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Alphabetical art
Top: Les demoiselles Schwartz by Anders Zorn Above: Self-portrait at an Easel by Sofonisba Anguissola
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From Zorn to Anguissola, NWR’s Culture Vultures whiled away the winter months by working their way through an alphabet of artists, writes Jenny Lee of Horsham NWR.
In our NWR Culture Vultures Facebook forum, from September last year until the end of March, NWR members took part in a weekly posting of a work by an artist and a little bit of information about it. We worked in reverse alphabetical order, starting with Z and ending with A. It introduced me to not only many hitherto unknown painters, but also book illustrators, sculptors, ceramicists, wood engravers, glass and jewellery makers, architects, etchers, lithographers, caricaturists and print makers. If my adding up is correct, 192 photos were posted. Letter R attracted the most artists: 13. There were 50 female artists, 141 male and one of unknown sex. The oldest was Greek vase painter Xenophantos, from c380 BCE, and after that we covered all the centuries from the 14th to the 21st! Artists came from 28 different countries – seven were of unknown origin – and most, 51, were English. The French came in second with 26.
It has been such a great pleasure researching and reading about other members’ choices. If you wish to join the forum you will be made most welcome.
The project inspired this little ditty.
The Rs have it – Lovers, ink and watercolour illustration by Arthur Rackham
i art
Fauvist, Expressionist This will be a long list! Cubist, Surrealist Pre- and Post-Impressionist Modernist, Romanticist Pre-Raphaelite and Classicist Realist, Mannerist Sturm und Drang, if you insist! Pop Art, Op Art Still more genres to impart! Pointillism, Japonisme Synthetism, Tonalism Punk Art, Symbolism While we’re at it, Dadaism Art Nouveau, Rococo Not forgetting Art Deco Bauhaus, Brutalism Also Orientalism Naïve, Conceptual My word, we’re going well! Action painting, Plein air Baroque included to be fair Contemporary, Descriptive Luminist, Figurative Folk Art, Dutch Golden Age Art that provokes outrage Environmental art That can blow your mind apart. Looking at the list above Tell me now, what’s not to love?
