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ART “4” “2”-DAY 15 July

DEATHS: 1916 LEMMEN — 1853 VON KOBELL — 1609 CARRACCI — 1821 KRIMMEL

BIRTHS: 1718 ROSLIN — 1854 MALCZEWSKI — 1606 REMBRANDT — 1600 COSSIERS

^ Died on 15 (05?) July 1916: Georges Lemmen, Belgian Art Nouveau painter and decorative artist born on 25 (26?) November 1865. — [Did art dealers find it difficult to sell his paintings, because potential buyers misunderstood them to say: “This is a lemon.”?]
— Lemmen showed a precocious talent, first exhibiting in 1875. His only formal study was at a local school of drawing. Between 1884 and 1886 he showed at the Essor group in Brussels paintings that were based on Dürer and Holbein and closely related to those of Lemmen’s contemporary, Khnopff. When Lemmen became a member of Les XX in 1888 his style developed quickly, influenced principally by French Neo-Impressionism and the English Arts and Crafts Movement. Lemmen adopted the pointillist technique following Seurat’s first showing with Les XX in 1887. His best pointillist canvases include The Carousel (1891) as well as portraits of Julie (1891) and Mme Lemmen (1895)
— A Belgian painter, engraver, draftsman and designer, George Lemmen, was born in 1865 in Schaerbeek. For a short period he studied at the school of drawing in St. Josse-ten-Noode. In the early 1880s he became influenced by Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec. In 1888 he joined the avant-garde group Les Vingt in Brussels. In 1890-1893, under the influence of Théo van Rysselberghe, he moved towards Neo-Impressionism and painted numerous landscapes and portraits using the technique. He exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris and participated in Les Vingt exhibitions in Brussels. The death of Seurat in 1891 had a great impact on all the painters of the Neo-Impressionist group. By 1895 Lemmen freed himself from Pointillism and painted in a more traditional, Impressionist style, though his colors were closer to those of the Nabis-painters. During his travel to England Lemmen became interested in artifacts. His one-man show in 1913 in Brussels had a great success. In July 1915 he moved to Ukkel, where he died in July 1916. His wide-ranging work includes numerous book illustrations, posters, ceramics, carpets, drawings, pastels and gouaches.
— C'est à l'âge de neuf ans et demi, que Georges Lemmen expose pour la première fois, à Termonde, à l'exposition des Beaux-Arts. De douze à dix-huit ans, il prend part régulièrement aux différents salons triennaux de Gand, Bruxelles ou Anvers. A treize ans, il entre à l'Académie des Beaux-Arts de Saint-Josse-ten-Noode réputée pour son enseignement moins conventionnel. En 1883-1884, alors qu'il suit encore ses cours, il subit très nettement l'influence de Khnopff, des écrivains symbolistes et des pré-raffaelites anglais. Dans ses peintures, les personnages sont plongés dans une atmosphère intimiste et recueillie. Ils ont le regard absent et les gestes posés, qui les rendent immatériels et les projettent hors du temps.
      En 1885, sa palette s'éclaircit, et trois ans plus tard, ses sujets se modernisent. On retrouve dans les œuvres de cette époque l'admiration qu'il porte à Degas et Toulouse-Lautrec. Il peint avec d'une touche devenue très expressive et un naturalisme quelquefois trivial, des scènes de femmes à leur toilette ou de café-concert,. Seurat avait exposé Dimanche Après-midi à la grande Jatte en 1887 au très avant-gardiste Cercle des XX dont Lemmen était membre. Cette œuvre étonnante aux yeux de ceux qui la virent à cette occasion fit quelques émules au sein du cercle. Finch y exposa ses premières œuvres pointillistes un an plus tard, Van Rysselberghe fit de même un peu plus tard. Et en 1890, c'est au tour de Lemmen (et d'autres encore), de se convertir aux pratiques néo-impressionnistes. Les sujets de prédilection de Lemmen sont encore les portraits, représentés dans un intérieur dépouillé afin que l'attention soit concentrée uniquement sur l'invisible, sur l'âme du modèle. Il réalise également des scènes d'extérieur, des marines, des vues de la Meuse ou de la campagne. La vie moderne et populaire fait aussi partie de son répertoire. Il y peindra des foires et carrousels.
      Attiré par les Arts Décoratifs, il commence des réalisations vers 1890, créant des motifs pour broderies, carreaux céramiques ou tapis. A cette époque, ses compositions sont élaborées et encore figuratives. En 1895, cette figuration va faire place, à des arabesques et à une ornementation très décorative où la ligne en "coup de fouet ", typique de l'Art Nouveau prendra le pas pour définir une calligraphie nouvelle et personnelle.
      Au tournant du siècle, l'artiste se remet en question. Il se lasse de cette discipline et des pensées sociales qui l'accompagnent. Ses convictions, au fond, n'ont jamais été très fortes. Il se remet à la peinture plus intensément alors qu'il avait déjà abandonné, cinq ans plus tôt, la technique du point. Son expérience dans les Arts Décoratifs, et ses influences précédentes le rapproche des Nabis. Il pose la matière picturale devenue plus dense, en petites touches. Les tons qu'il utilise sont plus sourds tandis que les différents plans sont écrasés. En 1906, il commence à peindre des baigneuses et sa manière de traiter le sujet évolue: ses scènes silencieuses et intimistes, ses personnages profondément inspirés et presque irréels gagnent en force et en présence. Jusqu'à la fin de sa vie, et malgré la reconnaissance que les autres portent à son œuvre, Lemmen sera toujours mécontent de son travail, et surtout de ses envois. Il a presque honte d'exposer des scènes qui lui semblent si peu inspirées. Il regrettera également de n'avoir pu offrir une vie plus confortable à sa femme et ses enfants.

— LINKS
— Self-Portrait (1890, 43x38cm)
— Avec le plus vif de plaisir, chère Madame! (1909, 14x9cm)
— 65 Avenue de Longchamp...Et bon train! (1906, 9x14cm)
— Demain Lundi entre 7 et 8 h (1907, 9x14cm)
— The Beach at Heist (1892, 38x46cm; 217kb) [NOT Heist at the Beach. But did he consider painting Heist at the Bank ? If so, nothing came of it, perhaps because he could not get robbers to stand still long enough to paint them. OK, seriously now: Heist is a seaside town in Belgium (“le Dauville belge”) at 51º20' N, 3º14' E, between Blankenberge and Knokke.— Knokke-Heist webcam]
— Mme. Lemmen (1893, 60x51cm; 201kb)
— Les soeurs Serruys (1894, 68x80cm; 985x1140pix, 444kb) _ Several progressive Belgian and Dutch painters, such as Georges Lemmen, eagerly adopted the Neo-Impressionist theories and practices developed by Seurat in Paris. The compelling presence of this double portrait is as much due to Lemmen's bold use of color as to the psychological overtones often found in his images. The composition is dominated by the red dresses and the blue backdrop, while dots of green and orange are distributed across both color zones. Lemmen's use of these few colors illustrates the law of simultaneous contrast, which holds that applying complementary hues—or opposites on the color wheel—in adjacent areas intensifies their differences and stimulates a brilliant effect. His dotted frame is also based on juxtaposing complementary colors, and it is one of the few surviving examples of original Neo-Impressionist frames. The patterned tablecloth and twisting tendrils of money plant reflect Lemmen's interest in the decorative forms of Art Nouveau.
— Le petit Pierre (1904; 1037x830pix, 259kb)
— Le petit Pierre avec tournesols (1904; 1147x1139pix, 259kb)
— Woman and Child (1907; 1159x969pix, kb)
— Three Little Girls (1907; 887x1129pix)
— 42 images at Webshots

