Lunatics | |
---|---|
Artist | Odd Nerdrum |
Year | 2001–2002 |
Medium | Oil on canvas |
Dimensions | 204 cm× 351 cm(80 in× 138 in) |
Location | Private collection |
Lunatics is a 2002 oil on canvas painting by the Norwegian painter Odd Nerdrum. It depicts a barren landscape with a number of nude or semi-nude people wearing headgears such as crowns and helmets. In their 2014 catalogue note, Sotheby's described the painting as "a quintessential example of Nerdrum's large-scale allegories, presenting a sense of the apocalyptic". [1]
A detail from the painting was used on the cover for Nerdrum's 2009 book How We Cheat Each Other. [1]
A total of ten people sit scattered on the ground in a barren landscape. There are pebbles on the ground and rocky hills in the background. Some of the figures are nude, while others wear simple leather cloaks. The figures wear headgears associated with authority: crowns, helmets and fancy hats. One man in the foreground has a shield, while a figure in the far back is armed with a rod or spear.
The painting is signed "Nerdrum". It is dated "2001–2" on the left overlap and titled "Lunatics" on the right overlap. [1]
The painting was exhibited at the Forum Gallery in New York City in 2004 as part of the exhibition Odd Nerdrum: New Paintings. [1]
It was sold for 25,000 GBP in 2014 through Sotheby's in London, as part of the auction 1000 Ways of Seeing: The Private Collection of the late Stanley J. Seeger . [1]
Matthew Ballou of Image wrote in 2006: "Lunatics depicts a kind of group meditative state explored in earlier paintings like Twin Mother by the Sea (1999) and Dawn (1990), but takes it in a new direction. ... The painting has a tremendous sense of perspective and huge, deep space, in contrast to earlier works that often take place within tight tableaux." [2]
The Scream is a composition created by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch in 1893. The Norwegian name of the piece is Skrik (Scream), and the German title under which it was first exhibited is Der Schrei der Natur. The agonized face in the painting has become one of the most iconic images of art, seen as symbolizing the anxiety of the human condition. Munch's work, including The Scream, had a formative influence on the Expressionist movement.
The Phrygian cap or liberty cap is a soft conical cap with the apex bent over, associated in antiquity with several peoples in Eastern Europe and Anatolia, including the Persians, the Medes and the Scythians, as well as in the Balkans, Dacia, Thrace and in Phrygia, where the name originated. The oldest depiction of the Phrygian cap is from Persepolis in Iran.
Odd Nerdrum is a Norwegian figurative painter, born in Sweden. His work is held by museums worldwide. Themes and style in Nerdrum's work reference anecdote and narrative. Primary influences by the painters Rembrandt and Caravaggio help place his work in direct conflict with the abstraction and conceptual art considered acceptable in much of Norway. Nerdrum creates six to eight paintings a year. They include still life paintings of small, everyday objects, portraits and self-portraits, and large paintings allegorical and apocalyptic in nature. The figures in Nerdrum's paintings are often dressed as if from another time and place.
Garçon à la Pipe is an oil on canvas painting by Pablo Picasso. It was painted in 1905 when Picasso was 24 years old, during his Rose Period, soon after he settled in the Montmartre area of Paris. The painting depicts a Parisian adolescent boy who holds a pipe in his left hand and wears a garland of flowers on his head, surrounded by two floral decorations. The subject was a local boy named "P’tit Louis" who died at a young age. The painting is listed as one of the most expensive paintings, after being sold at Sotheby's auction for $104 million on 5 May 2004. It is currently the fifth highest selling painting by Picasso.
Horned helmets were worn by many people around the world. Headpieces mounted with animal horns or replicas were also worn from ancient times, as in the Mesolithic Star Carr. These were probably used for religious ceremonial or ritual purposes, as horns tend to be impractical on a combat helmet. Much of the evidence for these helmets and headpieces comes from depictions rather than the items themselves.
Jan Sanders van Hemessen was a leading Flemish Renaissance painter, belonging to the group of Italianizing Flemish painters called the Romanists, who were influenced by Italian Renaissance painting. Van Hemessen had visited Italy during the 1520s, and also Fontainebleau near Paris in the mid 1530s, where he was able to view the work of the colony of Italian artists known as the First School of Fontainebleau, who were working on the decorations for the Palace of Fontainebleau. Van Hemessen's works show his ability to interpret the Italian models into a new Flemish visual vocabulary.
