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ART “4” “2”-DAY  08 MAY
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BURIAL: 1693 VERKOLYEDEATHS: — 1671 BOURDON — 1903 GAUGUIN — 1785 LONGHI — 1978 “GRANT”
BIRTHS: 1639 GAULLI 1503 TOSINI
^ Buried on 08 May 1693: Jan Verkolje I (or Verkolye), Dutch painter born on 09 February 1650.
— Son of a locksmith, he specialized in genre scenes set in richly furnished interiors, although he also painted mythological scenes and portraits. Among his followers were his two sons, Nicolaas Verkolje [11 Apr 1673 – 21 Jan 1746] and Jan Verkolje II [–1760].
— Jan Verkolye I spent six months as the pupil of Jan Andrea Lievens [1644–1680], where he completed unfinished mythological and genre pictures by Gerrit Pieterszoon van Zijl [1619–1665]. Verkolje married in Delft in 1672 and in the following year joined the city’s Guild of Saint Luke, serving as its dean between 1678 and 1688. Verkolje’s genre scenes, for example the Musical Company (1673; Amsterdam, Rijksmus.), The Messenger (1674; The Hague, Mauritshuis) and the Elegant Couple (c. 1674; England, priv. col., see 1984 exh. cat., p. 335), were influenced by Gabriel Metsu, Gerard ter Borch (ii) and Caspar Netscher. Verkolje’s portraits commanded high prices and were greatly valued for their outstanding finish, a style more polished than that of his predecessors. His work as a mezzotint engraver was equally appreciated and sought after. On the basis of a few mezzotints made between 1680 and 1684 after the work of English artists, it is generally supposed that Verkolje lived in London at that time, although this is unproven. As a draftsman, he made precise, small cabinet pieces usually employing pen and ink with brown wash or watercolor heightened with white chalk. Houbraken mentioned Albertus van der Burgh (b 1672), Joan van der Spriet (fl c. 1700) and Willem Verschuuring (1657–1715), among others, as Verkolje’s pupils.
The Music Party _ Dutch painters achieved stunning naturalistic effects in pictures of various social situations, including musical companies. These artists shared an interest in using perspective to accurately describe architecture, as well as in painting refined lighting effects. Jan Verkolje was an artist who carefully examined the physical world and created pictures based on everyday life. The work of Verkolje and his peers, Johannes Vermeer and Pieter de Hooch among them, appealed to the increasingly wealthy Protestant middle class in the Netherlands, who preferred scenes that reflected their own tastes and interests, instead of paintings with religious or mythological subject matter. Here, the prosperity of Dutch society is evident in the depiction of a well-to-do young people enjoying their leisure time with music, reading, and an apparently playful conversation. A young servant carrying fruit enters the scene in the background; such servants, originally from the colonies the Dutch had established, were brought to the Netherlands and made a part of the household and raised as Protestants. The young servant, dressed as a courtier, is another symbol of middle-class affluence in seventeenth-century Dutch life.
Johan de la Faille (1674, 41x30cm) — Margaretha Delff, Wife of Johan de la Faille (1674, 41x30cm) — The Messenger (1674, 59x54cm)
^ Died on 08 May 1671: Sébastien Bourdon, French painter born on 02 February 1616.
— 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)
^ Born on 08 May 1639: Giovanni-Battista Gaulli “Il Baciccio”, Italian artist who died on 02 April 1709.
— Italian painter, born in Genoa (Giovanni Battista Gaulli) and active mainly in Rome, where he settled in 1657 and became a protégé of Bernini. He achieved success as a painter of altarpieces and portraits (he painted each of the seven popes from Alexander VII to Clement XI), but is remembered mainly for his decorative work and above all for his Adoration of the Name of Jesus (1679) on the ceiling of the nave of the Gesu. This is one of the supreme masterpieces of illusionistic decoration, ranking alongside Pozzo's slightly later ceiling in S. Ignazio. The stucco figures that are so brilliantly combined with the painted decoration (from the ground it is not always possible to tell which is which) are the work of Bernini's pupil Antonio Raggi (1624-1686).
