Paint them anyway, Kate! You’ll have a blast and learn even more – and maybe your paintings will turn out fantastic. 
Love the photos!
Yes, I’ve been reading along, but you and Dick know a lot more about art than I do. I should study more, but it’s hard enough finding time to paint and pot. 
It’s great to read your conversation though, and google the artists and all.
Wow, those are great compositions. Love the dog, but once you start looking at nuns it’s hard to get out of the habit.
Landscape or portrait: Yes
Sacred or Secular: Hmm . . . I’m not sure there’s a clear dividing line . . . .
Dave! 
(Seriously though – Fie! For shame!)
Wonderful to see you back.
They are great photos Kate - really great
Thanks, everyone.
I wish my Photography professor was as praising as you all!
As I mentioned before, Cindy, I’m really an impostor here – I know next-to-nothing about art history. (It just so happens that I remember some stuff from my class this semester – but I’ve since stopped paying attention, because I detest cubism!)
Kate. You and I age agreed on cubism. 
Blah!
I will admit that I was a little disappointed in ‘Nude Descending Stairs’. If it’s even cubism.
Cubism - hmmm. Not too fond of it either
Is Art history boring? Oh dear – that means I’m being a bore here. Och well – comes to us all. Will just say about Landscapes and portraits –
Landscapes can be very spiritual because they deal amongst other things with the qualities of light reflected and refracted. Some landscape painters – for example the British Painter Samuel Palmer who was influenced by Blake– deliberately try to show the creation through the light filled eyes of Eden – so their paintings are intended as a sort of theophany.
Portraits are of two basic kinds – and a spectrum between the two. Larger public portraits are more concerned with expressing the essential qualities of a person – their office, dignity or whatever; through the posing of the subject and the signs with which they are adorned/surrounded. They have an iconic feel about them as if they give a window onto timeless qualities. The other type of portraits are meant to give an intimate likeness – in the past this was the province of the miniature painting. Today we have the two types mixed together in painting and in photography.
The idea of a likeness that is brutal in honesty in a painting probably originates with Oliver Cromwell who, when being painted, insisted that his likeness was shown ‘warts and all’.
As to which types of portrait are more sacred, which more secular – take your pick. We have the Incarnation as our sign here.
Nude descending the stairs - it’s like a film with the different frames shown together rather than in sequence. Er, that’s it I reckon 
Oh Kate - by the way yes I really like Breughel’s Christ carrying his Cross. It’s just as you say - the Christ being off-centre makes the whole thing ordinary. It actually gives it a narrative feel as if he’s moving towards the edge of the canvas and will continue beyond it. So you don’t get a frozen iconic feel about it. In a less poignant way the death of Icarus is similar - life is going on as normal even as tragedy and barbarity strike unnoticed. This makes the pain even harder to bear than if there are weeping angels in the sky. But art history is boooooring You are an uncultivated lot - get back to your tub of greasy fries, your rubber burger and your Star Wars repeats then
Only cubism. See my previous post about being pumped for my class in Renaissance Art next semester. 
And I’ll have you know, good sir, that today I both ate a tub of greasy fries today and wrote an essay on 1400’s printmaking. Both were just fine (but I gotta admit I enjoyed the fries a tad more! )
We had to discuss this little nugget for an hour last week. 
Painful – very painful. I still see no nude, and I still see no stairs!
Very true – I’ll save that thought for any second semester essays.
I was just thinking fair Lady that Art History is less boring that predestination and freewill in my book anyway.
