ART 4
2-DAY 08 September |
BIRTH:
1706 DE FAVRAY |
1504: MICHELANGELO'S DAVID |
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Died on 08 September 1845: William
James Müller, Bristol British painter and draftsman
born on 28 June 1812. — He was the son of a Prussian émigré and his Bristol-born wife. He began drawing at an early age and in 1827 was apprenticed to James Baker Pyne, a follower of Turner. By the early 1830s Müller had acquired a reputation for the rapidity and proficiency of his sketching. His first subjects were predominantly the picturesque back streets of Bristol and the woods and lanes of the surrounding countryside. While influenced by the landscapes of older Bristol colleagues such as Samuel Jackson [1794–1869], Müller also adopted stylistic elements from other artists, including Samuel Prout and John Sell Cotman. This eclecticism was to continue throughout Müller’s career and was both a strength and a weakness in his art. — David Cox was a student of Müller. LINKS — The Statuette Seller (1843, 75x50cm) — Piazetta And The Doge's Palace, Venice (1836, 74x111cm) View of Bologna: Capriccio with Eastern Figures (1835, 60x90cm) 30 works at the Tate |
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Died on 08 September 1962: Ohel
Emmanuel Katz “Mané-Katz”, French painter
of Jewish life, born on 05 June 1894. — {many cats? — Oh, hell
!}— {“many cats” is not the same as “alley cats”,
and Mané-Katz is not the same as Alex Katz [24 Jul 1927~]} Born in Ukraine. He studied in an Art School in Kiev. In 1913 he went to Paris to study art at the École Nationale des Beaux Arts and became a friend of Haim Soutine. He was made prisoner of the Germans in Royan in 1939. In 1958 he moved to Israel, where he died. — French painter and sculptor of Ukrainian birth. He came from an orthodox Jewish family; his father was sexton of a synagogue, and he was originally intended to become a rabbi. After studying at the School of Fine Arts in Kiev, he visited Paris for the first time in 1913 and enrolled in Fernand Cormon's class at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, where his fellow students included Chaďm Soutine. He was influenced by Rembrandt, by the Fauves (especially Derain) and, briefly, by Cubism. Mané-Katz returned to Ukraine after the outbreak of World War I. There he was appointed professor at the academy in Khar'kov (now Kharkiv) in 1917, after the Revolution. He left again for Paris in 1921, this time with the intention of taking as his principal theme life in the ghettos of Eastern Europe, the rabbis and Talmudic students, the fiddlers and drummers, comedians and beggars, for example in The Eternal People (1938); he also painted a number of landscapes and flower studies. His style became expressionist and baroque, with loose brushwork and rhythmical forms. He obtained French citizenship in 1927 but after the fall of France took refuge from 1940 to 1945 in New York, where he also began to make a few sculptures, such as the Double-bass Player (bronze, 61cm high, 1943). After the war his paintings became much bolder in their colors and patterning. He made a number of visits to Israel and left the works in his possession to the town of Haifa, where they formed the basis of a museum devoted to his work. In 1958 he moved to Israel, where he died in Tel Aviv. — Ohel Mané-Katz was born in Kremenchug, Ukraine, a province of the Russian Empire. He studied in religious schools and was expected to become a Rabbi. At age 16, however, young Ohel developed an interest in art. In due time, he graduated from the Vilnius School of Art and the Academy of Art in Kiev. In 1913 he moved to Paris, along with many promising artists of the day. He enrolled in the prestigious École Nationales des Beaux-Arts and studied under Fernand Cormon, teacher of Vincent van Gogh. It was there he befriended Soutine and Chagall. Who knows who influenced whom during those formative years? We do know that Chagall and Katz wound up with similar styles and common religious themes. At the outbreak of WWI the artist returned to Russia, only to surface again in Paris soon thereafter. He became a citizen of France in 1927. Now famous, the prominent artist traveled to Palestine and established a workshop in Haifa, a city destined to become his permanent artistic residence. The artist bequeathed hundreds of paintings and sculpted works to this "adopted ancestral home." Even though Mané-Katz was a fine sculptor, he is known to the world as an exemplar of Jewish Expressionism, a painter. Today a museum in Haifa is dedicated to his work. One of his paintings, Rabbi in a Yellow Gown, is on display at the Vilna Gaon Jewish Museum. Mané-Katz was born into a religious Jewish family in the Ukraine and impregnated with Jewish mysticism. Mané-Katz studied art in Kiev and came to Paris in 1913. There he befriended Soutine and Chagall and discovered the works of Rembrandt exhibited in the Louvre museum. He