Tessera

First Amendment Girl

@firstamendmentgirl.bsky.social

Retired librarian, lifelong Democrat, 2nd Wave Feminist, living in Land of Enchantment. Art soothes my political anxiety.

3740 Posts2140 Follower 1521 Folgt

First Amendment Girl @firstamendmentgirl.bsky.social · 4h ago

Sea Grasses and Blue Sea by Milton Avery, 1958, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) (New York City, NY) #ArtHistory #ContemporaryArt #Expressionism

Avery painted scenes of nature throughout his career, but he preferred simple forms to realistic details, and his palette is distinctively personal. The results come close to abstraction. In Sea Grasses and Blue Sea (based on Avery's memories of Provincetown, Massachusetts), the sky is a straight and narrow blue band at the painting's upper rim. The rest of the canvas is divided into two trapezoids of almost equal size and shape. The lower of these, the sea grass, is pale and lightly streaked, and echoes the tonality of the sky; above it is a wedge of a predominantly darker, saturated blue, with patches both of a lighter blue and, more sharply, of deep black. Magically, the overall effect is of waves flecked with white foam.

That black is paradoxical: as Henri
Matisse remarked of the black in one of his own paintings, it is used as "a color of light and not as a color of darkness." In various ways, in fact, Avery is closer to Matisse than to the styles that prevailed in America during his lifetime-in his love of clarified form and flat color, for example, and in the sense of rich serenity that permeates his art.

First Amendment Girl @firstamendmentgirl.bsky.social · 20h ago

Dulle Griet (Mad Meg) by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1564, Museum Mayer van den Bergh (Antwerp, Belgium) #ArtHistory #NorthernRenaissance #BrusselsPeriod (1563-1569) #BoschianSeries

Dulle Griet, also known as Mad Meg, is a figure of Flemish folklore - a virago, who leads an army of women to pillage Hell. Griet was a disparaging name given to any bad-tempered, shrewish woman. Her mission refers to the Flemish proverb: "She could plunder in front of hell and return unscathed."

Bruegel is thus making fun of noisy, aggressive women. At the same time he castigates the sin of covetousness: although already burdened down with possessions, Griet and her grotesque companions are prepared to storm the mouth of Hell itself in their search for more.

First Amendment Girl @firstamendmentgirl.bsky.social · 23h ago

I bought a cute dress. I was trying it on. There were other people in the dressing rooms. As I ran my hands down my sides, I discovered and said out loud, probably too loudly because I was excited, "It has POCKETS!" And then: applause from the other dressing rooms. 🤣

First Amendment Girl @firstamendmentgirl.bsky.social · yesterday

The Madhouse by Francisco Goya, c. 1814, Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando (Madrid, Spain) #ArtHistory #Romanticism

The Madhouse (Casa de locos) or Asylum (Manicomio) shows a mental asylum, with its inhabitants in many different poses.

Marked by Piranesian and claustrophobic architecture, the painting's only light source is a barred window high up on the wall, clearly meant to repress the figures below. These figures are distinct characters, all engaged in grotesque and pitiable behaviour - one wears what seems to be a wild-feathered headdress, another is fighting in a tricorne hat, another makes a gesture of blessing to the viewer, whilst many of the others are naked.

The subject of psychiatric institutions was a hot topic in the salons of the Spanish Enlightenment and so this painting could be meant as a denunciation of then-current practice in that area. Even if it is not, Goya was always attracted to representing madness, deformity or perversion. Some of the figures can also be interpreted allegorically, as a gallery of parodies of powerful figures in society, such as the clergy or the army (the man in the tricorne). It develops the topic of 'the world of dreams' ('mundo al revés') and is related to Goya's engravings series Los disparates.

Goya had already touched on the issue in his 1793 painting Yard with Lunatics, but The Madhouse shows greater variety, with less mad, less picturesque, more individualised and more characterised figures, shown more humanity and clearly marked as poor victims of marginalisation and rejection.

