WORKS OF ART vs. THE HANDBAG

THE HANDBAG: No health insurance needed for this instant anti-depressant, physical side effects or co-pay required if you decide to take it out for the day.

The handbag is an extension of the individual, form of creative self-expression, and many times a fashionable security blanket (aka: A bottomless pit of ‘just-in-case’ to ‘life-and-death’ aids for whatever you may scenarios encounter during the day).

Fans and collectors alike consider handbags as more than a precious and necessary accent for their outfit, but refer to them as WORKS OF ART.

Who’s to say they are wrong?

Art isn’t a science. Art is meant to make you feel something - to make you come alive! A handbag certainly inspires joy, confidence, and creativity.

You be the judge, below are some of my favorite handbags next to ‘works of art’.

Red Shift (1990) by Helen Frankenthaler

‘N/A’ (yellow) by Mark Rotheko

Tournament by Helen Frankenthaler

Onde IV (1961) by Pablo Palazuelo

The Death of James Lee Byars (1994) by James Lee Byars

Tuxedo (1982) by Jean-Michel Basquiat

Pascal, State of Grace (1987) by Dorothea Rockburne

Lunatique compact n3 (1996) by Francois Morellet

Kalklijnen Hoek (1971) by Raoul De Keyser

Amrta (2011) by James Turrell

ORIENTAL CARPETS

At Prayer [1855-1935] by Ludwig Deutsch

The senses jolt to the fiery grades of saffron, potent curry powders, and dreamy lavender.

With a simple gesture, vendors offer coffee and tea just outside their treasure trove of antiques, jewels, and works of art. Here, hospitality is KING.

Their magnetic aura, hypnotizing warmth, and welcoming smiles bear a striking resemblance to characters you were once introduced to, long ago, in a childhood story book.

Endless colors line the walls, lanterns light the maze-like paths, and four thousand shops co-exist to make up the world’s most enchanting and intricate marketplace — Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar.

BEWITCHED, you venture inside to discover endless treasures, one more inciting than the next. The greatest purchase one can make, however, is that of an oriental carpet.

Egyptian Carpet 1500s

The Carpet Merchant of Cairo (1869) by Jean-Leon Gerome

Fame Fortitude Rug (1668)

Cyprus trees for immortality, lilies for purity, peony for wealth, carnation for wisdom, and Tree of Life is for eternal paradise.

These are just some of the floral designs incorporated in the making of oriental carpets.

Animal designs include lions for victory, elephants for power, peacocks for divine protection, camels for wealth, crabs for invincible knowledge, and doves for peace, butterflies for happiness.

From the warmest hues - reds, browns, golds – to the cooler ones – greens and blues – colors also represent deeper meaning.

Red for happiness, orange for devotion, yellow for power and glory, and brown for fertility. Whereas the cooler tones depicted include greens for paradise, blues for truth, black for destruction, and white for peace, purity, or grief.

Inside Harem bath by Jean Leon Gerome

18th Century Turkish Oushak Carpet

Architecture Daily, Blue Oriental Rug

These designs were created to reflect the beauty and wealth that can be found in gardens and pools of palaces and estates. Not surprising, the impact of these designs has on people. Their magnificence is undeniable.

Oriental rugs were introduced to Western Europe thanks to individuals from the military, merchants, and noblemen who were the first to bring these treasures back home. Such encounters were pivotal to the development of Renaissance ideas, arts, and sciences.

They were especially influential to Western European painters who included them in their masterpieces.

Holbein, Lotto, Ghirlandaio, Bellini, Gentile, Crivelli, Memling, as well as Van Eyke and Christus are just some artists who were moved by the magnificence of oriental carpets.

‘Georg Gisze the Merchant’ by Hans Holbein.

Holbein carpet, C-14 dated to 1370–1450 AD.

One of the merchants who traveled to Eastern Europe was Georg Gisze who was so impressed with oriental culture that he commissioned a portrait from German/Swiss painter, Hans Holbein. Holbein’s late gothic style of painting was influenced by artistic trends of Italy, France, the Netherlands, and Renaissance Humanism. These influences gave Holbein a unique aesthetic that made him into one of the greatest portrait painters of the 16th century.

Holbein’s portrait of ‘Georg Gisze’ (from Northern Renaissance painted oil on oak wood) included the intricate details of what a businessman’s workplace of the 16th century would look like (account book, scale, writing utensils, money, etc) as well as an oriental carpet which is characteristically known as a ‘Holbein Carpet’.

‘Holbein Carpets’ feature infinite repeats of small rows of alternating octagons and staggered rows of diamonds. Holbein’s paintings that include carpets are ‘Georg Gisze’, ‘Somerset House Conference’ (1608), and ‘The Ambassadors’. 

