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DEATHS:  1681 SAFTLEVEN — 1910 DELPY — 1737 LE MOYNE — 1963 BAZIOTES
“THE CONTINENCE OF SCIPIO”,
Le Moyne's depiction and many others, and Livy's text which inspired them.
BIRTH: 1871 SOUTTER
2002: ART SALES TAX EVASION GETS EX~CEO INDICTED
^ Died on 04 June 1681: Cornelis Saftleven (or Zachtlefen), in Rotterdam (buried 05 Jun 1681), Dutch Baroque painter and engraver born in Gorinchem in 1607; son of history painter and draftsman Herman Saftleven I [1580-1627] and brother of Herman Saftleven the Younger and of Abraham Saftleven [1613–].
— After being trained as a painter in Rotterdam, Cornelis Saftleven may have visited Antwerp about 1632–1634. From about 1634 he was in Utrecht, where his brother Herman the younger had settled, and they collaborated on a portrait of Godard van Reede and his Family (1635). In 1637 Cornelis was back in Rotterdam, where in 1648 he married Catharina van der Heyden [–1654]. The year after her death, he married Elisabeth van der Avondt. He became dean of the Guild of St Luke in Rotterdam in 1667.
— Painter and etcher Herman Saftleven II [1609 – 05 Jan 1685] and Cornelis Saftleven were brothers. The best-known member of the family of artists is Cornelis, who was influenced by Brouwer and Teniers, painted genre scenes of peasants and satirical pictures of animals dressed and acting like theologians and jurists. He also did landscapes with sheep and cattle grazing.
     Cornelis Saftleven came from a family of artists: his father and two brothers also painted. After training in Rotterdam, possibly with his father, Cornelis traveled to Antwerp around 1632. Among his earliest works are portraits and peasant interiors influenced by Adriaen Brouwer. By 1634 Cornelis was in Utrecht, where his brother Herman Saftleven the Younger was living, and the two began painting stable interiors, a new subject in peasant genre paining.
      By 1637 Cornelis had settled in Rotterdam, where he became dean of the guild of Saint Luke in 1667. His subject matter was varied, from rural genre scenes to portraits, beach scenes, and biblical and mythological themes. His images of Hell may be his most individual contribution to Dutch painting. Equally innovative were his satires and allegories. Saftleven excelled at painting animals and often portrayed animals as active characters, occasionally with a hidden allegorical role. As a draftsman, Saftleven is best known for his black chalk drawings of single figures, usually young men, and his studies of animals, which show Roelandt Savery's influence. About two hundred of his oil paintings and five hundred drawings survive.
— Cornelis Saftleven's students included Ludolf Leendertszoon de Jongh and Abraham Hondius.

— LINKS
— Self-Portrait at the Easel (1629, 31x23cm; 700x510pix, 143kb)
— The Duet (1635, 34x53cm; 770x1193pix, 126kb) _ Two gentlemen, with a violin and a zither, make music in a room in which other musical instruments are also to be seen. Next to the violinist stands a viola da gamba; a lute and a flute lie on the table. Saftleven also painted various attributes of the artist: a palette and brush lie on the floor, pieces of paper are scattered around and a plaster cast of a nude muscleman stands on the table. This reference is no coincidence. The musicians are, in fact, also painters, for Cornelis Saftleven here portrayed himself and his brother Herman, making music in brotherly fashion. Harmony plays an important role in both music and painting, and perhaps Saftleven wanted to stress its importance by combining both art forms in one painting.
— Farmyard with Pigs, Chicken, Peacocks, and Doves, a Peasant Feeding Pigs, and a Peasant Woman Standing in a Doorway (37x50cm; 866x1200pix, 191kb)
— Farmstead Near a Stream with a Horse, a Goat, a Sheep and Pigs Near a Haystack, with a Peasant Looking out Through his Doorway (73x105cm; 974x1440pix, 198kb)
— Still Life of inanimate objects in a Peasant Interior (45x39cm; 728x600pix, 100kb) _ Group of vessels of pottery and brass, a broken rush bottomed chair, bellows, a cask, etc., piled against a wall.
— The Temptation of Saint Anthony (43x52cm; 482x600pix, 53kb) _ On the left Saint Anthony is kneeling beside a Holy book and holding a cross in his right hand. Around him are various sinister creatures, figures and the devil, all in Hell.
— Paradise (600x912pix) _ it seems to suffer from heavy air pollution and an approaching storm. The animals seem tired and bored, but not hungry. Adam is seen through the haze, sitting under a huge decrepit old tree, pointing as he names the animals.
— Huntsman Feeding his Dogs Under a Porch With a Farmyard Beyond (39x56cm; 618x880pix, 116kb)
— Landscape with Cows, Sheep, Goats; and Herdsman Wooing Farm Girl (78x96cm; 1195x1440pix, 329kb) faded colors, badly in need of restauration.
— The Card Players (600x493pix)
— The Swineherd (etching, 21x26cm; 5/4 size, 347kb) at sunrise _ This was done in collaboration between Cornelis and Herman.
— Barn Interior with Maid Sewing, Boy Eating Apple, and Still Life of Pots, Pans, and Fruits (50x62cm; 892x1080pix, 133kb) by a follower.
 
