Giulia Kascina

The aquatic lullaby by Zena Holloway.

2022-06-26T20:56:55.915Z

"Water acts like a leveller, stripping us back to the bare essentials. Underwater, there is no reflection on the eyes as the water mixes with the liquid surface, like it’s washing away the mask we wear on land."

- ZENA HOLLOWAY

🌖 Sweet dreams.

Mark Shaw for Vanity Fair, 1953

2022-06-25T19:47:51.344Z

After a long time without posting on my blog, here is a sweet "welcome back" treat for all my friends vintage & photography lovers:

An award winning lingerie advertising campaign shot by Mark Show for Vanity Fair. The magnificent model is Carmen Dell'Orefice. Nightdresses, tunics and gowns with myriad pleats that look like feather wings of an angel. These are my favourites out of the 30 existing photos from one of the best fashion editorials of the 1950's.

Colors by Félix Vallotton.

2022-02-02T09:53:36.903Z

The abandoned lecture, 1925

After quite a long silence here on my blog, I am finally feeling like sharing some colorful art with you - a short selection of my favorite works by Félix Vallotton, Swiss/French artist and print maker. When I looked up his biography I was amazed that such energetically vivid and color bursting paintings were created by an artist with an extremely vulnerable character, with numerous depression episodes through his life.

Young woman with the green scarf, 1923

Back from the Sea, 1924

The Sea at low tide, 1922

The woman stepped in red holding a sigarette, 1922

Le Bain Turc

Pont sur le Béal, 1922

They black hat, 1909

Négresse assise de face, 1911

La Blanche et la Noire, 1913

A lonesome soul closed in his own world, Félix expressed all his hidden energy and passion in his paintings, they seem to be a powerful concentrate of what can be secretly accumulated in the dark angles of a creative introvert mind.

Saul Leiter. “In My Room”.

2022-01-17T12:44:52.124Z

If you ask me about my favorite nude photography series of the XX century the answer will be "IN MY ROOM" by Soul Leiter.

I have never seen any other photographs picturing a woman’s body in such an open, natural and even explicit way, being at the same time so respectful and completely free of any objectivization.

Leiter’s nudes were photographed in his New York studio apartment from 1952 to the early 70s, and they remained a hidden treasure for a long time, even close friends only saw a very few of these works.
The models in the photographs are the artist's wives, girlfriends of different years and even his sister.

"Leiter’s gaze was not that of the typical male: the women in his images could be shy, aggressive, or playful, but they always appeared to be full participants in a give-and-take, a dialogue, very aware of the photographer and the photograph being taken. These are not traditional nudes but rather portraits of women who happen to be in the nude." - THE GUARDIAN

"There are the things that are out in the open, and there are the things that are hidden, and life has more to do, the real world has more to do with what is hidden.” - SAUL LEITER

For exploring more you can visit the website of Saul Leiter Foundation.

Founded in 2014, it is dedicated to preserving the art and legacy of the American photographer and painter Saul Leiter, and to the appreciation, advancement, and conservation of photographic works worldwide.

Natacha Rambova & Rudolph Valentino

2022-01-14T22:55:04.383Z

Just making small aesthetic gifts to myself since my birthday is getting closer… With the hope that you, my friends, find them pleasant to see as well)

In this post - yet another vintage photographic gallery, this time dedicated to Rudolph Valentino and his Russian wife Natacha Rambova, one of the most stunning couples of the roaring 20s.

By the way, the one above is #1 on my top list, even if I still can’t find this pic in good quality.

To make the long story short, the couple met in 1921 on set of the "Uncharted Seas" and fell in love immediately.

They moved in within one year and got married in Mexico right after Valentino’s rushed divorce with his first wife was officially finalized.

It was a passionate love of two celebrities adored by their fans but it had quite an ordinary ending - the couple divorced in 1925 because Natacha was against Rudolph's desire of making her live the life of a "normal” house wife, not accepting any compromises.
She didn’t want to become a beautiful shadow of her brilliant "Latin Lover" husband and chose freedom.

In the image below the couple is seeing each other for the last time, Natacha has already filed for divorce and they are going through an extremely painful separation. Yet, they are obviously trying to maintaining the facade of the most ideal couple of their time while being photographed at the station.

Just another reminder of how far any glamorous picture we see can stand from reality…

Automobile advert bombs of the past.

2022-01-12T08:39:12.575Z

There were days (it’s hard to believe now) when you didn’t have to be obsessively politically correct while creating advertisements and you could be just compulsively and spontaneously genius, from time to time)

I just love retro automobile advertising.
There are so many images form the past that are both perfectly functional and exquisitely designed. With no "targeting" and "marketing" team wearing sh..y suits and standing constantly behind your shoulder.

