Turner - Grand Canal in Venice
Yuzo Saeki in Paris
Victory(Nike) of Samothrace
Starry Night Over the Rhone of Gogh
Water Lilies of Monet
Still Life Of Cezanne

Turner - Grand Canal in Venice

The Grand Canal, Venice - 1835
Oil on canvas, 91.4 x 122.2 cm
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

This time I introduce a painting of Turner. I have an image of strong waves about Turner. But when I saw this painting at Metropolitan Museum, I was surprised at quiet and beautiful painting of harbor. Clouds reflect bright light and it express shining light of sun excellently.

Turner, John Mallord William
(1775-1851)
He was born in London, England, on April 23, 1775. He is one of the finest landscape artists, whose work was exhibited when he was still a teenager.Venice was the inspiration of some of Turner's finest work. Wherever he visited he studied the effects of sea and sky in every kind of weather.

Yuzo Saeki in Paris

Landscape of Moran 1928 Restaurant
(Hotel de Marche)
1927

This time I introduce paintings of Yuzo Saeki. His paintings are like Utrillo's. They have quiet mood and he is also my favorite painter. Once I have seen his works that he painted in Japan. Those paintings are totally different from ones in Paris. I believe that many Japanese painters in those days went to Paris because they were looking for subjects there.

Yuzo Saeki
(April 28, 1898 - August 16, 1927)
He was born in Osaka in Japan. He went to France in 1923 and was impressed on Gogh. He returned to Japan in 1926 for a while and went to France again in 1927. Next year he died in Paris. He was influenced by Vlaminck and Utrillo.

Victory(Nike) of Samothrace

"Victory(Nike) of Samothrace"
Samothrace (island in the North Aegean Sea)
Circa 190 BC
H 328 cm (including the wings)

This time I will introduce a statue. I was overwhelmed by its beauty when I saw it for the first time.
The Goddess stood on the prow of a ship looks quite vivid enjoying wind and splash. Flow of a wind appears on the clothes, that seems so soft as if it is not a marble statue. I believe wings make its beauty perfect.

Starry Night Over the Rhone of Gogh

Vincent Van Gogh : Starry Night Over the Rhone - September, 1888, Arles
Paris, Museum d'Orsay

I have never seen the beautiful sky with falling stars like this. I love it making me mysterious mood.
The most favorite painting of Gogh is "The Cafe Terrace on the Place du Forum, Arles, at Night". (But as the title is very long, I call it "A restaurant with view of stars".) Stars in this painting also shine brightly. I feel as if the stars present an everlasting universe over the time.

Vincent Van Gogh

(b. March 30, 1853, Zundert, Neth.--d.July 29, 1890, Auvers-sur-Oise, near Paris)
Generally considered the greatest Dutch painter after Rembrandt; he powerfully influenced the current of Expressionism in modern art. His work, all of it produced during a period of only 10 years, hauntingly conveys through its striking colour, coarse brushwork, and contoured forms the anguish of a mental illness that eventually resulted in suicide. Among his masterpieces are numerous self-portraits and the well-known The Starry Night (1889).
[Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1994]

Water Lilies of Monet

Claude Monet : Water Lilies (The Clouds) - 1903
Oil on canvas, 29 3/8 x 41 7/16 in.
Private Collection

It is located in the Japanese Garden that Monet built in his house. I feel that Monet loved this garden very much. It is not only the original scenary familiar to Japanese, but it also has a taste different from Japanese paintings. I can regard it as the reimport of culture, where Japanese can recognize the beauty of Japanese scenary again.

Claude Monet

(b. Nov. 14, 1840, Paris, Fr.--d. Dec. 5, 1926, Giverny)
French Impressionist painter. He is regarded as the archetypal Impressionist in that his devotion to the ideals of the movement was unwavering throughout his long career, and it is fitting that one of his pictures---Impression: Sunrise (Museum Marmottan, Paris; 1872)---gave the group his name.

In his final years he was troubled by failing eyesight, but he painted until the end. He was enormously prolific and many major galleries have examples of his work.
(WebMuseum : Monet, Claude)

Still Life Of Cezanne

Paul Cezanne : Still Life with Apples, 1895-98
Oil on canvas, 27 x 36.5 in.
The Museum of Modern Art, New York

An apple reminds me Cezanne. At first look, this painting looks like ordinary still life. But I can find "cube" here, there and everywhere in it. A postcard of this painting in an architrave is hung next to the washstand in my house.

Paul Cezanne

(b. Jan. 19, 1839, Aix-en-Provence, Fr.--d. Oct. 22, 1906, Aix-en-Provence)
French painter, one of the greatest of the Postimpressionists, whose works and ideas were influential in the aesthetic development of many 20th-century artists and art movements, especially Cubism. Cezanne's art, misunderstood and discredited by the public during most of his life, grew out of Impressionism and eventually challenged all the conventional values of painting in the 19th century through its insistence on personal expression and on the integrity of the painting itself. He has been called the father of modern painting.
[Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1994]
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