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| ART
“4” “2”-DAY 23 AUGUST |
| BIRTH:
1871 YEATS |
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Died on 23 August (perhaps Julian, which would
be 05 Sep Gregorian) 1902: Henryk Hector Siemiradzki,
Polish Academic
painter born on 24 October 1843 (not 15 Sep). — He studied drawing in Kharkiv with Dmitry Bezperchei [1825–1913], a pupil of Karl Bryullov. In 1864 he completed his studies in Natural Sciences at the University of Kharkiv and from then until 1870 studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in St Petersburg. While he was to adhere for the rest of his life to the academic classicism taught there, Siemiradzki also worked in a lighter vein: while still a student he sent genre paintings to Warsaw for exhibition at the Association of Fine Arts and during this period he also received lucrative commissions from patrons in St Petersburg for portraits, religious scenes and copies after Old Masters. — He studied at the Petersburg Academy, and also at Munich under Piloty, going afterward to Rome, where he permanently settled. Some of his fresco work is to be seen in the Church of Our Saviour in Moscow. His monumentalTorches Vivantes de Néron, shown at the Paris Exhibition of 1878, achieved a great success, and, despite an offer of 120'000 francs for the picture, Siemiradzki patriotically preferred to donate it to the Crakow, where it became the core of the first national gallery in the Cracow Cloth Halls. Other works of his are Une Caverne de Pirates, Danse des Glaives, Vendeur d'Amulettes. He was a member of the St Petersburg Academy, also of the Berlin and Stockholm Academies. He obtained a medal at the Paris Exhibition in 1878, also the Légion d'Honneur, being made correspondent of the Académie des Beaux Arts in January 1889. He died in Rome. — Henryk Siemiradzki, active mainly in Rome, where he enjoyed the international renown of an author of effective, academic scenes from the life of ancient Greece and Rome, including the martyrdom of the first Christians, a fashionable theme, full of cruelty and opulence. — Studia odbywal (1864-1870) w Akademii w Petersburgu, a nastepnie w 1870-1871 w Monachium u K.Piloty'ego. W 1871 wyjechal do Wloch. Do Polski jezdzil tylko na wakacje. Malowal glównie obrazy o tematyce antycznej (m.in. kompozycje z zycia pierwszych chrzescijan), sceny sielankowe, a takze obrazy religijne, historyczne i krajobrazy. Namalowal kurtyny do teatrów w Krakowie i Lwowie. — Henryk Hector Siemiradzki was the son of Hippolit Siemiradzki, a Polish military officer in the service of the Russian Tzar. His childhood and youth were spent in Kharkov, in the Russian Empire (now in the Ukraine). Henryk received his first art lessons from the Ukrainian painter Dmitry Besperchy, a student of Karl Brulloff. Later Siemiradzki called him his only teacher. In 1860, under pressure from his family, he entered the Kharkov University. After graduating with a BA in science, he immediately left for St. Petersburg, where he got permission to visit lectures in the Academy of Arts; the Academy at that point did not accept students older than twenty. Very soon, however, the professors paid attention to the talented young man and he was admitted as a student, despite the age limits. At the Academy, Siemiradzki impressed his classmates with his knowledge of science and ancient history. His teachers remarked that he was an excellent colorist and draftsman. In 1870, Siemiradzki got a Major Gold medal for Alexander the Great’s Trust in Doctor Hippolitus and a pension to study abroad for 6 years. First Siemiradzki went to Munich, at that time the second, after Paris, artistic center of Europe. He was confident enough to work independently, however he visited the studios of other masters, and especially often that of Carl Piloti, the famous historical painter. In Munich, Siemiradzki painted his first big work Roman Orgy in the Time of the Caesars (1872). The picture was bought by the St. Petersburg Academy, and the money helped