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"Faerie Guardians"  

(2006 oil on 20 x 16 canvas)

 his is my world. This is the world I love. It is a world without limits. My world is what I choose to make it.

 My world is yesterday... or today... or tomorrow. My world is a world of dreams and realities. 

It is a world of Caesars and Christs... of monuments rising from dim memories of the past. It is an angry sailing ship tossed about on a sea of adversity. 

It is a world of knights and ladies, of gods & monsters, of faerie princesses, femme fatales, and mythic creatures.

      It is a world of beauty & virtue & nobility. 

It is a world with no boundaries save the limits of my imagination & my conscience. 

This is my world. 

Conceived in my mind & placed upon canvas with brush and paint & study & sweat & tears & a great deal of love for my world.

My world is the world of the illustrator. 

I created this world for you, and for your children, and for your children's, children's, children... 

"Athene, goddess of Wisdom and Justice" 

 (2008 oil on 20 x 16 canvas)

 ~ Dedicated to my parents Howard and Louise

With a background in the Natural Sciences Howard David Johnson uses traditional media including oils, pastels & colored pencils and also embraces leading edge digital media in the creation of his realistic depictions of fantasy, folklore, mythology, legend, religion, and heroic history. He works in and mixes a wide variety of media * Oil paintings * Acrylic Paintings * Prismacolor Paintings * Drawings * Chalk & Oil Pastel Paintings * Photography * 2D & 3D Digital Artistry* and Mixed Media including any and all of the above* INDEX of GALLERIES ~ LINKS to LARGER ART     Newest additions include Angel Art, Women Warriors, Celtic Mythology and Legends of Cú Chulainn! ***************************************************************************************** Click on these Art Gallery Icons  for Two-fisted Tales of VALOR & Frontline Combat featuring Legendary Warriors of History, Knights and ladies of Arthurian Legend, Celtic, Nordic, Asian and Olympian mythology~ Fairy Tales, Fantasy and Science Fiction, Portraits and more!  Angel Art King Arthur Norse Mythology Greek Mythology Legends of History Cú Chulainn Celtic Mythology Fantasy Art Classic Fairy Tales Russian Mythology Oriental Mythology Fairy Paintings Religions of the World Mermaid Art  Dinosaur Art Science Fiction Art Pencil Portraits I Studio Photography Colored Pencils II Art Instruction Lady of Shallot  Lost Atlantis ELVES History of Dragons  Mythic Women Mythic Creatures Egyptian Mythology History Part Two  The Art of War  About Realistic Art  Fantasy Pin ups Flower Fairies Beautiful Women Warrior Women Legendary Women   Pre-Raphaelite Art   Catholic Art  Art of the Bible BOOK of REVELATION Jewish Art Spartan Warriors Vampires and Werewolves Space Opera Adventures Lost World Adventures Style & Technique Paintings in Oils Realistic Paintings Biographical All these pieces of art and the text are legally copyrighted and were registered with the U.S. Library of Congress Office of Copyright by the author, Howard David Johnson All rights reserved worldwide. Permission for many academic or non-commercial uses is freely and legally available by simply contacting the author via e-mail or visiting www.howarddavidjohnson.com/permission.htm                                              On the World Wide Web since 1996 ~   The Legends of History (below right)- Educational multi-media art galleries exploring the Myths & Legends  of the ancient world & War & Civilization; The Outline of History through realistic art, prose, & essay... An introduction to legendary Spartan Warriors ( below left) and legendary women (below center)                   Mystery, Babylon, the Great -The  Deesse et chimere Icon (below 2nd from left) Links to a Symbolist art gallery featuring an astonishing disclosure about the Beast (Chimera) from the book of Revelation and more Apocalyptic Prophecies or  Daniel in the lion's Den for our newly updated Angel Art Gallery... and The Antiquities of the Hebrews Gallery ~ Featuring the Adventures of The Prophets...                      Click on The World's Great Religions (Kwan Yin icon below right)- An educational multi-media art gallery embracing religious tolerance and exploring the world's great religions and their impact on war and civilization through realistic art, prose, and essay...                        Women Warriors of World History-  "The Trung Sisters of Viet Nam" [above far left], Warrior Women of World Mythology  "Scáthach ~ Teacher of fighters"[center left], Legendary Queens: "Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra"and The World's Great Religions "Kwan Yin" Click on the images above to see the galleries, [ ca. 2001 - 2023 All in Mixed Media [Oil Paints and Digital 2D & 3D]         Classical Mythology; Greek & Roman Myths: Click on the images above for portraits & introductions to the legendary gods of Olympus, The Titans, The Greek Heroes, as well as realistic illustrations of Homer's The Iliad & the Odyssey, Helen of Troy & The Trojan Horse, Jason & the Argonauts & more.           FROM CELTIC MYTHOLOGY: "The life & Adventures of Cu Chulainn " , Click the image above to see dozens of illustrations from the Irish Epic "Tain bo Culailnge" aka The Cattle Raid of Cooley ca. 2019 - 2023 All in Mixed Media [ Oil Paints and Digital 2D & 3D]                 SCIENCE FICTION and FANTASY ART GALLERIES: Click on the images "Encounter on Enceladus, "Fairy Queen FAND & the Sea Dragon" & "Strange Worlds" to see the collections ~ All created in Mixed Media [ Oil Paints & Digital 2D & 3D] ca. 2016-2021]                Examples of Contemporary HISTORY PAINTING ~ "The Seige of the Alamo", "President Abraham Lincoln" & "The Old Breed: 1st Marines Assault on Pelilieu Beach"  2016-2017 All in Mixed Media including Oil Paints & Digital 2D & 3D Who is American Illustrator Howard David Johnson? In one of David's invitations to the Florence Biennale Contemporary Art Exhibition, (a partner in the United Nations' Dialog among Nations), UN Secretary General Kofi Anon wrote him: "Artists have a special role to play in the global struggle for peace. At their best, artists speak not only to people; they speak for them. Art is a weapon against ignorance and hatred and an agent of public awareness... Art opens new doors for learning, understanding, and peace among nations."

