SITAR

 Welcome to 

 

SITAR is about ANYTHING art. Your art, someone else's art, writing, photography, the art of cooking, the art of sewing and textiles. Sharing historical art, street art, a story about art. Do you have a question or need help with art? Write a blog post and link it up here. We will all try to help with it. My only rule is that if someone asks for critique it must be done with generosity and consideration. 

This is a place of learning, encouragement and inspiration.

 

Art in Austria 

Gustav Klimt is considered Austria's most famous artist. He was a pioneering symbolist painter and a leading figure in the Vienna Secession movement. His masterpiece,  "The Kiss" and his 

 Golden Phase are universally celebrated.

I first heard of Gustav when I was in my twenties from my Nan. Of course, at the time I was not that interested. 

 

Gustav Klimt was born July 14, 1862 in Baumgarten, Austria and died February 6, 1918 in Vienna Austria. Age 55, from complications of the Spanish flu. In early 1918, he suffered a stroke that left him partially paralyzed, contracted pneumonia, and died. Historical records and biographies also indicate he lived with syphilis, which heavily influenced his art.

He worked in a long shirt and loved cats

 

A few of his pieces.

The Kiss 

Golden Tears

Part of his golden phase.

The Tree of Life

Hope

The Virgin 

 

Adele Block Baure

 (1881–1925) was a prominent Viennese socialite, patron of the arts, and the only subject Austrian painter Gustav Klimt painted twice in full-length portraits. She was known for hosting a famous cultural salon, which brought together Vienna's intellectual and artistic elite

 

 

Adele Brock Baure

 

 Life and Death. 

 

I have to say that klimt's life is quite interesting and if you want to read about it click here

 

The one thing I find extraordinary is that  

in 1901, the Austrian parliament convened its first-ever cultural debate. A parliamentary debate on art.

He was a rebel for sure. 

 

This next bit is taken from

The Scienctific Breakthrough That Revolutionized Gustav Klimt's Art. 

 

The subject was the enormous allegoric paintings Gustav Klimt had been commissioned to paint for the ceiling of University of Vienna’s festival hall. “Official outrage session” might more accurately describe the occasion that channeled public fury and saw only the education minister come to Klimt’s defense.

Why all the anger? Most immediately because the three paintings were experimental, profane, and weird. The works were asymmetrical, filled with languid sensual bodies, along with octopus tentacles and snakes, skeletons, and sphinxes. Klimt had been tasked with creating idealized images of Philosophy, Medicine, and Jurisprudence. He refused, offering abstracted impressions instead.

 

 

The kicker came later that year when Klimt’s proposed professorship at the Academy of Fine Arts was rejected by the government. Not that the Vienna native wanted the post; he repaid his commission fee later telling journalist and friend Berta Zuckerkandl, “I refuse any help from the state, I renounce everything.”

 Despite such protestations, Klimt continued to work in a city governed by conservatism and censorship. One way Klimt navigated these constraints and remained forward-thinking was through deploying images from the latest in scientific research.

Four decades on from Gregor Mendel’s experiments with garden peas, the foundations for the science of cells and genetics were being formed. Klimt was obsessed. In Vienna, art and science were mixing, in part through salons that brought together artists, intellectuals, and academics.

You can read more on this and view more art here 

21 facts about Kustav

The above link is very interesting and is written in short paragraphs.  

 

I hope you enjoyed this little bit about Kustav Klimt

I personally love his 

defiant, actional, nonconformist behavior. 

 That's is for now.

I'm joinng Gillena for 

Looking forward to seeing your arty post.

Nicole

 

   

https://news.artnet.com/art-world/gustav-klimt-gold-2543498

 

https://byronsmuse.wordpress.com/2015/03/08/gustav-klimt-magical-kaleidoscope/ 

https://www.factum-arte.com/pag/1171/medicine 

 

Sunday in the Art Room. SITAR Cake

 Welcome To

SITAR is about ANYTHING art. Your art, someone else's art, writing, photography, the art of cooking, the art of sewing and textiles. Sharing historical art, street art, a story about art. Do you have a question or need help with art? Write a blog post and link it up here. We will all try to help with it. My only rule is that if someone asks for critique it must be done with generosity and consideration. 

This is a place of learning, encouragement and inspiration.

 

I was going back and forth on a SITAR subject for today, when I answered an email from my good friend Gene.

He had mentioned that he was baking cakes for his mom's 90th birthday. He bakes one with sugar and one diabetic cake. He sent me a photo of a cake he made for his brother's birthday. This is a lovely cake.

 

We all know there are some outstanding cakes being made by bakers around the world. Today, I want to focus on a bit of history of cakes. 

So where did the cake come from?

The earliest evidence of cake baking dates back over 4,000 years to ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt. These ancient cakes were essentially sweetened breads. Not at all like the fluffy, sweet deserts we make today.

