^
Born on 21 December 1874: Josep
Maria Sert i Badia, Barcelona Catalan painter who died on
27 November 1945.
— Sert i Badia, va desenvolupar, durant la primera meitat del segle
XX, una obra pictòrica per la qual se'l va considerar el millor pintor muralista
dels anys trenta. La dimensió internacional del pintor queda patent en el
fet que les seves teles es troben tant a Europa com a Amèrica, des del Rockefeller
Center de Nova York a l'edifici de la Societat de les Nacions de Ginebra.
Vinculat al modernisme català, Sert va viure a Paris on va tenir contacte
amb els corrents més avançats del moment. La relació amb Catalunya la va
mantenir a través de les seves germanes i, sobretot, pel lligam que va establir
amb la ciutat de Vic, on va decorar la Catedral per encàrrec del seu amic
i protector Torras i Bages. Les diferents realitzacions d'aquesta obra van
ocupar etapes decisives de la seva vida artística i, per això, no és gens
agossarat dir que Sert es va fer com a pintor al voltant del projecte decoratiu
de Vic.
— Sert i Badía nació en Barcelona en el seno de una acomodada familia
dedicada a la industria textil. Se formó en contacto con los círculos modernistas
y simbolistas de la capital catalana. En 1899 se trasladó a París, ciudad
en la que pasaría largos años decorando los salones de la aristocracia.
Por mediación de su amigo Torras i Bages, obispo de Vic, en 1990 recibe
el encargo de decorar las paredes de esa catedral. En 1922, sus obras llegan
por primera vez a América donde decora un salón palaciego de Buenos Aires.
En 1924 hace una gran exposición en Nueva York y comienza a trabajar para
clientes norteamericanos. En 1926, a excepción de las bóvedas y los lunetos,
la catedral de Vic quedó recubierta con sus pinturas. En 1929 recibe el
encargo de la decoración del madrileño Palacio de Liria y a fines de ese
mismo año, el Ayuntamiento donostiarra le encomienda las pinturas de la
iglesia de San Telmo. En 1930 se le encarga una decoración para el neoyorkino
Rockefeller Center. A fines del verano de 1932, J.M. Sert colocó en San
Telmo los lienzos que cubren las paredes de la antigua iglesia. En 1936
pinta la Sala del Consejo de la Sociedad de Naciones de Ginebra. Durante
la Guerra Civil Española fue incendiada la catedral de Vic destruyéndose
los lienzos existentes. Al terminar la contienda en 1939, volvió a pintar
la catedral. Murió en su ciudad natal y fue enterrado en la catedral de
Vic, a cuya inacabada decoración dedicó 45 años de su vida artística.
— En agosto de 1813, durante la Guerra de la Independencia y como
consecuencia de la toma de la ciudad por las tropas anglo-portuguesas, la
iglesia del convento de San Telmo fue devastada y saqueada. Desaparecieron
todos sus elementos decorativos: pinturas, tallas, retablos..., quedando
sus paredes prácticamente vacías. En 1929, al restaurar la iglesia y pensar
cómo adecuarla al nuevo destino que iba a tener el convento, como Museo,
se acordó, siguiendo el consejo del pintor Ignacio Zuloaga, que las paredes
quedaran recubiertas de pinturas en las que se plasmas en las efemérides
del pueblo. Esta labor se encomendó a José María Sert, que la realizó en
17 paños - 11 lienzos - sobre una extensión de 784 m2.
Las once escenas de San Telmo, realizadas
a base de veladuras, es decir barniz con color, sobre un fondo de
panes de oro, representan temas de la vida y de la historia gipuzkoana:
sus hombres, sus actividades tradicionales,
sus hazañas y sus creencias. La descripción de los lienzos
comienza a la derecha de la bóveda que sustenta el coro.
— Pueblo
de Ferrones (600x700cm; 500x721pix, 87kb) _ Un grupo de ferrones, delante
de un inmenso yunque y en medio de un gran resplandor, forja un ancla monumental
que evoca los tiempos en que la ferrería Gilisasti enviaba anclas para la
armada inglesa.
— Pueblo
de Santos (600x700cm; 500x701pix, 80kb) _ Ignacio de Loiola escribe
las Constituciones de la Compañía de Jesús al dictado
de Cristo que, con una mano desclavada, le aconseja desde la Cruz.