	Dozens of Johnson's 38 x 28 Oil Paintings on linen canvas are currently available for sale. Many digital works can also be rendered in oil on canvas. Each design will only be rendered in oil once at this size and can be delivered FEDEX or equivalent in as little as 60-90 days.  Every original comes with a signed dated Certificate of Authenticity.  Write for current availability and pricing: info@howarddavidjohnson.com

David can also do a completely new picture designed in digital media (for more on this visit his digital media page) and when we approve the photo-montage, he uses it as reference to render it in oil on canvas. No surprises.  Existing Artwork is shipped very well protected and go out to you immediately via Fed Ex or USPS Express mail upon receipt of payment at our expense. All new creations cost a bit more depending on what is involved. All new creations and rendering photo montages into art on paper are a LOT of fun with e-mail attachments and digital cameras.  

People have written asking me to tell them how to tell my digital and mixed media from my Prismacolors or oils. The very fact it is so hard to tell is my point! This new media looks very presentable and costs far less! ALL HALLOWS EVE was begun as a digital montage .This is your guide: above far right is the digital composition... As you're browsing my galleries and can't spot the difference I won't tell you... that would spoil the fun! Is it worth tens of thousands to you to be old fashioned?

Mixed Media including digital	Prismacolors on paper	Oil Painting on Canvas

ALL HALLOWS EVE was rendered in oil on 20x16 canvas in 2010 (right) and features Titania in this illustration from Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream. Even when displayed at the same size the oil on canvas is clearly a superior illustration to the 2006 Prismacolor Painting on paper. (left). Considering many oil painters charge $60,000.00 USD and up these $5,000.00 USD and up prices seem very low to me...

Original oil paintings are for sale, e-mail for info...

info@howarddavidjohnson.com 

 The first decade of the 21^st Century has seen a grass-roots counter-revolution in the art world which has overthrown the stranglehold elitist proponents of Abstract expressionism gained on academia, the media and the art world at large in the early 20^th Century.

