ART 4
2-DAY 18 April |
BIRTH:
1884 MEIDNER |
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Died on 18 April 1898: Gustave
Moreau, French Symbolist
painter born on 06 April 1826. He was a strongly individual artist whose
highly wrought interpretations of mythical and religious scenes were widely
admired during his lifetime. |
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Born on 18 April 1884: Ludwig
Meidner, German Expressionist
painter, draftsman, graphic artist, writer, and teacher, who died on 14
May 1966. — He was born into a middle-class Jewish family during the late Wilhelmine period, and his parents wanted him to pursue a profession more practical than an artistic one. Nonetheless, while apprenticed to a bricklayer in 1901, Meidner produced highly accomplished pen-and-ink drawings. Their imagery reveals his attempts to align his Jewish heritage with that of modern-day Christianity and Socialism, an intellectual preoccupation that was to remain consistent throughout his career (e.g. Ibn Esra, 1901). In 1903 he studied at the Königliche Akademie in Breslau (now Wroclaw, Poland) and in 1905 moved to Berlin where, to earn a living, he designed advertisements for furriers. A stipend from an aunt enabled him to visit Paris between 1905 and 1907. There he met Modigliani, briefly attended the Académie Julian and Académie Cormon and generally broadened his experience of city life. Nonetheless, his correspondence at that time reveals his preference for Berlin, the ‘struggling, earnest burgeoning city...the world’s intellectual and moral capital’ (letter to Franz Landsberger, 03 Jan 1907). — Born in Bernstadt, Prussia, into a middle class Jewish family, Ludwig Meidner pursued a career as an artist, though his parents wanted him to choose a more practical career, studying at the Breslau Academy in 1903 and then moving to Berlin two years later, where he designed advertisements to support himself. He later visited Paris, briefly attending the Académie Julian and the Académie Cormon and enjoying the experience of city life. His preference for Berlin brought him back to that city in 1908, where he frequented the Café des Westerns, participating in the avant-garde life of the city while struggling to make a living. In 1912, together with Jacob Steinhardt and Richard Janthur, he founded a group of artists and writers called Die Pathetiker, whose works were exhibited at Herwarth Walden's gallery Der Sturm. Between 1912 and 1916, after being drafted into the army, he began painting a series of apocalyptic landscapes, which showed cities in states of collapse or destruction. His works from the 1920s include a series that focused on Jewish themes - a consistent preoccupation of Meidner's throughout his career, as he sought to reconcile his Jewish heritage with modern day Christianity and Socialism. From 1935 to 1939, he served as the master at a Jewish High School in Cologne, until Nazi persecution forced him to move to England. With the rise of Nazism, Meidner came under attack and 84 of his paintings were seized from German museums. One of his self-portraits was placed in the "Jewish Gallery" of the infamous "Degenerate Art" exhibition held in Munich in 1937. He returned to Germany in 1953, and lived there until his death in Darmstadt in 1966. — Born Bernstadt (Silesia); died Darmstadt; studied at the Breslau Academy 1903-1905; studied at the Académie Julian in Paris 1906-1907; founder of Die Pathetiker, a group that exhibited at the Sturm gallery in Berlin in 1912; in 1924-1925 he taught at the Studienateliers (Study Workshops) for painting and sculpture in Berlin; from 1935-1939 he was drawing master at the Jewish Hochschule in Cologne; in 1939 he fled to England where he was interned 1940-1941; he returned to Germany in 1953, first to Frankfurt then Darmstadt. LINKS — Mein Nachtgesicht (1913; 600x424pix _ ZOOM to 1400x989pix) — Ich und die Stadt (1913; 600x476pix _ ZOOM to 1400x1111pix) — Selbstporträt (1938; 600x468pix _ ZOOM to 1400x1092pix) — Selbstporträt (1965; 600x472pix _ ZOOM to 1400x1101pix) — Max Hermann-Neiße (600x416pix _ ZOOM to 1400x971pix) _ portrait of a man collapsed into a chair, seemingly in deep depression. Max Hermann-Neiße [1886-1941] was a lyricist. Georg Grosz [26 Jul 1893 – 06 Jul 1959] painted a somewhat similar Max Hermann-Neiße, (386x400pix, 53kb) which is probably a better likeness. — Max Hermann-Neiße (1913, 90x76cm; 112x93pix, 9kb) _ detail (700x522pix, 75kb) his deformed hands. — Max Hermann-Neiße (600x758pix _ ZOOM to 1400x1768pix, 671kb) _ a colorful abstract picture perhaps suggesting an anatomical cross-section. — Johannes R. Becher (600x748pix _ ZOOM to 1400x1745pix, 858kb) _ a slightly less colorful abstract picture perhaps somewhat more suggestive of human and bovine bodies. Apokaliptische Landschaft (1913, 67x80cm _ ZOOM to 1400x2072pix) — The Last Day (1916, 100x150cm) _ Meidner painted this visionary landscape shortly before he began serving in the German Army in World War I. In it, he expresses extreme feelings of fear concerning his future. He lets his fear run free in this dark and apocalyptic vision. The bombing crater in the center of the picture pushes the people to the edge of their own existence. It is interesting that Meidner shows different characterizations of traumatized figures; some of them seem caught up in the hopelessness of the situation. They seem to be immobilized by the shock, helplessly exposed to fate. Other fleeing figures would also seem to be frozen in their movements. This repeated theme of paralysis would seem to imply that even in the act of memorializing the event one can not escape its aftermath. 15 prints at FAMSF. |
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Died on 18 April 1684: Gonzales
Coques (or Cockes, Cocx, Cox), Flemish painter specialized
in portraits, baptized as an infant on 08 December 1614. [Ce n'est
pas lui qui a inventé les ufs à la Coques?] — The artist’s name is in a baptismal register for the year 1614; however, an inscription on an engraved self-portrait of 1649 gives 1618 as his year of birth, and in 1666 he himself claimed to be 48. His name is listed in the archives of Antwerp’s Guild of St Luke for 1627–1628, the year he became a student of Pieter Brueghel II. Later he studied with David Rijckaert II. Coques was admitted to the painters’ guild as an independent master only in 1640–41, this long delay suggesting that he traveled. He may have gone to England, for he was later given the nickname ‘Little van Dyck’, referring to the perceived influence on his work of Anthony van Dyck, who was in England after 1632. In 1643 Coques married his teacher’s daughter Catharina Rijckaert [1610–1674], by whom he had two daughters. His second wife, whom he married in 1675, was Catharina Rysheuvels; they had no children. Coques was a respected member of the artistic community in Antwerp: he was twice deacon of the Guild of St Luke, was a member of two rhetoricians’ societies and in 1661 was praised by Cornelis de Bie, in whose book there is an engraved portrait of him. An accomplished portrait painter, he was greatly influenced by Rubens and van Dyck, although his figures were generally on a smaller scale, and he enjoyed the patronage of successive Governor Generals of the Netherlands. He died in Antwerp on 18 April 1684. Two of his students were Cornelis van den Bosch in 1643 and Lenaert Frans Verdussen in 1665–1666. LINKS — The Art Writer Cornelis de Bie (600x496pix _ ZOOM to 1400x1157pix) _ Cornelis de Bie [10 Feb 1627 – >1711] was a notary in his native town of Lier who wrote Het Gulden Cabinet van de edel vry schilderconst inhoudende den Lof vande vermarste schilders, architecte, beldhowers ende plaetsnyders van dese eeuw (1661), a series of biographies and panegyrics on most South Netherlandish painters, sculptors, and architects of the 17th and late 16th centuries. — A Lawyer (600x468pix _ ZOOM to 1400x1092pix) — A Married Couple in a Park (600x436pix _ ZOOM to 1400x1017pix) A Man (36x26cm; full size) Un Intérieur Hollandais (etching 36 x50cm; 2/3 size) — Smell (Portrait of Lucas Fayd'herbe) (<1661) _ The sitter is Lucas Fayd'herbe [1617-1697], a noted sculptor and architect who was one of Rubens's last students. He worked principally in Malines, and is also depicted in Frachoijs Portrait of Lucas Fayd'herbe. Here he is shown smoking a pipe, as a representation of the sense of Smell. This picture is one of a series of the 'Five Senses'; the fifth, 'Taste', is probably a copy. The series was painted before 1661 when Sight was engraved. The costumes suggest a date of about 1655-1660. — Sight (Portrait of Robert van den Hoecke) (<1661) _ Robert van den Hoeke [1622-1668], was a painter and engraver who worked in Antwerp and in Brussels. He became 'Contrôleur des fortifications' in Flanders and the plan, baldric (belt hung over the shoulder) and sword presumably refer to this office. The identification of the sitter is dependent upon the inscription on an engraving of the portrait by Cauckercken, which appeared in a book published in 1661. |
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Died on 18 April 1855: Jean-Baptiste
Isabey, French painter, draftsman, and printmaker, born
