1917

1917 was a monumental year in the shaping of the world thereafter, and Poland especially (which wasn't its own country at that point). It saw the US enter The Great War against Germany, and the Russian monarchy falling to Socialist Rebels after 2 separate rebellions in February and October.

Poland, positioned between Austria-Hungary, the German Empire and the Russian Empire, made it a site of great human loss. However, each of these suitors, believing an alliance would give an advantage, wooed the regions leaders.

Art Nouveau being in vogue at the time influenced the animal shapes. What at first appears to be butterfly wings and random decor, is actually serpents biting and killing each other.

Here's some info about the art period and artist:

Młoda Polska

Młoda Polska was a modernist period in Polish visual arts, music and literature, which spanned the period from 1890 to 1918.

According to the organisers, the end of the 19th century was a time when “the concepts of freedom and hope were important themes in Polish culture and art. Elements of symbolism, neo romanticism and early modernism created a unique and expressive atmosphere and art movement, with Kraków and Warsaw as important cultural centres.”

Art Nouveau

An international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. It was often inspired by natural forms such as the sinuous curves of plants and flowers.[1] Other characteristics of Art Nouveau were a sense of dynamism and movement, often given by asymmetry or whiplash lines, and the use of modern materials, particularly iron, glass, ceramics and later concrete, to create unusual forms and larger open spaces.[2] It was popular between 1890 and 1910 during the Belle Époque period,[3] and was a reaction against the academic art, eclecticism and historicism of 19th century architecture and decoration.

The Artist

Okuń was born in 1872 to a noble family and was orphaned early. He grew up with his grandparents on the maternal side. After inheriting a large fortune, he soon began drawing lessons with great painters. In 1891 he studied at the Warsaw School of Drawing. From 1891 to 1893 he studied under the direction of Isidore Jablonski and Jan Matejko at the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts. He continued his studies in Munich and Paris. In 1897 Okuń went to study with Simon Hollósy who founded the Nagybánya artists' colony. For the next 20 years he lived in Rome and also traveled to Sorrento, Amalfi, Capri, Venice, Padua, Ravenna, Florence and Siena. He participated in the life of the Polish art colony in Rome, and was co-founder of the Masonic lodge "Polonia".[citation needed]

Okuń returned to Poland in 1921 and settled in Warsaw. From 1925 he was a professor in the School of Fine Arts. He was a member of the Society of Polish Artists. Together with his friends founded a Masonic lodge called "Copernicus". He was vice-president of the Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts. During the annual opening of the Salon Incentives he witnessed the assassination of the first president of Poland, Gabriel Narutowicz, by Eligiusz Niewiadomski. He helped apprehend Niewiadomski, along with one of the president's aides.

During World War II he lived in Warsaw. After the Warsaw Uprising Okuń moved to Skierniewice, where he was killed by stray bullet in January 1945.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Nouveau

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Oku%C5%84

Aside

For an extra boost to your enjoyment, consider listening to (Rimsky-Korsakov 2nd Symphony, Antar, movement 1: Vengeance)[https://youtu.be/Qd80g7wJWuQ?si=aZoRQ8PcU3_9OR_c]. This was the music that the artist listened to as he created the piece.

Ivan the Terrible and his son

A very sad piece indeed. Ivan the terrible's mental illness came to a horrible climax one night when he saw his son's pregnant wife walk by in a nightgown that exposed her under garments. Blind with rage, he struck his son in the head fataly.

The painting depicts Ivan the Terrible, stricken with grief and anguish as his son dies. The son, in tears, forgiving his father in some cosmic understanding as he lay dying.

On the surface, an example of how mental illness, left to take more and more control, can result in horrible consequences.

However, looking at the dates; the event occurred about 300 years before the painting was created. Why?

The political environment

The painting is an allegory of the assassination of Alexander II. Or rather the atrocity of the action itself and the consequences.

A group of far-left terrorists, bent on removing the autocratic tsarist government, killed A2 with a bomb in 1881; influenced by "Propaganda by the Deed," hoping it would spark a revolution.

The painter not only witnessed the assassination, but also the hanging a few months later of the men who committed the act. He was horrified by the violence, he called them horrors of the contemporary world.

Aftermath

The act of terrorism failed and it would not be for another nearly 40 years, when things had gotten so bad and the tsars so weak that the Bolsheviks were able to succeed and establish a Soviet Republic, but only after killing basically everyone that knew how to do anything: Doctors, Lawyers, Farmers, etc. Leaving the country in tatters and the government free to be run by one person, who would go on to commit awful such atrocities that it made the whole history of the tsars look like childs play in comparison.

Logsdail didn't fit in a camp of his time. He painted en plain air like the Impressionists, but was dedicated to picture-perfect renderings, something that was possible because of emerging technologies of the industrial age. It's so precise I would guess it was projection-aided, but I'm not sure if that was available at the time.

Sonja Ingrid Bata was a Swiss Canadian businesswoman, philanthropist, collector and museum founder, who initially trained as an architect.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonja_Bata

Oil on cardboard; 31.5 x 21.5 cm.

Annigoni was born in Milan. He studied at the Accademia delle Belle Arti in Florence, taking classes in painting, sculpture and engraving. Basing his style on the Italian old masters he studied their techniques, learning the art of 'oil tempera' under the Russian painter, Nikolai Lokoff.

Initially Annigoni's success was limited to Italy where his sharply evocative landscapes were very popular. In 1947 along with Gregory Sciltian, the brothers Antonio and Xavier Bueno, and others, he signed the manifesto of the 'Modern Realist Painters', coming out in open opposition to abstract art.

Alone among the signatories Annigoni remained true, both aesthetically and ethically to the doctrines of the manifesto. His art was brought to the attention of the British public when, in March 1949, the Royal Academy accepted some of his works for the annual exhibition and the move from relative obscurity to instant recognition came in 1954 when he received a commission to paint the young Queen Elizabeth II.