— Pueblo
de Comerciantes (1000x300cm; 500x167pix, 28kb) _ Este estrecho y alargado
lienzo está dedicado a la Real Compañía Gipuzcoana de Caracas, entidad que
dió a la provincia un auge económico inusitado a lo largo del siglo XVIII.
— Pueblo
de Navegantes (1000x1000cm; 500x500pix, 73kb) _ Este lienzo representa
la epopeya de Juan Sebastián Elkano, marino gipuzkoano de Getaria que navegó
por vez primera alrededor del mundo.
— Pueblo
de Pescadores (500x524pix, 68kb) _ El escenario que nos ofrece esta
pintura es el de un puerto gipuzcoano. Vemos un gran número de pescadores
que intenta, trabajosamente, subir una ballena por una rampa.
— El
Altar de la Raza (1000x2000cm; 499x891pix, 134kb) _ Este lienzo ocupa
el antiguo ábside de la iglesia. En medio de un mar embravecido un bloque
pétreo se yergue sobre el oleaje a modo de atalaya. De él nace un viejo
árbol que resiste la embestida temporal. Agarrado al árbol está San Telmo,
patrón de los hombres de mar, quien, bastón en mano, salva una barca a punto
de naufragar. Sobre él, y enganchado en las ramas del árbol, cuelga San
Sebastián, patrono de la ciudad.
— Pueblo
de Fueros (1000x600cm; 500x480pix, 67kb) _ El tema de este lienzo evoca
la pasada vida foral. Así, representa el momento en que Alfonso VIII, rey
de Castilla, jura los fueros de Gipuzkoa.
— Pueblo
de Armadores (1000x1000cm; 500x500pix, 67kb) _ En este lienzo, Sert
representa la actividad constructora de los astilleros pasaitarras mediante
una larga hilera de navíos. Se trata de la construcción de la Armada “Invencible”
(que no lo era).
— Pueblo
de Libertad (1000x300cm; 500x250pix, 39kb) _ Este estrecho y alargado
lienzo está dedicado al árbol de Gernika, símbolo de las libertades de Vasconia.
Al pie del viejo roble, un gran libro abierto simboliza el Fuero de Bizkaia.
— Pueblo
de Sabios (700x600cm; 500x620pix, 72kb) _ Los "Caballeritos de Azkoitia",
constituidos ya en la Sociedad Bascongada de Amigos del País, y reunidos
bajo la cúpula de su observatorio, reciben la visita de un sabio químico
extranjero.
— Pueblo
de Leyendas (600x700cm; 500x650pix, 72kb) _ Sert nos presenta una escena
que hace referencia al tema del akelarre. El origen de este tipo de ritos
es remotísimo, constituyendo un signo inequívoco de las viejas creencias
del Pueblo Vasco. _ Sert-ek akelarrea gogora ekartzen digun mihisea pintatu
du. Hauek bezalako erritoen jatorria aspaldi-aspaldikoa da, eta Euskal Herriko
aintzinako sinismenak argi eta garbi agertzen zaigu bertan.
^
Died on 21 December 1929: Henry
Herbert La Thangue,
English painter born on 19 January 1859.
— La Thangue studied painting in London and Paris. As an artist he
was against the old ideas of salon painting supported by the Academy and
encouraged the acceptance of French ‘plein air’ painting. He is best remembered
for paintings of life in the countryside.
— He attended Dulwich College where he met fellow painters Stanhope
Forbes and Frederick Goodall. He enrolled briefly at the Lambeth School
of Art before entering the Royal Academy schools in 1874. In December 1879
he was awarded a gold medal and a traveling scholarship along with a letter
of introduction from Frederic Leighton to Jean-Léon Gérôme, under whom he
studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. While there he was
influenced by the rustic naturalist painters of the Salon and by Whistler.
Such early works as Study in a Boatbuilding Yard on the French Coast
(1882) echo the work of Jean-Charles Cazin and Jules Bastien-Lepage. La
Thangue spent the summers of 1881 and 1882 working on the Brittany coast
with Forbes and a wide circle of plein-air painters, including Bastien-Lepage.
