Halloween is the perfect time to explore world art that disturbs and horrifies. Bosch, Caravaggio, Goya, and Beksiński are some of the artists known for their eerie and disturbing creative visions, which at times fall into the “memento mori” and “vanitas” art categories. In the similar vein, below is one of the surviving copies of a lost painting titled The Legend of the Baker of Eeklo by Flemish artists Jan van Wechelen (c. 1530 – 1570) and Cornelis van Dalem (1535 – 1573).
Giovanni Boldini was a well-known Italian artist born in Ferrara, Italy in 1842. He lived most of his life in Paris, France, where he mostly painted commissioned portraits of “celebrities” and socialites. Once friend of Edgar Degas and John Singer Sargent, he began his career as one of the artists in a group Macchiaioli, that challenged traditional styles in painting, but soon developed his own style that could be very loosely described as being somewhere between the Impressionists and Realists. Boldini was known for using rapid, loose, flowing, sweeping or swirling brushstrokes, as well as rich colours, that gave his paintings a peculiar quality. For this technique, he was named the “Master of Swish”. Below are six of his paintings that exemplify his style.
I. Les Parisiennes [1873]; II. La Pianista [1912]
Thoughts on Papyrus 