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ANY DAY ...IN ART ...IN HISTORY ||| HISTORY “4” DEC 03 ||| ALTERNATE SITES

ART “4” “2”-DAY 03 December

DEATHS: 1789 VERNET — 1919 RENOIR

BIRTHS: 1793 STANFIELD — 1755 STUART — 1830 LEIGHTON

^ Born on 03 December 1793: [William?] Thomas Clarkson Frederick Stanfield, English painter who died on 18 (08?) May 1867.
— Born in Sunderland. He was first a child actor before going to sea 1808-1815, visiting China. In 1816 he settled in London where he became a successful scenic artist and a regular exhibitor of marines and landscape views at the British Institution, London 1820-1853, Society of British Artists 1823-1830 and Royal Academy, London 1820-1867. He was elected Associate Royal Academician, London 1832 and Royal Academician 1835. From 1823 he traveled regularly in Europe, including visits to Italy in 1824, 1830 and 1838-1839. He was patronized by William IV and Queen Victoria, and was a friend of Dickens, Marryat and, in particular, David Roberts. He became a Catholic convert in 1846 when he was baptized (conditionally, in case his first baptism was invalid) Thomas Clarkson Stanfield. He died in London.
— He is often wrongly referred to as William Clarkson Stanfield. The son of Mary Hoad and James Field Stanfield, an Irish actor and author, he was apprenticed to a heraldic coach painter at the age of 12, but in 1808 he abandoned this and went to sea in a collier. In 1812 he was press-ganged and spent two years on HMS Namur, the guard-ship at Sheerness. After being discharged as the result of an injury in 1814, he joined the merchant navy, sailing to China in the Indiaman Warley in 1815. Soon after his return in 1816 he missed his ship and became a scene painter, first at the Royalty Theatre, Stepney, and then at the Royal Coburg, Lambeth. There he was later joined by David Roberts, who became a lifelong friend, and in 1822 both men were employed as scene painters at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. During the next 12 years Stanfield established himself as the most talented scene painter of his day, causing a sensation with some of his huge moving dioramas such as the scenes of Venice in the pantomine Harlequin and Little Thumb (1831). Meanwhile he was building an equally impressive reputation as an easel painter. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1820 and continued to exhibit there regularly until his death. He was elected ARA in 1832 and RA in 1835. He was a founder-member of the Society of British Artists and became its president in 1829.
— LINKS
— An Italian Lake Town (20x30cm) — The Castle of Ischia (61x104cm)
— Eu, looking towards Tréport (1834, 37x44cm)
— Sketch for The Battle of Trafalgar, and the Victory of Lord Nelson over the Combined French and Spanish Fleets, October 21, 1805 (1833, 39x80cm)
— Lake Como (1825, 47x77cm) _ In the early nineteenth century many artists like Stanfield and Callcott turned to the lakes of northern Italy for the subject-matter of topographical pictures that were often engraved in volumes of 'Picturesque Tours' for consumption by a largely middle-class market. Their new, bourgeois realism is wedded to the older, idealising vision of Italy to produce works that are both serene and immediate — a tourist's view of landscape seen through layers of pictorial and cultural tradition.