^ Born on 15 July 1718: Alexander Roslin, Swedish painter and pastelist, active in Germany and France, who died on 05 July 1793.
— He was trained by Lars Ehrenbill [1697–1747], a draftsman employed by the Admiralty in Malmö, and in Stockholm by Georg Engelhardt Schröder [1684–1750], a portrait painter working in the tradition of Hyacinthe Rigaud and Nicolas de Largillièrre. In 1741 Roslin moved to Göteborg, but the following year he returned to Malmö, where he painted devotional works for the parish church of Hasslöv, Halland, and began establishing himself as a portrait painter.
— Roslin was born the same year that Charles XII died, in 1718. This was a period of material reconstruction in Sweden. People were simply unable to afford the vanity and luxury which the fine arts were considered part of, and so young artists - Alexander Roslin among them - went abroad to search for a living. He was born in Skåne, in the south of Sweden, and learned to paint in Stockholm. In the mid-1740s he was court painter at Bayreuth. He went on an educational tour of Italy and in 1752 came to Paris. He then spent the rest of his life in France, except for two years in the service of Catherine II in St Petersburg, and it was in that connection that he passed through Sweden again.
— On 08 January 1759, Alexander Roslin married French pastelist and miniature painter Marie-Suzanne Giroust [09 Mar 1734 – 31 Aug 1772]. She was his model forThe Lady with the Veil (1768), among other paintings.
— Roslin's students included Per Gustaf Floding, Per Krafft, Lorens Pasch.

— LINKS
— Benjamin Franklin (1790, 73x60cm) This painting is based on a portrait by Joseph S. Duplessis that was owned by the artist. Duplessis first painted Franklin's portrait in Paris in 1778, and this original is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Numerous copies were made from it by Duplessis and other artists in the years that followed. _ (Benjamin Franklin by Houdon)
— Une jeune fille s'apprêtant à orner la statue de l'Amour d'une guirlande de fleurs (1783, 148x106cm; 782x580pix, 66kb)
— Charles-Antoine de la Roche-Aymon, Archbishop of Reims (1769, 102x80cm) _ detail (head and shoulders) _ detail (face)
— The Lady with the Veil (1768) _ Aka The Woman with a Fan, this is by far the best-known and most popular of all Alexander Roslin's paintings. The model is his wife. She is dressed à la Boulognaise — that is, after the manner of women from Bologna in Italy. Part of the fascination of this portrait is the model's gaze, partly secretive and hidden behind her veil. When the painting was put on show at the Paris Salon, the critic Diderot found it “très piquant”.

^ Died on 15 July 1853 (1855?): Wilhelm Alexander Wolfgang von Kobell, German painter, printmaker, and teacher, born on 06 April 1766.
— He was taught first by his father Ferdinand Kobell [07 Jun 1740 – 01 Feb 1799] and by his uncle Franz Kobell [23 Nov 1749 – 14 Jan 1822]. He then studied at the Zeichnungsakademie in his native Mannheim under Franz Anton von Leydendorf [1721–1795] and Egid Verhelst, learning the basics of engraving. During this period he familiarized himself with the various artistic trends of his time and earlier periods, including 17th-century Dutch painting and 18th-century English art. In this early period he began to experiment with prints, producing aquatints after 17th-century Dutch paintings in the galleries of Mannheim and Munich. From 1789 Kobell collaborated with his father on a series of landscapes, including the Aschaffenburg Cycle showing the surroundings of Schloss Johannisburg at Aschaffenburg. In 1790 Elector Palatine Charles Theodore, convinced of the young artist’s talent, purchased two landscapes, and the following year granted him 400 florins to travel to England and Italy; instead, Kobell used the money to finance a move (1793) to Munich. From 1792 Charles Theodore paid him an annual sum of 500 florins on condition that he deliver one picture each year to the Elector’s Gallery.
— Carl Friedrich Heinzmann and Eugen Neureuther were students of von Kobell. Egid von Kobell [07 Apr 1772 – 17 Jun 1847] was his brother.

— LINKS
— Hunting Party at Lake Tegernsee (1824) — Riders at Lake Tegernsee (1825)
— Riders at Lake Tegernsee II (1825)

^ Born on 15 July 1854: Jacek Malczewski (or Maleczevski), Polish painter who died in 1929, specialized in unhappy subjects.
— Jacek Malczewski made his only statement in painting; his immensely rich oeuvre remains ever intriguing and artistically uneven. The first stage was the so-called Siberian cycle, illustrating the torment of Polish deportees, portrayed naturalistically or filtered through the mystical poetry of Slowacki. During the Young Poland period, Malczewski created his own unique symbolic vocabulary in which corporeal and robust figures of chimeras, fauns, angels, and water sprites appear both in allegorical portraits, innumerable costume-clad self-portraits, landscapes, genre and religious scenes and, finally, in compositions which do not correspond to any thematic conventions. The art of Malczewski is dominated distinctly by two motifs, recurring and assorted painterly embodiments: the vocation of art and the artist, and death, under the antique form of Thanatos. The Malczewski oeuvre is the most vivid example of an intermingling of folk motifs and an anti-classical, Dionysian vision of antiquity, typical for Polish modernism; the artist achieved a peculiar polonisation of ancient mythology, not only by placing chimeras and fauns in a Polish landscape but also within an historical-national context, which ultimately proved to be regarded as the most important by this student of Matejko.

— LINKS
— Self-Portrait in Armor (1914) [he looks unhappy, the armor and the vast ocean in the background are tinged with red]
— Self~Portrait [dark and sad on a background of brightly lit happy fauns]
— Melancholia (1894) [a rioting mob, floating just above the floor, fills the artist's studio]
— In the Dust Devil (1893) [on the background of a wheat field and a distant forest of trees of uniform height, it is made up of faint figures of damned people]
— Vicious Circle (1897) [figures of the damned for their vices swirl around a tall stepladder on top of which sits a pensative young man]
—Death (1902) [the artist stretches his face toward a woman who is holding a scythe in her right hand, and with her left closes his eyes]
— Death (1911) [a pale redhead is about to close the artist's eyes with her right hand, her left hand rests on a partition between them and bears a wedding ring]

^ Died on 15 July 1609: Annibale Carracci, Italian painter, draftsman, and printmaker, baptized as an infant on 03 November 1560. Brother of Agostino Carracci [bap. 16 Aug 1557 – 23 Feb 1602] and cousin of Lodovico Carracci [bap. 21 Apr 1555 – 03 Nov 1619]
— Annibale Carracci's reform of Mannerist excesses foreshadowed the emergence of high baroque art in Europe. Annibale, born in Bologna, was the most important member of an influential family of painters that included his elder brother Agostino and their cousin Lodovico. In 1585 they established the Accademia degli Incamminati, a painting school with the avowed purpose of reforming art by retrieving the classical principles of the High Renaissance masters, as exemplified in the work of artisits Michelangelo and Raphael. The academy attracted such promising young painters as Alessandro Algardi, Domenichino, and Guido Reni, making Bologna one of the most active and influential Italian art centers for over two decades. Annibale, with the design and execution of such noble fresco series as the lyrical Romulus cycle (1588-1592), in Bologna's Palazzo Magnani, was soon recognized as the most gifted of the Carracci family. Among his oil paintings of this period are The Butcher's Shop (1583) and The Assumption (1587).
      Annibale was summoned to Rome in 1595 to decorate the state apartments of the Palazzo Farnese, the city's most splendid new private palace. He began his masterpiece, the magnificent illusionistic ceiling frescoes in the Galleria in 1597. Against a painted architectural background representing stucco heroic nudes, bronze plaques, and carved marble decorations are set what appear to be 11 huge easel paintings in ornate frames. They depict, in idealized human form, love scenes of the pagan gods, derived from the Roman poet Ovid's fables (Metamorphoses). Finished by 1604, the frescoes astounded Rome's artistic world. They were extravagantly praised by such baroque artists as the Italian master Gian Lorenzo Bernini and the Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens; both freely acknowledged the powerful influence of the Farnese frescoes on their own art. Despite the urging of his devoted assistants, including his chosen artistic successor Domenichino, Annibale undertook few commissions after this monumental work. Outstanding are his subtle and exquisite landscapes, as in Sacrifice of Isaac, which directly presage the neoclassical landscapes of the French painters Claude Lorrain and Nicolas Poussin. He contracted a form of paralysis in 1605, and died in Rome.