The commission from the Worshipful Company of Fishmongers brought instant fame. Crowds flocked to see the painting when it was exhibited at the Royal Academy in London and a limited-edition print published by The Times was fully subscribed. Sir Alfred Munnings, former President of the Royal Academy, declared Annigoni to be 'the greatest painter of the age'.

https://sk.pinterest.com/pin/9922061652538144/

Dominique Lang (1874-1919) was born in 1874 (the year of the first Impressionist exhibition in Paris) and is considered today to be Luxembourg's most important Impressionist painter.

Lang adopted Impressionism from 1906 onwards, moving away from his earlier work in Symbolist and Pre-Raphaelite modes. The bold colours and vivid brushstrokes of Le Barrage, 1913, place Lang firmly in the tradition of Monet, Pissarro and Renoir. Largely unrecognised in his lifetime, Lang was unable to earn a reliable income from selling his work and he worked as art teacher to support his family.

https://www.europeana.eu/da/exhibitions/the-inspiration-of-nature/impressionism-and-beyond

Nikola Petrov was a Bulgarian landscape painter and graphic artist; also known for his portrait sketches and watercolors.

He displayed a talent for drawing while still in elementary school. When he was old enough, he went to Sofia and, in 1899, became part of the second group of students accepted for the newly organized State Drawing School (now the National Academy of Arts). He studied with the sculptor Marin Vasilev and Jaroslav Věšín, a Czech battle painter. Despite these influences, he chose to concentrate on landscape painting.

In 1903, he joined the Society of Modern Art, a group devoted to promoting currents trends such as Impressionism, Symbolism and Art Nouveau. That same year, he was able to spend some time studying in Rome, thanks to a state scholarship.

He continued to pursue his own styles, however, and spent much of his time painting en plein air; a habit to which he had been introduced by Věšín. He was also one of the first Bulgarian painters to do cityscapes and is often referred to as the "Xудожника на София" (Painter of Sofia)“. Following his first showing in 1904, he participated in numerous exhibitions at home and abroad, including London (1907), Munich and Venice (1910), Belgrade (1912) and Berlin (1916).

In addition to his paintings, he helped decorate Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, provided drawings for children's magazines and illustrated a book of poems by Pencho Slaveykov.

He died of tuberculosis, aged only thirty-five. In 1961, the Nikola Petrov Gallery was opened in his hometown of Vidin. It contains over 1,300 works by Petrov and other notable Bulgarian artists. Several postage stamps featuring his works were issued in his honor on the centenary of his birth.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Petrov_(painter)

Part of the Hyperrealistic Art Movement beginning in the 1970s in America and Britain, this sculpture is on display at the Saatchi Gallery of London.

Hyperrealism is an off-shoot of pop art, which emphasized the banal or kitschy elements of any culture, most often through the use of irony.

Here however, the work seems to be a more sincere endeavor - Hanson painstakingly creating a realistic lonely, elderly man. Perhaps the irony being in our interaction with the art: in many pictures the figure is roped off while a swarm of gawkers crowd around and take pictures. They are unable to interact with him through any other means.

Historically, the 70's were a decade of great change. The economic boom after WWII gave way to stagnation, causing upheavals and civil wars around the globe. Movements of the 60's, such as civil and women's' rights, began to become more concrete. Production enhancements began speeding up productivity and women working meant a new class of child - those that took care of themselves or had limited supervision. The birth of the personal computers and in-home video games allowed for the birth of disconnection from society on a mass scale, something that has increased tremendously in our modern age.

And this man sits on a bench by himself. Holding a package. Hanson's other works have a certain tongue-in-cheek quality of irony, and perhaps this does too, but I like to think it is sincere.

Kenny Scharf (born November 23, 1958) is an American painter known for his participation in New York City's interdisciplinary East Village art scene during the 1980s, alongside Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring. Scharf's do-it-yourself practice spanned painting, sculpture, fashion, video, performance art, and street art. Growing up in post-World War II Southern California, Scharf was fascinated by television and the futuristic promise of modern design. His works often includes pop culture icons, such as the Flintstones and the Jetsons, or caricatures of middle-class Americans in an apocalyptic science fiction setting.

It was at the age of 25 when Joseph’s love for the craft blossomed. As a creative and struggling actor in Los Angeles, he found art as a way to express himself freely. Painting became his way of being creative in a buzzing city and being grounded and mentally refreshed. After a year of trial and error and honing his technical skills, Joseph began developing his own style of painting and has since then become a successful artist in his own right.

https://www.minus37.com/2019/01/28/joseph-lee-artist-abstract-portraits/

At the Salon of 1804, Gros debuted his painting Bonaparte Visiting the Plague Victims of Jaffa. The painting launched his career as a successful painter. It depicts Bonaparte in Jaffa visiting soldiers infected with the bubonic plague. He is portrayed reaching out to one of the sick, unfazed by the illness. According to P. Jill Morse, Napoleon commissioned Gros to paint the scene to neutralize British propaganda. The propaganda focused on two episodes of the Egyptian campaign (1798-1800). First when he ordered the massacre of Turkish prisoners. Second, when he ordered the death by poison of French soldiers suffering from the plague. The painting showed a compassionate Napoleon visiting the sick at the plague hospital. Morse adds that Gros was probably using the disease as a metaphor for the vanity of Napoleon and his First Empire.[12]

While Bonaparte did actually visit the pesthouse, later, as his army prepared to withdraw from Syria, he ordered the poisoning (with laudanum) of about fifty of his plague-infected men.[13]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine-Jean_Gros#Salon_of_1804

Further reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonaparte_Visiting_the_Plague_Victims_of_Jaffa