ART
4 2-DAY 09 AUGUST
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Died on 09 (10?) August 1915: Frank Bramley,
English painter born on 06 May 1857. — He attended Lincoln School of Art from 1873 to 1878. He studied from 1879 to 1882 with Charles Verlat at the Koninklijke Academie voor Schone Kunsten in Antwerp, as did other future Newlyn school painters such as Fred Hall [1860–1948], Thomas Cooper Gotch and Norman Garstin. After a period in Venice (1882–1884) Bramley joined the artists’ colony in Newlyn, Cornwall, where he stayed until 1895. The Newlyn School (or British Impressionism) became known for its Cornish [NOT corny] genre scenes and plein-air approach, but Domino (1886) typifies Bramley’s initial interest in interiors with varied natural and artificial light effects, as well as his involvement with tonal harmonies and the surface qualities of the square brush. Bramley was a founder member of the NEAC but resigned in 1890 after a vicious review of his work by Sickert. He was elected a Royal Academician in 1911. — A Hopeless Dawn (1888, 123x168cm; 684x945pix, 83kb — ZOOM to 1824x2205pix, 1400kb) _ This was painted at Newlyn, Cornwall, and exhibited at the Royal Academy in London in 1888, with a passage fromThe Harbours of England. of John Ruskin. This dwelt on the effort and sorrow of the lives of fishermen and their families, yet offered consolation in the thought of Christ’s hand being ‘at the helm of every lonely boat, through starless night and hopeless dawn’. An open bible lies on the window seat beside the fisherman’s mother, who is comforting his young wife; both have given up hope of his return after waiting for a day and a night. _ A fisherman’s wife and mother have kept vigil all night, reading the Bible and waiting in vain for his return. Bramley contrasts the bleak early morning light with the flickering candle on the table, while on the window-ledge a candle has gone out, symbolising the fisherman’s death. Outside the window, the restless storm continues mercilessly; the cracked panes of glass suggests humanity’s fragility in contrast to the power and terrible indifference of the raging sea. — Primrose Day (1885, 50x35cm) _ The title of this picture refers to the annual commemoration on 19 April of the death of the great Conservative statesman Benjamin Disraeli [1804-1881] who was Prime Minister in 1868 and from 1874 to 1880. Primroses were said to be his favorite flower. The girl has been collecting primroses in her hat; others are arranged in a vase on the table, above which is a print of Disraeli. Bramley's picture is also an exercise in the color harmonies of yellow, white and brown. A leading Newlyn painter, he has used the square brush and horizontal strokes for which the Newlyn artists were famous. — A Truce — Sir Frederick Augustus Abel, Bt (120x99cm) |
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Died on 09 August 1652: Jan Dirkszoon
Both, Dutch Baroque
era painter born in 1618 or 1610. Brother of Andries
Both. Both Boths studied under Abraham
Bloemaert. Both's students included both Karel
Dujardin and Michiel
Sweerts. Both Jan Both and Nicolaes Berchem were the most celebrated of the Italianate landscape painters. Jan Both came from Utrecht, where he studied with Bloemaert before moving to Italy for a period of about four years, 1637-1641. Although he died young, his output was large, but none of the more than 300 paintings attributed to him can be convincingly dated to his stay in Italy. His landscapes are typically peopled by peasants driving cattle or travelers looking at Roman ruins in the light of the evening sun. Such contemporary scenes were an innovation, for Claude Lorraine and the earlier Dutch painters of the Italian countryside had populated it with biblical or mythological figures. They express the yearning of northerners for the light and idyllic life of the south, and proved immensely popular with collectors, not least in England, helping to shape ideas about Italy for two centuries. Jan's brother Andries (1612-41) lived with him in Rome 1639-41; they are said to have collaborated, but Andries is best known for paintings and drawings of lively peasant scenes that have little in common with Jan's idyllic tone. He was drowned in an accident in Venice. LINKS Italian Landscape with Draftsman (1650) Ruins at the Sea (55x45cm; 1000x830pix, 142kb) _ There are several versions of this typical Italianate landscape by Both |
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Died on 09 August 1943: Chaim
Soutine, French
painter born in Belarus in 1894, in a Jewish family of Lithuanian origin.
