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The Ahead of His Time Paul Ranson

It's a rainy grey day here at the office, so I thought I'd find a bright, cheery art image to look at and lighten up my day. As I clicked through the ArtSelect site, this image struck me right away: Apple Tree with Red Fruit by Paul Ranson.

Apple Tree with Red Fruit
By Paul Ranson

This piece appeals to me for a number of reasons. First and foremost, I love the bright, bold contrasting colors. I'm a big fan of primaries and brights, so come rain or shine, I'd be drawn to the cherry red fruit and canary yellow skies. I also find the swirling Post-Impressionist shapes and strokes of this artwork extremely intriguing.

The artist, Paul Ranson, was a major frontrunner in the early 1900s avant-garde Post-Impressionist art group Les Nabis. Like his cohorts, Ranson favored a stylized, design-inspired technique, and his work was peppered with symbolism and Art Deco influences. A lot of art critics feel that Les Nabis (or "the Prophets") strongly influenced the work of future Abstract artists and the field of non-representational art in general.

I couldn't agree more. In fact, when I first came upon this piece, I thought it was a contemporary piece! Kudos to the ahead-of-his-time Ranson! Until next week...

French painter Jean-Francois Millet (October 4, 1814 -- January 20, 1875) has been much celebrated for his realistic yet poetic renderings of 1800s rural France and the peasants who worked the land. But in many cases, there is more to Millet’s tranquil paintings than first meets the eye.

The Gleaners
By Jean-Francois Millet

The Gleaners, for instance, one of Millet’s best-known paintings, depicts several women peacefully working a field. At first glance, it’s a simple enough scene -- but the painting actually makes a powerful, universal statement about the working class. In the 1800s, gleaning (gathering leftovers from a harvest) was deemed a lowly activity. But here, Millet touches his subjects' shoulders with a golden, almost angelic light, rendering them heroines, rather than lower-class citizens.

Political agendas aside, Millet's scenes are easy to enjoy and appreciate for their aesthetic beauty alone. They also suit a wide range of decor styles, from Traditional to Casual. And October being the month of Millet's birth, what better time to explore the work of this historic artist?

The New Generation in Posters
for College Kids and Urbanites Alike

Back when I was in college, I had a pretty sizable number of posters. My collection included everything from music posters to black & white photography, and I loved switching them up, depending on my mood. Unfortunately, after all those rounds of taping and un-taping, most of my favorites got a bit torn and frayed.

Now that I'm all grown up, I still love a good poster, and recently, I've discovered art that can withstand my ever-changing aesthetic: framed PosterZ.

Audrey Hepburn Pink
Framed PosterZ

Framed PosterZ have all the hip, stylin' images I loved in college -- and still do! From Audrey Hepburn to Jimi Hendrix, from celebritiy portraits to music and vintage posters, there's art for both my inner college kid and my grown up, urbanite self.

What's really different about PosterZ though, is how durable they are. To make them last extra long, they're mounted on hardboard (high-density fiberboard) and have a protective coating that gives them a really cool, movie-screen-like appearance. They're also shatterproof and come framed and ready to hang. Could it get any easier?

Jimi Hendrix Axis Bold as Love
Framed PosterZ

I have to say, when you're decorating on a budget and you want a quick fix, nothing does the trick quite like a good poster. And if you're looking to upgrade to something sturdier but every bit as stylish, check out PosterZ.

See ya next week!

Take a moment, while things are still quiet, and find the perfect finishing touches for any room. Our style collection offers a wealth of fine art for any decor, and until the end of the month, it's all 15% off. You can also customize any piece in our online frame shop and give it your signature flair.

So whether your style is exotic and Global, uptown and Contemporary, rich and Traditional or laid back and Casual, you'll find the perfect art, mats and frames to coordinate with your furnishings and pull your home together for the holiday season. Company's coming...are you ready?

Vintage Horror Movies and Posters
Help Set the Stage for Halloween

At my house, we celebrate Halloween all year round. From my son's skull-themed drawings and paintings to the life-sized, animated Frankenstein doll down in the basement, you could say our family has a fondness for all things spooky. Especially when something has a vintage or retro feel to it.

So needless to say, October is our favorite month! We've already hung up our green cobwebs, picked out 5 jack o' lanterns from a pumpkin patch, and just last night, my son and I crafted little ghosts out of Polymer clay and torn fabric.

Another little ritual we like to indulge in this time of year is watching vintage horror movies together. We make popcorn, huddle up on the couch and settle in to enjoy our family favorites. One of my son's top choices is the The Mummy.

The Mummy
Vintage Art Poster

Isn't it great that he adores Boris Karloff? We're raising him well. Personally, I'm a fan of The Creature From the Black Lagoon. It's all so dramatic and tragic: the monster loves the girl, and for his love, he has to die...

Creature From the Black Lagoon
Vintage Movie Poster

Everything about vintage movies is so over the top, from the colors to the costumes, plot and dialogue. And the vintage movie posters are real works of art in themselves.

Of course, no vintage horror flick film fest would be complete without one of my hubby's favorites...the classic Dracula film starring Bela Lugosi.

