http://www.jcanu.hpg.ig.com.br/art/art4aug/art0820.html
http://members.xoom.virgilio.it/all42day/art/art4aug/art0820.html
http://www.safran-arts.com/42day/art/art4aug/art0820.html
updated Wednesday 20-Aug-2003 4:24 UT
site safe for children 
| ART “4”
“2”-DAY 20 August |
| BIRTH:
1807 DIAZ |
| ^
Died on 20 August 1914: Amélie Helga
Lundahl, Finnish artist born on 26 May 1850. — She attended art school in Stockholm, and in Helsinki, where she also taught until she went to Paris on a scholarship. Along with her friend Maria Wiik [1853-1928] she was one of the first Finnish women to study an l'Académie Julien. Having visited Bretagne in the 1870's she had acquired a keen interest in "plein air". Later she settled there and played an active part in introducing local subjects to her fellow women painters. She had a close relationship with Helene Schjerfbeck [1862-1946]. Lundahl painted a number of peasant themes in Bretagne in the early 1880's. Some of her finest works, including her most significant work, Puutarhatyttö, is from this period. She is a fine representative of the style most women painters acquired at the time; soft, light tones of color in a still atmosphere; soft combinations of rose, green and shades of grey. She combined fragility with strength, and her paintings were usually small in size. — Bretagnelainen tyttö (1883; 900x595pix, 42kb) — Jeune Bretonne (1882; 695x576pix, 25kb — ZOOM to 1260x1152pix, 60kb) — Höstfantasi (572x400pix, 49kb) |
| ^
Died on 20 August 1959: Alfred Leopold
Isidor “Paul” Kubin, Czech Expressionist
illustrator born on 10 April 1877. — [He should have been a Kubist]
— He wrote Die andere Seite. Ein phantastischer Roman (1909)
— Von verschiedenen Ebenen (1922) — Dämonen und Nachtgesichte.
Eine Autobiographie (1926) — Vom Schreibtisch eines Zeichners
(1939) — Aus meiner Werkstatt. Gesammelte Prosa — Aus meinem
Leben. Gesammelte Prosa — Kubin was born in Leitmeritz, a town in North Bohemia. After his service as officer his father Friedrich Franz Kubin was working as surveyor. His mother was the pianist Johanna Jenny. In 1882 his parents moved to Zell am See in Austria. Already when he was a child Kubin hated compulsion. He wanted to lead a free life. He loved fairy tales. At the age of five he started drawing imaginative pictures. His drawings were full of magicians, horrible animals, etc. His mother died when he was ten. Her death finished his childhood. He was sent to Grammar School to Salzburg. There he failed the second form and came back to Zell am See to finish school there. At the age of 14 his father sent him to a school to learn about construction engineering. He failed again and so his father's brother in law who was a photographer in Klagenfurt gave him a job as probationer. In Klagenfurt he spent whole nights out. The sleepless nights affected his health, he felt very wea. He didn't like his life and he wanted to commit suicide. He went to Zell am See and wanted to shoot himself at his mother's grave, but at her grave he collapsed. Then he wanted to join the army voluntarily. After a short time in the army he was sent to hospital, because of a nervous breakdown and he was released of the army. When he was twenty he returned to his father's house and recovered from his illness. Then his father wanted him to attend the drawing-class of professor Gysis at the academy, but he didn't like the strict, academic painting that was taught there. He wanted to express his grotesque ideas. In Munich he got to know Klinger's etchings, which were a form of art that corresponded with his ideas. He started a series of spooky ink drawings. He got to know works of Goya, de Croux, Munch, Ensor, Redon. — In 1892-1896 he was an apprentice photographer at Klagenfurt, Austria. During a state of depression in 1896-1897, he attempted suicide on the tomb of his mother. In 1897 he attended Schmidt-Rottluff's course at the Academy of Fine Arts. In 1901 he discovered the engravings of Klinger [1857-1920] and, with them, his own vocation. In 1905 he visited Odilon Redon in Paris. In 1906 he acquired Zwickeldt Castle, to which he retired. In 1908, after the death of his father, he wrote and illustrated a novel of the fantastic, Die andere Seite. He illustrated the works of Nerval, Poe, Strindberg and Wilde. He was a friend of Klee [1879-1940] and Franz Marc [1880-1916] and member of the New Association of Young Artists and of Der Blaue Reiter. With his traumatic youth, Kubin