Every Painter Paints Himself https://www.everypainterpaintshimself.com/blog/ en Simon.N.Abrahams@gmail.com Copyright 2012 2012-08-29T21:07:00+00:00 Essay PDFs: Michelangelo’s Madonna of the Stairs (c.1491) https://www.everypainterpaintshimself.com/essays/michelangelos_madonna_of_the_stairs_c.1491 https://www.everypainterpaintshimself.com/essays/michelangelos_madonna_of_the_stairs_c.1491#When:16:23 and the Medici Madonna (1521-34) too 

Michelangelo’s first truly mysterious work was made during his teenage years, the Madonna of the Stairs. Despite its small size, the young sculptor’s imagination was already working on a colossal scale.Yet even at first sight the scene looks strange, an immediate barrier to understanding that decades of scholarship has done little to dent. Why, for instance, does Christ have his back turned and why is he so muscled? What are the stairs for? Why is the nursing Virgin so impassive? The answers appear, and the incongruities resolve, only if one tries to think through Michelangelo’s mind.  

]]> Wed, 16 Nov 2011 16:23 UTC Essay PDFs: The Two Medieval Churches and Their Impact on Art https://www.everypainterpaintshimself.com/essays/the_two_medieval_churches_and_their_impact_on_art https://www.everypainterpaintshimself.com/essays/the_two_medieval_churches_and_their_impact_on_art#When:16:05 Ever since I became aware that masterpieces of Western art tend to make more sense viewed through the ideas of esoteric Christianity than through the Secular Church’s religious dogma, I have been curious why art historians write as though there was only one Church in the Middle Ages and Renaissance when – even before the Reformation – that one Church was really two. There may have been one Church dogma but there were plenty of other beliefs, some completely at variance with general understanding of Christianity. The latter would appeal to creative minds in any age even if the papacy then had not been totally discredited by corruption, simony and moral degradation. 

