BEST AMERICAN ART by Alexandra Jopp

A View near Tivoli (Morning), 1832. Although he was not the first American landscape painter of quality, because Thomas Doughty and Thomas Birch, among others, were already at work, Thomas Cole enjoys the preeminent reputation as the best known, most widely admired, early 19th century painter of nature. Founder of the Hudson River School, Cole embodied in his life's  work a significant duality, revealing on the one hand a Platonic sense of nature as morally, religiously, and philosophically uplifting, and on the other a remarkable ability to capture the natural fact. This duality, which historian Barbara Novak identifies as "the real and ideal" was approaching resolution when Cole died. "Landscape with dead trees" is clearly a real painting, a very early effort, and one of three pictures which brought immediate success to Cole when first exhibited by a New York frame-maker in 1825. It was the product of the artist's first exploration up the Hudson Ri...

Leonardo was the illegitimate son of a Tuscan notary and was brought up in his pattern grandfather's house. He was trained by Andrea del Verrocchio, an extremely accomplished sculptor and painter. Leonardo was, undoubtedly, a genius - a man of formidable intelligence and abilities. Sadly, his inquiring mind sidetracked him on to so many different projects that he completed very few. Despite this, his known works were immensely influential throughout Europe and he was recognized as a great talent in his own time. Of relevance to a discussion about Portrait of a Young Woman with an Ermine, painted around 1492, is the earlier portrait of Ginevra die Benci (c.1476) and the later Mona Lisa (c.1502). The former shows how Leonardo developed his portrait style, while the latter shows how he continued to develop it, which informs our understanding of this painting. All three demonstrate our interest in how character, thoughts, and feelings are revealed by pose and facial expression - the...

--> Robert Feke, who's mysterious life has been the subject of innumerable conjectures, was probably born at Oyster Bay, Long Island. Although early documentation is scarce, several brief contemporary references and the evidence supplied by his pictures help to identify the places of his activity. His earliest dated work - and his most ambitious - The Family of Isaac Royal (Harvard University Law School) - places him in Boston, working under the influence of John Smibert, in 1741. Robert Feke Isaac Royal and His Family 1741 Oil on canvas The Harvard University Law School possesses a group portrait (above) showing one man, three women, and a child, the back of which bears the following inscription: "Drawn for Mr. Isaac Royall whose Portrait is on the foreside Age 22 years 13th instant His lady in blue Aged 19 years 13th instant His sister Mary Palmer in [one word illegible] Aged 18 years 2nd of August His sister Penelope Royall in Green Aged 17 years 25 o...

By Alexandra A. Jopp --> There is, however, a class of fancies, of exquisite delicacy, which are not thoughts, and to which, as yet, I have found it absolutely impossible to adapt language. MARGINALIA by Edgar Allan Poe 1844-49 This is not René Magritte Rene Magritte’s Symbolism Behind the Images   How often to us, covered by the daily routine, seems that life proceeds in a planned, established manner, and all the events are subordinated by familiar and clear logic laws of nature. However, as sometimes it happens, a poetic stanza, a film, or a work of art leave us with a sharp impression or even make us to change our representation of the world around. Then, the developed stereotypes disappear, and if we liberate ourselves, we could look at the world with the eyes of an innocent child. Rare artists posses a gift of such influence on the spectator; however, Rene Magritte is one of the few.   Working in a milieu of Surrealism in the second q...