Walton Ford's Bestiary in Europe

Walton Ford's paintings can be seen at Vienna's Albertina till October.

Walton Ford's paintings, mostly in watercolor, gouache, ink and pencil on paper are made in the style of classic natural history paintings. At first sight I thought these are real old paintings. The fake foxing and the penciled writings and comments are absolutely convincing.

Walton Ford has often been compared to John James Audubon . This is certainly true for the style and the accuracy. But there's more to Walton Ford than just meticulous depiction of animals. Upon closer inspection you find out that his paintings are full of allegories, hidden meanings, very often satirical and critical, sometimes with a touch of humor.

The paintings are beautiful, and they blend depictions of flora and fauna with political commentary, and make us think about the impact of former political oppression like slavery on today's society. The relationship between man and animal, very often accompanied by cruelty and violence, becomes a metaphor for how we deal with weaker - or different - cultures and peoples.

In the exhibit, each painting comes with a little story, a reference, a literary quote. Some of them are based on legends, some on true incidents.

The photo here shows one of his most popular paintings, "Der Pantherausbruch," (The escape of the Panther). It is based on the story of a black panther that escaped from the Zurich Zoo in 1934 and survived for more than two months in the Swiss winter before it was shot and eaten by a day laborer.



Here you can watch the three parts of an art-talk with Walton Ford. It took place a few weeks ago in Vienna and it's in English.

In an interview Walton Ford said:
"These paintings are about the cultural history of our interaction with the animals," Ford said. "And they often become a metaphor for how we treat other people."

Lots of his paintings can be seen here, as well as in Google Pics.

Marc Chagall Exhibit

We went to the Marc Chagall exhibit in Muenster today.

chagall exhibit
Originally uploaded by francessa_Rich

“When Matisse dies,” Pablo Picasso remarked in the 1950s, “Chagall will be the only painter left who understands what color really is.” (Source: Wikipedia).

Marc Chagall (born 1887 Mark Zakharovich Shagal in Belarus, d.1985 in France) was at home in almost every artistic medium: paintings, of course, stained glass, book illustration, ceramics, tapestries, prints, woodcarving, even stage sets.

He's known for his distinctive use of color and form (as you can see in the exhibit's poster) and was influenced by Russian expressionism und French cubism before he developed his own style.

The exhibit's theme was the window as central motif in Chagall's work and as a result we saw a lot of paintings with a view.

My personal favorite was a painting with peonies and a he-goat (a recurrent symbol in his work) but I couldn't find it anywhere in the Internet to link it here.

Other favorites which were not in the exibit, are:

Above the town, Little Parlor, Paris through the window. (one has to click through the three galleries)

Lovers with flowers


Here's a collection of about 196 works of art

Chagall's biography

A few selected paintings
(I love the blue house)

Chagall-Biography on Youtube:



A final quote: My name is Marc, my emotional life is sensitive and my purse is empty, but they say I have talent.