ART 4 2-DAY 12 September
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Born on 12 September 1858: Fernand
Khnopff, Belgian Symbolist
painter who died on 12 November 1921. — [The painter with the pffunny
khname?] — Fernand Khnopff was probably the most important of the Belgian Symbolists. Brought up in Bruges, he was influenced when young by reading Flaubert and Baudelaire. At first he studied law, but turned to painting under the influence of Xavier Mellery and showed his work at the Salon de la Rose + Croix. In 1879 he went to Paris where he was infected with enthusiam for Gustave Moreau. Péladan greatly admired Khnopff's work, hailing him as 'the equal of Gustave Moreau, of Burne-Jones, of Chavannes and of Rops.' The English Burne-Jones, with whom his work shares elements, and the Belgian poet Emile Verhaeren were strong supporters of his... he had very close ties with the Belgian Symbolist Poets and adopted their themes of "silence, solitude, deserted towns." He had a fanatical interest in precision: every effect and detail in his paintings is precisely and deliberately placed. Dreams and the unconscious were central to Khnopff's art. Born in Eastern Flanders, of a family of magistrates, Khnopff grew up in Bruges. He enrolled at the Law School in Brussels which he soon abandoned for the Académie des Beaux-Arts. There he studied under Xavier Mellery who taught him to consider painting as an enquiry into the meaning hidden in the "soul of things". In 1877, on a visit to Paris, he discovered the work of Delacroix, Gustave Moreau (whose fertile imagination greatly impressed him), and the Pre-Raphaelites (particularly Rossetti and Burne-Jones). The influence of these painters was to be of vital importance. On his return to Belgium he was one of the founders, in 1883, of The Twenty ("Groupe des XX") and was much admired by both painters and poets. Emile Verhaeren wrote enthusiastically about him in La Jeune Belgique and at first the rest of the press joined in his praises, though they tended to prefer his child portraits and landscapes. In 1892 he exhibited in Paris at the first Salon de la Rose+Croix, encouraged by his new friend, Joséphin Péladan. However, this friendship brought him trouble with The Twenty, some members having little regard for the Rose+Croix. He was a friend of the Belgian poets Georges Rodenbach and Grégoire Le Roy, some of whose books he illustrated. From this Symbolist poetry he took certain themes: silence, solitude, secretiveness and deserted towns. Already during his lifetime he was almost a cult figure, creating a personality for himself as a dandy much sought after in Society circles. He was given the Order of Leopold in recognition of his services to painting but despite this he was an exceptionally private artist. In about 1900 he had a house built to his own plans; it was like one of the structures in his pictures, a house out of a dream with false windows [and with the pfabulous pfaucets with the pfunny name?]. LINKS — L'Encens (999x546pix, 72kb) — Art / Sphinx / Caresse La Ville Abandonnée (1904) — I Lock My Door Upon Myself (1891) — Marie Monnom (1887, 50x50cm) — Le Lac D'Amour, Bruges (1887, 47x101cm) — Fillette en blanc, debout (1884, 70x50cm) — Souvenirs — Chut! [painted for a public library?] — Une Ville Morte (1889) — Sous les Pins (1894) — Henri de Woelmont (1884; 959x1069pix) _ a seated little boy in a sailor suit, 2/3 length. |
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Born on 12 September 1829: Anselm
Feuerbach, German Neoclassical
painter and draftsman who died on 04 January 1880. Not to be confused with
his uncle, philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach [28 July 1804 13 September
1872], or his grandfather, jurist Paul von Feuerbach [14 November 1775
29 May 1833]. — His family moved to Freiburg in 1836 and from 1845 tot 1848 he was a student of Wilhelm von Schadow, Johann Wilhelm Schirmer and Carl Friedrich Lessing at the Dusseldorf Academy. In 1848 he moved to Munich where he copied the old masters at the Pinakothek. In 1850 he studied with the history painter Gustaaf Wappers at Antwerp and in 1851 and 1852 he stayed in Paris. He moved to Karlsruhe and then to Rome, where he stayed from 1856 tot 1873. In Italy he was one of the "Deutschrömers" who were looking for the perfect synthesis between humans and culture. His paintings are not as dramatic of those of Böcklin, they tend to be far more calm and cool. In Rome he met the model Nanna