— It is believed that Gaulli, known as Baciccio (the Genoese nickname for Giovanni Battista), left his native Genoa after his entire family perished, presumably in the plague of 1657. At that time he moved permanently to Rome. During the decade of the 1660s Baciccio established himself as one of the leading artists working in the Eternal City, most particularly as the result of the favor of the illustrious sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Baciccio became a member of the Academy of Saint Luke in 1662 and held several offices in that body. Through Bernini's recommendation Baciccio was chosen over such competitors as Carlo Maratta, Giacento Brandi, and Ciro Ferri to execute the decorative cycle for the interior of the church of 11 Gesu, the recently completed mother church of the Jesuit order. Begun in 1676, the nave vault fresco, The T'iumph of the Name of Jesus, was unveiled on New Year's Eve of 1679. In this work, universally considered the culmination of baroque illusionistic ceiling painting, Baciccio masterfully orchestrated painting and sculptural details within the architectural context. He created a tumultuous scene of figures who seem to hover over or tumble into the viewer's space. Baciccio continued to work in 11 Gesu until 1685, frescoing nave, dome, pendentives, apse, and transept vaults. The total ensemble is one of the glories of the Counter-Reformation. Stylistically Baciccio's works reveal the lasting influence of his Genoese heritage. This early exposure to fellow Genoese artists, including Valerio Castello and Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, is evident in the vibrant coloring, activated drapery, and fluid figural lines. In addition Baciccio employed the energetic brushstroke introduced to Genoa in the 1620s by the Flemish artist Anthony van Dyck. In his later works Baciccio set aside the flamboyant rhythms and colors of the high baroque, conceding to the ascendancy of late baroque classicism.
LINKS
The Adoration of the Lamb (1680)
Pietà (Mary Lamenting the Dead Christ) (1667, 183x116cm) _ The canvas is identifiable as the "Dead Christ in the arms of the weeping Virgin with two little angels", for which the painter received payment on 25 May 1667. The painting was carried out for Cardinal Flavio Chigi, along with another canvas of the Assumption of the Virgin. It is a fundamental work for the career of Gaulli, and looks back to the famous Pietà of Annibale Carracci. Gaulli, however, translates the carracciesque language to achieve one of the highest examples of "baroque classicism". His synthesis also shows the influence of Van Dyck's art.
Apotheosis of the Franciscan Order (1707) _ Pietro da Cortona's illusionistic effects were taken to extremes by the religious decorators of the second half of the 17th century. Baciccio and Andrea Pozzo were the most successful among them. Bacciccio's masterpiece was the painted ceiling in the Church of Il Gesù in Rome.
Apotheosis of St Ignatius (1685, 48x64cm) _ This small oil painting showing the Apotheosis of St Ignatius, the founder of the Jesuit order, is a bozzetto - a preparatory sketch for the fresco Baciccio executed for the vaulting of the left transept of the order's principal church of Il Gesù in Rome. The bozzetto differs from the fresco only in a few of the angel figures and in the use of stronger colors. Although the apotheosis of the saint has a firm place in the overall ecclesiastical programme of the church, from which it cannot be dissociated, this oil study is nevertheless an independent painting, executed with greater care than one might expect of a sketch. The saint is carried heavenwards by a group of music-making, flower-strewing angels that are inebriated with joy. His arms spread wide, he soars towards a golden stream of light that is breaking through from the depths of the heavens. Baciccio does not treat this supernatural triumphal procession as a transcendental vision, but as a real occurrence. The body of the saint and the angels are not transcended by light, but are sculpturally tangible, and in its earthly corporeality, the painting mediates between the world of the spectator and the light whose source remains invisible to us, but which is perceptible in the figure of the saint.
Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1665, 72x61cm) _ This painting has been connected to a drawing at Windsor dated 1665, evidence which led to date the painting to that year. The preparatory design for the portrait is a drawing at the Palazzo Bianco in Genoa: a drawing derived from it is conserved at Weimar. First considered a self-portrait of Bernini, the painting was only later given to Baciccio. Gaulli carried out several other portraits of Bernini, his teacher and friend. One example, coming from the Altieri collection, dates to around 1673. Another version, once belonging to Queen Christina of Sweden, was in the Geymuller collection. The first Gaulli portrait of Bernini was executed some time before Christmas, 1669, as it is mentioned in a dated letter from Rangoni to the Duke of Modena.
Cardinal Leopoldo de' Medici (1667)
click for full self-portrait^ Died on 08 May 1903: Eugène-Henri-Paul Gauguin, French Post-Impressionist painter.
