Tag Archives: painting

Odilon Redon: Master of Life

Posted on June 20, 2023 by Symbol Reader

“Not only are we the products of multiple entangled ancestors, spanning vast ranges of the evolutionary field; we are not even individuals at all. Rather, we are walking assemblages: riotous communities of multi-species, multi-bodied beings, inside and outside of our … Continue reading →

Posted in Painting | Tagged alchemy, archetypes, art, consciousness, creation, Darwin, entanglement, evolution, intelligence, life, metamorphosis, monsters, Oannes, Odilon Redon, Origines, painting, symbolism, symbols, transformation | 10 Comments

Frida Kahlo’s Symbolism of Life

Posted on February 5, 2022 by Symbol Reader

Frida Kahlo stands today for much more than art; she is a symbol and an icon of feminism, a heroine of the disability rights movement, anti-racism movements and LGBT communities. Her boundless creativity drew no lines between life and art; … Continue reading →

Posted in Ambition, frida kahlo | Tagged accident, archetypes, art, Casa Azul, death, Diego Rivera, ex-votos, fashion, feminism, fertility, frida kahlo, healthabortion, infertility, jewellery, life, miscarriage, pain, painting, religion, retablos, suffering, symbolism, symbols, Tehuana | 11 Comments

Master Arnold Böcklin

Posted on March 13, 2021 by Symbol Reader

Arnold Böcklin (born in 1827) was a Swiss symbolist painter, whose work The Plague (1898) has recently emerged as the emblem of our moment in time. It seems that through his symbolist lens he managed to capture the timeless terror … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged archetypes, Arnold Böcklin, art, death, Dodona, Mermaids at Play, oracle, painting, symbolism, symbolist art, symbols, The Isle of the Dead, The Plague, The Sacred Grove, Zeus | 8 Comments

The Salon de la Rose † Croix

Posted on May 8, 2020 by Symbol Reader

I. “A call to arms for the worship of beauty, the Salon de la Rose + Croix (R + C) was founded in Paris by … Joséphin Péladan. … The Salon aimed to transcend the mudane and material for a … Continue reading →

Posted in Painting, Uncategorized | Tagged archetypes, art, Jean Moréas, Joséphin Péladan, painting, Salons de la Rose + Croix, symbolism, symbols | 10 Comments

From Lascaux Cave Paintings to Greta Thunberg

Posted on December 15, 2019 by Symbol Reader

It fascinates me when similar ideas come to me simultaneously from completely different directions. The first revelation was a must-read article in The Guardian on how the cave paintings of Lascaux remind us that “in our self-obsessed age, the anonymous, … Continue reading →

Posted in Psyche, Uncategorized | Tagged archetypes, earth, ego, Ferdinand Hodler, Freud, Greta Thunberg, humility, landscape, Lascaux, narcissism, nature, painting, psyche, subject, symbolism, symbols, unconscious, Yeats | 7 Comments

Museo Picasso in Málaga, His Birthplace

Posted on August 5, 2019 by Symbol Reader

I felt a sort of a spiritual communion with Pablo Picasso while visiting Museo Picasso in his home town of Málaga (featured in the photo above). Never before had I received his art so intensely. The museum is housed in … Continue reading →

Posted in Pablo Picasso, Uncategorized | Tagged archetypes, art, bull, Malaga, Museum, Pablo Picasso, painting, symbolism, symbols, Three Graces | 9 Comments

Moon Art

Posted on June 21, 2019 by Symbol Reader

I saw an exhibition today devoted to the history of artists’ engagement with the Moon, from the Romantic era to the post-war period. My attention was captured by numerous works of art – some of them very atmospheric, as is … Continue reading →

Posted in Painting | Tagged archetypes, art, exhibition, Kunsthaus Zurich, Marianne von Werefkin, painting, symbolism, symbols, the moon | 7 Comments

The Reality of Dreams in Henry Fuseli’s Art

Posted on December 1, 2018 by Symbol Reader

Henry Fuseli’s paintings fire up the soul. What is special about this eighteenth-century artist is that he never painted from “nature” but rather he chose to cast his eye inwards and look for inspiration in the fiery depths of his … Continue reading →

Posted in Henry Fuseli, Painting | Tagged archetypes, art, Carl Jung, dreams, Henry Füssli, Henry Fuseli, Leucothea, Leukothea, mysterium tremendum, myth, numinous, Odysseus, painting, reality, Rudolf Otto, symbolism, symbols, the collective unconscious, The Red Book | 19 Comments

Genesis in Motion

Posted on June 14, 2016 by Symbol Reader

According to the Book of Genesis (New American Standard Bible), “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was … Continue reading →

Posted in Painting | Tagged art, Balance, creation, dynamic, equilibrium, forces of nature, Genesis, gravity, matter, motion, movement, painting, Paul Klee, spirit, static, symbolism, symbols | 9 Comments

The Eternal Essence of the Floating World

Posted on December 6, 2015 by Symbol Reader

Lately, my thoughts have been spiraling around a deep need to focus, to cut off all the extraneous details by finding a focus of devoted dedication. In a painting by Vermeer that I have always loved and was lucky to … Continue reading →