English Culture IV - Henry Moore

Henry Moore was the most celebrated sculptor of his time, he demonstrated that Modernist sculpture was, after all, surprisingly adaptable to official needs. In this sense, Moore was the contemporary equivalent of the great Neo Classical sculptors such as Canova and Thorwaldsen.
He was best known for his abstract monumental bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art.
His forms are usually abstractions of the human figure, typically depicting mother-and-child or reclining figures. Moore's works are usually suggestive of the female body, apart from a phase in the 1950s when he sculpted family groups. His forms are generally pierced or contain hollow spaces. Moore was born in Castleford, the son of a mining engineer. He became well-known through his larger-scale abstract cast bronze and carved marble sculptures, and was instrumental in introducing a particular form of modernism to the United Kingdom. His ability in later life to fulfil large-scale commissions made him exceptionally wealthy. Yet he lived frugally and most of the money he earned went towards endowing the Henry Moore Foundation, which continues to support education and promotion of the arts.
Through my research on this artist, he is a central figure in the history of modern sculpture. Henry Moore was rated by some as the last of the old and by others as the first of the young.

http://www.artchive.com/artchive/M/moore.html
http://www.revistamuseu.com.br/galeria.asp?id=6828

English Culture IV - Damien Hirst

Damien Steven Hirst (born 1965) is an English artist and the most prominent member of the group known as "Young British Artists" . He is internationally renowned, and is reputed to be the richest living artist to date.

Damien Hirst’s wide-ranging practice – installations, sculpture, painting and drawing – has sought to challenge the boundaries between art, science and popular culture. His energy and inventiveness, and his consistently visceral, visually arresting work, has made him a leading artist of his generation.

Hirst explores the uncertainty at the core of human experience; love, life, death, loyalty and betrayal through unexpected and unconventional media. Best known for the ‘Natural History’ works, which present animals in vitrines suspended in formaldehyde such as the iconic, his works recast fundamental questions concerning the meaning of life and the fragility of biological existence."

For me this artist has a very special sens of the life and everything is a reason to make art. The life is art.

http://gataescondida.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/damien_hirst-shark-1.jpg

http://www.whitecube.com/artists/hirst/

English Culture IV - Lucien Freud

Lucien Freud Paints Queen Elizabeth II

“Lucien Freud is often described as Britain's greatest living figurative painter. So is it any wonder that Queen Elizabeth II agreed to his request to paint her portrait? One can only presume that she was familiar with Freud's style and knew what she was letting herself in for.

Some of the comments by critics of the painting seem surprised that Freud has had the audacity to paint his monarch in his usual intense, penetrating style. The Sun newspaper, never known for its tact, described it as "a travesty" saying Freud should be "locked in the Tower" for it. The editor of the British Art Journal is quoted as saying: "It makes her look like one of the royal corgis who has suffered a stroke."

Freud is quoted as saying this was because he "had always liked the way her head looks on stamps, wearing a crown" and he "wanted to make some reference to the extraordinary position she holds, of being the monarch."

Freud has described his paintings as "a kind of truth-telling exercise." And the truth of the matter is that the British monarch is not a young woman.

Article from About.com by Marion Boddy-Evans:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-499346/Graffiti-artist-Banksy-strikes--Bethlehem.html

In my research about Lucien Freud I saw this article that interested me. Here the ability of Lucien painting the Queen Elizabeth is questioned because of his intense style of painting.