Dogs evolved from the wolves, developing smaller jaws and teeth. Domesticated cats came along around 7,000 B.C. with the advent of agriculture-stored grain that attracted mice, that attracted cats.
Pets have been subjects in paintings for thousands of years, but by the 18th-century they appeared as status symbols and as symbols themselves for other qualities. In 1787 to 88, Francisco Goya painted Manuel Osorio Manrique de Zuñiga, an elegantly dressed 3 or 4-year-old boy surrounded by pets-a magpie tethered to a string, finches in a cage and three wide-eyed cats gazing hungrily at the magpie which holds Goya's calling card in its beak.
The animals have been burdened with various interpretations over the years and, certainly, they weren't included in the composition by accident. The caged finches have been interpreted as the soul or the boy's innocence; the cats as evil, the magpie with the calling card as gossip. Regardless, the pleasant first impression of the scen gives way to a sense of foreboding.
In Mian Situ's Companionship, dogs play at the feet of a woman holding a child in maternal companionship. The dogs are companions to one another and, one day, will be companions to the child. Situ was brought up in the rural countryside of China, a place of simple living. With the advent of Mao Tse-Tung's Cultural Revolution, however, all academic teaching came to an end. Some, like Situ, turned to art. In his paintings, he tells stories of the beauty in the day-to-day life of Chinese people as he says, "the rhythms of their lives."
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Denne historien er fra May 2023-utgaven av American Art Collector.
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Guardians of the Temple – Simon Dinnerstein reflects on The Fulbright Triptych 50 years later.
The Palmer Museum of Art at Penn State University exhibits Simon Dinnerstein's The Fulbright Triptych haunts the visual lexicon of 20th century American representational art. Fifty years have passed since Dinnerstein completed the painting in 1974.
A City Perspective
Leslie Gaduzo has always been interIested in art. Since childhood, he has been drawing constantly, from single point perspective drawings at age 10 to complex architectural drawings.
Living Legacy
The Butler Institue hosts Allied Artists of America's 110th Annual Juried Exhibition.
Elegant yet Approachable
The second edition of the RTIA Show presents even more art to explore and expanded special programming.
Figuratively Speaking
New York has always been an epicenter of artists on the edge of excellence, pushing the envelope and finding their voices.
JAMES AYERS: The Importance of Play
Like many artists, James Ayers' work took a turn during the Covid-19 pandemic. Seeing the enjoyment his kids took from playing with paint in his studio and exploring their creativity inspired him.
GINA MINICHINO: Playing with Food
Gina Minichino started her journey in visual arts because of Charles Schulz. \"He was my earliest influence for drawing and the reason I wanted to be a cartoonist,\" she says.
Island Light
The Cuttyhunk Island Artists' Residency is held in a sprawling, 100-year-old house on an island off the southern coast of Massachusetts.
Solitary Forms
Hogan Brown has been working with Arcadia Contemporary for two and half years and is excited to be featured in his first solo show at the gallery. He doesn't take for granted the many talented figurative painters Arcadia represents and is thrilled to be among them.
Living the Dream
Counterintuitively, David Gluck was a painter before taking up tattooing little more than a decade ago. While skin is a completely different substrate and ink a far cry from oil paint, the skills must be transferrable to some degree because there is a wait-time of nine months to get an appointment with him.