returned to Russia during the First World War and worked for the Russian Ballets. Back in Paris in 1921, he started to collect many Jewish art objects and took French citizenship in 1927. Two years later he traveled to Palestine to feel the air of the Holy Land. He exhibited his works in many Salons until 1939 and then sought refuge in the US during World War Two. Back again in Paris in 1945, he continued to work intensely producing in a joyful manner hundreds of Rabbinical portraits and Judaic themes as if he wanted to partly fulfil his father’s wish to see him become a Rabbi. — Mane-Katz was born in the Ukraine. At age 17 he was admitted to the Beaux Arts in Kiev but escaped to France in 1913. When World War I began in 1914, he tried to join the Foreign Legion but could not because he was too short. He continued studying at the Beaux Arts of Paris. His first exhibit was in Saint Petersburg n 1914. In 1917 he joined the Soviet Revolution in Kiev but was horrified by Stalinism. He escaped to France in 1926, and became French. Mane-Katz was a great traveler from 1927 to 1939. He went all over the world painting and showing his masterpieces. Drafted in 1939, he was taken prisoner by the Germans, escaped, and went to New York where he stayed until 1945, showing his paintings at Katia Granoff Gallery, at Wildenstein, etc. After the war he resumed traveling, painting, and showing in Brazil, Japan, Isreal, Argentina, Switzerland. Mané-Katz is one of the main masters of the "École de Paris". His painting is extremely powerful but often somber and even sad. — Portrait of a Young Jewish Woman(1928, 55x46cm; 842x700pix; 147kb — ZOOM to 1684x1400pix, 300kb) — Rabbi Studying (62x50cm) Father and Son (74x74cm) — Chaim Soutine peintre de plein air (30x36cm; 322x397pix, 48kb) — Red Gladiolas (91x51cm)> Place de la Concorde (74x91cm)> Russian Shtetl (1931) In 1931, when Mané-Katz painted this fierce Russian landscape, he had already acquired French citizenship and was a successful artist in his adopted country. Mané-Katz first arrived in Paris in 1913, staying only one year before returning to the Ukraine. He settled in France in 1921 and quickly became identified with the Jewish artists of Montparnasse. Although religious subjects and Jewish genre scenes were rare among the avant-garde, he remained faithful to his orthodox heritage, choosing as his primary theme life in the shtetls of Eastern Europe. Russian Shtetl shows Mané-Katz’s admiration for Rembrandt in its dark, northern tone. The tumultuous brushwork and violent masses of somber color that engulf the lone figure convey the harshness of everyday life. — Hassidic Child (33x41cm; 488x688pix, 24kb) Sadness, solitude, resignation, all these appear in the eyes of this "Hassidic child". Still, faith is there, and its somber joy! A heartbreaking picture! — The Yeshiva Boy (1950, 24X18cm) _ At the age of 16, Katz went to the Academy of Kiev where he started to paint Chassidic subjects drawing from his environment of the Yiddish shtetl and elaborating on them in poetic terms and on grandiose scale. In 1921 he exhibited in Paris. He is especially known for his glowing and sumptuous color harmonies and his nervous line. His paintings executed in thick roughly textured layers of colors and his long and impulsive brushstrokes determine the visual rhythm and movement of his pictures such as this one. — The Rabbi — Snowy Landscape (1961, 54x65cm; 385x471pix, 21kb) — Rabbi in a Yellow Gown (1925, 38x47cm) _ Mané-Katz was born to a religious family. He was expected to be a Rabbi but became an artist instead, producing joyful rabbinical portraits like this one. Painted with bold and whimsical brushstrokes, the "Yellow Rabbi" howls of Jewish tradition. The artist was exposed to this stylish exaggeration at Berlin Academy of Art, the birthplace of modern expressionism. He continued his training in Paris, working with Soutine and Chagall. Katz and Chagall would develop a semblance of common style and subject matter, devoted to Jewish life and Judaic themes. Today Mané-Katz is recognized as an exemplar of Jewish Expressionism. |
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Died on 08 September 1879: William Morris
Hunt, US Barbizon
School painter, printmaker, sculptor, teacher, born on 21 (31?) March
1824. Not to be confused with English painter William
Holman Hunt [02 April 1827 07 September
