Rocks

1. Andrea Mantegna, The Agony in the Garden, 1457-1459 2. Andrei Tarkovsky, Still from Stalker, 1979 3. Jiro Taniguchi, Page from The Walking Man, 1992 4. Katsushika Hokusai, Studies from Rocks, 1815  

...I think of Magritte

'Whenever I drive in any mountainous region and look at the line against the sky, I think of Magritte. And whenever I see beautiful, perfect clouds in the sky, he's the first thing that comes to mind. I think there is a humanity, a generosity and a kindness to others in Magritte's work. He takes the viewer into account. And I have always found the economy of his images very moving. They communicate very purely and directly. One of the most profound pieces of Magritte's is Discovery [1928]. It is an image of a woman whose flesh resembles the grain in wood. There is this aspect of Magritte which is about dealing with the world around us, and there is a certain materiality, a reality about that world that he creates, even though he makes these strange juxtapositions.

It is hard to imagine a lot of the computer programs that we work with in daily life, such as Photoshop, without the influence of Magritte. We owe to Magritte the many ways that we see the world through transparency or gradation. So I hold him in high esteem for showing us how images can be overlapped, or how they can be gradated into each other.' 

Jeff Koons

1. Réne Magritte, Le Monde des Images, 1950 2. Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, North Korea  
3. Réne Magritte, Le Siècle des Lumières, 1967 4. Clip art banner on cheese image
Quote from here

Albrecht Dürer studies

1. Albrecht Dürer, Three studies of a helmet, c.1503 2. Albrecht Dürer, Muzzle of an Ox, c.1502-4

Ceramic Components

1. Turbine component 2. Boron nitrate ceramic shapes 3. Black and white zirconia component 4. Ceramic honeycomb filters 5. Ceramic knee prosthesis component 6. Total knee replacement system comprising of ceramic components

Giovanni Bellini / David Lynch

1. Sacred Allegory, Giovanni Bellini, 1490-1500 2. The Red Room from Twin Peaks - Fire Walk with Me, David Lynch, 1992 3. Stage in Eraserhead, David Lynch, 1977

Matthias Grünewald Drawings

I recently came across two works by Matthias Grünewald in a book of German master drawings. His works seem to utilize the academic, classical Renaissance feel and technique of his contemporary Dürer while retaining an expressive quality to anatomy and scale as seen in works by earlier artists such as Dirk Bouts, Rogier van der Weyden and even Giotto. These drawings really accentuate this merging of styles. I find his work fascinating partly because it seems so strangely singular in its stylisation of forms, but also because of its scarcity, (both features of another interesting painter who worked in Italy at around the same time, Jacapo Pontormo, and whose greatest works, like Grünewald’s, remain in situ in hard to find churches rather than on the usual museum circuit). Sadly, very few of Grünewald ‘s works survive, less than fifty paintings and drawings in all from what I have read. Some time around 1631-2 a number of his works, including an altarpiece of three panels, were lost in a shipwreck while being transported to Sweden. There are few records of his life, but the writer W. G. Sebald in his book After Nature writes of how he is said to have led a mainly reclusive existence beset by hardships. Sebald also vividly describes Grünewald’s great work the Isenheim altarpiece, drawing on the details that make it so strange: ‘Spreading out above them is the branch work of a fig tree with fruit, one of which is entirely hollowed out by insects.’[1]

1. Study for Mary Magdalene 2. St. Johannes 3. St. Dorothy 4. Study for weeping figure 5. Portrait of Guido Guersi 6. 1934 Publication

[1] p8, Penguin Books, 2003

Glass / Cheese

1. Molten glass being rolled into continuous sheets 2. Processed cheese sheets