In 1883 he and the sculptor James Havard Thomas went to Donzère in the Rhône
Valley, where La Thangue painted Poverty, a work compositionally
similar to Bastien-Lepage’s London Flower-seller (1882). — LINKS
— Off
To Work (91x71cm) — A
Sussex Orchard (91x104cm)
— The
Boat Builder's Yard, Cancale, Brittany (1881, 76x82cm; 654x700pix, 131kb)
_ A scene in a boat builder's yard at Cancale, Brittany. Brittany had many
beach boatyards of the kind portrayed. In the foreground to the right, a
girl with strong facial features sits in profile gazing to the left on a
carpenter's bench. She wears traditional local dress of a blue serge skirt,
grey-and-white-striped chemise and white head-dress, with sabots on her
feet. The knitting she holds has fallen to her knee and her gaze straight
ahead and out of the picture space implies that this not her main interest.
On the ground lie tools of the boat-builder's trade; a pit-saw part-visible
to the left of the bench, a pitch-ladle leaning against the jaw of the bench-vice,
and a side-axe and adze on the chippings below. The ground is covered by
wood shavings and, to the left, randomly scattered timber off-cuts. Immediately
behind the girl the wood has been ordered into a low fence, acting as a
barrier, and beyond this a fishing boat stands partly constructed in frame,
in port bow view, supported by light timber shores.
— The
Plough Boy (155x118cm) _ La Thangue spent the summers of the early 1880s
with Stanhope Forbes in Brittany. Square brushes and a lighter palette were
soon adopted on these sketching trips and the historical subject pictures
in which he had previously specialised - were abandoned. Instead he began
to paint ordinary working people but, by painting them on a huge scale,
as here, he imbued them with a monumentality which suggested at their heroic
demeanour, glorifying the noble peasant that was soon to be courted by the
socialist movement.
— Nightfall
(The Gleaners) (130x108cm) _ Henri La Thangue studied in the studio
of Gérôme at the École des Beaux Arts in Paris. Like
many of the artists of his day, he was drawn to the naturalism of Bastien-Lepage.
Following his example, La Thangue worked in the countryside, painting gleaners
working in the fields at the end of the day. The contrast with Breton's
Gleaner, painted twenty years earlier, is striking. Whereas Breton's figure
is heroic, in La Thangue's version the woman is care-worn. Her eyes are
downcast; her back is stooped from the day's work and from the weight she
is carrying.
— An Andalucian
(57x47cm) _ Attracted by the strong Mediterranean light, La Thangue visited
Provence and Liguria regularly in the 1890s and gained a new freedom in
the vigor of his brushwork and his vivid use of color. He abandoned all
references to storytelling in his work and here only the title of the work
gives any indication of the origins of his very beautiful subject.
— At
the Well (56x65cm) — A
Ligurian Gulf (106x96cm) — The
Aqueduct (74x67cm).
^
Born on 21 December 1815: Thomas
Couture, French Academic
history, portrait, and genre painter who died on 30 March 1879.
— Couture was an academic history and genre painter. He studied under
Baron Antoine-Jean
Gros [16 Mar 1771 – 26 Jun 1835] and Paul Delaroche. Won Prix
de Rome in 1837. Was very popular as a teacher. His students included Edouard
Manet [23 Jan 1832 – 30 Apr 1883], Jean-François
Millet [04 Oct 1814 – 20 Jan 1875], Puvis
de Chavannes [14 Dec 1824 – 24 Oct 1898], William
Morris Hunt [21 Mar 1824 – 08 Sep 1879], John
La Farge [1835-1910], Maria
Oakey Dewing [1845-1927], George
P.A. Healy [1813-1894], John
Whetten Ehninger [1827-1889] and Elizabeth
Lyman Boott Duveneck [1846-1888].
— Couture was a student of Gros
and Delaroche
[1797-1856]. He is chiefly remembered for his vast “orgy” picture
Les
Romains de la Décadence, which was the sensation of the
Salon of 1847. Like other “one-picture painters”, his reputation
has sunk with that of his big work, which now if often cited as the classic
example of the worst type of bombastic academic painting, impeccable in
every detail and totally false in overall effect. His more informal works,
however, are often much livelier in conception and technique, for as a teacher
he encouraged direct study from landscape.
— Couture followed the path of numerous talented artists born to modest,
provincial backgrounds in the nineteenth century. He was born in Senlis
in 1815, but his shoemaker father moved the family to Paris in 1826. At
the age of fourteen, Couture studied for one year (1829) at the École des
Arts et Métiers and then entered the studio of the academic history painter
Gros the following year and then the state-sponsored École des Beaux-Arts
(1831). Failing the prestigious Prix de Rome competition at the École six
times, Couture turned to the official exhibitions, the Salons, to make his
career.
