With spring’s longer days comes sunlight, boosting the feel-good hormone serotonin.

Art Lift II pays tribute to six extraordinary depictions of light, spanning four centuries, sharing a single interesting fact about each work of art.

At the end, find a family friendly, soul lifting project: The Family Photo Wall.

We’re on Pandemic Time, so especially if you’re already familiar with these masterpieces, slow down and really look. See the light. Brighten your day. Deep breathe, and:

Rembrant, Self Portrait, Age 23, 1629

Modern portrait photographers still honor this master of light when they practice the Rembrant Effect, the use of light and shadow to create dramatic three dimensional shading on faces.

Maxfield Parrish, Daybreak, 1922

Parrish conjured supernatural light to create neoclassical worlds that were still highly relatable: in the 20th c., prints of Daybreak hung in a staggering one of every four households in the United States. How’s that for a nice following?

Edward Weston, Pepper No. 30, 1930

The modernist photographic master of light and form is said to have wrestled with how to illuminate this pepper for over a week. He settled upon placing it in a tin funnel, yielding the perfect three dimensional light, and then using an exposure of somewhere between six minutes up to four hours (accounts vary…)

Edward Hopper, Second Story Sunlight, 1960

The drama of light was the motivating factor is nearly all Hopper’s paintings, but when asked about the meaning of Second Story Sunlight, the tight-lipped contemporary master would simply say, “This picture is an attempt to paint sunlight as white, with almost no or no yellow pigment…Any psychological idea will have to be supplied by the viewer”. What do you think is happening here? For a moment did you also think “They must be social distancing”?

Leo Villareal, Volume, 2015, Smithsonian American Art Museum

23,000 LED’s controlled by custom computer coding to produce random, infinitely varied light patterns.

Come together, right now, over this: Treat yourself to Volume in motion:

Christina Watka, The Lightness of Joy, 2020

The mica in Watka’s mobiles reflects and lets light pass through it, alternately producing visual flash or moments of calm soft shadows, at rest or in flight, pushed by air currents. Ooooooommmmmmmmm to that.

Family Photo Wall Activity:

I’d like to suggest a fun family activity that we are particularly well situated for right now: The Family Photo Wall.

Everyone loves them but clients frequently struggle to find the time to review all those photos, select favorites and design a pleasing display. Well, how about substituting a family movie night for a family photo review and selection night? Families not under the same roof can Zoom or FaceTime to share images and memories. Does that sound good around now?

For my Family Photo Wall Top Tips,

Click Here

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Good news for an emotionally challenging time: there’s hard evidence that simply looking at art you find beautiful can trigger your endorphins, invoking the same feelings of pleasure associated with romantic love, certain drugs and desire.

So here is my humble offering to all the coronavirus whiplashed warriors. It was challenging picking art that everyone will find beautiful. There is no such thing, of course, but I had a soul lifting time trying.

Even if you’re already familiar with these images, try to really look with fresh eyes. See how that feels . I’ve shared one interesting fact about each work to guide your entry into the art.

Gustave Klimpt, The Kiss, 1908

Originally rejected as scandalously erotic, Klimpt’s The Kiss is now deemed by some to be the greatest painting ever created. “If you cannot please everyone with your deeds and your art, please a few” he said. Smart man…

Van Gogh, Starry Night, 1889

Proof that great art sometimes comes from great pain, Van Gogh painted Starry Night at the asylum of Saint Paul de Mausole, France, while suffering from epileptic fits and declining mental health. How do you think that affected his palette choice?

Henry Rousseau, The Dream, 1910

The Dream, huge at almost 7 by 10 feet, was Rousseau’s last painting, and the masterpiece of his 25 jungle themed works. How many animals can you find? I’m at 8 and counting…

Andrew Wyeth, Christina’s World, 1948

Looking out the window of his Maine summer residence, Wyeth saw Christina Olson, a neighbor who suffered from a neuromuscular disease, crawling across a field picking blueberries. “The challenge to me was to do justice to her extraordinary conquest of a life which most people would consider hopeless.”

Morris Louis, Dalet Kaf, 1959

Using a soak stain technique he learned from Helen Frankenthaler – see below – Louis went ginormous, as here at over 8 x 10 feet, and created visual cathedrals of feeling.

Helen Frankenthaler, Flirt, 1995

Nobody does more gorgeous color. If I could choose my next life, it would be to paint like this. I saved the best for last.

• Introducing Free Fridays:
• Send your art questions, including photos, to jacqui@beckerfinearts.com. Every Friday I will answer the most interesting question on Instagram @jacquibecker.

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In a recent post I offered a few guidelines for the art buyer intent on investing in art. While I generally encourage clients to buy art for the love of it, and invest elsewhere, if you want to invest in art those tips were offered to help put you in the right direction.

Now let’s test your art market smarts about three current art market facts which shed a bit of light on the world of interior design and the global art market.

What was the top style of artwork sold at auction in 2019?

1. Abstraction
2. Representation
3. Surrealism
4. Impressionism

This one really surprised me. The top ten most expensive works of art sold at auction worldwide in early 2019 were representational works of art. While these sales were at auction and at the higher end of the market, what does this mean for the rest of us? Hard to say, but my guess is a return to the known and tangible in a time of rapid and often unsettling global change.

Do uncertain times explain the return of representational art as the most desirable?
Nicole Hogarty Interiors, Michael J Lee Photography

What was the single largest motivation art collectors site when buying art?

1. Investment
2. Personal inspiration
3. To decorate their home
4. To build a collection

Interior designers will not be surprised with this answer: today’s buyers most often site the desire to decorate their homes as their motivation, followed very closely by the desire to be inspired. But an artwork’s visual appeal is frequently a gateway to a deeper dive into the artist and their career. From there, most buyers will be motivated more by the specific story behind an individual work of art than by the artist’s over all career.

Art is often among the most personally meaningful objects in our homes,
serving to both enrich décor and fill our souls.
Interior Design Kristi Will Home + Design

What single obstacle do today’s art collectors report most often?

1. Wanting to know they can resell art at a reasonable price if they needed to divest
2. Feeling that art work was simply not affordable
3. The lack of easy access to artworks’ price
4. Lacking confidence in their artwork selections

If you guessed 3, the lack of easy access to artworks’ price, you are probably familiar with the unpleasant experience of needing to ask an art dealer the price of a work of art. One of the strongest drivers for online art work sales is the perception that price information is easier to find and free of any discomfort. It’s interesting to note that it is high end art buyers, not entry level newbies, who are most likely to find the lack of easily available pricing off putting.

Art exhibitions lacking signage and pricing, like a recent Miami Basel art fair, above,
can be intimidating to prospective art buyers.

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