| Blessed Art Thou | |
|---|---|
| Artist | Kate Kretz  |
| Year | 2000s |
| Medium | oil paint, acrylic paint, linen |
Blessed Art Thou is an oil-and-acrylic painting by American artist Kate Kretz. [1] It depicts actress Angelina Jolie as the Virgin Mary, hovering in the clouds with her children above a Wal-Mart store. [2]
The painting directs attention to the celebrity worship cycle: each participant in the cycle perpetuates it while pointing a finger somewhere else. [3] The title of the painting, “Blessed Art Thou”, is gotten from a line in the Catholic prayer “Hail Mary”: “…blessed art thou among women...”. [4]
The painting was originally displayed in an exhibit that featured modern and contemporary art. The painting was exhibited at the Miami Art Fair in January 2007, and created a controversy that was covered by ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, and Fox television networks, as well as The International Herald Tribune, The New York Times, and many other international news sources.[ citation needed ] In 2007 the painting was for sale for $50,000. [2] [5]
A full-size drawing study for the work was included in the exhibition "Beyond Re / Production: Mothering" curated by Felicita Reuschling for the Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien, Berlin in 2011. [ citation needed ]
In art, a Madonna is a representation of Mary, either alone or with her child Jesus. These images are central icons for both the Catholic and Orthodox churches. The word is from Italian ma donna 'my lady' (archaic). The Madonna and Child type is very prevalent in Christian iconography, divided into many traditional subtypes especially in Eastern Orthodox iconography, often known after the location of a notable icon of the type, such as the Theotokos of Vladimir, Agiosoritissa, Blachernitissa, etc., or descriptive of the depicted posture, as in Hodegetria, Eleusa, etc.
Christopher Ofili, is a British painter who is best known for his paintings incorporating elephant dung. He was Turner Prize-winner and one of the Young British Artists. Since 2005, Ofili has been living and working in Trinidad and Tobago, where he currently resides in the city of Port of Spain. He also has lived and worked in London and Brooklyn.
Domenico di Tommaso Curradi di Doffo Bigordi, professionally known as Domenico Ghirlandaio, was an Italian Renaissance painter born in Florence. Ghirlandaio was part of the so-called "third generation" of the Florentine Renaissance, along with Verrocchio, the Pollaiolo brothers and Sandro Botticelli. Ghirlandaio led a large and efficient workshop that included his brothers Davide Ghirlandaio and Benedetto Ghirlandaio, his brother-in-law Bastiano Mainardi from San Gimignano, and later his son Ridolfo Ghirlandaio. Many apprentices passed through Ghirlandaio's workshop, including the famous Michelangelo. His particular talent lay in his ability to posit depictions of contemporary life and portraits of contemporary people within the context of religious narratives, bringing him great popularity and many large commissions.
The Annunciation is, according to the Gospel of Luke, the announcement by the archangel Gabriel to Mary that she would conceive and bear a son through a virgin birth and become the mother of Jesus Christ, the Christian Messiah and Son of God, marking the Incarnation. Gabriel told Mary to name her son Jesus.
The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne is an unfinished oil painting by High Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci, dated to c. 1501–1519. It depicts Saint Anne, her daughter the Virgin Mary and the infant Jesus. Christ is shown grappling with a sacrificial lamb symbolizing his Passion as the Virgin tries to restrain him. The painting was commissioned as the high altarpiece for the Church of Santissima Annunziata in Florence and its theme had long preoccupied Leonardo.
The Annunciation is a painting widely attributed to the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci, dated to c. 1472–1476. Leonardo's earliest extant major work, it was completed in Florence while he was an apprentice in the studio of Andrea del Verrocchio. The painting was made using oil and tempera on a large poplar panel and depicts the Annunciation, a popular biblical subject in 15th-century Florence. Since 1867 it has been housed in the Uffizi in Florence, the city where it was created. Though the work has been criticized for inaccuracies in its composition, it is among the best-known portrayals of the Annunciation in Christian art.
