| ART “4” “2”-DAY
28 February |
DEATH:
1923 FLAMENG |
BIRTH:
1867 DEGOUVE |
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Born on 28 February 1867: William
Degouve de Nuncques, French-born Belgian Symbolist
artist who died on 01 March 1935. — {Quid nunc circa Nuncques?} — Encouraged by his father, the eccentric descendant of an old French family, to daydream, Degouve shared a studio with Toorop, who influenced him. He was married to the sister-in-law of the Belgian poet Emile Verhaeren. In Paris he was encouraged by Rodin, Puvis de Chavannes, and Maurice Denis. His paintings have a highly private quality of invention and represent nuncquests into places of mystery, where unexpected adventures may suddenly occur. He remained true to the imaginative intensity of his youth and continued to produce works with Symbolist themes into the Twentieth century. — After the Franco-Prussian war (1870-1871), his parents settled in Belgium. Although self-taught, he was advised by Jan Toorop, with whom he shared a studio, and later lived with Henry de Groux. In 1894 he married Juliette Massin, a painter and Emile Verhaeren’s sister-in-law, who introduced him to the circle of Symbolist poets. His art, which bears the influence of poetry, transfigures reality in the sense that it affords a view of the invisible. Degouve de Nuncques belonged to the avant-garde group Les XX and later exhibited at the Libre Esthétique. He traveled widely and painted views of Italy, Austria and France, often of parks at night. He excelled in the use of pastel. Two works, in particular, demonstrate the magical quality of his work: Pink House (1892) and Peacocks (1896) From 1900 to 1902 Degouve de Nuncques lived with his wife in the Balearic Islands; he painted the rugged coastline and the orange groves. After suffering a religious crisis in about 1910, he painted pictures that revealed his tormented state of mind, and during World War I, while living as a refugee in the Netherlands, he produced only minor works. In 1919 he was overwhelmed by the death of his wife and lost the use of one hand. In 1930 he married the woman who had helped him through this crisis. They settled in Stavelot, where he devoted himself to painting snow-covered landscapes. — LINKS — Night in Bruges (1897, 24x35cm) — Snowscape (1920; 600x476pix, 124kb _ ZOOM to 1400x1110pix, 285kb) — The Pink House (1892, 63x43cm) _ This painting is also known as The Shuttered House or The House of Mystery. It is said to have inspired Magritte's paintings such as Empire of the Lights. — The Angels of Night (1894, 48x60cm) _ Also known as Angels in the Night. The works of Degouve de Nuncques are often a poetic evocation of childhood daydreams This is as true of The Pink House as of this nocturnal vision in which angels kiss in a ghostly, supernatural park. — Nocturnal Effect (1896, 47x68cm) _ The artist often depicts isolated houses in the night and the fog, with only a few weakly lit windows to suggest that they are inhabited. — The Black Swan (1896, 38x47cm) _ This pastel is characteristic of the artist's Symbolist period, when he often strove to create an atmosphere of mystery by eliminating any trace of a human presence from his delicately shaded blue and green twilight scenes — Child with Owl (1892, 41x35cm) — La sucrerie au crépuscule (1917) — The Leprous Forest (1898) — The canal (1894) — The Mysterious Forest (1900) — Courtyard in Venice (1895) — Lake Como (1897) — The Grotto of Manacor, Mallorca (1901) — Storm on the north coast (1900) |
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Died on 28 February 1923: François
Flameng, French painter and draftsman born on 06 December
1856. — He was the son and student of the engraver of Léopold Flameng [1831-1911] and was taught by Alexandre Cabanel, Edmond Hédouin, and Jean-Paul Laurens. He first exhibited at the Salon in 1873, working initially as a history and portrait painter. He produced several large historical compositions such as Conquerors of the Bastille (1881), painted in an academic style characteristic of the Third Republic. He also worked as a decorative painter, producing nine panels for the great staircase of the Sorbonne in Paris depicting the foundation of the university and the history of French literature, for example Saint Louis Delivering the Founding Charter to Robert de Sorbon (1887) and Moralists of the Court of Louis XIV: La Rochefoucauld and Molière. He decorated the ceiling over the staircase in the Opéra Comique in Paris with paintings that owe something to Degas, such as Tragedy and Dance (1897), but more to Boucher (Comedy Pursuing the Vices). He contributed to the design of the Salle des Fêtes at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1900 with three enormous compositions, Silk and Wool, the Decorative Arts and the Chemical Industries (all destroyed). Flameng also produced ceiling paintings for the buffet at the Gare de Lyon (in situ) in Paris as well as wall and ceiling paintings for numerous public and private buildings, including the Hôtel des Invalides in Pari, the Grolier Club in New York and the Charitonenko Palace in Moscow. In 1903 he collaborated with Léon Bonnat, P.-A.-J. Dagnan-Bouveret, Gustave Colin, Léon Glaize, Charles Lapostolet, Joseph Layraud and Tony Robert-Fleury on the decoration of the Salon des Arts in the Hôtel de Ville in Paris, contributing Music, a panel painted in a Symbolist style. — Engraving Portrait of Flameng. — François Flameng and Paul Helleu (1885, 53x43cm; 657x531pix, 116kb) by John Singer Sargent [1856-1925] _ By the time Sargent painted François Flameng with his friend Paul Helleu behind, he was an already accomplished French painter. François was known for his genre, scene, and portrait paintings, and later known also for his powerful illustrations of the Great War. His father Léopold was an engraver and so he became exposed to art at a very young age. François studied at the École des Beaux-Arts and at the atelier of Cabanel. His first submission to the Paris Salon was in 1875 (at the age of 19) with the painting Le Lutrin (with a singer). Shortly after he was drafted into the army which briefly postponed his career. This later served him well for his empathy of the soldier during WWI when he became an official war artist for France. In 1889 he won the Prix du Salon during the l'Exposition Universelle for his L'Appel des Girondins, depicting the last breakfast in prison of the Girondins before their call to execution. He later became a professor at the academy of Fine Arts. — LINKS — Le Peuple de Paris Vient à Versailles Chercher la Famille Royale pour la Ramener au Palais des Tuileries (665x461pix, 146kb _ ZOOM to 1400x971pix, 269kb) — Mme D... (1911, 160x96cm) — Family Portrait of a Boy and his two Sisters admiring a Sketch Book (1900, 65x54cm) — An Evening's Entertainment For Josephine (94x130cm) — Ile Pointeaux (73x92cm) — Le Carnaval à Venise (78x108cm) — Molière Demandant une Audience avec le Roi Louis XIV à Versailles (96x65cm) — Napoléon Après la Bataille de Waterloo (44x61cm) |
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2002 Discovered Rubens's The Massacre of the Innocents
to go at auction. Sotheby's auction house announces that it has identified a previously unknown painting by Peter Paul Rubens, one of the greatest Old Masters to be offered at auction in decades. A private owner brought the painting, previously thought to be by Rubens follower Jan van den Hoecke, to the company's attention, and Sotheby's experts determined it was a Rubens. The painting, The Massacre of the Innocents (1611), is expected to sell for anywhere from $5.7 million to $8.5 million when it is auctioned on 11 July 2002. It shows a gruesome, action-filled scene in which soldiers begin to slaughter a group of women and children. Babies' bodies litter the ground, one soldier holds an old woman by the throat as he prepares to run a sword through her torso and blood runs beneath the figures' feet. The painting had been bought by the royal family of Liechtenstein, in about 1700, identified as an early Rubens. But was later misidentified by their curators. |
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