^ Died on 04 June 1910: Hippolyte-Camille Delpy, French painter born in 1842.
— Delpy was born in Joigny and died in Paris. He was a student of Charles François Daubigny. It was Daubigny, a friend of the Delpy family, who took the young Camille along with him on his strolls. The child saw Daubigny paint and admired his creations and from that point on, his only aspiration as a child was to become a painter. In Paris, Daubigny introduced his young student to Corot, who admitted him into his studio.
      In 1869, Delpy began to exhibit at the Salon. He extensively traveled throughout the provinces, especially visiting Corot in Ville d’Avray, and Daubigny in Auvers-sur-Olse. In 1874, he was married to Louise Berthe Cyboulle. During their marriage, she was a source of incomparable happiness to him. The paintings he did during this period reflect this happiness. It was at this time that Delpy met Pisarro and Cézanne at Auvers and they had a great impact on Delpy’s use of color. Although he remained faithful to the technique of Daubigny, Delpy brought a more vigorous touch and a greater intensity of color to his work.
      His first gallery exhibition was at the Galerie des Artiste Modernes in Paris. He also exhibited in the Exposition Internationale with De Nittis, Whistler, Monet, Sisley, Pissaro, Renoir, and Morisot. The Barbizon School had stated that to the classical theory of harmony between tones and values must be added the notion of color. Under the influence of the Impressionists, Delpy realized the important role of color.
— The Three Laundresses (1901, 41x71cm)
— Matin de Printemps (1902, 41x71cm)
— Lavandière au Bord de la Rivière (1901, 41x71cm)
— La Chaumière à Berneval (1885, 46x55cm)
— Washerwomen in a River Landscape (1871, 25x45cm)
— Washerwomen in a River Lanscape with Steamboats beyond (1804, 40x71cm)
— Bord de l'Oise (37x65cm)
— Lavandiere près d'un Groupe de Maisons (47x71cm)
— Mère et Enfant dans le Jardin (100x72cm)
— Soleil Couchant sur la Seine près de Nantes (60x92cm)
— The Docks at Dieppe (125x200cm)
— Sunset on the Banks of the Oise (1897, 86x66cm; 799x600pix, 83kb)
— Coin Rue des Martyrs et Boulevard de Rochechouart (1879, 32x46cm; x799pix, 89kb)
— La Rivière à Pont-Sur-Yonne (1898, 72x100cm; 645x900pix, 108kb)
— Landscape with Washerwoman (39x51cm; 450x822pix, 23kb)
 
^ Born on 04 June 1871: Louis Soutter, Swiss draftsman and painter who died on 20 February 1942.
— After studying in the sciences, engineering, architecture and music, he decided in 1895 to study painting in Lausanne, Geneva and Paris. In 1897 he went to live with his US wife in Colorado Springs CO, where he taught at Colorado College. After falling ill with typhoid, his physical and mental condition deteriorated, and he returned to Morges. Years of unstable health and eccentric behaviour followed, during which Soutter produced some relatively conventional drawings, watercolors and oil paintings. Soutter may have been schizophrenic, or perhaps his life and work were just an attempt to resist society’s pressures rather than a pathological condition.
      In 1923 Soutter was taken into a retirement home in Ballaigues, where he spent the rest of his life. It was during this period that the main body of his work was created. From 1923 to 1930, the so-called period of Cahiers, Soutter used simple copybooks for his drawings of people, nature and architecture, Classical and biblical scenes. During his Mannerist period (1930–1937) he expanded the format of his works and found a more independent style. He increasingly concentrated on compositions dominated by human figures. Distorted bodies, huge skulls and disquieting facial expressions convey feelings of pain and traumatic torment, as in Three Faces (1935). In 1937 he began to apply the ink directly with his fingers on to the paper. His lines became more vehement, and the contrast between light and dark was intensified. Increasingly he used the theme of the crucifixion as a metaphor for his vision of suffering and alienation, as in Blood of the Cross (1938)

— Si le soleil me revenait (1937; 550x418pix, 53kb)
— Le Seigneur~Christ~Sang (1938, 44x58cm; 342x450pix, 38kb)
— Lunes et Petites Lunes (900x692pix, 154kb)
— Lys et Vierges Folles (1930, 22x29cm; 432x569pix, 114kb)
— Surréalismême (1947; 351x270pix, 39kb)
— Untitled engraving (488x352pix, 60kb)
— See Spirale Louis Soutter (100x150cm, 444x647pix, 33kb) by Frédéric Berger [30 Oct 1956~]
 
^ Died on 04 June 1737: François Le Moyne (or Le Moine, Lemoine), French Rococo era painter, specialized in Historical Subjects, born in 1688, who commits suicide by stabbing himself nine times, a few hours after completing Time Saving Truth from Falsehood and Envy.
— Lemoyne was born in Paris and studied under L. Galloche. He was one of the leading decorative artists of the day, continuing the grand tradition of Le Brun but adapting it to the lighter taste of the court of Louis XV, to whom he became official painter in 1736. He was a man of wide pictorial culture, learning from Rubens in his use of color and from Bolognese painters in his clarity and grace of drawing. The easy fluency of his style belies his disturbed personality.
— Le Moyne reçoit brièvement l'enseignement de son beau-père, le portraitiste Levrac-Tournières, puis de 1701 à 1712, du peintre d'histoire Louis Galloche dans l'atelier duquel il bénéficie d'une formation académique exemplaire. En 1711, il obtient le Grand Prix mais les fonds manquent pour lui assurer une bourse à Rome et il reste à Paris. Agrée en 1716, il est reçu comme membre à part entière à l'Académie deux ans plus tard. En 1723-1724, il voyage en Italie et à son retour expose huit tableaux dont un paysage italien 'fait d'après nature' au Salon de 1725. Le Moyne partage le Premier Grand Prix du Concours de 1727 avec son rival Jean-François de Troy et commence dès 1728 les travaux préparatoires pour le plafond du salon d'Hercule à Versailles. Il est désormais noyé sous des commandes les plus prestigieuses et est nommé en 1736 premier peintre du Roi. Bien que Le Moyne soit principalement un peintre d'histoire, l'étude et la pratique de la peinture de paysage revêt chez lui une grand importance, particulièrement dans la première partie de la carrière quand l'influence de Galloche (qui préconisait l'étude de la nature champêtre) et la fréquentation de Watteau dans les classes de l'Académie royale eurent un impact certain sur son art. La plupart des paysages de Le Moyne ont aujourd'hui disparu ou sont mal attribués.