— Gauguin dies in Atuona, Hiva Oa, Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia. Born on 07 June 1848 in Paris, Gauguin was one of the leading French painters of the Postimpressionist period, whose development of a conceptual method of representation was an important development in the history of 20th-century art. After spending a short time with Vincent van Gogh in Arles (1888), he increasingly abandoned imitative art for expressiveness through color. From 1891 on, he lived and worked in Tahiti and elsewhere in the South Pacific. Father was journalist from Orléans. Mother was half French, half Peruvian Creole. After Napoleon III's coup d'état, the Gauguins moved to Lima (1851). Four years later Paul and his mother returned to Orléans. At 17 he went to sea for six years, sailing all over the world. In 1871 he joined the stockbroking firm of Bertin in Paris and in 1873 married a young Danish woman, Mette Sophie Gad. He first started painting with a fellow stockbroker, Émile Schuffenecker.
      Gauguin started going to a studio to draw from models and receive art lessons. In 1876 his Landscape at Viroflay was accepted into the Salon. He acquired a taste for Impressionism and between the years 1876 and 1881 he assembled an impressive collection of paintings by Édouard Manet, Paul Cézanne, Camille Pissarro, Claude Monet, and Johan Barthold Jongkind. Gauguin first met Pissarro in 1875-76 and started working with him, in an attempt to master the techniques of drawing and painting. In 1880 he was invited to enter the fifth Impressionist exhibition, and this invitation was repeated in the years 1881 and 1882. Gauguin spent his holidays painting with Pissarro and Cézanne and made visible progress. Thus he was more and more absorbed by painting. In 1883 the Paris stock exchange crashed and Gauguin lost his job, so he decided “to paint every day.” This decision altered the course of his life. He had a wife and four children, no income and no patrons. In 1884 Gauguin moved his family to Copenhagen, where his wife's parents proved unsympathetic.
     On 01 April 1891 Paul Gauguin left Marseille for Tahiti.
— Gauguin was born on in Paris and lived in Lima, Peru, from 1851 to 1855. He served in the merchant marine from 1865 to 1871 and traveled in the tropics. Gauguin later worked as a stockbroker’s clerk in Paris but painted in his free time. He began working with Camille Pissarro in 1874 and showed in every Impressionist exhibition between 1879 and 1886. By 1884 Gauguin had moved with his family to Copenhagen, where he unsuccessfully pursued a business career. He returned to Paris in 1885 to paint full-time, leaving his family in Denmark.
      In 1885 Gauguin met Edgar Degas; the next year he met Charles Laval and Emile Bernard in Pont-Aven and Vincent van Gogh in Paris. With Laval he traveled to Panama and Martinique in 1887 in search of more exotic subject matter. Increasingly, Gauguin turned to primitive cultures for inspiration. In Brittany again in 1888 he met Paul Sérusier and renewed his acquaintance with Bernard. As self-designated Synthetists, they were welcomed in Paris by the Symbolist literary and artistic circle. Gauguin organized a group exhibition of their work at the Café Volpini, Paris, in 1889, in conjunction with the World’s Fair.
      In 1891 Gauguin auctioned his paintings to raise money for a voyage to Tahiti, which he undertook that same year. Two years later illness forced him to return to Paris, where, with the critic Charles Morice, he began Noa Noa, a book about Tahiti. Gauguin was able to return to Tahiti in 1895. He unsuccessfully attempted suicide in January 1898, not long after completing his mural-sized painting Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? In 1899 he championed the cause of French settlers in Tahiti in a political journal, Les Guêpes, and founded his own periodical, Le Sourire. Gauguin’s other writings include Cahier pour Aline (1892), L’Esprit moderne et le catholicisme (1897 and 1902) and Avant et après (1902), all of which are autobiographical. In 1901 the artist moved to the Marquesas, where he died. A major retrospective of his work was held at the Salon d’Automne in Paris in 1906.
