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ART “4” “2”-DAY  06 JUNE
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BAPTISM: 1599 VELÁZQUEZ — BIRTH: 1756 TRUMBULL
^ Baptized on 06 June 1599:
Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velázquez,
Spain's greatest Baroque era painter, who died on 06 August 1660.
He was the father-in-law of Juan Bautista Martínez del Mazo, his lifelong studio assistant was Juan de Pareja, his students included Antonio Puga.

—     Velázquez was born in Seville. Both his parents were from the minor nobility. Velázquez's early works, fall into three categories: the bodegón, (everyday subjects combined with still life), portraits, and religious scenes.
      Many of his earliest paintings show a strong naturalist bias, as in The Meal (1617), a bodegón which may have been his first work as an independent master. In his bodegones, such as Water Seller of Seville (1620), the masterly effects of light and shadow, as well as the direct observation of nature, make inevitable a comparison with the work of Caravaggio.
      For his religious paintings, images of simple piety, Velázquez used as models people drawn from the streets of Seville. In Adoration by the Magi (1619), for example, the biblical figures are portraits of members of his own family; a self-portrait is included as well.
      In 1623, after executing a portrait of Philip IV (1623) of the king, he was named official painter to the king. The portrait was the first among many such sober, direct depictions of the king, the royal family, and members of the court. Indeed, throughout the later 1620s, Velázquez dedicated most of his efforts to portraiture. Mythological subjects would at times occupy his attention, as in Bacchus or The Drinkers (1629).
      In August 1629 Velázquez left Barcelona for Genoa and spent most of the next two years traveling in Italy. From Genoa he proceeded to Milan, Venice, Florence, and Rome, returning to Spain from Naples in January 1631. In the course of his journey he closely studied both the art of the Renaissance and contemporaneous painting. On his return to Madrid, Velázquez resumed his duties as court portraitist with the sensitive painting Prince Baltasar Carlos with a Dwarf (1631), an image made poignant by the young prince's death before reaching adulthood.
      In 1634 Velázquez organized the decoration of the throne room; this scheme consisted of 12 scenes of battles in which Spanish troops had been victorious. Velázquez's contribution to the cycle of battle pictures included The Surrender of Breda (1634), portraying a magnanimous Spanish general receiving the leader of defeated Flemish troops. The delicacy of handling and astonishing range of emotions captured in a single painting make this the most celebrated historical composition of Spanish Baroque art.
      The second major series of paintings of the 1630s by Velázquez was a group of hunting portraits of the royal family for the Torre de la Parada, a hunting lodge near Madrid. Dating from the late 1630s and early 1640s are the famous depictions of court dwarfs in which, unlike court-jester portraits by earlier artists, the sitters are treated with respect and sympathy.
      During the last 20 years of his life Velázquez's work as court official and architect assumed prime importance. In 1649 he again went to Italy, this time to buy works of art for the king's collection. During his year's stay in Rome (1649-1650) he painted the magnificent portraits of Juan de Pareja and of Pope Innocent X . The elegant Venus at Her Toilette probably dates from this time also.
      The key works of the last two decades of Velázquez's life are Fable of Arachne (1646; 863x1119pix, 146kb), an image of sophisticated mythological symbolism, and his masterwork, Las Meninas (1656), a stunning group portrait of the royal family and Velázquez himself in the act of painting. Velázquez continued to serve Philip IV as painter, courtier, and faithful friend until the artist's death in Madrid. His work had a subtle impact a century later on his greatest successor, Francisco de Goya.
—
Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez is considered to have been the Spain's greatest baroque artist. With Francisco de Goya and El Greco, he forms the great triumvirate of Spanish painting.
      Velázquez was born in Seville, the oldest of six children; both his parents were from the minor nobility. Between 1611 and 1617 the young Velázquez worked as an apprentice to Francisco Pacheco, a Sevillian Mannerist painter who was also the author of an important treatise, El arte de la pintura (1649), and who became Velázquez's father-in-law. During his student years Velázquez absorbed the most popular contemporaneous styles of painting, derived, in part, from both Flemish and Italian realism.
Youthful Works
      Many of his earliest paintings show a strong naturalist bias, as does The Breakfast (1620, version 1 _ version 2), which may have been his first work as an independent master after passing the examination of the Guild of Saint Luke. This painting belongs to the first of three categories—the bodegón, or kitchen piece, along with portraits and religious scenes—into which his youthful works, made between about 1617 and 1623, may be placed. In his kitchen pieces, a few figures are combined with studied still-life objects, as in Water Seller of Seville (1620). The masterly effects of light and shadow, as well as the direct observation of nature, make inevitable a comparison with the work of the Italian painter Caravaggio. Velázquez's religious paintings, images of simple piety, portray models drawn from the streets of Seville, as Pacheco states in his biography of Velázquez. In Adoration by the Magi (1619), for example, the artist painted his own family in the guise of biblical figures, including a self-portrait as well.
      Velázquez was also well acquainted with members of the intellectual circles of Seville. Pacheco was the director of an informal humanist academy; at its meetings the young artist was introduced to such people as the great poet Luis de Góngora y Argote, whose portrait he painted in 1622. Such contact was important for Velázquez's later work on mythological and classical subjects.
Appointment as Court Painter
      In 1622 Velázquez made his first trip to Madrid, ostensibly to see the royal painting collections, but more likely in an unsuccessful search for a position as court painter. In 1623, however, he returned to the capital and, after executing a portrait (1623) of the king, was named official painter to Philip IV. The portrait was the first among many such sober, direct renditions of the king, the royal family, and members of the court. Indeed, throughout the later 1620s, most of his efforts were dedicated to portraiture. Mythological subjects would at times occupy his attention, as in Bacchus (1629). This scene of revelry in an open field, picturing the god of wine drinking with ruffian types, testifies to the artist's continued interest in realism.
Trip to Italy
      In 1628 Peter Paul Rubens came to the court at Madrid on a diplomatic mission. Among the few painters with whom he associated was Velázquez. Although the great Flemish master did not have a direct impact on the style of the younger painter, their conversations almost certainly inspired Velázquez to visit the art collections in Italy that were so much admired by Rubens. In August 1629 Velázquez departed from Barcelona for Genoa and spent most of the next two years traveling in Italy. From Genoa he proceeded to Milan, Venice, Florence, and Rome, returning to Spain from Naples in January 1631. In the course of his journey he closely studied both the art of the Renaissance and contemporaneous painting. Several of the works made during his travels attest to his absorption of these styles; a notable example is Joseph and His Brothers (1630), which combines a Michelangelesque sculptural quality with the chiaroscuro of such Italian masters as Guercino and Giovanni Lanfranco.
Return to Spain
      On his return to Madrid, Velázquez resumed his duties as court portraitist with the sensitive rendition Prince Baltasar Carlos (1635), an image made poignant by the young prince's death before reaching adulthood. From the 1630s on, relatively few facts are known about the artist's personal life, although his rise to prominence in court circles is well documented. In 1634 Velázquez organized the decoration of the throne room in the new royal palace of Buen Retiro; this scheme consisted of 12 scenes of battles in which Spanish troops had been victorious—painted by the most prestigious artists of the day, including Velázquez himself—and royal equestrian portraits. Velázquez's contribution to the cycle of battle pictures included the Surrender of Breda (1634), portraying a magnanimous Spanish general receiving the leader of defeated Flemish troops after the siege of that northern town in 1624. The delicacy of handling and astonishing range of emotions captured in a single painting make this the most celebrated historical composition of the Spanish baroque.
      The second major series of paintings of the 1630s by Velázquez was a group of hunting portraits of the royal family for the Torre de la Parada, a hunting lodge near Madrid. Dating from the late 1630s and early '40s are the famous depictions of court dwarfs in which, unlike court-jester portraits by earlier artists, the sitters are treated with respect and sympathy. Velázquez painted few religious pictures after entering the king's employ; Saints Anthony and Paul (1638) and Immaculate Conception (1644) are notable exceptions.
Late Works
      During the last 20 years of his life Velázquez's work as court official and architect assumed prime importance. He was responsible for the decoration of many new rooms in the royal palaces. In 1649 he again went to Italy, this time to buy works of art for the king's collection. During his year's stay in Rome (1649-50) he painted the magnificent portraits Juan de Pareja and Pope Innocent X . At this time he was also admitted into Rome's Academy of Saint Luke. The elegant Venus at Her Mirror probably dates from this time also.
      The key works of the painter's last two decades are Fable of Arachne (1648), an image of sophisticated mythological symbolism, and his masterwork, Las meninas (1656), a stunning group portrait of the royal family and Velázquez himself in the act of painting. Velázquez continued to serve Philip IV as painter, courtier, and faithful friend until the artist's death in Madrid. His work had a subtle impact a century later on his greatest successor, Francisco de Goya.
^
—      Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velázquez was born in Seville, the first child of Juan Rodriguez de Silva and Jerónima Velázquez, members of the lesser nobility. Almost nothing is known about Diego’s siblings – five brothers and a sister. Velázquez seems to have started his apprenticeship with Francisco de Herrera the Elder (c.1590-1654), but a short while later (in 1611) his father put him with Francisco Pacheco (1564-1644), who was an artist of modest talent, but a tolerant teacher and a man of society. Francisco Pacheco had good contacts with the royal court and besides, intellectuals of the city, poets, scholars, and artists, liked to meet at his workshop to have discussion on the subjects of classical antiquity, Raphael, Michelangelo and above all Titian, as well as the theory of art. At this time, Velázquez became familiar with the school of Caravaggio.
      In 1617, Velázquez was accepted into the painters’ guild of St. Luke in Seville. Membership in this guild was necessary before he could start his own workshop, employ assistants, and receive commissions from churches and public institutions. The same year Velázquez married Juana, daughter of his teacher Pacheco. Within less than three years they had two daughters, of whom only one, Francisca, survived. The paintings made by Velázquez in Seville before 1622 include bodegones (very popular genre of kitchen or tavern scenes, in which food and drink plays the main part) and his first portraits and religious compositions: Old Woman Frying Eggs, Three Men at Table, The Waterseller in Seville, Mother Jerónima de la Fuente, The Adoration by the Magi. In The Adoration by the Magi the main characters are thought to be portraits: the young king is a self-portrait of the artist, the kneeling king behind him – Pacheco, and The Virgin Mary – Pacheco’s daughter and Velázquez’ wife, Juana.
      In 1622, Velázquez visited Madrid for the first time to see its art treasures, and to make useful contacts; then he went to Toledo to see works by El Greco and other painters of that city, including Pedro de Orrente (1580-1645) and Juan Sánchez Cotán (1561-1627). In the spring of 1623, Velázquez was summoned to court by the powerful Prime Minister, Count-Duke of Olivares, and received his first commission for a portrait of Philip IV. The success of this picture brought the artist an appointment as court painter and the privilege of becoming the only artist permitted to paint the king in the future. In 1628, Peter Paul Rubens came to the court in Madrid on diplomatic business. Velázquez often visited him at work. Actually he was the only Spanish painter to be honored with these personal conversations. It was Rubens who persuaded Velázquez to go to Italy.
     During his first journey to Italy in 1629-30, Velázquez visited Genoa, Venice (where he saw the work of Titian, who influenced him more strongly than any other artist), Florence, and Rome, where he stayed for almost a year. He copied old masters, but also painted large compositions of his own including The Forge of Vulcan and Joseph’s Bloody Coat Brought to Jacob.
     In 1834-35, Velázquez was working on the decoration of the new palace of Buen Retiro. One of his major works intended for this setting, together with several equestrian portraits, is The Surrender of Breda, part of a cycle of twelve battle pictures by different painters. The besieged fortress town of Breda in North Brabant surrendered to the Spanish general Spinola after a staunch resistance of 12 months. The victorious general had granted honorable terms to the captured garrison. The ceremony of the delivery of the keys is the subject of Velázquez’s painting. The work was soon popularly renamed The Lances, because of the verticals which seemed to express the peaceful halt of the army at the moment of surrender. It has been considered the best historical work in West European painting.
      In 1636, the king appointed his court painter “Assistant to the wardrobe” (without salary); in 1643 the king promoted Velázquez to the post of Chamberlain of his private chambers (although still without a regular salary), later he was made assistant to the superintendent of special building projects. In the next few years Velázquez’ art approached its peak in such pictures as Venus at her Mirror and The Fable of Arachne.
     During his second visit to Rome (1649-1651) Velázquez, among other pictures, painted the famous portrait of Pope Innocent X, which the pope himself declared to be ‘too truthful’. On his return to Madrid he was appointed Supreme court marshal, his obligations not connected with painting increased, but he was able now to enlarge his workshop, employing many assistants and pupils (none of whom, however, were of very great artistic merit).
      Velázquez’s career ended with his most significant work Las Meninas. The painting is a multiple portrait of the royal family and court. The principal figure with all the power of her mischievous charm, is the little Infanta Margarita Maria of Austria [1650-1673], daughter of King Philip IV and Maria Anna of Austria, who has burst into Velázquez’s studio, followed by her ladies, dwarfs and dogs, in a flurry of skirts, cloaks and ribbons, while he was intent on painting the king and queen, whose only images are visible, reflected in the mirror hung on the wall in the background, where copies (not in the same size or proportions as the originals) by Juan B. del Mazo of two large mythological paintings, one by Rubens — Pallas and Arachne (1637, 51x61cm; 242x350pix, 29kb) on the left — the other by Jordaens — Apollo and Marsyas (119x108cm; 314x295pix, 59kb) on the right — are also hung. The great master died in the palace in Madrid.
^
— LINKS
— Self~Portrait
— Self-portrait (1640, 45x38cm) _ It is probably a fragment of a larger composition, as indicated by other existing and larger versions. — Self Portrait (1643)
— Christ in the House of Martha and Mary
— Las Meninas (1657, 318x276cm; 1336x1136pix, 104kb — ZOOM to 2405x2045pix, 295kb) _ This is a composition of enormous representational impact. The Infanta Margarita stands proudly amongst her maids of honor, with a dwarf to the right. Although she is the smallest, she is clearly the central figure; one of her maids is kneeling before her, and the other leaning towards her, so that the standing Infanta, with her broad hooped skirt, becomes the fulcrum of the movement. The dwarf, about the same size as the Infanta, is so ugly that Margarita appears delicate, fragile and precious in comparison. On the left in the painting, dark and calm, the painter himself can be seen standing at his vast canvas. Above the head of the Infanta, we see the ruling couple reflected in the mirror. The spatial structure and positioning of the figures is such that the group of meninas around the Infanta appears to be standing on "our" side, opposite Philip and his wife. Not only is the "performance" for their benefit, but the attention of the painter is also concentrated on them, for he appears to be working on their portrait. Although they can only be seen in the mirror reflection, the king and queen are the actual focus of the painting towards which everything else is directed. As spectators, we realize that we are excluded from the scene, for in our place stands the ruling couple. What seems at first glance to be an "open" painting proves to be completely hermetic — an impression further intensified by the fact that the painting in front of Velázquez is completely hidden from our view. [comentario extenso]
— The Surrender of Breda (“The Lances”) (1634, 307x367cm; 851x1023pix, 182kb — ZOOM to 1700x2046kb, 319kb) _ detail 1 _ detail 3 _ detail 2 _ The event took place on 02 June 1625, when the Dutch governor, Justin de Nassau, delivered the keys of the city, symbolically, to Ambrosio de Spinola, the Spanish commander, in fact three days after the city was taken. In 1639, shortly after the canvas was painted, Spain lost the city forever; it was reconquered by Frederick Henry of Orange. _ It was in 1625, ten years before this picture was painted, that Justin van Nassau, the commanding officer of Breda, surrendered the city to the Genovese Ambrosio Spinola, commander of the Spanish forces. Breda was one of the border fortresses of the Netherlands, a military base which had long been a bone of contention, alternately seized by the Spaniards or returned to the Princes of Orange. After a long siege Spinola learned from an intercepted letter that the defendants were in desperate straits, short of both equipment and food, and he therefore proposed that van Nassau should freely surrender rather than continue the bloodshed. The proposal was accepted and the army withdrew in good order, keeping their goods and some of their arms. The citizens did not suffer any harm at all. This victory was one of the last triumphs achieved by Spain in the period when she was accounted a great world power, and it was also one of the fine instances when humanism prevailed even in times of war. The main problem of a history painting featuring a large number of figures is the question of how to handle the crowd scenes.
      Velázquez initially tackles this difficulty by dividing the picture plane into two levels - a higher area of action on which the main event is acted out as on a stage, and an area below it in which we see the city and harbor of Breda and the sea. The stage-like situation is further emphasized by various foreground elements. The two military leaders - the defeated commandant of Breda handing over the keys of the fortress to the Spanish commander Spinola - are immediately recognizable as the protagonists because the view opens up behind them towards the otherwise hidden background, whereas to the right and left the respective military entourage is grouped like stage extras. Yet Velázquez does not portray them as anonymous soldiers. Amongst the group of Spanish victors brandishing their lances, we can make out just as many individual expressions of exhaustion as we can amongst the resigned group of defeated Dutch soldiers. It is thought that the composition of the picture derives from a contemporary book-illustration of the Bible; this is certainly true of the two central figures of the commanders. In its coloring - the brown masses of the horses, the blue and red garments of the soldiers - we see the influence of Venetian painting, particularly that of Tintoretto.
^
— Doña Mariana of Austria, Queen of Spain (70x56cm) — Mort de St. Joseph — El Dios Marte — Reunión De Bebedores.— Retrato De un Anciano — El Niño De Vallecas — Esopo. Retrato de un Viejo Descamisado — La Familia— Retrato de un Enano de Felipe
— The Infanta Doña Margarita de Austria (1660, 212x147cm) _ Velázquez began this painting in the year of his death, it finished and partly transformed by his son-in-law, Juan Bautista Martínez del Mazo.
— Portrait of the Infanta Margarita (1660, 121x107cm) _ Margarita was the daughter of Philip IV. Six years after the death of Velázquez, when she was still only fifteen, she became the wife of Leopold I, Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary. In the last years of his life Velázquez painted the little girl several times; she is the central figure in one of the last great compositions, Las Meninas, produced in 1656. In the Spanish court, which at that time was almost paralyzed by the rigid rules of etiquette, this little girl represented the spirit of life itself, a girl whose charm was acknowledged by everyone; even the French ambassador, a man who was very hard to please, praised her in a letter to Louis XIV. She was charming in spite of the fact that she had inherited her father's heavy Habsburg features. As was the way with monarchs of medieval times, Philip IV made use of Velázquez and his workshop as a king might today make use of a court photographer. He ordered several variants of the picture, in each one of which the dresses were to be differently colored. In this painting, which was made by the workshop, a strange contrast is realized: the little girl's fair tresses and delicate fingers express the carefree existence of a child but the lips already show some of the Habsburg characteristics, the eyes are precocious and sad and the body is stiff, imprisoned by the rigid armor of the stays. On the other hand, the grand dress of green silk and velvet, so unsuitable for a child of nine or ten, has a strange animation of its own, as if to offer the child, in recompense for her loss of freedom, gold threads and grandeur.
— Infante Philip Prosper (1660, 129x100cm) _ detail (dog) _ One of the last paintings of the artist. It represents the child at the age of two. This is his only portrait, he died two years later.
—Christ on the Cross — The Immaculate Conception (1618, 135x102cm)
— Philip IV in Army Dress _ Philip IV in Army Dress (The portrait of Fraga) (1644, 133x95cm) _ The second title comes from the fact that the painting was made in three days (June 1644) in the Aragonese town of Fraga during the campaign against the French. _ Philip IV (Habsburg) (1605-65) King of Spain from 1621, son and successor of Philip III. A discerning patron of the arts (particularly of Velázquez), he had no interest in politics and left the administration of government to his favorite minister, Caspar de Guzmán, count-duke of Olivares. His reign continued the rapid decline of Spain as dominant European power. In 1640, Portugal regained its independence after a revolt; in 1648, Holland was lost in the Treaty of Westphalia; and in 1659 the Treaty of the Pyrenees cost Spain her frontier fortresses in Flanders. Philip IV was married twice. His first wife, Elizabeth (Isabel) of Bourbon, princess of France (1602 -1644), daughter of King Henry IV of France and Marie de Médici; she married Philip IV in 1615 before he came to the throne. Her bethrotal was depicted by Rubens in The Exchange of Princesses. Their 1st child, daughter Maria Theresa (1638-83), was the first wife of Louis XIV of France. His second wife was his own niece, Mariana of Austria, daughter of Philip IV’s sister, Maria Anna and Ferdinand III. Philip IV was succeeded by his four-year-old son, Charles II, the last of the Habsburgs.
— Philip IV in Brown and Silver (1653, 231x131cm) _ Spain's greatest painter was also one of the supreme artists of all time. A master of technique, highly individual in style, Diego Velázquez may have had a greater influence on European art than any other painter. Velázquez lived in Madrid as court painter. His paintings include landscapes, mythological and religious subjects, and scenes from common life, called genre pictures. Most of them, however, are portraits of court notables that rank with the portraits painted by Titian and Anthony Van Dyck. Duties of Velázquez royal offices also occupied his time. He was eventually made marshal of the royal household, and as such he was responsible for the royal quarters and for planning ceremonies. Velázquez was called the "noblest and most commanding man among the artists of his country." He was a master realist, and no painter has surpassed him in the ability to seize essential features and fix them on canvas with a few broad, sure strokes. "His men and women seem to breathe," it has been said; "his horses are full of action and his dogs of life." As court painter to Philip IV, Velázquez spent a large part of his life recording, in his cool, detached way, the objective appearance of this rigidly conventional royal household, with little interpretation but with the keenest eye for selecting what was important for pictorial expression and with a control of paint to secure exactly the desired effect. In painting these royal portraits, whatever interpretation he made or whatever emotional reaction he experienced he kept to himself. Royalty, courtliness of the most rigid character was his task to portray, not individual personality.
— Philip IV (1660, 69 x56cm) _ This is one of the late portraits of Philip IV by Velázquez.
— Equestrian Portrait of Philip IV (1636, 301x314cm) _ The painting is one of a series of equestrian portraits of Philip IV and Queen Isabel of France made with the contribution of the workshop. The Baroque dynamism of the composition shows the influence of Rubens.