Lotto rug, first half 17th century, offered at auction 2018

Portrait of a Married Couple Lorenzo Lotto Oil on canvas, 96 x 116 cm c. 1523 - 1524 Saint Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum

Italian painter, designer, and illustrator, Lorenzo Lotto (born in Venice, Italy in 1480) used deeply saturated colors, bold use of shadow, and a surprising expressive range, from the nearly caricatural to the poetic. Lotto was one of the leading Venetian-trained painters of the earlier 16th century.

Lotto’s carpets have a distinct lacy arabesque pattern that repeats suggesting foliage with branched palmettes that terminate at their ends. These carpets were a favorite in the 16th and 17th century.

They were produced along the Aegean Coast of Anatolia as well as those copied in various areas in Europe including Italy, Spain, and England.

‘The Charity of Saint Anthony’ by Lorenzo Lotto in 1542, (The Basilica di Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Venice, Italy). [‘Lotto’ carpet. 16th century, Turkey. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA.].

‘Ghirlandaio Carpet’ (19th Century), Met Museume NY, NYC

The Madonna and Child adored by St Zenobius and St Justus, (c. 1483), Uffizi, Florence

Nicknamed ‘Il Ghirlandaio’ (garland-maker) by his goldsmith father who created metallic garland-like necklaces for women of Florentine, Domenico Ghirlandaio would grow up to be a contemporary painter to Botticelli and Filippino Lippi and have apprentices including Michelangelo. Ghirlandaio’s painting(s) included carpets with an octagon shaped medallion in the center inside a square from which curvilinear designs appear, forming an overall diamond shape. These ‘Ghirlandaio Carpets’ have been woven in the Western Anatolian area since the 16th century.

Madonna and Child Enthroned, late 15th century by Giovanni Bellini

Anatolia late 15th early 16th century Prayer Rug, ‘Keyhole’ Motif

Giovanni Bellini and his brother Gentile’s visit to Istanbul in 1479, inspired the birth of the ‘Bellini Carpet’ design in their paintings. These carpets have a single keyhole motif at the bottom of a larger figure traced in a thin border. At the top end of the borders close diagonally to a point, from which hangs down a ‘lamp’. The design had Islamic significance, and its function seems to have been recognized in Europe, as they were known in English as "musket" carpets, a corruption of "mosque".

Anatolia late 15th early 16th century, Crivelli carpet

Annunciation with St Emidius, 1486 by Carlo Crivelli.

Carpet designs with a complex 16-pointed star motif made up of many different colored compartments with highly stylized animal motifs are classified as ‘Crivelli Carpets’.

15th-century Venetian painter, Carlo Crivelli painted figures with exaggerated expressions of feeling, that although his paintings overall follow conventions of Renaissance paintings, Crivelli’s figures gravitate more so to the religious intensity of Gothic Art.

Some of Crivelli’s important works are “Madonna della Passione” (c. 1457), in which his individuality is only slightly apparent; a “Pietà” (1485); “The Virgin Enthroned with Child and Saints” (1491), the masterpiece of his mature style; and the eccentric and powerful late masterpiece “Coronation of the Virgin” (1493).

Still Life with a Jug with Flowers, late 15th century, by Hans Memling.

Greatly influenced by Rogier Van Der Weyden, Hans Memling worked in the tradition of early Netherlandish painting and became popular painter in 19th century in Flanders.

Memling carpet’s design were influenced by Armenian carpets from the last quarter of the 15th century. Memling carpets are characterized by several lines that end in ‘Hooks’ coiling in on themselves through 2 or 3, 90° turns.

An example of this can be seen in a miniature painted for Rene of Anjou about 1460. [Hans Memling, Still Life with a Jug with Flowers (The reverse side of the “Portrait of a Praying Man”, c. 1480, Museum Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, Spain.]

Virgin and Child between St James and St Dominic by Hans Memling. (1488–1490) at the Louvre Museum.

Konya 18th Century Carpet with Memling gul design

Carpets depicted by Jan van Eyck and Petrus Christus could be of Western European manufacture. The undulating 3-fold or trefoil design, a well-known feature of Western Gothic design.

These paintings have a predominantly geometric design with a lozenge composition in infinite repeat, built up from fine bands which connect eight-pointed stars.

These carpets are most like Anatolian carpets from the 17th century.

Jan van Eyck Netherlandish painter painted carpets in his paintings: Paele Madoonoa, Lucca Madonna, and Dresden Triptych.

Lucca Madonna by Jan van Eyck

Triptych of Mary and Child, St. Michael, and the Catherine by Jan van Eyck

Paele Madoonoa by Jan van Eyck

Petrus Christus also a Netherlandish painter included oriental carpet in his ‘Virgin and Child Enthroned with Saints Jerome and Francis’.

*European paintings helped scholars identify them and eventually developed a dating system based on the paintings they appeared in. The carpets were named after the artist that painted them. The style of carpet depicted would have been the type of carpet the artist was most likely exposed to.

The Virgin and Child Enthroned with Saints Jerome and Francis (detail), 1457 by Petrus Christus.