plunged deep into the unconscious in order to transcend everyday reality. His delirious graphic production mixes the most diverse influences, which he expanded to express his infinite internal universe. — Before Edward Gorey there was Kubin. In a time when graphic artists were shunned in favor of avant garde painting, there was Kubin. And wherever the grotesque and the macabre waltz together, there was and always will be Kubin. From almost the day his life began, Kubin, born in Bohemia, suffered losses and torments which could break a man and inevitably made the artist. His beloved mother died when he was ten, his stepmother soon thereafter, in her first childbirth. The devastated father translated his grief into violence toward his only son, who was growing up a peculiar and melancholy child, making friends with butchers and gravediggers. At nineteen came the first desperate act: old rusty revolver in hand, Kubin attempted suicide over his mother's grave but the gun failed him. A brief army career followed and ended in a prolonged hospital stay due to delirium, which in turn produced a vast array of strange and horrid visions, later morphed into ink, pencil and gouache. |
|
Finally, in the Spring of 1898, Kubin was sent off by his father to Munich
to study art The young Alfred had always had a gift for drawing but lacked
almost complete in exposure to art. Late 19th century Europe saw the sentimental
and fantastical flourish in Symbolist art and Kubin fell under the spell
of one influence in particular: Max Klinger had thrilled an entire generation
with a set of drawings entitled Finding of a Glove, a whirl through
a world of visions following the finding of a strange lady's glove. But it was from that time on that Kubin's imitative schoolwork , under the spell of Symbolist specters, became interspersed with flashes of mad genius, portraying grotesques which have long trudged through his subconscious. The product was his first artistic success — first with an exhibit in Berlin in 1902 and a year later with a series of fifteen small drawings (such as A Dream Comes Every Night) which made him famous. At the same time another disaster struck Kubin: his fiancée, who had come to visit him in Munich, died there in a matter of days. Though brought once again to the brink of suicide, the artist soon recovered in the arms of a young widow whom he soon married. After 1905, Kubin traveled for the first time throughout Europe, meeting, among others, that most elusive of the French Symbolists, Odilon Redon as well as his doppelganger in the art of subconscious horrors, the yet unknown Franz Kafka. As with so many misfortunes in his life, the next one was to be a grand turning point in Kubin's life. His father had sought reconciliation after his son became famous and received it, but passed away a few years later in 1907. Soon thereafter Kubin began a novel, Die andere Seite, which finally brought narrative to his graphic work, and perhaps some insight as to their nature as well. As if to counter the tragedies of his youth, the last decades of Kubin's long life were spent in relative peace and privacy of his family home. He continued to exhibit with the modernist crowd, such as Kandinsky and Klee, though he never reflected their experimentation with form - revealing the high regard in which he was held and the influence he would exert later on over the Surrealists. Though Kubin's style evolved over the many decades of his life and spanned the two world wars, his subject matter remained almost unchanged , grounded firmly in the non-realities of the artist's own mind and in the sentiment toward a disappearing world of representative and symbolic art and of his own Bohemian homeland. Admired by his modernist peers, Kubin himself longed to paint but drawing had chosen him as its medium and he continued. Kubin's legacy can perhaps best be seen in his role as a link — between the "original" surreal work of Goya, Bosch and others to the later grotesques of Dali; between the prolific illustrator craftsman and the inspired artist; and between the suffering of a man and the triumph of genius. ^ |
| — Alfred Leopold
Isidor Kubin, Zeichner, Ilustrator und Schriftsteller, * am 10.4. 1877 in
Leitmeritz, Böhmen, als Sohn des k.k. Hofgeometers und ehemaligen Jägeroffiziers
Friedrich Franz Kubin und seiner Ehefrau Johanna (Jenny), geb. Kletzl, einer
Pianistin, + am 20.8. 1959 in Zwickledt bei Schärding am Inn, Oberösterreich.
