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ART “4”
“2”-DAY 19 August |
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Died on 19 August 1646: Francesco Furini,
born in 1604, Florentine painter of biblical and mythological subjects heavy
with female nudes, and of single half-length nudes in oppressive bluish
tones with strong sfumato. In the 1630s he became a priest and devoted himself
to religious works in the manner of Guido
Reni. — LINKS — St John the Evangelist (1635) — Lot and his Daughters (123x120cm). — Judith and Holofernes (1636, 116x151cm) _ Furini, a central figure of Florentine seventeenth-century painting and a student of Passignano and of Bilivert, was in Rome in 1619. There he absorbed the foundations of the Caravaggesque style through his exposure to Manfredi. Next he went to Venice, where he developed a complex and individualistic baroque style; precious and hazily atmospheric. The dependence of the figure of Judith on a statue of Mars by Giambologna has been noted: the same artistic reference appears in other works of the painter. Judith and Holofernes belongs to the period of the painter's maturity. The figure of Judith can be connected to another painting of Furini's with a similar subject which belongs to an immediately subsequent moment of the artist's career |
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Born on 19 August 1848: Gustave Caillebotte,
French painter and collector who died on 21 February 1894. |
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Died on 19 August 1782: Francesco
de Mura, Italian painter born on 21 April 1696. — He studied under Francesco Solimena [04 Oct 1657 – 05 Apr 1747]. He was educated initially in the workshop of Domenico Viola at Naples, but in 1708 he entered the school of Francesco Solimena, whose favorite student and most trusted collaborator he became. At first he followed closely Solimena’s monumental Baroque manner, as in the frescoes (1715) in San Nicola alla Carità in Naples, but later developed a more controlled and refined style of rhythmical lines, light and airy colors and delicate psychological overtones. He employed this new style in his ten canvases of the Virtues and his vast Adoration of the Magi (all 1728) and, above all, in his frescoes of the Adoration by the Magi in the apsidal dome of the church of the Nunziatella, Naples (1732). De Mura was also active as a portrait painter; his Portrait of the Artist’s Wife (1730) and Self-portrait (1730) are both very much in Solimena’s manner. — LINKS — Self Portrait (1740, 130x102cm; 1295x1016pix, 990kb _ ZOOM to 2285x1792pix, 2724kb) — Starting of Enea (100x153cm) — The Madonna and Child with the Infant Saint John (26x20cm in an extravagantly ornate frame; half~size, 812kb _ ZOOM to full size, 1962kb) — Allegory of the Arts (1750, 142x132cm) — Charity (1743) — Ecce Homo |
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Born on 19 (18?) August 1805: Josef Franz Danhauser,
Viennese painter and designer <<<< who died on 04 May 1845.
— He was first taught drawing by his father, furniture manufacturer Josef Ulrich Danhauser [14 March 1780 – 06 Jan 1829] and then studied history painting at the Vienna Akademie (1820–1826). Peter Krafft was one of his teachers. On leaving the Akademie he took up an invitation from his patron, the Archbishop of Eger in Hungary, László Pyrker, to visit Venice; he spent five months there and paid particular attention to the work of the Old Masters. When he returned to Vienna, Danhauser was under great pressure from his family to become more involved in the running of the furniture factory, but Pyrker invited him to Eger with a commission to paint a number of portraits and to restore paintings in the gallery of the Archbishop’s Palace. On his father’s death in 1829, however, Danhauser returned to Vienna, where for several years he was effectively head of the factory. He returned to Erlau in 1833 when commissioned to paint the altarpiece for the new cathedral, The Martyrdom of Saint John (1835). The religious paintings that followed established his reputation: The Expulsion of Hagar (1836), for example, was awarded a prize by the Akademie. In 1838 he accepted the post of Korrektor of history painting at the Akademie, although he was outspoken in his criticism of both the inadequate curriculum and the unimaginative approach to teaching there. — Josef Danhauser, Genre-, Porträt- und Historienmaler; Sohn des Wiener Möbelfabrikanten Joseph Ulrich Danhauser. Studium an der Wiener Akademie bei J. P. Krafft. Übernahm 1829-1831 die Leitung der väterlichen Möbelfabrik, übergab diese 1831 seinen Brüdern, blieb als Möbelentwerfer tätig; trug mit seiner Arbeit wesentlich zum Wiener Möbelstil des Vormärz bei, beschäftigte sich ab den 30er Jahren mit der Darstellung naturalistischer Genreszenen aus dem vornehm-bürgerlichen Milieu. 1841/1842 Professor an der Wiener Akademie, bekannt durch moralisierende und verschlüsselt sozialkritische "Sittenbilder" sowie durch mehrere Künstlerporträts. — Eduard Kaiser and Henryk Rodakowski were students of Danhauser. — by Thomas Ender: Portrait of J. Danhauser (1834 drawing, 384x266pix, 42kb). — Selbstbildnis (drawing, 386x265pix, 44kb) — Liszt and his friends Paganini and Rossini, with a bust of Beethoven (910x780pix, 84kb) — The Widow's Offering (97x127cm; 631x833pix, 52kb) — Der Augenarzt. Gemälde (1837; 400x535pix, 45kb) — Group from The Rake (1836; 493x500pix, 70kb) |
