Canoes, Cattle, Canals, and Vanishing Cultures
Welcome to your mid-February edition of Signified
Art is a great talking point. Why not start a conversation by forwarding this newsletter to someone you know who shares your love of art? And, again, we have included ‘Friends Links’ so if you forward this to a non-subscriber, they can enjoy it just as much as anyone.
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Announcing the February exhibition at : six : shot : gallery
Rhiannon James on ‘100 Days of Drawing’
“I usually never commit. I’ve struggled with sticking to things all my life, even nice things, like making art. Creating is something I enjoy, right? So why is it such a struggle to just make the time? Recently I found myself getting more frustrated with myself — Something had to change…”
Continue reading and see the art at : six : shot : gallery
Recently ‘Boosted’ in Signifier:
Leonardo da Vinci, the Way of Water
Leonardo da Vinci’s most famous painting, the Mona Lisa, features a portrait of an enigmatic and beautiful woman in a beautiful and varied landscape. Scholars believe this landscape features the Trebbia River and that Leonardo used the real topography of relevant landscape, though which mountains he may have included is still much debated…
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Living in the Land of Giants
I arrived in Alert Bay sixty years after Emily Carr painted this image. See the houses on the right of the painting? I have walked past the house with the two thunderbird totem poles in front of it on countless occasions. They were still standing there in 1972. Totem poles are carved out of cedar wood, which resists rot. They serve as signboards, genealogical records as well as family memorials. The pair of totems were carved by Kwakiutl master…
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We’re in a Situation!
The artists who considered themselves Letterists or Situationists would’ve thought the works of Nauman and Kosuth to be overly decorative and fancy. Perhaps, examples where technical and aesthetic considerations are nothing but unnecessary noise, obstructing the transmission of concept. They would’ve almost certainly denounced them as products of consumer culture. Letterist International was a loose collective of poets, literary…
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Rosa Bonheur, the Animalière
Rosa Bonheur was among the most famous women painters of the nineteenth-century but is little known today, mainly because she painted for private collectors and all but vanished from public view after her death in 1899. She was renowned for her paintings of animals, produced with both vigour and meticulous realism. Her goal was to convey the unique personality and soul of each animal…
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Popular Signifier (ICYMI)
Spotlight on one of our most popular or trending articles…
Piece Works: Concepts of Chess
Chess pieces and game boards have long been symbols of sophistication, style, intellectual and, sometimes, material wealth. The sets of small tactile sculptures present artisans and artists with an almost irresistible opportunity to showcase their craft and, in turn, for owners to proclaim their good taste. I recall a time when so many authors and intellectuals posed for their promotional pictures with a chess set and an (optional) whisky tumbler or brandy bowl…
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‘Festivals of Love’: from the archives of Signifier
In this regular feature of our Signified Newsletter, we select a couple of articles from our archives linked by a monthly theme. Around the world, we’re in the midst of a season of festivals celebrating love, friendship and togetherness…
The Kiss
The Kiss is Austrian artist Gustav Klimt’s most famous painting — a celebration of love and the joyous loss of self in the moment of passion. It’s remains popular as a print and poster because it captures a universal human emotion, a glorious expression of love between two who have, if only for an instant, become as one. He completed the painting in 1908, but chances are the image is still exchanged thousands of times as the ideal Valentine’s Day Card…
A Peasant Wedding
We watch the celebration feast from the corner of a barn and the foreground has been left unobstructed so we may enter the scene. The strong diagonal of the table draws our gaze and the lively guests beckon us in further. There is so much going on that we linger to absorb every detail. The rhythm of white shapes draws our gaze around the table and the predominant vibrant reds and golds, evoke warmth — of summer and the sentiments of the ceremony…
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“Bursting at the seams with magic!”
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