ART 4
2-DAY 01 February
v.9.00 |
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>Died on 01 February 1924: Maurice
Brazil Prendergast, US Impressionist
painter, printmaker, illustrator, and designer, born on 10 October 1858
in Newfoundland. — He moved with his family to Boston in 1868 and was working as a commercial artist by 1886, lettering showcards, but his early attempts at watercolor foretold little of the talent that emerged after he went to Paris in January 1891. He studied for three years at the Atelier Colarossi under Gustave Courtois [1853–1923], and later at the Académie Julian under Benjamin Constant, Joseph Blanc, and Jean-Paul Laurens. Here the influence of the Nabis and of Whistler was particularly important to his development. Post-impressionist painter, monotypist, and watercolorist. Member of The Eight, but not a teacher as were Henri, Sloan and Luks. Most recognized for vivid, colorful, complex depictions of urban scenes of Venice, Boston with representation of subject on a flat plane. _ 1868 family moved to Boston; _ 1873 left school, initially clerk in dry goods firm, then commercial art apprentice; _ 1873-1877 classes at Free Evening Drawing School at Starr King School; _ 1879 designer of showcards for J.P. Marshall; _ 1886 with brother Charles (artist and framemaker) worked passage on cattle boat to travel to England and Wales; _ 1891 studied in Paris at Academy Colarossi; _ 1892 at Académie Julian; friends with Canadian artist James Wilson Morrice who introduced him to Sickert, Beardsley and Charles Conder; contact with other artists, summer painting trips and sketching in public places of much more importance than his formal study; influenced by Whistler, post-impressionists and Nabis; _ 1894-1895 returned to Boston; _ 1895 illustrated Sir James M. Barrie's My Lady Nicotine and Sir Thomas Hall's Shadow of a Crime for Joseph Knight Company (Boston Publisher); two watercolors at 52nd Annual Exhibit of Boston Arts Club; _ 1895-1898 produced majority of his 151 known monotypes; _ 1898 third trip to Europe, produced watercolors of Venice; _ 1899 returned to Boston; _ 1900 exhibited 30 watercolors and monotypes jointly with Herman Dudley Murphy at Art Institute of Chicago; 60 watercolors and monotypes at Macbeth Gallery, New York; met Luks and Glackens, increased friendship with Glackens and his family; _ 1901 met Henri through Glackens; _ 1901-1902 began to work more extensively in larger format with oils; exhibited watercolors and monotypes at Detroit Institute of Art and Cincinnati Museum Association; Bronze Medal for Watercolor at Pan American Exposition, Buffalo; _ 1902 marked hearing loss (became deaf by 1905); _ 1904 began frequent trips to New York. LINKS — Holidays (86x119cm; 813x1175pix, 917kb _ ZOOM to 1683x2433pix, 3729kb) a different The Holiday (1907, 68x87cm;) –- Rocky Coast Scene (1913, 35x50cm; 3/8 size, 77kb) –- After the Review (1895 color monotype, 25x20cm;) –- Boat Landing at Dinard aka Quay at Dinard aka Processional (1909, 31x45cm) –- Promenade at Nantasket (1902, 31x49cm; 2/5 size, 71kb) –- In the Park (1894, 27x21cm; 3/5 size, 61kb) — 355 images at the Athenaeum —(070131) |
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Died on 01 February 1905: Oswald
Achenbach, German painter born on 02 February 1827. Brother
of Andreas
Achenbach. — {Many more people have an aching back than an Achenbach}
— He studied at the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf, as did his elder brother, the painter Andreas Achenbach [1815–1910], who was the main influence on him other than his teacher, Johann Wilhelm Schirmer. At a very early stage he began to prepare studies for landscapes in the area around Düsseldorf, sketching boulders, rocks, bushes, trees and people. From 1843 he went on many study tours, visiting Bavaria in 1843 and northern Italy and Switzerland in 1845. The Bavarian and Italian Alps stimulated him to create a unified approach to landscape painting. In such early works as Landscape (1846) his receptiveness to atmospheric values can be seen, even if the precise detail and clear articulation into foreground, middle ground, and background still clearly show his debt to Schirmer. LINKS — Italianischer Park mit Zisterne (1850; 600x764pix _ ZOOM to 1400x1783pix) — Via Cassia bei Rom mit Blick auf den Vatikan (1874; 600x856pix _ ZOOM to 1400x1997pix) — Südliche Landschaft mit Don Quixote (1850; 600x909pix _ ZOOM to 1400x2122pix, 887kb) — Palazzo Ruspoli in Nemi (1850; 600x808pix _ ZOOM to 1400x1885pix) — Leichenbegängnis in Palestrina (1857; 600x516pix _ ZOOM to 1400x1204pix) — Vor dem Koloseum (1877; 600x960pix _ ZOOM to 1400x2240pix) — Küstenlandschaft bei Neapel (1880; 600x912pix _ ZOOM to 1400x2128pix) — Blick auf Basel (1889; 600x784pix _ ZOOM to 1400x1829pix) — Der Konstantinsbogen in Rom (1882; 600x740pix _ ZOOM to 1400x1727pix) — 70 images at Bildindex |