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Died on 19 August 1957: David Bomberg,
English painter, specialized in landscapes,
born on 05 December 1890. — Son of an immigrant Polish leather-worker. While apprenticed to a lithographer he attended evening classes by Walter Bayes at the City and Guilds Institute and he was assisted by the Jewish Educational Aid Society to study at the Slade School 1911-1913. He was associated with Wyndham Lewis' Vorticist movement (contemporary with Cubism and a precursor to Abstraction) and exhibited in the 'Cubist Room' at the Camden Town Group Exhibition at Brighton, 1913-1914. In 1914 he was a founding member of the London Group and in 1915 he was invited to take part in the Vorticist Exhibition. His best known work from this period is 'The Mud Bath' (1914). In 1919, after declining artistic success, he retired from active participation in the artistic life of the country and worked in isolation. He stayed in Palestine (1923-1927) and made trips to Spain, Morocco, Greece and Russia (from 1929 onward). About 1929 he abandoned his abstract style and slowly developed a personal style of expressive brush strokes. — The fifth child of a Polish immigrant leather worker, Bomberg spent his earliest years in Birmingham and then grew up in the Whitechapel area of London. He suffered considerable financial hardship while studying at evening classes given by Walter Bayes [1869–1956] at the City and Guilds Institute from 1905 to 1908 and by Walter Sickert at Westminster Art School from 1908 to 1910. With the help of John Singer Sargent and the Jewish Education Aid Society, he secured a place at the Slade School of Fine Art, London, in 1911. It was a period of dramatic change, stimulated in part by Roger Fry's two Post-Impressionist exhibitions and the display of Italian Futurist works at the Sackville Gallery, London, in 1912. Bomberg was the most audacious painter of his generation at the Slade, proving in works such as Vision of Ezekiel (1912) and Ju-jitsu (1913) that he could absorb the most experimental European ideas, fuse these with Jewish influences and come up with a robust alternative of his own. His treatment of the human figure, in terms of angular, clear-cut forms charged with enormous energy, reveals his determination to bring about a drastic renewal in British painting. The direction taken by his art brought him into contact with Wyndham Lewis and the Vorticists, but Bomberg resisted Lewis's attempts to enlist him as a member of the movement. He refused to let his work be illustrated in Blast magazine and appeared only in the ‘Invited to show' section of the Vorticist Exhibition held in London in June 1915. His precocious confidence did not require group solidarity. Bomberg's two great canvases of 1914, In The Hold and The Mud Bath, take as their starting-point the East End of London, which Bomberg knew well, but he certainly did not produce documentary images of Whitechapel life. In the Hold, based on the subject of men at work on a ship moored at the docks, is dramatically fragmented by a grid that Bomberg has imposed on the figures, ladders and floorboards. The result is a flickering, darting canvas that conveys through its fractured elements the restless dynamism of the monumental labourers. The Mud Bath translates the spectacle of bathers at Schevzik's Vapour Baths, Whitechapel, into a harsh and strident painting. Half-human and half-mechanical, the blue and white figures hurl themselves around the red rectangle of water. The Mud Bath celebrates their energy in a taut and bracing manner but also reflects Bomberg's awareness that ‘I look upon Nature while I live in a steel city'. He made that assertion in the foreword to the catalogue of his first one-man show, held in July 1914 at the Chenil Gallery, London, where the Mud Bath was displayed outside the building and festooned with Union Jacks. ‘I APPEAL to a Sense of Form,' Bomberg proclaimed in the same militant statement, insisting: ‘My object is the construction of Pure Form. I reject everything in painting that is not Pure Form.' The Chenil Gallery exhibition marked the triumph of Bomberg's early career and earned him the admiration of many experimental artists both in London and abroad. The show was reviewed enthusiastically in The New Age (09 July 1914) by T. E. Hulme, whose views about machine-age art coincided in many respects with Bomberg's vision of the