Soutine's highly individualistic style uses thick antipasto... er... make
that impasto, agitated brushwork, convulsive compositional rhythms, and
disturbing psychotic... ER ... psychological content, closely related to
the mainstream of early 20th-century Expressionism. Soutine, whom critics describe as a "painter's painter," is characterized by his energetic, lively brushwork and bold use of color that electrify his somewhat traditional choice of subject matter--portraits, landscapes, and still lifes. His work can be classified in three time periods--the 1920s, the 1930s, and the 1950s--when Soutine was being defined and redefined by his audience as an unschooled tragic genius, as a savior of traditional French painting, and as a progenitor of Abstract Expressionism and the avant-garde in the US. — Studied at the School of Fine Arts in Vilno 1910-13, his fellow pupils including Kikoine and Kremegne. In 1913 moved to Paris and studied briefly in Cormon's studio at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Met Modigliani, Laurens, Pascin, Lipchitz and Zadkine. In 1919-22 worked mainly at Céret, where his work reached its most expressionistic extreme and where he executed a series of wildly distorted landscapes with convulsive rhythms. The purchase by Dr Albert C. Barnes of a number of his pictures in 1923 was his first big success after years of poverty. Afterwards divided his time between Paris and Lèves, the Riviera, the Pyrenees, the Beauce, Touraine and the Indre. First one-man exhibition at the Galerie Bing, Paris, 1927. Besides landscapes and portraits, his later work included still lifes of carcasses of beef or dead poultry, studies of valets, choir boys and communicants, and a few pictures inspired by works by Rembrandt and Courbet. Lived in Champigny-sur-Veude in Touraine 1941-1943, during the German Occupation; died in Paris after being rushed there for an operation. LINKS — Self-Portrait (1916; 862x478pix, 41kb) — Carcass of Beef (1926, 116x81cm; 800x547pix, 67kb — ZOOM to 2000x1368pix, 410kb) — Flayed Rabbit (1921) Woman in Red (1923) Le Patissier (1000x765pix, 328kb) — Le Petit Patissier (1922) Winding Road (1939) — Two Children on a Road (1942) — Boy in Black (1924) — Céret Landscape (1920) Street of Cagnes-sur-Mer (1924) Large Poplars at Civery (or After the Storm) (1939) |
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Died on 09 August 1892: Emil Jakob
Schindler, Austrian Impressionist
painter specialized in Landscapes,
born on 27 April 1842. Emil Jakob Schindler, who belonged to the same generation as Leibl, Monet and Renoir, was mainly responsible for a movement which in its more notable achievements also represented a very Austrian version of the international 'plein air' - outdoor -school. The confrontation with pictures of the 'School of Barbizon' at the First International Art Exhibition in Munich in 1869, persuaded Schindler and his fellow students Ditscheiner, Jettel, Ribarz and Russ to dedicate themselves to outdoor painting altogether. Several French painters had discovered the forest of Fontainebleau already in the 1830s. Théodore Rousseau settled in Barbizon, and others such as Constant Troyon, Charles-François Daubigny and Jean-François Millet soon followed. The Fontainebleau forest offered not only a wealth of delightful motifs but also the much-sought-after peace and rural surroundings. In sharp contrast to the purportedly 'important' themes of history painting, these artists turned to simple landscapes and scenes from the lives of simple folk. In 1852 Camille Corot had presented his first picture painted exclusively 'en plein air'. Whereas the French painters had restricted their use of color to the canon of tone-on-tone painting, Schindler's precise observations of nature had led him further and enabled him to portray dazzling sunlight in pure, bright and starkly contrasting colors, turning objects into abstract planes. Schindler's particular interest centered on emanations of light and weather, atmosphere and its constant changes, and his preoccupation often manifested itself in studies of plain or unpretentious objects. Especially favored were dawn and twilight, faint mist and leaden skies. Finally Schindler began painting series recording the changes that times-of-day, seasons, and weather conditions had on one and the same motif. What became more and more important both to him and the painters around him was the mood a landscape might evoke in the beholder. Among Schindler's pupils were Tina Blau, Olga Wiesinger Florian, Marie Egner, Marie Louise von Parmentier, Carl Moll, and also the self-taught Theodor von Hörmann, a fanatic adherent of realism who painted outdoors in all weathers, even at the risk of his own life. I looked for Schindler's list, but all I found is this one reproduction of Steamer Landing Stage near Kaisermühlen (1872; 400x577pix, 49kb) _ On finishing his studies under Albert Zimmermann, Emil Jakob Schindler was one of the first to devote himself completely to outdoor painting and to concentrate on contemporary motifs. Taking his cue from the 'paysages intimes' of the Barbizon artists, Schindler painted a series of Viennese suburban scenes, among them many views of a Danube steamer landing stage near the Prater park. In contrast to the French painters however, Schindler in this dazzlingly sunlit picture made no attempt at chromatic harmony but merged details into planes of color, and in radically simplifying their appearance went a considerable step further. The light too gains an unprecedented harshness and leads to daring contrasts, all of them at odds with the tonal precepts of the Academy. Beginning with his conception of nature, he goes on to champion the importance of unfiltered light and unbridled color and, with resolute brush strokes, transposes them into pure planes. As a result Schindler, who attained a high degree of subtlety in conveying the atmosphere of a landscape, became a leading personality. The powerful influence he exercised on a whole group of contemporary and younger artists ensured his position as the main exponent of 'Atmospheric Impressionism'. |