"Venus is represented rising out of the water in accord with the conventions of the Aphrodite Anadyomene type. The triton and dolphin, which recall the maritime setting, were sometimes depicted alternately with two cupids accompanying the...
Paintings; Oil paintings; Symbols; Lust; Erotica; Sex; Relations between the sexes; Human body; Body parts; Women; Men; Portraits; Self-portraits; Nudes; Clothing & dress; Footwear; Shoes; Keys (Hardware); Fireworks; Firecrackers; Explosives;...
"The dedication reads 'Painted for Paul Éluard by his friend Salvador Dalí'. Éluard, who enjoyed his erotica as much as Dali, must have been impressed by this tour de force." (Caption); "One of his earliest ventures was Board of...
"The painting belonged to Edward James. Surely one of Dali's finest double images." (Caption); "Dali said that The Great Paranoiac had been conceived after a discussion with Josep María Sert about Arcimboldo, and that the...
Sculpture; Portraits; Youth; Young adults; Clothing & dress; Hairstyles; Mustaches
Discovered in Reims (France).
"This sculpture demonstrates the capacity of Roman artists to synthesize widely divergent influences and draw upon diverse styles. It shows that Roman art was capable of addressing very different concerns while...
"Here the artist aspires to a metamorphosis which hints partly at mythology, partly at science fiction. However, with mock pathos, Barney's floppy ears and dual kiss-curls inadequately match up to the four horns of the ram which the video's...
"The color red, connotative of intense passion, predominated in the two cramped spaces forming this installation. One important theme here was regressive psychological fantasy. But there was also a sense that ancient knowledge was being...
"The color red, connotative of intense passion, predominated in the two cramped spaces forming this installation. One important theme here was regressive psychological fantasy. But there was also a sense that ancient knowledge was being...
"As in certain paintings by Francis Bacon, existential givens were made stubbornly palpable in Guston's pictures. Recurrent images such as a head with a single wide-open eye, wrist-watches, bare light-bulbs, or cigarette butts spoke of bouts...
"Johns used letters or numbers as a means of reintroducing the signifiers of a collective sign system into a Modernist 'field' previously answerable to subjective judgments of taste. The textures in his drawings in particular are subtly...
Post-Partum Document, 1983 [book]. From Documentation I, Analysed Faecal [Fecal] Stains and Feeding Charts (prototype), [work produced] 1974. "One of the oldest themes of Western art, mother and child, was ironically made compatible with...
Sculpture; Effigies; Portraits; Men; Philosophers; People associated with education & communication; Clothing & dress; Beards; Mustaches
"This effigy of the august man of letters was inspired by portraits of Greek philosophers from the fourth and third centuries B.C., but it remains true to the art of the Antonine portrait in its attempts to convey sensitivity and...
"Although resident in America, Morley was the first winner of the Turner Prize in 1984. Funded by the 'Patrons of New Art' affiliated to London's Tate Gallery, this prize was subsequently awarded annually for 'outstanding contributions' to...
"Ad Reinhardt's satirical cartoons, which contrasted sharply with his practice as a painter, dated back to the 1930s and 1940s. His strong Communist sympathies during that period had informed a series of cartoons for left-wing journals. By the...
Sculpture; Portraits; Heads (Anatomy); Men; Emperors; Rulers; People associated with politics & government; Hairstyles
Portrait head. "This portrait has fundamental importance in the study of Augustan iconography. Both it and a very similar portrait in the Forbes collection are considered excellent examples of the Louvre type of Augustan portrait. [...] This...
Photographs; Digital images; Digital photographs; Tableaux; Transparencies; Allegorical photographs; Allegories; War; Warfare; Politics & government; Political issues; Religion & politics; Religion; Military maneuvers; Military...
"This large, back-lit photographic transparency apparently shows soldiers killed in mid-action. The scene was actually mocked up by digitally manipulating images. In a tableau worthy of a ghoulish horror film, a young Moslem (center left)...
Sculpture; Metalwork; Maps; Industrialization; Industry; Economic & social conditions; Social aspects; Industrial arbitration; Social classes; Wealth; Poverty; Economic & industrial aspects
"Fabro made his first sculpture in the Italia series in 1968. Dozens of variations followed in subsequent years. Another theme established in 1968 was that of 'Feet'. This involved the artist in producing a series of bizarre sculptural...
Photographs; Portrait photographs; Advertisements; Advertising; Selling; Commercialism; Commerce; Business & finance; Business enterprises; Industry; Puns (Visual works); Products; Art objects; Feces; Bodily functions; Cans; Containers; Men;...
The Artist [Piero Manzoni ] with 'Merda d'artista' [Artist's Shit], at Angli Shirt Factory, Herning, Denmark, 1961. "This provocative image of Manzoni with one of his cans of excrement could be seen as a rejoinder to photographic images of...
Paintings; Oil paintings; Locomotion; Human locomotion; Walking; Nudes; Stairways
"Marcel Duchamp submitted [to the 1913 New York Armory Show] Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2, which was the most scandalous work of all. It was a humorous attack on Futurist proscriptions against traditional, Academic nudity. The image has...
