Art stories

It’s funny how much of art isn’t about the painting.

It’s intriguing how much of the artist plays a role in the work.

Like for example I think Caspar David Friedrich’s ‘Winter Landscape’ is so much better than Vincent Van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’ and yet there’s a queue to snap a pic of the flowers and everybody walks past the Winter Landscape.

But how can Friedrich compete with the narrative of the tortured artist who cut off his own ear and died penniless thinking he was a failure.

I think it shows how much us humans love stories and how important they are in the valuation of art.

Like take for example another painting, ‘The Execution of Maximilian’ by Edouard Manet.

This one immediately caught my eye and so far seems to be the most unique painting in the national gallery because only part of the painting hangs in the frame.

I knew I had to double back and read the description when I walked past this on the wall.

Apparently the artist created this painting to highlight Napoleon’s incompetence and Napoleon took revenge by cutting it up after Manet’s death but the artist’s friend salvaged the majority of the painting.