1910] Born in Brattleboro, Vermont, William Morris Hunt spent much of his youth in New Haven, Connecticut. Ill health ended a three-year enrollment at Harvard College, where he had studied sculpture under Henry Kirke Brown [1814-1886]. In 1843 he left for Europe, eventually enrolling at the Dusseldorf Academy in Germany. Tiring of its rigid approach to art, Hunt soon departed for France, where he entered the atelier of Thomas Couture [1815-1879]. The French instructor was less strict than his German counterparts but still highly structured in his teaching methods. The disenchanted Hunt eventually found his way into the circle of the French Barbizon landscape painters, becoming especially close to Jean François Millet [1814-1875]. Hunt returned to the United States in 1855, settling first in Newport, Rhode Island, and later in Boston, where he became important as both a painter and teacher. He was a powerful artistic force, bringing Boston into contact with European art, particularly that of the Barbizon School. By 1859 Hunt had become a very successful portrait painter. In the years just after the Civil War his commissions reached a peak. — While a student at Harvard College, Hunt exhibited precocious talents in the arts and studied under John Crookshanks King [1806–1882], a sculptor working in Boston. In 1843 Hunt went to Europe with his mother and siblings, his father having died of cholera in 1832. They visited Paris and Rome, where he studied briefly under the US Neo-classical sculptor Henry Kirke Brown [1814–1886]. In 1845 he toured the Near East with his family and Thomas Gold Appleton, a patron and essayist from Boston, visiting Corfu and Athens en route. Later that year, he took the advice of Emanuel Leutze and enrolled in the Düsseldorf Academy, but he remained there only nine months. In 1846 Hunt went to Paris with the intention of joining the workshop of the sculptor James Pradier, but he was inspired to become a painter after seeing The Falconer (1845) of Thomas Couture. Hunt never abandoned his sculptural training, however, and continued to produce work such as the plaster relief of The Horses of Anahita (1848). From 1847 to 1852 he worked in Couture’s studio, where he rapidly became a favorite student. An example of his early figure painting is La Marguerite (1852, 116x90cm), which reflects Couture’s influence in its centralized composition, its definition of form through broad masses of light and dark and its rich and elegant textures. Using the same techniques as Couture, Hunt created shaded areas with smooth sepia turpentine washes and contrasted these with dramatic highlights of thick impasto. Couture was a consummate technician, and his student assimilated and quickly mastered his doctrine of the primacy of style. — Hunt's students included John La Farge, Elizabeth Duveneck, Daniel Chester French, Henry James. LINKS Governor's Creek, Florida (1874, 63x99cm) Peasant Girl (1852) Agnes Elizabeth Claflin (1873) Captain William Madigan (1866, 132x92cm) Hunt's strong affiliation with Boston probably led to his being selected to paint this posthumous military portrait of the Boston-born William Madigan. The work was commissioned by Massachusetts Governor John A. Andrew during the Civil War and is one of several portraits done by Hunt of Civil War heroes. Like most of Hunt's portraits of the time, Captain William Madigan is sober and straightforward in execution. As he often did in offcial male portraits, Hunt silhouetted the dark form of the offcer against a light background to produce a bold, imposing image, appropriate for a memorial. His painting techniques at this time varied from a loose, visible brushwork to the smooth, controlled sfumato shown here. William Madigan served in the Ninth Regiment of the Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, also known as the "Irish North." He was killed on 27 June 1862, at the age of thirty-six in the Battle of Chickahominy in Gaines Mill, Virginia. A contemporary account of his regiment recorded: There [in Virginia] Captain Madigan ßourished, a wit and every inch a gentleman; a brave soldier who perished gallantly fighting at the battle of Chickahominy. Madigan was a punster and a vocalist; could tell a pleasing story, or perpetrate a good joke. He was greatly beloved by his brother officers, and his death, noble and patriotic though it was, filled them with profound sorrow. None of Madigan's light-hearted side is evident in Hunt's appropriately ennobling portrait. He looms large against a very low horizon line, inviting us to look up at him from a somewhat reverential viewpoint. Hunt has cropped the figure at knee length; it is as if Madigan is floating against the sky, no longer of the earth. His posture with hands folded and his somber expression also invite an attitude of veneration. The surrounding space is lacking in extraneous detail, forcing the viewer to remain entirely focused on his image. The only visual detractions are the military decorations on his uniform. The solemnity of the portrayal is heightened by a relentless verticality found not only in the subject's form but also in the row of buttons, the sword, the tassels, and the medal hanging on his chest. |
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Born on 08 September 1706: chevalier
Antoine de Favray, French painter, active and famous in
