Painting, Prints, Sculpture. NOTE: Commissions available using your photos.
JOYFUL JOYFUL LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
Enough already! Time for a little joy. Or big JOY as shown in my new Beethoven 8x6 inch, signed, digital, limited-edition print. I stole the main image from Joseph Karl Stieler’s famous and rare life portrait of Beethoven painted between February and April of 1820. Stieler was one of the few artists Ludwig sat for. The taciturn composer agreed to pose only because his wealthy patrons asked him to do so. The portrait is considered one of the most accurate of Beethoven because it was done from life.
I’m not the only one to highjack Stieler’s work. Andy Warhol did a series based on the Stieler painting. Warhol’s Beethoven portrait sold at Sothby’s for $370,964,000. And mine? Yours for an obscenely low price here or even lower prices on tees and stuff in my shop at www.teepublic.com/ketchumart. $14.00 for a tee. Yikes. But I digress into the swamp of crass salesmanship.
In Steiler’s work LVB looks kind of grumpy, so I gave him a smile. It’s more in keeping with the Joy I was after. I was thinking of the Ode to Joy from Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, his last complete symphony, which he began composing in 1822. It was first performed in Vienna on May 7, 1824. The words to Ode are sung during the final movement of the symphony and come from Friedrich Schiller’s poem “Ode to Joy.”
So listen to a recording of the Ode to Joy and listen particularly for these words: joyful, joyful…hearts unfold like flowers…melt the clouds of sadness…drive the dark away…fill us with the light of day! joy surround thee… Joyful, joyful.
Amen!
I’m not the only one to highjack Stieler’s work. Andy Warhol did a series based on the Stieler painting. Warhol’s Beethoven portrait sold at Sothby’s for $370,964,000. And mine? Yours for an obscenely low price here or even lower prices on tees and stuff in my shop at www.teepublic.com/ketchumart. $14.00 for a tee. Yikes. But I digress into the swamp of crass salesmanship.
In Steiler’s work LVB looks kind of grumpy, so I gave him a smile. It’s more in keeping with the Joy I was after. I was thinking of the Ode to Joy from Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, his last complete symphony, which he began composing in 1822. It was first performed in Vienna on May 7, 1824. The words to Ode are sung during the final movement of the symphony and come from Friedrich Schiller’s poem “Ode to Joy.”
So listen to a recording of the Ode to Joy and listen particularly for these words: joyful, joyful…hearts unfold like flowers…melt the clouds of sadness…drive the dark away…fill us with the light of day! joy surround thee… Joyful, joyful.
Amen!