3197 Paintings

Sunday, March 20, 2011

You shouldn't compare yourself to the best others can do, but to the best you can do.

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I have a lot of stuff on the walls in the old house. Decorators say that pictures, prints, photos, whatever you frame and/or hang on the walls of a room should match the colors in the room, and groupings should have something in common. "Anything hung together should hang together."

I ignore the rules. The only thing all my wall stuff has in common is that I like each and every piece. I'm not going to not hang something just because it's the wrong color, and I'm not going to go out and buy "eh" stuff just because it picks up the color of the pillows. Or whatever. If I love it and it fits in that space, it goes there.

Yesterday I brought back two of my favorite paintings. This one
will go in the living room. (The light is hitting badly behind her head. Ignore that. Looks better in real life. And the frame isn't bent. The camera did that.)

I bought her at an estate auction a few years ago. She's an 18th century oil on canvas, 22"x28" not including frame, signed "Kolberg C". She must have hung over a fireplace, because she was so covered with oily black soot that you couldn't actually see much of her beyond the blouse, which looked gray. She was so dirty that as I was cleaning her I was surprised to find flowers in her left hand and the butterfly on the right. There were very few bids on her because the auction was held during a snowstorm, the artist seems to be unknown, she's pretty crackled, and there's a puncture wound, so I got her pretty cheaply - cheaply enough that I didn't feel bad about cleaning her myself with onions. I think she came out beautiful. I love her skin, and the puncture is in the lower fold of her sleeve, so you can barely see it.

This one is completely different, but also loved:
I think it'll enlarge if you click on it. The colors are much brighter than the photo shows. It's a little larger than the lady above. Also oil on canvas, bold brushstrokes and heavy paint in the background, very fine delicate strokes for the vixen and kits. Date unknown, unsigned (or I just haven't found the signature yet). The frame is definitely very old, and probably easily worth three times what I paid for the painting. The bidding was fierce for this one, probably because of the frame, but I won it because I loved it.

I think the foxes will go into the second bedroom, probably over the headboard.
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