Frans Hals

Frans Hals (1580-1666) was a Dutch Painter. One of the masters of the 17th century, he is known for his brilliant single and group portraits. Hals excelled in portraying people in a happy mood. His paintings reflect the robust vitality of the prosperous Dutch middle class.

“The Laughing Cavalier” and “Balthasar Coymans” show his use of broad quick brush strokes to catch a momentary gesture and a fleeting expression. The naturalness and gaiety of “Banquets of the officers of Cloveniers-Doelen in Haarlem” are characteristic of much of his work. Hals used bright and vigorous colors in his early works. As he grew older he used more subdued and silvery tones. Many critics consider “Regents of the Old Men’s Home”, painted a few years before he died, to be his greatest work. Hals was born in Antwerp, but moved with his parents to Haarlem when still a child. Although Hals was a popular painter, he often had difficulty making a living. In his later years he was given a small pension by the City of Haarlem.

Water Colour Painting

 

Village - Oil Pastel drawing

 

Portrait of the Sea - Digital

 

James Fenimore Cooper

 

James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851), was a United States author. He is Chiefly remembered for his Leatherstocking series of novels about Indians and frontiersmen, but he also wrote tales of the sea and other books. Cooper was the first American author to win wide popularity in Europe. He did more than any other writer to create the theme of the crafty but noble Redskin pitted against the equally resourceful woodsman.

Mark Twain and others ridiculed Cooper for his impossibly wooden heroines, his unreal dialogue and plots involving miraculous escapes from dangerous situations. Much of the criticism is justified, but Coopers skill in weaving an exciting tale and picturing a romantic woodland background has helped his books remain popular.

Cooper was born in Burlington, New Jersey, the second youngest in a Quaker family of 12. When he was one year old, the family moved to the shore of the Otsego Lake in western New York. There his father founded the village of Cooperstown. Young Cooper soon became acquainted with the Indians and the forests of the region. He entered Yale College at 13, but was dismissed in his third year for playing a prank. He went to sea as a common sailor in 1806, and in 1808 he received a commission as midshipman in the navy.

His dissatisfaction with an English novel provoked him to say he could write a better one. Precaution (1820), an imitative society novel, was the result of his wife’s demand for proof. It was unsuccessful. In 1821 Cooper published The Spy at his own expense. This romance of the American Revolution made him famous on both sides of the Atlantic and caused him to be called the equal of Sir Walter Scott as a historical novelist.

Edgar Allan Poe

 

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), was an American short-story writer, poet, critic, and editor. There has always been disagreement as to the quality of his work, and some of the events of his life. However, even those critics who do not consider him a great writer acknowledge his importance in the development of modern literature.

Poe's most popular stories are those of horror, such as "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "The Black Cat," and of detection, such as "The Gold Bug" and "The Murders in Rue Morgue." Among his well-known lyrical poems are the haunting "Ulalume," "The Raven," and "Annabel Lee," and the classically restrained "To Helen." Poe was one of the most brilliant and independent 19th-century literary critics. His emphasis on artistic rather than moral values in literature greatly influenced modern literary theory and practice. His stressing of poetry's musical elements, and his use of evocative and symbolic language and imagery, contributed to the rise of the French Symbolist movement in poetry and, through it, to various 20th-century trends in poetry.

Poe was the first to formulate rules for the short story, and the principles of brevity and unity that he advocated have influenced short-story writing in the present time. He is credited with inventing the modern detective story and bringing the Gothic horror tale to a high level of development. He enriched both types of stories with psychological insight. Poe's preoccupation with madness, death, and the supernatural, and his denial of the importance of moral values in literature, were bitterly criticized during his lifetime and for some years afterward. More valid from a literary standpoint was the objection - still made by many critics - that some of his works are too contrived.