— LINKS
— Hercules and Omphale _ Hercules and Omphale _ Hercules and Omphale _ (1724, 184x149cm) _ The mythological story depicted in the painting is the following. For murdering his friend Iphitus in a fit of madness Hercules was sold as a slave to Omphale, queen of Lydia, for three years (Apollodorus 2.6:3). But she soon alleviated his lot by making him her lover. While in her service he grew effeminate, wearing women's clothes and adornments, and spinning yarn. In the usual representation of the story Hercules is seated beside Omphale who is caressing him. The essential feature is the exchange of attributes. She wears his lion's skin and holds the club; he is draped in colorful robes and holds a distaff or spindle. Cupid is present. The subject is absent from classical Greek art, probably because it shows the hero in an unfavorable light, but it is found in Hellenistic times. In Renaissance and particularly Baroque painting it illustrates the idea of woman's domination of man.
— Time Saving Truth from Falsehood and Envy _ Time Saving Truth from Falsehood and Envy (1737, 149x114cm, enlarged to 181x148cm) _ This is Lemoyne's last picture, on which he had been working within hours of taking his own life. It was enlarged in 1760 to make up a set of four Lemoynes then owned by the financier Bouret.
— Cleopatra (108x79cm; ZOOM to 800x578pix, ZOOM+ to 2381x1720pix)
— Pygmalion Seeing His Statue Come to Life
— Hunting Picnic
— Bather _ Bather (1724)
— Paysage (72x62cm; 494x573pix, 54kb) _ Dans ce tableau Le Moyne allie un traitement idyllique et nostalgique de la composition subordonnée aux principes de clarté appris à l'Académie, une luminosité venue tout droit de l'école vénitienne (Titien et Campagnola) et une chaleur et une légéreté de la touche marquée par l'influence flamande.

 
^“THE CONTINENCE OF SCIPIO”,
Le Moyne's depiction and many others, and Livy's text which inspired them.

— The Continence of Scipio by Le Moyne
—    The episode depicted, narrated by Livy and Valerius Maximus, tells of how after the taking of New Carthage in 209 BC Scipio had treated with respect a beautiful virgin princess, one of the hostages who had been consigned to him, and had sent her back to her intended husband and parents with the sole recommendation that her suitor strive for peace between Rome and Carthage.
     From the Renaissance onwards The Continence of Scipio was an extremely popular subject in European art. During the Second Punic War (218-201 BC), the Roman military commander Publius Cornelius Scipio (c. 235-183 BC) took the city of New Carthage in Spain. The Romans gained vast booty and the historian Livy tells how Scipio could have taken as his concubine the most beautiful and noble girl of the city, captured along with many others, but did not make use of his right, returning her to her beloved.
          Once Carthago Nova (Kartagenea: modern Cartagena) was captured, commanding general Publius Cornelius Scipio acted with great humanity toward the people thus put in his power. The Carthaginian citizens he set free and restored to their property; of two thousand artisans (it was the main armory of Spain), he promised freedom if they would work in the Roman service. Others he enrolled as rowers for the ships he had captured in the harbor. The large number of Spanish hostages that had been kept in the city, he sent home, a calculated diplomatic move. During the capture, some young Roman soldiers came across an exceptionally beautiful girl. Knowing that Scipio had an eye for beautiful women, they brought her to their commander as a present. Scipio was astonished at her beauty, but mindful of his position of Commander expressed his gratitude to his men, he showed his own moderation and self-restraint by refusing the gift. Learning that the girl was betrothed to a young Spanish chief named Allucius, Scipio sent for the young man and presented her to him. When the girl's parents came to thank him and presented him with gifts, Scipio turned the gifts over to Allucius as a dowry from himself. Thus Scipio's reputation for kindness and generosity was spread far and wide among the Spanish tribes. This gallant act may well have been politically inspired - Allucius himself soon after joined Scipio with 1,400 Spanish warriors of his tribe. But it has been the inspiration of dozens of works of art.

— Livy, Roman History, XXVI, 50 (Original Latin: Ab Vrbe Condita)
 