the artist move to Italy. In Rome, where everything lives and breathes with art, he remained for the rest of his life, visiting Russia only from time to time. Siemiradzki's second big work,Christ and Sinner. The First Meeting of Christ and Mary Magdalene (1872), brought him success and European fame. This painting presents the main peculiarities of his art: the effective composition in which the landscape plays the greatest role, helping unite the figures of people. In Christ in the House of Martha and Mary (1886) the landscape is of major importance, and his best biblical painting Christ and the Samaritan Woman. (1890) is a beautiful sunlit landscape in which the figures of Christ and the Samaritan play a minor role. In 1876, Siemiradzki painted the big (385x704cm) Leading Light of Christianity. Nero’s Torches., a subject from Suetonius’ The Twelve Caesars. In the picture Emperor Nero and his courtiers watch how his servants set fire to Christian martyrs, bound with oakum and soaked with pitch. In the 1870s, Siemiradzki, although a Catholic, got an important commission from the Holy Synod for murals in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow. About 40 leading Russian artists worked there, among them Vasily Surikov, Feodor Bruni, Peotr Basin, Ivan Kramskoy, Vasily Vereshchagin and many others. Siemiradzki longed for work of such importance and was enthusiastic about it. He painted a cycle of murals devoted to the life of Alexander Nevsky, and some episodes from the life of Christ. In 1931, the Communists blew up the Cathedral. All murals by outstanding artists, including Siemiradzki, were lost forever. We can get a vague idea of them from some remaining sketches. In the 1890s Siemiradzki worked for the theater, he designed stage curtains for the Krakow and Lvov theaters, decorated the house of the Philharmonic Society in Warsaw. Though Siemiradzki received his education in Russia, his art is international. He is one of the best representatives of late European Neoclassicism. — Malarz, przyrodnik, podroznik. W setna rocznice smierci. Ur. 24.10.1843 w Charkowie, syn Hipolita, plk. dragonów i Michaliny z Prószynskich. Mial brata i siostre. Ziemianska rodzina Siemiradzkich wywodzila sie z Jaroszyc w Nowogródzkiem. W domu pielegnowano polskosc przy nienaruszaniu lojalnosci wobec wladz carskich. Po skonczeniu gimnazjum studiowal na uniwersytecie charkowskim nauki przyrodnicze ukonczone w 1864. Na ASP w Petersburgu dostal sie z klopotami z powodu przekroczenia granicy wieku. W trakcie studiów uzyskal wiele znaczacych nagród udokumentowanych srebrnymi i zlotymi medalami w konkursach. W 1870 ukonczyl studia, których zwienczeniem byl wielkich rozmiarów obraz Aleksander Macedonski i jego lekarz Filip. W sierpniu 1871 przybyl do Krakowa. Byl w Monachium, ale do Akademii nie wstapil. Tu spotykal sie z Brandtem, Chelmonskim, Witkiewiczem, a w 1872 w Dreznie z Kraszewskim. W 1873 poznal i poslubil kuzynke Marie Prószynska. Mieszkal w tym czasie na stale w Rzymie. Jego willa byla nieprzerwanie odwiedzana przez rodaków, w tym przez osobistosci, jak: kard. A. Dunajewskiego, H. Sienkiewicza, I.J. Paderewskiego. W jego malarstwie dominowala tematyka antyczna. Wymienmy nazwy kilku jego plócien: Orgia rzymska (1872), Chrystus i jawnogrzesznica, Pochodnie Nerona (obraz ten przekazal dla przyszlego Muzeum Narodowego w Krakowie), Za przykladem bogów, Dirce chrzescijanska i wiele innych. Wiele jego plócien zakupil dwór carski. Prócz obrazów artysta malowal plafony i kotary dla teatrów w Krakowie i Lwowie. Byl malarzem uznanym dlatego jego dziela byly chetnie pokazywane na wystawach w Petersburgu, Wiedniu, Rzymie, Monachium, Berlinie, Paryzu, Londynie. Warszawie, Poznaniu i Lwowie. W 1901 stwierdzono u artysty nowotwór, który pozbawil go mowy. Przewidujac bliska smierc, w czerwcu 1902 pragnal by przewieziono go do Strzalkowa. 