   Realistic Art was declared obsolete and irrelevant at the beginning of the 20^th Century due to the easy chronicling of persons, places, and events by the Camera - in spite of this new technology empowering the greatest era in Realistic Art history. The “Modern Day Artist” refused to die and began to explore realms of the heart and mind the camera could not record. The proponents of Abstract Expressionism gained control of elite art collector’s markets followed by academic institutions and the media leading to the abandonment of centuries of classical teaching methods and traditions in our universities. Even the best realistic art was later denounced and ridiculed as the dismissive and often even hostile Art establishment created elitist scorn for Realistic Art in general. This created a disconnect with the general population who could not relate to the tenets of Abstract Expressionism. The advent of the internet broke the absolute domination of the opinions of the Abstract School on media and academia and opened the floodgates of artistic expression and free opinions. Free at last from institutionalized condemnation, more and more artists began to choose realistic treatments and a tidal wave of fabulous new realistic art has been created in every conceivable visual art media for museums, galleries, books, movies, and video games.

As the camera became commercially available in the early 19^th Century it became clear that the visual artist was no longer an indispensable member of society. Just about anyone could point and shoot this device at persons, places, and things and get very fast and very realistic results. Resentment from thousands of years of artists’ social and political influence fueled the notion that visual artists should be declared obsolete. The adoption of the camera as an artist’s tool and the advent of an era of glorious and unprecedented realism in painting did not stop the movement to crush the political and social influence of the artist.

Great realistic artists like Pablo Picasso and others like Vincent Van Gogh courageously answered this challenge by exploring concepts that could not be photographed with brilliant and visionary works. It was from these honest and ingenious notions that the schools and sub-schools of Abstract Art developed. The freshness and innovation of this movement took the art world and academia by storm. The excitement of defining the tenets and the delight of bewildering the masses gave rise to an elite class of critics who could control the lucrative art collector’s market with obfuscation and intellectual snobbery.

This wealthy art collector’s market gave credence to Abstract Expressionism’s “high art” status and the advice of well placed critics became extremely valuable and they formed an alliance with like-minded academics. As time passed, this trendy movement whose concepts were so hard to argue with gained control of the establishment and elitism took root. It was not long before traditional painting methods were not taught in universities any more as realistic art was no longer considered “Real Art” and tenets like; “Art must be ugly”, Art must be new” Art must be obscure”, and “The best Art is offensive” took hold in schools and printed media.

Not satisfied with control over the most lucrative galleries, collector’s markets and academia, these elitists moved from dismissive to openly hostile attitudes toward those who still loved and created realistic art. The merciless and unprovoked rebukes of great realistic artists like Norman Rockwell, N.C. Wyeth and so many others are well documented in 20^th century histories. That’s not “Real Art” and why do you waste your talent on “Mere Illustration” were some of the nicer comments. Illustrators in the 20^th century wore these rebukes like badges of honor, like black eyes gained from standing up to schoolyard bullies, knowing in their hearts what they were doing was worthwhile and the narrow minded views of their critics were not the only valid opinions. By the end of the 20^th century, the long apprenticeship tradition was broken and classical realistic art methods were lost forever. The Shock Art movement in the 1990’s carried the tenets to new extremes as “ART” became a dirty word. U.S. Government Endowments for the Arts were discontinued. Abstract Art had become the norm with its obfuscated themes and was then itself considered irrelevant and academically worthless. Art programs were then removed from countless public school curriculums to make time for standardized test preparation. There is no way that mandating more math, requiring more reading, or scheduling more science will replace what we have lost as a culture.   

At the turn of the 21^st Century the Abstract Expressionists had been in control for generations with a thought control blockade in books, newspapers, radio, television and schools. Anyone who disagreed with them was told they were too stupid to understand “Real Art” and theirs was the only voice to be heard. What had begun so beautifully and sincerely was hijacked and violated until it became a byword for vulgarity. Then came the internet and the realistic artists, long silenced began to express their views. It was like the boy who cried: “The Emperor has no clothes!” This revelation spread like wildfire through the cultural consciousness.  Suddenly, it was no longer a disgrace to hold something other than those narrow views. Galleries on the internet showcased generations of repressed artists realistic works in a tidal wave art history calls: “the Realistic Revolt”. Of course, Abstract Art still flourishes today especially on college campuses, but the narrow views of its most fanatical proponents are no longer cruelly dominant.

