Kolkata Traffic Police use a Poster depicting The Beatles famed Abbey Road Picture, to get pedestrians to stop jaywalking, in India.
The fab four known as The Beatles were the most influential British band of the last century. Though they lasted just one decade (as a group), from 1962 to 1970, their iconic status, shall never diminish. Here’s a look at various Beatle loving artists’ creations, using techniques derived from various art movements, that existed pre, during & post, The Beatles. (Also see my Beatle News #01 to #33 from March 2013 to February 2014). For this Blog-Post, I’ve incorporated my aesthetic knowledge with my love for this iconic 60’s Boy Band!!!!
RENAISSANCE ART
(Beginning in Italy, renaissance artistic styles date back to the 1200’s, a style that lasted till about mid-17th century)
Famous artists of this movement include, Paolo Uccello, Piero Della Francesca, Sandro Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Artemisia Gentileschi (the first woman to dare to become an artist, in that era, and thus condemned for it), Giovanni Bellini, Jan Van Eyck, Joos van Cleve, and many many others.
REALISM (a.k.a. NATURALISM)
(famous in the 1850’s, lasted a very short period of time)
The Beatles by Eduard Kazaryan – Kok Tobe Mountain in Almaty, Kazakhstan
Though Realism was a trend that was famous, during the 1850’s, the seeds of Realism, are present way back in the late 1700’s. If you see works like Francisco Goya’s Retrato de Martín Zapater from the 1790’s & The Family of Charles IV, from Year 1800, or Eugène Delacroix’s Portrait of Dr. François-Marie Desmaisons, from 1832-33, those are very realistic and somewhat dull, portraiture works of art.
Tom Murphy’s The Beatles in The Liverpool Art Cafe
Some famous artists that existed during this period, included, Gustave Courbet, Théodore Géricault, Honoré Daumier, Karl Bryullov, Jean-Hippolyte Flandrin and Rosa Bonheur, to name a few. Being a successful artist of the 19th century, Rosa Bonheur represented the New Woman (a feminist ideal that emerged in the 19th century, which in turn influenced feminism of the 20th Century).
MODERN ART (a.k.a. MODERNISM)
(Late 19th & early 20th Century)
Modern Art styles that existed within the last two centuries, happen to be my favourite, after the Renaissance period. Although, I do love the Romantics and the Realist, of the 18th Century too, yet not to the same extent as the Renaissance or the Modern. There’ve been various art movements within Modern Art, from Impressionists to Surrealist. Surrealism happens to be my favourite art movement, and Salvador Dalí, my all time favourite artist, ever since I discovered him (and his work), as a teenager in the 1990’s.
Impressionism/Post-Impressionism (two avant-garde art movement)
(Prominent during 1870’s & 1880’s)
The Beatles (Abbey Road) watercolour by Fabrizio Cassetta
LeRoy Neiman The Beatles Painting
The Beatles watercolour by Fabrizio Cassetta
The Beatles by Paul Meijering
My favourite Impressionist artists include Paul Cézanne, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Henri de Toulouse Lautrec, Camille Pissarro, Gustav Klimt, Édouard Manet, Amrita Sher-Gil, Cristóbal Rojas, Dragan Mihailovic, Alfred Munnings, Harold & Laura Knight, Florence Carter Wood, Isaak Brodsky, Eugène Delacroix, Albert Tucker, Arthur Boyd, Paul Cadmus, etc etc…. When it comes to Impressionist/Post-Impressionist artists, majority of my favourite artists, as a collective, exist from this particular period.
The Beatles watercolour (Artist Unknown)
The Beatles watercolour (Artist Unknown)
Art Nouveau (an avant-garde art movement)
(1890’s to 1910’s)
John Lennon of The Beatles (Artist Unknown)
Alphonse Mucha, Antoni Gaudí, Gustav Klimt, Jules Chéret and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, to name a few, were a part of the Art Nouveau movement.
The Beatles – Art Nouveau (Artist Unknown)
Expressionism (an avant-garde art movement)
(Early 20th Century)
Curt McDowell’s nude Beatles
Gustave Moreau, Egon Schiele, Lucian Freud, Antoni Gaudí and Edvard Munch, were some of the famous Expressionist artists.