     Captiva deinde a militibus adducitur ad eum adulta virgo, adeo eximia forma ut quacumque incedebat converteret omnium oculos. Scipio percontatus patriam parentesque, inter cetera accepit desponsam eam principi Celtiberorum: adulescenti Allucio nomen erat. Extemplo igitur parentibus sponsoque ab domo accitis, cum interim audiret deperire eum sponsae amore, ubi primum venit, accuratiore eum sermone quam parentes adloquitur. "Iuvenis", inquit, "iuvenem appello, quo minor sit inter nos huius sermonis verecundia. Ego cum sponsa tua capta a militibus nostris ad me ducta esset audiremque tibi eam cordi esse, et forma faceret fidem, quia ipse, si frui liceret ludo aetatis, praesertim in recto et legitimo amore, et non res publica animum nostrum occupasset, veniam mihi dari sponsam impensius amanti vellem, tuo cuius possum amori faveo. Fuit sponsa tua apud me eadem qua apud soceros tuos parentesque suos verecundia; servata tibi est, ut inviolatum et dignum me teque dari tibi donum posset. Hanc mercedem unam pro eo munere paciscor: amicus populo Romano sis et, si me virum bonum credis esse quales patrem patruumque meum iam ante hae gentes norant, scias multos nostri similes in civitate Romana esse, nec ullum in terris hodie populum dici posse quem minus tibi hostem tuisque esse velis aut amicum malis."
      Cum adulescens, simul pudore et gaudio perfusus, dextram Scipionis tenens deos omnes invocaret ad gratiam illi pro se referendam, quoniam sibi nequaquam satis facultatis pro suo animo atque illius erga se merito esset, parentes inde cognatique virgines appellati; qui, quoniam gratis sibi redderetur, virgo ad quam redimendam satis magnum attulissent auri pondus, orare Scipionem ut id ab se donum acciperet coeperunt, haud minorem eius rei apud se gratiam futuram esse adfirmantes quam redditae inviolatae foret virginis. Scipio quando tanto opere peterent accepturum se pollicitus, poni ante pedes iussit vocatoque ad se Allucio. "Super dotem" inquit "quam accepturus a socero es, haec tibi a me dotalia dona accedent"; aurumque tollere ac sibi habere iussit. His laetus donis honoribusque dimissus domum, implevit populares laudibus meritis Scipionis: venisse dis simillimum iuvenem, vincentem omnia cum armis, tum benignitate ac beneficiis. Itaque dilectu clientium habito cum delectis mille et quadringentis equitibus intra paucos dies ad Scipionem revertit. 		     Soon afterwards an adult maiden who had been captured was brought to him by the soldiers, a girl of such exceptional beauty that she attracted the eyes of all wherever she went. On inquiring as to her country and parentage, Scipio learnt, amongst other things, that she had been betrothed to a young Celtiberian noble named Aluccius. He at once sent for her parents and also for her betrothed, who, he learnt, was pining to death through love of her. On the arrival of the latter Scipio addressed him in more studied terms than a father would use. "A young man myself," he said, "I am addressing myself to a young man, so we may lay aside all reserve. When your betrothed had been taken by my soldiers and brought to me, I was informed that she was very dear to you, and her beauty made me believe it. Were I allowed the pleasures suitable to my age, especially those of chaste and lawful love, instead of being preoccupied with affairs of state, I should wish that I might be forgiven for loving too ardently. Now I have the power to indulge another's love, namely yours. Your betrothed has received the same respectful treatment since she has been in my power that she would have met with from her own parents. She has been reserved for you, in order that she might be given to you as a gift inviolate and worthy of us both. In return for that boon I stipulate for this one reward-that you will be a friend to Rome. If you believe me to be an upright and honorable man such as the nations here found my father and uncle to be, you may rest assured that there are many in Rome like us, and you may be perfectly certain that nowhere in the world can any people be named whom you would less wish to have as a foe to you and yours, or whom you would more desire as a friend."
      The young man was overcome with bashfulness and joy. He grasped Scipio's hand, and besought all the gods to recompense him, for it was quite impossible for him to make any return adequate to his own feelings, or the kindness Scipio had shown him. Then the girl's parents and relatives were called. They had brought a large amount of gold for her ransom, and when she was freely given back to them, they begged Scipio to accept it as a gift from them; his doing so, they declared, would evoke as much gratitude as the restoration of the maiden unhurt. As they urged their request with great importunity, Scipio said that he would accept it, and ordered it to be laid at his feet. Calling Aluccius, he said to him: "In addition to the dowry which you are to receive from your future father-in-law you will now receive this from me as a wedding present." He then told him to take up the gold and keep it. Delighted with the present and the honorable treatment he had received, the young man resumed home, and filled the ears of his countrymen with justly-earned praises of Scipio. A young man had come among them, he declared, in all ways like the gods, winning his way everywhere by his generosity and goodness of heart as much as by the might of his arms. He began to enlist a body of his retainers, and in a few days returned to Scipio with a picked force of 1400 mounted men.

_ Compare:

Batoni's The Continence of Scipio (1772, 226x297cm) _ This painting of Batoni [25 Jan 25 1708 – 04 Feb 1787] canvas forms a pair with Thetis Takes Achilles from the Centaur Chiron, likewise commissioned by Catherine the Great (who selected the theme, probably finding it in De Genealogia Deorum Gentilium of Giovanni Boccaccio [Jun/Jul 1313 – 21 Dec 1375]). The two works are similar both in composition and in coloring. Scipio wears a deep pink cloak - this is the color of the victorious hero - as he returns the girl to her kneeling beloved, while the white dress of the prisoner symbolizes her innocence. There are various marvelously painted vases in the foreground: Batoni was a jeweler in his youth and he loved to make small, detailed, elegant still lifes through the introduction of extraneous items.
dell'Abbate 's The Continence of Scipio
Eeckhout's The Continence of Scipio (1652) [giant size reproduction]
van Mander's The Continence of Scipio (1600) [giant size reproduction]
Pellegrini's The Continence of Scipio
Reynolds's The Continence of Scipio (1789, 240x166cm) _ In 1785 the British diploma Lord Carysfort was entrusted with a commission to Reynolds for two paintings, one for Catherine the Great of Russia, and the other for her favorite friend and adviser, Prince Grigory Potemkin. The artist himself was to choose the subject. For Potemkin's painting, Reynolds settled on a subject from Livy's "History of Rome". Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus (235 – 183 BC), military commander and hero of the Second Punic War, showing virtue and great restraint (or "continence"), returns a beautiful captive Carthaginian woman to her fiancée. This was a very obvious hint at the virtue of Potemkin himself - a renowned general, he led the Russian army in numerous campaigns against Turkey. The composition is based on a contrast between the powerful figure of the hero, calm and unshaking, and the tender captive, almost fainting at the horror of what she thinks lies before her. The painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1789 and met with a mixed reaction. Some criticized the overloaded composition as a major defect, others noticed the beautiful coloring, "equal to the finest works of the Flemish School".
Steen's The Continence of Scipio (1665)
Bellini's Continence of Scipio (left half), _ (right half) (1508) _ detail
Poussin's The Noble Deed of Scipio (1640)
Van Dyck's The Continence of Scipio _ One of Van Dyck's most important "history paintings", it was probably commissioned in 1620-21 by George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham and favorite of James I. Although it ostensibly represents a classical subject it is thought to be an allegory of the difficult circumstances surrounding the marriage of Buckingham to Lady Katherine Manners, and the figures holding hands are likely to be portraits of the couple. Like his master Rubens, Van Dyck had a keen interest in antiquity, and he invokes the world of ancient Carthage with the inclusion of a Roman frieze copied from a piece known to have been in the Earl of Arundel's celebrated collection of antiquities.
 