^ Died on 03 December 1789: Claude Joseph Vernet, French seascapist born on 14 August 1714.
— Vernet probably received his first lessons in painting from his father, Antoine, who then encouraged him to move to the studio of Philippe Sauvan [1697–1792], the leading master in Avignon. Sauvan supplied altarpieces to local churches and decorative works and mythologies for grand houses in the area. Adrien Manglard was another teacher of Vernet. After this apprenticeship Vernet worked in Aix-en-Provence with the decorative painter Jacques Viali (fl 1681– 1745), who also painted landscapes and marine pictures. In 1731 Vernet independently produced a suite of decorative overdoors for the hôtel of the Marquise de Simiane at Aix-en-Provence; at least two of these survive (in situ) and are Vernet’s earliest datable landscapes. These are early indications of his favored type of subject, and Vernet would have studied works attributed to such 17th-century masters as Claude Lorrain, Gaspard Dughet, and Salvator Rosa, in private collections at Aix and Avignon. Three years later Joseph de Seytres, Marquis de Caumont, who had previously recommended Vernet to the Marquise de Simiane, offered to sponsor a trip to Italy. This was partly for Vernet to complete his artistic education but also to provide his sponsor with drawings of antiquities.
— Claude-Joseph Vernet, the son of a decorative painter in Avignon, was the father of Carle Vernet [14 August 1758 – 27 November 1836] and the grandfather of Horace Vernet. He studied under Philippe Sauvan, a history painter, and later under Jacques Vialy in Aix-en-Provence, where a local nobleman was impressed with his talent and in 1734 sent him to Italy. There he may have studied under Adrien Manglard, a marine and landscape specialist, but he was also influenced by the seventeenth-century masters of landscape, Claude Lorrain, Gaspard Dughet, and Salvator Rosa. During his stay in Rome, Vernet explored the Italian countryside, making studies after nature in Naples, Tivoli, and around the lakes of Nemi and Albano. He had an international clientele by 1740, was elected a member of the Academy of Saint Luke in 1743, and began to exhibit at the Paris Salons in 1746.
He returned to Paris in 1753, was elected to membership in the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, and through the efforts of the marquis de Marigny, the Superintendent of Royal Buildings and the brother of Madame de Pompadour, received a prestigious royal commission to paint a series of the ports of France. By 1765 he had completed fifteen canvases, remarkable for their topographical accuracy and indefatigable imagination, and all replete with numerous figures to integrate nature into the human sphere. Upon his return to Paris he was given lodgings at the Louvre and received wide critical acclaim, especially from Diderot who preferred his work to that of Claude. Vernet's repertory includes views of ports, imaginary seascapes at sunrise and sunset, storms, shipwrecks, and landscapes-all characterized by clarity of vision and mellow lighting.
— Vernet was one of the leading landscapists of the period. From 1733 to 1753 he worked in Rome, where he was influenced by the light and atmosphere of Claude and also by the more wild and dramatic art of Salvator Rosa. With Hubert Robert, he became a leading exponent of a type of idealized and somewhat sentimental landscape that had a great vogue at this time. Vernet was particularly celebrated for his paintings of the sea-shore and ports, and on returning to Paris in 1753 he was commissioned by Louis XV to paint a series of the sea-ports of France. The sixteen which he did are in the Louvre. Vernet belonged to a family of French painters of which two other members attained distinction: his son Antoine-Charles-Horace Vernet [14 Aug 1758 – 27 Nov 1836] known as 'Carle', and his grandson Émile-Jean-Horace Vernet [30 Jun 1789 – 17 Jan 1863]
— The students of Vernet included Cozens: Alexander Cozens, Jean-François Huë, Elias Martin, Thomas Patch, Pierre-Henri Valenciennes.
— LINKS
— Self Portrait (1778)
— Les Baigneuses (1786, 57x83cm)
— Ships in port (857x1207pix, 84kb — ZOOM to 1286x1811pix, 187kb)
— Roman Bridge Ruin (1745; 718x1418pix, 67kb — ZOOM to 874x2127pix, 118kb)
— Vue du Port de Rochefort (1762; 621x1191pix, 77kb — ZOOM to 828x1588pix, 147kb — ZOOM++ to 1573x3177pix, 804kb)
— Roadbuilding (872x1496pix, 180kb — ZOOM to 1669x2993pix, 868kb) by a stream in a mountain pass overlooked by a walled city on an abutment.
— Imaginary Landscape, Italian Harbor (1746, 98x123cm; 1600x2016pix, 2096kb)
— Harbor Scene (30x40cm; 2/3 size)
— The Town and Harbor of Toulon — Shepherd in the Alps — View of Naples
— Shipwreck (1759, 96x135cm) _ Vernet specialized in harbor views. This sublime and very effective scene is a good example of his works.
— Storm with a Shipwreck (1754, 87x137cm) _ Vernet's considerable contemporary reputation was largely founded on such agreeably terrifying images as this, which were also particularly prized by English collectors.
— Storm on the Coast, (1754, 97x129cm) _ All paintings of storms are imaginative reconstructions and here, painting in France, Vernet shows the famous lighthouse of the Bay of Naples buffeted by a raging sea. On the left a ship is driven onto the rocks while survivors escape in a lifeboat and are dragged to safety by those on shore. The dark sky is lit up by a bolt of lightning which Vernet paints as a familiar (but inaccurate) zig-zag. It was not until the 1880s that photography revealed lightning’s true form.

^ Born on 03 December 1755: Gilbert Stuart, US painter specialized in portraits, who died on 09 July 1828.
— Stuart was born in North Kingston, Rhode Island. He grew up in Newport RI, where he studied painting before going to London in 1775. There he became the student of the expatriate US painter Benjamin West and was much influenced by the work of the English portrait painters Thomas Gainsborough and Sir Joshua Reynolds.
In 1792, after establishing himself as a fashionable portrait painter in London and Dublin, Stuart returned to the US. His portraits, which number nearly 1000, brought him lasting fame, particularly the three he did of George Washington. His two most familiar portraits of Washington, of which he made over 100 copies, are the so-called Vaughan half-length type (1795) and the so-called Athenaeum portrayal (unfinished; 1796). Stuart also did portraits of Presidents John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison and of the British kings George III and George IV.
— He was one of the great portraitists of his era and the creator of the most popular image of George Washington. He was born in his father's snuff mill near Narragansett RI. He grew up in nearby Newport and there learned the rudiments of painting from Samuel King and Cosmo Alexander, a visiting Scotsman. He accompanied Alexander to Edinburgh about 1771, but returned home a year later. In 1775 he went to London and entered the studio of Benjamin West, with whom he worked for about 6 years. His mature style owed more, however, to Thomas Gainsborough and Joshua Reynolds than to West. In 1782 he opened his own London studio and for five years enjoyed great success. In 1787 he fled to Dublin to escape his creditors. After six years in Ireland he returned to the US in 1793, worked for a year in New York, then settled in Philadelphia, then the political and cultural capital of the nation. He quickly established himself as the nation's leading portrait painter, a position he held until his death, in Boston, where he had settled in 1805
— LINKS
— Josiah Quincy (1806, 77x62cm; 1/3 size _ ZOOM to 2/3 size)
— James MacDonald of Inglesmauldie (1785, 90x77cm; 3/10 size _ ZOOM to 3/5 size) _ detail (head; 6/5 size)
— Reverend William Ellery Channing (1815, 77x64cm; 1/3 size _ ZOOM to 2/3 size)
— William Rufus Gray (1807, 85x69cm; 1/3 size _ ZOOM to 2/3 size)
— Richard Yates (1800, 76x63cm; 3/8 size _ ZOOM to 3/4 size)
— George Washington (1795; 59kb) — George Washington (1796, 81kb)
— head detail of a different George Washington (1796, 100kb)
— Washington at Dorchester Heights (1806; 75kb)
— James Madison (1807; 58kb) — John Adams (1810; 68kb) — John Adams (1826; 62kb)
— James Monroe (1820, 94kb) — The Percy Children and dog (1787; 102kb)

