Self Portrait as a Reanimated Man. 2016. Pastel, Oil, Dry Ground & Carbon Pencil. 15.2" x 11." Casey Klahn.
29 July, 2016
Frankenstein's Monster (as a Self Portrait)
Self Portrait as a Reanimated Man. 2016. Pastel, Oil, Dry Ground & Carbon Pencil. 15.2" x 11." Casey Klahn.
26 July, 2016
13 July, 2016
12 July, 2016
09 July, 2016
21 June, 2016
The Painter
The Painter. 2016. Pastel, Oil, Dry Ground & Charcoal on Vellum. 10.5" x 8.25." Casey Klahn.
10 June, 2016
My Father Used To Say
Self Portrait in Hell, with Vermilion. 2016. Pastel, Oil, Charcoal & Dry Ground. 12.3" x 10." Casey Klahn.
My father used to say, "well I'll be go to hell!" I hope he was only kidding. For you grammar teachers out there, he did not pause after "well."
This work favors the inimitable Edvard Munch, who did a self portrait in hell. I'm trying to keep the Expressionist fires going.
02 June, 2016
Back Door Italy
By the Back Wall, There is a Cellar Door. 2016. Pastel & Graphite. 16.5" x 10.25." Casey Klahn. Italy.
30 May, 2016
26 May, 2016
Self Portrait
Untitled. 2016. Pastel, Graphite & Dry Ground. 13.9" x 13.25." Casey Klahn. The artist at age 57. This is the informal photo.
17 May, 2016
25 April, 2016
The Gothic. 2016.
It's been a year or so that I've been painting portraits, and here are some personal comments on them. The main idea is to be different each time. This woman is called "The Gothic," because of my observations of frescos in Italy last year. A fresco is a work on plaster, and my desire is to have the muted tones, and the textures, show. Also, the Gothic Era was a particularly spiritual one, and "perspective" was more akin to what the Modernists later wanted to show. This "sign" says that; there is an expression revealed. I notice the colors are muted, but the blue on red treatment reminds me of a celluloid flash from the end of a film reel.
The Gothic. 2016. Pastel, Oil, Charcoal, Dry Ground & Graphite. 16.5" x 13.2." Casey Klahn.
24 April, 2016
19 April, 2016
The Sign He Makes
Cimabue Decorates the Apse. 2016. Pastel, Dry Ground, Oil & Graphite. 12" x 8.75." Casey Klahn.
30 March, 2016
15 March, 2016
09 March, 2016
03 March, 2016
3 Phase Portrait Poster
We're still on Matisse Month, which I think may become Matisse Year before I'm done writing it all. In the meantime, there's no reason not to post new stuff. Please enjoy. This portrait is so much about the element of color intensity, that I decided to deconstruct it in Photoshop just to see what I could see.
3 Phase Portrait. 15" x 7.8." Photoshop. Casey Klahn.
Mostly Yellow Portrait. 2018. Pastel. 13.5" x 8.25." Casey Klahn.
15 February, 2016
Intermezzo
Henri Matisse with Model Henriette Darricarrère, in Nice. 1927.
From Hilary Spurling, Smithsonian Magazine, 2005. Matisse and His Models.
The same seems to have been true of the models for his odalisque paintings of the 1920s. The first of these odalisques—sprawling in “harem costumes” on improvised divans—was Antoinette Arnoud’s successor, Henriette Darricarrère, who was working as an extra when Matisse spotted her in the film studios in Nice. He liked her natural dignity, the graceful way her head sat on her neck and, above all, the fact that her body caught the light like a sculpture. A ballet dancer and musician, Henriette became part of the family in the seven years she worked for Matisse. His wife grew especially fond of her, and he himself taught her to paint.
Matisse said it was essential to start by finding the pose that made any new model feel most comfortable. Henriette’s specialty was discovered by accident after a carnival party attended by Matisse and his daughter, dressed respectively as an Arab potentate and a beauty from the harem. Marguerite Matisse, Lorette, even Antoinette Arnoud, all tried on turbans and embroidered Moroccan tops, but it was Henriette, always modest, even prim, in her street clothes, who wore the filmy blouses and low-slung pants without inhibition, becoming at once luxuriant, sensual and calmly authoritative.
The pictorial possibilities she opened up for Matisse were enhanced by her exceptional sensitivity and stamina. He saw the work they produced together as an increasingly complex orchestration of colored light and mass, culminating in his Decorative Figure on an Ornamental Ground, which was almost as incomprehensible in 1926 as the Blue Nude had been nearly 20 years earlier. The painting is a riot of exuberant trompe l’oeil wallpaper, flowers, fruit and patterned textiles, all pinned firmly in place by the pale upright figure of Henriette. She looked as impersonal and unyielding as a side of packaged butcher’s meat to Matisse’s friend, the painter Jules Flandrin, who was baffled and exhilarated in equal measure: “I can’t begin to convey the brilliantly successful contrast between the wallpaper flowers and the woman so skillfully mishandled,” he wrote to a friend. Soon after the completion of Decorative Figure, Henriette left to get married.
Matisse Month
09 February, 2016
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