ART “4”
“2”-DAY 27 December
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| BIRTH: 1859 MARCH |
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Died on 27 December 1849: Jacques~Laurent
Agasse, in London, Swiss English painter specialized in
animals; born on 24 March 1767. — Born into a wealthy and politically influential Huguenot family, Agasse spent his early childhood at the country estate of Crévin, where he may have developed the interest in animals and natural history that was to guide his later career as an artist in England. Agasse was trained first at the École du Colibri in his native Geneva and subsequently in Paris under Jacques-Louis David (beginning in 1787) and possibly under Horace Vernet. His early artistic output consisted chiefly of unpretentious silhouette ‘cut-outs’ in the style of Jean-Daniel Huber. At this time he also undertook a serious study of dissection and veterinary science. — LINKS — White Horse in Pasture (1807) — The Last Stage on the Portsmouth Road (1815) — Landing at Westminster Bridge (1818) — The Flower Seller (1822) — The Playground (1830) |
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Died on 27 December 1802: Jørgensen
“Jens” Juel, Danish painter born
on 12 May 1745.
— {Was every one of his paintings a Juel jewel?} — Noted for his landscapes and portraits, Juel painted compositionally balanced works in a harmonious palette, continuing a classical painterly tradition. The son of a vicar at Gamborg on Funen, Juel went to Hamburg (then under Danish sovereignty), where he studied under the German artist Johann Michael Gehrmann [–1770]. In 1765 Juel briefly returned to Fünen and then to Copenhagen, where he studied at the Kunstakademi until 1771. While at the academy he came under the influence of Carl Gustaf Pilo, a professor there from 1748 and best known for his portraits of the Danish royal family. It was also at the academy that Juel perfected his considerable talent in drawing. — Among Juel's students there were Caspar David Friedrich, and Philipp Otto Runge. — LINKS — Jean-Armand Tronchin (1779) — Madame de Pragins (1779) — A Strom Brewing behind a Farmhouse in Zealand (1795) — A Noblewoman with her Son (1800) — A Running Boy (1802) — Isabelle de Charrière _ Mme de Charrière [1740-1805] was a writer. — Bernt Anker (1792, oval 64x51 cm; 595x468pix, 23kb) _ Swedish-born Anker was Norway's richest man and a philanthropist. |
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Born on 27 (22?) December 1859: Vicente
March y Marco, Spanish painter who died on 31 March 1927
(or in 1914?). — {If his name had been Vicente April y Marco, would
he have lived one more month?} — Nace en Valencia y se forma artísticamente en la Escuela de Bellas Artes de San Carlos de esta capital, teniendo como profesores a Gonzalo Salvá y a Francisco Domingo Marqués. En 1876 oposita a una plaza de pensionado en Roma con el lienzo Desembarco en Valencia de Francisco I tras la derrota de Pavía, quedando en segundo lugar, por lo que, alentado por su profesor Francisco Domingo, en 1887 se traslada a Roma por sus propios medios, teniendo como compañero de viaje a Constantino Gómez. Una vez en Roma se instala en los talleres del Palazzo Patrizi, situados en el 53-B de la entrañable via Margutta, compartiendo estudio con un numeroso grupo de artistas españoles, casi todos ellos valencianos, entre los que destacan Poveda, Peyró, Puig Roda, Pedro Serrano, Sánchez Barbudo, Manuel Muñoz Casas, y los hermanos Benlliure con quienes le unirá una gran amistad de por vida, completando su formación artística en la academia Chigi. En Italia, durante el verano, pasa largas temporadas en Venecia, en Nápoles, en Asís con los Benlliure, y, sobre todo, en Subiaco, población de aspecto medieval cercana a Anticoli Corrado, residencia permanente esta última de su buen amigo y compañero Mariano Barbasán. Influido por el ambiente de los círculos artísticos españoles en Roma, cultiva principalmente los temas costumbristas italianos de los siglos XVII y XVIII . Posteriormente y a raíz de un viaje realizado por Marruecos y Egipto desarrolla una etapa con escenas marroquíes y orientalistas. En 1881 obtiene la medalla de plata de la Exposición Regional valenciana con el lienzo Una visita al estudio. A partir de 1888 expone regularmente en Berlín y Munich, obteniendo diversos premios. En 1893 su acuarela La Hilandera (480x333pix, 32kb) obtiene la medalla de plata en la Exposición Internacional de Roma. En 1894 trabaja para los álbumes dedicados a S.M. la Reina de España y a S.A. Imperial de