Tuesday, December 16, 2025

 Georg Flegel
(1566- 1638)

Georg Flegel was a German painter, best known for his still-life works. Born in Olomouc (now in the Czech Republic), he later worked in Frankfurt am Main, where he became a leading figure in early German still-life painting. 

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

Candlelight Pantry
1630-1635
Oil on canvas
72.5 x 60 cm 
Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, Germany
https://www.kunsthalle-karlsruhe.de/kunstwerke/Georg-Flegel/Vorratskammer-bei-Kerzenlicht/DCBDA55040C0C0FE18BA0BBFC2FE9DC4/

Monday, December 15, 2025

Viktor Madarász 
(1830 - 1917)

Viktor Madarász was a Hungarian painter in the Romantic style. He is best known for his historical scenes and portraits.

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

The Mourning of László Hunyadi 
1859
Oil on canvas
243 × 311.5 cm 
Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest
https://en.mng.hu/artworks/54526/

László Hunyadi, the son of the great defeater of the Ottomans János Hunyadi who thus became a national hero, was ordered to be killed by Vladislav V. Young Hunyadi enjoyed widespread popularity among the Hungarians, so he was seen as a rival to the young, inexperienced Vladislav V who served foreign interests. The Hunyadi theme was very popular in the history painting of the century; László Hunyadi’s farewell and his dying were eternalized by many and in various ways. The Madarász painting captures a very special moment, the wake. Next to the body, covered by a white shroud are his mother Erzsébet Szilágyi and his bride Mária Gara, their movements and facial expressions mirroring profound grief.

Sunday, December 14, 2025

Godfried Schalcken
(1643 - 1706)
 

Godfried Schalcken was a Dutch artist who specialized in genre paintings and portraits. Schalcken was noted for his night scenes and mastery in reproducing the effect of candlelight. He painted in the highly polished style of the Leiden fijnschilders.

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


Fire and Light (A Girl Places a Candle in a Lantern and a Boy Blows on the Coals in a Chafing-Dish)
attributed to Godfried Schalcken, 1690 - 1706
Oil on canvas
46 x 38cm
The Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/object/Fire-and-Light-A-Girl-Places-a-Candle-in-a-Lantern-and-a-Boy-Blows-on-the-Coals-in-a-Chafing-Dish--1e5628a7eafd9eb84cc338d591de4c56

Saturday, December 13, 2025

Gerrit Dou
(1613 - 1675)
 

Gerrit Dou also known as Gerard Douw or Dow, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, whose small, highly polished paintings are typical of the Leiden fijnschilders. He specialised in genre scenes and is noted for his trompe-l'œil "niche" paintings and candlelit night-scenes with strong chiaroscuro. He was a student of Rembrandt. 

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

Astronomer by Candlelight
late 1650s
Oil on panel
45.9 × 34.4 cm
J. Paul Getty Museum
https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/103RHZ

Friday, December 12, 2025

Jeong, Bo Young
B. 1973
 

Jeong, Bo Young is a South Korean artist. Painting with the technicality, precision and subject matter of natural lighting as the Old Masters did, Jeong revives landscape paintings by incorporating contemporary elements such as welded iron chairs, smoke stacks and concrete tiles. She subtly plays with the presence and effects of light on the viewer, creating a cheerful visual puzzle for the viewer to decipher as suggested by the ambiguous title of both works. The depiction of light in Jeong's works also shows her keen observation on the phenomenon of light, leading her to catch the stillness of light, exposing the spiritual quality it can hold over a space and viewer. The two folds of light, both internal and external, are revealed in Jeong Bo Young's paintings.


Lighting Up
2009
Oil on canvas
530 x 455 cm
Private collection
Interesting video (6 min) with the artist on Youtube:
https://youtu.be/F6xpmJGw1ak?si=-Ia5Xszv6x_gCD1q

Thursday, December 11, 2025

 Sung-Hun Kong
(B. 1965 )
 

Sung-Hun Kong is a Korean artist; His work is well-known for "rediscovering the medium of painting and breaking the preconceived notion that painting cannot yield any new achievements in contemporary art trends", and "for demonstrating an extraordinary artistic talent of exceptional innovativeness". Kong was awarded as the winner of 2013 Korea Artist Prize by National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea(MMCA).

https://www.theartling.com/en/artist/kong-sunghun/

A Candle in Rocky Ground
2008
Acrylic on canvas
120 x 60 cm
Korean Art Museum Association, South Korea

Wednesday, December 10, 2025

 <b>Adolph Menzel</b>
(1815–1905)
 

Adolph Friedrich Erdmann von Menzel was a German Realist artist noted for drawings, etchings, and paintings. Along with Caspar David Friedrich, he is considered one of the two most prominent German painters of the 19th century, and was the most successful artist of his era in Germany. First known as Adolph Menzel, he was knighted in 1898 and changed his name to Adolph von Menzel. 

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

Frederick the Great Playing the Flute at Sanssouci
1852
Oil on canvas
142x 205 cm
Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin
https://recherche.smb.museum/detail/966477/fl%C3%B6tenkonzert-friedrichs-des-gro%C3%9Fen-in-sanssouci

The painting depicts, in a pre-impressionistic, painterly 19th-century style, an 18th-century musical soirée at the palace at which a piece of music is being played with King Frederick himself playing the flute center stage. However, the monarch’s features represented in the painting are highly idealized as Menzel avoids showing Frederick with his aquiline nose, although he must have known the death mask of the Prussian king.
In front of Frederick sits his chamber ensemble and to his rear an audience of dignitaries and noble ladies. The focus of the work is not on the music but rather on Frederick and the ambience created by the interior design, the furniture, the chandelier and candlelight and the ladies' elaborate dresses. 

 Georg Flegel (1566- 1638) Georg Flegel was a German painter, best known for his still-life works. Born in Olomouc (now in the Czech Republi...