First Amendment Girl @firstamendmentgirl.bsky.social · 2d ago

Moroccan Woman wearing a Pink Dress by Zinaida Serebriakova, 1932, Private Collection #ArtHistory #ModernArt #ArtDeco

In the artwork, a Black woman is depicted wearing a pink dress. Her attire is adorned with an intricately tied sash and complemented by various accessories, such as bracelets and hoop earrings. The dress itself is detailed with rich textures and folds, displaying a sense of depth and dimension. The background features a vivid blue door and intricate golden lattice work, with greenery interspersed throughout, creating a lush and inviting ambiance. The overall composition reflects a blend of elegance and cultural richness, characteristic of the Art Deco era.

First Amendment Girl @firstamendmentgirl.bsky.social · 2d ago

Diamond Shoal by Winslow Homer, 1905, Private Collection #ArtHistory #Realism

Homer captures the raw power of the sea in this watercolor, showing a sailing ship battling turbulent waves with two figures aboard. The dynamic composition and fluid brushstrokes convey motion and resilience.

First Amendment Girl @firstamendmentgirl.bsky.social · 3d ago

Our Lady of Sorrows by Marcos Zapata, Private Collection #ArtHistory #Baroque

Zapata was one of the last major masters of the historic Cuzco School. The piece portrays the Mater Dolorosa (Sorrowful Mother), a deeply revered figure in Catholic iconography. It traditionally focuses on Mary’s intense grief, emphasizing the emotional toll of the seven spiritual dolors (sorrows) she endured throughout Christ's life.

True to Zapata's signature style and the Cuzco tradition, the painting features a dramatic Baroque palette heavily relying on deep reds, blues, and blacks. His Madonnas are celebrated for their expressive tenderness, often juxtaposed with complex theological allegories and surrounded by delicate cherubim.

Painted during Zapata's peak period of influence between 1748 and 1773, this majestic depiction of the Virgin Mary was so widely revered that it inspired countless copies, variants, and devotional items across Peru, Chile, and northern Argentina.

Adam Parkhomenko @adamparkhomenko.bsky.social · 3d ago

Democrats are held to impossible standards. Republicans are held to none.

First Amendment Girl @firstamendmentgirl.bsky.social · 3d ago

Country Boys by Nikolay Bogdanov-Belsky, c. 1910, Private Collection #ArtHistory ##ModernArt #Impressionism #Realism

Three barefoot boys stand together on a path. Behind them is a large bushh with blue flowers.

First Amendment Girl @firstamendmentgirl.bsky.social · 4d ago

The Questioner of the Sphinx by Elihu Vedder, 1863, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Massachusetts) #ArtHistory #Romanticism

A poet and writer as well as a painter, Vedder had been fascinated with ancient myths and fantastic tales from the very beginning of his career. He developed a particularly strong following in Boston, which since the early part of the century had cultivated a taste for Romantic, literary paintings. The Questioner of the Sphinx was exhibited in New York in 1863 and was purchased immediately by a Boston collector, Martin Brimmer, for $500.

Vedder, then in his twenties, had not yet visited Egypt when he painted this mysterious work. Depictions of the Great Sphinx at Giza (or Gizeh) had appeared in a number of travel books by the mid-nineteenth century, when imagery of the Near East became increasingly popular; Vedder seems to have used such an illustration as a source. However, the subject of an Arab wayfarer questioning the mysterious monument came from Vedder’s fertile imagination, although it does recall the ancient Greek myth of the sphinx that protected the road to Thebes by challenging passing travelers with riddles. Vedder’s pilgrim, in his ragged robes, appears to have made a long and difficult journey through an inhospitable wilderness in the hope of hearing some great truth from the implacable statue. His success is uncertain, for the skull of another questioner lies in the foreground, a mute witness to the occasion. Broken columns, remnants of human activity, lie strewn in ruins, almost buried by the shifting sands.

