"Before the Mirror," Édouard Manet, 1876.

Y'all should know Manet by now, I won't bother going into his history.

Here we have a lady looking in a mirror; like some of Manet's other paintings, like "Olympia," it shows quite a bit of skin and may have hints of carnal activity. Unlike "Olympia" and other Manet paintings, this is done in a very broad, quick style.

Manet was often noted for the realism of his paintings, but here we have full-bore Impressionism. The dots of color in the background give a hint of floral wallpaper, and the whole scene is depicted in broad, quick strokes that nevertheless do a good job of telling us what we're seeing.

Manet loved to depict the modern world as well as intimate scenes, and this works well as both. Was it meant as erotica? Hard to say; some may have seen it that way in its time, but now it seems almost sweetly innocent.

From the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.

Dessin fini cette semaine / finished this week : "Dispositif" (15), aquarelle et encre de Chine / watercolor and Indianink, 40 x 50 cm.

This is a commissioned watercolor painting I finished last week. It is a birthday present to celebrate the dog's second birthday that is coming up in May. The dog's name is ZhuangZhuang.
I also added bee wings to the picture as requested.

Watercolors on cotton paper
Size A5
Made in 2025

Check out my other commissioned artworks: https://www.iseriksonartist.com/commissions

"Portrait of Dolores Hoyos," Hermenegildo Bustos, 1884.

Mexican artist José Hermenegildo de la Luz Bustos Hernández (1832-1907) was known mostly for his portraits, but also did a number of religious paintings and still lifes.

He saw a lot of turbulence in his early life, including a cholera epidemic and the founding of the Mexican nation. At various times he worked as a tinsmith, tailor, carpenter, and mason, and kept an orchard. He had many interests in thing like history and astronomy, and art. He had a little formal art training but seems to have been largely self-educated, painting portraits of the members of prominent families in his area. He even did a portrait of Benito Juarez, now lost. (Check your attic!) And he always modestly indicated himself as "amateur painter" when signing his work.

After his death and the Mexican Revolution, his work was reassessed as a native son of Mexico, and received greater notice and acclaim. This portrait of a well-to-do young lady is probably his most popular work.

From the Museo Blaisten, Ciudad de Mexico.

#Art #MexicanArt #HermenegildoBustos #Realism #WomenInArt #PortraitMonday.

"Rum Row," Frederick Judd Waugh, 1922.

This is a fairly off-the-beaten-track painting for Waugh (1861-1940), who was known mostly as a marine painter. His seascapes are still admired today.

The son of portraitist Samuel Waugh, he had the best education and lives mostly abroad, painting seascapes. He returned to the US in 1908 where he went from New Jersey to Maine to Provincetown, MA. He also did illustration work for periodicals, and was hired by the Navy to design camouflage for ships.

Most interestingly, he published a number of fairy tales with American settings. He was deeply interested in folklore and the supernatural, and sought to create a New World fairy tradition for young readers.

But today we have some lovely irises in empty old rum bottles. These probably were considered trash in his day....now they're valued collectibles!

Happy Flower Friday!

new art
'Vision in the Forest'
made by Jo aka Aphisan
available, msg me if interested

"Basket of Roses," Henri Biva, 1891.

Biva (1848-1929) was a Realist/Naturalist painter of landscapes and the occasional still life. His work is recognizable for a degree of realism and attention to detail that prefigures the photorealism that would rise in the late 20th century.

I once showed one of his landscapes to a friend, who gazed at it for ages, then said, "You can almost HEAR that painting," as in it was easy to imagine the calls of birds and buzzing of insects. It was as if one could step through the frame into a lovely, but realistic, scene.

His attention to detail, his skill as a colorist, and his ability to depict natural light and make it LOOK natural on the canvas, are remarkable to me. He is scandalously overlooked and deserves greater attention....a lot of his work may not look like much at a glance (views of meadows or wooded glades or the shore of a pond or creek) but reward your attention with their amazing detail and realism. Go look him up.

Happy Flower Friday!

From a private collection.

Reality is a simulation of the truth.

#SciFi #sciencefiction #glitch #glichart #vid #surreal #alteredreality #realism #cyberpunk #cyberpunkart #futurism

@scifi

Local artist Sathit did this one, he is a real master of realism and painting lifelike scenes, this one is done with oil paint on canvas

Hungry anyone?
Harmony in Color and Form (still life art)

Find me at: https://rafaelsalazar.com/featured/harmony-in-color-and-form-rafael-salazar.html

"Right Hand of the Girl with Carnation," Wilhelm Leibl, 1880.

Leibl (1844-1900) was a German Realist painter of portraits and scenes of peasant life. He was noted for not doing any preliminary drawing, but simply wading in with his paints, which could create problems...of which this canvas is a result.

This is actually a section of a larger painting, "Girl with Carnation," but as Leibl was so intense in painting in as much meticulous detail as possible without preliminary drawing, he ended up throwing off his proportions and he could lose track of the dimensional relationships. The finished work, basically, had too many focal points and fell apart. So, in a act of artistic integrity, he cut up the canvas, with the girl's left hand, head, and a section of the bodice still surviving.

A good example of the whole being less than the sum of its parts, eh? It works well on its own, though.

Happy Flower Friday!

From the Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe, Germany.

'Verschneite Waldlandschaft' by Walter Moras (b.1856-d.1925)

Check this one out right here, this is really something
New #wildlife #art by Jok aka Aphisan
painted with oil paint on canvas
available, msg me if interested

'Sledding on a Sunny Day' by Walter Moras (b.1856 - d.1925)