Abdurrahman

Reading Marcus Aurelius slowly. Notes, questions, one book at a time.
“The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”

[Abdurrahman @ItsDhmn]

He fell asleep and the monsters woke. In Goya's image owls and bats swarm from the dark behind a sleeping man. The desk reads: the sleep of reason produces monsters. When reason sleeps, monsters wake. every painting lies. #arthistory #goya

[Abdurrahman @ItsDhmn]

He hid his name on her dress. Reynolds painted the actress Sarah Siddons enthroned as tragedy itself, then tucked his signature onto the hem of her gown, to go to posterity on the hem of her garment. Even masters want to be remembered. every painting lies. #arthistory #reynolds

[Abdurrahman @ItsDhmn]

You know this face, it's on every Shakespeare book. The Chandos Portrait (c.1600) may be the only one painted from life, but scholars aren't sure it's even him. The most famous face in literature may belong to a stranger. every painting lies. #arthistory #shakespeare

[Abdurrahman @ItsDhmn]

This dancer became a painter. In Renoir's Dance at Bougival, the woman in the red bonnet is believed to be Suzanne Valadon, a model who taught herself and became a major painter in her own right. The muse becomes the maker. every painting lies. #arthistory #renoir

[Abdurrahman @ItsDhmn]

This painting started a fight. El Greco's Christ blazes in red, mobbed by a crowd, and the church that ordered it fought the bill, objecting too many heads rise above Christ's. He did it his way. Genius rarely asks permission. every painting lies. #arthistory #elgreco

[Abdurrahman @ItsDhmn]

Her smile was a scandal. Vigee Le Brun painted herself as artist and mother, smiling warm and open when portraits kept a closed, solemn mouth. The queen's painter, soon exiled. Joy itself can break a rule. every painting lies. #arthistory #womeninart

[Abdurrahman @ItsDhmn]

You have seen these hands everywhere. But Durer's Praying Hands was never a finished work, just a study for an altarpiece that later burned. And the touching two-brothers backstory is pure invention. The fragment outlived the whole. every painting lies. #arthistory #durer

[Abdurrahman @ItsDhmn]

Raphael died before finishing this. His Transfiguration splits in two: Christ rising in light above, human panic below. His last work, unfinished at his death in 1520, hung above his coffin. We all leave our best unfinished. every painting lies. #arthistory #raphael

[Abdurrahman @ItsDhmn]

This portrait ended a marriage. Henry VIII picked Anne of Cleves from Holbein's flattering 1539 portrait, was let down in person, and annulled it within six months. Flattery has an expiry date. every painting lies. #arthistory #henryviii