on 11 April 1767. — He was trained in Nancy by Jean Girardet [1709–1778] and then by Jean-Baptiste-Charles Claudot [1733–1805], master of the miniaturist Jean-Baptiste-Jacques Augustin [1759-1832]. In 1785 Isabey went to Paris, where he began by painting snuff-boxes. In 1786 he received lessons from the painter François Dumont, who had also studied with Girardet in Nancy, before entering the studio of David [1748-1825]. Although he had received aristocratic commissions before the Revolution to paint portrait miniatures of the Duc d’Angoulême and Duc de Berry and through them of Marie-Antoinette, he did not suffer in the political upheavals that followed. He painted 228 portraits of deputies for a work on the Assemblée Législative and from 1793 exhibited miniatures and drawings in the Salon. Success came to him in 1794 with two drawings in the ‘manière noire’, The Departure and The Return. This type of drawing, using pencil and the stump to simulate engraving, was very fashionable in the last years of the 18th century and reached its peak with Isabey’s The Boat (1798), an informal scene including a self-portrait, in which the artist exploited contrasts of light and shade with considerable success. He was the father of painter Louis-Eugène-Gabriel Isabey [22 Jul 1803 – 27 Apr 1886] LINKS — Prince Casimir Poniatowski (nephew of Stan-Auguste) (1805, 70x57mm) — Mrs. Rufus Prime, Augusta Temple Palmer [1807–1840] (1828, oval, 138x102mm) — Elisa Bonaparte (1810) _ Jean-Baptiste Isabey was closely involveed with Napoleon I and his court. Isabey was entrusted with overseeing the ceremonies for the coronation of Napoleon and the ensuing festivities, becoming court painter to the Empress in 1804. The artist recorded the Bonaparte family in a series of magnificent miniature portraits. Isabey must have painted Elisa, eldest sister of Napoleon, and Princess of Lucca and Piombino, around 1810 when she was at the height of her political influence. In this miniature, he captured to perfection the severe features of the sitter, who was the least attractive and most intelligent of Napoleon’s sisters. |
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Died on 18 April 1837: Giovanni Migliara,
Italian painter and teacher born on 05 (15?) October 1785. He began his
career as a scene painter with Gaspare Galiari [1761–1823] in Milan, working
at the Teatro Carcano in 1804 and at La Scala from 1805 to 1809. Owing to
illness, after 1810 he turned to small-scale works in watercolor or oil
using various supports, including silk and ivory. At this date Milanese
painting was dominated by Andrea Appiani and Luigi Sabatelli, both leading
Neoclassical artists. However, Migliara remained aloof from this dominant
movement and instead drew on medieval and historical subjects with Romantic
undertones. His precise, jewel-like technique and choice of subject-matter
found favour with aristocratic patrons in Milan. His figures are generally
stilted and burdened by their costumes, though the crowd in Sacking
of Minister Prina’s House (1814) is depicted with unusual fluency.
In 1822 Migliara was appointed Professor of Perspective at the Accademia di Belle Arti, Milan, and in 1833 he was nominated painter to the court of Charles-Albert, King of Sardinia (reg 1831–1849). More typical of his historical scenes is Entrance to the Castle of Plessis de la Tour, which was exhibited at the Brera in 1833. He also produced many topographically precise pictures of church interiors in which he combined his training as a scene painter with his knowledge of intaglio techniques. In such pen-and-wash studies as Church and Gothic Tomb (1831) he displayed a greater sensitivity to light and tone than in his oil paintings (e.g. Vestibule of a Convent, 1833). He particularly excelled as a painter of small medieval church interiors, as did several of his students, including his daughter Teodolinda Migliara [1816–1866], Frederico Moja [1802–1885], Pompeo Calvi [1806–1884], Luigi Bisi [1814–1886] and Angelo Inganni [1806–1880]. — San Ambrogio a Milano (1822; 529x700pix, 188kb) — Una Visita Importante (300x404pix, 31kb) — Veduta dell’Ospedale Maggiore a Milano (34x40cm; 277x330pix, 24kb) — Piazza San Marco (42x52cm; 403x500pix, 36kb) — [Mutuo Insegnamento] (engraving; 398x537pix, 80kb) _ rappresenta l'applicazione del metodo Lancaster-Bell di mutuo insegnamento, nell'oratorio della chiesa di Santa Caterina a Milano; fra i personaggi raffigurati sono riconoscibili Silvio Pellico [25 Jun 1789 – 31 Jan 1854] e Federico Confalonieri [1785 – 10 Dec 1846] (respettivamente capo redattore e cofundatore dil giornale liberale Conciliatore) , che cercano di sviluppare in Italia questo sistema di istruzione. pubblica e laica. |