These ads are the living proof of what happens when everyone is just doing their work - one team of talented people creates an awesome object and another team of professionals works on presenting it in the best way.

Anyway, those sweet times are not here any more) So, just enjoy my nostalgic selection and have a great day, too!

Gustave Courbet

2022-01-07T23:23:56.929Z

Le Sommeil

For me Gustave Courbet is a symbol of someone who knows how to stand up for himself and for his talent. Self secure and sure about what he was doing. Ready to stand up even against the powerful Academy of Arts and Paris Art Salon that refused his paintings due to their "indecent" character. He fought and he won! His stunning "Woman with the Parrot" was finally excepted for the collective exhibition of 1866… Something that Courbet later called a "punch in their faces", showing how much that battle meant to him.

Woman with the Parrot

Can you imagine that Monet started to work on his version of a similar painting right away and Cezanne kept a photograph of this painting in his wallet…this sensual work of art had really a bomb effect on the artistic society of that time.

Self portrait / Man with Pipe

Self portrait with the black dog

…Wasn’t he also super good looking?
Ok, let’s not get too distracted by the artist's physical attractiveness and let me just share other several works by Gustave.

Waves

Calm Sea

Ho, beautiful Irish woman

La Baccante

And, the last but not least - the scandalous Origine du Monde, created on commission for an eccentric establishment personage of that time, a Turkish Egyptian diplomat Khalil-Bay.
It was hidden in a closed room for decades being demonstrated rarely only to chosen friends of the owner. It became open to the public only in 1995 making part of the collection of Museum d'Orsay in France.

It can be considered the most paradox work in the history of arts - so well known and so little seen by anyone in reality.

The painting is surrounded by mysteries.

Paris Match is insisting that Claud Schopp, a well known art critic and historian, discovered the name of the model who posed for the artist. According to the newspaper it was Constance Queniaux, Opera de Paris ballet dancer.

Well, I really love the world of ballet and I am glad that dancers played their important role in this artistic scenery, too.

Origine du Monde

- "I am fifty years old and I have always lived in freedom; let me end my life free; when I am dead let this be said of me: 'He belonged to no school, to no church, to no institution, to no academy, least of all to any régime except the régime of liberty.“

GUSTAVE COURBET

Javier Vallhonrat.

2021-12-31T13:33:30.337Z

I think I found an ideal "dessert" for us aesthetics lovers for the first day of the new year.
Javier Vallhonrat and his most exquisite works in this short but, I hope, impressive selection.

And may the 2022 be a year of good taste and beauty!

Papier à êtres Parisian magic.

2021-12-30T00:15:25.304Z

I don’t know about you, but I am - from now on - in desperate need of these fragile, delicate and so magical lamps…or shall we rather calm them sculptures?

Sophie Mouton-Perrat and Frédéric Guibrunet have been creating stunning paper and linen sculptures that function as exquisite lighting solutions for the last decade.

The couple lives and works in Paris.

He structures the paper, she poetizes it:

Mouton-Perrat sculpts delicate dancing figures in white dresses out of papier mâché, which Guibrunet transforms into the foundation of a wonderfully lighted lamp.

Besides these gorgeous beaming ballerinas and singers, there are some other pieces I discovered on the designers' website. They might not be as full of light but it doesn’t stop them from being extremely heart warming.

Photography: Fabrice Besse & papier à êtres

Lover’s eyes.

2021-12-24T16:59:44.446Z

The obsession for Lover’s Eyes flourished for only a short time, but this is a story made for romantics.

I find brilliant the idea of giving a painting of one's eye to someone really dear to one's heart, when making a traditional portrait is not an option (for one reason or another).

With time, the purpose of the eye portrait was partially refocused from secret love to remembrance. In both cases, decorated with a tear or depicted as gazing through clouds, the miniatures evoked powerful sentiment.

I have heard an interesting opinion - seeing and studying one lover’s eye is mesmerizing, but if you are surrounded by a whole collection of such pieces, it can provoke a very unpleasant nervousness and discomfort. These souvenirs of the past are filled with so intense energy we actually start feeling it and try to evitate it, unconsciously.

This is why I don’t want to exaggerate by posting too many examples here… let me share just several of them that I find particularly mysterious and beautiful.

With an estimated fewer than 1,000 Lover’s Eyes surviving and because of the secrecy surrounding them, we’ll never know who they are, the artists who painted them; nor for whom they were intended.
We can only imagine the stories behind them and we can pretty much relate to them also, since basic human sentiments remain the same as several hundred years ago.