^ Died on 03 December 1919: Pierre Auguste Renoir, French Impressionist painter<<<>>> born on 25 February 1841.
— Renoir was originally associated with the Impressionist movement. His early works were typically Impressionist snapshots of real life, full of sparkling color and light. By the mid-1880s, however, he had broken with the movement to apply a more disciplined, formal technique to portraits and figure paintings, particularly of women (e.g. , Bathers, 1887).
—   Renoir was noted for his radiant, intimate paintings, particularly of the female nude. Recognized by critics as one of the greatest and most independent painters of his period, Renoir is noted for the harmony of his lines, the brilliance of his color, and the intimate charm of his wide variety of subjects. Unlike other impressionists he was as much interested in painting the single human figure or family group portraits as he was in landscapes; unlike them, too, he did not subordinate composition and plasticity of form to attempts at rendering the effect of light.
— Born in Limoges to a tailor and dressmaker, Renoir moved with his family from to Paris in 1844. There he was apprenticed to a porcelain manufacturer from 1854 to 1858, where he painted rococo-style decorations, gaining experience with the light, fresh colors that were to distinguish his Impressionist work and also learning the importance of good craftsmanship. This early apprenticeship left a certain trace on his art, which was always decorative in spite of its later realism. His predilection towards light-hearted themes was also influenced by the great Rococco masters, whose works he studied in the Louvre. At 17, after machines for coloring ceramics had been introduced, Renoir had to switch to copying paintings onto fans, lamp shades, and screens.
     Having saved some money, Renoir attended the École des Beaux-Arts in 1862-1863 in the studio of Charles Gleyre [02 May 1806, or 1808? –1874]. There where he formed a lasting friendship with Sisley [30 Oct 1839 – 29 Jan 1899], Monet [14 Nov 1840 – 05 Dec 1926], Fantin-Latour [14 Jan 1836 – 25 Aug 1904], and Bazille [06 Dec 1841 – 28 Nov 1870]. Some time later he met Pissarro [10 Jul 1830 – 13 Nov 1903] and Cézanne [19 Jan 1839 – 22 Oct 1906]. Starting in about 1864, he painted with them in the Barbizon district and became a leading member of the group of Impressionists who met at the Café Guerbois.
      Renoir's early work was influenced by the romantic painter Eugène Delacroix [26 Apr 1798 – 13 Aug 1863] in his treatment of color, and by Monet in his treatment of light. Renoir's relationship with Monet was particularly close at this time, and their paintings of the beautiful spot called La Grenouillère done in 1869 are regarded as the classic early statements of the Impressionist style.
      Renoir first exhibited at the Salon in 1864. After that the jury rejected his works and only in 1867 accepted Lise, portrait of his model and lover Lise Trehot.
     About in 1864 Renoir began to work out-of-doors. Courbet [10 Jun 1819 – 31 Dec 1877], Corot [16 Jul 1796 – 22 Feb 1875], and Daubigny [15 Feb 1817 – 19 Feb 1878] were important early influences, although his progress toward a more vivid and sketchy style was encouraged by the work of Monet and Manet [23 Jan 1832 – 30 Apr 1883].
     In 1867, Renoir and Monet lived at Bazille’s house. In 1868-1870, he shared a studio with Bazille in Paris. The young artists sat for each other, i.e. Frederic Bazille at His Easel by Renoir and Portrait of Pierre-Auguste Renoir by Bazille. Renoir spent the summer of 1869 with Monet at Bougival on the Seine; together they worked out the main principles of the Impressionist method. It was most strongly manifested in the plein-air studies of La Grenouillère (1869). See and compare La Grenouillère by Monet and La Grenouillère by Renoir, the painters worked side by side.
      Renoir did not gain recognition until 1874, at the first exhibition of painters of the new impressionist school. Subsequently he participated in the second, third, and seventh Impressionist group shows. One of the most famous of all Impressionist works is Renoir's Le Bal au Moulin de la Galette (1876), an open-air scene of a café, in which his mastery in figure painting and in representing light is evident.
      It was in the 1870s, that Renoir’s Impressionism style reached its peak. He worked at Argenteuil and in Paris. He participated in the Impressionist exhibitions of 1874, 1876, 1877 and 1882 and was a founding member of the review L’Impressionniste (1877), where he published his article on the principles of contemporary art. He painted The Swing and the great composition of Le Moulin de la Galette, one of the finest, most smiling of his masterpieces, the models for which were his friends, mostly artists, and Montmartre girls. It is like a marvelous tissue of interwoven sunlight and soft hazy blue.