Risi who became his lover. His future biographer Julius Allgeyer introduced him to Graf Adolf Friedrich von Schack, who supported Feuerbach financially. Feuerbach became a Professor at the Academy in Vienna (1873-1876). After staying in Venice and Nürnberg he died in solitary circumstances in Venice, completely neglected by his contemporaries. — Feuerbach received his first art lessons from the anatomical draftsman at the University of Freiburg where his father, Joseph Anselm Feuerbach, lectured in Classical philology and archaeology. Anselm Feuerbach's teacher included Thomas Couture, Johann Wilhelm Schirmer, Carl Sohn. In 1845 Feuerbach enrolled at the Düsseldorf Akademie where he studied under Wilhelm Schadow. Though adept at academic drawing, he was urged by Schadow to simplify his rather unresolved and crowded compositional sketches and concentrate on a few figures. In 1848 he moved to Munich where he made copies after Old Master paintings in the Alte Pinakothek, being especially impressed by the work of Rubens. Though eventually studying at the Munich Akademie, he saw the landscape painter Carl Rahl as his real mentor. Works such as Landscape with a Hermit Returning Home (1849) combine the rich mood of the Munich landscape tradition with subject-matter more typical of the Düsseldorf school. — Vojtech Hynais was a student of Feuerbach. — Photo of Feuerbach LINKS — Front Self-Portrait (1835, 42x33cm; 1519x1168pix) Profile Self-Portrait (672x527pix, 104kb) — Mandolinenspieler (1868 137x99cm; 2710x1906pix, 747kb) _ The mandolin player is barely seen, in the shadows, while the main subject is the listener and her baby, for which she cannot afford clothes (this was common in pictures other than paid portraits; it seems that babies in those days were unaffected by heat, cold, or sunburn, and had no need of diapers) — Mandolinenspielerin (1865; 79x60cm; 497x394pix, 68kb) _ Is it my imagination, or is this the same woman, in almost the same pose, who, three years later, after the birth of her baby, is, in the picture listed above, listening to a man (her husband?) playing the mandolin? Did she teach it to him? — Hafis vor der Schenke (1852, 205x258cm; 1236x1557pix) — Lady Holding A Fan (1866, 76x54cm) — Lady Wearing A Pearl Necklace (77x57cm) Iphigenie II (1873; 1233x789pix) _ detail of Iphigenie I (1872; 750x585pix, 100kb) _ Iphigenie, vom Vater Agamemnon der erzürnten Artemis geopfert, wurde von dieser aus Mitleid vom Altar auf die Insel Tauris entrückt und musste ihr dort als Priesterin dienen. Feuerbach fühlte sich, wie er sagte, zum »Antik-Gewaltigen« berufen und wurde zum wichtigsten Repräsentanten eines monumentalen Neoklassizismus in der deutschen Malerei. Wie eine antike Statue ist das Modell Lucia Brunacci, ab 1866 Nannas Nachfolgerin, in großer Pose platziert, wie Goethes Iphigenie »das Land der Griechen mit der Seele suchend«. Grau in grau mit wenigen Akzenten erinnert die Farbigkeit an antike Fresken. Inszeniert wie auf einer Bühne, wurde dieses Bild der unerfüllten Sehnsucht zum charakteristischen und häufig reproduzierten Motiv einer ganzen Epoche. Ruhende Nymphe (1870, 112x190cm; 412x726pix) _ Die Komposition der Ruhenden Nymphe knüpft an den Typus der Schlafenden Venus (1510, 108x175cm; 732x1028pix, 149kb) von Giorgione an — eine Verkörperung der in sich ruhenden Natur. Ihre göttliche Beseeltheit bringt Feuerbach durch das Motiv des Schmetterlings zum Ausdruck. Den Schmetterling — in der Antike ein Sinnbild für die Seele und ihrer Sehnsucht nach dem göttlichen Ursprung — hat er in die Mittelachse der Komposition gesetzt. Statt mit einer Quelle oder einem Brunnen bringt er die Nymphe mit der Weite des Meeres in Verbindung, womit er den angestrebten Eindruck mythologischer Größe unterstreicht. — Garten des Ariost (1863, 102x153cm; 2853x4361pix) _ Ludovico Ariosto [08 Sep 1474 – 06 Jul 1533] was a Ferrara poet remembered primarily for his epic poem Orlando furioso. By 1525 Ariosto had saved enough money to buy a little house with a garden, a far cry from the vast garden at the side of the grandiose palace in Feuerbach's painting. — Gastmahl des Plato (1869, 295x598cm; 757x1582pix) — Gastmahl des Plato II (1873, 400x750cm; 545x999pix with frame) — Iphigenie II (1871, 192x126cm; 1233x789pix) — Kinderständchen (1860, 116x231cm; 768x1554pix) — Musizierende Kinder (1864, 106x87cm; 1745x1410pix) — Kinder am Strande (1867, 138x100cm; 953x693pix) — Maria mit dem Kind zwischen musizierenden Engeln (1860, 117x96cm; ) |