuil – 1880; * La Grenouillerre – 1869; * Houses of Parliament. Seagulls - 1904; * Terrasse a Sainte-Adresse (Garden at Sainte-Adresse) – 1867; * Women in the Garden - 1866—67; * Jeanne-Marquerite Lecadre in the Garden- 1867; * The Garden in Flower – 1900; * Monet Irises in Monet’s Garden – 1900; * The Marina At Argenteuil – 1875; * Boulevard des Capucines – 1873; * La Cathedral de Rouen in the sun. Harmony in blue & golden colors – 1894; * Water lilies – 1903; * Regatta At Argenteuil. Around 1872; * Boulevard des Capucines - 1873; * Saint –Lazare Station - 1877; * La Porte D Amount Etretat – 1883; * Bordighera. Italy – 1884; * Garden at Bordighera. Morning Effect – 1884; * Grain sticks at the End of the Summer , Morning Effect - 1890—91; * Houses of Parliament. London – 1905; * Water lilies – 1906; * The Japanese Bridge - 1918—24; * Breakwater at Trouville, Low Tide – 1870; * The Beach at Trouville- 1870; * The Thames at the Westminster – 1871; * Bridge over a pond of water lilies - 1899