Ken White’s nude Beatles
Cubism (an avant-garde art movement)
(Starting from the early 20th century, from 1910’s onwards)
Beatles Cubist (Artist Unknown)
Beatles Cubist (Artist Unknown)
The Beatles (Unknown Artist)
David Adickes’ The Beatles
The Beatles Monument (aprx 7000 pounds & 36 ft) in Houston, USA
The great Cubists include, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Jean Metzinger, Marcel Duchamp, Juan Gris and Albert Gleizes, to name some. Henri Matisse, Henry Moore, Jackson Pollack, Amedeo Modigliani, Piet Mondrian, Sidney Nolan and M.F. Hussain, happen to be some other famous artists known for artworks involving distortion & abstract.
The Beatles (Artist Unknown)
Tom Whalen’s The Beatles
The Four Musicians (Beatles) – This is a direct copy of The Three Musicians by Pablo Picasso
Surrealism (an avant-garde art movement)
(From the 1920’s onwards)
The Beatles (Artist Unknown)
Insects (Beatles) – beetles artwork (Artist Unknown)
Beatles Surreal (Artist Unknown)
The Beatles painting by Daniel Janda
The Yellow Submarine by Belius
Surrealism – with Dreamy, Psychological, Freudian (Sigmund Freud, not Lucian Freud) & Fantastical elements – happens to be my favourite art movement ever, especially from the modernist era. Not just in art, but also in literature & cinema. As is Magical realism. Salvador Dalí, happens to be my all time favourite artist ever. Georgia O’Keeffe, Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, René Magritte, Terry Gilliam and Giorgio de Chirico are some other influential surrealists.
The Beatles & Elvis Presley (Artist Unknown)
The Beatles by A.Pedicelli
Sam Van Olffen’s Beatles
The Beatles by David Ballinger
POST-MODERNISM
(The 1950’s, 60’,70’s & early 80’s)
The most popular art form during Post-modernist era, no doubt was Pop Art styles of Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Martin Sharp, Richard Avedon, George Segal, Tom Wesselmann, Wayne Thiebaud et al. Other post modernists artists include Harold Stevenson, Duane Hanson, David Salle, Claes Oldenburg, Susan Rothenberg, Robert Moskowitz, Wes Wilson, Pablo Amaringo, Yoko Ono, David Vaughan, Robert Mapplethorpe, Jörn Pfab and Brett Whiteley, to name some greats.
The Beatles sculpture by Jörn Pfab (1970) in Hamburg, Germany
David Wynne in 1964 with his sculpture of The Beatles
Terry McGunigle and Joe Forrest created the 8x16ft Mount Fab Four
Spirit of The Beatles by Kris Atkinson
The Beatles (Artist Unknown)
The Beatles by Hector Monroy
Pop Art (an avant-garde art movement)
(from the mid-1950’s to the early 80’s)
Richard Avedon’s The Beatles
from 1967
Los Beatles (Artist Unknown)
With it’s psychedelic hues and acid painting techniques, Pop Art happens to be my favourite Post-Modernist medium.
Beatles – Beetles on Abbey-Road (Artist Unknown)
ART AFTER POST-MODERNISM (a.k.a. POST-POST-MODERNISM)
(Emerging towards the end of 1980’s decade, and into the 21st century)
The latest trends of art (from the late 80’s onwards), includes the deconstructive styles of Blobism (or Bloberism), an architectural movement, inspired by the 50’s, Sci-fi, B-movie, The Blob (1958), starring Steve McQueen, in his first leading role. Architect Frank Gehry happens to one of the most well known faces behind, the amoeba shaped building designs, known as, Bloberism.
The Beatles – Poultry chicken wire by Ivan Lovatt
Yet, one of the latest trends in art today, is the Re-use of Refuse, using all kinds of waste material, letting nothing go to waste, including bodily fluids.
The Beatles rubber soul by Darin Shock
The Beatles by Jeff Zuck
Artists involved with this Post-Post-Modernism movement include Tracey Emin, Damien Hirst, Bill Viola, Shilpa Gupta, Mathew Barney, Chris Ofili, Wang Guangyi, Yukinori Yanagi, Andres Serrano, The Chapman Brothers, Félix González-Torres, Takashi Murakami, Jeff Koons, Renée Cox, David Osagie, Alexander Kosolapov, Koya Abe, Maurice Heerdink, Ruben Ortiz-Torres, Elizabeth Peyton, David LaChapelle, Sebastian Horsley, Chris Dyer and Jenny Saville.
Nuwan Sen’s Art Sense
Nuwan Sen n’ The Beatles
Nuwan Sen’s Music Sense
Q.1° Given the chance to be a famous ‘Leonardo’ in your life, which Leo would You prefer to be? And Why?
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No Nonsense with Nuwan Sen 