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Died on 01 February 1944: Pieter
Cornelis Mondriaan Piet Mondrian,
Dutch Neo~Plasticist
painter born on 07 March 1872. Mondrian carried abstraction to its furthest limits. Through radical simplification of composition and color, he sought to expose the basic principles that underlie all appearances. [click on image for full self-portrait >] ![]() In 1917 Mondrian and the Dutch painter Theo van Doesburg founded De Stijl magazine, in which Mondrian developed his theories of a new art form he called neoplasticism. He maintained that art should not concern itself with reproducing images of real objects, but should express only the universal absolutes that underlie reality. He rejected all sensuous qualities of texture, surface, and color, reducing his palette to flat primary colors. His belief that a canvas—a plane surface—should contain only planar elements led to his abolition of all curved lines in favor of straight lines and right angles. His masterly application of these theories led to such works ![]() When Mondrian moved to New York City in 1940, his style became freer and more rhythmic, and he abandoned severe black lines in favor of lively chain-link patterns of bright colors, particularly notable in his last complete masterwork, Broadway Boogie-Woogie (1943, 127x127cm). Mondrian was one of the most influential 20th-century artists. His theories of abstraction and simplification not only altered the course of painting but also exerted a profound influence on architecture, industrial design, and the graphic arts. Mondrian died in New York. — [Nederlands biografie] LINKS –- Self Portrait (1918) Place de la Concorde (1943) _ This picture cries out for the contributions of other painters. So the pseudonymous Piété “Corne Lisse” Mondepleuran has secured the cooperation of the equally pseudonymous (but not necessarily distinct) Prangard Domage, Sam Lecram, and Avoine Noirtanck, to concoct: _ Le Monde Riant Autour des Dégas à la Place de la Concorde (846x936pix, 81kb _ ZOOM to 1269x1404pix, 176kb) _ Moan, Dry Ann, as You Circle Clockwise Concord Square in Paris (846x936pix, 81kb _ ZOOM to 1269x1404pix, 176kb) _ Moan , Dry Ann, as You Circle Counter-Clockwise Concord Square in Paris (735x833pix, 72kb _ ZOOM to 1103x1250pix, 160kb) — Painting No. 9 (1942; 1600x1460pix, 342kb) _ Mondepleuran is thinking up some ridiculous titles for future transformations of this picture; he already came up with _ Panting Numb Bernard (<2020?; ?x?pix, ?kb) and _ Paint Tin Number Known (<2020?; ?x?pix, ?kb). — Composition with Red, Blue, Yellow (1930; 503x500pix, 36kb) _ You may prefer the bandwith saving, but better rendition by Mondepleuran: Composition with Red, Blue, Yellow (600x600pix, 4kb) and, even more so, what Mondrian was capable of doing, but didn't: _ Red Farm, Blue, Yellow, and a Tiny Mondrian (600x600pix, 18kb). — (white, black, blue, yellow, red) (1921; 1188x1197pix, 191kb) –- Composition A en Rouge et Blanc (1936, 43x33cm; 603x465pix, 15kb) _ When there is a greater fool who will pay $5'289'500 (of 08 May 2002) for 5 black straight lines and 6 rectangles in 3 flat colors, it is not surprising that there is a cunning salesman who will write such drivel as the following: The precision and purity of Mondrian's linear compositions of the 1930s have come to define the sophisticated, streamlined aesthetic of 20th century Modernism. During the late 1920s and 1930s, Mondrian concerned himself with the essence of art, stripping his paintings of all secondary imagery and extraneous detail that he had employed at earlier points in his career, and concentrated instead on creating pictures that communicated universal notions of beauty through pure form. His paintings of this period stressed the importance of balance and the economy of line in order to demonstrate the inherent beauty of geometry. In his many published treatises on these paintings, Mondrian called his artistic objective “Neo-Plasticism”. Simplifying his compositions to the point of pure abstraction, he intended his paintings to “complement society not as propaganda or as applied art but by its plastic expression alone. To understand this it is necessary to know what this pure art involves, to know that it is a genuine and living expression of universal equilibrium”. Mondrian painted Composition A en