ART “4”
“2”-DAY 05 January
v.10.00 |
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Died on 05 January 1517: Francesco
di Marco Raibolini “Francia”, born in
1450, he was the outstanding Bolognese painter of the High
Renaissance. — Son of a carpenter, Francia was originally a goldsmith. He turned to painting about 1485, and studied under Francesco Squarcione. Francia's first works already testify to the considerable technical accomplishment and gentle religious sensibility that remained constants of his art. He entered into a partnership with Costa after the latter came to Bologna about 1483 and was later influenced also by Perugino. His most characteristic works are sweet, softly rounded Madonnas, which his large workshop produced in some numbers. He was also an accomplished portraitist. His major surviving paintings are altarpieces, mostly images of the Virgin and saints, initially done for Bologna and later for nearby centers, notably Parma, Modena, Ferrara, and Lucca. He also painted many small-scale devotional works and a few portraits. The apochryphal anecdote, reported by Vasari, that Francia died on seeing the altarpiece of Saint Cecilia (1516, 238x150cm) by Raphael, is symbolic of the change in taste that suddenly made his art, like that of Perugino, look old-fashioned. — Francesco Francia had two sons, whom he trained as painters and goldsmiths: Giacomo Francia [1486 – 03 Jan 1557] and Giulio Francia [20 Aug 1487 – 22 Jan 1545]. — Besides his sons, the students of Francia included Bagnacavallo, Innocenzo da Imola, Peregrino da Cesena, Biagio Pupini, Marcantonio Raimondi, Timoteo Viti. — LINKS — The Baptism of Christ (1509, 209x169cm; 599x484pix, 71kb _ ZOOM to 1555x1256pix, 203kb) — Wedding of Saint Cecilia (1508; 526x494pix, 156kb _ ZOOM to 1228x1153pix, 416kb) — Burial of Saint Cecilia (1508; 544x603pix, 180kb _ ZOOM to 1269x1406pix, 474kb) — Adoration of the Child Jesus — Crucifixion with Saints John and Jerome (1485, 52x33cm) — Madonna and Child with the Infant Saint John the Baptist (1500, 57x44cm) — Evangelista Scappi (1505) –- Madonna and Child with Saint Catherine of Alexandria (799x681pix, 73kb) painted jointly with his son Giacomo. –- Madonna and Child with Child Saint John the Baptist and Saint Francis (796x637pix, 51kb) painted jointly with assistants. –- Madonna and Child with Two Angels (799x598pix, 66kb) from his studio. Badly crackled all over. The Child is sitting on a parapet behind which the others are standing. —(070104) |
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Born on 05 January 1914: Nicolas
de Staël, Russian-born French painter of the School
of Paris, who committed suicide on 16 (17?) March 1955. — He was one of the most influential European artists of the post-war period. He was of the Russian nobility, born in Saint-Petersburg, son of a major-general. His family emigrated to Poland in 1919. He was brought up in Brussels, where he attended the Académie Saint Gilles and the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts 1932-1934. He visited Paris, Spain, Morocco, Algeria, and Italy. Settled in France in 1938; studied briefly under Léger. Painted still lifes and portraits, then in 1942 turned towards abstraction. Friendship with Braque, Magnelli and Lanskoy. First one-man exhibition at the Galerie l'Esquisse, Paris, 1944. Worked much with a palette knife, creating dense, encrusted blocks of color. Made woodcuts for Poèmes by René Char 1951. His abstract paintings reached their extreme development in 1951-1952, after which he began to return to figurative painting (landscapes, figures and still life), executed sometimes in brilliant colors. From 1952 spent much of his time in the South of France at Ménerbes, Antibes, and elsewhere. His late pictures were more fluidly and loosely painted. He died at Antibes. — LINKS — Paysage (600x755pix, 103kb _ ZOOM to 1400x1761pix, 226kb) — Figure by the Sea (1952, 162x130cm; 815x656pix, 64kb) — The Shelf (1955, 88x116cm; 358x463pix, 14kb) — Etude de paysage (1952, 33x46cm) — Marathon (1948, 80x65cm) _ Although most of de Stael's paintings of this period are called 'Composition' some have titles evoking the impoverished life he led at the time. 