            Like Monet, Renoir endured much hardship early in his career, but he began to achieve success as a portraitist in the late 1870s, earlier than his friends. In 1879-80, he sent several portraits to the official Salon, among them Portrait of the Actress Jeanne Samary and Portrait of Mme Charpentier and Her Children. The artist found himself at a critical point. In 1880, he met Aline Charigot, a common woman, whom he would marry in 1890, they had 3 sons: Pierre [1885-]; Jean Renoir [15 Sep 1894 – 12 Feb 1979], who would become an important film director and, in 1962, write a lively and touching biography, Renoir, My Father; and Claude [1901-], called “Coco”. The same year, 1880, Renoir broke his right arm and for some time painted with his left hand. In 1881, he traveled to Algeria, later to Italy, where he was impressed by Raphael [06 Apr 1483 – 06 April 1520] and the Pompeii frescoes. The Luncheon of the Boating Party is certainly one of Renoir’s finest canvases.
      Renoir was freed from financial worries after the dealer Paul Durand-Ruel began buying his work regularly in 1881. By this time Renoir had 'traveled as far as Impressionism could take me'. In 1881-1882 he traveled to Algeria and Italy, where his exposure to ancient and Renaissance art led him to introduce into his impressionism a new linear and sculptural solidity. The change is seen in The Umbrellas , which was evidently begun before the visit to Italy and finished afterwards; the two little girls on the right are painted with the feathery brush-strokes characteristic of his Impressionist manner, but the figures on the left are done in a crisper and drier style, with duller coloring. This “dry style” was a search for solid form and stable composition, a search which led him back to the masters of the Renaissance. He worked more carefully and meticulously, his colors became cooler and smoother.
     After a period of experimentation with what he called his ‘manière aigre’ in the mid 1880s, Renoir developed a softer and more supple kind of handling. At the same time he turned from contemporary themes to more timeless subjects, particularly nudes, but also pictures of young girls in unspecific settings. He returned to hot rich colors and free brushwork of his earlier days to portray nudes in sunlight, a style, which he continued to develop to the end of his life: The Bathers (1887).
      Renoir fully established his reputation with a solo exhibition held at the Durand-Ruel Gallery in Paris in 1883. In 1887 he completed a series of studies of a group of nude female figures known as Les Baigneuses. These reveal his extraordinary ability to depict the lustrous, pearly color and texture of skin and to impart lyrical feeling and plasticity to a subject; they are unsurpassed in the history of modern painting in their representation of feminine grace. Many of his later paintings also treat the same theme in an increasingly bold rhythmic style.
      As Renoir's style became grander and simpler he also took up mythological subjects (The Judgement of Paris), and the female type he preferred became more mature and ample. A retrospective at DuMond-Ruel in 1892 was met with great popular success.
      Other notable paintings by Renoir include La Loge (1874); Girl with a Fan (Mlle. Alphonsina Fournez) (1875) and The Swing (1875); The Luncheon of the Boating Party (1881); and Vase of Chrysanthemums (1895) — one of the many still lifes of flowers and fruit he painted throughout his life.
      In 1886, the art dealer Durand-Ruel exhibited 32 of Renoir's paintings in New York, thus opening the US market for Impressionism. The evidence of Renoir’s (and other Impressionists’) success in the USA is a great number of their pictures in US museums.
      In December 1888, Renoir suffered the first attacks of arthritis, which would cripple his hands; in 1898 after a serious attack of the disease his right arm was paralyzed. From now on he painted, overcoming strong pains, strapping a brush to his wrist. From 1903 (by which time he was world-famous) he lived in the warmth of the south of France. The rheumatism eventually crippled him (by 1912 he was confined to a wheelchair), but he continued to paint until the end of his life, and in his last years he also took up sculpture, directing assistants (usually Richard Guino, a student of Maillol [08 Dec 1861 – 27 Sep 1844]) to act as his hands (Venus Victorious). In 1919, not long before Renoir's death, he finished, in great pain, his large-scale composition The Great Bathers (The Nymphs). Renoir died in Cagnes.
      Renoir is perhaps the best-loved of all the Impressionists, for his subjects — pretty children, flowers, beautiful scenes, above all lovely women — have instant appeal, and he communicated the joy he took in them: “Why shouldn't art be pretty? There are enough unpleasant things in the world.” He was one of the great worshippers of the female form, and he said “I never think I have finished a nude until I think I could pinch it.”

