November 22, 2008
November 21, 2008
November 20, 2008
November 19, 2008
Oluf Braren's Faces
Oluf Braren, Home Wedding on the Island of Fohr (detail)
"Oluf Braren (1787 - 1839) was a painter of naïve art from the north Frisian island of Föhr." (Föhr is the second-largest North Sea island of Germany.)
I discovered Braren's unintentionally disturbing painting in Masters of Naive Art by Oto Bihalji-Merin. I can't find the entire painting, just this detail (any help?).
The caption says: "This North Frisian teacher and earliest lay painter in Germany has created a picture representing marriage symbolically as a bond and a bridge. The nuptials are a solemn cermony in which the bridal couple and the pastor form the focus, though in this detail they are not shown [thanks asshole]. The guests in their old-fashioned and precisely rendered costumes are looking on with astonishment."
Astonishment? This village of the damned clearly has something on its collective face, and I'm getting a little freaked out trying to name it.
Here's the rest of the caption: "The plasticity of his drawing and the crystalline glow of his colors intensify the individuality and self-sufficiency of the figures. There is something of the bleak silence of insular life in this definition of reality, which at the same time has an effect that is realistic, naive, and poetic."
I discovered Braren's unintentionally disturbing painting in Masters of Naive Art by Oto Bihalji-Merin. I can't find the entire painting, just this detail (any help?).
The caption says: "This North Frisian teacher and earliest lay painter in Germany has created a picture representing marriage symbolically as a bond and a bridge. The nuptials are a solemn cermony in which the bridal couple and the pastor form the focus, though in this detail they are not shown [thanks asshole]. The guests in their old-fashioned and precisely rendered costumes are looking on with astonishment."
Astonishment? This village of the damned clearly has something on its collective face, and I'm getting a little freaked out trying to name it.
Here's the rest of the caption: "The plasticity of his drawing and the crystalline glow of his colors intensify the individuality and self-sufficiency of the figures. There is something of the bleak silence of insular life in this definition of reality, which at the same time has an effect that is realistic, naive, and poetic."
