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Dragons in Wester Art
The first western dragon was the Primordial Goddess of Chaos Tiamat. She was defeated by the God Marduke. He strung up her body over the sky. The rain is her blood. You can see the initial traces of the traditional Western Dragon. It has the wings, the horns and the 4 legs. The tail is bird like and so is her feathery body. In the Greek times, the dragons got quite varied. They became more associated with reptiles, like snakes. The Greeks created the cliché of the damsel in distress taken by the dragon or monster. In medieval times, only...
Children in Western Art
Today, I wanted to blog about kids in western paintings. During medieval times, the only kid that was painted was baby Jesus. It was rare for him to resemble anything remotely human. These artworks were mainly done by the church. So, monks living in the mountains could not find children to model for them. Then again, they were not interested in realism. When the Renaissance came, children started appearing in somewhat realistic forms in art. They were mostly idealize. You only saw them more often in paintings of nobles and Kings. These high ranking folks wanted to show that their...
20 New Years Paintings
New year doesn’t often appear in artworks in the West. I suppose that most folks are celebrating new years. They are too busy partying to bother to paint. I saw more Japanese prints featuring new years. It is a bigger celebration in Asia. Perhaps, the impressionists made New Years popular thanks to the Japanese prints. The first New Years tradition is to wait until midnight. I saw an interesting painting that features turning off a candle. The New Years Baby showed up around the turn of the century. Champagne is also a pretty common tradition. Just showing champagne is associated...
Nativity History Paintings
The Nativity is a scene from the Bible. It takes place just after Jesus is born. In some books, he gets visited by Wise Men. In others, angels and shepherds visit. The donkey becomes an impure animal because eats the hay of the baby’s bed. The cow is considered sacred because he showed due reverence. I do not know where that story came from. It is just something I remember from the Bible study I took when I was wee small. Joseph is often shown looking concerned. As for the wise men, they are named after the presents they brought....
Christmas art History
I wanted to show you some nice Christmas paintings. It is a little early for Christmas, but whatever. The first couple of paintings are by Norman Rockwell. He was quite the prolific American painter. He made front cover arts for various magazines. When you see his paintings, you see traditional Christmas. I wanted to focus on Santa Claus. There are no Nativity paintings. There are a couple of paintings with children discovering that their father is Santa Claus. Other show Santa like a true being made of flesh and blood. There is a funny painter showing a cowboy running into...