Art Bites 196: Street Art
With street art, random public spaces have become canvases. What began as tagging and street graffiti has evolved into a new art form — a way for those on the fringe to make a statement.
Art Bites 195: Social Realism, the Art of Communism
The art of Communism was only acceptable if it promoted the symbols of its values: the heroic soldier, the obedient worker, the tireless mother, anonymous cogs in the machine, diligently serving the state…art as propaganda.
Art Bites 194: Picasso’s "Guernica"
In the wake of history’s first saturation aerial bombardment, Picasso wove the shattered shards of that tragedy into a large Cubist-inspired painting that told the sad story and put a human face on “collateral damage.”
Art Bites 193: Marc Chagall
The Russian-born painter Marc Chagall used the abstract to create windows into the unseen spiritual world. With deceptively childlike simplicity — heavy outlines with brilliant colors — Chagall celebrated nature and its creator.
Art Bites 192: Surrealism and Salvador Dalí
Surrealists like Rene Magritte and Salvador Dalí explored the subconscious. Shining their artistic light on deep urges, dark fantasies, and weird dreams, they painted everyday images in jarring juxtapositions.
Art Bites 191: Edvard Munch and Expressionism
Munch’s iconic “Scream” seemed to tee up a world ready to go off the rails, filled with angst, and demoralized by WWI. Expressionism captured the emotions, trauma, and cynicism of that generation with distorted, haunted, and garish works.
Art Bites 190: Romanticism and Romantic Era Painting
Romantic art embraced more than traditional romance. It expressed the full range of human emotions with melodramatic, epic-scale canvases, images that stir the emotions, and an almost religious embrace of nature.
Art Bites 189: Pablo Picasso: Cubism, "Guernica," and Much More
In his long career, Pablo Picasso lived the isms of the 20th century. His art shows how he was classically trained, experimented with bohemians in Paris (inventing Cubism), captured the horror of modern warfare with “Guernica,” and found freedom in playful abstraction.
Art Bites 188: Gustav Klimt
In a swirling world of Art Nouveau and Expressionism, Gustav Klimt — with paintings like his iconic “The Kiss” — captured a simmering hedonism in Vienna in sumptuous portraits of bewitching women.
Art Bites 187: Toulouse-Lautrec
Toulouse-Lautrec lived the turn-of-the-century bohemian scene on Paris’ Montmartre Hill, he captured it, and he shared it with paintings that seemed full of empathy and insight.
Art Bites 186: Modern Art and the Isms of the 20th Century
Art in the 20th century was a parade of isms: Fauvism, Expressionism, Cubism, Surrealism, and more. And with the advent of abstract and non-representational art, it seemed the only rule was there are no rules.
Art Bites 185: Art Nouveau, Mucha, and Gaudí
As a response to the Industrial Age, artists went organic with willowy maidens, melting ice cream eaves, and an embrace of nature. It was Art Nouveau: Mucha in Czech Republic, Jugendstil in Germany, and Modernisme in Barcelona.
Art Bites 184: Vincent van Gogh
Van Gogh, with wild brush strokes and vivid colors, made everything seethe with life. He portrayed the vibrant world he felt so intensely, capturing the sun-drenched colors of the south of France into an explosion of creativity.
Art Bites 183: The Post-Impressionists: Seurat, Cézanne, Gauguin, Van Gogh
The Impressionists were like a tribe. The Post-Impressionists went in different directions: Seurat with his dots, Cézanne with his slabs, Gauguin with his primitive Tahitian scenes, and Van Gogh with wild brush strokes, vivid colors, and an ability to make everything seethe with life.
Art Bites 182: Claude Monet and His Waterlilies
For Monet, the true subject is not really the lilies, but the changing reflections on the pond…where lilies mingle with the clouds and trees. Monet cropped his scenes ever closer, until there was no sense of what’s up or down…until you’re completely immersed.
Art Bites 181: Rodin, Impressionism in Sculpting
With statues like his iconic “Thinker,” Rodin made ordinary people seem noble, his rough surfaces brought Impressionism to stone, and the poses he captured expressed the deepest emotions.
Art Bites 180: Impressionism, Monet, Renoir, and Degas
With the cry, “out of the studio and into nature,” the Impressionists revolutionized art. Monet focused not on the physical object but on light, shadow, and color. Renoir painted everyday scenes with a soft focus. And Degas caught ballet dancers at candid moments.
Art Bites 179: Northern Baroque Painting: Hals, Steen, Vermeer
Baroque art in the Protestant North — without the patronage of popes and kings — reflected the practical values of the merchants who paid for it. Steen, Vermeer, and Hals painted slices of regular life and group portraits of city bigwigs.
Art Bites 178: Baroque Music, Bernini for Your Ears
This mini piano concert demonstrates how Baroque composers like Bach and Scarlatti — with their dueling melodies and frilly trills — can be like Bernini for your ears. Music holds hands with the visual arts as we parade through the ages.
Art Bites 177: Rubens, a Master Painter of the Northern Renaissance
Peter Paul Rubens, a prolific Belgian painter, painted small sketches that his studio would then paint big, enabling him to crank out countless grand canvases: mythic battles, Catholic miracles, bloody hunts, and fleshy “Rubenesque” women.
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