^ Died on 04 (06? 01?) June 1963: William A. Baziotes, US Abstract Expressionist painter in a biomorphic style influenced by Surrealism. He was born on 11 June 1912.
— Baziotes studied at the National Academy of Design in New York 1933-1936 and then worked from 1936 to 1940 on the WPA Federal Art Project, first as a teacher and later as an easel painter. Attracted to Surrealism in the early 1940s, Baziotes became friendly with Matta and Motherwell, and experimented in 1942-1943 with various types of automatism. He had his first one-man exhibition at Art of This Century, New York, 1944. In 1948-1949 he collaborated with Motherwell, Hare, Rothko, and later Newman in running the art school The Subjects of the Artist. Baziotes attained about 1950-1952 his characteristic style usually based on a few elemental animal or plant forms in an underwater setting. He died in New York.
— He was brought up in Reading PA, by his Greek immigrant parents. When his father’s business failed in the mid-1920s, he was exposed to poverty and the life of illegal gambling dens and local brothels, all of which later contributed to the spirit of evil lurking in his paintings. In the early 1930s he worked briefly for a company specializing in stained glass for churches, which may have affected the mysterious and translucent painted environments in his later canvases. His early interest in poetry was heightened by his close friendship with the Reading poet Byron Vazakas, who introduced him to the work of Charles Baudelaire and the French Symbolists; these writers soon became an important source for Baziotes’s own search to communicate strong emotions and bizarre states of mind. Themes from Baudelaire’s poetry are suggested in Baziotes’s treatment of twilight, water, the color green, and mirrors, while The Balcony (1944) is among the paintings to derive its title from a specific poem.
— The son of Greek immigrants, Baziotes was born in Pittsburgh. He studied at the National Academy of Design in New York in 1933-1936. In 1936 he was hired by the Works Progress Administration to teach art at the Queens Children's Museum. As a young artist in New York in the early 1940s, Baziotes was exposed to émigré European avant-garde art of the early 20th century and became particularly interested in Surrealist painting methods and, in particular, Surrealism's efforts at tapping the unconscious in the formation of images. During the 1940s, for instance, he spread color thinly across the canvas surface until an image — automatically and accidentally — suggested itself; he then developed and adjusted the painted surface slowly, while never moving into total abstraction. His subjects invoke the fantastic and dreamlike world of boundless, amoeboid creatures, while the surfaces of his canvases seem to emanate a softly glowing light, sometimes eerie, always mysterious, as if those subjects were suspended in some kind of gelatinous substance.
— Baziotes was born in Pittsburgh, to parents of Greek origin. He grew up in Reading, Pennsylvania, where he worked at the Case Glass company from 1931 to 1933, antiquing glass and running errands. At this time, he took evening sketch classes and met the poet Byron Vazakas, who became his lifelong friend. Vazakas introduced Baziotes to the work of Charles Baudelaire and the Symbolist poets. In 1931, Baziotes saw the Henri Matisse exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and in 1933 he moved to that city to study painting. From 1933 to 1936, Baziotes attended the National Academy of Design.
      In 1936, he exhibited for the first time in a group show at the Municipal Art Gallery, New York, and was employed by the WPA Federal Art Project as an art teacher at the Queens Museum. Baziotes worked in the easel division of the WPA from 1938 to 1941. He met the Surrealist émigrés in New York in the late 1930s and early 1940s, and by 1940 knew Jimmy Ernst, Matta, and Gordon Onslow-Ford. He began to experiment with Surrealist automatism at this time. In 1941, Matta introduced Baziotes to Robert Motherwell, with whom Baziotes formed a close friendship. André Masson invited Baziotes to participate with Motherwell, David Hare, and others in the 1942 exhibition First Papers of Surrealism at the Whitelaw Reid Mansion in New York. In 1943, he took part in two group shows at Peggy Guggenheim’s Art of This Century, New York, where his first solo exhibition was held the following year. With Hare, Motherwell, and Mark Rothko,
      Baziotes founded the Subjects of the Artist school in New York in 1948. Over the next decade, Baziotes held a number of teaching positions in New York: at the Brooklyn Museum Art School and at New York University from 1949 to 1952; at the People’s Art Center, the Museum of Modern Art, from 1950 to 1952; and at Hunter College from 1952 to 1962. Baziotes died in New York.