— Gauguin spent the first seven years of his life with his mother and great uncle in Peru. In 1855 his mother took him back to France where he attended boarding school. He joined the merchant marine when he was seventeen and began traveling around South America. When Gauguin's mother died in 1868, Gustave Arosa, an art collector and photographer, became his legal guardian. Arosa's collection included works by Corot, Courbet, Delacroix, and the Barbizon painters, and it was he who would encourage Gauguin to start painting. In 1872 Arosa found a job for Gauguin at a brokerage firm, giving him financial security. The following year he married a Danish woman, Mette Gad. Gauguin had already started painting and sculpting in his spare time and first exhibited at the Salon in 1876 with a landscape.1 He was asked by Pissarro and Degas to participate in the fourth impressionist exhibition in 1879, where from then on he would exhibit regularly. Durand-Ruel began purchasing his paintings, and in turn Gauguin started to collect the works of his colleagues, such as Manet and Renoir and, in particular, Cézanne and Pissarro. He went to Pontoise in 1882, where he painted with Cézanne and Pissarro, who along with Degas continued to influence him at this period. In 1883 Gauguin decided to become a full-time artist. In 1884 he moved with his wife and children to Rouen and then to Copenhagen, but he failed to earn a comfortable living. He returned to Paris in 1886 and met ceramicist Ernest Chaplet (1835-1909), who introduced him to his métier. Gauguin distanced himself from impressionism and in 1888 worked in Pont-Aven with Émile Bernard (1868-1941), who had been experimenting with creating compositions using flat areas of color and dark outlines (cloissonism). Gauguin also studied Japanese prints and Indonesian art. The impact of these influences is evident in Gauguin's Vision after the Sermon: Jacob Wrestling with the Angel (1888, National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh), so far removed from his earlier impressionist style. Succumbing to van Gogh's many requests, Gauguin agreed to travel to Arles and paint with the artist; their characters, however, proved incompatible. Theo van Gogh, who worked for Boussod Valadon & Cie, would in the meantime sell Gauguin's work. For the next two years, Gauguin traveled often around Brittany. In search of a more pure and unspoiled culture, he auctioned off his paintings in 1891 in order to finance a journey to Tahiti. Upon his arrival, he was disappointed to find many expatriates and developed areas, yet he was still able to capture in his works an uncultivated spirit. He not only made paintings but also created bold woodcuts and sculptures and was an avid writer. Gauguin returned to France in 1893, where he was given a solo exhibition by Durand-Ruel that was not particularly successful. He decided to leave Europe again in 1895, moving to Tahiti and later to Hivaoa, a more remote island in the Marquesas. Because he abandoned naturalistic colors and used formal distortions in order to achieve expressive compositions, Gauguin's work became an inspiration for many subsequent artists.
— Gauguin vas a leading painter of the Postimpressionist period. His development of a conceptual method of representation was an important development in the history of 20th-century art. After spending a short time with Vincent van Gogh in Arles (1888), he increasingly abandoned imitative art for expressiveness through color. From 1891 on, he lived and worked in Tahiti and elsewhere in the South Pacific. Father was journalist from Orléans. Mother was half French, half Peruvian Creole. After Napoléon III's coup d'État, the Gauguins moved to Lima (1851). Four years later Paul and his mother returned to Orléans. At 17 he went to sea for six years, sailing all over the world. In 1871 he joined the stockbroking firm of Bertin in Paris and in 1873 married a young Danish woman, Mette Sophie Gad. He first started painting with a fellow stockbroker, Émile Schuffenecker. Gauguin started going to a studio to draw from models and receive art lessons. In 1876 his Landscape at Viroflay was accepted into the Salon. He acquired a taste for Impressionism and between the years 1876 and 1881 he assembled an impressive collection of paintings by Édouard Manet, Paul Cézanne, Camille Pissarro, Claude Monet, and Johan Barthold Jongkind. Gauguin first met Pissarro in 1875-76 and started working with him, in an attempt to master the techniques of drawing and painting. In 1880 he was invited to enter the fifth Impressionist exhibition, and this invitation was repeated in the years 1881 and 1882. Gauguin spent his holidays painting with Pissarro and Cézanne and made visible progress. Thus he was more and more absorbed by painting. In 1883 the Paris stock exchange crashed and Gauguin lost his job, so he decided "to paint every day." This decision altered the course of his life. He had a wife and four children, no income and no patrons. In 1884 Gauguin moved his family to Copenhagen, where his wife's parents proved unsympathetic.