— The Carracci family, originally from Cremona, had settled about the middle of the 15th century in Bologna, where its male members earned their living as tradesmen. Three members of the family, Ludovico Carracci and his cousins Agostino Carracci and Annibale Carracci, rose to artistic prominence in the last quarter of the 16th century. Jointly they effected an artistic reform that overthrew Mannerist aesthetics and initiated the Baroque. Among their many pupils were three younger members of the Carracci family. Of these, only Agostino’s natural son Antonio Marziale Carracci [1583 – 08 Apr 1618] achieved significant originality vis-à-vis his more famous father and uncles. The other two, Ludovico’s younger brother Paolo Carracci [1568–1625] and Francesco or Franceschino Carracci [1559–1622], the son of Agostino’s and Annibale’s brother Giovanni Antonio Carracci, were mediocre talents who produced no works of importance to the history of art.
     Since the lifetime of Annibale Carracci, he has been considered one of the greatest Italian painters of his age. His masterpiece, the ceiling (1597–1601) of the Galleria Farnese, Rome, merges a vibrant naturalism with the formal language of classicism in a grand and monumental style. Annibale was also instrumental in evolving the ‘ideal’, classical landscape and is generally credited with the invention of caricature.

— The Carracci were a family of Bolognese painters. The brothers Agostino (1557-1602) and Annibale (1560-1609) and their cousin Lodovico (1555-1619) were prominent figures at the end of the 16th century in the movement against the prevailing Mannerist artificiality of Italian painting.
      They worked together early in their careers, and it is not easy to distinguish their shares in, for example, the cycle of frescos in the Palazzo Fava in Bologna (1584). In the early 1580s they opened a private teaching academy, which soon became a center for progressive art. It was originally called the Accademia dei Desiderosi ('desirous of fame and learning'), but later changed its name to Academia degli Incamminati. In their teaching they laid special emphasis on drawing from the life (all three were outstanding graphic artists) and clear draftsmanship became a quality particularly associated with artists of the Bolognese School, notably Domenichino and Reni, two of the leading members of the following generation who trained with the Carracci.
      They continued working in close relationship until 1595, when Annibale, who was by far the greatest artist of the family, was called to Rome by Cardinal Odoardo Farnese to carry out his masterpiece, the decoration of the Farnese Gallery in the cardinal's family palace. He first decorated a small room called the Camerino with stories of Hercules, and in 1597 undertook the ceiling of the larger gallery, where the theme was The Loves of the Gods, or, as Bellori described it, "human love governed by Celestial love". Although the ceiling is rich in the interplay of various illusionistic elements, it retains fundamentally the self-contained and unambiguous character of High Renaissance decoration, drawing inspiration from Michelangelo's Sistine Ceiling and Raphael's frescos in the Vatican Loggie and the Farnesina. The full untrammelled stream of Baroque illusionism was still to come in the work of Cortona and Lanfranco, but Annibale's decoration was one of the foundations of their style.
      Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries the Farnese Ceiling was ranked alongside the Sistine Ceiling and Raphael's frescos in the Vatican Stanze as one of the supreme masterpieces of painting. It was enormously influential, not only as a pattern book of heroic figure design, but also as a model of technical procedure; Annibale made hundreds of drawings for the ceiling, and until the age of Romanticism such elaborate preparatory work became accepted as a fundamental part of composing any ambitious history painting. In this sense, Annibale exercised a more profound influence than his great contemporary Caravaggio, for the latter never worked in fresco, which was still regarded as the greatest test of a painter's ability and the most suitable vehicle for painting in the Grand Manner.

      Annibale's other works in Rome also had great significance in the history of painting. Pictures such as Domine, Quo Vadis? (1602) reveal a striking economy in figure composition and a force and precision of gesture that had a profound influence on Poussin and through him on the whole language of gesture in painting. He developed landscape painting along similar lines, and is regarded as the father of ideal landscape, in which he was followed by Domenichino (his favorite student), Claude, and Poussin. The Flight into Egypt (1604) is Annibale's masterpiece in this genre.
      In his last years Annibale was overcome by melancholia and gave up painting almost entirely after 1606. When he died he was buried, according to his wishes, near Raphael in the Pantheon. It is a measure of his achievement that artists as great and diverse as Bernini, Poussin and Rubens found so much to admire and praise in his work.
— Francesco Albani, and Innocenzo Tacconi were assistants of Annibale Carracci.
— The students of Annibale Carracci included Francesco Albani, Giovanni Francesco Grimaldi, Giovanni Lanfranco, Remigio Cantagallina, Pietro Faccini, Sisto Badalocchio, Giacomo Cavedone, Bartolomeo Schedoni.

— LINKS
— Self-Portait in Profile (1600)
— Self-portrait (1604, 42x30cm) This painting was the model to the well-known portrait drawing of Carracci by Ottavio Leoni.
— Autoritratto (1595, 60x47cm) _ Tradizionalmente attribuito a Pietro Liberi nei più antichi inventari o a pittore fiammingo, per quanto in essi non è certa l'identificazione del quadro, il piccolo ritratto è stato passato in seguito a Jacopo Bassano dal Berenson (1932) e alla scuola romana del Seicento., quindi ad Annibale Carracci (Dazzi Merkel 1979) Lo stupendo ritratto presenta un impasto denso di colore con lumeggiature grasse e un gioco di contrasti fra il bruno e il bianco di grande suggestione ed essenzialità. Se del Carracci, l'opera non puo essere che del periodo più maturo dell'artista, quello romano, come si deduce dal raffronto con gli due altri Autoritratti.
— The Beaneater (1586, 57x68cm) _ The interest taken by artists and art buyers in worldly images of "humble" everyday life has always been of particular socio-cultural significance. Initial forays in this direction led to the evolution of the so-called "genre" scene, already evident in Franco-Flemish tapestries of the 15th century and in the works of Pieter Aertsen and Willem Beuckelaer in the mid-16th century. Without their example, its emergence in early Italian Baroque would probably have been quite unthinkable. The Northern Italian schools, in particular, which had always been receptive to Flemish influences, for example, showed a keen interest in the realism of the genre.
      A simple peasant or farm laborer is sitting down to a meal. With a wooden spoon, he greedily scoops white beans from a bowl. Onions, bread, a plate of vegetable pie, a glass half full of wine and a brightly striped earthenware jug are standing on the table. Everything in the picture is homely and simple. The food, the man, his clothing, his loud table manners and his furtive, and hardly inviting, glance towards the spectator. None of this would be particularly striking in comparison with the examples of other painters.
      What is truly new and quite astonishing, however, is the fact that Annibale's painterly technique and artistic approach are entirely in keeping with the rough and ready subject matter. Matt, earthy colors are applied to the canvas in thick and rugged brushstrokes. The compositional simplicity makes no attempt at sophisticated perspective or spatial structure, and the simple alignment of objects on the table is portrayed in almost clumsy foreshortening. What is revolutionary about this painting, of which several preliminary studies exist, is the deliberate lack of artifice or skill an approach that actually makes it all the more compelling.
— Butcher's Shop (1585, 185x266cm) _ Using the language of the Bible, theologians have referred to the dangers of the consumer habits which emanate from such abundant supply of products as 'temptations of the flesh,' and these are quite often the theme of rather graphic paintings of butchers' shops. Like Aertsen and Beuckelaer's art, in the 16th century they are not yet pure still-lifes, although they do display the tendency towards materialization inherent in this genre.
      In Annibale Carracci's painting with this motif, the characters are facing the viewer as if they were on stage. On the right a butcher's servant is dragging along a freshly cut ox or cow, the spine and innards visible as in an anatomical longitudinal section, which he is about to hang on a hook. Another servant is kneeling beside a sheep that is lying on the ground, its legs tied, which he is about to slaughter. A third servant is holding a pair of scales, adjusting its weights. In the background, a butcher is taking a hook off the ceiling. Goods are exhibited in front of him, and an old woman is seen stealing a piece of meat without being noticed by the butcher. On the left a rather foolish-looking man, dressed in a dandy-like manner with a feathered hat, tattered, baggy yellow trousers and a huge codpiece, can be seen rummaging awkwardly in his purse. The actions of the characters show that the painting is a thematic representation of a literary motif from a picaresque tale.