— King Philip IV as a Huntsman (1635, 191x126cm)
— Cardinale Infante Ferdinand of Austria as Hunter (1636, 191x107cm) _ Ferdinand of Austria was the brother of Philip IV.
— Prince Baltasar Carlos as Hunter (1636, 191x103cm) _ The realistic portrait was made in the first years of the mature period of the artist. Prince Baltasar Carlos, Prince of Asturias (1629 – 1646) son of Philip IV and Elizabeth (Isabel)
— Prince Baltasar Carlos on Horseback (1636, 209x173cm) _ Together with four more equestrian portraits by Velázquez, a cycle of 13 battle scenes by Cajés, Velázquez, Maino, Zurbarán, Carducho, Castello, Jusepe Leonardo, and Pereda, and a series of the Labors of Hercules by Zurbarán, this picture was an element of the colossal decorative scheme of the Hall of the Realms in the Buen Retiro Palace. The scheme was organized by the Count-Duke of Olivares, with the aim of affirming the glory of the Spanish Monarchy during what was in fact a period of decline. The portrait, though highly conventional, is painted by Velázquez with his usual conviction, and with brilliantly suggestive strokes of impasto. In the field of royal portraiture, the portrait of the infant or child ruler poses a particular problem to the artist. A majestic pose, sumptuous clothing and the traditional outward trappings of dignity inevitably clash with the very nature of childhood. Velázquez solves this problem by placing the child on a sturdy horse so that the little figure is raised, as on a monumental plinth, to the "correct" position in the picture. This view is further vindicated by a sweeping landscape whose unspoiled nature creates an uncontrived link with the serious, yet still softly contoured and unspoiled mien of the child's face.
— Breakfast (1617, 183x116cm) _ Another version of this painting is Peasant at the Table.
— Peasants at the Table (El Almuerzo) (1620, 96x112cm) _ At an age when artists of today are only just beginning their studies at college, Velázquez was already painting his genre scenes: there are several studies of musicians and peasants eating. Later, around 1625, he began to paint scenes from the Gospels in which he found it possible to introduce everyday objects; for instance, in his picture of Christ in the house of Martha; he filled the foreground with a still-life of fish and eggs, relegating the figure of Christ to the background. In his Breakfast the human figures are scarcely more important than the still-life. It is of course true that the three figures reveal a thorough knowledge of anatomy, while the details are well chosen to indicate character and personal relationships. Superb craftsmanship is shown in the painting of the full, parted lips of the younger man, the eyes of the old man listening to the story and his slight movement towards the glass and the expression on the face of the woman pouring out the wine, concentrating lest a single drop be spilled. Nevertheless it is possible to argue that the most striking part of the composition is the still-life arranged on the white tablecloth. As a description of the bread, fish, lemon, carrot and copper jar seen here there could scarcely be a more inappropriate phrase than nature morte (dead nature), the term used for a still-life in so many languages. Still though these objects are, they have a genuine pictorial quality, a vigor which is akin to life itself. The Peasants at Table is one of Velázquez's finest early pieces of the type known in Spain as a "bodegón", a combination of conversation piece and still-life. There is another version of Peasant at Table in the Hermitage in St. Petersburg.
^
— The Adoration by the Magi (1619, 203x125cm) _ Velázquez was a pupil in Pacheco's workshop when he embarked upon this his first large work. In his early works Velázquez was still strongly influenced by his master; these pictures also reveal a marked striving for plasticity in the figures and balance between the different elements of the composition. He painted The Adoration of the Magi in heavy, dark colors and his lack of experience is evident in the representation of the faces. And yet, the painting is more than a mere exercise by an industrious and talented pupil. It is true that he has not conveyed the quality of the textiles in his arrangement of the folds of the garments; the composition is somewhat uncertain and the spatial relations are by no means perfect: yet the picture reveals Velázquez's genius as a portraitist. The Madonna is depicted as a beautiful Andalusian peasant girl, her face glowing with maternal pride, the Infant is well observed, charming with no hint of idealization, and the features of Baltasar are exceptionally lifelike and worthy of note.
— Christ in the House of Mary and Martha (1620, 60x104cm) _ In this early work, Velázquez refers to the gospel according to Saint Luke, which tells of a visit by Christ to the house of Martha and Mary. While Mary sat at his feet to listen to his words, Martha busied her~elf with work in the kitchen; eventually, she came to him and said: "Lord, dost thou not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Bid her therefore that she help me." To which Christ replied, "Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things; but one thing is needful: and Mary has chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her." (St. Luke 10:40-42). The composition of the painting, with a kitchen scene in the tradition of the "bodegones" taking up the foreground, while the scene involving Christ is presented as a view or a mirror image, is clearly influenced by the art of the Netherlands. Even the plump, ruddycheeked figure of Martha and the still-life arrangement of fish, garlic, eggs and paprika, recall examples of Northern European art. Moreover, this picture is charged with a strange sense of tension and restlessness. The events reflected in the mirror, bathed in a mild light and exuding an atmosphere peace and calm, are contrasted with the foreground image of loud and busy work. Through highlighting and formal diversity, the artist sets a scene that is clearly unsatisfactory to Martha. She is not concentrating on her work, but gazes full of yearning, on the verge of tears, and slightly angrily, as though she already realized that Mary had chosen the better part.
— Abbess Jerónima de la Fuente (1620, 160x110cm) _ According to the long inscription on the lower part, Mother Jerónima de la Fuente, Franciscan nun, is depicted on the eve of her departure to the Philippines, where she founded the convent of Santa Clara in Manila. The realistic style of the painting reflects the influence of Francisco Herrera the Elder and Francisco Pacheco.
— The Supper at Emmaus (1620, 123x133cm) _ This painting is from the early Caravaggesque period of Velázquez.
— Philip IV (1627, 210x102cm) _ One of the first portraits of the King painted by Velázquez, when he became official portraitist to the royal family in 1623.
— Doña Maria de Austria, Queen of Hungary (1630, 58x44cm) _ Maria Anne of Austria was the sister of Philip IV. The painting was made in 1630 in Naples on the occasion of the marriage of Maria Anne and Ferdinand III. — Maria Anna (Habsburg) of Austria/Hungary, Infanta of Spain (1606 - 1646), daughter of Philip III and Queen Margaret; sister of Philip IV, she married the King of Hungary, later Emperor Ferdinand III. Their daughter, Mariana (1634- 1696) married her uncle, King Philip IV of Spain, in 1649, and became the queen of Spain; she strongly resembled her cousin Maria Theresa.
— The Drinkers (The Rule of Bacchus) (1628, 165x225cm) _ Velázquez painted this picture of Bacchus surrounded by eight drinkers for Philip IV who hung it in his summer bedroom. The painting is not only unique in his oeuvre, but is very rare indeed in Spanish painting as a whole, which does not generally have the drinking scenes so familiar in Flemish and Netherlandish painting. Drunkenness was regarded in Spain as a contemptible vice and "borracho" was the most scathing of insults. At the royal court, it seems to have been considered highly entertaining to invite low-lifers from the comedy theaters and inebriate them for the amusement of the ladies. But what kind of a Wine God is this we see, crowning his followers with ivy, said to cool the heat of wine, and consorting with peasants who grin out of the painting and clearly find the spectator, that is to say the king, a very funny sight indeed? The authority of the god whose presence delights them lends them a sense of majesty as well. And in view of the delightful travesty of royal honors in which Bacchus is indulging, they too have turned the tables and are laughing in the faces of those who would laugh at them. Is this Bacchus merely a myth born of wine, an embodiment of those lowly joys which the nobleman snubs? Or is the god a courtier having precisely the kind of fun at which the ladies liked to laugh? As only Caravaggio before him, Velázquez has portrayed Bacchus (or rather Dionysos) as the God of the mask, the theater and disguise.
— Joseph's Bloody Coat Brought to Jacob (1630, 223x250cm) _ The court appointment of Velázquez gave him few opportunities for religious painting, and only occasionally did he execute subject pictures, except during his Italian journeys. He was little influenced by other artists, though he profited from the Titians in the Spanish Royal Collection, and the visit of Rubens in 1628, which was his first contact with a great living painter, who was also a court painter. Whether or not it was Rubens who inspired him to visit Italy, it was due to Rubens's influence that he obtained permission to go. He left in August 1629, visited Genoa, Venice, Rome and Naples (where he met Ribera) and returned to Madrid in 1631.
— The Forge of Vulcan (1630, 223x290cm) _ This and the preceding painting, both made during the artist's stay in Italy, show his preoccupation with the male nude. The main effect of his Italian journey was to increase his breadth of vision, but without affecting its fundamentally realistic basis.
— Sibyl (1632, 62x50cm) _ It is assumed that Velázquez painted his wife Juana Pacheco on this painting.
— Christ on the Cross (1632, 248x169cm) _ This Crucifixion of unparalleled serenity and simplicity was completed when the artist returned from his journey to Italy.
— The Count-Duke of Olivares on Horseback (1634, 313x239cm) _ Philip IV succeeded his father, Philip III of Spain, in 1621, and, for the first 22 years of his reign, Philip's valido, or chief minister, was the Conde-Duque de Olivares, who took the spread of the Thirty Years' War as an opportunity not only for resuming hostilities against the Dutch at the end of the Twelve Years' Truce of 1609 (1621) but also for an ambitious attempt to restore Spanish hegemony in Europe, in close alliance with the imperial branch of the Habsburg dynasty. — Count-Duke of Olivares, Caspar de Guzmán (1587-1645) Spanish nobleman and politician, Duke of San Lücar. He was born in Rome where his father was an ambassador. He was the favorite of Philip IV of Spain, and his prime minister for 22 years. He wrung money from the country to carry on foreign wars. His attempts to rob people of their privileges provoked insurrections and roused the Portuguese to shake off the Spanish yoke in 1640, and the king was obliged to dismiss and exile him in 1643.
— Juan Martínez Montáñez (1635, 109x107cm) _ Montáñez was the greatest Spanish sculptor of the 17th century, known as 'el dios de la madera' (the god of wood) on account of his mastery as a carver. He worked for most of his long and productive career in Seville. Velázquez painted this portrait in Madrid when the sculptor made a portrait head of King Philip IV.
— Buffoon Barbarroja (1636, 198x121cm) _ The buffoon Barbarroja (Don Cristóbal de Castañeda y Pernia) is represented in Turkish attire with arms. The ambitious buffoon aspired to military roles and he even acted as toreador in the arena although he was ill-fitted for doing it.
— The Dwarf Don Juan Calabazas, called Calabacillas (1639, 106x83cm) _ Dwarfs, fools and jesters were present in large numbers at the Court of Philip IV. They were maintained by the King according to a tradition extending back well into the Middle Ages. The tradition was motivated by charity, but many 'fools' came to be appreciated for their wit, arousing great affection and sometimes achieving great fame. Because they were not taken seriously, they were licensed to parody or flout the etiquette with which courtiers and royalty had to conform, which seems to have been especially appreciated at the rigid Court of Philip IV. Velázquez has used a variety of subtle devices in portraying them: particularly interesting is the way the light flickers uncertainly over Calabacillas' grimace, suggesting his poor vision. Here Velázquez anticipates, or may have influenced, Goya's technique of 160 years later.
— The Dwarf Francisco Lezcano, Called "El Niño de Vallecas" (1645, 107x83cm) _ During the 1630s and 1640s Velázquez painted a series of portraits of the count dwarfs, playmates of the royal children, for they interested him as character studies.
— Court Dwarf Don Antonio El Inglés (1645, 142x107cm) _ It was customary at the courts of Europe during the seventeenth century for monarchs to keep dwarfs. Velázquez's sympathy for the fools and dwarfs of the Spanish court is obvious: in the pathos and humane understanding demonstrated by the single portraits with which he (and he alone) paid tribute to them.
— The Dwarf Sebastian de Morra (1645, 106x81cm) _ Velázquez painted the likenesses of some of the dwarfs of the Spanish court who were, in the words of Carl Justi, 'loved and treated as dogs'. These unfortunate cripples, sometimes weak-minded but sometimes wise, often attached themselves to the courts in the Middle Ages and later; there they found shelter in return for their services as court jesters, and they had to endure the rude remarks and practical jokes of the courtiers. Their feelings as human beings were generally ignored, but the portrait of the dwarf Sebastiano de Morra (it was a form of mockery to give the dwarfs such grandiose names) is one of the most penetrating character studies ever made by the master. Although the dwarf Don Sebastián de Morra is portrayed in full figure, he is not standing in a self-confident pose or elegantly seated on a chair, but is sitting on the bare earth with his feet stretched out in front of him. This low position not only shows up the sumptuous clothing for the clownish apparel it is, but also heightens the intended effect: the court fool is at the mercy of the spectator. Such pictorial devices reveal the voyeurism with which the royal rulers made these people the objects of their shameless whimsy, caprice and power. At the same time, however, the artist is also making another statement: this court fool is giving nothing away, neither a smile, nor any buffoonery. Immobile, scrutinizing and impenetrable, his dark eyes are fixed on the spectator, who somehow feels caught out by such a gaze and turns away. Velázquez's greatest achievement as a portrait painter was certainly his highly pictorial portrait of Pope Innocent X, made during his second visit to Rome; but already in this picture of the dwarf, especially in the expression of the eyes, there is evidence of the great gifts with which this artist was endowed.
— Diego de Acedo (El Primo) (1644, 107x82cm) _ It was customary at the courts of Europe during the seventeenth century for monarchs to keep dwarfs. Velázquez's sympathy for the fools and dwarfs of the Spanish court is obvious: in the pathos and humane understanding demonstrated by the single portraits with which he (and he alone) paid tribute to them. A particularly impressive portrait is Velázquez's painting of the dwarf Don Diego de Acedo, alias El Primo (The Cousin), probably commissioned by the court and made at Fraga in about 1644. (The dwarf was called El Primo because he boasted of being the relative of Velázquez.) Like the midget Sebastian de Morra, who served in the retinue of the Infante Don Fernando and Prince Baltasar Carlos, El Primo is shown sitting, and is viewed slightly from below. The effect of presenting them from this dignified aspect is to raise their status in the eyes of the spectator. El Primo is portrayed leafing through the pages of an enormous tome. His small size makes the books surrounding him appear even more gigantic than they are. His occupation here is undoubtedly a reference to his administrative duties at the court. At the same time, it is probably an example of humanist satirical jest, which would often decry the senseless writing and reading of books as a contemptible vice. Contemporary spectators would never have accepted that a dwarf knew how to use the attributes of a scholar; the artist thus seems to be using an apparently grotesque discrepancy to poke fun at the pseudo-scholars of his day.
— Aesop (1640, 179x94cm) _ Aesop is a legendary Greek fabulist, who lived in the 6th century BC. According to various legends he was a Phrygian slave, who was granted his freedom, or a confidant of King Croesus of Lydia. The medieval tradition made him an ugly cripple. The Fables attributed to him are most probably a compilation of tales from many sources.
— Menippus (1640, 179x94cm) _ The satirical tradition had spread throughout Europe via the humanists, and Velázquez's knowledge of it is evident in his use of ideal types in portraits of the Cynic philosopher Menippus (MOENIPPVS, c. 1636-40) and the Greek composer of fables Aesop (AESOPVS, c. 1636-40), possibly painted for the hunting lodge Torre de la Parada, near the Buen Retiro Palace. It was here, too, that many of his portraits of court fools and dwarfs were hung. Aesop's face with its flattened nose was probably not - as is commonly thought - painted after a man of the people (even if the painting did attempt to show a simple man whose features were marked by toil, and who therefore represented the Cynic ideal of the modesty and wisdom of the people). The portrait seems rather more reminiscent of Giovanni Battista della Porta's physiognomic parallels between various types of human faces and the heads of animals associated with certain temperaments. Aesop had, during Classical antiquity, been seen in conjunction with the Seven Sages; Menippus was known as a castigator of hack philosophers, whom he satirized in different literary genres. According to Plutarch, Aesop was a counselor to the Lydian King Croesus (6th century). Velázquez was suggesting a parallel with the situation at the Spanish court. The two portraits of philosophers, together with the portraits of fools and dwarfs, were intended to warn the king not to lose touch with the common people and their wisdom. — [Why didn't Mané~Katz think of painting Menippus?]
— The Coronation of the Virgin (1644, 176x124cm) _ This is one of the several religious paintings Velázquez made in the 1640s.
— Portrait of a Man (1649, 76x64cm) _ Alonso Cano and Velázquez were good friends from their days as students in Seville. Even they worked together restoring the Venetian paintings of the king damaged by fire. It is supposed that the sitter of this painting is Alonso Cano, however, there is no documentary evidence of it.
— Pope Innocent X (1649) _ Perhaps the preeminent Spanish artist of the seventeenth century, Velázquez was, from 1623 on, court painter to Philip IV in Madrid. In 1650 Velázquez was sent to Italy to buy paintings for one of his monarch's palaces; while in Rome the artist was commissioned to portray the Pope. The final version (next) was preceded by several small sketches; this canvas by virtue of its great vivacity is sometimes assumed to be a direct study from life. Velázquez was given the unenviable task of depicting the most powerful and, according to contemporaries, the ugliest man in Rome. The artist was successful, for when the Pontiff saw the portrait he is said to have remarked, "troppo vero".
— Portrait of Innocent X (1650, 141x119cm) _ "He was tall in stature, thin, choleric, splenetic, with a red face, bald in front with thick eyebrows bent above the nose [...], that revealed his severity and harshness...". These were the words used by Giacinto Gigli in 1655 to describe the pope (Giovanni Battista Pamphili [1574-1655], made a cardinal in 1629 and elected to the papal throne on 16 September 1644), adding that "his face was the most deformed ever born among men." Justi and later Morelli considered his head "the most repugnant... of all the Fisherman's successors" and "insignificant, indeed vulgar," with an expression similar to "that of a cunning lawyer." And yet this ugly and sullen man was paradoxically the subject of one of the most admired portraits of the seventeenth century, and perhaps of all time. Mention has often been made of the chromatic unity of this portrait, in which the red flesh tones, the red cape, the red camauro, and the armchair of red velvet against the backdrop of a red door create such a dramatic effect that, if the pope were to open his mouth, even his saliva would be blood red. This marvelously orchestrated profusion of crimson tints - sometimes, as in the cape, with cold reflections as if "lit by neon" - undoubtedly derives from the example of Titian, while the representation of the contrasting white gown certainly harks back to Veronese, the only sixteenth-century Venetian painter who knew how to handle this difficult "non-color." A man of power, bolt upright, depicted in magenta, an aggressive and vital color, that together with white symbolizes creation. In those years in Rome, the artist painted portraits of other personages connected with the papal court, such as Cardinal Camillo Astalli Pamphili, Monsignor Camillo Massimi, Donna Olimpia Maidalchini Pamphili, Monsignor Abate Ippolito, and Cristoforo Segni. The portrait of Pope Innocent X is by common consent one of the world's supreme masterpieces of portraiture, unsurpassed in its breathtaking handling of paint and so incisive in characterization that the pope himself said the picture was 'troppo vero' (too truthful).
— Juan de Pareja (1650, 81x70cm) _ Exceptional powers of observation and an unprecedentedly vibrant technique make Velázquez the greatest Spanish painter of his century. As court painter to King Philip IV of Spain, Velázquez was sent in 1648 to Rome, then the center of the international art world, where he made two of his greatest portraits, one of Pope Innocent X and this one, of his studio assistant Juan de Pareja, a Sevillian of Moorish descent. When the picture was exhibited at the Pantheon in 1650, one connoisseur remarked that while all the rest was art, this alone was truth.
— Las Hilanderas (1657, 220x289cm) _ There has been much discussion about the meaning of this painting, but essentially it is clear enough. Just as Velázquez in The Drinkers set ordinary folks beside Bacchus, here he sets Minerva, the goddess of weaving, and Arachne, who rashly challenged her, in the context of actual tapestry-makers. The scene may reflect the disposition of the Royal Tapestry Factory of Saint Elizabeth in Madrid. Minerva is seen arriving in the background, where Arachne is at work, while other spinners in the foreground concentrate on the business in hand. Velázquez conveys their industry with brilliant immediacy, seeming to mingle the hum of their mills with the shifts of color in the light. Nothing could be further from the silent suspension and frozen movement of Las Meninas. But Las Hilanderas shares with Las Meninas and certain early works by Velázquez an ambiguity in the handling of space, with which he deliberately fascinates the viewer.
— Venus at her Mirror (The Rokeby Venus) (1651, 122x177cm) _ The Rokeby Venus is widely regarded, along with Titian's Venus of Urbino, as one of the most beautiful and significant portrayals of Venus in the history of western painting. Yet it is virtually impossible to explain the magic of this painting. The consistent reduction of color to lucid red, gentle blue, clear white and a warm reddish-brown allows the skin tone of Venus - blended, incidentally, only from the other colors in the painting - to emerge as an independent hue whose sumptuous sheen dominates everything else. Venus is presented in a sensually erotic pose, and yet she seems chaste and is so completely merged with the overall image that she cannot be touched. Cupid, disarmed, without his bow and arrow, is holding a mirror, his hands bound by fragile pink fetters, condemned to do nothing and completely immersed in contemplation of the beautiful goddess. The mirror image - in defiance of all laws of optics - does not reveal the other side of Venus, but only permits a vague and blurred reflection of her facial traits. This may in fact indicate the underlying meaning of the picture: it is not intended as a specific female nude, nor even as a portrayal of Venus, but as an image of self-absorbed beauty. The goddess of love appears here as a mythical being with neither aim nor purpose, needing no scene of action, but blossoming before our very eyes as an image of beauty itself. During the Inquisition pictures were censored and artists who painted licentious or immoral paintings were excommunicated, fined very heavily and banished. Rather than punish so notable an artist as Velázquez, his Venus was accepted. Cupid and the face to be seen in the looking-glass were, in all probability, heavily painted over in the eighteenth century.
— View of Zaragoza (1647, 181x331cm) _ The painting was completed and signed and dated by Juan Bautista del Mazo, the son-in-law of Velázquez
— The Pavilion Ariadné in the Médici Gardens in Rome “Sunshine” (1651, 44x38cm) — The Entrance to the Grotta in the Médici Gardens in Rome “Noon” (1650, 48x42cm) _ Velázquez made two views of the Garden of the Villa Médici in Rome, the Entrance to the Grotta and the Ariadné Pavilion (called also as Noon and Sunshine, respectively, referring to the difference in lighting). By these paintings the artist anticipates the spirit of the plein-air painting.
— 114 images at Webshots
— Velázquez commemorative postal stamps.
^ Born on 06 June 1756: John Trumbull, son of colonial Connecticut governor, US painter, architect, and diplomat, specialized in Historical Subjects (US War of Independence), who died on 10 November 1843. He studied under Benjamin West.
      Trumbull's importance lies in his historical paintings memorializing events in the US War of Independence. Applying Benjamin West’s and John Singleton Copley’s realistic innovations in history painting to US subjects, he created a series of images, reproduced in countless illustrations, that have become icons of US nationalism. They are also symbolic of his lifelong political and artistic identity.