]]> Fri, 19 Aug 2011 16:05 UTC Galleries: Portraits of British sitters as the artist https://www.everypainterpaintshimself.com/galleries/british_monarchs_and_other_sitters https://www.everypainterpaintshimself.com/galleries/british_monarchs_and_other_sitters#When:15:36 Wed, 12 May 2010 15:36 UTC Blog: Is Beauty Truthful? https://www.everypainterpaintshimself.com/blog/is_beauty_truthful https://www.everypainterpaintshimself.com/blog/is_beauty_truthful#When:16:48 Artist as Poet, Insight / Outsight, Mirrors / Reflection, Inner Tradition, Visual Perception, Tue, 21 Jan 2025 16:48 UTC Blog: A Surprising Revelation of Divinity in Art https://www.everypainterpaintshimself.com/blog/a_surprising_revelation_of_divinity_in_art https://www.everypainterpaintshimself.com/blog/a_surprising_revelation_of_divinity_in_art#When:14:53 Artist as Christ, Divine Artist, Mirrors / Reflection, Bernini, Botticelli, Caravaggio, Durer, Greco, El, Leonardo da Vinci, Lorenzo Lotto, Mantegna, Michelangelo, Parmagianino, Raphael, Rembrandt, Rubens, Tintoretto, Titian, Van Dyck, Van Eyck, Velazquez, Inner Tradition, Portraiture, Religion, Theory, Visual Perception, Mon, 30 Dec 2024 14:53 UTC Blog: Why did Michelangelo put his initial inside the Virgin’s hand? https://www.everypainterpaintshimself.com/blog/why_did_michelangelo_put_his_initial_inside_the_virgins_hand https://www.everypainterpaintshimself.com/blog/why_did_michelangelo_put_his_initial_inside_the_virgins_hand#When:15:35 Artist as Christ, Religion, Wed, 13 Nov 2024 15:35 UTC Blog: Artists paint themselves as God. Why has no-one noticed? https://www.everypainterpaintshimself.com/blog/artists_paint_themselves_as_god_why_has_no_one_noticed https://www.everypainterpaintshimself.com/blog/artists_paint_themselves_as_god_why_has_no_one_noticed#When:15:31 Artist as Christ, Divine Artist, Caravaggio, Gauguin, Greco, El, Holbein, Hans (the Younger), Leonardo da Vinci, Lorenzo Lotto, Manet, Mantegna, Michelangelo, Raphael, Rembrandt, Rubens, Tintoretto, Titian, Van Eyck, Velazquez, Portraiture, Theory, Visual Perception, Thu, 07 Nov 2024 15:31 UTC Articles: Renoir’s Pont Neuf, Paris (1872) https://www.everypainterpaintshimself.com/article/renoirs_pont_neue_paris_1872 https://www.everypainterpaintshimself.com/article/renoirs_pont_neue_paris_1872#When:12:40 Every Painter Paints Himself, Letters in Art, Mirrors, Thu, 15 Aug 2024 12:40 UTC Blog: Names in Anselm Kiefer’s ‘Fall of the Angel’ at Palazzo Strozzi, Florence https://www.everypainterpaintshimself.com/blog/whats_in_a_name_or_the_union_of_opposites_in_anselm_kiefers_fallen_angel https://www.everypainterpaintshimself.com/blog/whats_in_a_name_or_the_union_of_opposites_in_anselm_kiefers_fallen_angel#When:15:25 Divine Artist, Letters in Art, Poses, Violence, Kiefer, Anselm, Contemporary Art, Exhibitions, Inner Tradition, Religion, Visual Perception, Wed, 26 Jun 2024 15:25 UTC Blog: Van Gogh’s Crosses on The Road to Tarascon https://www.everypainterpaintshimself.com/blog/the_crosses_on_van_goghs_road_to_tarascon https://www.everypainterpaintshimself.com/blog/the_crosses_on_van_goghs_road_to_tarascon#When:14:37 Artist as Christ, Divine Artist, Visual Metamorphosis, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Religion, Theory, Visual Perception, Tue, 11 Jun 2024 14:37 UTC Articles: Lucian Freud’s Annabel (1975) https://www.everypainterpaintshimself.com/article/lucian_freuds_annabel_1975 https://www.everypainterpaintshimself.com/article/lucian_freuds_annabel_1975#When:18:00 Every Painter Paints Himself, Androgyny, Artist’s Mind, Conception (Sexual and Mental), Behind the Artist’s Eye, Hand and Eye, Insight-Outsight, Portraiture, Sun, 09 Jun 2024 18:00 UTC Articles: Rembrandt’s Man Making Water (1631) and Woman Making Water and Defecating (1631) https://www.everypainterpaintshimself.com/article/rembrandts_man_making_water_1631_and_woman_making_water_and_defecating_1631 https://www.everypainterpaintshimself.com/article/rembrandts_man_making_water_1631_and_woman_making_water_and_defecating_1631#When:10:49 Water has life-sustaining powers. Urine too has been praised by Pliny and others as therapeutic since antiquity. In the 1970’s an Indian Prime Minister recommended a glass a day. In medieval Europe and the Renaissance piss and life-producing semen were considered identical. We should be careful then when people in art pee; the scene may not be a slice of life after all because urine’s generative power is a perfect metaphor for an artist’s, at least in etchings as we will see.

]]> Every Painter Paints Himself, Androgyny, Artist’s Mind, Conception (Sexual and Mental), Letters in Art, Veiled Faces, Sat, 16 Jul 2022 10:49 UTC Articles: Miró‘s The Podiatrist (1901) https://www.everypainterpaintshimself.com/article/miros_the_podiatrist_1901 https://www.everypainterpaintshimself.com/article/miros_the_podiatrist_1901#When:19:14 Ten years ago EPPH showed how Joan Miró repetitively shaped “abstract” forms into the letters of his name (M, I, R and Ó), a constant method between 1937 when he was 44 until shortly before he died more than four decades later. This 1901 drawing by the eighteen-year old artist now demonstrates that the practice began much earlier. We cannot know what prompted it but, as revealed on this site, Miró could have learnt it from viewing other art.{ref1} The inclusion of their own name or initials in the guise of external objects is extremely common among artists of comparable stature. Some of Picasso’s juvenilia is similarly based on the letters of his name as is much of his later work too.