new century. With the advent of World War I, everything changed dramatically. By November 1915 Bomberg had enlisted in the Royal Engineers, and his harrowing experiences at the Front brought about a profound transformation in his outlook. It can be seen most clearly in the large painting of Sappers at Work, which he carried out as a commission for the Canadian Government. The first version (1919) retains much of the freedom of color and structure he had developed in the pre-war period, but it introduces recognizable figures that no longer conform to the mechanistic vision of The Mud Bath. When this version was rejected by the Canadian committee, Bomberg painted a far more realistic alternative (1919), which introduced an almost photographic style in the treatment of the men working underground. Bomberg never again returned to this dogged and limiting idiom, but he did explore a radically different path during the 1920s. His disillusion with the destructive power of the machine at war led to a few years spent experimenting with ways of making his stark pre-war style more rounded and organic. He traveled to Jerusalem in 1923 and concentrated on landscape painting. At first his paintings of Palestine were very tight and almost topographical in character. By the time he returned to London in 1927, however, his determination to base his art on first-hand experience of nature had led to a looser and more expressive approach. He developed an outspoken and impassioned language during a visit to Toledo in 1929, where he began to use the loose, gestural brushmark that characterized his later work. The nature of the landscape itself, his admiration for the work of El Greco and his profound dissatisfaction with the work he had recently produced in Palestine were all contributory factors. Throughout the 1930s Bomberg's art became broader and more impassioned as he sought to convey the essence of his response to landscapes in Scotland and Spain. At Cuenca and Ronda and in the Asturian mountains, in works such as Valley of la Hermida: Picos de Europa, Asturias (1935), Bomberg allowed his vigorously handled paint a life of its own — even as he continued to depict the natural world around him. This work met with little approval in Britain, and during World War II his outstanding series of Bomb Store paintings did not lead to further commissions from the War Artists Committee, despite his repeated requests. While continuing to suffer from appalling neglect in the post-war years, Bomberg was an influential teacher at the Borough Polytechnic, London. His students included Frank Auerbach and Leon Kossoff. His painting reached a climax at the same time with work done during expeditions to Devon and Cornwall and above all Cyprus (e.g. Castle Ruins at St Hilarion, 1948), where his search for ‘the spirit in the mass' resulted in fiery masterpieces charged with an exhilarating apprehension of the landscape he scrutinized. In 1954 he returned to Ronda with his wife Lilian and attempted to found a school of painting there, but the plan failed. His last years were darkened by the realization that his art remained overlooked and even belittled in Britain. His final landscapes and figure paintings, most notably the tragic Last Self-portrait (1956), include some of his most powerful works. — The students of Bomberg included Frank Auerbach, Leon Kossoff [07 Dec 1926~], Gustav Metzger. — LINKS — Vision of Ezekiel (1912, 114x137cm) _ Bomberg was closely associated with the Vorticist group in London. His ability to organise forms into powerful compositions is evident in this painting which was carefully prepared in several preliminary drawings. The subject is taken from the Old Testament and illustrates the occasion when God guided the prophet to a valley full of bones and commanded him to speak. 'There was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together.' Skeletal yet animated the figures appear to emerge from the platform. The brilliant colors emphasise the exultation associated with resurrection. Bomberg may have chosen this text after the sudden death of his mother. The pair had been close and he may have found consolation in this positive theme. — Ju-Jitsu (1913, 62x62cm) _ Bomberg's paintings of this date show an interest in the principles of both Cubism and Futurism. He wished to create a new visual language with which to express his perceptions of the modern industrial city. He wrote: 'the new life should find its expression in a new art, which has been stimulated by new perceptions. I want to translate the life of a great city, its motion, its machinery, into an art that shall not be photographic, but expressive.' Thus in this painting the representational elements are reduced to geometrical forms and a grid of diagonally-divided squares is superimposed on the whole composition. The sense of violent movement is reinforced by the title of the work. — In the Hold (1914, 196x231cm) _ This painting relates to Bomberg’s search for a purely visual language with which to express his perceptions of the modern urban environment. In the Hold is based on a scene of dockers working in the hold of a ship. A ladder, seen in the lower right of the picture, connects the hold with the deck above. In the centre left one of the dockers can be seen, wearing a hat. Bomberg has left visible the squaring-up grid, used to enlarge accurately the preliminary drawing. He has then used this geometrical framework to dissolve the subject of the picture into dynamic angular facets. Bomberg was aware of the militancy of the dockworkers which was much publicised at the time. — The Mud Bath (1914, 152x224cm) _ The way in which Bomberg reduces the human figure to a series of geometric shapes may reflect his fascination with the machine age, which he shared with the Futurists and Vorticists. The painting could also represent the human form, stripped to its essential core. The scene probably derives from steam baths near Bomberg’s home in east London, which were frequented by the local Jewish population and which had religious. — Jerusalem, Looking to Mount Scopus (1925, 56x75cm) _ In 1917 the British Government had declared support for the ‘establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people’. Six years later Bomberg, a Jewish artist from the East End of London, was commissioned by a Zionist organisation to paint images of Jewish settlements in Jerusalem. However, Bomberg was not a supporter of Zionism and found the British Government officials in Jerusalem more congenial patrons. The painstakingly detailed depiction of buildings in this painting probably reflects their desire to see a faithful description of the ancient city which they hoped to restore and protect from modernisation. — Barges (1919, 60x78cm) — The Artist's Wife and Baby (1937, 77x56cm) |
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Born on 19 August 1829: Edward Moran,
US painter who died on 09 June 1901. — [That's Moran, NOT Moron.] — Edward Moran, the oldest of the artistic Moran brothers, was acknowledged as the impetus behind the family's entry into the art world. "He taught the rest of us Morans all we know about art," stated his famous younger brother Thomas Moran [12 Feb 1837 – 26 Aug 1926]. The other brothers were Peter Moran [1841-1914], who specialized in painting animals in landscapes, and John Moran [1831-1902], a landscape photographer. Two of Edward's children, Percy Moran and Leon Moran, were artists also. During a long and successful career, Edward Moran became a member of the Philadelphia Academy of the Fine Arts and an Associate of the National Academy of Design. After working at a variety of trades, he turned to painting in the early 1850s. The first twenty-seven years of his artistic career were spent in Philadelphia, where he studied painting under the marine painter James Hamilton and under the landscapist Paul Weber. In 1861, Moran-traveled to London for additional instruction at the Royal Academy, and in 1871 he relocated to the New York area, where he remained for the rest of his life. Seascapes were Morans forte. By the 1880s, the artist was considered such an expert on the subject that his "hints for practical study' of marine painting were published in the September and November, 1888, issues of The Art Amateur. After his death, an admirer wrote that "As a painter of the sea in its many moods and phases, Edward Moran ... had no superior in America." — Edward Moran, brother of artist Thomas Moran, was born in Bolton, Lancashire, England. He began his professional life there as a weaver. In 1844 his family immigrated to Maryland, and soon thereafter Edward, the eldest of twelve children, left to work in a cotton factory in Philadelphia. His employer was impressed with Moran's sketches, which covered the factory walls and machine frames, and advised him to pursue an art career. First studying in Philadelphia, both Edward and Thomas returned to England in 1847 for further study. Edward began his formal career back in Philadelphia in the mid-1850s, a time when that city was experiencing the height of the United States' clipper ship production. The artist finally settled in New York City in 1872, where he spent the remainder of his life. It was in Philadelphia in the 1850s that Moran came under the influence of James Hamilton [1819-1878], a prominent Irish-born marine painter known for his silvery tones and loose accents of light. In 1861 Moran returned to England with his brother and made sketches along the Channel coast. Through Hamilton and his own trips abroad, Moran developed a style based primarily upon English painting of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and seventeenth-century Dutch painting. Moran saw a distinction between decorative and scientific marine painters and aligned himself with the latter. Believing the decorative painter