— Born in Lebanon Connecticut, John Trumbull was the son of Jonathan Trumbull, the only colonial Royal Governor to embrace the Patriot cause. His mother was Faith Robinson, a descendant of Pilgrim leader John Robinson. He was also the first painter in the English American Colonies to have a college education, being a graduate of Harvard, entering the class of 1773 in the Junior Year at age fifteen.
      His father wanted him to pursue either the ministry or law, feeling that the manual crafts were beneath the family dignity, but once at Harvard, he lost no time making the acquaintance of John Singleton Copley, the leading portrait painter in the Colonies. After graduation, Trumbull taught school for a winter in Lebanon, but continued his study of painting, much to his fathers chagrin.
      At the outbreak of the War of Independence, Trumbull marched to Boston under the command of Gen. Joseph Spencer, as Adjutant of the 1st Connecticut Regiment. Stationed at Roxbury, he witnessed the Battle of Bunker Hill from there, which was the closest he ever came to any of the subjects of his great historical paintings. He came to the attention of General Washington by drawing a plan of the enemies works in front of the Patriot Army on Boston Neck, and was shortly thereafter appointed his Aide-de-Camp (General Order of 27 July 1775). In June of 1776, upon the assumption by General Gates of the command of the Army in the Northern Department, Trumbull was appointed his Adjutant. After service at Crown Point and Ticonderoga, he resigned on 22 February 1777, ostensibly because his commission as a Colonel was dated some three months later than his appointment to that rank by General Gates.
      Trumbull moved to Boston and hired as a studio the painting room built by artist John Smibert. He found still there several copies by him from celebrated pictures in Europe, which he found very useful.' With the exception of a short term of service as volunteer Aide-de-Camp to General Sullivan in Rhode Island, Trumbull remained in Boston until the autumn of 1779 when he determined to go to England to study under Benjamin West, one of the leading painters in Europe and official Painter of Historical Subjects to George III.
      Trumbull reached London in July of 1780 and presented to West a letter of introduction from Benjamin Franklin. He began work immediately, occupying a painting room with Gilbert Stuart, who was also a student under West at the time.
      Trumbull was arrested on 18 November l780, and threatened with hanging as an American spy, in retaliation for the hanging of Major Andre, the British spy who conspired with Benedict Arnold. He was incarcerated until June 1781, when West and Copley interceded with the king, and he was released upon condition that he leave the kingdom.
      Trumbull returned to London in 1784 to complete his studies under West and attend classes at the Royal Academy, and the influence of West can be clearly seen during this period. West himself desired to do a historical series on the US War of Independence, but feared loss of Royal Patronage, and Trumbull began to meditate seriously the subjects of national history, of events of the War of Independence, which became the great objects of his professional life. Trumbull's ambition, tempered as it was by Westas influence, finally crystallized into a determination to become the painter of the US War of Independence. Several of his historical paintings were begun and two finished in West's studio, including The Battle of Bunker Hill (1786).
     Trumbull met Thomas Jefferson in London in the summer of 1785. Upon his invitation Trumbull later visited Paris, and there submitted to him his two finished paintings The Battle of Bunker Hill and The Death of General Montgomery at Quebec. Both Jefferson and John Adams, then Minister to Great Britain, helped Trumbull to select ten additional events to be painted, of which Trumbull completed eight.
      The sketch for The Declaration of Independence was made at Jefferson's house in the Grille de Chaillot in 1786 with his information and advice. Returning to London, Trumbull completed the composition of The Declaration of Independence, The Surrender of Lord Cornwallis, The Battle of Trenton, and The Battle of Princeton while in West's studio. He left out the faces, however, intending to fill them in from life whenever possible. Thus, the face of John Adams was painted in London in the summer of 1787, Trumbull saying that just before Adams left the Court of St. James's he: "had the powder combed out of his hair. Its color and natural curl were beautiful, and I took that opportunity to paint his portrait in the small Declaration of Independence".
      In the autumn of 1787, Trumbull again visited Jefferson and there painted his portrait into the same canvas, and the portraits of the French officers in "The Surrender of Lord Cornwallis" "were painted from life in Mr. Jefferson's house." Apparently he also left certain details in the backgrounds to be finished later from sketches made on the spot.
      As Congress was to assemble in New York in December of 1789, Trumbull went there to pursue his work. He also hoped to sell engravings of his historical paintings, but that project failed. While there he had sittings from Washington, and likewise painted the portraits of many distinguished characters into several of the canvases, and later he traveled throughout the country on the same errand. In addition he painted many small portraits as pencil sketches or oil on mahogany to be used in the scenes determined upon but not yet designed. He also visited and sketched historic places so that he might become familiar with the actual setting of the events he was depicting.
      During these years (1789-1794) Trumbull lived, for the most part, in the new nation's capitol, New York City (some believe because Gilbert Stuart had taken up residence in Boston), supporting himself by painting portraits while seeking in vain to obtain the financial backing of the Government for his project. The portraits of this period, when Trumbull was fresh from six years' study abroad, at least three of which were passed under the instruction of West, are considered his best work and rank equally with examples of any US painter of the time. He is known for fluid brushstrokes and subtle glazes, and also produced a very few landscapes that anticipate the Hudson River School.
      Failing to obtain Government support, Trumbull accompanied John Jay to London in May 1794, and acted as his secretary while he was negotiating what became known as Jay's Treaty. In 1796 Trumbull was appointed one of the commissioners to carry out one of the Articles of that Treaty; and remained about eight years in London engaged in this work.
      Trumbull returned to New York in 1804 and sought to rebuild his practice as a portrait painter, but his ten years of foreign service, during which time he seldom exercised his talent, seem to have robbed his hand of much of its ability. Very few of the portraits of this period (1804-l808) evidence his earlier talent. Trumbull attributed his lack of success to the embargo placed by President Jefferson in the autumn of 1808 on all commerce, which he says threatened "the prosperity of those friends from whom I derived my subsistence," but it almost seems as if his genius had flared for a few brief years and then gone out forever, so marked is the division between the work of his youth and that of later life. In any event, he once more went abroad in 1809, and was stuck in England by the outbreak of the War of 1812, and forced to remain there until August of 1815.
      The Capitol in Washington DC having been partially destroyed by the British in 1814, Trumbull saw the opportunity in its restoration of realizing his ambition, and he applied for the commission to decorate the Rotunda with enlargements from his small originals. For this purpose several of the canvases were exhibited in the House of Representatives in 1816 and as a result a resolution passed both houses of the Congress to employ Trumbull to make four paintings: "Commemorative of the most important events of the American Revolution, to be placed, when finished, in the Capitol of the United States." Trumbull wrote to Jefferson on 26 December 1816: “The Declaration of Independence is finished — Trenton, Princeton, and York Town which were long since finished & engraved — I shall take them all with me to the Seat of Government. in a few days that I may not merely talk of what I will do but show what I have done.”
      The choice of the subjects and the size of the paintings, were left to the President. Trumbull tells of his interview with Madison, in which the President first suggested the Battle of Bunker Hill as one subject, but as only four of his paintings had been ordered, he recommended The Surrender of General Burgoyne, The Surrender of Lord Cornwallis, The Declaration of Independence, and The Resignation of Washington. These were finally selected by President Madison and Trumbull was engaged for the sum of $32'000 to enlarge them to a size of eighteen feet by twelve feet, with life-size figures.
      Trumbull first enlarged The Declaration of Independence and exhibited it during the years 1818-1820 in several cities. Public expectation was perhaps never raised so high respecting a picture, as in the case of this painting; and although the painter had only to copy his own beautiful original of former days, a disappointment was felt and loudly expressed. Faults which escaped detection in the miniature, were glaring when magnified — the tone and the coloring were not there — attitudes which appeared constrained in the original, were awkward in the copy — many of the likenesses had vanished." On 01 September 1818, John Quincy Adams wrote in his diary “Called about eleven o'clock at Mr. Trumbull's house, and saw his picture of the Declaration of Independence, which is now nearly finished. I cannot say I was disappointed in the execution of it, because my expectations were very low; . . . I think the old small picture far superior to this large new one.”
      The Surrender of Cornwallis was enlarged next and in turn was exhibited in New York, Boston and Baltimore in 1820.
      The Surrender of General Burgoyne' and The Resignation of Washington were enlarged from compositions painted at about this time, and the four enlargements were installed in the Rotunda of the Capitol in Washington under Trumbull's supervision in 1824.
      Trumbull was a first class painter in miniature. His small portraits are in oil on canvas or on wood, and his work in this field is excelled only by some of the miniatures by Malbone, and equalled only by the best work of Fraser and Trott. The pictures of the Battle of Trenton and Princeton, are among the most admirable miniatures in oil that ever were painted. The same may be said of the portraits in the small picture of the Surrender of Cornwallis. Some of Trumbull's life-size portraits done before 1794 (when he left painting for diplomacy) will stand the severest test, but when, however, in 1816, at the age of sixty, he undertook to enlarge his small originals, twenty by thirty inches, to a size twelve by eighteen feet, the result bears silent witness to the fact that he had had no training in this branch of art and for twenty years before he had been at best an unsuccessful painter.
      Trumbull lost the sight of one eye in childhood, and the concomitant lack of depth perception exaggerated by advancing age may, to some extent, explain the flat look of the enlargements.
      The importance of the canvases and miniatures lies in the fact that they are original portraits from life and are the work of Trumbull's early and brilliant youth and in a field in which he excelled, while the enlargements therefrom are the work of his declining years.
      Trumbull attempted in vain to induce the Government to commission him to fill the remaining panels of the Rotunda. and failing thus to sell his collection of Revolutionary portraits to the nation, his impaired health and failing powers brought him onto bad times, wherein at last he sought another way by which to use his early work to furnish support for his old age.
      Trumbull tells, in his Reminiscences, the pathetic story of how, when funds began to diminish, he was forced to sell "scraps of furniture, fragments of plate, etc.," and of how many pictures remained on his hands unsold, and to all appearance unsaleable. It occurred to him that although "the hope of a sale to the nation, or to a state, became more and more desperate from day to day," yet some private institution might be willing to possess the paintings, making payment therefor by a life annuity. He first considered his alma mater, Harvard, but finally chose Yale, as it was within his native state.
      Trumbull, throughout his life, appreciated the importance of his Revolutionary portraits and never wavered from the conviction that some day their great historic value would be recognized, and he believed that their exhibition would be a source of revenue to the College. The matter was suggested to the Trustees of Yale College by a friend, and a contract, dated 19 December 1831 was signed, by which Trumbull, in consideration of an annuity of $1000, in addition to the miniature portraits of persons distinguished during the Revolution, and certain copies of old masters, deeded to Yale: “Eight original paintings of subjects from the American Revolution, viz.,
1. The Battle of Bunker's Hill.
2. The Death of General Montgomery at Quebec.
3. The Declaration of Independence.
4. The Battle of Trenton.
5. The Battle of Princeton.
6. The Surrender of General Burgoyne.
7. The Surrender of Lord Cornwallis.
8. Washington resigning his Commission.”