Vedder wrote that, in this painting, he sought to portray the hopelessness of man before the laws of nature; to the modern viewer, it also resonates with the uncertainty that accompanied the Civil War. Vedder continued to be haunted by this subject and he produced a number of other images of the sphinx over the course of his long career.

First Amendment Girl @firstamendmentgirl.bsky.social · 4d ago

The Rose Picker by Anton Romako, c. 1882 - c. 1884, Belvedere (Vienna, Austria) #ArtHistory #ModernArt #Realism

This image belongs to a series of portraits that are accorded in color to the seemingly accompanying plants, but these plants give the space around the figure and are placed in close relationship to the person of the depicted. The color design is reduced, reserved and precisely thus expressive: by means of the color, a feeling, an association to the person depicted is manifested. The series of these portraits also includes the "Portrait of Mathilde Stern", which is also in an arbor.

In the genre portrait of the "Rose Picker" Romako also breaks with the traditional light-dark principle of portrait painting, he puts a bright figure against a bright background. He had already developed this painting style in Rome, but in these Geneva portraits it makes it the rule or reverses the principle into its opposite.

Romako focused on the human being as a person in his portraits. Palette, composition, environment and accessory are completely matched to the model and subordinate to the representation of the "essential". However, the characterization of the person is also carried out by a naturalism that resisted the taste of time. Not only the psychological recording, but also the holding of the actually visible was important to Romako.

First Amendment Girl @firstamendmentgirl.bsky.social · 5d ago

The Green Dancer by Edgar Degas, 1877-1879, The Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza (Madrid, Spain) #ArtHistory #ModernArt #Impressionism

Degas was fascinated by the world of ballet; hence, it figured prominently in many of his paintings. Here, the group of dancers is depicted in mid-performance, as viewed from an upper side box. Only one of the girls in green is shown full-length, captured as she executes a swift, complicated turn. The other figures are cropped, leaving the viewer to imagine the rest. In the background, a number of ballerinas dressed in orange stand against the landscape scenery, awaiting their turn. Degas’ use of a cropped, off-centred pictorial space was influenced by photography and by Japanese prints. He felt that the unfinished, transitory nature of reality could only be conveyed using a fragmented technique. Here, the fleeting nature of the movements is captured with rapid pastel strokes, applied with immense skill.

First Amendment Girl @firstamendmentgirl.bsky.social · 5d ago

Falling Star by Romare Bearden, 1979, The Kinsey African American Art& History Collection #ArtHistory #ContemporaryArt #AbstractExpressionism

Considered one of the most important American artists of the 20th century, Romare Bearden's artwork depicted African American culture and experience in creative and thought-provoking ways. His early works were realistic images, often with religious themes, later transitioning to abstract and Cubist style paintings in oil and watercolor. He is best known for his photomontage compositions made from torn images of popular magazines and assembled into visually powerful statements on African American life.

Born September 2, 1911, in Charlotte, North Carolina, Bearden was the only child of Richard and Bessye Bearden. The family moved to New York Citv when he was a toddler, where their household was a gathering place for Harlem Renaissance luminaries such as W.E.B. DuBois, Langston Hughes and Duke Ellington.

Though Bearden was vastly prolific, he is not that widely recognized as a major American artist. The American art world possessed the same prejudices and segregation of society. Also, Bearden's work is hard to categorize. But during this life and after, his exhibitions have received enthusiastic reviews and critical praise and he was recognized with multiple awards and honorary doctorates.

In this piece, he has depicted a Black woman who holds a mug and contemplates a full laundry-basket. She is wears a multi-colored dress. She stands in her living room near a doorway to a bedroom. We can see a falling star through the bedroom window.

First Amendment Girl @firstamendmentgirl.bsky.social · 6d ago

The Three Marys at the Tomb by Duccio, 1308-1311, Museo dell'Opera, Metropolitana del Duomo (Siena, Italy) #ArtHistory #ProtoRenaissance

The women are portrayed in attitudes of wonder and fear; their delicate backwards movement and gesticulating hands show their astonishment at the sudden apparition.