He made his name in 1847 with the monumental
historical genre painting The Romans of the Decadence, which garnered
great acclaim.
Government commissions (The Enrollment
of the Volunteers of 1792, The Baptism of the Prince Imperial, and
religious mural paintings in the church of Saint-Eustache in Paris) followed
from the late 1840s through the 1850s, spanning the political changes from
the Second Republic to the Second Empire. But Couture never completed the
first two commissions, while the third met with mixed criticism.
Troubled by his own inability to finish projects
as well as the unfavorable reception of his murals, Couture moved away from
Paris in 1860, first to his hometown of Senlis, then to Villiers-le-Bel,
where he increasingly distanced himself from the art scene in Paris but
continued to teach and advise artists who came to him.
Shortly after his 1847 success, Couture opened
an independent atelier meant to challenge the École in producing the best
new history painters. He published a book on his ideas and working methods,
Méthode et entretiens d'atelier (1867), in which he encouraged
the use of the ébauche and gave specific "recipes" for certain tonal effects.
In making explicit his technique and process, Couture thumbed his nose at
the academic establishment, which, until 1863, did not actually teach painting
and sculpture in the École curriculum and had consistently mystified the
process of artistic education in order to maintain control over it.
Among Couture's students were Manet, Anselm
Feuerbach [12 Aug 1829 – 04 Jan 1880], and many men and women
from the US. For this reason, a number of small works, some of which served
as teaching exercises, found their way into US collections. These students,
in turn, directed fellow US collectors to Couture, who was able to sustain
his later career through such private patronage.
Couture died at Villiers-le-Bel. His fiery
temperament and periods of self-doubt and sluggishness were significant
factors in his rocky career. Perhaps he put it best, responding to an editor's
request for an autobiography in 1856: “Biography is the exaltation
of personality, and personality is the scourge of our time.”
— LINKS
— Self-Portrait
— Self-Portrait
(drawing)
— Head
of a Boy (lithograph 36x 26cm)
— Les
Romains de la Décadence _ detail 1
_ detail 2
_ detail 3
_ Conservative critics admired Couture for having revived the flagging genre
of history painting through a harmonious composition of numerous figures
in various natural poses set within a grandiose architectural setting; the
depicted nudity and wanton behavior were acceptable because they served
as indications of the physical and moral decline of ancient Rome. More progressive
commentators admired the textural, luminous quality achieved through Couture's
innovative technique, in which he retained aspects of the ébauche, or preliminary
phase of working up a final canvas, and exploited the ground color, letting
it flicker up through darker tones or pulling drier, brighter paint over
it.
— Pierrot
à la correctionnelle (1870, 32x39cm) _ This painting belongs to a series
illustrating the Pierrot and Harlequin story, a satirical tale of social
behavior. The clown Pierrot, dressed in white, sits accused of stealing
food from a restaurant. The chef and a cook sit at the left, witnesses for
the prosecution, with food and wine nearby as evidence. As judges doze,
the masked Harlequin speaks for the defense. Pierrot had great difficulty
controlling his appetite, a personality trait that Couture apparently shared.
The painter also despised lawyers and made several paintings mocking them.
— Pierrot
the Politician (aka Arlequin et Pierrot) (1857, 119x155cm) — The
Little Bather (1849, 117x90cm) — La soif de l’or
(1844, 154x188cm) — Horace
and Lydia (1843, 38x46cm)
— Bulles de Savon
(1858, 131x98cm) _ There is an 1859 version. Soap bubbles are traditional
symbols of ephemeral existence, and the wilting laurel wreath (which is
fresh in the 1859 version) underscores the fleeting character of reward
and fame.
— The
Thorny Path — Le
Joueur de Cornemuse (aka Pifferaro) (1877, 146x114cm)
— L'Avare
(1876, 81x65cm) — Le
Réaliste (1865, 47x38.cm) — The
Falconer (1855, 51x38cm)
— Retour
des Champs (1841, 66x54cm) — A
Judge Going to Court — Head
of an Epochal King
— Le
Baiser de Judas — Petite
Fille — La
Fille de l'Artiste (1878, 45x37cm)
— Portrait
of a Lady (55x46cm)
— The
Duel after the Masked Ball (1857, 49x64cm; half-size _ ZOOM
to full size)
— Head
of Bacchus (44x29cm) — Jeune
Romain (65x55cm)
— L'Engagement
des Volontaires de 1792 _ Un
des volontaires (51x41cm)
Died on a 21 December:
2002 Glen Seator, falling from the roof of his three-story
house. Born on 05 June 1956, he was a so-called “sculptor” who became
known for such works as his 1997 B.D.O., an office salvaged from the
remodeling of a building, tilted 30 degrees; or his 1999 remodeling of an art
gallery into a check-cashing store.
