ART 4
2-DAY 26 May |
DEATH:
1902 CONSTANT |
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Born on 26 May 1810: Christen
Schjellerup Købke, Danish Realist
painter who died on 07 February 1848. — He is the most internationally renowned Danish painter and, with his teacher, C. W. Eckersberg, was one of the leading artists of the Danish ‘golden age’ of painting in the 1830s and 1840s. He is most famous for his intimate depictions of familiar landmarks in Copenhagen and North Zealand, notably Frederiksborg Castle, near Hillerød. The skill with which he rendered architectural silhouettes and the light of the Danish sky has won him great acclaim. His charming and intimate portraits of family, fellow artists and friends are among the best examples of Nordic portrait painting. — Lorenz Frølich was a student of Købke. LINKS The View of the Plaster Cast Collection at Charlottenborg Palace (1830) Frederik Sødring (1832) Frederiksborg Castle Seen from the Northwest (1836) View of Lake Sortedam (1838) View of Østerbro from Dosseringen (1838) |
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Born on 26 (25?) May 1868: Jules
Alexandre Grün, French painter, illustrator, and poster
artist who died on 15 February 1934. Grün was born in Paris, on 25 (26?) May 1868. He died of Parkinson's Disease, although the date of his death is debated. Some sources state that he died on 15 February 1934, while others, such as the Salon de Paris official documents claim 1938. Yet another source claims 1945. Grün was the student of Jean-Baptiste Lavastre, the famed theatrical decorator of the Paris Opera, and of Antoine Guillemet, a renowned landscape painter. Still life, portraits, and scenes of Parisian life were his favorite subjects. In 1890, his illustrations for Xanrof's Chansons sans Gêne (1890) and Chansons à rire (1891) made him the poet of the Bohemian element and the Montmartre atmosphere. His early life is virtually unknown, although we do know many of his accomplishments, as they are well documented in the annals of the Paris Salons and periodicals of the period. One turn of the century publication characterized him as follows: "Whoever sees Grün once will always re-examine it in his spirit: a Frenchman with a beard and a legendary baldness; eyes strangely clear and penetrating, and under the sensual curving nose, a mouth gushing forth with quick wit and good banter." For Grün, life and art merged; he was a painter because he liked the life, and because he needed to express his clear feelings, colored, alive of people and the things around them. As Théophile Gautier said, Grün was "a man for whom the visible world exists". In the mid-to-late 1930s, Grün became stricken with Parkinson's disease, which served to isolate him from society, and greatly diminished his artistic abilities. When he died one of the last of the great Belle Epoque poster artists was taken away from the world. His posters, full of life and of color, contributed largely to the rebirth of the lithography. With Chéret, whose name is inseparable in this field, Jules Alexandre Grün helped transform the scenic landscape of the Parisian streets at the turn of the century. Full and powerful, almost caricatural, and when he desired, delicate and exquisite. Grün, by his love of painting, and by the diversity of his gifts and subjects, was a complete artist. — Photo of Grün — The Dinner Party (60x90cm) Fin de Souper (1913, 56x152cm) 17 prints at Wet Canvas |
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Died on 26 May 1902: Jean-Joseph-Benjamin“-”Constant,
French painter and printmaker born on 10 June 1845, specialized in
Orientalism.