achieved handsome effects at the expense of fidelity, Moran advocated gaining scientific knowledge as a tool in art and even suggested the use of a portable camera. Moran was also a history painter, yet most closely identified himself as a marine painter. He chose a marine painting to represent his work in a portfolio published by the Artists Fund Society. In 1894 The Art Amateur proclaimed Moran "the best known painter of the sea in the United States." Upon his death in 1901, it was commonly admitted that Moran "had no superior [in marine painting] in America." Yet he was not mentioned in major texts of the early twentieth century, and his name makes only a brief appearance in more recent studies of marine painting. His obscurity may be attributed to the fact that he has been and remains today in the shadow of his more famous brother, Thomas. — LINKS — Shipwreck (1862, 76x102cm) — Half-Way Up Mt. Washington (1868, 76x128cm) — Good Morning (1889; 107kb) — Shipping in New York Harbor (539x790pix, 108kb) — New York Harbor (484x797pix, 111kb) — Ships at Sea (56kb) |
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Died on 19 August 1657: Frans Snyders
(Snyers, Sneis), Flemish
painter born in Antwerp on 11 November 1579. — Baroque artist who was the most noted 17th-century painter of hunting scenes and animals in combat. Frans Snyders' parents kept an inn well-known for good food, which many artists frequented. In about 1592-1593, Snyders studied art under Pieter Brueghel the Younger, and later under Hendrik van Balen. He joined the Lukas Guild in 1602 and studied in Italy in 1602-1609. In 1611 he married Margaretha de Vos, the sister of the Flemish painters Cornelis and Paul de Vos. Snyders originally devoted himself to painting flowers, fruit, and still-life subjects, later turning to his lively depictions of animals. The compositions of these scenes of hunting and animals fighting are rich and varied. His drawing is accurate and vigorous, and his touch bold and thoroughly expressive of the different textures of furs and skins. Rubens frequently employed him to paint animals, fruit, flowers, and still-life objects in his own pictures. Apart from his domestic scenes, which showed the Mannerist influence, Snyders created two new categories of painting: the hunting still life, such as Wild Boar Hunt (1649), and the "larder" picture, such as Still Life with a Swan (1613-1620), Flowers, Fruits and Vegetables. He excelled as a painter of still life, transformed it into a lively scene, and also produced minutely observed, dramatic hunting scenes. Snyders was appointed principal painter to the archduke Albert, governor of the Low Countries, for whom he painted some of his finest works. One of these, a "Stag Hunt," was presented to Philip III of Spain, who commissioned the artist to paint several subjects of the chase. — LINKS — The Monkey and the Gander (1613, 164x222cm) [also two humans, a dead deer, most of a dead boar, dead birds, a boiled lobster, fruit] — Still Life with Cats and Monkeys (1635, 75x108cm) — Market Scene on a Quay (1635, 202x344cm) _ At 344 cm in width, Snyders' still life cannot fail to impress, as it must have when he became the first to paint market scenes on such a scale. Snyders' native Antwerp was then the leading commercial and artistic center of Flanders. This type of subject had been initiated by Pieter Aertsen in the same city during the previous century with such paintings as the Butcher's Stall. Snyders, as the foremost Flemish still life artist of his time, specialized in market scenes and compositions that included game animals. He, in fact, contracted with Rubens and others to paint still life elements for some of their commissions. Snyders was so successful that he employed assistants to paint portions of his compositions. The quality of fur and feathers in this work indicates that the master himself painted the deer, cat, swan, partridges, and curlew. Snyders observed his game birds with such remarkable specificity that each species can be identified. This luxurious display of the abundance of Antwerp's commercial port probably carries propagandistic overtones relating to the Spanish administration of Flanders or to the prosperity brought by the peace that followed recent war. Such produce as the artichokes and melon were relatively rare in Flanders and demonstrated the wealth of the city. — Cook and Food (1630, 88x120cm) _ The painting shows a cook preparing a meal and is set in a basement room. The woman is grinding spices with a pestle and mortar - there is a rolled-up bag full of cloves on the table in front of her — to improve the flavor of the vegetables (artichokes, asparagus and red turnips) and the different roasts. The artist's macabre sense of humor prompted him to depict the rabbit (on the left), both paws stretched out and flexed, as if with rigor mortis. Desserts have been placed on the shelf at the back, including a