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| DEATH:
1491 SCHÖNGAUER |
BIRTH:
1616 BOURDON |
| ^
Died on 02 February 1491: Martin
Schöngauer (or Schön), German painter born in
1423, 1430, or 1450 (!!!) — His students included Matthias
Grünewald and Hans
Burgkmair. — German painter and engraver, best known for his 115 monogrammed copper engravings. He was born in Colmar, Alsace (now in France), where he spent most of his life. Most of his works are not authenticated or precisely datable. His late Gothic paintings show the strong influence of Flemish painters, especially Rogier van der Weyden. Although he painted prolifically, only a few of Schongauer's canvases have survived. Of these his masterpiece is Madonna of the Rose Arbor, also known as Virgin and Child in a Rose Garden, a monumental sensitive altarpiece, executed in 1473 for the Church of Saint Martin in Colmar. Schongauer's monogrammed copper engravings show a special richness and maturity because of his knowledge of painting. He was the first and foremost engraver of his time in northern Europe and his ornamental designs greatly influenced the development of German art, particularly the work of the later German master Albrecht Dürer. Schongauer's engravings, all of religious subjects, exhibit fine detail, economy of composition, and a greater range of light-and-shadow contrasts and textures than earlier printmakers had used. Among his best-known engravings are Death of the Virgin, one of his large, early works, and Passion of Christ, a set of 12 engravings executed later in life (circa 1477) when he had turned to work on smaller plates. — LINKS — The Large 'Road to Calvary' (1480) — The Holy Family (26x17cm) _ Schongauer was the leading master of the South German late Gothic who became artist under the influence of Rogier van der Weyden. He produced a large number of engravings and drawings and through them he exerted great influence on the young Dürer. The Holy Family shows an independent artist in spite of the Flemish character of the painting. — a different The Holy Family (26x17cm) _ Schongauer painted several small paintings representing the Holy Family, the Madonna or the Nativity; these paintings were sent to various countries (to Spain, England, Italy, France). This Holy Family belongs to this group of paintings. |
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Born on 02 February 1616: Sébastien
Bourdon, French painter who died on 08 May 1671. — In 1634-7 Bourdon worked in Rome, where he developed a talent for imitating the work of other painters — Claude, Dughet, van Laer — sometimes probably with intent to deceive. He continued in this vein when he returned to France and his oeuvre is still ill-defined. From 1652 to 1654 he was court painter to Queen Christina of Sweden, of whom he did two portraits, and after his return to France he worked mainly as a portraitist, developing a more personal style in which soft tonalities and skilful play with cascading draperies create a languorous, romantic effect — LINKS — Landscape with Shepherd Leading His Flock (1650) — Bacchus and Ceres with Nymphs and Satyrs (1654, 51x77cm) _ Bourdon, a talented imitator of other painters, took several details from Titian's Bacchanal — The Beggars (1639, 49x65cm) _ Bourdon was the one French painter who came under the influence of Poussin in Rome but who also retained his individuality. He is one of the few French painters of the 17th century who was equally adept at portrait, landscape, mythological and genre painting.. This versatility, noticed by his contemporaries, has meant that only in recent years have a number of his pictures been identified. His mythological pictures are confused with those of other Poussin followers, his landscapes with those of Dughet, and his genre pictures with those of the Netherlandish Bamboccianti. — Queen Christina of Sweden (72x58cm) _ Bourdon went to Sweden in 1652, where he entered the service of that redoubtable monarch Queen Christina, who eventually gave up politics for art. During his years in Sweden, Bourdon mostly executed portraits, characterized by their elegance and subtlety. They are usually bust-length with the face slightly turned, a type of portrait that was to be extremely influential on the next generation of painters, especially Le Brun and Mignard, and a whole host of more minor portraitists. In this portrait the informality of the treatment of the sitter is striking. — Queen Christina of Sweden on Horseback (1653, 383x291cm) _ The painting was presented by Queen Christina of Sweden to Philip IV of Spain. — Portrait of a Man (105x65cm) _ In Rome the young Bourdon was exposed to some of the greatest portraits of the Renaissance in the collections there, as well as to the constant experiments of artists as diverse as