There appear to be several Os in the art world. That is, faces making a silent O: Rembrandt’s high camp self portrait or Munch’s silent scream.
But we can’t really count those as we’re looking for subjects, artists, styles & movements beginning with O. I’m not a fan of all this letter choices, but we go for diversity in the Art Alphabet; we try for as globally wide or as wide-ranging as possible. Here are this week’s Offerings…
O
1. An Artist (Ogura): Portrait of a Painter by Yuki Ogura (1895-2000)
Yuki Ogura was not only prolific, but she worked in many different styles. Some follow traditional styles & methods of Japanese painting & some are downright kitsch. She was only one of two female artists to be a member of the Japan Art Academy.
2. An Artwork (Ophelia): Ophelia by John Everett Millais (1829-1896)
It’s a classic. The drama, the millions of plants rendered faithfully from life, the poor woman having to lie in an increasingly freezing bath of water. It’s got the lot.
3. A Bird (ostrich): Triple Study of an Ostrich by Pieter Boel (1622-1674)
I had to double check I had my dates right here as the style of this painting seems so much more modern.
4. An Art Style (Objective Abstraction): Objective Abstraction by Rodrigo Moynihan (1910-1990)
Objective Abstraction was a style developed by British artists in the early 1930s. What set it apart from other forms of abstraction was its non-linear, non-geometric improvisation.
5. An Art Genre (Outsider Art): Monsieur Plume with Creases in his Trousers (Portrait of Henri Michaux) by Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985)
Again, Outsider Art is characterised by what it isn’t as much as what it is. It doesn’t follow many art conventions or rules of training & retains largely unsophisticated features. Dubuffet also called it “art brut” or raw art & it includes works by children, patients & prisoners.
6. A Medium (oil paint): Head of E.O.W I by Frank Auerbach (b. 1931)
In the Rembrandthuis in Amsterdam, you can watch a demonstration of oil paint being made as it would have been in Rembrandt’s time. Regardless of who’s presenting, it’s a fascinating display of how they’d take powdered pigment (from a small bag made from some hapless mammal’s bladder), mix it with oil & work it into a paste on a flat stone with a knife. They explain how certain pigments were more expensive due to their scarcity or distance travelled to obtain it. We’ve been a few times & it’s worth visiting the house for this alone.
7. An Art Tool (optics): Diagram of a Camera Obscura (1772)
There are lots of theories - widely accepted & otherwise – about how & who used optics throughout the history of art. Leonardo da Vinci, science-artist, wrote of them & experimented with different sizes of apertures. You can visit one in Bristol at the Clifton Observatory, where a woman working there once told me they used to use it to spy on “courting couples…” The only response I could muster was to laugh nervously.
8. An Animal (otter): Otter statue (Egypt, 664-30 BCE)
It is said that the pose of the otter – standing, with his paws raised up – denotes worship of the sun god at dawn.
9. An Object (orange): Oranges by Fernando Botero (b. 1932)
We looked at Botero’s work before; often his statues & paintings represent figures in a frankly chubbier form than they should be. I don’t know how you’d make an orange look chubbier however, given that they’re more or less spherical, so his painting looks like a quite good image of the fruits.
10. A Colour (orange): Orange & Yellow by Mark Rothko (1903-1970)
Despite being someone who’s not a Rothko fan on any level whatsoever, I feel it’d be churlish to omit him completely. Some people like this sort of thing & it fits in with the alphabet. Sometimes you just have to go with the flow.
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