Art and past lives?

[Obie]

There is one painting by Van Gogh. It is a cafe. I can stare at that painting for hours. There is another I believe it might be by Renoir. It is people sitting in a cafe and others walking past in a large city which might be Paris. I'll have to research it a bit more to see what the name is of the painting. Both of these paintings I can stare at and get lost in them. They take me to a happier place filled with music and laughter. Paintings in the 1700's and 1800's of Parisian parties, cafes and high society make me happy inside and I just like to look at them.


I like looking at classical paintings from India during the BC years.


I like Roman and Greek sculptures from the BC era


I enjoy looking at modern art a lot. Picasso, Dali but also modern art in local galleries by local starving artists. All my artwork at home is original artwork by local artists that I got for cheap. I enjoy interpreting modern art. I like black and white photography a lot.

 

[Marc Ross]

Art reproduction, counterfeit art, PLs


Hello,


Is it possible that master art-reproductions, and counterfeit art-works of famous masterpieces in history were done by/copied by people who may have been key artists of history in past lives?


Marc

 

[BriarRose]

It's very possible, Marc. I had a friend who was a bit of a Renaissance man. He was an engineer, held medical patents, worked on wilderness preservation as an avocation, etc. He was interested in art in general, and particularly Vincent Van Goph. He set out to learn Van Goph's style of painting, and started painting reproductions, for his own enjoyment of course. He wanted to start a museum in our small town, filled completely with copies painted by local people. I thought it was a fun idea, but after reading your post, I think there might have been more to his preoccupation.

 

[Marc Ross]

The CBS '60 Minutes" story - Art-forger.


Hello,


Did anybody see the Sunday Aug. 3rd rebroadcast of the CBS news-magazine show '60 Minutes' - the story on the art-forger?


I can be asked, "could this art-forger be a reincarnation of a notable artist in history?"


Regardless of whether, or not this was a reincarnated artist, it can also be asked, "Why couldn't this fellow have been legitimate with such talent?"


Marc

 

[Stellaria]

As far as painting goes, anything with nearly photographic detail has always fascinated the crap out of me.


Also, I get in trouble at museums when looking at Renoir or Van Gogh paintings, because I try to get way closer than I'm supposed to to REALLY see the knife and brush strokes. The act of looking at the painting as a whole, and seeing a beautiful thing, and then zeroing in on an area and marveling at how it's just thick dabs and scrapes of paint is just the coolest thing!


As for architecture.....primitive and organic is my thing. I have a fascination with pioneer dugout houses and houses that started as a dugout and just sort of *grew* out of that hole. I love Hobbit holes. I ADORE cordwood masonry, which is where short logs - stove wood, basically - are mortared together into stacked walls, making a structure that looks like a permanent and perfectly neat woodpile. The round houses of Iron Age Britain, and Viking long houses are some of the most beautiful structures to me. Branching from that, I love stone houses with curving walls, wavy rooflines, and exciting surprises and count myself very fortunate to have been born and raised in Charlevoix, Michigan, where there is an entire neighborhood of homes of that description. We called them "mushroom houses". Post-and-beam daub-and-wattle structures also give me a thrill. I also love barns of just about any sort, with construction dates up until about 1940-ish. Hay barns, dairy barns, spring houses, piggeries, cow or sheep sheds, chicken coops....so long as they're not factory-farm structures, I'll likely feel like I could live in it myself


Celtic knotwork and spiral motifs give me a thrill, as do Celtic stylized bird motifs. I've also always been partial to Egyptian artwork, and European cave paintings. Native American art doesn't give me the same thrill for whatever reason.

 

[Blackbird]

Hello,
I can be asked, "could this art-forger be a reincarnation of a notable artist in history?"


Marc

So many intriguing thoughts here! As an artist, my work’s one reason I am convinced of multiple lives — the sense that my calling is a fragment of a continuum, and that I have to carry it forward (whether I can see ‘why’ or not — sometimes it seems absurd, but there you have it!).


Marc — an interesting question re the accomplished forger. My personal guess would be that an artist who focuses on excellent forgeries and copies would be more likely to have been at a learning or apprentice stage rather than a — what to say — a fruition stage like those ‘notable’ artists in history. That’s because, while it can be an excellent learning exercise to copy, it rather goes against what I’d think of as a mature voice… I think what notable artists (& legions of wonderful & accomplished artists who never were publicly recognized!) might share would be the urge toward evolution and progress within their own voice.


I don’t mean novelty for it’s own sake — I love this statement:


*“The merit of originality is not novelty; it is sincerity. The believing man is the original man; whatsoever he believes, he believes it for himself, not for another.” ~ Thomas Carlyle


That’s very much my feeling about originality — I’m not much impressed by what looks to me like novelty for the sake of novelty, but I can appreciate almost anything if it feels to me like it had to be done — that it was somehow a necessity for its maker. That the idea had a voice of its own and cried out to be manifest, as it were. Of course, that’s a subjective & intuitive judgement on my part when looking at a piece, but I’ve not come up with a better way to sum up what I respect in art…


So, I'd expect the artist on a forward roll to want to keep evolving, rather than to copy her/his former self... though the affinities to style and period could surely manifest...

 

[AOSpare]

Everything is possible


Art is my pet subject because as a child I was fascinated with paining, drawing. I read and re-read a hundred times the fictional biography of Michael Munkacsy who was a well known Hungarian artist of his time. Recently, I've discovered the possibility that my past life I was Austin Spare, the English painter and mystic. I was born in Hungary but I wanted to be English as far as I remember (see, I actually been that, a Londoner at that).


I was also attracted to Durer's drawings at a quite an early age.

 

[Marc Ross]

Performing-arts and past-lives.


Hello,


Can participation in the performing-arts i.e., as theater performers, as well as audience at plays evoke possible past-life memories?


Marc

 

[Sisley]

Performing-arts and past-lives.

Can participation in the performing-arts i.e., as theater performers, as well as audience at plays evoke possible past-life memories?

I derived my own painting techniques from dreams and flashbacks.

In this case, there could be a PL in the Performing Arts manifesting itself. I believe it a yes.

 

[Sisley]

Everything is possible

Recently, I've discovered the possibility that my past life I was Austin Spare, the English painter and mystic. I was born in Hungary but I wanted to be English as far as I remember (see, I actually been that, a Londoner at that).


I was also attracted to Durer's drawings at a quite an early age.

AOS,

Have you actually seen a canvas (or canvases) painted by him? If so, did it evoke a memory or flashback or did you react in any adverse way? I ask this because I had a shell shock-like experience on seeing a Sisley painting up close for the first time in 1987 in an art gallery. And yes, personality traits and tastes do repeat in reincarnation cases.