The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Nativity of Mary, Marymas or the Birth of the Virgin Mary, refers to a Christian feast day celebrating the birth of Mary, mother of Jesus.
The Basilica della Santa Casa is a Marian shrine in Loreto, in the Marches, Italy. The basilica is known for enshrining the house in which the Blessed Virgin Mary is believed by some Catholics to have lived. Pious legends claim the same house was flown over by angelic beings from Nazareth to Tersatto, then to Recanati, before arriving at the current site.
Angelina Jolie is an American actress, filmmaker and humanitarian. The recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award and three Golden Globe Awards, she has been named Hollywood's highest-paid actress multiple times.
A Mighty Heart is a 2007 American drama film directed by Michael Winterbottom from a screenplay by John Orloff. It is based on the 2003 memoir of the same name by Mariane Pearl.
Eric Fischl is an American painter, sculptor, printmaker, draughtsman and educator. He is known for his paintings depicting American suburbia from the 1970s and 1980s.
Kate Kretz is an American artist born in Grove City, Pennsylvania, and raised in upstate New York who paints and works in fiber-based art.
The Holy Virgin Mary is a mixed media painting created by Chris Ofili in 1996 that utilizes elephant dung and pornographic images. It was one of the works included in the Sensation exhibition in London, Berlin and New York in 1997–2000. The subject of the work, and its execution, caused considerable controversy in New York, with Rudolph Giuliani – then Mayor of New York City – describing Ofili's work as "sick". In 1998, Ofili was the first black artist to be awarded the Turner Prize. The painting was sold for £2.9 million in June 2015, and was gifted to the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in 2018.
James Haven is an American actor. He is the son of actors Jon Voight and Marcheline Bertrand, and the older brother of actress Angelina Jolie.
In the Land of Blood and Honey is a 2011 war drama film written, produced, and directed by Angelina Jolie, and starring Zana Marjanović, Goran Kostić and Rade Šerbedžija. The film, Jolie's first commercial release as a director, depicts a love story set against the background of the Bosnian War. It opened in the United States on December 23, 2011, in a limited theatrical release.
American actress Angelina Jolie made her screen debut in the comedy film Lookin' to Get Out (1982), acting alongside her father Jon Voight. Eleven years later, she appeared in her next feature, the low-budget film Cyborg 2 (1993), a commercial failure. She then starred as a teenage hacker in the science fiction thriller Hackers (1995), which went on to be a cult film despite performing poorly at the box-office. Jolie's career prospects improved with a supporting role in the made-for-television film George Wallace (1997), for which she received the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Television Film. She made her breakthrough the following year in HBO's television film Gia (1998). For her performance in the title role of fashion model Gia Carangi, she won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Film.
Justin Smith is a British milliner based in London, who creates bespoke millinery under the J Smith Esquire brand for private clients and films. Smith's hats have appeared in exhibits and been acquired by the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. He has been a visiting lecturer at London's Royal College of Art and has conducted seminars and teaching workshops for the British Council.
Bod Mellor is a British painter, noted for unconventional, stylised portraits of well-known figures.
The putative Marlowe portrait is an unsigned portrait on wooden panel, dated 1585, which was discovered in 1952 or 1953 at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. It has been proposed that the portrait depicts the English playwright Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593), though several scholars have suggested that this is unlikely.
Tower of the Koutoubia Mosque is an oil on canvas painting of the Kutubiyya Mosque in Marrakesh by Winston Churchill. The painting, the only one Churchill undertook during the Second World War, was completed on 25/26 January 1943, during a visit to the city by Churchill and President Franklin D. Roosevelt, following the Casablanca Conference. Churchill subsequently presented the picture to Roosevelt. It was later owned by Angelina Jolie. At its sale in 2021 the picture was described by Christie's as "Churchill's most important work" and achieved the highest ever auction price for a painting by Churchill.