— LINKS
— The Room (1945, 46x61cm; 427x573pix, 117kb) _ William Baziotes and other members of the New York School were influenced by the European Surrealists who had fled to the United States during World War II. Like the Surrealists, Baziotes used objects in his environment as triggers for the memory of early sensations or as conduits to the unconscious. This procedure produced in him an acutely sensitized state of mind that he attempted to formulate visually in his paintings. Baziotes saw this visual manifestation of states of mind as parallel to the literary achievement of the Symbolist poets and of Marcel Proust, whose work he much admired.
      Baziotes makes allusions in his paintings to the external world of objects, but these remain elusive and changeable. He usually added his titles after the compositions had emerged through intuitive decisions. Although the titles do not identify subject matter, they nevertheless guide interpretation. Thus, the title of the present work may encourage one to experience the mood of an interior space illuminated by diffused twilight. An atmosphere of nostalgic reverie is evoked by scumbled, weathered layers of gouache in which pastel colors predominate. Unlike Baziotes’s most characteristic works, in which biomorphic shapes float freely on an indefinite background, The Room is constructed architectonically. The gridded structure derives from Piet Mondrian and the Cubists, models for Baziotes before his encounter with the Surrealists.
— Dusk (1958, 153x123 cm; 573x456cm, 35kb) _ Baziotes’s paintings are freely improvised, intuitive affairs created in the spirit of Surrealist automatism. Each canvas, he claimed in 1947, “has its own way of evolving. . . . Each beginning suggests something. . . . The suggestion then becomes a phantom that must be caught and made real.” For Baziotes, the “reality” he aspired to exists only in a poetic realm, one in which color and form serve as analogues for psychological and emotional states. This use of visual metaphor was inspired by the artist’s love for poetry, particularly that of Charles Baudelaire, whose theory of “correspondences” proclaimed the fundamental equivalence of all things in nature and the capacity of any designated thing to symbolize something beyond itself. By the late 1940s Baziotes achieved his signature formal motif—delicate, semitranslucent, biomorphic shapes suspended within aqueous fields of muted color—which invokes the Baudelairian world of allusion and association. “The emphasis on flora, fauna and beings,” explained the artist about his painting, “brings forth those strange memories and psychic feelings that mystify and fascinate all of us.”
      Baziotes shared his keen interest in nature with other artists of the New York School, who were motivated simultaneously by their search for primordial truths and their fascination with scientific inquiry. What bridged these two utopian investigations was the microscope; the invisible world of protean forms it revealed promised to disclose the origins of life. This preoccupation with identifying metaphysical features of the organic realm may illuminate Baziotes’s predilection for marine imagery, as demonstrated in Aquatic, a painting of serpentine forms swimming through a calm, watery world. The symbolic possibilities of the ocean are vast and Baziotes drew on many of its meanings. Aquatic has been interpreted as an expression of the artist’s romantic vision of the sea as a domain of symbiotic relationships. The artist was captivated by the mating practice of eels, which swim through the ocean, rarely touching but always together. The delicately intertwined lines in the picture have been thought to represent these faithful eels on their course through the watery depths. Dusk, one of many pictures relating to nocturnal themes, is a lyrical evocation of a contemplative moment, the nuanced ebb of time between day and night, the half-light of evening.
— Untitled [fish and alga?] (427x566pix, 35kb)
— Green Night (1957, 92x122cm; 300x400pix, 34kb)
— Primeval wall ("A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops."), from the series Great Ideas of Western Man (1959, 62x77cm; 418x528pix, 50kb)
— Scepter (1961, 168x198cm; 447x528pix, 38kb)
 

Died on a 04 June:

^ 1957 Adolf Dietrich, Thurgau Swiss artist born on 09 November 1877. — {Did Dietrich's rich diet cause his death? Or is it that Dietrich died rich because he, or an ancestor, promoted a diet that made him diet rich?} — Selbstportrait (1932, 63x55cm) — Der Vater des Künstlers (1918; 615x467pix, 108kb _ ZOOM to 1400x1063pix) — Mädchen im Stall (1914; 600x737pix _ ZOOM to 1400x1719pix) — Mädchen mit Maikäfer (1923; 640x459pix, 95kb _ ZOOM to 1400x1004pix) — Schneeball (1915; 600x454pix _ ZOOM to 1400x1059pix) — Mäusefalle (1937; 600x793pix _ ZOOM to 1400x1850pix) — Vögel im Winter (1937; 600x511pix _ ZOOM to 1400x1192pix) — Der Untergang der Rheinfall (1935; 456x640pix, 64kb) _ This shows the 20 December 1869 sinking, near the Berlingen landing, of the paddle steamboat Rheinfall which had been put into service on 15 May 1865, and worked on the Rhine the route between Schaffhausen and Constance. This was due to an explosion of the boiler. Seven persons and some cattle died during that accident. The ship was raised and put back into service in 1871 under the name Neptun. It sank again in the night of 23 to 24 March 1922 in Constance, due to the failure of a riveted joint. Again it was raised and put back into service until it was retired and scrapped in 1939. — Sonntag im Garten (1923, 46x38cm; 600x495pix, 47kb) — Strauß mit Bettagsblümchen und Goldrauten (1953, 65x64cm; 600x576pix, 40kb) — 19 images at Bildindex

^ 1879 Frederick Richard Lee, British painter born on 10 June 1798. — LINKS — The Overhanging Trees [with cows in a stream] (1865, 85x110cm; quarter~size, 117kb _ ZOOM not recommended to blurry half~size, 428kb) — Lake in a Park (35x46cm) — A Devonshire Stream (1860, 47x61cm) _ flowing over rocks with surrounding trees. — Sea Coast, Sunrise (1834, 86x109cm) _ The primary effect of this coastal scene is one of extreme contrasts of color. The pale tones of the sunrise and chalky coastal rise are dramatically divided by dark areas of cloud and coarse grass. In the foreground, the two horses pulling the cart accentuate the gentle undulation of the track. — The Valley (25x36cm; 622x900pix, 125kb) — Casting the Throw-Line Net (25x36cm; 662x505pix, 64kb) — View of Benmore Looking up Glen Dochart (1851, 97x132cm; 350x486pix, 43kb) — Scottish Landscape: Bringing in a Stag (1830, 39x52cm) the person and animals are by E. Landseer.