pie, lemons (one of them halved), a china bowl with strawberries and a bulging greenish jug which matches the two glasses with knob handles, hardly noticeable against the dark background. — The Fruit Basket (153x214cm) _ The genre of the still-life composed of things to eat was created at the end of the 16th century by the Antwerp painter Pieter Aertsen. Frans Snyders gave it a decorative amplitude that belongs to the Baroque spirit. — Fish Shop (210x340cm) _ The "Fish Shop" was originally painted for Bishop Antonio Triest to decorate the main dining room of his Bruges palace. The large canvas was later acquired by Catherine II in 1772. The canvas spectacularly displays the abundant gifts from the sea. — Fruit and Vegetable Stall (201x333cm) _ detail _ Occasionally it is hard to distinguish market scenes from the genre of early kitchen scenes which also tended to display still-life features. Similar to the market stall, they often show tables and sideboards with clusters of baskets and bowls full of fruit and vegetables. Many kitchen scenes are only distinguishable from market scenes by the setting. While the former have their location in a dark basement room, the latter often appear to be situated alongside the wall of a house, with a view of an open square or a street to the side. — Still-life with a Basket of Fruit (99x156cm) _ Snyders's usually large canvases and panels are characterized by an abundance of birds, game, fruit, fish, meat and vegetables in a lively arrangement. The exact representation of the texture of feathers, fur and skin, as well as the luminous, powerful coloring in his later works are outstanding. — Still-life (1614, 156x218cm) _ Just as a circle of specialists for individual genres gathered in Amsterdam around Rembrandt, the same was true in Antwerp around Rubens. Snyders frequently collaborated with him on arrangements of objects and staffage. On the other hand, Snyders also adopted Rubens' new Baroque principles into his own specialized area of still life. The result was a number of new pictorial types in this field. He initially drew upon the great kitchen interiors and pantry paintings of the Flemish Mannerists such as Aertsen or Beuckelaer. However, whereas these artists created "epic" arrangements of enormous breadth, Snyders sought to produce more dynamic still-lifes. He created the hunting still-life which not only features game, but also includes certain elements of the hunt itself, and in which each animal, dead or alive, still has its own tale to tell. In his portrayal of animals, he was peerless in his time. Whereas Dutch still-life presented coded "truths" and warned of the transience of earthly life, Snyders staged a theatrical drama portraying the riches of the world. Snyders' pantry scenes, a variation on the hunting still-life, are equally dynamic. — Vegetable Still-Life (1600, 144x157cm) _ This still-life from the collection of Margrave Hermann von Baden-Baden, which has - probably correctly - been ascribed to Frans Snyders, may have belonged to Rubens at one time. It is one of the few examples of early 17th-century Flemish paintings which do not show market or kitchen scenes but the agricultural sphere of the production itself. However, it is worth noting that the farmer's labor, as a source of the new wealth, has been completely delegated to the background (small section in the top right corner). |
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Born on
19 August 1621:
Gerbrand van den Eeckhout, Dutch painter
of portraits, religious subjects and genre, active in Amsterdam, who died
on 29 September 1674. — Dutch biblical, genre, and portrait painter, a gifted and favorite student (1635-1640) of Rembrandt [15 Jul 1606 – 08 Oct 1669], to whom he remained a close friend. His usual style is based so closely on that of his master that many of his pictures have passed as works of Rembrandt himself. Eeckhout was one of the most successful of this school in adopting the broader and bolder technique of Rembrandt's mature style, though he seldom approached the master in humanity or depth of feeling. In surprising contrast to his normal Rembrandtesque style are a number of highly finished genre subjects--guardroom scenes, backgammon players, and so on. An example of the early style, once thought to be by Rembrandt, is Christ Raising the Daughter of Jairus. A good example of genre in the manner of Terborch is The Music Lesson of 1655. A fine group portrait is Four Officers of the Amsterdam Coopers' and Wine-Rackers' Guild (1657). — LINKS — The Continence of Scipio (1652) — The Last Supper (1664) — Prophet Eliseus and the Woman of Sunem (1664, 110x155cm) _ In the Biblical story the prophet commands his servant to go with the kneeling woman and resurrect her dead son. _ detail _ The characteristic head of the old man Eliseus clearly shows the influence of Rembrandt. — Presentation in the Temple (59x48cm) _ The artist painted several