Yale bound itself to erect a fireproof building for the reception of the paintings, of such form and dimensions as Trumbull should approve, and after the paintings were arranged that they should be exhibited and the profits first applied to the payment of the annuity, and all the profits after his death perpetually appropriated towards defraying the expenses of educating poor scholars in Yale College.
      Trumbull afterward supervized the building of the Trumbull Gallery, which stood upon the Yale Campus until the year 1901. He made, later, several additions, so that the Gallery in 1841, when he wrote his Reminiscences, contained, in addition to the miniatures: "fifty-five pictures by my own hand, painted at various periods, from my earliest essay of the Battle of Cannae, to my last composition, The Deluge, including the eight small original pictures of the American Revolution, which contain the portraits painted from life.”
      It is true that Trumbull chose to depict in The Battle of Bunker's Hill and in The Death of General Montgomery at Quebec, the success of the enemy, and in regard to Bunker Hill he is said to have adopted the British rather than the American account of the battle. At the same time, these canvases contain portraits from life painted by one of the first painters of the age, a man who had served in the War of Independence and who was familiar with the scenes of action. Trumbull in writing to Jefferson of his qualifications to paint the scenes of the Revolution, quite rightly stated that: "some superiority also arose from my having borne personally a humble part in the great events I was to describe. No one lives with me possessing this advantage, and no one can come after me to divide the honor of truth and authenticity, however easily I may hereafter be exceeded in elegance." (Letter to Jefferson, 11 June 1789).
      Nowhere else can be found likenesses of many of the actors in these scenes, and nowhere else can be found together so many original portraits of persons prominent in the US War of Independence. The Trumbull canvases and miniatures, containing about two hundred and fifty portraits, are the most important source of original information that exists on the likeness of these historical personages..
      The inscription over Trumbull's tomb on the Yale campus ends with these lines:
To his Country he gave his
SWORD and his PENCIL
  ^
—       Trumbull, an army officer and aide to George Washington during the War of Independence, painted, between 1819 and 1824, the first four of the eight paintings in the Rotunda of the United States Capitol. Trumbull's paintings treat episodes from the US Revolutionary period — two civil and two military:
1) Declaration of Independence in Congress, at the Independence Hall, Philadelphia, July 4th, 1776 (1819). It depicts a formative moment of the Revolution, although not the actual signing of the Declaration of Independence. Rather, it portrays the committee charged with drafting the Declaration reporting to the President of the Congress. Trumbull here affirms the central tenet of republicanism: the priority of select individuals working in concert for the greater good. The setting for the painting is formal and rational; authority rests in the balance achieved at the table, where the President of the Congress, John Hancock, offsets the writers of the Declaration--John Adams, Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and others. The Doric cornice of neo-classical architecture alludes to the classical republicanism the founding fathers sought to establish through both the Enlightenment and American revolutions.
2) Surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown, Virginia, October 19th, 1781. (1820) Balance continues, as does the rationalization and formal ritual emphasized in the Declaration. Unlike the Declaration, however, this painting revisits an acknowledged defeat, one which ended the war. The national decision depicted in the signing of the Declaration of Independence began formal hostilities: in Surrender of Lord Cornwallis these hostilities have passed, and order returns. Notice how the two sides create a rough parity between the armies and their equally dignified groups of flags, troop columns, and horses. Only General Lincoln's superior position on horseback, General George Washington backstage, and the rising smoke from the British side betray the victor. And even here the white horse of the victor harmonizes with the white flag of the vanquished to retain a respectful equanimity. This surrender concludes what Trumbull views as a gentleman's disagreement, a quarrel that has been gravely fought and honorably won.