^ 1818 Egbert van Drielst, Dutch painter, restorer, and art appraiser, baptized as an infant on 12 March 1745 (1746?). He began work at an early age in Steven Numan’s factory of lacquered objects in Groningen. With Numan’s son Hermanus he decided to improve his skills in the wallpaper factory of Jan and Johannes Luberti Augustini in Haarlem. When Numan left for Paris to continue his studies, van Drielst moved to Amsterdam, where he worked again for a short period in a wallpaper factory before he began to work independently. He became a member of the Guild of Saint Luke in 1768, the year he attended the Amsterdam city drawing academy to practice life drawing. He also carried out restorations and appraisals and became a friend of Adriaan de Lelie and other artists. — Wooded Landscape with Animals, Peasants, and Farms (1794, 30x47cm; 510x762pix, 93kb) faded colors. Van Drielst developed in the years after 1775 into a successful producer of landscape drawings and watercolors. By carefully studying the great landscape artists of the Golden Age such as Jacob van Ruisdael and Meindert Hobbema and spending a great deal of time sketching outdoor scenes (especially in the rural province of Drenth), he developed a style of his own. His aim was not so much to reproduce existing topographical locations in perfect detail, as to convey an artistic impression of unspoilt nature and of old, picturesque villages and ruins. In doing so he gave many fellow artists and contemporary art lovers a new sense of the beauty of the Dutch landscape. — A Person on the Little Swiss Bridge in the Park at Elswout near Haarlem (36x52cm drawing; 339x500pix, 62kb _ ZOOM to 1385x2040pix, 701kb)

^ 1793 Jan Ekels II, Dutch painter and draftsman born on 28 (02?) June 1759. He was first trained by his father, Jan Ekels I [1724–1781], and from 1774 to 1781 attended the Amsterdam Tekenacademie. He won prizes in the annual competition for life drawing in 1779 and 1781. In 1776 he went to Paris for two years to further his studies before returning to Amsterdam. Possibly influenced by the revival of interest in Dutch 17th-century art, he became a painter of portraits, genre pieces and ‘moderne gezelschappen’ (modern conversation pieces). In 1783 he travelled along the Rhine in Germany with his friends Daniel Dupré [1752–1817] and Jacques Kuyper [1761–1808], visiting the collections at Düsseldorf and Mannheim. After his return in 1784 he became an active member of the Felix Meritis society. — Jan Ekels de Jonge werd geboren in Amsterdam, als zoon van de beeldend kunstenaar Jan Ekels de Oude. Hij kreeg les van zijn vader, een bekend schilder van stadsgezichten. De jonge Ekels bezocht de stadstekenacademie in Amsterdam waar hij diverse prijzen won. Van 1776-1778 studeerde Jan Ekels de Jonge in Parijs. In 1783 reisde Jan Ekels de Jonge met enkele collega-schilders langs de Rijn; het gezelschap bezocht onder meer de kunstgalerijen van Düsseldorf en Mannheim. Terug in Amsterdam werd Jan Ekels de Jonge toegelaten tot het genootschap Felix Meritis, dat ook een tekendepartement kende. Hierna specialiseerde Jan Ekels de Jonge zich in binnenhuistaferelen met één of twee personen. Jan Ekels de Jonge werd slechts 34 jaar oud. Maar niet alleen hierdoor zijn van Jan Ekels de Jonge weinig schilderijen bekend: hij kon leven van een ruime erfenis en schilderde op zijn gemak. De kunstenaarsbiografen Van Eynden en Van der Willigen schreven in 1817 dat Jan Ekels de Jonge, schilder van 'zoogenaamde moderne gezelschappen of vertrekken met Tooneelen uit het gemeene dagelijkse leven', in de omgang een 'hupsch en aangenaam mensch' was.
— Een schrijver die zijn pen versnijdt (1784, 28x24cm) _ A young man is sitting at his desk. His face and hands can be seen in the mirror as he sharpens his goose-feather quill pen. He is working in relaxed fashion and has just thrown his jacket nonchalantly over a chair. On the wall, next to the mirror, hang a board game and a bag of pieces. Jan Ekels de jonge has depicted a soberly furnished room and an ordinary everyday activity with exceptional skill. The seemingly casual setting and the mirror image are marvelous ideas. The well-balanced composition suggests tranquillity, but it is above all the light that makes for the peaceful atmosphere. Some light pours through a crack in the curtain although it is drawn. The way the light glances along the wall, here and there touching an object (the white sheet of paper for instance is very bright), recalls the work of Vermeer whose interiors have a similar atmosphere. Vermeer's Woman Reading a Letter (1663, 46x39cm) is a good example. Here too what we see is a simple room with a single figure, sitting by a window and absorbed in a simple unhurried action. Like Vermeer, Jan Ekels specialized in sober interiors with one or a few figures. Besides Vermeer, the main influence on Ekels's work was French Neoclassicism. The clarity and the studied character of Ekel's paintings are typical of Classicism. Ekels became acquainted with Classicism in Paris where he lived for a few years. A writer sharpening his pen is a masterpiece of Dutch eighteenth-century painting and it forms a supreme moment in Ekels's oeuvre. There is also A man writing at his desk (1784, 52x40cm) (detail) by Ekels, but it is less striking, lacking as it does the surprising mirror effect.
— Amsterdam, a View of the Munttoren and the Doelenshuis on the Singel (40x52cm; 400x527pix, 44kb) _ The Munttoren or Mint Tower takes its name from its use as a mint in 1672-1673, during the war with Louis XIV of France. The same site, from a similar viewpoint, was painted by Isaac Ouwater.


Born on a 04 June:

1881 (Julian date > go to 16 June Gregorian) Natalia Sergeevna Goncharova.