^
1924 Jean André Rixens, French painter,
specialized in Orientalism,
born on 30 November 1846. Son premier envoi au Salon date de 1868. Il fut l'élève
de Gérôme et de Yvon. Il s'est surtout illustré dans le portrait, les scènes
d'histoire, et de la vie quotidienne. — LINKS
— Mort
de Cléopâtre (1874, 200x290cm) — Déjeuner
du Salon, au Café La Cascade (1889, 72x102cm)
1917 Wilhelm Heinrich Trübner, German painter born on 03
February 1851. The son of a goldsmith and jeweler, he began an apprenticeship
as a goldsmith. The intervention of Anselm Feuerbach enabled him to overcome
his father’s resistance and train as a painter. In 1867 he began to study at
the Kunstschule in Karlsruhe, where his tutors included Karl Friedrich Schick
(1826–75). Trübner also met artists outside the school, such as Hans Canon,
who were very influential. Trübner moved to Munich in 1869 to study with Alexander
von Wagner (1838–1919) at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste, where he also met
Wilhelm Leibl. He continued his studies with Wilhelm von Diez (1839–1907) and
met Hans Thoma, with whom, for a while, he shared a studio and models. Trübner
acknowledged his debt to Feuerbach, Canon, Leibl and Thoma, whom he described
as his ‘leaders and guiding stars’, throughout his life. — Lovis
Corinth [21 Aug 1858 – 1925] was a student of Trübner.
1894 (22 Dec?) Ramón Martí y Alsina, Barcelona Catalan
painter born on 10 August 1826. When he was 14 he enrolled in the Escuela de
la Lonja, Barcelona, where he remained for 5 years. In 1848 he went to Paris,
where the paintings of Eugène Delacroix and especially of Gustave Courbet influenced
his work. Martí Alsina’s Siesta, with its realism that recalls Courbet,
has often been called one of the most beautiful paintings of 19th-century Spain.
Also significant are his paintings of the female nude, depicted without any
romantic idealization and showing the effect of the passage of time on his models.
His most important work, however, was as a landscape painter, and he has been
seen as the creator of realistic Catalan landscapes. His studies from life of
the countryside, woods and seascapes convey an optimistic view of nature. He
also excelled in urban scenes, such as View of Boulevard Clichy, which
clearly anticipates the Impressionist movement. — Joaquín Vayreda y Vila
was a student of Martí Alsina.
^
1879 William Jamps Shayer Sr., Southampton English
painter born in 1788. Although based in Southampton and catering predominantly
to a provincial market, he also exhibited in London. Between 1825 and 1870 he
showed over 330 works at the Royal Society of British Artists and 80 at the
British Institution. Shayer produced rural genre scenes in the manner of Francis
Wheatley, Julius Caesar Ibbetson and, predominantly, George Morland. His rustic
and coastal scenes changed little in manner and were always technically competent.