- Kubin wuchs in Salzburg und Zell am See auf. Kindheit und Jugend sind geprägt durch die ländliche Umgebung von Zell am See, aber auch durch so bedrückende Erlebnisse wie eine nächtliche Rauferei mit tödlichem Ausgang, die Kubin als 3-jähriger gesehen zu haben meinte, den vorzeitigen Tod der über alles geliebten Mutter, der Kubin im Alter von 10 Jahren trifft, und die Verführung durch eine ältere, schwangere Frau, die den elfjährigen Schüler psychisch erschüttert. Die Ausbildungszeit verläuft unstet; nach dem Besuch des Salzburger Gymnasiums 1887-88 und einer abgebrochenen Lehre zum Stukkateur bzw Holzschnitzer an der Gewerbeschule in Salzburg trat Kubin eine Lehre beim Landschaftsphotographen Beer in Klagenfurt an, die er ebenfalls nicht beendete (1892-96). Ende 1896 bewirkte die Begegnung mit einem reisenden Hypnotiseur, dem er sich als Medium zur Verfügung stellte, eine schwere seelische Krise, die Kubin in einen Selbstmordversuch am Grab seiner Mutter trieb. Seine Militärdienstzeit endete 1897 nach wenigen Monaten mit einer Nervenkrise, ausgelöst durch das Erlebnis der Beerdigung eines hohen Offiziers. Auf den Rat eines Freundes der Familie schickte der Vater Kubin 1898 zu einer künstlerischen Ausbildung nach München, wo Kubin zunächst die Privatschule des Malers Ludwig Schmidt-Reutte besuchte, um ab 1899 in der Zeichenklasse von Nikolaus Gysis an der Münchener Akademie zu arbeiten. Weit mehr beeindruckt zeigte sich Kubin jedoch von der Gemäldesammlung der Alten Pinakothek, außerdem lernte er die Werke von Max Klinger, Francisco de Goya, Odilon Redon, Felicien Rops, James Ensor, Edvard Munch u.a. kennen und schloß Freundschaft mit dem Dichter Max Dauthendey und dem Sammler Hans von Weber, der 1903 seine erste Graphikmappe edierte (1901/02). 1902 fand in der Galerie Bruno Cassirer, Berlin, seine erste Einzelausstellung statt. 1903 reiste Kubin erstmals in den Balkan, dessen Wildheit ihn weit mehr anzieht als Italien; am 1. Dezember stirbt völlig unerwartet seine Braut Emmy Bayer. Die Bekanntschaft mit dem Schriftsteller Oscar A.H. Schmitz und dessen Schwester Hedwig, die Kubin im März 1904 heiratete, führte seine Leben in geordnetere Bahnen. 1905 reiste Kubin nach Paris, um Odilon Redon kennenzulernen. Im Jahr 1906 verließ Kubin die Großstadt München und übersiedelte nach Zwickledt bei Schärding am Inn, wo er sich einen Landsitz kaufte, den er bis zu seinem Lebensende bewohnte. 1908 schrieb er seinen Roman Die andere Seite, das erste seiner zahlreichen, meist autobiographisch geprägten Bücher. Er unterhielt weiterhin seine Beziehungen zur Münchner Avantgarde, wurde 1909 Mitglied der »Neuen Künstlervereinigung München« und verließ diese 1912 gemeinsam mit Franz Marc und Wassili Kandinsky, deren Künstlerbund Der Blaue Reiter er beitrat. Zu Künstlern wie Paul Klee und Lyonel Feininger hatte er freundschaftlichen Kontakt. In Zwickledt baute Kubin eine umfangreiche Bibliothek auf und lebte dort in ländlicher Abgeschiedenheit bis zu seinem Tode im Jahr 1959. - Kubin gehört zu den wichtigsten Zeichnern und Illustratoren des 20. Jahrhunderts und schuf einige Tausend Einzelblätter, Buchillustrationen zu über 140 Werken sowie zahlreiche Mappenwerke und Einzelgraphiken. Daneben entstand ein umfangreiches literarisches Werk aus einigen Büchern, einer Reihe von Erzählungen und einer sehr reichen Korrespondenz. Das pessimistisch gestimmte zeichnerische Frühwerk, in dem sich die schlimmen Kindheits- und Jugenderlebnisse mit der Lektüre von Schopenhauers »Welt als Wille und Vorstellung« gemischt auffinden lassen, ist insbesondere den dunklen Mächten gewidmet, die das menschliche Leben zu bestimmen scheinen. Personifikationen übermächtiger Gewalten (Der Krieg, Parade, Eingang zur Hölle) symbolisieren das Böse, den Tod, exotisch-animalische Wildheit (Afrika, 1902) oder eine abgründige Erotik (Die Spinne, 1901/02). Formal sind diese Arbeiten geprägt von ihrer deutlichen Inhaltsbezogenheit, die eine sachlich-düstere Darstellungsweise hervorbringt, zumeist als Federzeichnung mit Spritztechnik. 