LINKS
— Self~Portrait with Idol — Self~Portrait with Halo
 (1889) — Self~Portrait with Palette (1894) — Self~Portrait with Hat (1894) — Self~Portrait 1898 — Self~Portrait with Yellow Christ — The Yellow Christ (1889, 92x73cm)
— D'où venons~nous? Que sommes~nous? Où allons~nous? (1897)
In the Vanilla Grove, Man and Horse Le rendez-vous (1891, 73x92cm)

click for — Tahitian Woman and Boy 
(1899)
— Tahitiennes Sur la Plage
(1891)

— Déjeûner de Bananes
(1891)
— Femme au Fruit
— Fête des Dieux

— No te aha oe riri?
 (1896)
—<<< Manaò tupapaú 
(1892)
— Riders on the Beach

— Le Cheval Blanc
click for IA ORANA MARIA
— Ia Orana Maria
(1891, 114x88cm) _ At left, behind a bush, a white-winged angel indicates to two Tahitian women, who are joining their hands in prayer, the Virgin with the Child on her shoulder in the right foreground. In the left foreground there is a still-life of bananas, plantains, and mangos, with a sign reading IA ORANA MARIA (“Hail Mary”). This painting is one of several, including some in Gauguin's Breton period, which show his interest in mystical visions, It is his way of transcending appearances and of discovering a spiritual dimension in everyday life. Another Ia Orana Maria (1894) looks like a preliminary sketch, but it may be the abandoned beginning of a mirror-image version of this painting.

L'univers est créé (25x35cm) — L'univers est créé (20x36cm)
Jeanne d'Arc (1889)
— Breton Girl (79x36cm)
William Molard (reverse of Self Portrait with Hat) (1894)
Self Portrait with Spectacles (1903)
Riders on the Beach (preliminary) (1902)
Nevermore, Oh Tahiti (1897)
Haere mai venezi (1891, 70x91cm) _ Prior to his first voyage to Tahiti in 1891, Paul Gauguin claimed that he was fleeing France in order “to immerse myself in virgin nature, see no one but savages, live their life, with no other thoughts in mind but to render the way a child would . . . and to do this with nothing but the primitive means of art, the only means that are good and true.” Gauguin’s desire to reject Western culture and merge with a naive society for the sake of aesthetic and spiritual inspiration reflects the complex and problematic nature of European “primitivism.” A concept that emerged at the end of the 19th century, “primitivism” was motivated by the romantic desire to discover an unsullied paradise hidden within the “uncivilized” world, as well as by a fascination with what was perceived as the raw, unmediated sensuality of cultural artifacts. This voyeuristic engagement with underdeveloped societies by artists, writers, and philosophers corresponded to French imperialistic practices—Tahiti, for example, was annexed as a colony in 1881.
      The artist’s idyllic Tahitian landscapes In the Vanilla Grove, Man and Horse and Haere Mai reveal the contradictions between myth and reality that are inherent to “primitivism.” Both canvases probably depict the area surrounding Mataiea, the small village in which Gauguin settled during the fall of 1891. As richly hued tapestries of flattened forms, they are, however, only evocations of the lush Tahitian terrain, reflecting the simplicity of form sought by the artist during his first visit to the island. Gauguin derived the pose of the man and horse in In the Vanilla Grove not from a scene he found in Tahiti but from a frieze on the quintessential monument of Western culture, the Parthenon. Gauguin painted the phrase “Haere Mai,” which means “Come here!” in Tahitian, onto the other canvas in the lower-right corner, but it does not appear to coincide with the content of the painting. The artist, who spoke little of the native language at that time, often combined disparate Tahitian phrases with images in an effort to evoke the foreign and the mystical. Evidently, this practice was designed to make the paintings more enticing to the Parisian public, who craved intimations of the distant and the exotic.
Dans les vagues Ondine I (April 1889, 92x72cm) _ Head and shoulders detail (Ondine II) _ Gauguin painted this at Pont-Aven, a small village in northwest France. He left Paris for this remote, rugged area along the Atlantic coast in hopes of finding a more primitive, natural life. The painting shows a nude woman, one hand raised to her mouth, throwing herself into the sea. This mysterious image has been interpreted as symbolic of the soul abandoning itself to nature. Intensifying the painting's emotional impact, the simplified lines and colors, especially the contrasting green and orange, seem invented rather than observed from life. In 1889 this painting appeared in an exhibition at the Café Volpini in Paris, considered to be the first exhibition of the Symbolists—a group of artists whose works explored dreams, fantasy, and the realm of the imagination.