23.08.1902 zakonczyl zycie. Pochowany najpierw na cmentarzu Powazkowskim w Warszawie. W 1905 prochy przewieziono na Skalke w Krakowie. Pozostawil zone, synów Boleslawa, Kazimierza i Leona oraz córke Wande. O wizycie Henryka Siemiradzkiego w Czestochowie i jego pamiatkach w Strzalkowie k. Radomska. Pobyt malarza na Jasnej Górze jest utrwalony wpisem jego reka do ksiegi pamiatkowej 30.09.1899, Sygn. 405, s.350 na 3 lata przed smiercia. Poniewaz czesto w niektórych zródlach piszacych o majatku Siemiradzkiego, Strzalków umiejscowiony jest k. Czestochowy (np. WEP-PWN). Nasz rekonesans wyjasnil, ze miejscowosc ta lezy ok. 10 km od Radomska i zapewne w najblizszym czasie zostanie wchlonieta przez to miasto. Na te okolicznosc przyblizmy Czytelnikom w kilku zdaniach stan dzisiejszy tego miejsca, w którym malarz przebywal nader rzadko. Dawny murowany parterowy dworek, który w miedzyczasie zmienial wlascicieli, byl w latach 1925 i 1960 przerabiany. Zostal poszerzony i podwyzszony przez co zmienil calkowicie zewnetrzny wyglad architektoniczny. Po II wojnie swiatowej majatek zostal rozparcelowany. W dworku po reformie rolnej powstala Szkola Gosp. Wiejskiego. W latach 1950 - 1959 miescila sie administracja PGR i nastepne szkoly zmieniajace nazwy, ale zawsze o profilu rolniczym. Obecnie istniejaca szkola nosi nazwe Zespolu Szkól Agrobiznesu. Wokól zachowal sie zabytkowy park. W niewielkiej odleglosci od szkoly usytuowany jest piekny kosciólek pw. Nawiedzenia NMP, wewnatrz którego, na jednej ze scian przymocowana jest pamiatkowa tablica z jasnego marmuru wzbogacona herbem i dekoracyjnymi elementami (koluminkami) z nastepujacym trzynastowierszowym tekstem w czarnej barwie: "Henryk Siemiradzki artysta malarz czlonek wielu akademii kawaler orderów ur. 24 pazdziernika 1843, zm. 23 sierpnia 1902 r. w Strzalkowie w glebokim smutku pograzeni zona i dzieci. Kamien ten na wieczna pamiatke polozyli proszac o westchnienie do Boga za spokój duszy nieodzalowanego meza i ojca". Godny podkreslenia jest fakt, ze szkola, kosciól, park i cale otoczenie jest utrzymane z widoczna dbaloscia i troska. Dziekujemy dyr. szkoly Panu Janowi Mielczarskiemu i ks. proboszczowi Maciejowi Klakowskiemu za przekazane informacje dot. H. Siemiradzkiego i jego pamiatek w Strzalkowie. — Photo of Siemiradzki — LINKS — Christ and the Samaritan Woman (1890) _ detail — Phryne at the Festival of Poseidon in Eleusin (1889) _ main detail _ close detail — Rest (1896) _ detail — By a Spring (1898) _ detail — Following the Example of the Gods (1879; 374x600pix, 64kb) — Vendeur d'Amulettes (1875) — At the Spring (1876) — Szkic do Obrazu Zebrak (27x38cm) — U Zródla (76x110cm) — Roman Idyll (1885) — Christian Dirce (1897) |
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Born on 23 August 1871 Jack
Butler Yeats II, Irish artist who died on 28 March 1957. — Jack B. Yeats was the son of barrister turned painter John Butler Yeats [12 Mar 1839 – 03 Feb 1922] and brother of the poet William Butler Yeats [13 Jun 1865 – 28 Jan 1939]. Born in London, he spent most of his childhood in Sligo. His travels with J. M. Synge in Connemara, and with his wife in other coastal areas, provided the theme of his early exhibitions, "Life in the West of Ireland." Like Synge and his brother, Yeats sought to record the folklore of Ireland and a rapidly disappearing way of life. With artist Paul Henry, he belonged to a group known as the Dublin Painters who took contemporary Ireland as their subject. Jack B. Yeats spent much of his boyhood in Co. Sligo. He later maintained that the landscape and light of the county inspired him to become a painter. In London he sporadically attended various art schools, including the Westminster School of Art, and worked as a black-and-white illustrator, chiefly for magazines. His early paintings were in watercolor, and he was over 30 before he began to work regularly in oils. For years his style remained essentially conservative, with some influence from Honoré Daumier, but in the mid-1920s a profound change began to take place. Yeats’s handling grew much freer, his forms were defined by brushstrokes rather than by line, his hitherto dour colors grew richer and more luminous and his earlier realism