The composition of this group of women is probably based directly on classical motifs such as the female robed figures on Roman or early Christian sarcophagi. Sculptures by Giovanni Pisano have almost certainly also played a role as prototypes.

First Amendment Girl @firstamendmentgirl.bsky.social · 6d ago

Still Life with Carnations by Cuno Amiet, 1925, Private Collection #ArtHistory #ModernArt #Expressionism

$Surface texture commands the foreground, offering a vibrant, tactile presence. A bouquet of carnations. rendered with bold, expressive strokes, occupies the central space. A plump blue vase grounds these blossoms, its form suggested rather than meticulouslv defined. The rapid, gestural application of color breaks apart the solid masses of the obiects. These fractured planes announce a post-impressionist allegiance to subjective experience. A striped fabric spills across the lower right quadrant, its pattern disrupted by swathes of unblended color. This energetic handling of form prioritizes immediacy over dealized representation. The background a deep, textured blue, recedes behind the floral arrangement. A strip of bright green caps the upper edge of the composition. The artist's confident linework defines both the obiects and the spaces they nhabit. This approach prioritizes the sensation of light and air over precise detail. This artwork falls within the period of transition between Impressionism and Expressionism. While influenced by the Impressionists' focus on light and color Amiet moved towards a more subiective and emotionally driven approach anticipating the Expressionist movement. It reflects the broader artistic trends of the early 20th century, where artists began to explore inner experiences and psychological states rather than simply representing external reality. It's a key example of Swiss Modernism, a movement that sought to develop a unique artistic identity for Switzerland.$

First Amendment Girl @firstamendmentgirl.bsky.social · 7d ago

Checkered House by Grandma Moses, 1943, Private Collection #ArtHistory #ModernArt #NaïveAet #Primativism

Like the Troy fire, the Checkered House was a local legend. Situated along the Cambridge Turnpike, it was an inn where stagecoach drivers had changed horses as far back as the 18th century. During the Revolutionary War, the inn served as General Baum's headquarters and field hospital. Its checkerboard front made the house a distinctive landmark that was remembered long after it burned in 1907.

Moses painted a number of versions of "Checkered House," in both winter and summer. When asked how she managed to come up with a new composition each time, she said she imagined the scene as if she were looking at it through a window. By then shifting her viewpoint slightly, she could cause the elements to fall into place differently.

First Amendment Girl @firstamendmentgirl.bsky.social · last wk.

More on Betye Saar's work www.latimes.com/entertainmen...

5 powerful works by Betye Saar that represent her fearless vision, in art and life

Groundbreaking assemblage artist and lifelong Angeleno Betye Saar died at 99, leaving a vast trove of work in her wake that reshaped the art world and helped kickstart the Black women's movement.

latimes.com

First Amendment Girl @firstamendmentgirl.bsky.social · last wk.

Mirror Lake by Franklin Carmichael, 1929, McMichael Canadian Art Collection (Kleinburg, Ontario, Canada) #ArtHistory #ModernArt #ArtNouveau #Symbolism #GroupOfSeven. For a good description of this painting, see fredericks-artworks.blogspot.com/2010/05/mirr...

First Amendment Girl @firstamendmentgirl.bsky.social · last wk.

Red Snapdragons by Georgia O'Keeffe, 1923, Mead Art Museum-Amherst University (Amherst, MA) #ArtHistory #ModernArt #Modernism #Precionism

Bold snapdragons stand tall, their crimson blooms unfurling. "Red Snapdragons" celebrates the flower's strength. Scarlet petals curl softly, revealing pale undertones. Delicate leaves and stems weave a subtle background, but the flowers dominate, commanding attention.

First Amendment Girl @firstamendmentgirl.bsky.social · last wk.