1904-1906 ist für Kubin eine Zeit formaler Experimente, in denen er andere Medien wie Temperafarbe oder Kleisterfarbe (auf Anregung des österreichischen Künstlers Kolo Moser) erprobte, wobei er sich mitunter sehr weit vom Gegenständlichen entfernt und sein Interesse für Jugendstilornamentik und die Münchner Akademielehrer und Künstler Hermann Obrist sowie Fritz und August Endell bekundete. Seit etwa 1909 wurde die - mitunter aquarellierte - Federzeichnung seine bevorzugte Technik. Mit der Niederschrift seines Romans Die andere Seite (1908) faßte Kubin für sich die Erforschung der »Ausschließlichkeit des Unwirklichen« (Hans Bisanz) zusammen und öffnete seine Arbeit nun auch konkreten zeitgeschichtlichen Bezügen, wobei er sich von einer grundlegenden Antinomie zwischen dem Sein (»Chaos«) und dem Ichbewußtsein (»Selbst«) leiten ließ, die seine Zeichenkunst seither bestimmte. - »Mir eignet ein Blick für das Elementar-Lebendige, dessen Treiben ich durchforsche und so, gleichsam in Schlünde hineinschauend, schaffe, wo andere längst vor dem grauenhaften Glanz die Lider erschreckt senken.« ^ — LINKS — Eisbär Pl.20 from the Portfolio Wild Aninmals (1920 lithograph-phototype 30x23cm) — Die Maske des Todes second plate in the book Die Blätter mit dem Tod (1918 line block print 35x28cm) — Innviertel Landscape (1907, 40x41cm) — Fairytale Creature (1904) — Die Kriegsfackel (1914) _ By December 1914, Kubin had lost faith in a "fresh and joyous war" or in a quick victory. Above the burning houses rises up the sinister allegory of death, brandishing The Torch of War, that Kubin had already drawn on many previous occasions, denouncing human cruelty, mixing the sarcastic and the macabre. Throughout the war — in which he took no part — he obsessively drew skeletons, witches and ghosts, to give shape to his fears. — 63 prints at FAMSF |
| ^
Born on 20 August 1807: Narcisse Virgile
Diaz de la Peña, French Barbizon
School painter specialized in landscapes
who died on 18 November 1876. — Born of Spanish parents, in 1825 he became a decorator of porcelain at Arsène Gillet's factory where he met Jules Dupré, Gillet's nephew. In the late 1820s he began painting his first oils, perhaps receiving lessons from François Souchon (1787-1857). He also copied and was much influenced by the paintings of Correggio (1494-1534) and Prud'hon. His small-scale richly colored landscapes, mythological scenes and scènes de fantaisie were popular with collectors. One of the leading figures of the Barbizon school of landscape painters, his later career was much influenced by his friend Théodore Rousseau, with whom he often painted in the forest of Fontainebleau. — LINKS — Forêt de Fontainbleau (1867) — Three Gypsies in a Clearing (120x95cm) — Gypsies in a Forest (1851, 50x34cm) — Fleurs (37x21cm) — Wood Interior (1852, 51x62cm) — Les Maléfices de la beauté (lithograph, 20x16cm) — Les Folles Amoureuses (lithograph 20x16cm) — Les Fous Amoureux (lithograph) — Autumn, Forest Interior (36x46cm; 908x1200pix, 179kb — ZOOM to 1453x1920pix, 484kb) — Seraglio (1875, 67x84cm; 821x1186pix, 161kb — ZOOM to 1369x1978pix, 535kb) — Mother and Child (56x36cm) — The Old Windmill near Barbizon (100x78cm) — Gypsy Mother and Child (1866, 44x32cm) — Women Of The Seraglio (1860, 43x63cm; 665x1000pix, 168kb) — Baigneuse (1851, 34x25cm) — Common with Stormy Sunset (1850, 37x54cm; 420x585pix, 39kb) _ Artists of the Barbizon School often used small wood panels like this one when they wanted to work out of doors directly in front of their chosen motif. Easily portable and more sturdy than canvas or paper, the panels allowed the painter to move quickly from one study to another as he recorded changing atmospheric and light conditions. This picture was known in the 19th century as 'The Sunset'. Often, such oil studies were completed back in the studio where, as here, the artist turned the sketch into a small-scale finished composition. |
| ^
Died on 20 August 1632: “Moïse”
Valentin de Boulogne, French painter born on 03 January
1591. He studied under Simon
Vouet. (not to be confused with sculptor Jean de Boulogne = Giambologna
[1529 – 13 August 1608]) — Moïse Valentin (also called Le Valentin and Valentin de Boulogne), French Caravaggesque painter active in Rome from about 1612. His life is obscure; the name Moïse (the French form of Moses) by which he was called was not his Christian name (which is unknown) but a corruption of the Italian form of 'monsieur'. He did, however, have one major public commission: The Martyrdom of SS. Processus and Martinian (1629), painted for Saint Peter's as a pendant to Poussin's The Martyrdom of Saint Erasmus. About fifty works are attributed to him. They vary in subject — religious, mythological, and genre scenes and portraits — but the same models often seem to reappear in them, and all his work is marked by an impressively solemn, at times melancholic, dignity. He was one of the finest of Caravaggio's followers and one of the most dedicated, still painting