 

In ancient times the ingredients were grains, dates, rains, honey and nuts. They used yeast to make the cakes raise

The first birthday cake came from the ancient Greeks. They baked moon shaped  cakes to honor Artemis, the goddess of the moon. They placed lit candles on top to make the cakes glow.  

In the middle ages Europeans expanded on cake baking. Their cakes had a dense structure with a high content of sugar/honey and heavy laden with fruits and or ginger. These cakes would last for months and often used as a food source on long journeys. Oh and did you know that the word "cake" comes from the old Norse word "KAKA"  

By the 17 and 18th centuries cakes started to be more airy and light in structure.

The growing availability of refined sugar and chocolate (courtesy of global trade routes) transformed cake into an elite, sweet treat.

 

There are a few Youtubes that bake centuries old cakes. My favorite is Tasting History with Max Miller. He has a lot of info on historical cakes.

This is a civil war cake 

 

There are many election cakes but I like this image. 

 

Here is another cake made by Gene

 

Here are some of the cakes that I have made and shown on my blog. Not as pretty as Genes.

Lemon cake 

 

Peach Cake

 

Molasses ginger cake

 

I had to change my baking habits to kidney friendly when Mr. M. lost one kidney to cancer.

Kidney friendly strawberry cake,

 

And here is a chocolate graham cracker cake I made just for this post. 

I didn't have any regular graham crackers. I seem to always have the chocolate ones. I changed a few things to make it Kidney friendly.

Right out of the oven. 

After dinner for Mr. M. 

Cake with whipped cream.

It's a strange cake but not too bad.

 

You will need. 

1/2 C APF all purpose flour

1 1/2 C graham cracker crumbs. About 20 squares. 2 1/2 t baking powder. 1/2 cup unsalted butter softened. 3/4 cup sugar or honey or sugar substitute, 2 eggs or 6T aquafaba, 1 t vanilla extract

3/4 C milk. I did add 1/2 c melted  chocolate chips.

In a small bowl mix graham cracker crumbs, flour and baking powder. Set it aside. In a larger bowl mix butter and sugar until fluffy. Add one egg at a time mix in well. Add in melted chocolate chips.  Mix in vanilla. Add dry ingredients a little at a time altering with the milk.  This is a very thick cake batter. I baked mine in a 9x13" pan but I should have used a bit larger. It took longer for the middle to bake. You don't want this too deep in the pan. Bake at 350°F or 176°C for about 20 minutes. Check to be sure it is baked all the way through.

 

Join Gillena for

 

That's it for now, can't wait to see what arty thing you posted.

 Nicole

Sunday in the Art Room SITAR

 Welcome to

SITAR is about ANYTHING art. Your art, someone else's art, writing, photography, the art of cooking, the art of sewing and textiles. Sharing historical art, street art, a story about art. Do you have a question or need help with art? Write a blog post and link it up here. We will all try to help with it. My only rule is that if someone asks for critique it must be done with generosity and consideration. 

This is a place of learning, encouragement and inspiration.

 

I have so many subjects that I want to share on SITAR that I have made a list so I don't forget them. LOL

One of our bloggers, Andrea, From the Sol

Has a question for anyone about watercolor. I'm not a watercolor person at all so for those of you who are please visit Andrea.  

Being in bed for over a week, I have been watching some great art, and art lessons on YouTube. As we know every instructor has their own way of doing things that might not work for us. However, there is always something to learn. The more I learn the more I can find my own style.

Here is a few of the YouTubes.

This first one is beginner pastels. I actually learned a few tips from him.

 

I also have been watching this guy.

He has a lot of videos in different venues. 

 

I found a great website that features Forgotten Women Artists.

If you visit real art galleries and museums you may find a few of the women who pioneered the way for all women in art. But, probably not. Those woman struggled to get their talent recognized and presented in the galleries that were virtually all men. Even today, the women of old are not given the notoriety they deserve.

 

This first woman,  

Plautilla Nelli

(1524–1588)

 Was a self taught artist and the first ever known female Renaissance painter of Florence. She became a nun at the age of 14, taking the name Suor Plautilla, at the Dominican convent of St Catherine of Siena. She is one of the few female artists mentioned in Vasari's Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects. Her work is characterized by religious themes, with vivid portrayals of emotion on her characters' faces. Nelli lacked any formal training and her male figures are said to have “feminine characteristics”, as her religious vocation prohibited study of the nude male.

You can read her history here and here 

 

Next we have

Sofonisba Anguissola
(1532–1625)

This is a self portrait from the Smithsonian. 