Alemania. En 1.903, a los pocos años de haber contraído matrimonio, deja Roma y fija su residencia en una pequeña población cercana a Xátiva donde reside su hermano Rafael, farmacéutico de profesión, y la familia de su esposa. Allí continua su obra pictórica hasta su fallecimiento. Entre sus obras cabe destacar, aparte de las anteriormente citadas y de las cuyos enlaces están al último: Un bautizo en España, Las tres edades,, En el mercado, Plaza del mercado de Subiaco, Riña de gallos en Argel, La egipcia, Lección de música, Visita a la casa del niño, La esclava, Viejo árabe leyendo, El abuelo, El prólogo, La almea, Un labrador de la huerta, Sí vendrá, Mercado de las flores de Valencia. (los enlaces de este párrafo son de fotos en blanco y negro). — Self-Portrait of head (480x375pix, 23kb) — Self-Portrait head and shoulders (480x404pix, 12kb) — Self-Portrait half length (480x317pix, 18kb) –- A Roman Courtyard In Summer (42x27cm; 1000x591pix, 133kb _ .ZOOM to 1500x886pix, 159kb) — Las Tres Edades (445x640pix, 33kb) — El prestidigitador (555x826pix, 69kb) — Vendedora de frutas (491x318pix, 27kb) — La Ciociara (480x296pix, 18kb) — La gallina ciega (414x672pix, 48kb) — El músico de aldea (428x640pix, 55kb) — Campesinos (399x640pix, 47kb) — 97 images at Vicente March site |
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Died on 27 December 1950: Max Beckmann,
German Expressionist
painter born on 12 February 1884. — Beckmann was born into a farming family, which gave up its farm and moved to Leipzig after his birth. Beckmann drew from a young age, and in 1900 entered the Weimar Academy of Arts. He married Minna Tube in 1903, and the two moved to Paris. Beckmann also visited Florence and Geneva, before settling in Berlin in 1904. His earliest paintings show the influence of the impressionsists. His work was popular, and he was able to make a living from his art. Beckmann served as a medic in World War I, but was dismissed after he suffered a nervous breakdown. His experiences in the war had a big effect on his art, and were an important factor in pushing his style in a more expressionist direction. Beckmann taught art in Frankfurt am Main from 1915, but was dismissed from his post by the Nazi Party in 1933. At the beginning of the 30s, he made visits to Paris to paint, and it was around this time that he began to use the triptych format, influenced in part by Hieronymus Bosch [1450 – 09 Aug 1516]. His art was included in the notorious traveling exhibition Entartete Kunst of the Nazis, which opened in Munich on 17 July 1937. The next day Beckmann wisely moved to Amsterdam. In 1947, he moved again to the United States, first to Missouri and later to New York City. He died in 1950 of a heart attack while on his way to see an exhibition of his work at the Metropolitan Museum. Beckmann painted a number of self-portraits, including Self Portrait in Tuxedo (1927). Many of his other works represent scenes from everyday life. They often show grotesque, mutilated bodies, and are seen as commenting on the wrong-doings of the German government in the 1920s and 1930s as well as harking back to his World War I experiences. — Beckmann, often hailed as Germany's greatest 20th-century artist, was one of the founders of what we now call modern art. In Beckmann's 1939 painting Woman with Large Shell and Wine Glass, the vibrant colors are applied with quick, edgy brushstrokes. This painting is a beautiful example of the joyous aspects of Beckmann's work that began during his Paris years. Max Beckmann is not known for his joyousness. Born in Germany (he died in the US) he is famous for brooding, symbol-laden self-portraiture, for his mastery of the morose. Sometimes mythic and always dramatic, Beckmann may well be the epitome of Expressionism, Germany's great contribution to modern art. It's a style critics came to love; Hitler to hate (and even some Hitler-haters concur with Hitler on this one point). But at the start, he was just a gifted, if romantic, realist. He was a very fine academic person; he studied the traditions, especially Rembrandt. He was an excellent draftsman; his anatomy was perfect. He had a perfect understanding of human structure. Beckmann's canvases grew with his ambition. The Titanic, painted in 1912, is as busy as turbulent, as theatrically tragic as the scene it depicts. But it was World War I that forged Beckmann's famed Expressionism. A medic on the front, the artist faced such brutality that he simply broke down. His post war work is radical, dark, and, above all, personally expressive, as