Edgar Poe was born in Boston, the second of the three children of Davis and Elizabeth Poe, traveling actors. When Edgar was two years old his mother died in Richmond, Virginia; their father had previously deserted the family. Egar was taken into the home of John Allan, a merchant, from whom the boy took his middle name. The Allan's lived in England from 1815 to 1820, where Edgar attended private schools. He later attended a Richmond academy. Poe entered the University of Virginia in1826, but at the end of the year, Allan withdrew him because Poe had run up large gambling debts. After a quarrel with his foster father, Poe went to Boston in 1827. There he published anonymously his first volume of poetry, Tamerlane and Other Poems. He enlisted in the army and served for two years. In 1829 he published his second book of poems. The same year his foster mother died and Poe became briefly reconciled with his foster father, who got him an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy in 1830. Poe cut classes and drills and was expelled from the Academy early in 1831. His break with Allan was final.

In 1831 Poe lived in New York City for a short while and published Poems. It contained many of his best poems, including "To Helen," "The City and the Sea," and "Israfel." Poe then went to live with his aunt Mrs. Maria Clemm in Baltimore. He turned to the writing of fiction and did not publish another book of poetry for 14 years. In 1833 he won a prize for the story "Manuscript Found in a Bottle." Poe went back to Richmond in 1835 and joined the staff of the Sothern Literary Messenger, soon becoming its editor. Poe won wide attention for his critical reviews in the Messenger.

In 1837 Poe moved to New York, but unable to find work there, moved again to Philadelphia, where he became editor of Burton's Gentleman's Magazine (1839-40). Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque were published in 1840 and favorably reviewed. Poe was the literary editor of Graham's Magazine for a few months in 1841 and in it began to publish detective stories. Poe won another prize with "The Gold Bug" (1843), which became his most popular story during his lifetime. He returned to New York and became assistant editor of the Mirror. The publication of The Raven and Other Poems in 1845 brought him increased fame. For a few months, he was the owner of the Broadway Journal, but the periodical failed.

Poe's wife died of tuberculosis in 1847, and he became depressed and ill. He became emotionally involved with two women and attempted suicide. During his last years, however, he wrote some of his best poems and critical essays. He also published Eureka (1848), a philosophical work. Poe became engaged to a childhood sweetheart in Richmond in 1849. He then went to Baltimore to bring his aunt back for the wedding. A few days later he was found fatally ill in a tavern in Baltimore. The legend that Poe was an opium addict and wastrel is contradicted by the facts of his predominantly quiet and hard-working life. He was an alcoholic, but his claim that he drank to alleviate periods of intense depression was partly upheld by physicians who examined him and said he had a brain lesion. In 1910 Poe was elected to the Hall of Fame for Great Americans.

Pen on paper

 

It is better to have drawn and lost than never to have drawn at all - Pen Drawing

 

Vincent van Gogh

 

Many years ago, I was disappointed with where I was as a painter, it seemed I was going nowhere, horrible days lay ahead, and I decided to give up painting altogether and do something like hiking. Hiking was incredible but during those troubled times hiking seemed a useless thing to do. So I gave up hiking as a pleasant but unattainable pastime. I wondered what I could do until one day I saw the paintings of Vincent van Gogh.

Van Gogh seems to have been an oddity almost from the beginning. Childhood photos show him staring blankly at a distance, which was not a very promising start to begin with. As a child he was serious, quiet and thoughtful not the kind of thing that would get him anywhere good in the real world. After working unsuccessfully as an art dealer he became a missionary and drifted into solitude and ill health. Not only did he suffer from mental illness and poverty but he often neglected his physical health, did not eat properly and drank heavily. Perhaps in desperation that nothing else worked, he took up painting at the somewhat mature age of 27. What he created over the next ten years was astounding; 2100 artworks including 860 paintings. They were so good that they became some of the most recognizable works in the history of Western art. Unfortunately he became famous only after he died in poverty at the age of 37 by shooting himself having sold only two paintings. I was so inspired by his paintings that I decided to draw like him with oil pastel without in anyway copying him. Given below is my drawing together with the painting that inspired it.

Wassily Kandinsky

 

Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky (1866-1944), was a Russian painter widely credited as the pioneer of abstract art. He felt that art should have no recognizable objects or forms, but rather should destroy reality in order to arrive at the underlying truth of existence. He called his spiritual desire for art “inner necessity”. Kandinsky studied law and economics at the University of Moscow and was offered a professorship at the University of Dorpat, but he abandoned his career in 1896 at the age of 30 and went to Munich to study art. But before leaving Moscow, he saw an exhibit of paintings by Monet. It had a profound effect on him and may have influenced his later venture into abstract art.