rouge et blanc in 1936 in Paris, just when his egalitarian ideas about art and society were becoming more widely known in Europe and in the United States. This painting played a significant role in promulgating Mondrian's artistic ideas and solidifying his reputation abroad. Shortly after its completion, Mondrian sent this work to London to the painter Ben Nicholson, a leading member of the group of British artists who published Circle, International Survey of Constructivist Art in 1937. Through Nicholson, whom he had met in 1934, Mondrian was able to market his art in England, and subsequently show his work at two significant exhibitions in London in 1936. The present work was featured at one of these exhibitions, Modern Paintings for Modern Rooms, sponsored by the prominent furniture design firm, Duncan Miller Ltd. Following Mondrian's advice, Nicholson sold this painting to the architect Leslie Martin later that year. Both Nicholson and Martin were greatly impressed by the philosophical ideas behind Mondrian's paintings of 1936, and requested that he elaborate on these theories for a scholarly journal that would be published in 1937. In the resulting article, “Plastic Art and Pure Plastic Art”, Mondrian explained the philosophy governing his paintings of this era: “Gradually art is purifying its plastic means and thus bringing out the relationships between them. Thus, in our day two main tendencies appear: the one maintains the figuration, the other eliminates it. While the former employs more or less completed and partial forms, the latter uses simple and neutral forms, or, ultimately, the free line and the pure color. It is evident that the latter (non-figurative art) can more easily and thoroughly free itself from the domination of the subjective than can the figurative tendency; particular forms and colors (figurative art) are more easily exploited than neutral forms. It is, however, necessary to point out that the definitions ‘figurative’ and ‘non-figurative’ are only approximate and relative. For every form, even every line represents a figure, no form is absolutely neutral. Clearly, everything must be relative, but since we need words to make our concepts understandable, we must keep these terms”. Mondrian's distinctive style of painting, as represented in Composition A en rouge et blanc and Composition blanc et rouge, is the culmination of a stylistic development that commenced with his study of the Cubist works of Gris and Léger that he saw while living in Paris during the 1910s. But the strict linearity of his compositions of the 1930s, with their rectilinear grids and minimalist planes, is a distillation of the form of language that evolved while he was associating with the architect and painter Theo van Doesburg and the architect J.J.P. Oud with whom he collaborated from 1917-1924 on the Dutch art and architectural journal, De Stijl. In the present work, Mondrian's preoccupation with the compartmentalization and manipulation of space is a testament to the influence of the architectural and design concepts of his colleagues. The primacy of the line was the defining factor of Mondrian's paintings of this period, as is most evident in Composition A en rouge et blanc. Here, Mondrian has used double lines across the top third of the canvas, a structural device that he had first incorporated into his paintings in 1932. With these bands of black, Mondrian has divided into three sections the block of red in the upper left quadrant of the painting, adding to the spatial range and geometric complexity of the composition. The startlingly simplified palette of white, red and muted grey underscores Mondrian's strict adherence to the formal principles which he tirelessly promoted in his writings of the 1930s. Writing on Mondrian's use of color and line, Hans L. C. Jaffé has described the style which solidified Mondrian's reputation: “The years from 1933 to 1938, which Mondrian spent in Paris, are marked by a series of compositions in which the linear elements set the tone and the color is more or less reduced to an accompanying voice. The origin of these linear compositions is to be found in the series of paintings of 1930 and the following years in which the tension and nuances of the lines constitute the most important compositional elements; the consequences of these works are to be seen in the development of Mondrian's art”. This canvas once hung over the desk of Philip Sandblom, who considered it an object of meditation and contemplation. Writing in his famous essay “Disease and Genius”, Sandblom selected a passage by Mondrian that aptly describes this