William De Kooning was born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands on April 24, 1904. He was a famous Abstract Artist of his times. One of his most famous works includes a series of six paintings between 1951 and 1953 with the central theme “Woman”.

“Woman III by William De Kooning,” measuring 68 by 48½ inches, is one of six “Woman” paintings he numbered. The other five are all in world-class museums, all but one in the United States.

What do these paintings mean actually? This is really hard to understand. The art painted by William De Kooning is a form of struggling art which is an outcome of his personal painful experiences. We can only speculate as to what he meant through his paintings. But with the analysis of the events which took place in the life of Willeam De Kooning, we can only bring forth an idea that he was brought up in an unease and fearful environment. William De Kooning painted the Woman III with a torn attitude where he placed the woman as a symbol of perfection with purity. On the other hand, he may regard her as something appropriate to be used for his lust but not worthy of his love or respect.

Till 1994, Woman III by William De Kooning was a part of Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art and then it was purchased by David Geffen for the remainder of the 16^th century manuscript. In November 2006, Woman III was sold by Geffen to an American billionaire Steven A. Cohen for $137.5 million, which made this painting as the third most expensive painting ever sold.

Massacre in Korea is an excellent and great painting created by the greatest artist of 20^th century, Pablo Picasso as a symbol of criticism of American intervention in the Korean War.

Massacre in Korea was painted using oil on plywood on 18^th January, 1951 and measures 110 x 210cm.

Massacre in Korea : Pablo Picasso

Massacre in Korea is a creation of the Modern Movement Era. This is called as an expressionistic painting of Pablo Picasso.

Pablo Picasso’s Massacre in Korea is actually the inspiration from Francisco Goya‘s painting The Third of May 1808, which actually expresses the elimination of Spanish people by the Napoleon‘s Army under the orders of Joachim Murat.

The groups of women and men are composed in geometrical pattern. The weakly defined triangular shape illustrates female and child victims, strong square for aggressive male soldiers. Guns and a leg protrude from square to indicate invading force.

In the background of Massacre in Korea, fire and destroyed buildings adumbrate the bloodshed and annihilation.

A notable point about Pablo Picasso’s Massacre in Korea is that it provides an absolute allusion to the collision in that area. He has made the title which actually indicates the devastation that occurred, but he has also beautifully confused its viewer about the recognition of the victims and the invaders. There are no markers of nationality or geography, plus some of the figures are based on sketches done of Western women Picasso knew.

Massacre in Korea truly represents the so called war propaganda raised by US. The world is shown in black and white. The assailants are painted on the right and the victims on the left. The aggressors are male and armed; the victims are naked women and children.

Massacre in Korea by Pablo Picasso is entirely monochrome and takes a broadly triangular composition. Motifs are arranged with respect to this shaping but the compositional lines are not restrictive.

Pablo Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973)

The fantastic artist, Kate Winslet or Kate Elizabeth Winslet started her showbiz career by stage appearances in the United Kingdom. She was born on 5^th  October, 1975 in Reading, Berkshire. Kate Winslet belonged to an artist family and she started learning drama at a young age while she was only 11 from Redroofs Theatre School.  Her regular appearance on television was started when she co-starred in a science fiction series which was prepared by BBC for children.  In 1992, Kate Winslet was assigned a role of Juliet Hulme in a British Sitcom “Heavenly Creatures”, directed by Peter Jackson.

Kate Winslet

Kate Winslet grabbed the actual attention in 1995 in the Jane Hudson novel’s film adaptation named as “Sense and sensibility”. Kate Winslet also achieved an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for this film.

Kate and Leo in Revolutionary Road

When Kate Winslet came in front of her viewers in the record-breaking blockbuster of James Cameron, “Titanic”, she became as one of the iconic film stars of Hollywood. Kate Winslet also earned her second Academy Award nomination for Best Actress for this movie. Kate Winslet also earned the fame as an amazing vocalist, when she lent her voice in 2001 to the animated British feature, “A Christmas Carol”, a song from the movie, “What If I”. After this she also became as the lead vocalist and a top ten single in the United Kingdom. After 2000, Kate Winslet was nominated for numerous awards in her many tremendous performances in the films such as Quills (2000) , Iris (2001) , The Sinshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) and Little Children (2006 ). The romantic comedy The Holiday and the animated film Flushed Away (both 2006) were among the biggest commercial successes of her career.

Kate Winslet receiving Academy Award for best Actress

In 2008, Kate Winslet, the fantastic artist won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in The Reader. In the same year , Kate Winslet was awarded with Golden Globe Awards, Best Actress (Drama) for Revolutionary Road and Best Supporting Actress for The Reader.In total , Kate Winsle has earned six Academy Award nominations, seven Golden Globe nominations, and seven BAFTA nominations.

The wood has remained a potent source of comfort, fuel, tools, transportation and many other usages throughout the history of humans. In fact, the mankind has always kept a dependence on wood as the most common substance for his many activities. But here are some who used wood as a medium of expressing their instinct of love, art and creativity. Axel Petersson Döderhultarn is one of them, the most famous Swedish wood carving artist.  Axel Petersson Döderhultarn was born on December 12 , 1868 in the parish of Döderhult, Sweden.

Wood Carving Art of Axel Petersson, Image from foreverswedish.org

Since his childhood Döderhultarn had interest in whittling, and carving of wood figures. Apart from continuous discouragement from his family, his passion was never ended. His family forced him to immigrate to USA and to find some better source of earnings but he never gave up and continued his art work.  Till then nobody knew that Döderhultarn will become one day the best artist in Scandinavian flat-plane style of woodcarving.

In the early years of his wood carving career, Döderhultarn worked on figure carving and used to sell his figurines in the local market of Oskarshamn. These traditional wood carving figures were sold very cheap. After a while Döderhultarn started to work in a minimalist style, which ultimately became the reason of his world fame. In 1909,  Döderhultarn  got an opportunity to exhibit his art in an exhibition in Stockholm, where he got enormous response from the Swedish people. After that the Swedish museums began to purchase his creations and slowly his work was exhibited to whole of Europe and the United States.

Döderhultarn became a source of great inspiration to many other wood carving artists not only in Sweden but throughout the world. He is no doubt the best name in wood carving art of Sweden and nowadays Döderhultarn figure is generic term used for the carving of  small wood figures in the minimalist style.