versions of this subject. It is assumed from the different coloring of the left and right parts of the painting that it is an early work of the painter completed in the last decade of his life. — Portrait of a Family (1667, 85x100cm) _ In this painting the artist combines the elements of the landscape, portrait, and genre. — Scholar with his Books (1671, 65x49cm) _ Though Eeckhout was usually a close imitator of Rembrandt, in about 1655 he painted a number of scenes in the totally different manner of Ter Borch [1617 – 08 Dec 1681]. Eeckhout's Scholar with his Books gives us no impression of the wisdom evoked in Rembrandt's portrait of the Old Rabbi. Here we see an industrious pedant whose learning is indicated only by external objects — the books and the globe. The learned men portrayed by Vermeer [31 Oct 1632 – 15 Dec 1675] (e.g. L'astronome — Le géographe) and Rembrandt are men of exceptional qualities but their portraits cannot be called genre paintings. This picture by Eeckhout is certainly a genre painting, the sitter, however, is not shown to be a sage but a burgher. The warm brownish-red and yellowish colors and the manner of painting are reminiscent of Rembrandt's later style. — Vertumnus and Pomona (1669, 128x104cm) _ The subject is from Ovid's Metamorphoses: the god of the seasons, disguised as an old woman, tries to seduce Pomona, goddess of the fruit-gardens. The figure of Pomona is a portrait. — Party on a Terrace (1652) |
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Died on
19 August 1905: William Adolphe Bouguereau,
French painter born on 30 November 1825. — Husband of Elizabeth
Gardner Bouguereau. — Bouguereau had a long, successful career as an academic painter, exhibiting in the annual Paris Salons for more than 50 years. His paintings of religious, mythological, and genre subjects were carefully composed and painstakingly finished. Thus he opposed the admission of works by the impressionists to the Salon, because he believed that their paintings were no more than unfinished sketches. After a period of neglect following his death, Bouguereau's paintings were returned to view as part of a renewed interest in and reappraisal of academic painting and of École des Beaux-Arts works in general. From 1838 to 1841 Bouguereau took drawing lessons from Louis Sage, a student of Ingres, while attending the collège at Pons. In 1841 the family moved to Bordeaux where in 1842 his father allowed him to attend the École Municipale de Dessin et de Peinture part-time, under Jean-Paul Alaux. In 1844 he won the first prize for figure painting, which confirmed his desire to become a painter. As there were insufficient family funds to send him straight to Paris he painted portraits of the local gentry from 1845 to 1846 to earn money. In 1846 Bouguereau enrolled at the École Des Beaux-arts, Paris, in the studio of François-Édouard Picot. This was the beginning of the standard academic training of which he became so ardent a defender later in life. Such early works as Equality (1848) reveal the technical proficiency he had attained even while still training. In 1850 he was awarded one of the two Premier Grand Prix de Rome for Zenobia Discovered by Shepherds on the Bank of the River Araxes (1850). In December 1850 Bouguereau left for Rome where he remained at the Villa Medici until 1854, working under Victor Schnetz and Jean Alaux (1786–1864). During this period he made an extensive study of Giotto’s work at Assisi and Padua and was also impressed by the works of other Renaissance masters and by Classical art. On Bouguereau's return to France he exhibited the Triumph of the Martyr (1853) at the Salon of 1854. It depicted St. Cecilia’s body being carried to the catacombs, and its high finish, restrained color and classical poses were to be constant features of his painting thereafter. All his works were painted in several stages involving an initial oil sketch followed by numerous pencil drawings taken from life. Though Bouguereau generally restricted himself to classical, religious and genre subjects, he was commissioned by the state to paint Napoleon III Visiting the Flood Victims of Tarascon in 1856, so applying his style to a contemporary historical scene. In 1859 he provided some of the decorations for the chapel of St. Louis at Ste. Clothilde church, Paris (in situ), where he worked under the supervision of Picot. The austere style of the scenes from the life of St. Louis reflect Bouguereau’s knowledge of early Italian Renaissance art. Among Bouguereau’s Salon entries of the 1860s was Destitute Family (Charity) (1865), which conformed to a declining though still prevalent fashion for moving contemporary subjects. It depicts a mother surrounded by her children, seated by the Madeleine church in Paris. Though the mournful mother and wretched children were intended to play upon the emotions of the public, the classically inspired architectural backdrop and