— Renoir and Monet worked closely together during the late 1860s, painting similar scenes of popular river resorts and views of a bustling Paris. Renoir was by nature more solid than Monet, and while Monet fixed his attentions on the ever-changing patterns of nature, Renoir was particularly entranced by people and often painted friends and lovers. His early work has a quivering brightness that is gloriously satisfying and fully responsive to what he is painting, as well as to the effects of the light.
      Renoir seems to have had the enviable ability to see anything as potentially of interest. More than any of the Impressionists, he found beauty and charm in the modern sights of Paris. He does not go deep into the substance of what he sees but seizes upon its appearance, grasping its generalities, which then enables the spectator to respond with immediate pleasure. "Pleasure" may be decried by the puritanical instinct within us all, but it is surely the necessary enhancer that life needs. It also signifies a change from Realism: the Impressionists' paintings have none of the labored toll of the peasants of Millet's [04 Oct 1814 – 20 Jan 1875], for example. Instead they depict delightful, intimate scenes of the French middle class at leisure in the country or at cafes and concerts in Paris. Renoir always took a simple pleasure in whatever met his good-humored attention, but he refused to let what he saw dominate what he wanted to paint. Again he deliberately sets out to give the impression, the sensation of something, its generalities, its glancing life. Maybe, ideally, everything is worthy of attentive scrutiny, but in practice there is no time. We remember only what takes our immediate notice as we move along.
      In The Boating Party Lunch, a group of Renoir's friends are enjoying that supreme delight of the working man and woman, a day out. Renoir shows us interrelationships: notice the young man intent upon the girl at the right chatting, while the girl at the left is occupied with her puppy. But notice too the loneliness, however relaxed, that can be part of anyone's experience at a lunch party. The man behind the girl and her dog is lost in a world of his own, yet we cannot but believe that his reverie is a happy one. The delightful debris of the meal, the charm of the young people, the hazy brightness of the world outside the awning - all communicates an earthly vision of paradise.
      One of Renoir's early portraits, A Girl with a Watering Can, has all the tender charm of its subject, delicately unemphasized, not sentimentalized, but clearly relished. Renoir stoops down to the child's height so that we look at her world from her own altitude. This, he hints, is the world that the little one sees — not the actual garden that adults see today, but the nostalgic garden that they remember from their childhood. The child is sweetly aware of her central importance. Solid little girl though she is, she presents herself with the fragile charm of the flowers. Her sturdy little feet in their sensible boots are somehow planted in the garden, and the lace of her dress has a floral rightness; she also is decorative. With the greatest skill, Renoir shows the child, not amid the actual flowers and lawns, but on the path. It leads away, out of the picture, into the unknown future when she will longer be part of the garden but an onlooker, an adult, who will enjoy only her memories of the present now depicted.
— LINKS
— Madame Clémentine Valensi Stora (L'Algérienne) (1870)
— Mother, Child, and Cat (1895, 117x104cm)
— Landscape at Beaulieu (1893, 65x81cm)
— L'Enfant au Biscuit (Jean Renoir, son of the artist, future film director) (1899, 62x48cm) — Bazille Working (at his easel) — Claude Monet (reading book, holding pipe) — Claude Monet Reading the Paper — Les Parapluies (1882 and 1886) —La famille de l'artiste — Madame Charpentier and Her Children, Georgette-Berthe and Paul-Émile-Charles (1878) — Jeanne Samary.
— La Grenouillère _ This painting has all the ingredients of Impressionism: a sketch-like painting, which to contemporaries seemed unfinished, no carved-out details, a glitter of sun reflecting the movements of the water, the boats partly truncated to convey a sense of the passing moment, and the individual details toned down in favor of the overall picture. But, the depiction of reality is still there. Renoir has depicted an actual moment and life as it is lived, a fragment without any greater depth of interpretation. The theme is a new one: instead of something heroic, we have a casual, trivial excerpt from reality, held together by the lighting.