In 1896 Kandinsky settled in Munich, studying art at the Academy of Fine Arts. But he returned to Moscow in 1914. After the Russian Revolution, he seemed to have been involved with Russian Marxist revolutionary Anotoly Lunacharsky, becoming an insider in the cultural administration. However because “his spiritual outlook was different to the argumentative materialism of Soviet society” he returned to Germany in 1920. There he taught art at the Bauhaus School until Hitler closed it down in 1933. He then moved to France producing some of his most prominent work until his death a few days before his 78th birthday. Wassily Kandinsky was an early champion of abstract painting and believed that abstract art could be used to express the “inner life” of the artist. His favorite color was blue, and he believed that the circle was the most peaceful shape and represents the human soul. (Shown below is a painting by Wassily Kandinsky together with a painting by me that was inspired by it).

The Magic of Art

 

For me Art has always been synonymous with magic, so one day I wondered whether there was some theory that when applied would lead to interesting paintings. Unfortunately there is no such theory, for some reason some paintings are pleasing while others fail to satisfy the mind. For many years I believed that composition was the most important element in a painting, later I felt color was equally important.

So I analyzed the paintings of famous artists and found that the most interesting paintings had an element of crudeness in them. Take Vincent van Gogh’s “The Church at Auvers” for example, the whole building is crooked and the colors unnatural. But what would have happened if he painted it straight using natural colors, then it would be like a million other architectural drawings, competent but boring.

This was good news for me because I am one one those people in this world who is too lazy or too incompetent to draw buildings perfectly. I felt that the real secret behind a really good painting was a certain ugliness mingled cleverly with a really impressive element. The impressive element makes the painting realistic while the ugliness energizes the painting making the whole painting interesting. I used this theory to paint and came up with some eerie paintings. Of course not everyone was impressed some people called some of my buildings childish, others called them crude. But the important thing was for the first time in many years I felt like painting again.

The Endless Calamity of People - Pen Drawing

 

Factories - Pen Drawing

 

Houses - Pen Drawing

 

Trees and Houses - Pen Drawing

 

Tree - Pen Drawing

 

The Kelani River - Short Story

 

The idea came to me after seeing Vincent van Gogh's "Stars over the River Rhone". I once printed a "magazine" for fun with my home computer called "Astounding Magazine" and in it, this image appears. It shows stars shining over the River Rhone, with the lights of the city reflecting in the river and two figures in the foreground. As far as I was concerned this painting was the most spectacular painting ever painted, and yet there seemed to be for the most part variations of just two colours - Blue and Yellow. This for me was much better than van Gogh's more famous night paintings like "Cafe Terrace at Night" and "The Starry Night". For me this painting explored areas of the human soul that we only see (and forget) when we dream at night. So I wanted to draw a similar Dream without in any way copying van Gogh's painting.

And so, many years ago I decided to stay in the garden at night and paint the Kelani River till morning. The night was infinitely dark and strange, it seemed that everyone had gone to bed, and switched off all the lights. The road was deserted except for a lone cow and the yellowish light of the distant lamp post in the junction showed that the cow was half asleep, but even that was not clear for cows always look like that. A blue-green firefly, very rare for this part of the country flew and disappeared behind a leaf, which made me aware of the garden.

Overhead there were many strange stars. There was a particularly bright reddish star that didn’t twinkle. Could it be Mars, the one they called the red planet, unfortunately, I could not be certain. Then there was another bright star which for some reason I felt was Venus. Unfortunately my knowledge of astronomy, like so much else was incomplete. But it was ok, for didn't Newton himself say: "I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me." All these thoughts made me tired that I sat down in the garden and couldn’t remember anything after that except the ground felt hard on my head, an annoying cricket made an annoying noise, the smell of grass and once I imagined that the cow was in the garden.