— A
Village Festival (1843, 90x109cm)
^
1871 Paul-Camille Guigou, French painter born
on 15 February 1834 into a family of landowners. He became a notary’s clerk
at Apt, Vaucluse, in 1851 and then in 1854 at Marseille. He learnt to paint
from Camp, a teacher at the school in Apt, and then at Marseille from Émile
Loubon [1809–1863], director of the local École des Beaux-Arts, who urged
him to paint directly from nature. Guigou settled in Marseille in 1854, where
he participated regularly in the annual Salon of the Société Artistique des
Bouches-du-Rhône. Guigou painted almost exclusively Provençal landscapes, which
were influenced by the works of the Barbizon painters, who exhibited in Marseille,
and by the brownish tones and picturesque figures of Loubon’s paintings. The
Road to Gineste (1859) and The Washerwoman (1860) reflect the
independent tradition of Provençal painting during the Second Empire, which
was characterized by warm coloring and precise lighting used to separate and
distinguish forms. His knowledge of the works of Gustave Courbet, acquired during
a visit to Paris in 1859, doubtless increased his liking for broad technique
and sincere vision, articulated in a strong and ordered construction of space:
for example, The Gorges of the Lubéron (1861) —
The Washerwoman (1860)
^
1838 Jan Christiaan Schotel, Dordrecht Dutch
painter and draftsman born on 11 November 1787. — {As a schoolboy, what
was the favorite activity of Schotel? “Show-and-tell”?} —
Originally a yarn manufacturer, from 1805 he received lessons in drawing and
painting from Adriaan Meulemans [1763–1835] and Martinus Schouman [1770–1848]
in Dordrecht. His first paintings were done in collaboration with Schouman (Bombarding
of Dordrecht by the French on 24 November 1813, 1815). His early work,
for example the highly detailed drawing of The Battle of Kijkduin in 1673,
shows great admiration for Ludolf Backhuysen and Willem van de Velde II. In
1822 he showed himself to be an accomplished and independent painter with The
Wreck of the ‘Delphine’, in which the emphasis is no longer on the ships
but on the stormy sea and massive clouds. By this time, Schotel was the most
important Dutch painter of sea and river views; he generally set his scenes
in the Netherlands, although a few deal with impressions from his trips to France
in 1827–1828 and 1837. His palette became warmer and richer under the influence
of his French contacts, a development that some Dutch critics regarded as improper;
he also won a prize at the 1827 Paris Salon with Gaff-rigged Ship Sailing
before the Wind in Tempestuous Weather. As is often the case with Schotel’s
works, an excellent preparatory study has been preserved. In this and other
drawings he shows a surprisingly free and confident style. From about 1830 he
produced many paintings for foreign collectors, including splendid works such
as Ships before the Coast (1830), and a large number of smaller pictures
such as Stormy Sea at Katwijk (1837). He was the father and teacher
of painter and lithographer Petrus Johannes Schotel [19 Aug 1808 – 23
Jul 1865] who, like him, specialized in sea and river views.
1693 Hendrik Mommers, Dutch artist born in 1623.
^
1579 Juan “de Juanes” Maçip (or Masip),
Valencian artist born in 1510, son of Vicente Maçip [1475-1550]. The
two were probably the most significant artists in Valencia in the 16th century
and beyond, at a time when the city was becoming a bridge for the entry of Renaissance
ideals into Spain. The work of Juanes is technically less precise than that
of his father in the delineation of form; he preferred sfumato effects in modeling,
very different from the sharper sculptural outlines of Vicente Maçip. In color,
Juanes preferred clear, luminous tones with which he achieved a characteristic
Mannerist iridescence. His landscapes, too, differ from those of his father,
becoming yet another decorative element. They often include classical ruins
such as the pyramid of Caius Sextus or Egyptian obelisks, all of which are treated
with the same delicacy and grace as his human forms. The large panel of the
Baptism (1535; Valencia Cathedral) has traditionally been attributed
to Juanes, probably because for some years his fame eclipsed that of his father.
In fact, it is a mature work by Vicente Maçip painted in collaboration with
his son, the vigorous style of the father combining with the sweeter, softer
approach of the son, who was then still deeply influenced by his father, although
his hand is not difficult to determine.
Born on a 21 December:
1904 Jean René Bazaine, French painter and writer who died in 1995. He
studied under the French sculptor Paul Maximilien Landowski [1875–] at
the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. At the same time he studied for a degree
in literature at the Sorbonne. In 1924 he made two trips to Italy and there
began to paint. He first exhibited in 1930 at a group show at the Galerie Jeanne
Castel in Paris where the other artists included Jean Fautrier, Jean Pougny
and Marcel Gromaire. Two years later he had his first one-man show at the Galerie
Van Leer in Paris where he met Bonnard, who advised and encouraged him. Also
in 1932 he began his work on the review Esprit and he later contributed art
criticism to Temps Présent and Poésie 43.