'Marathon' may therefore refer to his struggle to survive and continue working with few admirers and little financial support. De Stael used a brush to paint this work, creating a forceful and dense structure of encrusted blocks of color. Several years after completing it he returned to figurative painting, realising his need 'to feel life before me, and to take it all in so that it penetrates through the eyes and the skin'. — Composition 1950 (1950, 125x79cm) _ De Staël used the title 'Composition' for many paintings of this period. For him, it was a way of signalling not so much that the images were nonrepresentational but they had been literally 'composed', using areas or blocks of carefully modulated color. This work is an example of de Stäel's distinctive use of shades of grey to create a sense of light and space. Although there are no obvious allusions to known forms in this work, the artist believed that his choice of colors and the shapes were based on his perceptual experience of reality. — Les Grands Footballeurs, Parc des Princes, 1952 (200x350cm; 260x450pix) _ At first glance this colorful and needlessly oversized painting {to which the undersized image here does complete justice} looks entirely abstract. Large, slabs of viscous paint, thickly applied with a palette knife make up a bold design of rhythmic and interlocking planes of color. Black counterbalances white, and sharp greens are offset by passages of red and small touches of vibrant pink. In fact, de Staël’s painting was inspired by a floodlit football match played in a Paris stadium, Le Parc des Princes. The colors are the players’ striped shirts. This is the most monumental painting by the Russian artist Nicolas de Staël, who escaped from Russia as a child with his aristocratic family at the time of the Revolution in 1917. He settled in Paris in 1938 when he was twenty-four. De Staël was one of a number of Russian artists who belonged to the School of Paris that flourished after the Second World War. Following the gloom and despair of the Occupation years, many artists in Paris began to paint in a colorful and exuberant style that seems to celebrate the end of years of oppression and austerity. They also turned away from figurative subjects in favour of an art composed of abstract patterns and colors. Their style, sometimes known as 'gestural' or 'lyrical' abstraction, involved a very free and expressive handling of paint. But none went so far as de Staël in achieving such extraordinary effects of dense and shimmering paint. The floodlit football match that de Staël witnessed at the Parc des Princes was a turning point in his career. After this, he rejected pure abstraction and concentrated on series of paintings of footballers, musical performers and landscapes that emerge from lyrical, semi-abstract patterns. Three years after painting Les Grands Footballeurs Staël suffered an emotional crisis over his work. 'I can never bring my works to perfection', he declared. In 1955 he committed suicide by throwing himself off the rocks at Antibes. |
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Died on 05 January 1917: Isobel
Lilian Gloag, British painter born in 1868 (or 1865?). — Gloag was born in London of Scottish parents from Perthshire. She studied at Saint John's Wood Art School, the Slade and then in the studio of M.W.Ridley. She attended life class at South Kensington before going to Paris to study under Raphael Collin. Returning to London, she took a studio in Notting Hill, exhibiting at the Royal Academy from 1893 onwards. Her first exhibit at the Royal Academy was entitled A Raw Recruit. As well as painting romantic subject pictures reminiscent of Byam Shaw and Gerald Moira, she also was a consummate portraitist, illustrator and stained glass window designer. She also designed posters and produced flower paintings. She was elected ROI in 1909, and died after a life plagued by ill health. Some of her paintings are Rosamond, The Miracle of the Roses, Rapunzel, The Choice, Bacchante, A Legend of Provence. — A Legend of Provence (500x380pix, 39kb) _ It inspired the poem Mist by Sharon Bullard: You appear like a fine mist on a leaf. / I cannot give it form or hold in my hand. / To be seen, without purpose. / To dissipate, leaving the leaf untouched / but for the fingerprint of the sun / engraved upon its face. // My face has been touched, / no fingerprint seen- / only sunshine. — The Kiss of the Enchantress akaThe knight and the mermaid (1890; 700x353pix, 48kb) _ It inspired this poem, by Rae Pater: In the first garden, / as with every creature, / the serpent had his mate. // Elemental / she rose / from mossy coils, / a pale woman / fastening wet lips / on hapless man. // Her flickering tongue / evokes response / despite the claim / of divine protection. // There is no release /from this morbid light. / Mab herself / wears this form. // She is old now, / heavy with the weight / of eons of evil, // yet still captivating, / her sinuous beauty / luring the unwary / to sin. — The Magic Mantle (1898, 153x200cm) Also known as The Enchanted Cloak. _ A little boy came to the court of King Arthur with a magic