— Fishing (1594, 136x253 cm) — Hunting (1594, 136x253cm) _ This pair of pictures were painted by Carracci in his period in Bologna. At this time he was extremely interested in landscape, and his experiments are a foreshadowing of Poussin's classical compositions; but in these pictures he is exploring in a different direction, in the tradition of Bassani, whose studios continued to turn out landscapes which were prized all over Europe.
— The Choice of Heracles (1596, 167x273cm; 684x1024pix, 128kb — ZOOM to 1179x1645pix; 757kb) _ This imposing canvas originally decorated the ceiling of the "Camerino", the study of Cardinal Odoardo Farnese, on the second floor in Rome's Palazzo Farnese. Its basic idea agreed with the purpose of the room; thus it became the central piece of decoration. In the oval and semicircular flat fields of the vaulted ceiling decorated with frescoes were depicted episodes from the life of Heracles (his name in Greek, in Latin it is Hercules), other mythological stories with morals, and the allegories of virtues.
      The Prodicusian story tells of the maturing Heracles, who had to choose between virtue and sin, between the difficult path of duty and decency, and the temptation of irresponsibility and pleasure. The story had several classical versions: Philostratus' Life of Apollonius of Tyana had the most relevance in sixteenth-century Italy, because its Latin translation was published there in 1501. Though it had been altered somewhat, the text of this work served as the basis for Annibale Carracci's tradition-creating painting.
      In the picture the ideal of virtuous life is represented by the pursuit of fine arts or sciences. The dual classification of virtues, according to merits achieved in war or in the cultivation of the sciences, was a Renaissance method based on classical examples (e.g. Macrobius Commentarii in Somnium Scipionis). Wearing a laurel wreath and reading a book, the man who reclines in the left foreground like one of the classical river gods is the "poeta laureatus", while in the background Pegasus is visible. Based on these references, it is implied that the dull and winding road of virtue in fact leads to the hill of the Muses, Mount Helicon.
      Contrasting with this image is the frivolously dressed, beautiful personifier of sin, who entices one with the symbols of a playful life toward the depths of the flowery, green forest. The presence of playing-cards, a tambourine and a stringed instrument represents the arsenal of Voluptas. The two theatrical masks on the opened sheet of music are placed there to imply that every sensual pleasure is false. These symbols do not appear in Philostratus' text, but the Iconologia of Cesare Ripa prescribes that these specifically represent pleasure and shame (scandalo) in painting.
      The fresco series of the Palazzo Farnese, this impressive creation of Rome's Baroque painting, continued to exert great influence on the subsequent interpretations of "The Choice of Heracles" theme. (For example, at the beginning of the eighteenth century Sebastiano Ricci used the same approach in preparing the frescoes of the Marucelli Palace in Florence.)
— Venus with a Satyr and Cupids (1588, 112x142 cm) _ This painting, which was already famous in the 17th century, was for moral reasons covered over with another canvas of a more chaste allegorical subject through most of the 18th century. The recovery of the original in 1812 has restored to us a work of great importance in Annibale Carracci's youthful development. If we are to believe the date, 1588, written on the back of an old copy, the painting falls in a decisive year for the young painter: the time, that is, of his evolution from late Mannerist Bolognese culture, already enriched by Correggio, towards the color-light sysnthesis of Titian and Veronese, from which would emerge the neo-Venetianism at the foundation of the Carraccesque "reform".
— Venus, Adonis, and Cupid (1595, 217 x 246 cm) _ another almost identical version of Venus, Adonis, and Cupid (1595, 212x268cm) _ It seems likely that Annibale and his brother Agostino both trained in their cousin Ludovico Carracci's studio. The three certainly worked together on a number of occasions but it was soon apparent that Annibale was the real genius among them, with the potential to become one of the greatest reformers in the history of painting. From his debut with a Crucifixion, Bologna, S. Maria della Carità, 1583, Annibale looked determined to reject the aridly cerebral and cold formulas of the Mannerists. Well-spent study tours around 1585 allowed Annibale to master the Renaissance Grand Manner of Titian and Correggio, especially their use of color, but he rediscovered it in a modernized way. The foundation of the "Accademia dei Desiderosi" was of paramount importance to art as it signaled their belief that classical contemporary painting could still be taught. All the Carracci stressed the importance of drawing from life (all three were brilliant graphic artists), which was to be a hallmark of the Bolognese School they founded. In about 1595 both the Academy and the Carracci cousins' activity physically moved to Rome. This was in official recognition of the movement of artistic reform they had started and then taken right to the very heart of artistic debate. Thanks chiefly to them, Rome became the leading center of the latest ideas and experiments in art in the seventeenth century.
— Assumption of the Virgin Mary (1601, 245x155cm; 894x570pix, 64kb — ZOOM to 1814x1163pix; 191kb — ZOOM++ to 3023x1939pix; 497kb) _ The Cerasi Chapel is famous for Caravaggio's two paintings, The Conversion of Saint Paul and The Crucifixion of Saint Peter. However, Caravaggio's paintings do not stand alone. The artist's great competitor, Annibale Carracci, of all painters, received the commission for the main picture, an Assumption of the Virgin Mary, above the altar. There is a radical difference between the Bolognese artist's beautifully bright colors, the powerful blue and red he applies, as against Caravaggio's earth-tones, which he varies only by blue on Saint Peter and red on Saint Paul.