Prayer rug, 18th Century, Met Museum, NY, NY.

Despite the conditions that an authentic Anatolian or Turkish rug is discovered, to own one is to be a keeper of history. It is the tangible essence of a rich culture that within it, stores untold tales of adventure, millions of overheard secrets, and stories of the human soul. It radiates an energy impossible to ignore. When placed inside, the rug takes a life of its own. A house transforms into a home. The presence and warmth of inhabitants stir an awakening that no human could possibly name, but the experience is, without question, nothing short of MAGIC.

LINKS:

[A]: https://theculturetrip.com/europe/france/articles/the-top-10-orientalist-artworks/

[B]: https://originsoforientalism.wordpress.com/2016/12/07/blog-post-title-2/

[C]: https://www.christies.com/features/Orientalist-Art-Collecting-guide-8426-1.aspx

[D]: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/440723

[E]: https://www.theartstory.org/movement/orientalism/artworks/

[F]: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vernet-Lecomte_2.jpg

[G]: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/437384

[H]: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/440723

LOVE OF BEAUTY

“In your light I learn how to love. In your beauty, how to make poems. You dance inside my chest where no-one sees you, but sometimes I do, and that sight becomes this art”

— RUMI

What do any of us want out of life? …To be in LOVE! A love of beauty around us and within each other! We want to be in it, of it! It intoxicates the mind, body, and soul with all its mystery, magic, and thoughtfulness. You are filled to the brim with living! Love transforms the world around you. It illuminates possibilities in darkened places of life where there were none.  

“Love is an unexplainable force that is more powerful than anything. If you are lucky enough to have found it, it will scare you, keep you awake, yet give you peace and let you rest all at the same time”

— Barbara De Angelis

Out of any human experience, it is the experience of being or falling in love that has inspired some of humanity’s greatest works of art and continues to be an indestructible force that serves as fertile grounds for inspiration for artists in every creative field.  From soul-gripping sonnets to heart-pounding choreography to poignant poetry, remarkable literature, and stunning pieces of artwork, Romanticism or a ‘Love Theme’ can be seen in every branch of creative specialties.

These paintings show beautiful depictions of love, reminding us that the secret to a great love is really hidden in the little details.

“A man is always devoted to something more tangible than a woman - the idea of her
”

— Bauvard, The Prince Of Plungers

Young Greeks Attending a Cock Fight by Jean-Leon Gerome (1846)

Blanchard Narcisse by Edouard Theophile (1844-1879)

The First Kiss by Salvador Viniegra Ilk Opucuk (1891)

“Kiss me, and you will see how important I am
”

— Sylvia Plath

Cupid and Psyche by Louis Jean Francois Lagrenee (1767)

“I wondered what that was like, to hold someone’s hand. I bet you could sometimes find all of the mysteries of the universe in someone’s hand”

— Benjamin Alire Sáenz

The Secret Rendezvous by Pierre-Charles Comte

“But I love your feet
only because they walked
upon the earth and upon
the wind and upon the waters,
until they found me
”

— Pablo Neruda

The Kiss by Francesco Hayez (1859)

“Beware a kiss, he told her. Kisses are powerful things. You expose part of your soul
”

— Ruth Frances Long

Kissing by Hubert Denis (1903)

Kreutzer Sonata by Rene Francois Xavier Prinet (1901)

“What happens when people open their hearts? ... They get better.”

— Haruki Murakami

The Painter’s Honeymoon by Frederic Leighton (1864)

The Poet and His Muse by Alexandre Cabanel (1840)

“This is what we call love. When you are loved, you can do anything in creation. When you are loved, there’s no need at all to understand what’s happening, because everything happens within you
”

— Paulo Coelho

Pygmalion and Galatea by Jean-Leon Gerome (1890)

A Romance by Santiago Rusinol (1894)

“The music in his laughter had a way of rounding off the missing notes in her soul

”

— Gloria Naylor

“She would make a man of me. She puts strength and courage into me as no one else can. She is unlike any girl I ever saw; there’s no sentimentality about her; she is wise, and kind, and sweet. She says what she means, looks you straight in the eye, and is as true as steel”

— Louisa May Alcott

Siren by Giulio Aristide Sartorio (1893)

“I was as unburdened as a piece of dandelion fluff, and he was the wind that stirred me about the world
”

— Sarah J. Maas

Springtime by Pierre Auguste Cot (1873)

“The power of a glance has been so much abused in love stories, that it has come to be disbelieved in. Few people dare now to say that two beings have fallen in love because they have looked at each other. Yet it is in this way that love begins, and in this way only”

— Victor Hugo

The Storm by Pierre Auguste Cot (1880)

“All love is expansion, all selfishness is contraction. Love is therefore the only law of life. He who loves lives, he who is selfish is dying. Therefore love for love’s sake, because it is the only law of life, just as you breathe to live”

— Swami Vivekananda