carefully arranged poses tend to idealize and ennoble the subject so as to avoid offense by too honest a form of realism. In 1867 Bouguereau painted the ceiling decorations for the chapels of Sts. Pierre~et~Paul and St. Jean~Baptiste at St. Augustin church in Paris (in situ), where he was required to follow the rigid instructions of the commissioning body. In 1869 he painted decorations and the ceiling of the Salle des Concerts at the Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux (in situ). Bouguereau remained in Paris during the 1870~1871 siege in the Franco-Prussian War and in 1875 he began teaching at the Académie Julian in Paris. The sober, even melancholy, nature of several works of the 1860s gave way to lighter, playful paintings in the 1870s. Most notable of these is Nymphs and Satyr (1873), which depicts nymphs playing around a satyr in a woodland setting. Employing an elegant, dynamic composition, the work was much praised by critics as well as being favored by Bouguereau himself. A similar spirit pervades Donkey Ride (1878), which was based upon the traditional festival that accompanies the harvest. Bouguereau was always eager to include children in his works and he here altered the figure playing Bacchus from the traditional young man to a small child. This prevalent use and idealization of children is often responsible for the sentimentality in many of his works. In 1881 Bouguereau was commissioned to provide decorations for the Chapelle de la Vierge of the St. Vincent~de~Paul church in Paris (in situ). He made eight large paintings depicting traditional scenes from the life of Christ, the last of which was finished in 1889. In 1884 he completed the huge painting of The Education of Bacchus (1884) showing the young god amidst a wild, dancing crowd at the coming of summer. As it was highly priced by Bouguereau, the work remained in his studio until his death. Many of the figures in the painting were inspired by those in contemporary and antique sculpture, an influence that was noticeable in other works also. In 1888 he was appointed a professor at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He continued painting and exhibiting until his death and among his later canvases is the characteristic work Admiration (1897), which shows how little his style had changed throughout his life. In addition to his better-known figure works, Bouguereau was also admired for his portraits, one of the most striking being Aristide Boucicart (1875), a stern three~quarter~length portrait of the founder of the famous Bon Marché store in Paris. Although his work was widely collected by the English and more especially by US art lovers in his lifetime, Bouguereau’s reputation in France was more equivocal — indeed quite low — in his later years. While popular with the public and various critics, his work ignored the increasing demand for paintings of modern life which had been made by Charles Baudelaire and was to be fulfilled by the Impressionists. Bouguereau remained a staunch supporter of the academic training system at a time when it was criticized for stifling originality and nurturing mediocrity. With the advent of modernism he was scorned as one of the most prominent representatives of everything the new movement opposed: high technical finish, narrative content, sentimentality and a reliance on tradition. This hostility was further heightened by the perceived association of academic painting with the bourgeois values that had resulted in world war. However, recent more objective assessments have reinstated Bouguereau as an important 19th~century painter. — Besides his wife, Bouguereau's students included Cecilia Beaux, Frank Bicknell, Eanger Irving Couse, Louis Dessar, Gaines Donoho, Eurilda France, Ellen Day Hale, Anna Klumpke, Lawton Parker, Edward Redfield, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Mary MacMonnies, Thomas Anshutz. — LINKS — The Broken Pitcher (1891) [scrollable image, zoomable to near life~size] — Alma Parens (872x597pix, 52kb — ZOOM to 2000x1194pix, 129kb) — Madonne Assise (1888, 177x103cm; 887x581pix, 52kb — ZOOM to 2000x1162pix, 154kb) — La Naissance de Vénus (816x574pix, 44kb — ZOOM to 2039x1436pix, 289kb) — Jeune Prêtresse (1902; 868x377pix, 25kb — ZOOM to 1613x755pix, 70kb — ZOOM++ to 3236x1159pix, 189kb) — Self Portrait (1879; 1126x876pix) — The Virgin, the Baby Jesus and Saint John the Baptist (1875; 1000x588pix) — Madonna and Child with Saint John the Baptist (1882; 1124x640pix) — Virgin of Consolation (1877; 1129x795pix) — Charity (1878; 1125x683pix) — Child Carrying Flowers (1878; 1040x625pix) — Jeune Fille se Défendant contre Éros (1880; 1126x775pix, 135kb) and its 1885 monochrome version: Résistance à un Amour (35x24cm; half size _ ZOOM to full size) — Le Crabe (1869; 1132x897pix) — Breton Little Brother and Big Sister (1871; 1000x680pix) — 103 images at Webshots |
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