Feeling a little blue

Entering a blue phase

Misstress of the Pastels 

Rosalba Carriera Felicita Sartori in Turkish Costume

Rosalba Carriera was admired for her portraits. She had a fairly huge studio in Venice, Campo San Stefano with four other artists working under her; one of them was Felicita Sartori.
Rosalba worked for quite a few European courts. Her stay in Paris (1720 -1721) pushed her into the spotlight. She became a celebrated artist and her work was shipped into the whole word.
She developed her own technique, painting the porcelain-like skin of the Rococo era women. Her pastels were renowned and influenced later artists like Jean-Etienne Liotard.
Felicita, here shown in a Turkish costume, arrived at Rosalba's studio at the age of 14 and left 1741 as a fully trained painter.

Amedeo Modigliani The woman with blue eyes

Mysterious eyes 

In a post-world-war-one era, probably because of his health issues and the troubles, he faced trying to obtain good material on a relatively low budget, Amedeo Modigliani dedicated himself to painting.
The woman with blue eyes shows in a his beloved Jeanne Hébuterne with an elongated delicate body - significantly, her slender hand rests in a over her heart. Finally there is her finely chiseled face with a rather long nose and the mysterious blue eyes.
The artists style was inspired by the archaic cultures of Greece and Egypt. Only the hand gesture of the woman seems modern revealing the melancholic disposition of the artist, that can be found throughout his entire oeuvre. The unfocused eyes look into an uncertain future and mirror the situation of the artist who, because of his poor health,  is once more is left without a perspective in life.

The Queen of Pleasure 

Henri de Toulouse Lautrec Jane Avril entering the Moulin Rouge

In his paintings, lithographic prints and poster designs Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec immortalized the Parisian Belle Epoque. As a patron of the Chat Noir and the Moulin Rouge the handicapped, fun-loving artist found his models among the stressed dancers whose energy and zest for life were depleted by alcohol and an audience that tried to drown their sorrows and fears in wine and Absinth. Here the dancer Jane Avril this the only person in the painting. She was famous for her daring and risky dances at the Moulin Rouge. Her face seems haggard, her expression closed off, yet entering the Moulin Rouge she is about to entertain the lurid audience. The melancholy in her downcast eyes is mirrored in the selection of colours, the dark blues combined with the washed-out green seem to imitate the rain.

Pablo Picasso Das  Paar

Misary 

In 1932 the first retrospective of Picasso's works was organised by the master himself. The exhibition at the Kunsthaus Zürich is seen as a milestone in the history of modern art. Piccaso chose the works himself to represent every phase of his artistic development. Instead of pleasing the critics with his selection, he chose a personal approach to his work.

Vis-à-Vis

The world according to Salvador Dalí is filled with surprises. His detail-oriented paintings reveal the the riddles wrapped in conundrums only if the viewer risks a second or third glance, or maybe they remain mysteries.

Salvador Dalí Portrait of Isabel Styler-Tas 1945

Here an elegantly dressed woman with a stylish fur cap sits in front of a landscape. From a brooch, fixed on the plunging neckline of her fiery red gown, a tree seamlessly grows into the deserted seafront landscape. Her vis-à-vis is not the painter, but a rock formation with trees mirroring her silhouette. A meandering footpath leads to the top of the solid rock, the higher it climbs, the more it is obscured by mossy roots and the darkness of the little grove growing wild on top of the rock. The grove bears a striking resemblance to the fur cap of the woman.
Here, Salvador Dalí immortalized his muse Gala in a way that represents her ambivalent character, turning the portrait a psychological comment.


Johnathan Jones, The Guardian Sat. 9 Nov. 2002