masterpiece: “It is the line, the color and their relations which must bring into play the whole sensual and intellectual register of the inner life”. –- Paysage à Montmorency (08 Aug 1930, 47x55cm; 669x800pix, 46kb) badly yellowed by aging _ This has been cleaned up and greatly improved by Mondepleuran, who, by transforming the simplistic Composition A en Rouge et Blanc, has created _ Mont Pala au Tricolore (2006; 900x1086pix, 2kb), which he then used as the frame in _ Mont Ranci au Tricolore (2006; 900x1086pix, 92kb). –- Geinrust Farm with Isolated Tree (1906, 47x64cm; 601x800pix, 57kb) plenty of trees (one much taller than the others), no farm. _ Here too, Mondepleuran has created a frame in Mondrian's later simplistic style, _ Green Rust with Isolated Three (2006; 880x1086pix, 2kb), and inserted the landscape, resulting in _ Green Rust with Isolated Farm (2006; 880x1086pix, 63kb). River View with Boat (1908) –- Little Girl (1901) –- Still Life with Gingerpot II –- Composition with Large Blue Plane, Red, Black, Yellow, and Gray (1921) –- Composition blanc, rouge et jaune (1936) River View with Boat (1908) Molen (Mill); Mill in Sunlight — Avond (Evening); Red Tree (1908 ) — Amaryllis (1910) — Gray Tree (1911) — Composition No. II; Composition in Line and Color (1913; 628x829pix, 100kb) dull colors to be precise. But that is exactly the kind of challenge which Mondepleuran takes up, and he has made of this, in bright colors and with symmetry, not one, but two pictures with palindromic names: _ Line Nil (2006; 1000x1414pix, 618kb) and _ Lune Nul (2006; 1000x1414pix, 637kb) — Ocean 5 (1915; 610x831pix, 93kb) dirty yellow, a jumble of vertical and horizontal line segments inside an oval; if that is an ocean, it is terribly polluted... That is intolerable to Mondepleuran, who has cleaned up the ocean (by making a negative) and offers you _ Monde Ocean Bleu (2006; screen filling, 173kb) — The Song of Color: Composition no.1 (1924 color lithograph 49x31cm; kb) _ Here Mondepleuran has taken a different approach. He has kept a Mondrian-like set of rectangles, but made it symmetrical, and, instead of Mondrian's few and flat colors, has filled the rectangles with a riot of colors and textures in _ The Symphony of Colors: Disposition Infinity aka Nose Son (2006; screen filling, 206kb _ ZOOM to 1864x2636pix, 1376kb) and even more extravagantly in _ Le Songe des Couleurs en Positions Definitives aka Musk Sum (2006; screen filling, 335kb _ ZOOM to 1864x2636pix, 2891kb) — Composition with Color Planes and Gray Lines 1 (1918; 572x700pix, 66kb) Composition with Gray and Light Brown (1918) — Composition A: Composition with Black, Red, Gray, Yellow, and Blue (1920) — Lozenge Composition with Yellow, Black, Blue, Red, and Gray (1921) — Composition with Red, Yellow and Blue (1921; 814x772pix, 64kb) or in Mondepleuran's efficient rendition: _ Recomposition with Red, Yellow and Blue (600x600pix, 8kb) — Composition with Blue, Yellow, Black, and Red (1922; 655x668pix, 40kb) — Lozenge Composition with Red, Black, Blue, and Yellow (1925) — Fox Trot; Lozenge Composition with Three Black Lines (1929) — Composition with Yellow Patch (1930) Composition with Yellow (1930) — Composition No. III Blanc-Jaune (1942; 1021x531pix, 64kb) _ It also has blue, red, and black. Mondepleuran's version loads instantly, has cleaner colors, and fits better in a computer screen: _ Composition No.111 Blanc-Jaune-Bleu-Rouge-Noir (2006; 600x800pix, 3kb). But much preferable is Mondepleuran's twin maximalist transformations of a combination of this and another (left to the curiosity of the viewer to identify) of Mondrian's simplistic pictures: _ Astoundingly Beautiful Colors (2007; 724x1024pix, 188kb _ ZOOM to 1024x1448pix, 427kb _ ZOOM+ to 1864x2636pix, 3724kb) and _ Beautifully Astounding Colors (2007; 724x1024pix, 188kb _ ZOOM to 1024x1448pix, 427kb _ ZOOM+ to 1864x2636pix, 3724kb) Rhythm of Black Lines (1942; 924x904pix, 169kb) — Vertical Composition with Blue and White (1936) — Composition No. 8 (1942) Composition No. 10 (1942, 80x73cm; 968x882pix, 83kb) _ For those who appreciate the power of negative thinking, Mondepleuran has created _ Composition Minus 10 (2005; full screen, 68kb) New York City (1942) — Broadway Boogie Woogie (1943) Solitary House (1898) Composition with Oval in Color Planes II (1914) Composition with Grid VII (Lozenge, 1919) Composition with Grid IX (1919) Composition A (1920) Composition with Black, Red, Gray, Yellow, and Blue (1921) Lozenge Composition with Red, Gray, Blue, Yellow, and Black (1925) New York City I (1942) Victory Boogie Woogie (1943) — DSC01173 (765x1171pix, 124kb) what Mondrian might have done if he had lost his ruler and his paints, hated white, but had plenty of crayons. —(090201) |
