Shawn's Art Blog

  My favorite baroque pieces that I have had the opportunity to study have always been ones that feature tenebrism at their center. The darkness and stark contrast of light and shadow have ways of pulling the eyes from one piece of the canvas to the other. A good example of this is  Rembrandt 's “Simeon’s Song of Praise.” What I have always enjoyed about Rembrandt as an artist is how much he can use darkness and contrast to communicate ideas, without the highly prevalent darkness in the paintings being oppressive.  My eyes are initially pulled at the lower left following the columns and arches to a large black shape. I can’t really decide if that’s a tapestry or something else. It’s hard to make out but my first impression is that it is some sort of tapestry. I am then pulled down following the crowd of people into the bright light where I believe Simeon is presiding over the Messiah as a child.  There are a couple of things I think are interesting. The first is Rem...

  It was difficult for me to find just a single piece of Zdzisław Beksiński's art to talk about. I have a handful of favorite artists: Rembrandt, H.R. Giger, M.C. Escher, and Zdzisław Beksiński certainly makes the list. This is work is untitled, oil on canvas, with the exact timing on when he made it being also unknown. Zdzisław Beksiński is a dystopian surrealist who was born in Poland in the 1929. He died in 2005. He was a young boy during World War II, and when the Soviets took over Poland he was present for the duration of the U.S.S.R. and his country was part of the Warsaw Pact (Banach). This particular piece is probably from his "fantastic period" Which happened between 1960-1980 roughly speaking (Banach). That twenty years of time is when he produced pieces like this and it has some of the strongest works in his portfolio. He insists his works were abstract and have no meaning whatsoever.    The reason I don’t believe that is in Poland in the time when he was at hi...