Nelson Shanks

Happy Thursday, lovely ladies!

 

Today it is almost 45 degrees in New Jersey!  Your auntie is happy, happy, happy.  It’s beginning to seem possible that spring might actually get here this year!

 

I thought this week I’d tell you a bit about an artist who has been in the news quite a lot right now.  His name is Nelson Shanks, and he’s a portrait artist who specializes in realism (making things technically very accurate to what we see in the real world).  He was born in Rochester, NY (you know someone from there, don’t you?), so that’s kind of cool.

 

Here’s a self-portrait from Mr. Shanks (on the left) – I think he looks a little like Vincent Van Gogh (his self-portrait is on the right)!

 

Up until recently, his most famous painting was from 2006, a portrait of Princess Diana, who was the Princess of Wales.  I’ve put a real picture of her next to it so you can see how much it really looked like her.  I can’t imagine painting all those little tiny ruffles on her shirt!  That must have taken forever!

 

But he also painted the picture below in 2006, of former US President Bill Clinton …it wasn’t maybe such a big deal at first (although it is an excellent likeness of the president – see his photo at right), but recently he announced that the shadow you can see on the left side of the painting (the one coming up over the fireplace pokers) was a secret reference to something that happened while Mr. Clinton was president, something that “cast a shadow” over his presidency, and that has suddenly made it a very interesting painting to the news people!  I won’t get into the details of it all, but what I find most interesting is that years later, something as simple as a shadow can make people start talking about a piece of art all over again – I’ve never really been deep into symbolism in art, but this case makes it really clear how important it can be!

 

 

 

In any case, know that I love you and think that you’re awesome.

Hugs and kisses,

Auntie Paula

xoxoxoxoxo