— Lamentation over Christ (1606, 93x103cm) _ In this late work, Carracci has achieved a degree of monumentality in his narration of an episode from the Passion of Christ that certainly bears comparison with Caravaggio's Entombment in the Vatican. As in the work of the Lombard artist, it is a profound sense of gravity that determines the character of the composition here. None of the figures, not even the woman standing in the centre, is fully upright. Stooping, she stretches her arms out towards Mary, who has fallen backwards in a swoon. The composition is structured by the portrayal of reclining, crouching, bent and stooping positions and by the unusual motif of the three figures in staggered graduation behind one another. The upper edge of the painting seems to be drawn down low so that not one of the figures is able to stand in an upright full-length position. All of this contributes towards conveying the gravity and heaviness of the dead Christ, not only physically, but also psychologically: the view of Christ's dead body does not call for an upright statuary figure as in a memorial, but seeks an equivalent to the deep sense of melancholy, as expressed in the gestures and body language of the grieving women.
      Other compositional devices would also suggest that the artist intended to trigger a similar mood in the spectator. The grouping of the figures can hardly be called beautiful or harmonious. A deep rift has been torn between the two Marys with the dead Christ and the two mourners, and although the body of Christ is the common bond between the mourning women, he is also presented as an isolated figure in the eyes of the spectator. The pallor of his body stands out against the full and heavy colority of the robes and the gloomy silhouette of the tomb.
— Triumph of Bacchus and Ariadne (1602; 630x1247pix, 191kb) _ The huge ceiling in the reception room of Palazzo Farnese, painted just as the seventeenth century was beginning, was part of a great cycle of decorative paintings on the theme The Loves of the Gods, which Carracci painted for Cardinal Odoardo Farnese. Annibale Carracci transformed the reception room into a shining collection of classical pictures. In fact, the decoration was not intended to be a single scene, but imitated a collection of framed paintings surrounding the main scene. This was the Triumph of Bacchus and Ariadne which fills the centre of the ceiling. _ detail (672x830pix, 144kb) _ As the 16th century drew to a close, a certain weariness of the forms of late Mannerism, which dominated the entire European art scene by the second half of the century, was becoming evident. In this respect, the early Baroque in Italy may also be regarded as a conscious and critically motivated phase of reform in every field of art.
      The school of the Bolognese artists Lodovico, Agostino and Annibale Carracci formulated this approach clearly by founding an academy. A masterpiece of this reform movement was the huge cycle of paintings commissioned to decorate the Galleria Farnese in Rome, created under the auspices of Annibale Carracci, who was responsible for its planning and execution.
      The grand mythological programme representing the power of love by way of example of the Olympian gods went hand in hand with an aesthetic concept that was to be of fundamental importance for all subsequent Baroque fresco painting. The underlying motivation of the academy is clearly evident in this major work; it is aimed at a revival of the natural ideal once embodied by the art of the High Renaissance.
      Bernini, master of Roman Baroque, expressed this aim in his assessment of Annibale, who, he claimed, had "combined all that is good, fusing the grace and drawing of Raphael, the knowledge and anatomy of Michelangelo, the nobility and manner of Correggio, the color of Titian and the invention of Giulio Romano and Mantegna".
      The result of this approach based on synthesis was not a work of stale eclecticism, but a visual world of enormous vitality in which it was possible to develop a single programme based on Ovid's Metamorphoses - over a vast area while at the same time jettisoning the more esoteric elements of Mannerism in order to convey the heady eroticism and physicality of the myths with greater immediacy.
      In the bridal procession of Bacchus and Ariadne, which fills the central area of the ceiling, these qualities merge to the most highly condensed composition of the Farnese Gallery.
— The Cyclops Polyphemus (1605) _ The fresco depicts the scene when the jealous Cyclops Polyphemus hurls a rock at Acis, the beloved of the sea nymph Galatea.
— Domine quo vadis? (1602, 77x56cm) _ This tale from the life of Saint Peter is recorded in the collection of legends written down by Jacobus a Voragine in the 13th century. It tells how the apostle, having triumphed over Simon Magus, was persuaded by the Christians of Rome to leave town. Jacobus a Voragine relates how Peter encountered Christ on the Appian way and asked "Quo vadis domine" (Whither goest thou, master?), to which Christ replied "To Rome, to be crucified anew."
      This apocryphal legend is in fact the beginning of Peter's own martyrdom. This would certainly explain the vigorous movements in Carracci's painting, with the apostle recoiling in terror. It is not the unexpected encounter with the risen Christ that has taken the apostle aback, but his awareness of his own human frailty. Annibale's magnificent rhetoric reminds the spectator of Christ's call to turn back.
      The viewer is on the Appian Way with Peter, or rather, is Peter meeting Christ. The foot of the cross protrudes from the panel, Christ's hand points outwards, and the shadows he casts attest to his corporeality as he strides toward us. While Peter's left foot remained in place, the rest of the figure was altered during painting, drawn back to the right edge of the panel in an attitude half-way between terror and obeisance, more deeply felt than his earlier pose but also making room for our implied presence. Firm contours delimit Christ's athletic bo,dy, yet its internal modeling is subtly lifelike, rippling with the movement of muscles and the angle at which surfaces catch the light. It is obvious that this figure was based on a live model, for his hands and lower legs are more sunburnt than his torso and thighs, although the face he turns to Peter is an idealised mask of pathos under the crown of thorns. Despite the dual sources of light from the background and in the foreground, the same sun seems to warm sky, trees, fields and Roman temples, and the crimson, white, gold and blue draperies, the metal keys, the youthful and the aged flesh and the chestnut and grizzled hair of the two wayfarers at the crossroads between time and eternity.
— Daedalus and Icarus (1604; 617x1091pix, 91kb)
— A Man with a Monkey (1591)
— 33 prints at FAMSF

^ Born on 15 July 1606:
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, in Leiden. the great Dutch master, who died on 04 October 1669.
His humble origins may help account for the uncommon depth of compassion given to all the subjects of his paintings. Rembrandt prospered when he moved to Amsterdam, but fell out of favor in his later years. However, economic and personal miseries never affected his mastery in many mediums. (artist: 300 etchings, 1400 drawings, 600 paintings: The Night Watch [small detail of it here >], Man with a Magnifying Glass, The Anatomy Lesson of Professor Tulp, Descent from the Cross, Rape of Ganymede)

Rembrandt devient l'un des plus grands peintres de tous les temps. Son imagination et sa maîtrise force l'admiration. Après des études solides et des voyages initiatiques en Italie et en France,il se fixe à Amsterdam vers 1631 où il ouvre un atelier. Il connaîtra vite le succès et s’affirmera comme un grand maître de la peinture. Portraitiste de grand talent, il s’affirme par une science étonnante du Clair~Obscur et un souci humaniste qui dépasse le cadre étroit des peintures “commerciales”. La Ronde de nuit [détail: image ci~dessus], Le Reniement de Saint-Pierre — Le Syndic des Drapiers” — La Fiancée Juive — le Souper d’Emmaus, ne sont que quelques-uns des centaines de chefs d’oeuvre que l’on visite dans les grands musées. Mais son art ne se limite pas à la peinture, il a laissé de nombreux dessins, dont certains sont des esquisses de peinture mais d’autres des dessins à part entière. Graveur génial c’est aussi un aquafortiste éminent, ("Jésus prêchant", "La pièce de cent florins"). Rembrandt devait pauvre et ignoré. Mais son génie fut finalement reconnu.

      Rembrandt began his training first in that city with the obscure painter Jacob van Swanenburgh and then as an apprentice in the Amsterdam studio of Pieter Lastman, who instilled in the younger artist a lifelong preference for history painting. Returning briefly to Leiden, Rembrandt worked there in association with Jan Lievens before moving permanently to Amsterdam in late 1631, where he quickly established his reputation as a portraitist.
      The 1630s was a particularly prosperous decade, during which Rembrandt married Saskia van Uylenburgh, the wealthy niece of the art dealer Hendrick Uylenburgh. While always returning to the human figure as his primary subject, during the 1640s Rembrandt explored the formal properties and emotional potential of the landscape genre. At this time he also experimented with etching, a graphic medium he frequently used in combination with drypoint to achieve a richness of effect.
      In general, the decade of the 1640s was marked by reversals of both a personal and a professional nature, most notably Saskia's death in 1642, which had been preceded by the deaths of all but one of their four children. At this time Rembrandt developed a broader manner of execution realized in a darker palette, which became more exaggerated in later years. This quality made his portraits less popular with clients who sought precisely rendered detail of face and costume. However, the style was well suited to the introspective portraits and biblical subjects that fascinated him. Rembrandt continued to receive important commissions including the fabled Night Watch of 1642 and the rejected Conspiracy of the Batavians, commissioned in 1661 for the Amsterdam Town Hall. He also worked for wealthy private patrons, such as Jan Six and Antonio Ruffo of Sicily. A genius of extraordinary technical talent and perception, Rembrandt influenced a large number of students and followers.