3) The Surrender of Burgoyne at Saratoga, New York, October 17th, 1777 (1822) Dignified ritual and balance reign: the cannon to the right and the horse and rider on the left balance the painting around the fulcrum of the victorious Colonial general. This exaltation of the individual in a harmonious worldly setting--the only trace of battle here is the cannon in the foreground--sustains the gentlemanly deportment and respect of the first two paintings, and echoes the Enlightenment's view of man as central in the universe. General Gates comprises the axis of the painting; his democratic views are valorized. As he hospitably accepts Burgoyne's sword, both officers tacitly admit the superiority of the Colonial position. Pictorially, Gates and Burgoyne are matched so that the shift in status is minimal. Humanism and republicanism, not god and monarchy, rule the day. As in Cornwallis at Yorktown, an epic conflict has occurred, but civilization remains secure.
     This painting represents General Burgoyne on 16 (17?) October 1777, attended by General Phillips, and followed by other officers, arriving at the field tent of General Gates with a number of the principal officers of the American army assembled nearby. The confluence of Fish Creek and the North River, where the British left their arms, is shown in the distance, near the head of Col. Scammell; the troops are indistinctly seen crossing the creek and the meadows, under the direction of Colonel (later Governor) Lewis, then quarter-master general, and advancing towards the foreground; they disappear behind the wood, which serves as a backdrop to the three principal figures; and again appear (grenadiers, without arms or accoutrements) under the left arm of General Gates. Officers on horseback, American, British, and German, precede the head of the column, and form an interesting cavalcade, following the two dismounted generals, and connecting different parts of the picture. Trumbull planned this picture as early as 1786, as it is in the list agreed upon in conference with Jefferson and Adams, but in his proposals to publish engravings (New York, 02 April 1790) it is stated that it had not as yet been executed. Among Trumbulls effects was a finished sketch in outline and partly filled in with India ink, endorsed on the back by Trumbull "Surrender of General Burgoyne, Lebanon, August 1791". Another was a pencil sketch endorsed with the proportions of the figures. A third was an outline sketch in pencil of General Gates' tent, as it appears in the finished picture. A fourth was a finished sketch in sepia endorsed "Saratoga, scene from the rising ground nigh the church, on which was General Gates's marquee, Sep. 28, 1791, J. Trumbull." A fifth was a sketch in pencil endorsed "Maj. Gen. Gates New York Dec. 1790"; also a pencil portrait endorsed "B. Gen. Glover, Marblehead Nov. 13 1794" At Yale University, one can find the following miniature portraits endorsed on the back by Trumbull with the name and date when painted and the words "Capture of General Burgoyne," evidently used in this painting:
— Major William Lithgow (sketch 1791, 108kb) (he is the first one at the left edge of Saratoga, cropped out of the reproduction linked to above)
— Capt. Thomas Youngs Seymour (1793; 675x553pix, 32kb) (he is on horseback, at the extreme left foreground, in Saratoga, his face cropped out of the reproduction linked to above)
— A cropped Saratoga was reproduced on a 2-cent US postage stamp issued on 03 August 1927.