in his style when it had gone out of fashion. He died after taking a cold bath in a fountain following a drinking bout; his death was much lamented in the artistic community. — LINKS — Crowning with Thorns (128x95cm) _ after a Caravaggio painting (now lost, possibly this, or even this). — The Last Supper (1626, 139x230cm) _ The painting shows the most dramatic moment of the Last Supper, when Jesus reveals to the disquieted apostles that one of them would betray him. Beside Christ, Saint John rests his head on the table and sleeps, in keeping with an iconographic tradition popular in Emilia. Meanwhile Peter, to the left of Christ, raises his hands in a gesture of astonishment. In the left foreground, Judas can be seen holding a purse behind his back: this contains thirty coins, the price of his treachery. This painting is one of the masterpieces of Valentin's maturity. His compositional scheme shows classical influence, with the solemn and monumental figure of Christ at the exact center of the scene and the symmetric composition around him, with the apostles distributed regularly around the table. Such stylistic elements are distant from the convulsed and turbulent compositions Valentin had preferred earlier in his career. In contrast to these, which constitute a large part of Valentin's production, this picture reveals an attachment to the classicizing French modes that Poussin and Vouet were developing in these years. Yet Caravaggesque style, an essential component of this painting, is perfectly evident in the realism of the apostles' hands, which Valentin depicts without any sort of idealization. The influence of Caravaggio also shows in the masterful control of light which, through the deft play of chiaroscuro, aptly emphasizes the emotional state of the characters. Likewise, light enlivens the simple but effective still life that seems to spring forth from the white tablecloth. — Christ Driving the Money Changers out of the Temple (1618, 195x260cm) _ The attribution to Valentin (1845) has been followed by all successive critics. The close dependence of this French artist on the style of Caravaggio extends even to the copying of individual passages like the figure lying on the ground to the left or the fleeing, screaming boy to the right. This, as well as, the use of strong light, chiaroscuro, and the realistic definition of the faces suggest a precocious date, perhaps around 1618. Despite the dependence on Caravaggio's style, the complex composition is fundamentally new. Everything is arranged along diagonals, carefully studied to give an overall sensation of whirling motion. Isolated in the center of all this is the powerful figure of Christ. With his arm raised against a terrorized, fleeing crowd, this figure is a very individual interpretation of its prototype, the Christ at the center of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel Last Judgment. — Saint John the Baptist (1630, 130x90cm) [about Saint John the Baptist] — Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence (1622, 195x261cm) _ Saint Lawrence was a Christian martyr of Spanish birth who died in Rome in 258, one of the most venerated saints since the 4th century. He was ordained deacon by Pope Sixtus II and met his death shortly after the pope's own martyrdom. Tradition has it that the pope, when arrested, instructed Lawrence to give away to the poor the church's treasures, consisting of precious vessels and money, for which, as deacon, he was responsible. No sooner had he done so than Lawrence was ordered by the Roman prefect to surrender them to him, whereupon Lawrence, indicating the poor and sick around him, said, 'Here are the treasures of the Church'. For this he was condemned to be roasted on a gridiron, a torture he underwent with equanimity, merely observing, 'See, I am done enough on one side, now turn me over and cook the other'. Valentin de Boulogne was a French Caravaggesque painter who came so close to the master that he was perfectly in place among his Italian contemporaries, French characteristics being confined to certain details. |
| — Martyrdom
of Saints Processus and Martinian (1629, 308x165cm) _ This painting
was commissioned for Saint Peter's, and it was the only important commission
of the whole career of Valentin. It is of interest because the artist modified
his largely tenebrist style to suit the situation. The subject, a gruesome
one, is of the Martyrdom of Saint
Processus and Saint Martinian. It was subsequently replaced by a mosaic.
