Cretan federation

Intimacy

Born in 1982, Cuban-American realistic painter Cesar Santos recreates iconic paintings with a fresh contemporary twist for his series called Syncretism. His intriguing works simultaneously pay homage, merge and play with renaissance art and modernism.

The OED first attests the word syncretism in English in 1618. It derives from Greek synkretismos, meaning Cretan federation. 

The Greek word occurs in Plutarch's (1st century AD) essay on fraternal love in his Moralia. He cites the example of the Cretans, who compromised and reconciled their differences and came together in alliance when faced with external dangers.

 Mazazo de gracia

 Off-track

 Syncretism

 The art collector

Woman with glasses and goatee

Knee deep in wildflowers

Mmmm… and take a deep breath!

Karen Margulis is a daily pastel painter.

(All flower pastel paintings © etsian Karen Margulis)

Touche-à-tout

Blue Duck

Eileen Mayo (1906–1994) was an English-born artist and designer who worked in England, Australia and New Zealand in almost every available medium: drawing, woodcut, lithograph on stone and tempera, tapestry and silk screening.

In addition to being a printmaker, illustrator, calligrapher and muralist, she designed coins, stamps, tapestry and posters and wrote and illustrated eight books on natural science.

Enjoy the beautiful birds made with gouache and coloured pencil on paper in 1976 by meticulous touche-à-tout Eileen Mayo.

 Brown Duck 

 Fairy Tern 

 Kakapo

 Little Spotted Kiwi

 New Zealand Falcon

 New Zealand Shore Plover

 Reef Heron

 South Island Kokako

 Subantarctic Snipe

White Heron

Wild sky life

Kestrel

The illustrations (acrylic on paper) of birds on this page are a selection from interpretive board designs and bird paintings by wild life artist Andrew Mackay.

Nuthatch

Olive-backed Pipit

Red-flanked Bluetail

Ringed Plover

Sedge Warbler

Treecreeper

Wheatear

On a (very) bright (very) wintry February day in Montréal.

White trees

Yesterday with Thalie we saw this (?) huge white tree image, made by Jocelyn Philibert. Click Des arbres dans la nuit for more trees in the night.


I looked at other white trees this afternoon. Be pleased to meet these opposite of black woody perennial plants.

 © Alan Fentiman

 © Apples to Zucchinis

 © BradKellyPhoto

© Daniel

© ioeastman

 © Matt Edwards

 © pezHman tt

© tres johnson

At the end of the winter.

Leonard Cohen - Dear Heather

Deck scenes

(Herbert Barnard) John Everett (1876–1949) was an English sailor and painter. After studying briefly at the Académie Julian in Paris, his life took an unconventional path when he embarked on the first of his 16 sea voyages.

A Convoy 1918

The way the ship is dressed is called dazzle camouflage (or dazzleflage.)

Oh. Do you know where I found this painting? Modernist Art in Camouflage.

Is dazzleflage fake? just a photoshop geek gone wild? Just kidding.

 A Deck Scene on the Wiscombe Park

 A Scene from the Deck of the Birkdale

 Converting a Cunarder to a Merchant Ship

 Deck Scene on the Iquique

 Iquique from the Stern with the Tug Warrior

 Mending Sails on the Deck of the Birkdale

 On the Suzanne

Seascape

OMD - Silent Running from the album Dazzle Ships

Dazzle by Duncan Hannah (2010)

Dazzle Ships by Kristian Goddard (2012)

An (Im-)practical Demonstration of the Concept of Dazzle Camouflage {source}