Nafeaffaa Ipolpo (When Will You Marry?) (1892)
329 images at Webshots26 prints at FAMSF
^ Died on 08 May 1785: Pietro Falca I “Longhi”, Italian painter born in 1702, father of Alessandro “Longhi”.
LINKS
A Theatrical PerformanceThe Mandolin Recital (1760) — The Music Lesson (The Bird Cage) (1745, 56x43cm) — Bal Masqué (84x99cm)
The Concert (1741, 60x48cm) _ After several unfortunate attempts at historical paintings Pietro Falca, known as Pietro Longhi, turned, on his return from a stay in Bologna where he had particularly admired the popular art of Giuseppe Maria Crespi, to the depicting of Venetian society at the moment of its decline offering a witty view, with just a hint of irony, in which not even the smallest detail that can lend color is neglected. Though the paintings look similar, they in fact offer an extremely wide range of subtly described and individualized personalities and moods of the characters engaged in often frivolous pursuits under the gaze, alternately ironic and ambiguous, of servants who rarely betray any sympathy or liking for their masters and mistresses. In the minute detail of his sharp reporting Pietro Longhi sees his age with a spirit of good-humoured optimism untinged by social and moral judgements. His art shows a close affinity with the work of Carlo Goldoni, a connection that was several times acknowledged by the great playwright himself.
The Venetian Lady's Morning (1741, 60x49cm) _ Much more comprehensible to his contemporaries, and truly typical of the century's interests, was Giuseppe Maria Crespi's Venetian pupil, Pietro Longhi. Without Lancret's charm and Hogarth's satiric bite, Longhi was closer a tattling journalist, observing life in Venice with mild, rather respectful, humour. Local patricians commissioned his little pictures which hold up to nature no more than a small hand-mirror, none too steadily, in which the more amiable surfaces of life are prettily reflected back. So many pages from an almanach, Longhi's pictures dutifully report the daily round of visits and coffee-drinking in patrician circles, and sewing and serving food in humbler milieux, and move out of doors to record carnival novelties.
Painter in his Studio (1744) _ We are given a shadowy self-portrait of the artist's profile against the light. At the same time mute dialogue between the lady who is sitting for him and the artist himself seems to be deliberately interrupted by the presence of the man who appears to be rather worried about the painter's work.
The Ridotto (1745) _ In Longhi's pictures manners are painted with a decorousness that becomes insipid; in most of the pictures nothing is happening and the figures are sometimes barely composed into any coherent relationship. Longhi's justification is not really by any artistic standard but through a new claim: that what he depicts is true. His pictures were not collected internationally as souvenirs of Venice, but must have hung on the walls of actual rooms similar to those he depicts: reassuring in their reflection and yet something of a revolution,at least in that city, by their simple realism.
The Tailor (1741) _ Once again, Longhi proves his perfect taste in the way he blends the color harmonies. The painting centers around the contrast between the professionally smooth gestures of the tailor who is showing off the costly fabric and the lady who almost seems bewildered.
The Tooth Puller (1746, 50x62cm) _ This, one of Longhi's most popular paintings, is set in front of the portico to the Doge's Palace. The inscriptions on the columns mention Pietro Grimani as the incumbent Doge and the election of Antonio Poli as parish priest of S. Margherita (which took place in 1746). The tooth puller is proudly showing off the tooth he has just pulled for the boy holding a handkerchief to his mouth. The people passing by are wearing the traditional Venetian domino: hooded cloak and mask. The children are feeding bread to a monkey. Even the dwarf plays her part by making the “sign of the evil eye,” raising two fingers to ward off ill luck.
The Rhinoceros (1751, 62x50cm) _ The painting contains a notice that accurately dates the episode in question. In fact, when the exotic animal went on show it became an instant attraction that was talked about across Europe. Longhi's image not only captures the size of the rhinoceros, but also recreates the atmosphere of excitement among the public whose curiosity had drawn them to this fairground attraction.