July by Fairfield Porter, 1971, Spencer Museum of Art (Lawrence, KS) #ArtHistory #ContemporaryArt #ContemporaryRealism

Keep Calm and Breathe

Enjoy the leisurely summer setting of Porter’s July. Set at the artist’s vacation home on Great Spruce Island, Maine, this delightful scene shows four members of the artist’s family luxuriating in an afternoon at rest. The painting’s large size and the empty chair seems to beckon us to join in the fun.

First Amendment Girl @firstamendmentgirl.bsky.social · last wk.

Portrait of Mr. X (Pierre Loti) by Henri Rousseau, 1906, Kunsthaus Zürich (Switzerland) #ArtHistory #ModernArt #NaïveArt

A man sits facing the viewer with a tabby cat sitting on a stool in front of him. The man and his cat both look directly at the viewer. The man wears a red fez, with a black coat, and red shirt with a white collar. He holds a lit cigarette in his right hand and wears a gold pinky ring. Over the man's right shoulder, we see three active smokestacks, and over his left shoulder, a leafy tree all set against a partly cloudy sky.

The satirist Georges Courteline had acquired this painting from Rousseau in 1906 and incorporated it as a curiosity into his 'Musée des Horreurs' - a collection of scurrilities and Sunday paintings. In the German edition of his Rousseau monograph in 1914, Wilhelm Uhde published the picture, which was now in the Mendelssohn-Bartholdy Collection in Berlin, under the title "Portrait of Mr. X (Pierre Loti)."

The identity of the sitter as well as the temporal position of the present "portrait-paysage," which stylistically belongs to the painter's last years, are not completely clarified. Since Edmond-Achille Frank, a Parisian "homme des lettres," claimed to have recognized himself in it in 1952, it has been difficult to distinguish precisely between facts and assumptions at the present state of research.

First Amendment Girl @firstamendmentgirl.bsky.social · last wk.

Betye Saar, a Los Angeles artist who transformed collections of bigoted bric-a-brac, has died www.latimes.com/entertainmen...

Betye Saar, a Los Angeles artist who transformed collections of bigoted bric-a-brac, has died

Betye Saar, a Los Angeles artist who transformed collections of bigoted bric-a-brac — Sambo dolls, ceramic mammies, and crude renderings of pickaninnies — into potent works of assemblage that mined th...

latimes.com

First Amendment Girl @firstamendmentgirl.bsky.social · last wk.

Landscape by Hoca Ali Riza, 1927 (?), Private Collection #ArtHistory #ModernArt #Impressionism #TurkishImpressionism

Light washes define the forms in this landscape. Skeletal branches and delicate blossoms inhabit the foreground, their ephemeral nature emphasized by thin gestural lines. A broad expanse of water, rendered in aqueous blues and greens, separates the viewer from a distant muted coastline. The artist applies washes with a deliberate lightness, allowing the paper's texture to influence the surface. This transparency allows layers of color to imbue the scene with a soft, diffused atmosphere. These luminous passages speak to an Impressionistic sensibility, capturing a fleeting moment of natural beauty. The careful layering of subtle tones suggests a post-Ottoman artistic milieu where European aesthetic currents beqan to merge with local traditions. The composition carefully orchestrates these elements, guiding the eye through the layered depths of the scene. A solitary splash of crimson on a branch punctuates the quietude. The subtle gradations of color across the distant landmass anchor the composition. This rendering of nature, at once intimate and expansive, conveys a serene immersion.

Riza is considered a pioneer of Turkish Impressionism, a movement that emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as Turkish artists began to engage with European artistic trends. His work represents a departure from traditional Ottoman painting styles, embracing a more modern and expressive approach. This painting fits within the broader context of Impressionism's influence across Europe and its subsequent adaptation by artists in other cultures. It also marks a sianificant moment in the development of Turkish modern art, as artists sought to establish a national artistic identity while incorporating international influences.

First Amendment Girl @firstamendmentgirl.bsky.social · last wk.

