SIR LAWRENCE ALMA-TADEMA

A Favorite Custom
Oil on canvas, 1909 17 5/8 x 26 inches (45 x 66.1 cm) Tate Gallery, London

Spring
Oil on canvas, 1894 70 1/2 x 31 3/8 inches (179.1 x 80 cm) J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

SHIRLEY BURDEN MENTOR, FOUNDER OF APERTURE

A warm fall day and a tour bus pulls up to the Art Center College of Design, Pasadena California. My class of maybe 15 students board to go to Santa Barbara for a museum tour and the first stop was the Getty Museum. Shirley Burden was my teacher and a generous patron of the arts.
A true philanthropist.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0120934/bio
I was probably about 22 years of age and while viewing the exhibits at the Getty I found my self in a trance in front of this painting called Springtime.
It grabbed my soul and I felt the light and intensity of every painted stroke as if it were alive like cinema before my eyes.I fell in love.
This was the first of several images that have inspired love in my life.
I purchased a poster that hung pretty much on all my walls as a student and Park Ranger doing my tour of duty. I don't know exactly where this image stopped being present in my home however, one day I will return to feel the essence again at the Getty in Malibu CA.
The actual painting is breath taking like a Thomas Hart Benton even thou smaller in size.
The details are mesmerizing. A must see.
I believe Allen Funt of Candid Camera purchased most of Alma Tadema s works over the years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Funt
A fact that I always found of interest for such a light hearted man to collect this seriously huge body of work by Alma-Tadema
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Alma-Tadema
As an artist for those seeking inspiration I think you have to follow your intuition and just stop and feel. Let nature and images just talk to you ...sit with life and allow your imagination to think about how it came to be.
Once in France at the Picasso Museum in Antibes.
This museum houses one of the world's greatest Picasso collections: 24 paintings, 44 drawings, 32 lithographs, 11 oils on paper, 80 pieces of ceramics, 2 sculptures and 5 tapestries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Alma-Tadema
I felt a sculpture and it was so energizing to thing his hands made that exact piece of art and everyone could embrace it unguarded.
What a privileged society we live in as Americans