Art Kaleidoscope

Frans Snyders, Fruit Stall. Flanders, Between 1618 and 1621. The State Hermitage Museum, Russia. Renaissance still life code

Renaissance still life code – Frans Snyders, Fruit Stall. Flanders, between 1618 and 1621. The State Hermitage Museum, Russia.
At the end of the Renaissance in northern Europe still life genre from decorative has become a philosophical statement in paints. XVI-XVIII century – a golden time in the history of European still life. In those years, there were two main schools of art, specializing in images of flowers, fruit and subjects – Flemish and Dutch. Despite the fact that Flanders (Belgium) and the Netherlands were the neighboring states, their artists had different meanings in the display of “dead nature” (still life in Flanders), or “quiet life” (in the Netherlands).
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The Fight Between Carnival and Lent. Pieter Bruegel the elder, Oil on wood. 1559. Vienna, Austria. Museum of Fine Arts

Sad Fight Between Carnival and Lent by Bruegel. The custom to hold carnival procession and presentation on Shrove Tuesday has lived up to our days. In medieval Europe, it was one of the most joyful and favorite holidays. In fact, after it began forty days of Lent, during which, according to Christian tradition, it is impossible to arrange any amusements. Sad holiday depicted in the painting by Bruegel. Fires of the Inquisition and the Spanish rule in the Netherlands did not allow reckless fun.
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Waving lights in the dark. Wes Whaley Light painting

Wes Whaley Light painting
American self-taught photographer and artist Wes Whaley is the author of these beautiful art installations. He uses the fluorescent tubes and other tools to create his light paintings – long exposure, and a paint roller. Wes Whaley – a sales rep for an electrical supply company in Alabama, US – devised the homemade kit himself. Wes Whaley admits that he has been light painting for 1.5 years. “I love light painting the most because it’s all in your imagination, and also if you were to ask anyone to draw or paint a picture it would take days or weeks. I can set up and shoot a photo in about 10 minutes that is sweet!”
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Blue bird. Roman Khalilov Surrealistic ceramic art

Roman Khalilov Surrealistic ceramic art
Talented artist Roman Khalilov (born 28 October 1980 in Zaporozhye, Ukraine) is the author of fabulous gallery of ceramic sculptures. Created by him animals and people as if filled with mystery of ancient pottery of lost civilizations. Indeed, pottery has been known since ancient times, and is the first man made material. These colorful figurines of animals, fish, folk characters passed through the prism of the author’s imagination. This makes them original and dream provoking. Roman Khalilov’s clay figurines and panels – shaped, decorated with painting, carving, and hardened by fire, have become the real piece of art. Khalilov exhibited his surrealistic clay works in Ukraine and abroad – Germany, Italy, Greeece, and Russia. The artist is currently working in the studio Art pottery KERAMUS in Ukraine.
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Carol Eckert coiling art

Carol Eckert coiling art – fiber sculptures of animals that are mythology symbols: snakes as symbols of evil, storks or cranes as signs of good fortune. Animal symbolism appeals to her, through the coiled fiber process she creates stories, legends of great floods, tales of quests and journeys, parables of good and evil. “Mythology and art have been intertwined for as long as there have been humans on earth, and my work often makes references to art history”, says Carol Eckert.
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Mother of God. Pure Soul of Russian lubok

Pure Soul of Russian lubok
Often found in the spiritual literature of XVII-XVIII centuries, the plot of “Pure Soul” goes back to the “Parable of the soul of the righteous”. In the parable of the Immaculate Virgin (on this subject even painted icons) – a symbol of purity and righteousness. “Decorated” with all the virtues,” she stands above the sun and the moon under Her feet.” Dragon, sun, moon, stars, eagle wings behind the back – everything sends the viewer right to Revelation (“And there appeared a great wonder in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars … And the woman was given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place on the face of the serpent, and where she is nourished for a time, times and half a time “(Rev., XII).
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The Great Wave off Kanagawa. Katsushika Hokusai code

Katsushika Hokusai code naturally meets the main principle of the Far Eastern philosophy: all things are born from the interaction of two opposing forces of cosmic order yin and yang. Yang – masculine, active, bright start; Yin – feminine, passive, dark. The Great Wave off Kanagawa depicts the moment of complete triumph of the feminine, a prisoner in a giant wave, ready to absorb the boat of fishermen. But in the view of the Japanese, none of the forces can fully take precedence over the other, and at exact moment when the victory of one of them seems to be imminent, the pendulum begins to move in the opposite direction. So that efforts of the rowers are not in vain. Victory as a pledge of defeat.
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