Malta, who died on 26 February 1798. — In 1738 he was a private student of Jean-François de Troy II, who was then director of the Académie de France in Rome. In 1739 de Favray became an official student at the Académie. Among his student works is a copy of Raphael’s Fire in the Borgo, which was exhibited in Paris in 1741. In 1744 he left Rome for Malta, remaining there for much of the rest of his career and devoting himself primarily to portraiture and genre painting. His ambition as a history painter, however, was fulfilled to a certain extent as a result of the patronage of two Grand Masters of the Order of the Knights of Malta, Manoel Pinto da Fonseca and Emmanuel de Rohan. De Favray's first dated picture painted in Malta is a Portrait of a Maltese Lady (1745). Portraits and island scenes showing the inhabitants in local costume assured him a certain fame in France; he reserved a less exotic portrait style for his official Maltese clientele. [Maltese stamp for the 200th anniversary of de Favray's death >] — The artistic activity of Antoine de Favray for the Order was substantial. After the 03 January 1699 death of Mattia Preti no painter of talent was linked to the Order of Malta until de Favray arrived on the island in 1744 to decorate various churches. He was received into the Order on 12 July 1751 as «servente d'arme» by the Grand Master Pinto de Fonseca, of whom he did the splendid portrait in «cappa magna» now in the sacristy of St. John's Co-Cathedral in Malta. An excellent portraitist, de Favray painted an authentic gallery of Grand Masters and eminent personages of the Order, views of Maltese life and the famous «View of the Interior of St. John's Cathedral» now in the St. Petersburg Hermitage. Appointed Knight Commander of Valcanville in Normandy by Grand Master Emmanuel de Rohan for his artistic merits, de Favray never left the Knights' island again. Except for an extended sojourn in Constantinople from 1762 to 1771. In fact he remained in Malta, after Napoleon's occupation in 1798, and eventually died there. — Portrait of de Favray in the regalia of a Knight of Malta. — Grandmaster Philippe Viliers de L'Isle Adam _ L'Isle Adam was the first Grandmaster of Malta with the Order taking formal possession of Malta in 1530 — Grand Master Jean Parisot de La Valette _ Grandmaster La Valette was the founder of Malta's capital city Valletta and his tomb lies in the crypt of St John's Co-Cathedral — Grand Master Pinto (529x391pix, 21kb) — Grand Master De Rohan (600x430, 30kb) — Maltese Woman Visiting her Friend (528x402pix, 20kb) |
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Died on 08 September 1627: fray Juan
Sánchez y Cotán, Spanish painter born on 25
June 1560. — Sánchez Cotán was born in the town of Orgaz near Toledo on June 25, 1560. He was a friend and perhaps student of Blas de Prado. Stylistically, he falls within the school of El Escorial, with Venetian influence. For approximately twenty years he pursued a successful career in Toledo as a painter, patronized by the city’s aristocracy, painting religious scenes, portraits and still lifes, the latter having a severe naturalism unlike the prevailing artistic style, and having its roots not in contemporary artistic trends but in the Renaissance intellectual currents awakening to a more secular, this-worldly, scientific view of Nature. These paintings found a receptive audience among the educated intellectuals of Toledo society. In 1603 Cotán abandoned his artistic career and moved to Grenada, where he became a lay brother of the Carthusian Order Sanchez Cotán studied in Toledo and there he established the prototype of the Spanish still-life composed mainly from vegetables. He was a still-life painter in Toledo until 1603, when he decided to become a monk, and in the following year he entered the Carthusian monastery at Granada as a laybrother. The religious works he painted after this date are unexceptional, but as a still-life painter he ranks with the great names of European painting. Characteristically he depicts a few simple fruits or vegetables, arranged on a ledge or shelf with an almost geometric clarity and standing out against a dark background (Quince, Cabbage, Melon, Cucumber, 1602). Each form is scrutinized with such intensity that the pictures take on a mystical quality, conveying a feeling of wonder and humility in front of the humblest items in God's creation. Sánchez Cotán's austere style had considerable influence on Spanish painting, notably on Zurbarán [bap. 07 Nov 1598 – 27 Aug 1664]. LINKS Still-life (1600; 584x840pix, 100kb) a different Still-life (1600, 69x85cm; 720x867pix, 105kb) _ Everyday objects: a melon, cut open to reveal its pale pink flesh, a knobbly cucumber, a yellow apple that is past its best, a cabbage with thick leaves. Parallel to the picture plane, a smooth frame delineates tbe opening for a window. From the direction of the spectator, light falls upon the parapet, on which the slice of melon and the cucumber are placed so that they jut over slightly and thereby they seem to be almost within reach — a trompe l'oeil