in 1917's Christ Saving an Adulteress From Stoning, a Christ who looks a lot like Max Beckmann. Beckmann was one of the great stars in Germany, one of the hottest painters of the time. For what did he need to go to Paris? He wanted to be a cosmopolitan, a painter recognized on the European level such as Picasso, Matisse, and Braque were recognized internationally. In 1929, Beckmann moved to Paris, to exhibit there and get the French art world to take a German as seriously as it did its own. In Beckmann's Resting Woman with Carnations, a serene, sensuous figure is set against an intricate, decorative pattern of stylized stripes, tiles, and latticework. This may be compared to Henri Matisse's exotic Odalisque With Green Scarf (or Harem Woman), which was painted in 1926. The model in Beckmann's Resting Woman with Carnations also takes an alluring seated pose. Beckmann's model is his second wife, Quappi. He painted Quappi flamboyantly, dozens of times, in various stages of dress and undress. Part of his new Paris persona: Macho artist with sexy wife. Beckmann didn't just challenge Matisse, however, but Picasso as well. An example of Picasso's classical style of the 1920's is a portrait called The Reader. Beckmann's response is a woman reading. The German took up specifically French themes as well: The French seaside is serene to Matisse; to Beckmann, it's an occasion for a bizarre bathing scene. Rugby teams to France's Robert Delaunay are all color. By contrast, Max Beckmann's tangled web of soccer players by contrast bristles with dark feeling. Even Beckmann's still-lifes are emotional. Consider a marine comparison: Picasso's catch of the day, almost funny; Braque's flat, formal, elegant. Beckmann's creatures, however, convey menace and a sense of drama in the composition through these enormous teeth that the fish show, giving it a harshness and a forcefulness that goes away from a purely esthetic rendering of objects or shapes. Ultimately, Beckmann was rejected by France, and not long after, the king of German painting was spurned by his own country as well. A surviving photo shows how mildly this painting had begun in 1933: Beckmann, the proud sovereign; Quappi, his young queen. But in 1937, the Nazis had turned on him, confiscating hundreds of his paintings and taunting several in their infamous degenerate art show. Beckmann reworked this painting in 1937 when he was declared degenerate and made it more brooding and less of a self-portrait than almost like a dark and dramatic painting that almost forebodes the terrible things that are going to come. Beckmann fled to Holland, safe in part because his son was a surgeon in the Luftwaffe. There, he painted the acrobats. He sees dark things, ugly things. The paintings take on a gloomy look. There's a Roman soldier with a spear that's a thinly disguised Nazi. There's a bellhop coming in. The bellhop in Beckmann's paintings is always a messenger bringing news of various kinds, usually bad. And the acrobats refers to people who make their living by creativity, who are onstage, disguising themselves, taking different roles, like Beckmann himself, who sometimes played the acrobat. It was after the war that, fed up with Europe, Beckmann was offered a teaching job in America, at Washington University in St. Louis. There, art student Wally Barker became his assistant. St. Louis was in a sense Beckmann's Paris, but here, he ruled the roost at last. In 1950, receiving an honorary degree from Washington University, he summed up: "Greatness," he said in his speech, "depends alone on the fertile imagination of the individual. If you love nature with all your heart, new and unimaginable things in art will occur to you." New and unimaginable things: It might as well be the motto of modern art. And if Max Beckmann hasn't attained the stature of his French rivals, well, maybe it's because they're more important, or maybe because his nervy, odd imagery is just a bit harder to appreciate. — LINKS — Selbstbildnis als Krankenpfleger (1915, 55x38cm) _ Beckmann served in the medical services in eastern Prussia, then in Flanders and at Strasbourg. He was a witness to the first mustard gas attacks around Ypres. At Courtrai, he was present at operations that surgeons attempted on the wounded and made detailed drawings of them. His self portrait is built around three elements: the eye that scrutinizes, the hand that draws, and the red cross. There is hardly any color. A few months later, Beckmann was sent home to Germany after suffering a serious mental breakdown. He