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>Born on 01 February 1801: Thomas
Cole, English US Hudson
River School painter, specialized in Landscapes,
who died on 11 February 1848. Cole would be one of the founders of Romantic landscape painting in the New World. He is born into an Anglo-American family in England. The family would return to the United States in 1818. Until then young Thomas had received training in drawing and wood engraving. In the USA, he entered the Philadelphia Academy of Art in 1823. Later he settled in the Catskills on the Hudson and became a cofounder of the so-called Hudson River School, which established Romantic landscape painting in America. Direct, spontaneous landscapes painted in the wilderness of the Catskill Mountains brought rapid recognition and attracted New York buyers: The Clove, Catskills (1827). In 1829 and 1841-1842 Cole traveled to Europe, he visited England, Switzerland, and Italy, studying in particular the landscapes of European masters. On his return, having also absorbed philosophical and literary ideas, Cole introduced a new type of painting to America: the symbolic, moral landscape, as represented by the series on the themes of The Course of Empire (1832) and The Voyage of Life (1839-1840): The Course of Empire: The Savage State (1836), The Voyage of Life: Childhood (1842). These are fantastic, symbolic scenes full of unusual effects of grandiose space and theatrical contrasts of light. Not satisfied with great American nature any longer, Cole increases fantastic and mystical character by introducing Biblical and antique subjects. His late pictures do not attain the fine quality of his earlier atmospheric landscapes, they are rough and primitive, but are supposed to stun spectators with extremely pretentious surrealism. LINKS –- Prometheus Bound (1847, 163x244cm; 722x1097pix, 72kb _ .ZOOM to 1444x2204pix, 432kb) _ .detail (1726x1152pix, 210kb) Prometheus and the rock to which he is fastened. –- Peace at Sunset (Evening in the White Mountains) (1827, 69x82cm; 905x1086pix, 70kb) –- View near the Village of Catskill (1827, 62x89cm, 69x82cm; 847x1217pix, 84kb) — Landscape (1825, 92x111cm; 1/4 size, 840kb _ ZOOM to half-size, 3237kb) _ Here Cole portrays a community of frontier people living in a valley, probably in upstate New York, where they attempt to tame the wilderness. The Voyage of Life: Childhood (1842) The Voyage of Life: Youth (1842) The Voyage of Life: Manhood (1842) The Voyage of Life: Old Age (1842) Expulsion from the Garden of Eden (1828) Niagara Falls (1830) The Consummation from the series: The Course of the Empire (1836) The Connecticut River near Northampton (1846). — 107 images at the Athenaeum —(070131) |
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Died on 01 February 1638: Adriaen
Brouwer (or Brauwer, Broeuer, Brower), Flemish genre painter
and draftsman born in 1605. Brouwer influenced artists in both Flanders and Holland. He went to study under Frans Hals in Haarlem about 1621, gained a high reputation in Holland, and returned to the South Netherlands in 1631. There he was arrested and imprisoned by the Spaniards as a spy until September 1633. He then settled in Antwerp. Except for a handful of landscapes, apparently from his last years, all of Brouwer's pictures are of subjects drawn from common life showing peasants smoking, drinking, or brawling in taverns; quack surgeons operating on grimacing patients; and so on. Most of the pictures are small and painted on panel. The coarseness of his subjects contrasts with the delicacy of his style, which in its mature stage shows an unusual mastery of tonal values. — Brouwer is first documented in March 1625, when he was staying at an inn in Amsterdam run by the painter Barent van Someren [1572–1632]. Brouwer is also recorded on 23 July 1626 as a notary’s witness at a sale of pictures in Amsterdam. He must have been living in Haarlem then, as he is mentioned in 1626 in connection with the rhetoricians’ chamber De Wijngaertranken, an amateur literary society whose motto was ‘In Liefde Boven Al’ (Love above all). Brouwer was a student of Frans Hals in Haarlem, but there is no evidence of Hals’s direct influence in his work. Brouwer may also have been taught by his father [–1622], a designer of tapestry cartoons in Oudenaarde in Flanders. When exactly Adriaen Brouwer left Haarlem is not known, but in 1631–1632 he was enrolled in the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke as an independent master and is