The Realistic Revolt has brought the return of respectability to illustration and realistic landscape and portraiture. When I see the works of today’s vast multitude of realistic artists coming from a thousand different directions at once, tears come to my eyes, for I have worn the title “illustrator” as a badge of honor for decades and am deeply moved to have lived to see new developments in art and technology drive the visual arts to levels of quality beyond my wildest dreams. I predict 3D and digital media will grow more and more realistic until photos seem noticeably inferior. The internet has not only opened the floodgates for artistic expression, but employment and untold artists are earning a living shattering the “Starving Artist” stereotype so engrained in our cultural consciousness. The beginning of the 20^th century saw technology threatening the survival of the professional artist and the end of it saw the unbridled tenets of Abstract Expressionism like “Art must be offensive” threatening the very existence of art as a part of our culture, the modern day artist has once again refused to die and has embraced technology to create a rebirth of realism that Art critics, collectors, academics and everyday folk can all embrace and celebrate in ways I once feared had been lost to us forever.

~ Howard David Johnson (2012)

These portraits rendered in Prismacolor pencils are not at all what people think of when they hear the word 'drawing'

  Snobbism in the arts is nothing new. Some people will tell you that oils are the only valid medium for realistic paintings. That Colored Pencil, Digital, and other Realistic Painting and Drawing Media are not valid  for "real" art. Young artists, Don't let them bother you. Their forerunners used to condemn Pastels before they gained acceptance and called them "crayons" when Johann Alexander Thiele (1685-1752) invented them.  Mercilessly disrespectful  art critics of the time could not stop the Experimentalists no matter how viciously they attacked and derided them. "Crayon-painting" as it was called in England was practiced early on by persecuted pioneers in Switzerland and many other nations. What a debt we owe to these master artists who refused to knuckle under to the pressure of those short-sighted critics during those historic and experimental times. It took until 1870 with the founding of the "Societe` Des Pastellistes" in France that respect came  at last to these heroic & immortal visual artists.

In England the liberation of the Pastellists from slight regard and undeserved disrespect came with the first exhibition of "The Pastel Society" at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1880. Pastel Painters like Mary Cassat and others from America and other nations forever silenced  the snobs with their masterworks and gained recognition at long last for Thiele's invention as a valid art medium. I am persuaded that history will repeat itself.  Like Pastels, I believe these wonderful new colored pencils and even Digital Realistic Art Media will one day receive the recognition they deserve as powerful mediums of artistic expression just as pastel paintings did. What is your definition of art? Have you thought about it?

Mine is: "anything that makes you feel or think."         

Consider dancing... it can be a little skip in the step or rise to the level of the incomparable Russian Ballet. Did you know that just the materials alone for a single oil painting cost up to a thousand dollars these days? Even paying the artist less than minimum wage no one but the super rich can afford them anymore.

    By my own definition of art, which is: "anything that makes you feel or think" most abstract paintings are not "real art" to me personally, because abstract paintings usually neither make me feel or think,  usually focusing obsessively on technique and avoiding any coherent content. I usually draw a complete blank mentally and emotionally when I look at them. In 1979 the Houston Metropolitan Museum of Art displayed a triptych of 3 giant   paintings they paid fifty thousand dollars for-  three blank white canvasses entitled "untitled". Then there was "The incredible new artistic Genius" with an I.Q. of 62 ...Congo the chimpanzee with his gala New York art exhibition...an elaborate prank played on the Snobbish American Art critics about a generation ago by research scientists in the field of primatology. Imagine how upset they were when he created one of his "ingenious masterpieces" right before their eyes. ( My Source for this is the Time Life Science Library volume entitled "The Primates".)

Art education has been almost completely removed from American Schools as a result of generations of this kind of  fabulous nonsense contributing to America's cultural illiteracy crisis. Now, the works of Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo, and other notables are being removed from school libraries.  After generations of this, most American college graduates today cannot name even one living visual artist, abstract or realistic.

There is no way that mandating more math, requiring more reading, or scheduling more science will replace what we have lost as a culture.  

What is your definition of Art? ~.H.D.J.  

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      Note: Abstract Paintings by Congo the Chimpanzee outsold Warhol and Renoir by over 25,000 dollars in June 2005 at a London art auction. Born in 1954, Congo created more than 400 drawings and paintings between the ages of two and four. He died in 1964 of tuberculosis.

Art History has entered a new era with the birth of Art Numérica, or digital art media in the 21st century. Artists never stop exploring with mediums. Artists have been developing techniques, experimenting with different tools since at least twenty- five thousand years ago, when the first artist picked up a charred stick and scratched a picture out on the wall of his cave. You'd think everything would have been tried by now, but it hasn't. Exploring new mediums this very day is just as exciting, just as full of freshness and newness as it ever was.