— Benjamin-Constant (as he called himself) was a leading painter of Oriental themes and a teacher of French academic painting. He spent his youth in Toulouse, where he studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. A municipal scholarship enabled him to enter the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1866. By the following year he was a student in the Ecole de la Rue Bonaparte under the history painter Alexandre Cabanel, and he competed unsuccessfully for the Prix de Rome in 1868 and 1869. His first Salon exhibit, Hamlet and the King (1869), established his reputation as a colorist. Constant submitted a number of other traditional history paintings, such as Samson and Delilah (1872). During the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871), however, he traveled to Spain, visiting Madrid, Toledo, Córdoba and Granada, where he came under the influence of the Orientalist painter Mariano Fortuny y Marsal. In 1872 Constant went to North Africa and stayed for two years, during which he was fascinated by the azure skies, colorful costumes and exotic beauty of the Moroccan people. Exotic harem women and dramatic quasi-historical subjects were the mainstay of Constant's output. — Constant's students included Ernest Leonard Blumenschein [26 May 1874 – 1960], Frank Dumond, William Horton, William Kendall, Caroline Lord, Granville Redmond, Guy Rose, Joseph Henry Sharp, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Sears Gallagher, Charles Courtney Curran, António Teixeira Carneiro, Carlos Baca Flor, Pedro Blanes Viale, Robert Brough, Józef Czajkowski, Paul Peel, Maurice Prendergast, Leo Putz, George Agnew Reid, José Veloso Salgado, Aurélia de Sousa, Henry Ossawa Tanner. — photo of Constant (1401x987pix, 144kb) — a later photo of Constant (846x651pix, 89kb) LINKS — The Entry of Mahomet II into Constantinople (1876, 3390x2487pix, 4086kb) — a different Entrance of Mohammed II into Constantinople (150x100cm, 2000x1319pix, 451kb) — Arabian Nights (47x89cm; 528x1000pix, 111kb) — Contemplation (140x 93cm; 1000x648pix, 168kb) — Guarding the Chieftain (61x49cm; 1000x817pix, 260kb) — The Palace Guard with Two Leopards (100x62cm; 1000x585kb, 178kb) — L'Impératrice Théodora Au Colisée (157x133cm, 1189x1000pix, 232kb) — Herodiade (1881, 130x95cm; 1000x733pix, 203kb) — The Throne Room In Byzantium (101x74cm; 1440x1000pix, 247kb) Portrait of a Moor (47x41cm; 630x540pix, 90kb) — Drying Clothes (900x708pix, 39kb) _ Unusual for Constant is this everyday scene of domestic work, the subject of which is a lowly woman. Her direct gaze may be a reflection of changing social perceptions in this period, whereby peasants were portrayed as proud and honest folk. The soft warm tones create an exotic languor which charm the onlooker with a dream of Eastern promise. |
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Born on 26 May 1878: Spencer
Frederick Gore, English painter who died of pneumonia on
27 March 1914. — He studied at the Slade School of Fine Art, London (1896–1899), where he met Harold Gilman, who became a close friend. In 1902 he visited Spain with another Slade contemporary, Wyndham Lewis, and two years later he visited Sickert in Dieppe. From that time on his work was influenced by French art, and Gore learnt much about Degas’s paintings through Sickert’s teaching. After Sickert’s return to London in 1905 Gore frequently accompanied him to music halls and made them the subject of several paintings, for example The Mad Pierrot Ballet, the Alhambra (1905) {Any Gore gore to be seen?} As a founder-member of the Fitzroy Street Group, Gore came into contact with Lucien Pissarro, whose Impressionist method he adopted in his garden scenes and in The Cricket Match (1909). With Gilman and others he helped found the Allied Artists' Association and was also involved in the formation of the Camden town group in 1911. After seeing Roger Fry's Post-Impressionist exhibitions of 1910 and 1912, he was one of the first Camden Town artists to switch from an Impressionist-based technique to one that comes closer in appearance to stained glass. It is first seen in landscapes he painted at Letchworth in summer 1912, for instance in the insistent pattern-making in The Beanfield; he later gave way to the influence of Cézanne, employing a more complex orchestration of form following his move from Camden Town to Richmond, Surrey, in 1913. In 1912 he directed the mural decorations at the nightclub, ‘The Cave of the Golden Calf’. LINKS — Inez and Taki (41x51cm) _ The title of this picture is the name of a double act Gore saw at the Alhambra Theatre of Varieties in Leicester Square. The couple are playing lyre guitars, an instrument common in the early nineteenth century, but by this date an eccentric choice. Gore was fascinated by the magic of the music hall, and frequently chose unexpected routines as subjects. He went to the theatre several times each week, and made sketches from his seat in the audience. Each composition required many visits to capture the precise moment of the performance. The edge of a balcony is seen here framing the composition, and this unusual perspective increases the odd atmosphere of the scene. — Rule Britannia (1910, 76x63cm) _ Gore was fascinated by the theatre, ballet and music hall, and from his seat in the audience he made sketchbook drawings on which he based paintings. Rule Britannia shows the finale of the immensely popular patriotic ballet Our Flag, which opened at the Alhambra Theatre of Varieties, Leicester Square, in December 1909. It starred the Danish ballerina Britta Petersen, shown here in her Union Jack tutu performing the final dance. Gore emphasises the unusual colors of the stage lighting, contrasted with the dullness of the auditorium. — Ballet Scene (1911, 38x28cm) — Mornington Crescent (1911, 63x76cm) — Applehayes (1909) — Houghton Place (1912, 51x61cm) — Letchworth (1912, 51x61cm) |