gradually gave way to a moody, intimate and highly personal romanticism. These tendencies grew even more marked over the next two decades, for example in About to Write a Letter (1935), until in Yeats’s final years subject-matter is sometimes buried and almost obliterated by rich impasto, bravura brushwork and flame-like areas of color, as in Grief (1951). Jack Yeats emerges as the central Irish artistic figure of the century, bursting onto the scene in the 1920s with impassioned paintings rich in the use of color and thick impasto. His Going to Wolfe Tone's Grave of 1929 also marks a new beginning of sorts, a return to internationalism on stylistic terms. His palette is less restrained; the treatment of the paint in deep incisions is expressionistic, in a way that looks to the art of interwar German painters. At the same time, by invoking the memory of a great Irish martyr, it speaks of Irish heroism and the politics of republicanism while distancing itself from the latter's overt political manifestation. Politics here reside in memory rather than in present-day violence. Yeats's expressionist style and interest in Irish politics were an important legacy for Irish painters of the 1980s and '90s. As a young man, Yeats made his living in London as a cartoonist and journal illustrator for publications such as Paddock Life and Lock to Lock Times, enjoying the sports events he attended. According to a friend, boxing was the only good thing Yeats got out of England. For him it was "the noble art of self-defence", and his boxers recall that period of his youth, though after his return to Ireland he was to commemorate a great Dublin pugilist, Dan Donnelly, in some pen drawings and in an oil painting of 1936. The Small Ring (1930, 61x91cm), a mid-period oil painted in the loose expressionist manner Yeats perfected during the late twenties, shows a young boxer in a London club at the moment when he has felled his opponent. The excited crowd around him, even the other boxer's second with his towel, are transfixed with astonishment. Everything seems to stop for an instant (except for the racing donkey, one of Yeats's chief delights, in the picture on the wall), as the young man visibly grows in stature, to become a golden haired hero with a spotless body. Developing beyond his original representational manner to something more expressive and elusive, Yeats also enlarged his work beyond the West of Ireland themes to a subject matter that was universal, showing himself to be far beyond his Irish contemporaries in style and concept. The major issues of life now became his central theme. The young boxer is no longer merely a local boy, but becomes emblematic of mankind's aspirations, translated into a mythology that is applicable to the human race. Yeats still remains a storyteller, describing an incident and the characters involved in it deliciously. Jack B. Yeats's life was relatively uneventful, with no emotional dramas or spectacular happenings to liven the pen of a biographer. After the death of his wife in 1947, to whom he had been happily married for over fifty years, his work became increasingly reminiscent, bordering on the metaphysical. He painted some metaphorical compositions in which he attempted to cope with his bereavement, as well as some marvelous canvases that are nostalgic for the simple pleasures of the past. Over the final eight years in which he was to paint, until his own death in 1957, he created human images of optimism and resolution and compassion, where real experience and a spiritual force knit together in uplifting, colorful energy. Returning from the Bathe, Mid-Day (1948, 62x92cm) is a nostalgic work which dwells on the days of childhood in Sligo, and bathing at Rosses Point. The picture remembers a never~ending summer of blue sea and green sandhills, golden sunlight and breezy air, and the friendly donkey, waiting to greet the dancing children who return waving their wet towels as they run. Yeats once said that in every picture he painted there was a thought of Sligo, and