A possible reason for the lightening of the artist's style is the fact that the picture had to match the already completed Martyrdom of Saint Erasmus by the young Nicolas Poussin, who had in turn modified his style towards a much more Caravaggesque approach, especially in his realistic treatment of the gruesome subject-matter. Neither painter received such a commission again, and these two altarpieces stand out in their respective careers, proving that young French artists did appeal to influential people — in this case officials of the Papacy — with the money to give commission. It could also be argued that this was because by the end of the 1620s pure Caravaggism as such was already out of fashion among all successful Italian painters working in Rome. — The Martyrdom of Saint Bartholomew [about Saint Bartholomew] — The Judgment of Solomon (1626, 176x210cm) _ The influence of Caravaggio's dramatic style which revolutionized European painting at the beginning of the seventeenth century can be seen clearly in Valentin's work. He would have come into contact with Caravaggio's work in Rome where he went as a very young man, and spent all of his short career. In The Judgment of Solomon the strength of forms outlined against the shadow, so reminiscent of Caravaggio, does not preclude an atmosphere of mystery and poetry that is peculiar to Valentin. Louis XIV owned several of his paintings; five are still hanging in the King's bedchamber in the Chateau de Versailles. — a very slightly different The Judgment of Solomon (1620, 174x213cm) _ Though this painting was at one time thought to be a copy, it is now considered to be Valentin's original. A prominent member of Rome's colony of transalpine painters, this Frenchman was active in the papal city from around 1613 until his death in 1632. A replica of this picture, with slight variations and dated to 1626, is listed above. In both versions, Valentin arranges his scene along a central axis that coincides with the figure of Solomon: to either side are counterbalanced groups, each centering on one of the two female protagonists of this biblical narrative. The figures are emphasized as much as possible by the strong and direct light. Between the original and the second version, variants in the arms of the woman to the right (gathered to her breast in the 1626 picture) have the effect of giving greater movement to the scene and better emphasizing the figure of the true mother. Differences in the idealization of the figures, the more refined and subtle definition of the light and chromatic range in the 1626 picture, and the more intense rendering of the chiaroscuro in the 1620 painting lead to the conclusion that the latter is earlier than the 1626 one and must have been painted around 1620. This conclusion is supported by the many similarities between the 1620 picture and other confirmed works by Valentin that date to the same years. — Judith and Holofernes (1626, 106x141cm) _ The figure of Judith emerges from the obscurity of the background with crude determination, rivaling the best productions of the Caravaggisti, particularly Bartolomeo Manfredi. — The Four Ages of Man (1630, 96x134cm) — The Fortune Teller (1628, 125x175cm) Valentin's mature style of about 1630 was already slightly out of fashion, but it was at this time that he produced some of his best pictures. One of these is The Fortune Teller, which belonged to Louis XIV. The artist has, as usual, concentrated on the lowlife aspect of the subject — a gypsy telling fortunes to a hapless youth — yet the refinement of the tones and delicacy of the brushwork raise the painting above those of all his contemporaries in these respect. (The only Italian to achieve such refinement, although it was of a different character, was Gentileschi.) — The Concert (1625, 173x214cm) _ The scene of this concert is an interior characterized only by a classical low-relief. Valentin's Caravaggism emerges not only from the subject but also from the melancholic characterization of the figures and the violent contrasts of light and shadow. — Cardsharps (1625, 95x137cm) _ Of all French painters active in Rome in the 1620s, the most consistent, and the only one who can be claimed to have genius, is Valentin. He died relatively young, without leaving Rome. Many of his earlier pictures, painted when he was much closer in spirit to Caravaggio, have remained unidentified until recently. The best example of his early work is the Dresden Cardsharps which is based on a similar composition by Caravaggio (unfortunately missing since the late nineteenth century). In the Dresden painting Valentin has seized on the evil nature of the villain, creating an obvious story completely lacking in subtlety, but delicacy is shown in his handling of the paint which, as always in his work, is very much more refined than that of Caravaggio. |
site safe for children