Renoir Renoir self-portrait 1910 Pierre-Auguste Renoir ^top^
      Renoir was originally associated with the Impressionist movement. His early works were typically Impressionist snapshots of real life, full of sparkling color and light. By the mid-1880s, however, he had broken with the movement to apply a more disciplined, formal technique to portraits and figure paintings, particularly of women (e.g. , Bathers, 1887).
      French Impressionist painter, born at Limoges. In 1854 he began work as a painter in a porcelain factory in Paris, gaining experience with the light, fresh colors that were to distinguish his Impressionist work and also learning the importance of good craftsmanship. His predilection towards light-hearted themes was also influenced by the great Rococco masters, whose works he studied in the Louvre. In 1862 he entered the studio of Gleyre and there formed a lasting friendship with Monet, Sisley, and Bazille. He painted with them in the Barbizon district and became a leading member of the group of Impressionists who met at the Café Guerbois. His relationship with Monet was particularly close at this time, and their paintings of the beauty spot called La Grenouillère done in 1869 (an example by Renoir is in the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm) are regarded as the classic early statements of the Impressionist style.
      Like Monet, Renoir endured much hardship early in his career, but he began to achieve success as a portraitist in the late 1870s and was freed from financial worries after the dealer Paul Durand-Ruel began buying his work regularly in 1881. By this time Renoir had 'travelled as far as Impressionism could take me', and a visit to Italy in 1881-82 inspired him to seek a greater sense of solidity in his work. The change in attitude is seen in Les Parapluies, which was evidently begun before the visit to Italy and finished afterwards; the two little girls on the right are painted with the feathery brush-strokes characteristic of his Impressionist manner, but the figures on the left are done in a crisper and drier style, with duller coloring. After a period of experimentation with what he called his `manière aigre' in the mid 1880s, he developed a softer and more supple kind of handling. At the same time he turned from contemporary themes to more timeless subjects, particularly nudes, but also pictures of young girls in unspecific settings. As his style became grander and simpler he also took up mythological subjects (The Judgement of Paris; 1914), and the female type he preferred became more mature and ample. In the 1890s Renoir began to suffer from rheumatism, and from 1903 (by which time he was world-famous) he lived in the warmth of the south of France. The rheumatism eventually crippled him (by 1912 he was confined to a wheelchair), but he continued to paint until the end of his life, and in his last years he also took up sculpture, directing assistants (usually Richard Guino, a student of Maillol) to act as his hands (Venus Victorious; 1914).
      Renoir is perhaps the best-loved of all the Impressionists, for his subjects---pretty children, flowers, beautiful scenes, above all lovely women---have instant appeal, and he communicated the joy he took in them with great directness. `Why shouldn't art be pretty?', he said, `There are enough unpleasant things in the world.' He was one of the great worshippers of the female form, and he said `I never think I have finished a nude until I think I could pinch it.' One of his sons was the celebrated film director Jean Renoir (15 Sep 1894 – 12 Feb 1979), who wrote a lively and touching biography of his father (Renoir) in 1962.

— Pierre-Auguste Renoir, peintre et sculpteur français, considéré comme l'une des grandes figures de l'impressionnisme. Né dans une famille d'artisans, Pierre-Auguste Renoir commença à peindre, d'abord sur porcelaine dès l'âge de treize ans, puis à partir de dix-sept ans, sur éventails et sur tissus. En 1862, il s'inscrivit à l'École des Beaux-Arts et étudia dans l'académie parisienne du peintre suisse Charles Gleyre (1808-1876), où il rencontra Sisley, Bazille et Monet qui influença le début de sa carrière. En 1864, Renoir fit la connaissance de Diaz de La Peña (1807-1876) qui l'engagea à peindre en plein air. Ses premières œuvres sont encore marquées par l'influence de Courbet. La même année, il exposa pour la première fois à Paris, mais après avoir essuyé deux refus en 1866 et en 1867, il ne fut admis au Salon des artistes français qu'en 1868 avec Lise à l'ombrelle (1867, Folkwang Museum, Essen).
      En 1869, il travailla avec Monet aux trois vues de La Grenouillère qui annoncent les scènes nautiques d'Argenteuil d'après 1870. En 1874, il participa à la première exposition des peintres impressionnistes chez Nadar (avec La Scène, 1874). C'est là qu'il fit la connaissance de Caillebotte. S'ouvre alors la période des toiles les plus célèbres telles les Régates à Argenteuil (1874, musée d'Orsay, Paris), Le Moulin de la Galette (1876) et Les Parapluies (1883), qui rassemblent les caractéristiques d'un impressionnisme très parisien (ambiances de loisirs, foules citadines). Une sorte de vibration, faite d'ombre et de soleil, relie tous les personnages des scènes champêtres dans une atmosphère lumineuse, bien que sa facture fasse appel à une touche fondue plutôt qu'au divisionnisme habituel impressionniste. Un effet analogue d'éclairage se retrouve dans le Déjeuner des canotiers (1881) qui témoigne d'une individualisation parfaite des personnages, dans la mobilité des gestes et des attitudes.
      En 1881, Renoir fit un voyage en Italie où il s'intéressa plus particulièrement à Raphaël. Son attention à la composition s'en trouva accrue. Vers 1888, Renoir séjourna quelques temps chez Cézanne en Provence et réalisa de nombreux nus féminins, Les Baigneuses qui semblent ne pas se baigner dans l'eau, mais dans la lumière d'une facture très souple, révélant les coloris nacrés de la peau et transmettant avec lyrisme son amour sensuel de la plasticité du sujet. Chargeant progressivement sa pâte, il superposa de plus en plus les couleurs, les brossant toujours plus afin d'obtenir une matière lisse et soyeuse, souvent rapprochée de celles de Rubens.
--// A good Renoir site with many reproductions of his paintings classified as: Bathers — Portraits — Dancers — Landscapes — Still Lifes