4) General George Washington Resigning His commission to Congress as Commander in Chief of the Army at Annapolis, Maryland, December 23rd, 1783. (1824). In this, the greatest of the four paintings, Trumbull conjures a return to the civil obeisance which marked the Declaration. The Founding Father defers to the United States, the individual submits to the deliberative, and the executive power yields before Congress. The impetus for Washington's noble decision is present in the visitor's gallery, in his wife, Martha, and grandchildren, symbols of the family and private sphere. The gallery sits atop an Ionic capitol, signifying the classical origins of republicanism and the rational order on which democracy rests. Washington's willingness to resign, to give up his power to others in order that he might return home to a domestic life, speaks of his confidence in the capacity of the young nation to continue its democratic experiment.
     Two other paintings by Trumbull further explain his Rotunda works; these pictures reveal similar, even more explicitly rendered themes constitutive of Trumbull's republicanism:
5) The Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker Hill on 17 June 1775 (1786; 775x1200pix, 96kb). _ British officer Major Small prevents a grenadier from bayoneting the helpless Warren. The painting emphasizes the virtue of self-restraint, a trope common to each of Trumbull's four Rotunda paintings. Magnanimity, generosity, and the example of the beneficent, humble ruler all find expression here. These themes are recapitulated in Washington's Resigning. Jules David Prown writes that "the fundamental theme is humanitarianism and generosity, the bonds that unite humans, rather than the forces that set them at each other's throats.
6) The Death of General Montgomery in the Attack on Quebec (1786). Trumbull provides us with a similar analogy, this time in relation to the Declaration. Here three revolutionaries mark the death of General Montgomery, who is struck in a pose similar to that of the Pietà. This painting may have been based on Jacques-Louis David's The Oath of the Horatii (1785), in which three classical figures raise their arms to swear an oath of vengeance
     John Singleton Copley's The Death of the Earl of Chatham (1781), also probably influenced Trumbull's Quebec. Here Members of Parliament cradle the collapsed earl, amidst a "sea of legs" like that for which Representative John Randolph criticized the Declaration in 1828.
     Trumbull uses the same imagery of Horatii in Quebec, where the three revolutionaries raise their arms to the dying Montgomery, and in Declaration, where the drafting committee of Jefferson and others resemble this formation. Although in Declaration, Trumbull places it in the context of the legislature, where the focus of the painting is a dying man, that of the revolutionary soldier and leader. Following this analysis, if President John Hancock's table in the State House at Philadelphia in Declaration is equated to the Pietà of General Montgomery in Quebec, as well as to Copley's dying earl, the Declaration of Independence becomes equivalent to salvation and martyrdom as well as to its more traditional importance as a covenant.
       As Trumbull grew older, he became increasingly isolated from his younger contemporaries of the mid-century. Between the peace of 1783 and his death in 1843 two generations had arisen and Trumbull was, to the greater number of them, like one who lingered on the shores of time or had perchance returned from another world, like a Rip Van Winkle.
— Mather Brown and Charles Loring Elliott were students of Trumbull
^
— LINKS
— William Pinkney — Mrs. William Pinkney (Ann Maria Rodgers) (1800, 74x63cm) _ detail (head) — Mrs. Rufus (Mary Alsop) King (1800, 78x65cm) _ detail (head) — Philip Church (1784, 45x35cm) _ at age about 5 — George Washington (1780, 91x71cm; 866x650cm; 146kb)
— The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776 (1787-1820; 662x1000px, 111kb) _ Thirty-six of the original members of the original forty-seven members of the first Congress were painted from life, years after 1776. Trumbull spent a quarter of a century tracking down people and painting them from life.
— Niagara Falls from below the Great Cascade on the British Side, 1808, (1808; 400x594pix, 74kb) _ John Trumbull and his wife spent a week at Niagara Falls in August of 1807. Trumbull returned in September of the following year and sketched the cataracts from below. His sketchbook now at Yale has eight drawings that were produced on these trips. Trumbull stayed on the British side and did not venture to the US side which was wilderness. The work above is based on a pencil drawing dated 13 September 1808 at 15:00.
— Death of Montgomery (1786; 530x500pix) Trumbull painted this in West's studio in London where he was studying under West. General Richard Montgomery was an American Patriot General who was killed in late December 1775 during a futile American effort to take Quebec from the British. Aaron Burr, possibly the second best known American hero-turned-villain (after Benedict Arnold), attempted in vain to carry Montgomery's body from the field. If Trumbull had painted this death scene a decade or so later, before Burr shot Alexander Hamilton (1804) and was tried for treason (1807), perhaps he might have elevated Burr to Hero. For
      Burr's efforts to rescue Montgomery are related thus: “Grapeshot pouring into the imperfect light of the dawn mortally wounded Montgomery and two of his aides. The general's last words were to Burr. "We shall be in the fort in two minutes," he said even as "he recieved the grapeshot & fell in his arms." Of those in the front row, only Burr anda French guide remained alive, and Burr's earnest efforts to rally the men behind him and push on were countermanded by an order to retreat from the slain general's successor in command. Aaron's Princeton classmate, Samuel Spring, had come north as chaplain of the expedition. It is from Spring that we have the memorable story of Burr's final actions at Pres-de-ville that morning. As the other Americans fled before the pursuing Canadians, Aaron lingered behind in a futile effort to carry off the body of Montgomery and ensure it a proper burial. The minister's story, as told years later, had little Burr hoisting the general, a big man, to his shoulders, and then stumbling through deep snow for several yards before dropping his burden to avoid capture."
— The Sortie Made by the Garrison of Gibraltar (1789, 180x272cm; 327x500pix, 50kb) _ This painting depicts the events of the night of 26 November 1781, when British troops, long besieged by Spanish forces at Gibraltar, made a sortie against the encroaching enemy batteries. The focal point of the painting is the tragic death of the Spanish officer Don Jose de Barboza. Abandoned by his fleeing troops, he charged the attacking column alone, fell mortally wounded, and, refusing all assistance, died near his post. Trumbull portrays him rejecting the aid of General George Elliott, commander of the British troops. This work, the largest and last of three versions of the subject that Trumbull painted between 1786 and 1789, demonstrates his ambition to solidify his reputation on the basis of the highly respected genre of history painting.
— The Sortie from Gibraltar (1788, 51x76cm; 147x225pix, 16kb) _ Remembered today for his monumental painting The Declaration of Independence, on display in the US Capitol, Trumbull ambitiously recorded on canvas the major events of the US's founding. Connecticut-born and educated at Harvard, Trumbull served as General George Washington's aide-de-camp. In that position he acquired experiences that contributed to the vividness of his art. In 1786 he embarked on a series of paintings of the US War of Independence, to be reproduced in engravings. Because the painting of recent history (as opposed to the ancient past) was a relatively new undertaking, Trumbull's work drew mixed reactions. In 1784 Trumbull went to England in the hope of building a reputation there. Seeking a theme that would show the British in a positive light, he chose to depict the sortie at Gibraltar on the night of 26 November 1781, in which British forces overthrew a Spanish siege, set the Spanish military works ablaze, and mortally wounded their commander, Don José de Barboza. The British general George Augustus Elliott magnanimously offered Barboza sanctuary, but the Spaniard valiantly chose to die at the battle site abandoned by his men. The picture gains veracity from the delicate portraits of the British officers, which Trumbull made from life, and from his attention to the details of their regalia. The illumination of the scene by the bloody conflagration and the picture's dynamic composition-with the dying but defiant hero at the center, framed by frenzied action to the left and calm repose to the right-make this one of Trumbull's most successful paintings.
^
Died on a 06 June:

1962 Yves Klein, French Conceptual painter, sculptor, performance artist, and writer, born on 28 April 1928. — [Klein was not gross?] — He was the son of the Dutch-born painter Fred Klein [1898–], whose work was representational, and Marie Raymond [1908–], who developed a reputation in the 1950s as an abstract artist, and whose abstraction was influential on the development of her son’s work. Although Yves had had no formal art training, he was already making his first serious attempts at painting by 1946 and showing his interest in the absoluteness of color by formulating his first theories about monochrome. In 1946 he befriended Arman, with whom he was later to be associated in the Nouveau Réalisme movement, and the writer Claude Pascal, whom he met at a judo class. Together they developed their interest in esoteric writing and East Asian religions. Klein became a student of the Rosicrucian Fellowship in 1946 and was influenced both by its mystical philosophy and by judo. In 1952–1953 he went with Pascal and Arman to Japan, where he studied the art of judo and the spiritual attitude associated with it, gaining the black belt ‘fourth dan’ at the Kodokan Institute in Tokyo. He worked as a judo teacher in Madrid in 1954 and in Paris from 1955 to 1959. — LINKS
^
1944 (D-day) Ker-Xavier Roussel, French Nabi painter, printmaker, and decorative artist, born on 10 December 1867.— LINKS — [Etait-il un descendant de Guillaume “Cadet” Roussel (30 Apr 1743 – 26 Jan 1807)? Ah ! Ah ! Ah oui, vraiment? - En tout cas ce n'est pas lui, mais Benoit A. Côté qui, en 1996, a peint les 3 maisons de Cadet Roussel.] — While still at the Lycée Condorcet in Paris, he met Édouard Vuillard (whose sister Marie he married in 1893), Maurice Denis and Paul Sérusier; once they had finished their studies, they all went together to the Académie Julian, where Pierre Bonnard, Georges Lacombe, Paul Ranson and Félix Valloton were already enrolled. Dissatisfied with the teaching of William-Adolphe Bouguereau and Jules Lefèbvre, they left the Académie in 1890, two years after they had begun to meet together as the Nabis. Roussel took part in the exhibitions at the Café Volpini in 1889 and the Le Barc de Boutteville gallery in 1891. At that time his pictures applied the rules of Synthetism outlined by Sérusier — flat planes of repeated color encircled by dark lines forming a harmonious rhythm; a typical example of his oil paintings of this period is Ma Grand-mère (1888). Like the other Nabis, he did not restrict himself to easel painting but also produced murals, stained glass and lithographs: the color lithograph The Dog’s Education, which he contributed to the anthology Amours (1892-1898) published by the dealer Ambroise Vollard, was the first of several such projects in which he developed the Symbolist character of his work. The 12 lithographs he contributed to another Vollard publication, Album de Paysages (Paris), vividly expressed the pantheist vision of nature that was to characterize his later work.