effect that was particularly popular in Netherlandish painting in the 17th century. The head of cabbage and the apple, suspended on threads that presumably have been attached to the upper frame, are dangling over the gaping darkness. Even if the objects are arranged so that they seem close enough to touch, they are nevertheless distanced. For all the naturalism with which they are depicted, the isolation of each object, heightened further by the black background, makes each of them seem extremely artificial and lends them a monumental, almost sculptural gravity. The center of the picture is empty and the arrangement seems coincidental; the dimension of the painted picture is denied. The disturbing evocation of the painted picture is the main theme. San Sebastián Quince, Cabbage, Melon, Cucumber (1602; 69x85cm) |
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Unveiled on 08 September 1504: DAVID,
Michelangelo's statue The 4.34-meter marble statue of David is unveiled in Florence. The high point of the early style of Michelangelo Buonarroti [06 Mar 1475 – 18 Feb 1564] is the gigantic marble David, which he produced between 1501 and 1504, after returning to Florence. The Old Testament hero is depicted by Michelangelo as a lithe nude youth, muscular and alert, looking off into the distance as if sizing up the enemy Goliath, whom he has not yet encountered. The fiery intensity of David's facial expression is termed terribilitŕ, a feature characteristic of many of Michelangelo's figures and of his own personality. David, Michelangelo's most famous sculpture, became the symbol of Florence and originally was placed in the Piazza della Signoria in front of the Palazzo Vecchio, the Florentine town hall. With this statue Michelangelo proved to his contemporaries that he not only surpassed all modern artists, but also the Greeks and Romans, by infusing formal beauty with powerful expressiveness and meaning. In 1501 Michelangelo was commissioned to create the David by the Arte della Lana (Guild of Wool Merchant), who were responsible for the upkeep and the decoration of the Cathedral in Florence. For this purpose, he was given a block of marble which Agostino di Duccio had already attempted to fashion forty years previously, perhaps with the same subject in mind. Michelangelo breaks away from the traditional way of representing David. He does not present us with the winner, the giant's head at his feet and the powerful sword in his hand, but portrays the youth in the phase immediately preceding the battle: perhaps he has caught him just in the moment when he has heard that his people are hesitating, and he sees Goliath jeering and mocking them. The artist places him in the most perfect " contraposto", as in the most beautiful Greek representations of heroes. The right-hand side of the statue is smooth and composed while the left-side, from the outstretched foot all the way up to the disheveled hair is openly active and dynamic. The muscles and the tendons are developed only to the point where they can still be interpreted as the perfect instrument for a strong will, and not to the point of becoming individual self-governing forms. Once the statue was completed, a committee of the highest ranking citizens and artists decided that it must be placed in the main square of the town, in front of the Palazzo Vecchio, the Town Hall. It was the first time since antiquity that a large statue of a nude was to be exhibited in a public place. This was only allowed thanks to the action of two forces, which by a fortunate chance complemented each other: the force of an artist able to create, for a political community, the symbol of its highest political ideals, and, on the other hand, that of a community, which understood the power of this symbol. "Strength" and "Wrath" were the two most important virtues, characteristic of the ancient patron of the city Hercules. Both these qualities, passionate strength and wrath, were embodied in the statue of David. Every aspect of this sculpture is stupendous the concept, the execution, the godlike anatomy of David's body, the anxiety in his eyes, his casual stance disguising his fear, the head's impressive mass of curls. It sums up the perfect ideal of both mankind and the divine spirituality of the all-powerful creator. There is not a single imperfection in the entire majestic work. La scultura, eseguita da Michelangelo nel 1504, fu collocata in Piazza della Signoria, davanti all'ingresso principale del Palazzo, quale simbolo e garanzia delle libertŕ repubblicane. Quando fu mostrato al pubblico il David aveva dorati "la cigna, il broncone e la ghirlanda", costituita da una corona di alloro in filo di ottone con foglie in rame dorato, fissata alla folta capigliatura dell'eroe. Nel 1873 la statua fu trasferita per motivi di conservazione alla Galleria dell'Accademia e in seguito, davanti a Palazzo Vecchio, fu sostituita da una copia novecentesca. — LINKS |