art by artists – Canto

Oil painting. Steep mountains rise up into the sky, green grass and sparse trees giving way to naked rock face. White clouds crown those bare peaks amidst a blue sky. — The Mancorbo Pass in Picos de Europa (1876), by Carlos de Haes.

City of Melbourne identity, designed by Landor.

Fine art of a sequence of human heads. A woman in a bonnet tells gossip to her friend. Her friend passes on the gossip to her friend, and on it goes down a sequence of twelve people, until it reaches the thirteenth -- the man whom the gossip is about. The sequence ends with him scolding the woman in the bonnet, who was responsible for it in the first place. Isn't this the way gossip comes around? — ‘The Gossips’, Norman Rockwell.

Fine art in pen, monochrome. A woman sits with her back to us, pondering. A long elegant pipe is in hand, which is exhaling a vision of an oriental city in billowing smoke. The woman's long, straight hair mingles with the folds of her luxurious dress, and her head is crowned by the crescent moon. — Inviting the Moon, by Mia Sereno (Likhain)

.yin.n.yang.

Illustration of two winged beings. The ashen-haired woman sits wrapped in a robe upon a precipice, gazing into the distance, her mechanical wings spread behind her. The dark-haired man stands next to the woman, his eyes on her, while a red cloak slips off his cyborg shoulders. Newly-fledged mechanical wings are sprouting out of his back. — .yin.n.yang. by Kuang Hong.

the days turned colder,
the wind, howled.
shuddering under a thin layer,
she thought about the vow they’d made.

she’d forgotten how many days ago,
it was, when they last met.
but she remembered, that day
he said, wait here.

Lovell’s Soldier

Fine art illustration of an American 18th century soldier, plus sketches and studies. — Soldier, for The Continental Insurance Company. Illustrated by Tom Lovell.

Fine art painting. A leprechaun in a top hat rides a brown rabbit, saddle, bridle and all. — from ‘A La Recherche de Féerie’, Jean-Baptiste Monge.

Automne

Fine art painting. A beam of yellow light cuts across an austere stone wall, carved into complicated Celtic-like knotwork. A woman strides towards the light, her flowing brown hair mingling with her long, trailing robe. — ‘Automne’, by Christophe Vacher.

Madonna and child with St Simon and St Jude

Madonna and child with St Simon and St Jude. By Federico Barocci (1535–1612).

Painting of a suburban street. A woman in a red dress rows a floating blue rowboat down the asphalt road, trailed by a tiny cloud that is watering the potted plants on the boat's stern. A man watering his lawn with a hose watches her pass by. — Tales from Outer Suburbia, by Shaun Tan.