1914 Gabriel Joseph Marie Augustin Férier, French artist born on 27 September 1847. — [C'est en son honneur qu'il y a des jours Férier?].

1846 Adèle Romany (or Romanée), French artist born on 07 December 1769.

1731 Giovanni Odazzi (or Odasi, Odazi), Roman painter born on 25 March 1663. Odazzi was a prolific painter who created many altarpieces and frescoes and whose increasingly restrained art marks the transition from Late Baroque to Neo-classicism. After a brief and unimportant apprenticeship with the engraver Cornelius Bloemaert, he entered the workshop of Ciro Ferri, and after Ferri’s death (1689) became the pupil and assistant of Giovanni Battista Gaulli. He lived almost entirely in Rome and the Lazio. His art developed evenly, without abrupt changes of direction, continuing the traditions established by Ferri and Gaulli. Ferri encouraged the development of his natural facility in drawing, enabling him to create harmonious, although sometimes rather elementary, compositions for his many altarpieces.

1704 Andrea Scacciati, Italian artist born in 1642.

1676 Jan Olis, Dutch artist born in 1610.

1678 Pieter Janszoon van Asch (or As), Dutch painter born in 1603. — LINKS

^
Born on a 06 June:

1897 (or any year until 1900) Ismaël Gonzalez de La Serna, Spanish artist who died on 20 November 1968.

1896 Henri-Victor Wolvens (or Wolvenspergens), Belgian artist who died on 31 January 1977.

1884 Gino Rossi, Italian painter, draftsman, and printmaker, who died on 16 (01?) December 1947. Rossi had little official training, but moved in artistic circles in Venice. Unlike many of his Italian contemporaries, who were attracted to Central European art, Rossi looked towards France, in particular to Gauguin and other artists associated with Pont-Aven, and as early as 1907 he made his first journey to Paris and to Brittany. He interpreted the language of the Symbolists in a highly original way, ignoring almost completely the mystical aspects of their subject-matter but retaining certain of their stylistic traits, notably the use of emphatic outline and areas of flat colour. In basing his approach on the savage and barbaric enhancement of graphic and chromatic components Rossi arrived independently at a style that had strong affinities with Fauvism, which had shared sources of inspiration. In this his concerns were similar to those of Modigliani, whom he knew.

1849 Emilie Preyer, German still-life painter who died on 23 September 1930. Daughter of Johann Wilhelm Preyer [19 Jul 1803 – 20 Feb 1889] — [Do you believe in the power of Preyer?] [Don't expect the success of a museum that doesn't have a Preyer]
^
1702 Joseph Francis (Corneille François) Nollekens, “Old Nollekens” Flemish English painter, specialized in conversation pieces and genre scenes, who died on 21 January 1748. Son of Jan Baptiste Nollekens [1665-1721+] and brother of Jan Nollekens [26 July 1695 – 17 Jan 1783], and father of sculptor Joseph Nollekens [11 Aug 1737 – 03 Apr 1823] — He first studied under his father, and later worked with him in France, where he learnt to make imitations of Antoine Watteau’s fêtes galantes; during his first visit to England, after 1718, he studied under the landscape painter Peter Tillemans, according to George Vertue. Nollekens’s early works are mostly rather pedestrian imitations of Watteau’s works, sometimes with picturesque Roman ruins added in the manner of Giovanni Paolo Panini. There was a ready market for such works in England, and the demand for decorative pieces of this kind must have encouraged him to settle there. After his arrival in London in 1733, he extended his repertory to include conversation pieces; examples of his work in this vein include a Family Group (1740) and the convincingly English if awkwardly painted Conversation in an Interior (1740). He also painted genre scenes of children, for example Two Children Building a House of Cards and Two Boys Playing with Tops (both 1745), which derive from similar works by Jean-Siméon Chardin and Philip Mercier. His patrons included Richard Child, 1st Earl of Tilney, who owned Wanstead House, Essex (destr.), from where 16 pictures by Nollekens were sold in 1822, and Richard Temple, 1st Viscount Cobham, for whom he decorated with bacchanals (destr.) the two lake pavilions built in 1717 by John Vanbrugh in the gardens of Stowe, Bucks. — [Nollekens took no lickings?]
^
1638 Gerrit Adriaenszoon Berckheyde, Dutch architectural painter who died on 10 (14?) June 1698. Brother and student of Job Adriaenszoon Berckheyde [27 Jan 1630 – 23 Nov 1693]. During the 1650s the brothers made an extended trip to Germany along the Rhine, visiting Cologne, Bonn, Mannheim and finally Heidelberg. Whether this occurred before or after 1654, when Job became a master of the Guild of St Luke in Haarlem, is uncertain. According to legend, the brothers worked in Heidelberg for Charles Ludwig [–1680], Elector Palatine; however, their inability to adapt to court life led them to return to Haarlem, where Gerrit became a member of the Guild of Saint Luke on 27 July 1660. In Haarlem the Berckheyde brothers shared a house and perhaps a studio as well. The idea that Job was the superior artist and habitually contributed the figures to Gerrit’s architectural subjects has been discounted, but the degree of their mutual influence and involvement remains unclear. Confusion between them may have resulted from the similarity of their signatures, where Job’s j resembles Gerrit’s g. Job also signed his work with an H (for Hiob or Job) and with the monogram HB. Gerrit specialized in a particular type of architectural subject, the townscape. His painted work shows a debt not only to Pieter Saenredam’s conception of the building portrait but also to Saenredam’s refined draughtsmanship and dispassionate attitude; these qualities mark Berckheyde as a classicist and akin to Vermeer. Berckheyde favored views of monuments on large open squares, a choice that distinguishes him from the other great Dutch townscape painter, Jan van der Heyden, who preferred views along canals in which clarity was sacrificed for pictorial effect.

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