Free Republic

He paints six pictures a week and his last exhibition sold out in 14 minutes...Kieron Williamson kneels on the wooden bench in his small kitchen, takes a pastel from the box by his side and rubs it onto a piece of paper. 'Have you got a picture in your head of what you're going to do?' asks his mother, Michelle. 'Yep,' Kieron nods. 'A snow scene.' I ask: because it is winter at the moment? 'Yep.' Do you know how you want it to come out? 'Yep.' And does it come out how you want it? 'Sometimes it does.'

.SNIPARTnews has reported that the White House has quietly de-listed a painting by Alma W. Thomas that it chose last month, among some 45 pieces borrowed from several Washington museums, to decorate the private White House residence and the West and East Wings. Titled, “Watusi (Hard Edge)” from 1963, the work takes a Matisse collage and, as Holland Cotter wrote in The New York Times, praising the selection, “shifts the pieces around, cools the colors down, and adds a title that refers to a Chubby Checker song.” “But through copying Matisse,” Mr. Cotter added, “she began to work out a...

A painting from 1617 appears to show a type of telescope thought not to have been built until much later. It's hard to find an invention more emblematic of the birth of modern science than the telescope. And yet surprisingly little is known about its early development. The inventor of the telescope remains unknown to this day. Now a study of the paintings of Jan Brueghel the Elder, a Flemish painter of the Baroque era who was working in Amsterdam at the beginning of the 17th century, is throwing some light on the early development of the telescope. It has...

Interactive painting that symbolizes our country today

Bob Dylan has shape-shifted more times in his career than any other pop musician. His music has always reflected that need to seek out new forms of self-expression. What's less known is that his paintings function in the same way -- providing virtual chapter markings and sign posts in a lifetime filled with twists and turns. In a museum show that's scheduled to open in Europe in 2010, Dylan will exhibit nearly 100 of his works, including the world premiere of 30 large-format paintings from the artist's upcoming "Brazil" series. The show will also feature original paintings from Dylan's "The...

A stunning collection of photographs taken by a 19th century globetrotter has caused a stir - because he meticulously painted the colours in himself. The amazing images shed new light on the world as it was more than 100 years ago, with vivid images of snake charmers, ships on the Suez Canal and fighting Sikhs, among others.Henry Harrison, a Royal Navy Paymaster General, took the black and white  pictures on his voyages around the globe and, because he was a talented artist, was able to painstakingly colour them in. Stunning imagery: One of Henry Harrison's photographs shows prisoners in China...

In 1939 Lilly Cassirer Neubauer was desperate to escape Germany. She was a member of a prominent Jewish family of publishers and gallery owners, and as the Nazi oppression escalated, it was clear they would have to leave or die. Lilly was told there was only one way for her to obtain an exit visa. The family would have to hand over one of their most prized possessions: a Parisian street scene painted by Camille Pissarro. The work, an atmosphere depiction of a rain-soaked Paris boulevard, had hung on the walls of the family's Berlin and Munich homes since the...

Here is video of President Obama and First Lady Michelle this afternoon helping out at a Habitat for Humanity project in Washington, D.C. Obama declared today to be a "National Day of Service" as well as a day to remember September 11. Obama helped by doing some painting - in his dress pants . . . . (VIDEO)

My wife is Catholic. Though not active in the church, I would describe her as spiritual, and without a doubt, faithful. Like millions of people this morning, while perusing Yahoo News, she and I saw the image of Michael D'Antuono’s “The Truth”. In case you haven’t seen “The Truth”, it is a painting essentially depicting Barack Obama as the Messiah in a “presidential” motif. At first, we dismissed it like the rest of the fawning media imagery of Obama. Remember that AP photo of Obama framed in front of the Presidential Seal as though it was a halo? We rolled...

Art as Propaganda for Evolution April 10, 2009 — Should a scientific theory be propagated by appeal to scientific evidence, or by appeal to emotions through visualization?  Nature this week contained two articles that shamelessly praised art as propaganda for evolution.  Surprisingly, one of them mentioned Charles Darwin as someone “at the cutting edge of visualization.” Endless Forms:  Carl Zimmer reviewed an exhibit currently at the Yale Center for British Art, Endless Forms: Charles Darwin, Natural Science and the Visual Arts.1  The title is taken from the last sentence in the Origin where Darwin said that endless forms most beautiful...

A painter who first made his mark through unromanticized views of Western landscapes, Maynard Dixon turned his attention to stark scenes of social protest during the Great Depression. More than 60 years after the artist's death, those struggling against the economic tide stand to benefit from Dixon's work once again. That's because of a gift to a California branch of Goodwill Industries, which has started an online bidding war for what is believed to be "Blackfoot Indian," a painting created by Dixon in 1917. After the painting was posted for auction on Goodwill's Web site early this week, bids jumped...

A medieval historian in Italy found what is believed to be a portrait, hidden beneath another painting, of Leonardo da Vinci.

An important 19th century painting has been brought back to public view after languishing for decades, forgotten beneath a pile of reproductions in a church closet. The Rev. Steven Olson of Gethsemane Lutheran Church in Dassel approached the Minneapolis Institute of Arts in 2007, looking for advice on how to preserve a painting he had found in a janitor's closet.

New life has been breathed into Dutch master painter Rembrandt's 'Night Watch', the famous dark-toned 17th-century painting of city guards gathering to march For more than three centuries, the identity of the men depicted in the massive portrait hanging in Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum have been unknown, but a Dutch historian now claims to have identified them all. The painting, some 363 cm by 437 cm, is considered the Rijksmuseum's most famous painting. The Rijksmuseum said on Wednesday retired historian Bas Dudok van Heel has identified the men after years of research. "It is great for both the museum and the public...

Some time ago I posted an entry on a new painting of the Little Flower by our friend Leonard Porter. Porter is at the forefront of the renewal of classical painting, and his image of Therese has garnered a lot of attention for its combination of Western naturalism and the transcendence of the Eastern tradition. So many people have been asking about the possibility of ordering a print that Leonard has made signed high-quality 11"x14" prints available on eBay by clicking here. Help support high quality sacred art!

A great painting of some of our greatest Presidents.

Finding an Aladdin's cave Cory Holliday almost didn't see the stick figure painted on the sandstone. His first impression was that it was a clever fake. A cave specialist for the Tennessee chapter of The Nature Conservancy, Holliday was searching for caves on a 4,200-acre tract in a remote part of Fentress County on the Cumberland Plateau. It was winter, and he heard water. Thinking there might be a cave nearby, he hiked down to the base of a bluff, where he discovered a rocky alcove bisected by a 10-foot waterfall. On the roof of a nearby south-facing rock shelter...

Putin’s painting sold for over $1 MLN A painting by the Russian Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, has been sold for over one million dollars at a yearly charity auction in St. Petersburg. All paintings at the auction were created by famous Russian people: actors, singers, but no professional artists. Each aspiring painter chose a theme beginning with a letter – for each of the 33 letters of the Russian alphabet. The money raised will help children suffering from cancer. “I remember my hands were freezing while I was painting it. But still it was fun and I was constantly aware...

Ilya Repin. Job and His Friends. 1869. Oil on canvas. The Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia.

.........Rod Blagojevich has now also been stripped of his clothes.............. A nude portrait of the governor, by artist Bruce Elliott, is nearly complete and will hang on the wall of Elliott's wife's bar, the Old Town Ale House....