Bela Lugosi Dracula Vampire Movie Poster (French)

Vell, vhat do you theenk? Inspired to decorate for Halloween? See you next week. Meantime, my family and I are counting the days till the 31st...

Along with autumn comes the rich, bold beauty of the leaves' turning colors as they fall from the trees and carpet the ground. Scarlet, pumpkin, cranberry, vermillion, golden orange -- these are all ruddy hues we tend to associate with fall.

Many contemporary artists have chosen this bountiful harvest of colors as a palette from which to create brilliant seasonal landscapes. Take this striking work of art by Scott Duce, for instance:

Ashburn Tree
By Scott Duce

Choosing a solitary, flaming tree as his subject, Duce creates a quiet sense of drama by bathing the ashburn in an intense golden light and cropping it close. A dreamy, wine-colored backdrop furthers the effect. At once Traditional yet Contemporary, this piece will bring seasonless sophistication to any wall.

Moving to the bucolic fields of Tuscany, artist Gordon also chooses a theme of simplicity to convey autumn’s beauty. A dozen or so trees dot the hill of this soft-spoken landscape, with clear blue skies and rolling fields framing them above and below.

Tuscany Heights
By Gordon

In this next image, artist Tadashi Asoma takes a more stylized eye to an American Indian Summer scene. With crisp, clear blues, blacks, reds and yellows, Asoma artfully depicts the incomparable, transitional feel of the last days of summer.

Indian Summer
By Tadashi Asoma

Stop by ArtSelect's autumn art collection to see more autumn-themed landscapes -- both contemporary and traditional. You'll also discover a wide range of other quintessentially autumnal art finds, like this appealing bushel of apples by famed American artist Georgia O'Keeffe:

Apple Family II
By Georgia O'Keeffe

Happy art harvesting!

Ah, Halloween -- every artist's favorite holiday! It's just around the corner, and I'm still putting finishing touches on costumes for myself, my hubby and my son. This year I'm going to be...wait! I'd better not spoil the surprise, just in case any of my friends happen to be reading!

I can tell you what I was a few years ago when I claimed First Prize at our office Halloween bash, though. Better yet, I'll show you:

What exactly was I, you ask? Good question. I basically took Halloween as an occasion to let my creativity run wild. I drew inspiration from some of my favorite creatures, images and artistic themes, including fairies, leprechauns, elves, bright colors, retro mod patterns and fantasy in general.

Halloween's a great time of year to express different -- often hidden -- sides of your personality, and I've found the world of art can serve as great fodder for the imagination. For instance, art with vintage fashion is one great place to start looking for costume inspiration:

Dryden
Vogue Cover

Pre-Raphaelite Art is another great trove to mine for ideas. This genre of art draws heavily from myth, legend and epic characters, offering a world of costume possibilities! Celebrities are always fun to emulate too -- I can't tell you how many times my husband has dressed up as Elvis! For more avant-garde ideas, look to Abstract Art and Pop Art.

Of course, the main idea is to express your creativity and above all...have fun! And if your artistic adventures happen to spill over and inspire you to start experimenting with your home decorating, all the better! See you next week!

It turns out Leonardo da Vinci's most famous subject, Mona Lisa, may not have looked exactly as he depicted her in his magnum opus. According to a recent article on LiveScience.com, a French engineer named Pascal Cotte has used a cutting-edge multi-spectral imaging camera to reveal the painting's earliest layers -- and along with them, Da Vinci's earliest renderings of his subject.

AP Photo from "25 Secrets of Mona Lisa Revealed" on LiveScience.com

Cotte's experiment unearthed some surprising facts and also helped resolve age-old debates between art historians. For instance:

1- Mona Lisa's famous, quizzical smile was originally much wider.
2- Da Vinci initially "gave" his subject eyebrows, but in subsequent alterations and layers, they were covered over.
3- Blotch marks on the corner of Mona Lisa's eye and chin are the result varnish accidents, which many historians misinterpreted as Mona Lisa being ill.

Mona Lisa
By Leonardo da Vinci

How well do you know the Mona Lisa? Read the LiveScience article and find out!

Just as every seasoned chef has a signature, easy-to-make dish that suits a wide range of occasions, every designer I know has an all-purpose decor trick or two up her sleeve. For me, a favorite ace-in-the-hole is to design with art sets.

Like it sounds, an art set is a group of two or more pieces of art that work together as a team and have coordinated mats and frames. Large art sets are a terrific way to fill up the space in large rooms, and smaller sets work beautifully in smaller rooms. Really, they work just about anywhere! You can visually "bracket" a large work of art or mirror with a smaller art set on either side, you can hang sets on a diagonal in stairwells to add interest...the possibilities truly are endless.

Right now, I really love this beautiful, vertically oriented pair by Daphne B.:

   
Queen Anne's Lace I and II

I just love the graphic element in these images, and how the delicate silhouettes are at once modern and a bit vintage-inspired too. Queen Anne's Lace is all over the place here in the Midwest -- by the roadside, along quiet paths -- especially this time of year, so it's nice to see that reflected in the artwork. The color palette is really autumnal too, with all the rusty browns, ivories and those subtle hints of copper green.

So, all Set to decorate? :-) See you next week!