^ Born on 03 December 1830: Lord Frederick Leighton, English Pre-Raphaelite painter and sculptor<<<>>> who died on 25 January 1896.[photo]
— The acknowledged leader of the Victorian classical school of painting, Frederic Leighton was born in Scarborough, the son of a doctor. His grandfather, Sir James Leighton, was court physician to Czar Alexander I of Russia; and Sir James' son was also a doctor. Soon after Nicholas I became Czar in 1825 the Leighton family left Russia and spent the ensuing years travelling around Europe, giving their only son, Frederic, first-hand acquaintance with its cultural and artistic treasures.
      Unlike most major artists of the nineteenth century Leighton did not study at the Royal Academy Schools, but received his training in Brussels, Paris and Frankfurt. In 1852 he went to live in Rome, where he moved in a large artistic circle which included Thackeray [18 Jul 1811 – 24 Dec 1863], Robert Browning [07 May 1812 – 12 Dec 1889] and some of the most important French painters of the time.
      On his return to England in 1855, his historical painting Cimabue's Madonna Carried in Procession through the Streets of Florence was shown at the Royal Academy, where it received a rapturous reception from the critics and was later bought by Queen Victoria. It was the start of what was to be a glittering career that took him to the very heights of his profession.
      Leighton settled in London in 1860 and in 1868 turned to painting subjects from mythology. His decision to abandon historical paintings coincided with a sudden upsurge of interest in Hellenism; even women's evening wear was influenced, Greek gowns that gave women a new-found freedom of movement becoming fashionable.
      Leighton suddenly found himself the centre of attention, with his paintings the talk of London. He was elected President of the Royal Academy in 1878, and became a baron in 1896 (full title: Baron Leighton of Stretton), the only English artist to receive this honor. But by then he was a sick man who was suffering from angina. He died in 1896. His will included a bequest of £10'000 to the Royal Academy. The poet Algernon Swinburne [05 Apr 1837 – 10 Apr 1909] composed a memorial elegy:
'A light has passed that never shall pass away
A sun has set whose rays are unequalled in might'.
      Although at the time of his death Leighton was something of a national institution, his reputation quickly declined and his work and all that he stood for became objects of derision. It was to be another 60-70 years before his work would come into fashion again.
      Leighton's beautiful home at 2 Holland Park Road, South Kensington, London is now a museum — Leighton House. Here you can see the opulence in which Leighton lived, and view paintings by Leighton, Burne-Jones [28 August 1833 – 17 June 1898] and other Pre-Raphaelite artists, including Mariana in the South (by John William Waterhouse) and The End of the Quest (by Sir Frank Dicksee).
— LINKS
— Cymon and Iphigenia (1884) _ According to Leighton this painting, more than any of his other pictures, represented 'both my art and my style'. The story is taken from Boccaccio, and tells how Cymon, a wild and brutish young man, is so struck by the sight of the sleeping Iphigenia that he falls in love with her, gives up his former wild ways and marries her. [Cymon and Iphigenia by Millais (1848) _ by West (1773) _ caricature by Gillray (1796)]
— Nausicaa
— Pavonia (1859) The model for this painting was Nanna Risi who eventually married the German painter Anselm Feuerbach [12 Sep 1829 – 04 Jan 1880].
— Lieder Ohne Wörte (1861, 102x63cm) _ Leighton commented that in this picture he sought 'to translate to the eye of the spectator something of the pleasure which the child receives through here ears.'
— The Garden of the Hesperides (1892) _ According to legend, the garden island of the Hesperides was where the daughters of Hesperus sang a lullaby to the dragon guarding the golden apples, which were later to be stolen by Hercules.
— Flaming June (1895, 47x47cm) _ The model for this painting was Dorothy Dene, who was the inspiration for Leighton's work from the mid 1880s. Flaming June is an excellent example of the lack of respect given to Victorian art between the years 1920-70. This painting was put up for auction in the 1960s and failed to meet its reserve price of $140. It was then promptly snapped up by the Museo de Arte de Ponce in Puerto Rico. Thirty years later, in 1990, Leighton's Dante in Exile fetched £1'000'000 at auction — an illustration of how fashion dictates the art market.
— A Girl with a Basket of Fruit (1863) — Acme and Septimus — Actaea, the Nymph of the Shore (1868) — Bacchante (1895)
— Clytie (1892) — Clytie (1896) _ Clytie was the nymph who loved Apollo, was abandoned by him, and turned into a sunflower, which always turns its head to the sun. The model was Dorothy Dene.
— Daedalus and Icarus (1869) — Greek Girls Playing Ball (1889) — Helen of Troy — Idyll (1881) — Invocation — Lachrymae (1895) — Light of the Harem (1880) aka The Fairest of Them All
— Mother and Child aka Cherries — Odalisque (1862) — Perseus and Andromeda (1891)
— Perseus on Pegasus Hastening to the Rescue of Andromeda (1896, unfinished at Leighton's death)
— Return of Persephone (1891) — Seaside Flowers — Solitude — Sybil
— The Bath of Psyche (1890) the pose of Psyche is taken from the classical statue of Venus Kalipigge at Naples.
— The Fisherman and the Siren (1858, 66x48cm) — The Golden Hours
— The Maid with the Golden Hair (1895) — The Music Lesson (1877) — The Painter’s Honeymoon (1864)
— The Spirit of the Summit (1894) — Venus Disrobing for the Bath (1867) — Winding the Skein (1878)

Died on a 03 December:

1956 Alexandr Mikhailovich Rodchenko is sometimes said to have been born on this date. On this site, his death is taken to be 04 December 1956.