— LINKS
— Self Portrait as the Apostle St. Paul (1661) — Self Portrait at an Early Age (1628)
— Self Portrait with a Cap, openmouthed (1630)— Self Portrait (1628) — Self Portrait, Frowning (1630)
— The Prophetess Hannah — Haesje van Cleyburgh
— Doctor Efraim Bueno — Familiegroep in Landschap
— Christ and the Two Disciples at Emmaus
— The Night Watch — Maria Trip
— Lamentation of the Prophet Jeremias Over Jerusalem
— Musical Allegory — Het Joodse Bruidje
— Arnold Tholinx (1652) — Beggars at the Door (1648) — Christ Presented to the People (1655)
— Cone Shell (Conus marmoreus) (1650) — Dead peacocks (1639)
— Dr. Ephraim Bueno, Jewish Physician and Writer (1647) — Faust (1652)
— Hendrickje slapend (1655) — Jeremiah Lamenting the Destruction of Jerusalem (1630)
— Musical Allegory (1626) — Portrait of Haesje van Cleyburgh (1634)
— Portrait of Johannes Wtenbogaert, Remonstrant Minister (1633)
— Portrait of Maria Trip (1639) — Portrait of Saskia van Uylenburgh (1633)
— Portrait of Two Figures from the Old Testament (The Jewish Bride) (1667)
— Portrait of Willem Bartholszoon Ruyter (1638) — Rembrandt drawing at a window (1648)
— Six's Bridge (1645) — St. Jerome Reading in an Italian Landscape (1653)
— The Company of Frans Banning Cocq and Willem van Ruytenburch (The Night Watch) (1642)
— The Prophetess Anna (Rembrandt's Mother) (1631) — The Sampling Officials (1662)
— The Stone Bridge (1638) — The Three Crosses (1653) — Three Women and a Child at the Door (1645)
— Titus van Rijn in a Monk's Habit (1660) — Tobit and Anna with a Kid (1626)
—      Rembrandt was born on 15 July 1606, in Leiden, the eighth of nine children of Harmen Gerritszoon van Rijn and his wife, Neeltje van Suijttbroeck. He was the first and the only of their sons whom they sent to the school for Latin. After seven years’ schooling (1613-1620) — Rembrandt entered the Philosophical Faculty of Leiden University to study Classics. A short period at the university finished with starting a period of apprenticeship (1622-24) under the Italy-trained painter Jacob Isaacszoon van Swanenburgh. However, the succeeding half-year studies under Pieter Lastman, the Amsterdam artist of historical paintings, influenced Rembrandt’s work much deeper.
      In 1625 the 19-year-old Rembrandt returned to Leiden and opened his own studio, which he shared with his friend of the same age, Jan Lievens. Rembrandt executed historical paintings, initially following Lastman’s models: Tobit and Anna (1626) — The Ass of Balaam Talking before the Angel. (1626). His physiognomic studies, resulted in numerous self-portraits: Self-Portrait. (1629) — Self-Portrait with Wide-Open Eyes. (1630). During his lifetime Rembrandt made more than 100 self-portraits. He also produced many engravings and etchings.
      The turning point in Rembrandt’s further career was the visit to Leiden of Constantijn Huygens, the widely educated secretary of the governor Prince Frederick Hendrick, who developed great interest in Rembrandt and his art. Huygens’ patronage led to commissions and initial success: two works by Rembrandt were purchased by the English Crown and many copies of his painting Judas Returning the Thirty Pieces of Silver and the Raising of Lazarus were soon published.
After his father’s death on 27th April 1630, Rembrandt moved to Amsterdam, where he settled in the house of the art-dealer, Hendrick van Uylenburgh. Prince Frederick Hendrick bought a number of his paintings and commissioned the Passion cycle, which he would finish in 1639. In 1632, Rembrandt also received the commission to paint a portrait of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp, the famous Amsterdam surgeon. Wining acclaim with this work, Rembrandt became a fashionable portraitist in Amsterdam and started to receive many commissions for portraits of well-to-do patricians. One of his favorite themes, the meditating Philosopher, appeared in his work as early as about 1633. The Prophet Jeremiah Mourning over the Destruction of Jerusalem. (1630): Rembrandt has used the blunt end of his brush to scratch details of the foliage, Jeremiah’s beard and the fastenings of his tunic in the wet paint, a characteristic technique of his early years.
      In 1634, Rembrandt became a member of the Guild of St. Luke, in order that he may train students and apprentices as a self-employed master. Rembrandt was popular as a teacher and had a very large and profitable workshop with many student followers, including such outstanding painters as Gerard Dou, Aert de Gelder, Carel Fabritius, Philips Konink, Ferdinand Bol, Govert Flinck and Nicolaes Maes.
      The same year he married Saskia van Uylenburgh, niece of his art-dealer and daughter of a wealthy patrician. Despite their deep devotion and love to each other, their happiness was overshadowed with the deaths of their new-born children and quarrels with Saskia’s relatives, who accused her of squandering money. Of their 4 children only their son Titus, born in September 1641, survived to his adulthood. Titus’ features appear in a number of painting by Rembrandt: The Artist's Son Titus at His Desk. (1655) — Titus. (c.1658).
      As if in plea to let her son live, Saskia died the next year in June. Her death caused a deep crisis in Rembrandt’s life.
During the years of their mutual life Rembrandt created such masterpieces as The Abduction of Ganymede. (1635) — The Angel Stopping Abraham from Sacrificing Isaac to God. (1635) — The Feast of Belshazzar. (c. 1635) — The Blinding of Samson. (1636) — Danae. (1636) — The Prodigal Son in the Tavern (Rembrandt and Saskia). (c. 1635) — The Night Watch (1642) and others. The Night Watch, maybe is the most famous Rembrandt’s work, and his the largest one (12x15ft; 3.5x4.5m) — was commissioned by a company of the Civil Guard of Amsterdam for its assembly hall. The painting is a “recapitulation of the ideals of Rembrandt’s first ten Amsterdam years, and is the last painting in which he strives for brilliant external effects. From now on he set himself the aim of recreating in visual terms the intangible essence of man, his inner life”. In his last two decades Rembrandt simplified his compositions, preferring more classical and stable structure.
      To help the widowed father, two women, Geertge Dircx and, a little later, Hendrickje Stoffels, were admitted in the household. Eventually Geertge caused the artist troubles: at first she repeatedly quarreled with him until at last she brought him to the court (in 1649) on the grounds of an unfulfilled promise of marriage. The second woman, Hendrickje, testified against the plaintiff, and Geertge was sentenced to several years in the prison at Gouda. Hendrickje became Rembrandt’s common-law wife, she sat for many of Rembrandt’s paintings, such as Portrait of Hendrickje Stoffels. (1650) and in 1654 gave birth to their daughter Cornelia.
      Despite numerous commissions, the fees from students and the proceeds from etchings, Rembrandt’s debts continued to grow. In 1656, Rembrandt was declared bankrupt. His house and collections were auctioned; however, the sum thereby raised was insufficient to cover the debts. The artist moved into the Roozengracht, where he led a secluded life along with Mennonite and Jewish friends. Titus’ guardian, Louys Crayers, after a long court case, succeeded in having the boy’s part of the inheritance returned to him from his bankrupt father’s estate.
      After Rembrandt’s bankruptcy, Hendrickje and Titus (in 1660) set up an art-dealing business in order to provide Rembrandt with protection against his creditors. Despite leading a secluded existence, he maintained many contacts. He continued to keep students, and execute commissions, such as the portrait of the board members of the Amsterdam Cloth makers’ Guild The Syndics of the Clothmakers' Guild (The Staalmeesters). (1662); painting of Alexander the Great and a portrait of Homer. (1663). He trained Titus as a painter but hardly any trace of his artistic activities survived. After Hendrichje’s death in 1663 Titus continued the art-dealing business. The paintings of Rembrandt’s last years bear the sad imprint of his unhappy old age and disrepute The Return of the Prodigal Son. (1668). The dramatic expressions in his last magnificent series of self-portraits reveal an overwhelming ultimate misery and inner torment Self-Portrait. (1669).
      In 1668, Titus married Magdalena van Loo, but unexpectedly died half a year later. One year, which remained for him to live, Rembrandt spent at the house of his daughter-in-law. He became godfather to his granddaughter on 22 March 1669. The artist died without having completed the painting Simeon with the Christ Child in the Temple.

