Vallotton intended ‘The Bath. Summer Evening’ to be a satire of the bourgeoisie idling its days away around a modern day fountain of youth. But behind the thin veil of irony we get a refreshing glimpse of truth — the female body presented in its diverse, non-idealized forms, with all its idiosyncrasies.
Tag: satire
Pieter Bruegel the Elder – Netherlandish Proverbs (1559)
With his keen understanding of the human condition and his appreciation for nature, Pieter Bruegel the Elder captured the daily life of peasants with satire, humor and sympathy. Although he was less moralizing and more anchored in reality, you can still notice Hieronymus Bosch’s influence in his art. Bruegel died young, when he was around…
Francisco Goya – A Bad Night (1797 – 1799)
After a mysterious illness led to the loss of his hearing in 1792, Francisco Goya’s art became darker and more anchored in the grim realities of everyday life. It took the Spaniard a few years to fully return to etching and painting, time during which he started experimenting with different styles. It was during those…
George Tooker – Landscape with Figures (1965)
With the advent of abstract expressionism, George Tooker was for decades forgotten, until the 1980s when he re-established himself as a prominent figure of American painting. Although his subject work varied, the most powerful scenes the American artist ever produced are deeply satirical in nature, a social commentary on the human condition amid an increasingly…
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