The hoot of an alarm made me jump, and for a moment I was horrified to find that I was not in bed but outside at night. I went to the gate to see what made that noise, and found that it was the siren for the midnight shift of a factory. Then I looked up, god how things had changed. Now it was around two in the morning and the stars were brighter than ever. I couldn't see the Great Bear the only constellation I knew apart from Orion, but I could see a group of prominent stars that curled down and formed what looked exactly like a tail. I wondered whether this was the Scorpio constellation and I still do. And then I felt so energetic that I took a canvas and started to paint and the result was the Acrylic painting I have posted below, along with the "Stars over the River Rhone" painting that inspired it.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, and poet. His essays had a strong influence on both sides of the Atlantic toward directing readers and writers to study man's relation to life and social aims. In "Self Reliance" he stresses the importance of sturdy independence in thought and action. "Trust Thyself" he counsels. "Envy is ignorance.....imitation is suicide." Emerson believed in an "Over-Soul" or divine force, that supplies man with revelations of truth and beauty.

The core of Emerson's philosophy was Transcendentalism. His essays are memorable for the many epigrams they contain. Emerson's best poetry is also epigrammatic. His simple, vigorous style inspired other rebels against stale conventions, notably Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson. He was a popular lecturer. Though keenly interested in the cause of abolition of slavery and such social experiments as Brook Farm, he was more an observer than an active participant.

Emerson called for an American culture less dependent upon European patterns, and urged upon the scholar these mottoes: "Know Thyself" and "Study Nature." In an address to the senior class of the Harvard Divinity School in 1938 he advised young clergymen to rely more upon intuition than rigid dogma. Some faculty members attacked Emerson as an atheist, and it was 30 years before he was again asked to talk at Harvard.

Though he continued to lecture and write, his creative powers began to fade away after the Civil War. In 1871 friends took Emerson on a trip to California in a private Pullman car. After his return, his mind became increasingly erratic. At Longfellow's funeral in March 1882, he recognized his friend's face but could not recall his name. Emerson died of pneumonia a few weeks later. He was buried in Concord.

In "The Definition of Success", he states the following:

To laugh often and much

to win the respect of intelligent people

and affection of children; to earn the

appreciation of honest critics and

endure the betrayal of false friends;

to appreciate beauty, to find the best

in others; to leave the world a bit

better, whether by a healthy child

a garden patch or redeemed

social condition; to know even

one life has breathed easier because

you have lived. This is to have

succeeded.

Trees - Oil Pastel

 

Oil Pastel - Drawing

Walter Scott

 

Sir Walter Scott, (1771-1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet, historian and critic. He was for many years one of the most widely read authors in Europe and America. His stirring tales of adventure brought to life for millions of readers the history of Scotland and England from the 12th through the 18th century. “The Lady of the Lake” (1810), a story of the Scottish Highlands in the 16th century, was the most popular of Scott’s narrative poems, and has been the most often reprinted. Critics consider “The Heart of Midlothian (1818), a novel set in 18th century Scotland and England, the best of all Scott’s works.

Scott’s popularity rested largely upon his descriptions of scenes and manners unfamiliar to his readers, and upon lively action and romantic episodes. He did not plot carefully, and wrote hastily and without revising. As a result, his novels and narrative poems lack unity and forcefulness. Most of his heroes and heroines are unrealistic, and their speech is stilted and trite. Except for some of the short lyrics incorporated in his narrative poems, his verse is second rate.

Scott’s importance is based on several valuable contributions to literary development. He created the historical novel and gave prestige to the novel in general. Among writers he influenced were Robert Louis Stevenson, Charles Dickens, William Thackeray, Dumas the Elder, Leo Tolstoy, Alexander Pushkin, and James Fenimore Cooper. Scott was the first novelist to present people of the lower classes as real human beings rather than as comic or sentimentally idealized figures. He was also the first novelist to use regional dialects in a serious instead of a mocking manner.

Sea and Beach - Oil Pastel

 

Landscape bathed in Moonlight - Watercolor

 

Oil Pastel

 

Houses by the Canal - Rough drawing with oil pastel