Bernini, Lanfranco and Domenichino, who all painted portraits. from all these influences Bourdon compounded his own style, which inevitably became a formula, but a successful one. He often painted his sitters three-quarters on, in a soft and even light, and preferred waist-length portraits and a feeling of relative informality. With his curious mixture of Italian influences, Bourdon set the style for middle-class French portraiture for almost the rest of the century. One of the best examples is his Portrait of a Man at Montpellier, which is a "tour de force" of subtle modelling and lighting. Indeed, almost all the surviving middle-class portraits of the time in France, that are not by Philippe de Champaigne and his followers, copy this type. The sitter of this portrait is unknown. — The Finding of Moses (1650, 120x173cm) _ In representing this Biblical tale of compassion for the helpless, the artist, concerned with providing a historically accurate setting, has included palm trees and ancient temples in the background landscape. Trained primarily in Rome, Bourdon spent most of his successful career in Paris and Stockholm, where he was court painter to the Queen of Sweden. An eclectic, he worked in a variety of contemporary styles and here the artist has adapted and elaborated a composition by Poussin. The translucent color is, however, unique to Bourdon and presages the lighter hues of the early 18th century. — A Scene from Roman History (1645, 145x197cm) _ It is assumed that the scene depicts Antony and Cleopatra. — The Selling of Joseph into Slavery (1637) |
| THE PRESENTATION of the infant Jesus at the Temple painted by Bellini (1464, 80x105cm) , by Mantegna (1460, 67x86cm). In 1453 or 1454 Andrea Mantegna [1431-1506] married Nicolosia Bellini and in so doing allies himself professionally with her brother, Giovanni Bellini [1426-1516] , to whom he imparts ideas derived from Donatelli. The two paintings of The Agony in the Garden by Mantegna and Bellini respectively reveal the artistic interdependence of the two brothers-in-law: the technical innovations and organization of the Paduan painter and the pre-eminence of the Venetian in the field of light and color. This is confirmed by a comparison between the two Presentations at the Temple, painted by Bellini and Mantegna. The two paintings have an identical structure and the same characters: in the foreground, leaning against a marble ledge, the Virgin is holding the swaddled Child while the old priest stretches out to take it. At sides and in the center are several characters identified as Jacopo Bellini (the old man in the middle) and as Nicolosia and Andrea Mantegna, possibly recently married (the young couple standing at the sides facing left). In the painting by Bellini there are two more figures, identified by critics as the mother Anna and Giovanni [at the extreme right, looking at the viewer; beside him is Mantegna: detail who is alone in the Mantegna painting: detail] himself. The invention was probably Mantegna's, as can be assumed from the inflexibly austere framing of the scene, the Child of Donatellian inspiration which placed on the ledge becomes a unit of measure for the scene's spatial depth, and even the physical features of the priest, resembling Squarcione's prototypes which had been familiar to Mantegna. Mantegna's Presentation is enclosed ineluctably within a rectangular frame, a fatal screen separating the group from the spectator; the figures are absorbed in an incisiveness that renders them detached and eternal in an absolute vision. In contrast with its architectural solidity and marmoreal rigor, Bellini's scene has a quite different rhythm, with modifications that are apparently insignificant but in reality substantial: the addition of two characters gives the group more life, splits it up and reassembles it into a small human crowd. The elimination of the frame, or rather its reduction to a pale, marbled shelf, somewhat akin to a church altar-top, suddenly removes every barrier and draws one toward the scene with a sense of intimacy. To the solid as rock colours of Mantegna, who blends flesh-tones, stones and drapery, he responds with a pure and orchestrated play of whites and reds in clear alternation. It would be illuminating perhaps to discover the reasons that led to these two painting, which do not appear to be a matter of chance, but almost certainly linked to family events, which with this important family portrait were solemnized. — Charles de la Fosse: La Presentation au Temple (1682) — Giotto di Bondone: Presentation at the Temple (1306, 200x185cm) _ detail of an angel — Bartolomeo di Giovanni: Presentation at the Temple (1488) — Fra Angelico: Presentation in the Temple (1430, 158x136cm) |
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