]]> Every Painter Paints Himself, Letters in Art, Sat, 17 Apr 2021 19:14 UTC Blog: The Hanging of Myra Hindley https://www.everypainterpaintshimself.com/blog/the_hanging_of_myra_hindley https://www.everypainterpaintshimself.com/blog/the_hanging_of_myra_hindley#When:10:26 Creative Struggle, Letters in Art, Violence, Contemporary Art, Exhibitions, Museums, Tue, 29 Dec 2020 10:26 UTC Articles: Ofili’s The Holy Virgin Mary (1996) https://www.everypainterpaintshimself.com/article/ofilis_the_holy_virgin_mary_1996 https://www.everypainterpaintshimself.com/article/ofilis_the_holy_virgin_mary_1996#When:11:23 Artist as Christ, Divine Artist, Every Painter Paints Himself, Androgyny, Artist’s Mind, Conception (Sexual and Mental), Letters in Art, Insight-Outsight, Visual Metamorphosis, Inner Tradition, Fri, 20 Nov 2020 11:23 UTC Articles: Lichtenstein’s Whaam! (1963) https://www.everypainterpaintshimself.com/article/lichtensteins_whaam_1963 https://www.everypainterpaintshimself.com/article/lichtensteins_whaam_1963#When:09:17 Divine Artist, Every Painter Paints Himself, Artist’s Mind, Conception (Sexual and Mental), Executing Painting, Violence and Art, Veiled Faces, Inner Tradition, Tue, 01 May 2018 09:17 UTC Articles: Signorelli’s Circumcision (c.1490) https://www.everypainterpaintshimself.com/article/signorellis_circumcision_c.1490 https://www.everypainterpaintshimself.com/article/signorellis_circumcision_c.1490#When:16:33 Divine Artist, Every Painter Paints Himself, Artist’s Mind, Artist with His Art, Brush and Palette, Poses of Painting, Swords/Weapons as Brushes, Inner Tradition, Mon, 04 Sep 2017 16:33 UTC Articles: Carracci’s Christ appearing to St Peter on the Appian Way (1601-02) https://www.everypainterpaintshimself.com/article/carraccis_domine_quo_vadis https://www.everypainterpaintshimself.com/article/carraccis_domine_quo_vadis#When:14:21 Artist as Christ, Every Painter Paints Himself, Mirrors, Brush and Palette, Pointing and Touch, Poses of Painting, Inner Tradition, Mon, 05 Jun 2017 14:21 UTC Blog: Art’s Timelessness https://www.everypainterpaintshimself.com/blog/arts_timelessness https://www.everypainterpaintshimself.com/blog/arts_timelessness#When:16:16 Androgyny, Artist as Poet, Behind the Eye, Hand / Eye, Visual Metamorphosis, Motherwell, Robert, Schiele, Egon, Inner Tradition, Visual Perception, Sun, 21 May 2017 16:16 UTC Articles: Signorelli’s Virgin & Child with John the Baptist and Donor (c.1491-4) https://www.everypainterpaintshimself.com/article/signorellis_virgin_child_with_john_the_baptist_and_donor_c.1491_4 https://www.everypainterpaintshimself.com/article/signorellis_virgin_child_with_john_the_baptist_and_donor_c.1491_4#When:08:16 Divine Artist, Every Painter Paints Himself, Artist’s Mind, Letters in Art, Behind the Artist’s Eye, Hand and Eye, Portraiture, Pointing and Touch, Visual Metamorphosis, Inner Tradition, Fri, 03 Feb 2017 08:16 UTC