^ Drowned on 15 (25?) July 1821: John Lewis Krimmel, US painter born Johann Ludwig Krimmel on 30 May 1786 in Württemberg. — [It is not true that his original name was Krimnel, which he modified when he came to the US]
— He is considered to have been the first significant genre painter in the US. He received his first art training in Germany from Johann Baptist Seele, a military-history painter. When Krimmel moved to Philadelphia in 1809, he at first supported himself as a portrait and miniature painter but quickly developed a penchant for chronicling events in the city and its environs. Fourth of July in Centre Square, Philadelphia (1812) is an instance of his formulaic approach, with crowds of well-dressed figures attending a particular event in a carefully depicted location. Krimmel’s interiors, such as Interior of an American Inn (1813), depict typical US activities while revealing the influence of William Hogarth and David Wilkie (known to Krimmel through prints). Although rigid in composition, Krimmel’s scenes, with their energy and sense of well-being, kindled an interest in US life, fostering the quest for a national identity. He returned to Europe in 1817 but was back in Philadelphia in 1819. By t1821, he had begun to enjoy recognition and was elected president of the Association of American Artists, receiving a major commission for a history painting (not completed) of William Penn’s landing at New Castle, PA. Krimmel's paintings influenced Sidney Mount and Caleb Bingham, among others.
— Maler Johann Ludwig Krimmel aus Ebingen
— Auction buyer of Pepper-Pot, A Scene in the Philadelphia Market sued for knowing it was by Krimmel.

Online images:
— Quilting Frolic (1813; 539x740pix, 119kb)
— 4th of July (456x732pix, 89kb) — Center Square (582x733pix, 140kb)
— The Blind Fiddler (1813; 560x740pix, 128kb)
— Interior of an American Inn (1813; 546x737pix, 98kb)
— Blind Man's Buff (1814; 540x719pix, 122kb)
— Jacob Ritter Sr. “The Botanist” (1818; 560x469pix, 51kb)
— The Conflagration of the Masonic Hall, Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1819; 608x698pix, 84kb)
— Country Wedding – Bishop White Officiating (1814; 507x691pix, 112kb)
— Procession of the Victuallers (430x715pix, 100kb) — Ebingen (511x762pix, 180kb)
— Election Day at the State House (1816, 22x33cm; 464x675pix, 105kb)
— Fourth of July Celebration (1819, 30x46cm; 480x715pix, 109kb)
— The Cherry Seller (1815; 36x32cm; pix, kb)
— Fourth of July Celebration in Centre Square (1819, 30x46cm; 480x715pix, 109kb) _ Over a period of a decade, Krimmel painted a number of scenes that chronicled the changing composition of Philadelphia's Independence Day celebrants. By 1819, the year in which Krimmel exhibited this Fourth of July Celebration in Centre Square, the event had become a largely White working class celebration, in contrast to earlier years when Blacks and Whites from all social classes gathered in the square facing Independence Hall. The 1819 painting depicts a festive crowd of White soldiers, merchants and citizens, assembled at tables and under tents, while a lone Black boy runs away. An earlier version of the celebration, first shown by Krimmel at the 1812 annual exhibit of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, was the first example of fine art to take the Fourth of July celebration as its subject. Originally entitled View of Centre Square on the Fourth of July, the painting symbolized the growing stratification of Philadelphia society by showing well-defined clusters of people: wealthy men and women in classical poses; country folk who gawk at a nude statue; a Quaker family; and an assortment of customers buying fruit from an old woman at a table. Although a well-dressed group of Blacks is included, in actuality few of them dared join the Independence Day crowd after 1805, when they were driven away by a White mob. A contemporary reviewer praised both the "familiar and pleasing...representation" and Krimmel as "no common observer of the tragi-comical events of life that are daily and hourly passing before us."
— Black People's Prayer Meeting (1813) _ In the summer of 1811, twenty-three-year-old Pavel Svinin arrived in Philadelphia to serve as secretary to the Russian consul. When he departed two years later, he had amassed a collection of 52 watercolors, which he intended to use as illustrations for his travel memoirs about the United States. Fourteen of the images were purchased from Krimmel, who painted images of street life in Philadelphia, including Black People's Prayer Meeting, a caricature of a Methodist religious service. In 1930, Svinin's portfolio was discovered and brought to the attention of Avrahm Yarmolinsky, a New York Public Library curator, who included engravings of all 52 pictures in his book on Svinin's life. Although the works were attributed to Svinin, who was himself an amateur artist, the body of evidence suggests that thirteen of the original illustrations were works by Krimmel, rather than copies painted by Svinin. The text of Svinin's memoir describes a dimly lit, dilapidated hall in which Black worshippers "leapt and swayed in every direction and dashed themselves to the ground, pounding with hands and feet, gnashing their teeth, all to show that the evil spirit was departing from them." The unfinished painting shows a minister standing in the doorway of a sunlit, well-kept church, exhorting the congregation gathered outside. While exaggerated, Black People's Prayer Meeting did manage to convey the emotional intensity of the Methodist church. Like other Krimmel paintings, it drew on contemporary stereotypes of Black appearance and behavior. In or out of church, whites and many Black religious leaders regarded such displays as degenerate, and most of Philadelphia's major churches began to discourage such behavior as detrimental to their efforts toward greater respectability.

^ Born on 15 July 1600: Jan Cossiers (or Coustiers, Causiers), Flemish painter and draftsman who died on 04 July 1671.
— After serving an apprenticeship under his father, Anton Cossiers (fl 1604–1646), and then under Cornelis de Vos, he went first to Aix-en-Provence, where he stayed with the painter Abraham de Vries [1590–1656±6], and then to Rome, where he is mentioned in October 1624. By 1626 he had returned to Aix and had contact with, among others, Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc, the famous humanist, who recommended him to Rubens. By November 1627 Cossiers had settled back in Antwerp. The following year he became a master in the Guild of Saint Luke, and in 1630 he married for the first time; he married a second time in 1640.
— Before settling in Antwerp in 1627, Cossiers served two apprenticeships and traveled throughout Italy and France. A year later he became a master in the Guild of Saint Luke. His earliest known works were mostly life-sized scenes of the daily life of colorful subjects such as smokers, gypsies, and fortune-tellers. A colleague recommended Cossiers to the Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens, but their collaboration did not happen until nearly a decade later. During the second half of the 1630s, Cossiers made numerous paintings from Rubens's designs. Following Rubens's death in 1640, Cossiers painted biblical and other religious narratives for churches in the southern Netherlands. His late work is noted for its subtle use of color and for its sympathetic emotional portrayals of his subjects.