regularly mentioned in documents in that city in subsequent years, mainly in connection with debts. He was imprisoned in 1633, possibly for tax debt though probably for political reasons. By April 1634 he had been released and was living in the house of the engraver Paulus Pontius. The same year he joined the Antwerp rhetoricians’ chamber known as De Violieren. His only officially recorded student was a Jan Dandoy in 1635, of whom nothing is now known. Students that must have come to him unofficially rather than through the Guild, include Joos van Craesbeeck, whose early work reveals Brouwer’s influence; and Adriaen van Ostade. Brouwer’s burial in the Carmelite church suggests that he died in poverty. LINKS The Bitter Draught (1635) _ Between about 1625 and 1631 Brouwer stayed in Holland. The vivid brushwork which animates his little paintings and the portrait-like character of some of his genre pieces suggest that he had contact with Frans Hals. Returning to Antwerp he became one of the finest valeur painters of all times. His power of expression is also increased. The physiognomy and emotion in The Bitter Draught are not matched before Daumier. The Card Players (25x39cm) _ Adriaen Brouwer was one of the most original talents in Flemish art. Brouwer's version of the popular theme, The Card Players, is a genre piece in a small format, with marvelous, velvety coloring. Peasants Fighting (1634, 33x49cm) _ Dutch realism was a matter not merely of imitative techniques but also of everyday themes: people and objects, houses and streets that might be found in the Republic. Comic paintings seem especially deliberate in their concern with thematic as well as pictorial realism. Like comedies, comic images in theory should depict people as they are, or even worse as they are. Painters fulfilled this requirement in paintings of down-to-earth, lowly themes, of peasants and burghers guzzling, drinking, laughing, dancing, and groping. In theme, these paintings recall comic texts and plays that linger on similar scenes and motifs rather than presenting a tight narrative. A painting of boors fighting by Adriaen Brouwer may seem uncommonly lifelike, with its violent action, gruff faces, poorly dressed peasants or urban dissolutes, and disheveled tavern interior. Seated Drinkers (25x21cm) _ Born in Oudenaerde in Belgium, Adriaen Brouwer studied painting in Amsterdam, then Haarlem, where he came into contact with members of local rhetorical chambers, before settling in Antwerp. Admitted as a free master to the painters' guild in 1632, he also became a member of the rhetorical chamber associated with it. He was popular with his Antwerp colleagues who repurchased his freedom - perhaps by acquiring certain of his paintings when he was imprisoned for debt. Adriaen Brouwer specialized in depicting characters on the edge of society spending their time in licentious activities such as card-playing or alcohol and tobacco abuse. This debauched behavior was looked down on by the members of bourgeois society who saw in it the confirmation of their own moral superiority. During his brief career Brouwer produced only a few dozen works, but revolutionized genre painting with his original synthesis between village scenes with a Bruegelian inspiration and Haarlem genre painting. His great pictorial mastery aroused the admiration of his peers, and painters and collectors like Rubens and Rembrandt owned several of his pictures. Under the influence of early biographers, who attempted to draw parallels between the author's work and his life, experts have sought to see in the background of the Seated Drinkers the wall of Antwerp citadel, then a jail, where the painter was imprisoned. This is, however, unlikely: the artist represented this type of rudimentary landscape several times over, with no link between the subject matter and his time behind bars. On the other hand, the finesse of this finely tempered little masterpiece has been rightly recognized from the outset. Here Brouwer has reached his full maturity. A few delicate red and yellow highlights are enough to enliven a composition largely dominated by subtly gradated browns and grays. If one needed to make a comparison between the painter's life and his work, it would be between the artist's untiring interest for theater life and the very convincing way in which he succeeds in translating the psychological interplay of the figures. — Peasants Feasting (1628; 600x910pix _ ZOOM to 1400x2123pix, 614kb) — The Pancake Baker (1626; 130kb) — The Smokers aka The Peasants of Moerdijk (1630; 114kb) |
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