Tag Archives: fantasy landscapes

December 1, 2023 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: African Violet Skies by Clark Thomas Carlton

African_Violet_Skies_by_Clark_Thomas_CarltonTITLE: African Violet Skies

BY: Clark Thomas Carlton

MEDIUM: Acrylics on canvas

DATE: ca. 2016

What I love about this painting:

Today we’re dipping into 21st century fantasy landscape art. African Violet Skies by Clark Thomas Carlton is an explosion of color and form. The colors are so intense, I feel as if I could taste them.

I love how delicate the trees and foliage are as compared to the fierce thrust of the landscape. The mountains seem to burst through the earth at high speed, reaching for the incredible night sky, as if they would touch the moon.

This is true mastery of storytelling in an image as well as form and color. He gives us drama, and romance, and violence, and above it all, the moon softly gliding behind the delicate clouds, reflected on the serene stream below.

This painting is exactly what I need after four days of thick fog that refused to lift, followed by eternal rain.

About the Artist, via Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Clark Thomas Carlton is a novelist, playwright, and a screen and television writer living in Los Angeles. He has also worked as a producer of reality television. Carlton is best known for his science fiction/fantasy novel Prophets of the Ghost Ants published by HarperCollins Voyager in 2016.

Carlton is the author of Prophets of the Ghost Ants, Book 1 of the Antasy Series published by HarperCollins Voyage on December 13, 2016.  The indie version of the book was named a Best of 2011 by Kirkus Reviews.

In 1997, Carlton was awarded the Drama-Logue Critics Award for his play Self Help or the Tower of Psychobabble along with playwrights Neil Simon and Henry Ong. The play, a satire of the psychotherapy industry, was performed in Santa Monica, Palm Springs, Los Angeles and West Hollywood and directed by Michael Kearns and was also produced in Chicago.

Carlton is a painter who embraces the description of his work as “Grandma Moses on acid”. His work has been displayed through the Palm Springs Art Museum Annex through the Palm Springs Arts Council.

In December 1999, Carlton released an album of songs titled Salt Water through CD baby where he accompanied himself on acoustic guitar.  At present he is at work on Gardens of Babylon, a synth pop opera about the building of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. The opera was written with his partner, Mike Dobson, an Emmy award winning music supervisor and composer on the daytime drama, the Young and the Restless. [1]

Credits and Attributions:

IMAGE: African Violet Skies by Clark Thomas Carlton. Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:African Violet Skies by Clark Thomas Carlton.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:African_Violet_Skies_by_Clark_Thomas_Carlton.jpg&oldid=785979611 (accessed November 30, 2023).

[1] Wikipedia contributors, “Clark Thomas Carlton,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Clark_Thomas_Carlton&oldid=1171925222 (accessed November 30, 2023).

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November 19, 2021 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: Romantic Winter Landscape with Ice Skaters by a Castle, by Albert Bredow (reprise)

I love the dreamscape quality of this painting – it’s practically a Christmas card. Peasants, ordinary people living in the shadow of the ruined castle, freely enjoying the day. To look at this picture is to see a fairy tale that wants to be told. Who are these people and why do they live there? What is their connection to the ruined castle? And what is their connection to each other?

The trees, the ice, the snow–the detail is all there, even the warmth of the peasant’s hut. It’s a comforting picture, a moment of contentment.

About the Artist:

Little is known of Albert Bredow’s life. Born Apr 23, 1828 in Germany, and died May 5, 1899 in Moscow, he was well known as a landscape painter, lithographer and stage designer.

From this painting, which is dated near the end of his life, we know he was a romantic, fond of fantasy and fairy tales.

His birthplace in Germany and where he first studied art and set design are unknown. Records do show that he lived and worked in Riga as a stage designer from around 1852 and then in Tallinn. In 1856 he went to Moscow at the invitation of the Directorate of the Imperial Theater. He worked from 1856 to 1862 as a set designer for the Moscow Theater and from 1862 to 1871 the Petersburg Theater.

He is known for his ethereal landscape paintings, which may have been a hobby he pursued more intently later in life since he was actively employed in the theater during his working years. His style of landscape painting must have produced some amazing backdrops for the sets he designed.

In 1863, illustrations of his stage sets for Glinka’s opera “A Life for the Tsar” were considered worthy enough to be published as an album. In 1868 he began his studies at the Petersburg Imperial Art Academy. At the Academy’s art exhibitions, he exhibited his landscapes from Germany and Russia.

The designs of Albert Bredow’s stage sets are in the collection of the Moscow Bachruschin Theater Museum.

Credits and Attributions

Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Albert Bredow – Romantic Winter Landscape with Ice Skaters by a Castle.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Albert_Bredow_-_Romantic_Winter_Landscape_with_Ice_Skaters_by_a_Castle.jpg&oldid=282656583 (accessed December 7, 2018).

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December 7, 2018 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: Romantic Winter Landscape with Ice Skaters by a Castle, by Albert Bredow

I love the dreamscape quality of this painting – it’s practically a Christmas card. Peasants, ordinary people living in the shadow of the ruined castle, freely enjoying the day. To look at this picture is to see a fairy tale that wants to be told. Who are these people and why do they live there? What is their connection to the ruined castle? And what is their connection to each other?

The trees, the ice, the snow–the detail is all there, even the warmth of the peasant’s hut. It’s a comforting picture, a moment of contentment.

About the Artist:

Little is known of Albert Bredow’s life. Born Apr 23, 1828 in Germany, and died May 5, 1899 in Moscow, he was well known as a landscape painter, lithographer and stage designer.

From this painting, which is dated near the end of his life, we know he was a romantic, fond of fantasy and fairy tales.

His birthplace in Germany and where he first studied art and set design are unknown. Records do show that he lived and worked in Riga as a stage designer from around 1852 and then in Tallinn. In 1856 he went to Moscow at the invitation of the Directorate of the Imperial Theater. He worked from 1856 to 1862 as a set designer for the Moscow Theater and from 1862 to 1871 the Petersburg Theater.

He is known for his ethereal landscape paintings, which may have been a hobby he pursued more intently later in life since he was actively employed in the theater during his working years. His style of landscape painting must have produced some amazing backdrops for the sets he designed.

In 1863, illustrations of his stage sets for Glinka’s opera “A Life for the Tsar” were considered worthy enough to be published as an album. In 1868 he began his studies at the Petersburg Imperial Art Academy. At the Academy’s art exhibitions, he exhibited his landscapes from Germany and Russia.

The designs of Albert Bredow’s stage sets are in the collection of the Moscow Bachruschin Theater Museum.

Credits and Attributions

Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Albert Bredow – Romantic Winter Landscape with Ice Skaters by a Castle.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Albert_Bredow_-_Romantic_Winter_Landscape_with_Ice_Skaters_by_a_Castle.jpg&oldid=282656583 (accessed December 7, 2018).

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