   None of these people earning their living creating realistic art could compete with the speed and low cost of photographic portraiture.  Determined to survive, great realistic artists like Pablo Picasso ingeniously turned inward and began to explore things that could not be photographed in a new school of art, abstract expressionism.

  The day of the fine art superstars had arrived. It was now largely just a hobby to abstract and realistic artists alike. Illustration, because of advances in printing technology enabled an elite few to earn a living with their realistic art. These illustrators working in realistic art media  were condemned and ridiculed in much the same way Europe's great symphonic composers were condemned for working in motion pictures after fleeing the nazis during World War Two. The rift between realistic and abstract art grew wider and wider. The universities and key media usually sided with the abstract camp and derided anyone working in any realistic art media declaring boldly that realistic art was not "real" art. Immortal giants of realistic art such as Maxfield Parrish were mistreated their entire lives. They were accused of selling out for creating beautiful pieces of realistic fine art to earn a living. The attitude that the true artist must suffer and starve and die in poverty became a rule. There were the Abstract art superstars, the professional realistic illustrators, and the hobbyists who, although cut off from gainful employment and social influence still recognized their artistic gifts as a calling rather than a profession.

      Later realistic art training was abandoned in most schools and things like splattering paint in fits of rage  were deemed more than enough. By the end of the 20th century something as destructive and ridiculous as nailing a pack of cigarettes to a shoe was considered fine art but not realistic paintings. Fashions in art have often been as silly as fashions in ladies hats.  As the century drew to a close, many people had had enough. The realistic revolt was at hand.

The twenty- first century is already seeing a new renaissance in the arts because of the world wide web. There has never been anything like it. Abstract art, computer art, photographic art, and realistic art are continuing to be separate schools of art but are also blending to create exciting new horizons (Art Numérica). Although Digital art does offer completely new horizons to the artist in the 21st century it does not mean the end of our time honored art traditions. Instead, it offers additional ways to keep these traditions and schools of thought  fresh and alive.

~ Howard David Johnson MMII

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"The Epic Cycle" Now on sale from Oxford University Press...

We love hearing from you! Your business, letters & links are welcome:

info@howarddavidjohnson.com

Acknowledgements

         These Mythic Art creations take their inspiration from the realistic paintings of the old masters just as the film West Side Story came from Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet, who in turn copied it from Pyramus and Thisbe, from Ovid's Metamorphoses. Our shared cultural heritage, great works of art, literature, music and drama, cinema, folk tales and fairy tales are all drawn upon again and again by the creators of new works. These works in the public domain are both a catalyst and a wellspring for creativity and innovation. Where would Walt Disney be without the Brothers Grimm  Hans Christian Anderson, or Victor Hugo? Where would Aaron Copeland have been without American folk music?  Or Thomas Nast's Santa Claus without traditional images of Father Christmas? Pablo Picasso without aboriginal African art? Public domain appropriators, one and all. When America was formed, copyright law was created to promote the public creativity and had 14 year terms to reward the creators, but now with 100 plus year terms very little is currently allowed to enter into the public domain and its preservation is of the utmost urgency to our future cultural well-being.  In keeping with art tradition and etiquette following the exhibit , I mention some of the artists and writers that have influenced me the most; William Bouguereau, John William Waterhouse, Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin, Edmund Blair Leighton,  Howard Pyle, Arthur Rackham,  Arthur Hughes, Dante Gabriel Rosetti, Viktor Vasnetsov, Jean Auguste Ingres, Anthony Van Dyke,  Lawrence Alma-Tadema,  Wallace Wood, Jack Kirby, Frank Frazetta, Ray Harryhausen, H.G. Wells, Gustave Moreau, William Morris, Henry David Thoreau, Will Durant, The Pre- Raphaelites, The Symbolists, et al. 

All  these pieces of art and the  text are legally copyrighted and were registered with the U.S. Library of Congress Office of Copyright by the author, Howard David Johnson All rights reserved worldwide. Permission for many legal non-commercial uses is freely available by simply contacting the author or visiting www.howarddavidjohnson.com/permission.htm       

Music by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky ( 1840- 1893) - "Swan Lake"

Thank You for Visiting the Realistic Art Galleries of Howard David Johnson... 

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