— Fortune Telling — a different La diseuse de bonne aventure (112x169cm) _ détail (le client ou la cliente) _ Ce tableau a été attribué autrefois à Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez; à Antonio Pereda; et à Juan Carreño de Miranda _ Le thème de la diseuse de bonne aventure, prétexte à représenter quelqu'un se faisant berner par une bohémienne, a connu un vif succès au début du XVIIe siècle. Il a été traité par des artistes aussi différents que Caravage et Georges de la Tour. Comme tous les peintres qui abordent cette scène, Cossiers se plaît à mettre en valeur son aspect pittoresque et son côté moralisateur. Il adopte ici une composition conforme à la tradition caravagesque : des personnages à mi-corps groupés en frise sur un fond uniforme. La figure du jeune homme [? on dirait plutôt: femme], au centre de l'oeuvre, capte tous les regards ; elle est puissamment mise en valeur par un brusque effet de lumière qui fait ressortir tous les éléments d'un costume chamarré. Le tableau vaut surtout par ses nombreux détails, fruit d'une observation minutieuse de la réalité. On révèlera ainsi le jeune acolyte en train de dérober la bourse du malheureux jeune homme ou, plus savoureux encore, le groupe de la bohémienne portant ses deux enfants sur son épaule. Avec son exécution brillante et ses accents de couleurs qui tranchent sur un camaïeu de bruns, l'oeuvre s'impose comme un somptueux morceau de peinture. Il est vrai que Cossiers, après un séjour italien, a travaillé à Anvers sous la direction de Rubens
— Ecce Homo (73x54cm) _ Tableau sans doute peint à Anvers vers 1620, avant les séjours de l'artiste, entre 1623 et 1626, à Aix-en-Provence et à Rome.
— Réunion de fumeurs et de buveurs (1626, 63x93cm) _ ce sont les peintres Jan Cossiers, Simon de Vos, Johan Geerlof, alors présents à Aix-en-Provence
— The Head of a Young Boy (1658, 20x15cm) _ Cossiers probably drew this portrait sketch of his son Cornelis from life. He quickly captured the tilt of his son's head as he stares fixedly over his right shoulder. Loose, flowing strokes capture his strong profile, slightly open mouth, and tousled, shoulder-length hair. Black chalk delineates the boy's features, such as the hair, nose and upper lip, while subtle touches of red chalk describe the flesh tones. Cossiers made many sketches of his children, including the six sons from his second wife. He arranged the sketches, few of which survive, in accordance with the children's ages, beginning with the sheet representing the youngest boy. The number 36 in the upper left corner of the sheet indicates that there were once at least thirty-six numbered drawings grouped together.

Died on a 15 July:

1985 Diego Giacometti, Swiss furniture designer and sculptor, born on 15 November 1902, son of Giovanni Giacometti [07 Mar 1868 – 25 Jun 1933] and brother of Alberto Giacometti [10 Oct 1901 – 11 Jan 1966]

1875 Jean Charles Joseph Rémond, French artist born on 19 April 1795.

^ 1765 Carle (or Charles André) Vanloo, French artist born on 15 February 1705. — Carle was the Vanloo family’s most famous member, whose illustrious career was notable for its eclectic diversity of subject and style; he was acclaimed for his history and genre paintings and also for his portraits and decorative work, and his style encompassed influences ranging from Mannerism to Rococo. — After the death of his father Louis-Abraham van Loo [1656-1712], Carle went to Turin to join his elder brother, Jean-Baptiste van Loo [11 Jan 1684 – 19 Sep 1745], who took charge of his education. When they moved to Rome in 1714, Vanloo began formal studies with the painter Benedetto Lutti and the sculptor Pierre Legros le jeune. In 1719 the brothers moved to Paris, where the younger artist gained practical experience by assisting his brother on such commissions as the restoration of the Galerie François I at the château of Fontainebleau. He also studied at the Académie Royale, where he won first prize for drawing in 1723. One of his teachers was Nicolas Vleughels. In 1724 Vanloo was awarded the Prix de Rome, but the money that was to finance his studies in Italy was withheld, and he was forced to raise the necessary funds himself by painting society portraits and stage decorations for the opera in Paris. His few extant paintings from this period demonstrate, by their combination of Mannerist figural proportions with a fashionable Rococo palette, Vanloo’s ability to assimilate various stylistic influences (e.g. The Presentation in the Temple, 1728). In early 1728 he was at last able to set out for Rome, in the company of his nephews (sons of Jean-Baptiste) Louis-Michel van Loo [02 Mar 1707 – 20 Mar 1771] and François van Loo [1708-1732], and of his friend and future rival François Boucher. Another son of Jean-Baptiste was Charles-Amédée-Philippe van Loo [25 Aug 1719 – 15 Nov 1795].
— Vanloo's students included Jean-Baptiste Deshays, Gabriel-François Doyen, François-Hubert Drouais, Louis-Jacques Durameau, Simon Julien, Louis Lagrenée, Nicolas-Bernard Lépicié, César van Loo, Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg, Michel-Barthélémy Ollivier, Bernhard Rode, Christopher Steele, Johann Heinrich Tischbein.

Born on a 15 July:

1898 Mead Schaeffer, US artist who died in 1980.

1895 Ernst Huber, Austrian artist who died in 1960.

^ 1875 Rudolf Levy, Orthodox Jewish German painter who died deported in northern Italy, in January 1944 after the 13th. After training as a carpenter, he attended the Kunstgewerbeschule at Karlsruhe (1895). In 1897 he moved to Munich, studying painting at the Kunstakademie with Nicolas Gyzis in 1899, at the private painting school of Heinrich Knirr [1862–1944] in 1900 and in the plein-air studio of Heinrich von Zügel [1850–1941] in 1901–1903. In 1903 he went to Paris, where he had a central role in the artists’ circle at the Café du Dôme. The contact with Impressionism and Post-Impressionism had a lasting influence on his artistic development. From 1905 to 1914 Levy’s study of Paul Cézanne’s art dominated his work, for example Houses by the Cliff (1914). At the same time Henri Matisse became model and teacher to a group of young painters who attended Matisse’s school from 1908 to 1912. With Oskar Moll and Hans Purrmann, Levy was among Matisse’s most important German students. — Levy wurde in Stettin als Kind orthodoxer Juden geboren. Über Danzig, Karlsruhe, München kommt Rudolf Levy nach Paris, wo er bei Matisse Malerei studiert und zeitweilig gar dessen Malschule leitet. Im ersten Weltkrieg zog Ley als Freiwilliger gegen sein geliebtes Frankreich. Im Krieg ausgezeichnet mit dem Eisernen Kreuz wurde Levy Opfer des Nationalsozialsimus, seine Bilder wurden aus den Museen entfernt. Levy starb im Januar 1944 auf einem Transport jüdischer Gefangener von Florenz nach Carpi bei Modena.

1873 Hendrik Jan Wolter, Dutch artist who died in 1952.

^ 1868 Bert Greer Phillips, US artist who died in 1956. — Photo of Phillips // — Spanish Girl of Taos (75x50cm) — Indian tying Moccasin (36x36cm; 919x855pix, 288kb) — The Indian Hunter of Taos (1900, 31x23cm) — Indian

1861 Karl Hartmann, German artist who died in 1927.

^ 1490 Francesco Maria Rondani (or Rondono), Parma Italian painter who died in November 1548 (or in 1550?). He may have been a student of Correggio. Most of his work, largely fresco painting, was done in Parma. On stylistic grounds he is credited with the monochrome friezes and candelabra (1520–1523; probably based on drawings by Correggio) in the nave of San Giovanni Evangelista in Parma. In 1525 Rondani, with Correggio and Michelangelo Anselmi, was asked to survey damage to the church of the Madonna della Steccata. Between 1527 and 1531 he decorated the lower part of the Centoni Chapel in Parma Cathedral with monochrome frescoes representing scenes from the Life of Saint Anthony Abbot, and the upper part with The Capture of Christ and Christ Shown to the People. In the treatment of these subjects he was evidently influenced by a northern Mannerist style. He frescoed the Miracles of Saint Benedict in the cloister of the Novices in S Giovanni Evangelista. In the church itself he is credited with painting a scene showing The Eternal Father on the soffits of an arch in the Del Bono Chapel, in collaboration with Anselmi. In 1532 he contributed to the celebratory decorations for the arrival of Emperor Charles V in Parma, and in the same year he worked with Anselmi on the ceiling of the oratory of the Concezione in the church of San Francesco, where his debt to Correggio is apparent. In 1541 he is documented in the cathedral, and in 1550 he is mentioned among the artists working on the triumphal arch for the wedding of Margaret of Austria and Ottavio Farnese, 2nd Duke of Parma and Piacenza. His altarpieces include the Visitation and the Assumption, the (signed) Virgin and Child in Glory with SS Augustine and Jerome and The Virgin between SS Peter and Catherine.

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