mantle, which no wife could wear who was not true to her lord The subject is taken not from the Morte d'Arthur but from The Boy and the Mantle, a traditional ballad published in Bishop Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765). This describes how 'a strange and cunning boy' appeared at King Arthur's court of Camelot at Carlisle (other contenders for the location of Camelot are Tintagel, Caerleon and Cadbury Hill) one Christmas with a mantle 'of wondrous shape and hew'. No woman, he claimed, who had been unfaithful to her husband could wear it without it shrivelling and leaved her naked. Queen Guinevere was the first to don it, with predictable consequences: And first came Lady Guenever, The mantle she must trye, This dame, she was new-fangled, And of a roving eye. When she had tane the mantle, And all was with it cladde, From top to toe it shiver'd down, As tho' with sheers beshradde. One while it was too long, Another while too short, And wrinkled on her shoulders In most unseemly sort. Now green, now red it seemed, Then all of sable hue, 'Beshrew me,' quoth King Arthur, 'I think thou beest not true,' Down she threw the mantle, Ne longer would not stay; But, storming like a fury, To her chamber flung away. She curst the whoreson weaver, That had the mantle wrought; And doubly curst the froward impe, Who thither had it brought.The Magic Mantle inspired the poem Loving Girl Exposed by Coleen Shin: How silly and brave to let drop / blue feathers and panes of silk / naked to stars and strangers / proof that hidden deeper than skin / lay the soft bones of truth. // But what of it? What to do? // It is not the laying under- / the brief ownership of rose / of bush, of robin breast and song. / Loving hearts often confuse / and make excuse for what is / after all, a touching dance. — Rosamond (1899; monochrome image) _ 'The queen this thread did gette / And went where Ladye Rosamonde / Was like an angell sette.' The painting inspired the poem What do you see by Mia: Six black birds / fell from the sky / cast a shadow // impending Evil, / axe in his hand. // Rosamond prays / to a brocade Madonna / who sits on a throne // the child in her lap / is Cristo in a gown / luxury will not cover // Rosamond’s white fear / silk tapestry hung on a limb / part curtain, part sin. // Three hail Mary's / and a confession / will not wash away / her transgressions // fountain of unholy / water which flows / from the devil's tongues. |
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Died on 05 January 1685: Herman
Saftleven (or Zachtleven) II, Dutch Baroque
draftsman, painter, and printmaker, specialized in landscapes,
born in 1609. — During his lifetime, Herman Saftleven was one of Holland's best-known artists. His father the history painter and draftsman Herman Saftleven I [1580-1627] and his elder brother Cornelis Saftleven [1607 – 05 Jun 1681 bur.] probably trained him. He also studied under Jan van Goyen. Saftleven's simple, austere style appears in an early series of landscape etchings from 1627. About 1632, Saftleven made Utrecht his home. In the following year, he collaborated with Cornelis on paintings of rustic barn interiors, a subject that later became something of a specialty for him. In 1635 he helped to decorate Prince Frederick Henry's palace of Honselaersdijck, south of The Hague. His Italianate landscapes reflected Cornelis van Poelenburgh's style, but by 1645 Saftleven had abandoned that manner for native Dutch scenery. Over 1200 of Saftleven's landscape drawings survive, mostly large-scale compositions for collectors. He also made precise drawings of sites from his travels around Utrecht and along the Rhine. By the 1650s, influenced by Roelandt Savery's art, Saftleven was drawing imaginary panoramas of topographically accurate hilly and rocky landscapes recalling the Rhineland. He was also an active etcher and engraver. Saftleven repeatedly drew his adopted city of Utrecht. In 1675 he recorded its houses and streets after hurricane devastation. In his last years, he made botanical studies in watercolor. — Herman Saftleven II settled in Utrecht about 1632 and in 1633 married Anna van Vliet. They had two sons, Dirck Saftleven [–1679] and Herman Saftleven III [–<1685], and two daughters, Sara (who married Jacob Adriaenszoon Broers in 1671) and Levina (who married Paul Dalbach). From 1639 onwards Herman Saftleven II lived at Achter St. Pieter 7, Utrecht, and in 1659 he became a citizen of the city. He recorded views of his adopted city in several drawings and etchings, for instance the Panoramic View of Utrecht (1648, and 1669). He several times served as head man (overman) and dean of the Guild of Saint