this image encapsulates all he had of happy emotion. The theme has implications beyond the Watteau~like fantasy. For Yeats at this late state, bathing was akin to baptism, and the child was a symbol of hope and renewal. Even the donkey, like the horse, had otherworldly proportions. The time of day, too, which, like the state of the tide, was a facet of his paintings, is indicative of a possibility for optimism and ultimate serenity. — Off the Donegal Coast (1922) _ In 1906, Yeats made a drawing of four fisherman in their canvas canoe, or currach, on which islanders had depended from prehistoric times, for The Aran Islands by J. M. Synge. With its diagonal composition, Off the Donegal Coast is based on that drawing. The Donegal islands are even more remote than the isles of Aran. — Back from the Races (1925, 23x36cm) — Morning after Rain (1923, 61x91cm) — The Death of Diarmuid, the Last Handful of Water (1945, 61x91cm) — The Two Travellers (1942, 92x123cm) — The Shanachie (1906 book cover, 23x18cm) |
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Died on 23 August 1865: Ferdinand
Georg Waldmüller, Austrian Romantic
painter born in Vienna on 15 January 1793. — He received sporadic art lessons of varying quality in Vienna between 1807 and 1820, first under Zinther and then with Johann Baptist Lampi, Hubert Maurer [1738–1818], Josef Lange [1751–1831] and Wilhelm Johann Nepomuk Schödlberger [1799–1853] at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste. After 1811 he made a meager living painting miniatures and giving art lessons. Perhaps more significant than this haphazard formal training was Waldmüller’s extensive copying after the Old Masters at the court and municipal art galleries of Vienna, mostly between 1817 and 1821. His copy of Jusepe de Ribera’s Martyrdom of Saint Andrew (1821) is an example of his accomplished technique. However, commissions for copies barely enabled him to support himself. — He studied at the Vienna Academy. He lived in Pozsony, then worked as a teacher of art in the house of Count Gyulay. After his return to Vienna, he copied pictures of old masters, and painted portraits and genre pictures. He became the most significant representative of biedermeier: he was second to none in depicting nature in delicate colors. In addition to portraits, his genre-pictures are significant: Midsummer Day (1844), Grandpa's Birthday (1845), Distraint (1847), Recruit Saying Farewell (1858), Godmother Saying Good-Bye, Neigbors (1859), Congratulators (1861), Going to Church in Spring, Bride Saying Good-Bye (1863), Christmas in a Peasant Room (1849), Returning Home from Church Festival and Panorama. He became a teacher of the Vienna Academy. After he had published his works on art education, he was forced to retire. He was reinstated in 1863. — Waldmüller's students included József Borsos I, Béla Klimkovics, Viktor Madarász, Bertalan Székely, Mihály Zichy. — LINKS — György Gaál (1842, 63x50cm; 760x600pix, 62kb) _ György Gaál [1783-1855] was a writer, pioneer in collecting Hungarian folktales. He worked in Vienna. — Portraits of Eleonore Feldmüller (1833, 99x79cm) and her husband, sailing-master Matthias Feldmüller (1837, 98x79cm) — Children Making Their Grandmother a Present on Her Name Day (63x50cm) — Der Alte Und Die Kuchenmagd (1818, 44x71cm) — The Center of Attention (46x60cm) — A Dog By A Basket Of Grapes In A Landscape (1836, 65x80cm) |
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Died on 23 August 1903:
Paul Joseph Constantin Gabriël, Dutch painter born
on 05 July 1828, son of Paulus Joseph Gabriël [11 Jul 1784 – 01 Jan