1890 Carl Hilgers, Düsseldorf painter born on 14 April 1818. From 1833 to 1844 he attended the Staatliche Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf as a master student of Johann Wilhelm Schirmer [05 Sep 1807 – 11 Sep 1863]. Apart from a four-year residency in Berlin, he lived almost continuously in Düsseldorf, though he made several study trips to other parts of Germany and to Belgium, the Netherlands and France. He was one of the best-known painters of the Düsseldorf school, as is indicated by the full-length portrait (1850) of him by Johann Peter Hasenclever [18 May 1810 – 16 Dec 1853]. He was praised by his contemporaries for his free brushwork and his sure mastery of technique, which may be compared to the work of his fellow Düsseldorf painter Caspar Scheuren [1810-1887]. As subject-matter Hilgers favored atmospheric, mist-shrouded winter landscapes based in part on localities in and around Düsseldorf (e.g. the Wasserburg in Winter, 1845, and the Conradsheim in Winter, 1890), the romantic character of which is heightened by the incidental figures. After his death, the popularity of his paintings rapidly declined, and he was quickly forgotten.

1806 Jean-Baptiste Charpentier, French artist born in 1728.

1719 François Marot (or Maret), French artist born in 1666.

Born on a 03 December:

1851 Gustav Schönleber, German artist who died on 01 February 1917.

^ 1843 Daniele Ranzoni, Intra (Varese) Italian painter who died on 20 October 1889. — {No, Ranzoni is not a kind of pasta} — The son of a shoemaker, Ranzoni began to study painting under Luigi Litta, a local artist in Intra. At the age of 13 he was sent to the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, Milan. In 1857 he received a scholarship to study at the Accademia Albertina, Turin, where he became familiar with the work of Antonio Fontanesi. Fontanesi’s rendering of light was of great importance to Ranzoni’s later works. In 1862 Ranzoni returned to Intra, due to ill-health, but the following year he again attended the Brera, where he was taught by Giuseppe Bertini. During this period he met Mosè Bianchi, Filippo Carcano, Pietro Bouvier [1839–1927], Tranquillo Cremona, and Giuseppe Grandi, becoming particularly friendly with the last two. Few of Ranzoni’s works have been identified from this period, but his portrait of Agostino Rossi, called Tuffin (1862), already demonstrates his interest in color and light and his independence from the academic environment. Between 1865 and 1868 Ranzoni remained mainly at Intra, where he and his cousin G. F. Petrioli, a fellow student at the Albertina, frescoed the chapel of Saint John in the church of San Vittore. Upon his return to Milan he re-established contacts with Cremona (whose studio he used) and Grandi; he frequented the circle of Gli Scapigliati, although he maintained a certain detachment from its activities and ideas. Through these contacts Ranzoni, like Cremona, received a number of portrait commissions from members of Milan’s new bourgeoisie: the portrait of Major Filippo Erba (1873) is traditionally said to have been painted in Cremona’s studio.

^ 1621 Pieter Gysels (or Gheysels, Gyzens, Gysen), Antwerp Flemish painter who died in 1690. He began his training in 1641, under Antwerp painter Jan Boots. He may also have been apprenticed to Jan Breughel II, whose diary describes a painting completed in 1638 as a ‘small wild boar somewhat touched up by Gys’ (‘een klein wilt verxken voor Gys wat geretosieert’). But it seems highly doubtful that ‘Gys’ refers to Pieter Gysels. In 1649 or 1650 Gysels became a master in Antwerp’s Guild of Saint Luke. On 13 November 1650 he married Joanna Huybrecht, who bore him six children. — LINKS — Still Life near a Fountain (1685; 1297x1600pix, 254kb), mostly fruit and vegetables, with an ornate pitcher and dish, an oriental rug, a monkey, two rabbits, and barely seen in the dark background, the fountain with a duck, a peacock, other birds, a sculpture, an urn, and a formal garden. — similar but different Garden (574x700pix, 154kb) _ evenly lighted, with a still life (mostly fruits and vegetables) next to a fountain, an oriental rug, a parrot, two ducks, other birds, a large urn, sculptures, a villa in the background, but not much garden. — A Winter Carnival in a Small Flemish Town — River Landscape with Villages and Travelers (1685, 13x16cm; 390x471pix, 77kb)

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