sought refuge in Frankfurt where he slowly took up painting again. — Self Portrait in Olive and Brown (1945, 62x50cm) — Self Portrait in Bowler Hat (1921 etching, 32x24cm; full size, 1262kb) _ Here Beckmann depicts himself as a dandy with a bowler hat, stiff collar, and cigarette. The profile of a cat sitting on a table behind him to the left and an ashtray and kerosene lamp to his right fill out the tight composition. Beckmann created about eighty self-portraits over a career that spanned virtually half a century. He used his own image and persona to delve into the complexities of the human soul, showing the variety of selves that make up an individual. In Self-Portrait in Bowler Hat Beckmann shows that he is every bit the modern man, confident in his powers of observation and cool, critical detachment. — Self-Portrait (1919 drypoint, 23x19cm; full size, 538kb) — Self-Portrait in Tuxedo (1927; 1104x749pix, 88kb) — Self-Portrait with Horn (666x609pix, 53kb _ ZOOM to 1000x912pix, 85kb) — Self-portrait with red scarf (1917; 636x487pix, 60kb) — Self-Portrait (1911 lithograph, 25x18cm; 878x706pix, 437kb) — The “Circus Beckmann” Crier (Self-Portrait) (1921 etching, 34x26cm; 408x307pix, 28kb) — Christ with a Woman Taken in Adultery (1917, 669x560kb, 158kb) _ Beckmann came out of a war very badly hurt, physically and mentally. In this picture you see this guy with blood all over his hands, the guy who's so superior to the adulteress. What Beckmann is actually saying here is a plea for mercy, protecting someone. Beckmann the painter used various modern devices, seeing his subjects from multiple points of view, for instance. You can look down on the feet of Christ. And about halfway up the picture you're looking straight across at him. And at the top of the picture, you're looking up, like we're seeing the underside of the guy's face. Different perspectives on one scene — it's what French Cubism was known for: Picasso's double faces, seen at once head-on and in profile; Braque's still-lifes, seen both straight ahead — the legs that hold up the table — and from above — the newspaper and the tabletop itself. Playing with perspective intrigued Beckmann, but he was more interested in emotions, in energy. — The Skaters (1932, 128x98cm; 1159x883pix _ ZOOM to 2318x1766pix, 3202kb) — Blind Man's Buff (1945, 206x439cm for 3 panels: 187x102cm left, 207x104cm center, 188x106cm right; 1/12 size _ ZOOM to 1/6 size, 3019kb) This is the most important of the five triptychs created by Max Beckmann while exiled in Holland between 1937 and 1947, a prudent exile considering the Nazi's inclusion of ten of his works in their exhibition of "degenerate art" in 1937. Like much of his art, Blindman's Buff is allusive and symbolic, inviting explication yet resisting explicit interpretation. Yet, the artist's use of the three-paneled format that was traditional to Medieval and Renaissance altarpieces evokes religious associations. Beckmann also drew upon classical sources, calling the figures at center "the gods" and the animal-headed man the "minotaur." Throughout the triptych, figures engage in sensual pleasures in a place where time, represented by a clock without XII or I, has no beginning or end. In sharp contrast on each wing are the blindfolded man and kneeling woman who, like prayerful donors in a Renaissance altarpiece, turn their backs to the confusion behind them. — Family Picture (1920; 650x1000pix, 183kb) — Dancing Bar in Baden Baden (1923; 1000x627pix, 117kb) — Umberto (1500x638pix, 191kb) — Afternoon (1946, 90x134cm; 750x1122kb, 168kb) — The Argonauts (1950 triptych, center panel 80 1/4x48"; side panels each 74 3/8x33", 589x867pix, 101kb) _ The nine triptychs that Beckman created are an incredibly rich and varied repository of pictorial ideas and visions. Their form is a revival of the medieval altarpiece, a shrine whose wings were closed except on holidays when its gospel lore and legends of saints and martyrs were revealed. This historical connotation explains why the wings of Beckmann's triptychs, although they do not close, are usually much narrower than the center panel (see Departure and Temptation). The Argonauts is the most serene of Beckmann's post-Christian altarpieces. The earlier triptychs show many tortured, shackled, and maimed people, as well as some who are deceived, sadistic, and simply foolish. The figures in The Argonauts are healthy, self-reliant, and enterprising. The elements of lust and baseness were required in the earlier works to set off the spheres of the persecuted hero and the confused