Christ Carrying the Cross on his way to his crucifixion is an episode included in the Gospel of John, and a very common subject in art, especially in the fourteen Stations of the Cross, sets of which are now found in almost all Roman Catholic churches, as well as in many Lutheran churches and Anglican churches. However, the subject occurs in many other contexts, including single works and cycles of the Life of Christ or the Passion of Christ. Alternative names include the Procession to Calvary, Road to Calvary and Way to Calvary, Calvary or Golgotha being the site of the crucifixion outside Jerusalem. The actual route taken is defined by tradition as the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem, although the specific path of this route has varied over the centuries and continues to be the subject of debate.
The nude, as a form of visual art that focuses on the unclothed human figure, is an enduring tradition in Western art. It was a preoccupation of Ancient Greek art, and after a semi-dormant period in the Middle Ages returned to a central position with the Renaissance. Unclothed figures often also play a part in other types of art, such as history painting, including allegorical and religious art, portraiture, or the decorative arts. From prehistory to the earliest civilizations, nude female figures were generally understood to be symbols of fertility or well-being.
Homme au bain is an 1884 oil painting by French Impressionist Gustave Caillebotte.
La Gommeuse is a 1901 oil-on-canvas painting by the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso. It dates from his Blue Period and is noted for its caricature of Picasso's friend Pere Mañach painted on the reverse. Gommeuse was sexually charged slang of the time for café-concert singers and their songs. It was offered for sale ex the William I. Koch collection at a Sotheby's, New York, auction on 5 November 2015. The painting realized $67.5 million at the sale, a record for a Blue Period Picasso, placing the painting among the most expensive ever sold.
The Cloud is an oil painting by the Norwegian artist Odd Nerdrum, from 1985.. It depicts a nude man in a leather helmet, looking out over a landscape with a compact dark cloud in the sky. It is held in a private collection.
The Fountain of Youth is an oil-on-panel painting executed in 1546 by the German artist Lucas Cranach the Elder.
Iron Law is a 1984 painting by the Norwegian artist Odd Nerdrum. It depicts two men in a grey and desolate coastal landscape, as the man to the right—wearing a blindfold—is about to strike the man to the left with a metal rod. In the background, a third man is running away from the scene.
Dawn is an oil on canvas painting by the Norwegian artist Odd Nerdrum, painted in 1989. It is held in a private collection.
The Savior of Painting is a 1997 painting by the Norwegian artist Odd Nerdrum. It is also known as Self-Portrait as the Prophet of Painting. It depicts Nerdrum in a golden robe, standing barefoot under the evening sky, with a paintbrush in his right hand and a palette in his left.
Cannibals is a 2005 painting by the Norwegian kitsch painter Odd Nerdrum. It depicts three men in a barren landscape, devouring the remains of a fourth man whose spine, rib cage and head lie on the ground before them.
Woman Kills Injured Man is a 1994 painting by the Norwegian artist Odd Nerdrum. It depicts a man who is assaulted by a woman armed with a knife.
Several oil-on-oak-panel versions of The Massacre of the Innocents were painted by 16th-century Netherlandish painters Pieter Bruegel the Elder and his son Pieter Brueghel the Younger. The work translates the Biblical account of the Massacre of the Innocents into a winter scene in the Netherlands in the prelude to the Dutch Revolt against Spanish rule, also known as the Eighty Years' War.
Version No. 2 of Lying Figure with Hypodermic Syringe is a 1968 oil-on-canvas painting by the Irish-born, English artist Francis Bacon. It is the second of two similarly titled paintings based on nude photographs of his close friend Henrietta Moraes, who is shown in a reclining position on a bed, themselves part of a wider series of collapsed figures on beds that began with the 1963 triptych Lying Figure. This later version is widely considered the more successful of the two panels.
Epiur is an Etruscan mythological figure that appears on bronze Etruscan engraved mirrors. He is shown as an infant that has the face of a young man. He is also often winged and being held by Hercle or Menrva, who are charged with the protection and care of infants. He is also often shown to be presented to other gods.