Repose by John White Alexander, 1895, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York City, NY) #ArtHistory #ModernArt #ArtNouveau

Alexander, who lived in Paris during the 1890s, achieved international success with his figure paintings of gracefully posed women in elegant interiors. In this striking composition, the model’s provocative facial expression and supple curves speak to the contemporary French taste for sensuous images of women. The bold composition also suggests the undulating linear rhythms of the Art Nouveau style, examples of which were featured at the Paris Exposition. Alexander, known as the "the painter of the flowing line," was celebrated at home and abroad for these works of sinuous grace and lyricism.

First Amendment Girl @firstamendmentgirl.bsky.social · last wk.

For my entire life its been a given that early marriage and teen parenthood isn't great for the people involved or society. It has been discouraged, from the right preaching abstinence and the left preaching birth control. So of course, this bunch of penis-envying idiots ... you get the idea

@gma4resistance.bsky.social · last wk.

Government Overhauls Teen Pregnancy Program to Focus on Marriage and Starting Families www.nytimes.com/2026/07/22/u...

First Amendment Girl @firstamendmentgirl.bsky.social · last wk.

Albuquerque #9 by Richard Diebenkorn, 1952, Albuquerque Museum (New Mexico) #ArtHistory #ContemporaryArt #AbstractExpressionisn Part of Albuquerque Series (1951-1952)

A desert landscape unfolds in geometric harmony. "Albuquerque #9" presents a vision of the Southwest through the lens of abstract expressionism. The composition balances and warmth, with a palette of muted ochres and soft blues that echo the vast, open skies and sunbaked earth of New Mexico. The painting divideds the canvas into distinct sections, each contributor to the whole. Horizontal bands of color create a sense of layered space, while vertical elements suggest the dray contours of a distant mountain range. Diebenkorn's use of texture and variation these forms within forms adds depth, inviting closer inspection.

First Amendment Girl @firstamendmentgirl.bsky.social · 2w ago

Tara, the Buddhist Savior, Nepal Kathmandu Valley, 14th century, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York City, NY) #ArtHistory #Sculpture #MallaPeriod Medium: Gilt copper alloy with color and semiprecious stone inlay

Tara, the supreme Buddhist saviouress, grants boons to devotees with her outstretched lower hand delicately clasping a flower bud. A lotus in full bloom adorns her shoulder. She is richly bejeweled, her openwork diadem inset with turquoise and semiprecious stones.

In Vajrayana Buddhism, Tara is often presented as the spiritual counterpart to Avalokiteshvara and shares with him a premier role in Tibet as a compassionate protectress. Tara appears in many forms, of which Sitatara, the White Tara, who displays a lotus (padma), was the most popular. It is likely Sitatara who is represented here, the embodiment of perfected wisdom and wish-fulfilling granter of boons.

First Amendment Girl @firstamendmentgirl.bsky.social · 2w ago

Whistle Tripod Figure in the Form of an Owl, 2000 BCE–300 CE, Mayan Culture, Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University (Durham, NC) #ArtHistory #Mayan #Sculpture #Terracota

First Amendment Girl @firstamendmentgirl.bsky.social · 2w ago

Le Pont des Arts by Paul Signac, 1912, Museum Folkwang (Essen, Germany) #ArtHistory #ModernArt #Impressionism

Signac was especially concerned with intensifying the quantity of light in his paintings and imbuing his compositions, usually landscapes, with the pure harmony of color. In "Le Pont des Arts," he painted the view of the Île de la Cité from the right bank of the Seine like a classic veduta - featuring the Palais de Justice, Sainte-Chapelle, Notre-Dame, Pont Neuf, and Pont des Arts - a motif Siqnac frequently varied in 1912. The palette used in these paintings have gradations from light to dark blue and sometimes green as well, accentuated by a bit of yellow and dark red. Short, forceful, closely set strokes of the brush reveal the systematic fragmentation of color. Even more decisively than the generation of Impressionists preceding him, Signac assumed that the vibrant impression of light and color would once again densify in the eye of the beholder, as is the case when experiencing nature. The artist translated most consistently his theoretical musings into the medium of painting.