dreamer; now, in the last work, the hero as a dreamer, or the dreamer as a hero, has conquered the nightmarish aspects of life. Thus, in retrospect, The Argonauts triptych appears as the logical conclusion of Beckmann's lifelong "passing show." Beckmann initially called this work The Artists. The bearded, intense, contemporary artist in the left panel, not a self-portrait, was the first figure that Beckmann envisioned. Perhaps he saw this painter as the prime mover of the entire phantasmagoria, in whose mind a modern model is transmuted into the classical figure of Medea. The artist knows that the head on which the woman sits is only a hollow mask, not really a decapitated Greek, and that the sword is but a studio prop. The girl musicians in the right panel are already half-transformed into an antique chorus. In the center panel, the fantasy is victorious; there is no trace of present-day metier left, no smell of studio dust and oil paint, only the clear, salty breeze of antiquity. Art has conquered the prosaic everyday. The center panel illustrates, quite faithfully, an episode from Greek mythology. Beckmann had read Goethe's translation of an account by Philostratus from the third century BC concerning the Argonauts' voyage to the Black Sea. The young heroes Orpheus and Jason are shown embarking on their search for the Golden Fleece. Orpheus, by his song, has calmed the wild sea and has put down his lyre on the sand. The ancient sea-god Glaucus emerges from the waves to prophesy the fate of the bold travelers; their magic ship, the Argo, will carry them safely to the mist-darkened kingdom of Colchis where they will "liberate" not only the Golden Fleece but also the king's daughter, Medea. This tale is a reflection of the historical first expeditions of the seafaring Greeks to barbarian lands. Beckmann, to heighten the portent of the sea-god's prophecy, shows sun and moon darkened by a miraculous eclipse and new planets being born. The cosmic menace does not distract the keen youths from their purpose, and the ancient prophet points the way to their heroic, and finally tragic, pursuit. Accept your fate, he seems to admonish them, fulfill your task. This triptych recalls some of Beckmann's very early pictographs: the darkened sun had already appeared in The Descent from the Cross of 1917. The ladder, one of Beckmann's favorite symbols, led nowhere in the early Dream and thus made cruel fun of a poor mortal searching for an exit from his misery; in The Argonauts the ladder rises out of the primeval ocean straight up into blue eternity: there is a way out, it proclaims. But the most touching reminiscence is the reprise of the "golden youths" from Beckmann's first large-scale oil painting, Young Men by the Sea of 1905. This composition owes much to the art student's admiration for Luca Signorelli and Hans von Marees. The maturing Beckmann often came back to the gestalt of the slender, dreamy youths with their unselfconscious charm. The center panel of his last work presents them again: thoughtful, willing to risk much for a great purpose, manly, and radiant with the bloom of youth. Forty-five years of relentless artistic effort resulted in this seemingly spontaneous personification of the elan vital. Through much of Beckmann's career, critics objected to two supposed characteristics of his art: brutality and sex. Beckmann never quite knew why they singled him out, for sex and violence seem to pervade the huge battle scenes and the depictions of rape and martyrdom in so many museums of the world. Beckmann used to say, somewhat naively: "Really, I only wanted to paint beautiful pictures." In The Argonauts this intention is undeniably fulfilled. There is no violence here, and sex, too, has disappeared. The center panel is restricted to male figures, the right to females exclusively. This separation of the sexes, very rare in Beckmann's work, gives an atmosphere of otherworldliness to The Argonauts. Eros and aggression, which are the heritage of the human psyche, are sublimated into a spiritual adventure. A glowing love of beauty and harmony prevails in the end. — Departure (1933; 756x1130pix, 207kb) with commentary. — Temptation (709x1202pix, 200kb) — The Sinking of the Titanic (1912, 265x330cm; 514x641pix, 84kb _ ZOOM to 729x978pix, 122kb) — The Night (1919, 133x154cm; 554x646pix, 97kb _ ZOOM to 832x969pix, 111kb) — Hell of the Birds (1938, 120x160cm; 486x652pix, 84kb _ ZOOM to 771x961pix, 97kb) — 26 Jun - 29 Sep 2003 MOMA exhibition (PDF) |
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