Sofonisba Anguissola was an artist who came from a noble family in Cremona (northern Italy). She is well known for the paintings she made of herself and her family (she was the oldest of seven children). In 1559, she became a lady-in-waiting to the Queen of Spain, Elisabeth de Valois, and continued to produce works while at the court of King Philip II until 1573. Interestingly, Sofonisba painted at least twelve self-portraits at a time when this was not a particularly common subject for artists (in the next century, Rembrandt would be the first artist to make the self-portrait a major part of his oeuvre). 

 

Next is  

  Lavinia Fontana

 (1552–1614)

She made great strides in the field of portraiture, which garnered her fame within and beyond Italy. In fact, Fontana is regarded as the first woman artist, working within the same sphere as her male counterparts, outside a court or convent. At age 25, Fontana married a fellow painter from a noble family, who acted as his wife’s assistant and managed their growing household (the couple had 11 children, only three of whom outlived their mother). For 20 years beginning in the 1580s, Fontana was the portraitist of choice among Bolognese noblewomen. She also painted likenesses of important individuals connected with the University of Bologna. You can finish this at the National Museum of Women in the arts.
 

The last one today is 

Artemisia Gentileschi
(1593–1624) 

Taken from  The National Gallery in London

Artemisia is the most celebrated female painter of the 17th century. She worked in Rome, Florence, Venice, Naples and London, for the highest echelons of European society, including the Grand Duke of Tuscany and Philip IV of Spain.

Artemisia was born in Rome, the eldest of five children and only daughter of Orazio Gentileschi, under whom she trained. Artemisia’s earliest signed and dated painting, ‘Susanna and the Elders’ (Schloss Weißenstein collection, Pommersfelden, Germany), is from 1610. A year later Artemisia was raped by the painter Agostino Tassi, an acquaintance and collaborator of her father’s. An infamous trial, meticulously recorded in documents that survive, ensued in 1612. Tassi was found guilty and banished from Rome, though his punishment was never enforced. Just going to court in that time is an accomplishment.

Following the trial Artemisia married a little-known Florentine artist by the name of Pierantonio di Vincenzo Stiattesi, and left Rome for Florence shortly thereafter. There she had five children and established herself as an independent artist, becoming an early woman member of the Academy of the Arts of Drawing in 1616. Artemisia returned to Rome in 1620, beset by creditors after running up debts, and she remained there for 10 years (except for a trip to Venice in 1628).

From 1630 she settled in Naples, where she ran a successful studio until her death. She briefly visited London in 1639, perhaps to assist her ailing father on the ceiling painting of the Queen’s House in Greenwich (now at Marlborough House in London), but was back in Naples the following year. The precise date of her death is not known but a recently discovered document records her still living in Naples in August 1654.

 

I hope you enjoyed the history and will look up to read more in depth about these incredible women artist.

 

That's it for now. I look forward to seeing you in Sunday in the Art Room 

Nicole 

 

FFO CKD History Art

 

 Welcome To Friday Face OFF (FFO)

This is the place to show off your faces or your face. Post any type of face from any medium. You can create it, or find it in nature, or even that face in the design of the

woodwork in your house. 

Human, animal, alien, or monster. 

ANY KIND OF FACE!

 

Hi Everyone! 

Before I get into FFO. I want to respond to a comment I got from Monica and thank  her for the information about the potassium. I am trying to reduce that in Mr. M's. diet due to CKD in the one kidney he has left. 

Monica wrote,

"This is what one place says about it "Potassium is an essential electrolyte that is important for several processes in the body. Its main function is to regulate signals from the brain and spine to the muscles and contribute to the normal functioning of the nervous system and muscles." Seems important to me!"

This is all true with a person who has 2 healthy kidneys. With CKD the kidney has trouble eliminating the excess potassium causing hyperkamemia, which can cause serious heart problems, heart attract and even death. So reducing potassium is just one of my goals to keep Mr. M. stable. 

 

Now for FFO

These are some faces I would like to draw. I haven't had my pencils out in months but am feeling like drawing.

This is an interesting face. I like the glasses too.

 

I love this woman, cigarette and pearls.

I found a wonderful site that shows interesting historic photos. Here are a few of them.

Rural One-Room School House In Florida, 1870s

A Female Firefighting Team On A Converted Motorcycle In London, 1932	Two Sisters, Florence And Susie Friermuth Arrested For Moonshining During The Prohibition, 1921
Portrait Of Two Girls Washing Clothes In The Street Of London, 1900's	Christmas Dinner, 1936. Dinner Consisted Of Potatoes, Cabbage And Pie
Portrait Of Unidentified Beautiful Family, Around 1875	A Stylish Family Outing, 1946
Women On Motorcycles In Great Britain, 1930s	An Immigrant Family Arriving At Ellis Island In 1904

 I couldn't pass up these 2 dapper gentlemen from the early 1900's

 Now lets see some features.

Granny Annie

Kokopelli Design

 

Don't forget to link up with Gillena

That's it for me now it's time to 

show me your face.

Nicole