I've made no secret of my enduring loyalty to the Dutch artists;  again and again, they seem to have the stuff to capture my imagination, and at times, my heart.  Usually this special status is reserved for the painters,  but I make an exception here for the wonderful illustrator, Anton Pieck.  His images are full of colour and whimsey,  with almost magical settings and people.    There's almost a Disney-esque aura about his work,  which, I found while researching this post, he comes by honestly.  He was crucial to the design of the Efteling theme park,  apparently one of the hot theme parks in Europe.  It also apparently has had a historical relationship with Disney, which is quite a suitable relationship, in my mind. 

Anton Pieck is a rare and wonderful treat.

It's no secret that I love the Dutch and Flemish art;  they have what it takes to touch my heart.  One of the main reasons, I think,  is that they're masters with light.  Vermeer, of course, gets most of the attention,  but the Dutch in general do magic with the brush when it comes to lighting scenes.  Carl Holsoe is very much at the top of my list in this area.  Born in Arhus, Denmark,  He attended the Royal Academy of Art in Copenhagen.

Although he did portraits and landscapes,  what I love is his interior paintings.  Usually featuring a woman engaged in some quite activity,  especially reading,  he evokes a wonderfully peaceful atmosphere.  His lighting and muted colours work together to create this tranquility,  and at a level that I believe is unrivaled in the world of representative painters.  He certainly knows how to bring wall to life!  Witness his masterful arrangement of furniture and wall decor (I've never wanted plates on my wall so much as after looking at his art);  he knows what looks good in a home! 

I can't get enough of his wonderful world...he's made me look at my own domicile with an eye for peaceful living,  and it has done wonders.

I wrote the above on my Jim Flora post on my old website Claytonology, and as I reread it today,  I'm pleased by the passion that I had when I wrote it.  You see,  I had just rediscovered his charismatic work;  a friend had purchased one of his albums (Inside Sauter-Finegan),  and the crispness of the image had popped me in the face.  I was reinvigorated!  I was a big record collector in my younger days (until I had to move them several times),  and wherever one goes in pursuit of the LP,  Jim Flora will be waiting, with a humble, yet wry smile,  and any one of a multitude of fantastic cover illustrations.  I nabbed all that I could.

Flora has inspired a generation of bedazzled imitators;  smiling, post-modern,  energetic hipsters with artist's tools in hand, paying homage to the master, and no wonder, too;  when it comes to post-modernity in popular musical illustration, there is nobody who can lay a greater claim to the throne.  He was the benchmark for the the album era,  and a reminder, by way of an LP epitaph,  that popular culture can also be high art,  and that creativity can (and should) be above all else. In the current environment, where derivation and superficial pastiche are the law of the land, we need people like Jim Flora more than ever.

Gustaf Tenggren is one of those great artists that go under that radar of most people,  yet his images are known by legions.  His work in Disney films, such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Bambi and Pinocchio call up the dreaded term "iconic",  and every little child (of my generation at least) knows the covers of the children's books The Poky Little Puppy and The Tawny Scrawny Lion.

Though he was born and educated in Sweden,  he became and American citizen in 1920, apparently never returning to the place of his birth.  He worked for the Disney company for nearly a decade, then went on to do children's books and other projects.  I'm wondering if there's some regional aesthetic in places like Sweden and Finland;  I see commonalities between some of what Tenggren does and in others,  most notably the Finnish artist Tove Jansson. 

His versatility of style and his amazing use of muted colour really grab me;  he had a fairy tale magic in his stuff that has stuck with me all my life. I think his name should be as recognisable as his  amazing work!

There are so many amazing worlds in these images.  I'm stunned by them all.  Each one represents a different kind of journey,  or earthy experience...I love to sit back and admire their textures.   I hope you enjoy them!

It's easy for modern people to forget that music has a long and magical history,  full of colour and an amazing array of instruments.  In these times of electric guitars, drum sets (and drum machines) and recorded playback,  most people don't seem to remember that even just a few generations ago that ordinary people played music locally.  There was no "making it" (unless you were some kind of court musician),  people had no singles on the charts (because there were no charts),  and to hear music,  a person either had to play,  or know someone who played.

This is a gentle reminder that music is a verb...