Post by Otto Rapp

The recent exhibition Phantastische Venus in Viechtach made me think of this great romantic painting by Alexandre Cabanel, painted in 1863. 

Rothaug Alexander (born March 13, 1870 in Vienna, Austria, † March 5, 1946 in Vienna, Austria) was an Austrian painter and illustrator. 
In 1884 he began an apprenticeship as a sculptor, however, changed in 1885 to the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts to study painting at August Eisenmenger, Christian Griepenkerl and Franz Rumpler. In 1892 he moved to Munich, where he worked as an illustrator for the humorous journal the flying leaves. In 1911 he became a member of the Association of the Visual Artists Vienna.

more: Alexander Rothaug - Wien Geschichte Wiki (german)

My previous blog posed the question: Yes ... But is it Art? It featured a nearly decade old CBS 60 Minutes program. The questions posed then are still ( and sadly) as topical today as they were back then. Nothing much has changed, except perhaps the numbers. Rather than adding this video here to that blog, I present it as a separate post, though they are very much related.  

Go inside the glittering world of the super-rich as art critic and journalist Alastair Sooke explores the remarkable stories behind the Top Ten Most Valuable Paintings in the World to sell at auction. The documentary tells the stories behind the astronomical prices of art and why the world's richest people want to spend their millions on it.

You might like to check out the previous blog 
Yes ... But is it Art?

To commemorate St. Stephan's Day, here is a early 16th C painting by Austrian artist 
Marx Reichlich (1460 to 1520). 

Jacobus and Stephan altar, right inside wing, lower scene: Stoning of Saint Stephan.

Reichlich was a painter of primarily religious works. He painted a number of traditional scenes as commissions for churches, including "Adoration of the Magi", and "The Last Judgement". Some of his works reside at the Kunsthistorisches Museum. This particular work however is in the collection of the Alte Pinakothek in Munich. 

Deterioration of Mind over Matter

Unbelievable - to be listed among some of the worlds famous artists - and for the List25 author Petr Habarta to pick my work as the title image! This work is one of my earliest, dating back to 1973 and it is from a phase that I jokingly refer to as my "Scare thy Neighbors" period.

here it is on DeviantArt - with the background story: 
http://fav.me/dser0i
acrylic on canvas, 20"x28", 1973

One painting, entitled “The Deterioration Of Mind Over Matter” is a frightening picture of a decomposing human scull firmly ensconed on some devilish birdcage in which the raw gore of mans physical being lies lifeless at the base. The parting flesh of the scull is secured by a tromp-loeil safety pin. This is truly an image that could have been utilized in the former issues of “Tales From The Crypt”, in fact it brings to mind in its own scary way the imaginations of Edgar Allan Poe. The poem, “The Conqueror Worm” comes to mind immediately:
But see, amid the mimic rout
A crawling shape intrude!
A blood-red thing that writhes from out
The scenic solitude!
It writhes! - it writhes! - with mortal pangs
The mimes become its food,
And the angels sob at vermin fangs
In human gore imbued.

Excerpt from the critique by J. Brooks Joyner, Editor Visual Arts, The Albertan, Saturday, May 29th, 1976

Pompeo Girolamo Batoni (25 January 1708 – 4 February 1787) was an Italian painter whose style incorporated elements of the French Rococo, Bolognese classicism, and nascent Neoclassicism.

Batoni aimed at overcoming the excesses and frivolities of the Rococo by taking inspiration in classical antiquity and in the work of artists such as Nicolas Poussin, and especially Raphael. As such he was a precursor of Neoclassicism.

from wikipedia - read more

Bernardo Bellotto (c. 1721/2 – 17 October 1780) was an Italian urban landscape painter or vedutista, and printmaker in etching famous for his vedute of European cities (Dresden, Vienna, Turin and Warsaw). He was the pupil and nephew of Canaletto and sometimes used the latter's illustrious name, signing himself as Bernardo Canaletto. In Germany and Poland, Bellotto called himself by his uncle's name, Canaletto.

Bellotto's style was characterized by elaborate representation of architectural and natural vistas, and by the specific quality of each place's lighting. It is plausible that Bellotto, and other Venetian masters of vedute, may have used the camera obscura in order to achieve superior precision of urban views.

.............from wikipedia - read more

The altarpiece has two sets of wings, displaying three configurations:
Wings closed - Outer wings opened - Inner wings opened

Sempered Gromykoism is a blog by artist and writer Gromyko Padilla Semper, covering everything under the sun having to do with Visionary Art, Surrealism and Fantastic Realism

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