And I was only joking I see different frames of a motion film superimposed in a blur in ‘Nude descending’ - I don’t particularly like it but it conveys a sense of movement (why the nude? dunno to grab attention perhaps ). All I remember about cubism is that it attempts to show you things that you know are there but can’t see at a glance simultaneously. Well I kept a few artists in handkerchiefs for a bit I guess. I know that the conservative Christian reaction was one of horror as if the paintings were fragmenting the divine image in humanity. But I guess the movement was expressing the horror and fragmentation of the first World War where many of the artist fought - so there was a reason for it. But I don’t much care for it
Now Renaissance Art is another matter. Swot up on your Platonism - its; vital
I have a print of the Klee painting “Nude in a Castle with Sun” - actually I just made up the nude part to get attention - and showed that print to my 6 year old niece Jessica. I asked her what she thought it was ‘about’ - I did not mention the title - and she looked for moment and said - That’s a castle and a sun. The dolt known as me did NOT see that - I bought the print because it evoked something else in me which I still cannot describe - but once I saw the title, sure, I saw the castle. Jessica has gone on to be a competent graphic artist.
Klee did some fantastic work - his “Sinbad the Sailor” became a favorite of mine whilst studying Kierkegaard; K had a memorable line about a swimmer out alone over 20,000 leagues of ocean, or something like that.
I’m proud of using the word ‘whilst’ because I’m American, and the french fries keep me from sounding intelligent.
All I’ve got on Plato is his Allegory of the Cave – and that’s from quite a while ago!
And since this is an art thread, does anyone have any suggestions for subjects? I need to complete 15 pieces by January for a portfolio review, and I’m giving it a start over break. Some of the pieces will be from class, but I still want to do some colored pencil projects on my own because they’re my favorite. So, yes, ideas? Still life pieces are ideal, because we’re only allowed to draw from life – no photographs – so I need something that’s not gonna get up and walk away! (And no nudes – those aren’t required until next year! 
)
Klee’s a bit too modernist for me, Dave, although I do like how his pieces look rather like quilts. They’d also be quite cool in stained-glass!
Now they are really lovely paintings Dave I love them! And yes they do have a quilt like quality.
I’ll fill you in on Plato Kate - trouble ye not. The Allegory of the Cave is a good place to start - the dwellers in the cave mistake the shadows cast in the cave from the outside for the real things - but the real things are outside the cave. We live in the world of shadows - so does art provide us with a ladder to the Real or is it just a shadow of the shadow? Renaissance Platonism taught that by contemplating the beautiful things in the world of shadows we can ascend to the world of pure forms. But that’s another world from Kierkegaard
I did life drawing when I was sixteen and seventeen - nothing remotely erotic about it I’ll tell you that
Until I read ‘An Art of our Own’, my fav painting was the four dogs playing poker. I get the modern art now, but even some of what I ‘get’ does not really appeal to me. But I do like modernism. And Renaissance.
And there is one modern, minimal painting that I like so much I had a friend reproduce it for me. I cannot find it online however. It is one of the Kazimir Malevich ‘suprematism’ paintings. I don’t care that much about the others. I’ll try to find it, I’d like to get some of your feelings about it, dear reader.
Now, that dog painting is more my speed! (I don’t make for the most prestigious art critic! )
Not to bash Malevich, but we also spent nearly an hour discussing “Black Square” in class the other day, and I just don’t see it. It is a square. It is black. It is slightly askew against the white. Yes, I know no one else has done it before, but I just don’t get it.
I should probably reread “Allegory,” because it’s been since my sophomore World History class in high school. I did like it though.
Yes, one just has to meet “Walking Stick Man,” (nicknamed such among art students, because he always poses with a walking stick), to realize life drawing isn’t exactly erotic. Just a bit awkward – and a rather embarrassing answer to the usually hum-drum question, “So what did you do in school today?”
So… still life ideas? Cindy? Dick? Dave? Something with an interesting surface texture? Or a unique pattern to render?
Woodshavings?
Fruit emerging from a paper bag - like Plato’s Cave dwellers?
Pencil shavings would actually make for a very interesting quick study, I think. How about unique objects for a complete still life? (I’m tired of drawing bottles, apples, and gourds, which is all our teachers seem to give us to work with!)
Now that’s esoteric! It would need a thesis paper next to it!