Luke there. In 1662 he arranged the sale of part of the Earl of Arundel’s collection in Utrecht. A hurricane destroyed the city in 1674, and Saftleven drew many devastated houses and streets. Some eight years later he sold to the city a series of 22 drawings he had made of Utrecht churches before they were destroyed. About this same time (1680 and 1682–1684) he was commissioned by the amateur botanist and horticulturalist Agnes Block [1629–1704] to draw flowers and plants at Vijverhof, her country estate situated on the River Vecht, near Utrecht. — One of Herman Saftleven II’s daughters, Sara Saftleven [>1633–], also became a painter, specializing in watercolors of flowers in the manner of her father. — LINKS — Horsemen resting in a wood (1647, 78x68cm) _ Was called a 'hunting scene', but the men are soldiers, not huntsmen. — Mountain Landscape (1648, 24x28cm) _ Between 1648 and 1652, Herman Saftleven the Younger concentrated on drawing imaginary mountain landscapes featuring large, prominent rock formations and distant views that dominate small figures. Although in this drawing he has created a natural-looking scene, many of his drawings are not topographical and he often used interchangeable motifs. These fantastic, vaguely Central European views reflect the influence of Roelandt Savery's rugged, fictitious mountain landscapes, such as Savery's Landscape with Waterfall, created about thirty years earlier than Saftleven's drawing. At a time when travel was difficult, landscape drawings and prints gave people both a means and an excuse to conjure up exotic, far-flung lands. Over 1200 of Saftleven's topographical and imaginary landscape drawings survive, most of which are finished, large-scale drawings made for collectors. —(070104) |
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Born on 05 January 1900: Raymond
Georges Yves Tanguy, French US Surrealist
painter who died on 15 January 1955. [a tan guy?] — Born of Breton parents, Tanguy began painting around 1920. His first canvases and drawings date from that year. Of primary importance to his artistic formation was his early encounter with a painting by Giorgo De Chirico in 1923, the date at which he decided to become an artist. He fully adhered to the surrealist movement after a decisive meeting with André Breton. He remained dedicated to the movement's inspiration until his death. 1923 Sees De Chirico's Le cerveau de l'enfant and takes up painting. 1925 Marriage with Jeanne Ducroq. Exhibits three etchings for the first time. Decisive meeting with Andre Breton. 1926 L'Anneau d'invisibilité is the first painting to be reproduced for "La révolution surréaliste". 1927 First personnal exhibition in Paris in "la Galerie Surréaliste", in Paris with help of Breton for the name of his paintings. — Originally a merchant seaman, Tanguy was impelled to take up painting after seeing pictures by de Chirico and in 1925 joined the Surrealist group. In 1939 he emigrated to the US, where he lived for the rest of his life, marrying the US Surrealist painter Kay Sage in 1940 and becoming a US citizen in 1948. Tanguy's most characteristic works are painted in a scrupulous technique reminiscent of that of Dalí, but his imagery is highly distinctive, featuring half marine and half lunar landscapes in which amorphous nameless objects proliferate in a spectral dream-space (The Invisibles, 1951). — De famille bretonne, Tanguy se destinait à la marine marchande. En 1921, il vient à Paris où il rencontre Jacques Prévert. Un tableau de Chirico, vu dans une galerie parisienne, lui révèle sa vocation de peintre. En 1925, il adhère en même temps que Prévert au groupe surréaliste, avec lequel il expose. À la différence de surréalistes comme Dalí, Giorgio De Chirico et René Magritte, qui agencent des objets familiers dans des rapports insolites et déconcertants, Tanguy crée des formes imaginaires surgies de l’inconscient et du rêve. En 1939, il visite les États-Unis et le Canada. Il s’installe dans le Connecticut à Waterbury où il mourra; il acquiert la nationalité américaine en 1948. Jusqu’à la fin de sa vie, il reste fidèle à la même inspiration, composant inlassablement des paysages peuplés de formes cartilagineuses, les êtres-objets dont a parlé Breton, paysages mi-marins, mi-lunaires, baignés d’une froide lumière et traités en touches minutieuses. Dans ses dernières œuvres, telles La Multiplication des arcs , toile de grand format réalisée en 1945 (Museum of Modern Art, New York), ou Nombres imaginaires , exécutée la même année, Tanguy accumule des structures minéralogiques déployées jusqu’à la ligne rigoureuse de l’horizon. |
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