^ 1817 Henricus Engelbertus Reyntjens (or Reijntjens), Amsterdam Dutch artist who died on 01 May 1900. Reijntjens was leerling van J.A. Kruseman. Hij bezocht in 1844-1845 Duitsland, en werd in 1855 benoemd tot lid van de Koninklijke Akademie te Amsterdam. Reijntjens schilderde en tekende portretten, historische voorstellingen en genrestukken. Zijn werk ging meestal naar het buitenland, hoofdzakelijk naar de Verenigde-Staten. — Adieu, Souvenir de Cöln (28x20cm; 1364x960pix, 312kb) — Des Pivoines (9x14cm; 312x500pix 68kb _ ZOOM to overenlarged 823x1321pix, 227kb) The title seems unrelated to the picture. — Interieur met drinkende figuren (30x40cm; 431x600pix, 75kb) — Interieur met moeder en haar kroos aan tafel. Links voor het raam een man bezig zich te scheren (62x50cm; 500x414pix, 47kb) — De maagd Maria met Christus (1861, 63x78cm; 500x416pix, 26kb) — Caught Napping (50x60cm; 405x500pix, 60kb) — Vijf drinkende heren en drie dienende vrouwen (50x60cm; 417x500pix, 63kb) — Interieur met figuren bij een tafel (22x30cm drawing; 444x600pix, 85kb)

Happened on a 04 June:
^ 2002 Ex-CEO of Tyco is indicted for art sales tax evasion.
      Dennis Kozlowski, who, the previous day, was forced to resign as chief executive of Tyco International, is indicted on 04 June 2002 on charges that he evaded paying more than $1 million in sales taxes.
     Dennis Kozlowski, who was forced to resign as chairman and chief executive of Tyco International Ltd., has been indicted for conspiring with art galleries and consultants in New York and London to avoid paying more than $1 million in state and city sales taxes on artworks costing millions of dollars.
      Kozlowski is arraigned in New York State Supreme Court today on charges of conspiracy, tampering with physical evidence, falsifying business records and sales tax violations. He will return to court on 26 June. If convicted, Kozlowski could face from up to a year to four years in prison.
      The indictment alleges that, from 11 August 2001 to 03 Jun 2002, Kozlowski and his co-conspirators avoided the $1'087'000 sales tax on six paintings valued at $13'175'000, by generating false invoices and shipping documents, to make it appear as though the artwork was shipped out of state.
        Tyco moved its nominal headquarters to Bermuda in 1997 to avoid US taxes on foreign sales. but its real headquarters are in Exeter, New Hampshire. Tyco employees were directed to sign false documents reflecting receipt of artwork in New Hampshire.
      On 11 December 2001, an art consultant employee instructed an art trucker to take from Kozlowski's Manhattan apartment a $425'000 La Farge painting that Kozlowski's wife had purchased without paying any sales tax, and to transport it to Tyco headquarters at Exeter New Hampshire, where a Tyco employee signed for it. It was immediately returned to Manhattan and re-installed in Kozlowski's apartment.
      In mid-December 2001, an (unnamed) art business authorized the release of a $3'950'000 Claude Monet painting to Kozlowski's Manhattan apartment. The art business owner prepared an invoice falsely asserting that no sales tax was due because the work of art was being shipped to New Hampshire.
      Again, in mid-December 2001, another vendor failed to collect sales tax due on four paintings purchased by Kozlowski in New York County for a total of $8'800'000; Kozlowski asked an art consultant not to ship the four paintings and the Monet, but instead to ship empty boxes to New Hampshire.
TYC price chart      On 03 June Tyco's board forced the resignation of Kozlowski. If it had fired him, Tyco would have probably had to pay Kozlowski a severance package of at least $120 million. Kozlowski also resigned on 03 June as a director of the Raytheon Company.
      Kozlowski's resignation deepens the crisis at Tyco, a conglomerate that has a quarter-million employees and manufactures, designs, and sells electronic components, undersea cable, disposable medical supplies, fire suppression and detection equipment, security systems and flow control products. Tyco's stock (TYC) has lost three-quarters of its value in the first five months of 2002, leaving investors $85 billion poorer. It had traded as high as $62.19 on 22 January 2001. But on 03 June 2002 it drops as low as $15.25 (below its 5-year low of $15.66 on 09 June 1997) closing at $16.05, from the previous close of $21.95. [5~year TYC price chart >]
      Some analysts and investors criticized Tyco for what they saw as opaque accounting practices and for its 1997 move to Bermuda to avoid paying some United States taxes. But big investors cheered Tyco's seemingly steady earnings growth, and the company's stock soared.
      If Tyco cannot raise cash and regain investors' confidence by selling assets, it may face a cash squeeze, with $12 billion in debt coming due by the end of 2003. The forced resignation of Kozlowski represents the end of the stock market boom of the 1990's. He is the epitome of a group of swashbuckling C.E.O.'s who came along in the 1990s and who called themselves, audaciously, the serial acquirers. Kozlowski was the most aggressive of all. Other executives, like Bernard J. Ebbers, who lost his job in April as chief executive of WorldCom, confined themselves to one industry. Kozlowski sought to build a giant multi-industry corporation, following in the footsteps of the conglomerate builders of the 1960's, like Harold Geneen of ITT.
      Conglomerates usually fail, because running a diverse group of companies is much harder than buying them.
      Tyco's accounting practices are highly complex, and although it reports billions of dollars in profit every year, its debt has swelled to $24 billion. After Enron's collapse, Tyco came under fresh scrutiny and was then damaged by troubling disclosures and abrupt changes in its business strategy
— On 26 June 2002, just before Kozlowski's appearance in court, it would be announced that he is charged additionally with Tampering with Physical Evidence for removing a bill of lading from a file of documents to be delivered to the Manhattan D.A.'s Office. The bill of lading, which is dated 02 January 2002, falsely reflects the shipping from New York and the receipt in New Hampshire of five paintings by Monet, Munnings, Beert, Caillebotte, and Renoir.

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