1834]. — PJC Gabriël received his first training not from his father, who died when he was only five years old, but at evening classes at the Amsterdam Academie (1840 and 1843). Later he was instructed by the architect Louis Zocher [1820–1915], and about 1844 he was sent to the private art school of the landscape painter Barend Cornelis Koekkoek in Cleves. However, after a year he returned to the Netherlands because Koekkoek thought he had too little talent to be a painter. Gabriël then went to live briefly in Haarlem, where he copied works in the Welgelegen pavilion, which then housed the nation’s modern art collection, and earned his living drawing portraits. In Haarlem he met Anton Mauve, with whom he was to have much contact later on. In 1853 Gabriël went to Oosterbeek, the Dutch Barbizon. This was a period of intense activity and discussion with other painters, including Gerard Bilders. From 1856 to 1859 Gabriël lived in Amsterdam, where he suffered severe financial difficulties because his paintings failed to sell. In 1860 he moved to Brussels and stayed there with brief interruptions for the next 24 years. In Brussels he received support and advice from the Dutch artist Willem Roelofs, who had been living in the city since 1847. In 1866 Gabriël became a member of the Société Belge des Aquarellistes, and in 1867 he married. One well-known work dating from his early years in Belgium is In Groendendaal near Brussels (1867), which was the first painting to show his artistic independence from Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot and the Barbizon painters, as well as from the Dutch artists working in the Romantic tradition. — Paul Gabriel was born in Amsterdam. His father, a sculptor, died when he was five years old. The young Paul helped his mother by painting portraits to earn money to keep the large family. From 1840 onwards, Gabriel followed evening classes at the Amsterdam Academy and he worked for short periods with different teachers, such as the landscape painter B.C. Koekkoek. From 1853 to 1856 he stayed in the village of Oosterbeek, near Arnhem. As with artist friends such as Anton Mauve and Gerard Bilders his work focused on nature. After a short stay in Amsterdam, he lived from 1860 to 1884 in Brussels and after that, until his death, in Scheveningen. — A Watercourse at Abcoude (1878, 41x50cm; 1313x1600pix, 409kb) _ This is a typical Dutch landscape with water, a few trees, a man fishing, some cows and a mill in the distance. The broad watercourse, directs the viewer's gaze towards the distance. In this way Gabriel, created a strong effect of perspective. The low horizon is a typical feature in Dutch landscape painting, allowing the subtly colored cloudy sky to form an important part of the composition. In 1878, when Gabriel painted this landscape, he was living in Brussels. He paid frequent visits to Holland to depict the polder landscape in sketches and paintings. This watery landscape is close to the village of Abcoude, a stone's throw from Amsterdam. — A windmill on a polder waterway aka In the Month of July (1889, 102x66cm; 1600x1044pix, 282kb) _ A windmill in a polder landscape on a bright, warm day in July. The water in the canal reflects the sky and the mill. Gabriel placed the mill in a finely balanced composition that radiates peace and harmony. Influenced by impressionist ideas, he painted the scene onto the canvas with quick strokes of the brush. This work was acquired by the Rijksmuseum in 1889 for a thousand guilders a few years after the purchase of a work by G.H. Breitner. It was highly unusual to buy these modern works. There was hardly any interest in government-sponsored institutions for contemporary art. — Ducks' Nests (1900, 59x44cm; 1109x1600pix, 422kb) _ Two ducks' nests are shown in a typically wet, Dutch landscape. In the water and among the reeds ducks are swimming. The landscape radiates a peaceful, friendly atmosphere. 'Ducks' Nests' was painted by Paul Gabriel, an artist associated with the Hague School. Gabriel, who had worked in Brussels for many years, was living in the Netherlands again when he painted Ducks' Nests. He often travelled from his home in Scheveningen to paint picturesque scenes in the country. Besides his famous, large canvas 'In the Month of July' Gabriel painted numerous small, intimate landscapes such as this. — Huisje aan de waterkant (drawing, 35x51cm; 722x1051pix, 84kb) |
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