^
1893 Winifred Roberts Nicholson, British painter
who died on 05 March 1981. She was taught painting privately by her grandfather,
George James Howard, 9th Earl of Carlisle, a painter-friend of the Pre-Raphaelites,
and then at the Byam Shaw School of Art, London (1912–1914, 1918–19). She first
exhibited topographical watercolors at the Royal Academy, London, in 1914. In
1919 she visited India, Ceylon, and Burma with her father, Charles Roberts,
Under-Secretary of State for India, and acknowledged that this experience liberated
her painting style and her palette. In November 1920 she married, in London,
Ben Nicholson [10 Apr 1894 – 06 Feb 1982], son of William Nicholson [05
Feb 1872 – 16 May 1949]. Having bought the Villa Capriccio, near Castagnola,
Switzerland, in 1921, two years later she purchased Bankshead, a Cumbrian farmhouse
built on Hadrian’s Wall, near to her ancestral home of Naworth Castle. Bankshead
remained her base for the rest of her life. — LINKS
— Window-Sill,
Lugano (1923, 29x51cm; 286x512pix, 30kb) _ Winifred and Ben Nicholson spent
each winter between 1920 and 1924 in Lugano, Switzerland. There they made many
paintings, often outdoors in the snow, in a period of 'fast and furious experiment'.
In this work Winifred Nicholson painted a theme which would recur with frequency
throughout her life: flowers on a window-sill with a landscape beyond. The paint
has been applied with the fingers quickly and vigorously with an emphasis on
its physical, almost sculptural presence. Recession is suggested by alternating
bands of blue and white. By her own adoption of a brighter palette, Winifred
influenced Ben Nicholson to change to a lighter range of colors.
1840 Manuel Domínguez Sánchez, Spanish painter.
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1772François-Louis-Thomas Francia,
Calais French [well, what did you think?] painter and engraver who died on 06
February 1839.The son of the director of the Military Hospital in Calais, Francia
was intended for the legal profession; his talent as an artist was recognized
early, and he was permitted to attend the local drawing school where, at the
age of 16, he was awarded all of the prizes. He retained a passionate loyalty
to Calais and to its art school, vigorously protesting in 1835 against plans
to exclude students under ten years of age from the drawing class; such crusades
were characteristic of this energetic man. — LINKS
— Landscape
(19x26cm; ) house and grove of trees by a canal.
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1759 (21 Sep?) Pierre-François Delauney (or Delaunay),
French painter who died on 26 August 1789. His recorded oeuvre includes landscapes,
portraits and genre paintings, but examples of only the last two are known;
these include two self-portraits (1781 and 1789) and a small painting entitled
The Sulkers. His portraits are all half-length, unornamented and somewhat
shaky in their facial modeling. His most notable surviving genre painting, the
Offering to Saint Nicholas, exhibited in Paris in 1788 at the Exposition
de la Jeunesse (in the Place Dauphine), was engraved by Jean Mathieu [1749–1815].
It illustrates a local custom subscribed to by spinsters invoking Saint Nicholas’s
assistance in procuring dowries and so husbands. The engraving exists in a second
state, transformed some time after 1792 into an Offering to Liberty.
The painting was also altered to include a figure of Liberty in place of Saint
Nicholas: given Delauney’s death in 1789 (when he was a member of the National
Volunteers in Bayeux) and the development of revolutionary iconography, the
alterations were probably made during the early 1790s. This work exemplifies
a late, provincial but adept topographical form of fête champêtre
ultimately inspired by Watteau, which constitutes the most distinctive aspect
of Delauney’s oeuvre.
1744 Anne Vallayer Coster, French painter who died on 27 (28?) February
1818. She spent her childhood at the Gobelins, where her father was a goldsmith.
Though she thus belonged to artistic circles, when received (reçue) by the Académie
Royale in 1770, on presentation of the still-lifes Attributes of Painting
and Musical Instruments, she was known to have neither a teacher nor
an official patron.
1701 Guillaume-Thomas-Raphaël Taraval, French painter who
died in 1750 in Stockholm. He was a student of Claude Audran III. In 1732 he
went to Sweden to take part in the decoration of the new Royal Palace in Stockholm.
His painting, even such religious work as his ceiling for the palace chapel
(1740), has a light-hearted and celebratory Rococo air. He was the first principal
of the Swedish Royal Academy of Drawing, founded in 1735. — He was the
father and teacher of Hughes
Taraval [27 Feb 1729 – 19 Oct 1785] and of Louis-Gustave
Taraval [1739 or 1738 – 15 Oct 1794], who was the father of Jean-Gustave
Taraval [11 Nov 1765 – 16 Jul 1784].
1627 Jacob van der Ulft, Dutch artist who died on 18 November 1689.
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