Alma's Gems

What to say about Alma, except for her personal and exquisite taste. Especially in today’s world, she has turned me onto a lot of Northern European Painters I would have not head about, not be her. So, here is my page of the gems she turned me onto…

The countryside was also where more traditional modes of Lithuanian culture survived and endured, and this forms an important subtheme in Mr. Sutkus’s pictures. He documented old religious architecture and sculpture in crumbling churches and overgrown cemeteries, as well as contemporary examples of Lithuanian folk sculpture. The composition and lighting of these images have an old-fashioned quality, though you get a sense that the photographer had other ambitions here beyond making pretty pictures.”New Brunswick“

Pieter Janssens Elinga Room in a Dutch House 1668-72 Oil on canvas, 62 x 59 cm The Hermitage, St. Petersburg

Lucian Freud 2002 Women with Eyes Closed  (It has gone into the shadows of the criminal underworld along with six other paintings by modern masters…from Rotterdam’s innovative Kunsthal recently)

MASTER of the Holy Blood Lucretia c. 1530 Oil on panel, 65 x 49 cm Szépmûvészeti Múzeum, Budapest

Parmigianino’s art offered the Parmesan aristocracy extraordinary opportunities for self-promotion. In his portrait of Gian Galeazzo Sanvitale, Count of Fontanellato, whose villa Parmigianino brightened with inspired variations on Correggio’s frescoes in the Camera di San Paolo, the sitter’s self-confidence is extraordinary. The count stares out at the viewer, calmly daring anyone to challenge his innate physical and intellectual superiority. In his right hand he displays a bronze medal marked with the mysterious ciphers “7″ and “2″, which must have had significance for him and his close circle of friends, but whose inscrutability serves to distance him from the rest of humanity.

PARMIGIANINO Gian Galeazzo Sanvitale, Count of Fontanellato 1524

Parmigianino ( Born: 11 January 1503; Parma, Italy–Died: 24 August 1540; Casalmaggiore, Italy) Portrait of a Man with a Book York Art Gallery, York, UKrel=”wikipedia”>Parmigianino ( Born: 11 January 1503; Parma, Italy–Died: 24 August 1540; Casalmaggiore, Italy)

PARMIGIANINO
Gian Galeazzo Sanvitale, Count of Fontanellato
1524
Oil on panel, 109 x 81 cm
Pinacoteca, Museo Nazionale, Naples