Duck Hunters on the Lagoon (1760) _ The canvas is very concentrated and intense in the way it shows the nobleman's sport. In the prow of a boat rowed by four rugged oarsmen, the powdered gentleman bends his bow to shoot terracotta pellets contained in the basket at his feet (a suitably quiet form of shooting for the Lagoon). The diffused light and infinite horizon of the lagoon are unique in Longhi's oeuvre.
The Soothsayer (1750, 60x48cm) — The Spice-vendor's shop (1752, 60x48cm) — The Confession (61x50cm)
^ Born on 08 May 1503: Michele Tosini di Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio, Italian painter who died on 28 October 1577.
— He studied under Lorenzo di Credi and Antonio del Ceraiolo (fl 1520–1538) before entering the workshop of Ridolfo Ghirlandaio [04 Feb 1483 – 06 Jan 1561] to whom he became an assistant . By 1525 Tosini was frequently collaborating with Ghirlandaio, and their closeness is reflected in Tosini’s adopted name. Tosini began painting in the early 16th-century Florentine style of Fra Bartolommeo and Andrea del Sarto (e.g. the Virgin of the Sacred Girdle, c. 1525; Florence, S Marco). His acceptance of Mannerism was slow, but by the 1540s the influence of Francesco Salviati and Agnolo Bronzino was observable in his work. After 1556 Tosini worked for Giorgio Vasari in the fresco decoration of the Salone dei Cinquecento in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence. Through Vasari’s example, Tosini adopted a vocabulary derived from the work of Michelangelo and painted some of his best-known works in this manner (e.g. Night, 1560; and Leda,1560). He painted several important commissions late in his career: the fresco decoration of three city gates of Florence (1560s), the altar in the chapel at the Villa Caserotta (1561), near San Casciano Val di Pesa, and the paintings on the sides and back of the tabernacle of the high altar of S Maria della Quercia (1570), Viterbo. Tosini headed a large workshop that made numerous altarpieces and paintings. Among his students were Stoldo Lorenzi, Girolamo Macchietti, Bernardino Poccetti.
LINKS
Madonna and Child with the Young St. John the Baptist _ In front of a hilly landscape, the Virgin holds the Christ Child while young Saint John the Baptist looks on in adoration. The painting may be attributed to Tosini. An eclectic painter, Tosini combined elements of Andrea del Sarto [1486-1531] with others of Michelangelo [1475-1564], to create his own Mannerism, as seen here in the unnatural green hue of the Virgin´s skin, and the vacant eyes of the Christ Child which lend a slightly disconcerting air to the picture. The composition and tonality, including the shape of the Virgin´s dress, her wavy center-parted hair, shaded eyes, and chubby, curly- haired children appear throughout the body of his work. The Virgin´s head may be compared especially with his Saint Barbara, Night, Leda, Lucrezia Romana, and, above all, his Madonna of the Holy Family. Details such as the folds of the dress, the treatment of the hands, and pink and white skin are matched in his Mary Magdalen. For further comparisons see the Madonnas attributed to Tosini. Tosini was the head of an important Florentine workshop. Tosini´s early career was linked to that of Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio [1483-1561], the teacher from whom he took his nickname. Tosini´s later works closely resemble those of Giorgio Vasari [1511-1574] who represented primarily religious subjects. The Madonna and Child with the Young St. John the Baptist was at various times misattributed to Andrea del Sarto, and to his student Pontormo. When this painting was restored in June 1990 it was found that all of the pigments examined would have been available in the 16th century. Lead tin yellow (Sn), a minor component of the yellow-green leaves in the background. became unavailable as an artist´s pigment after 1750.
— a different Madonna and Child with Saint John the Baptist (1550)
Charity (1570) _ Charity, the greatest of the theological virtues (the others are Faith and Hope), is here represented as a woman with three children. From the 16th century onwards, Charity was commonly depicted as a woman suckling her young. This picture derives from the larger Charity (1558, 156x122cm) of Francesco Salviati [1510-1563] and was previously catalogued as by a follower of Salviati. I
^ Died on 08 May 1978: James Corrowr “Duncan Grant”, English Camden Town Group painter and designer born on 21 January 1885. He was a member of the Bloomsbury Group of artists and thinkers, which also included Roger Fry, Dora Carrington and Vanessa Bell.
— From 1887 to 1894 he was in India and Burma, where his father was serving as a soldier. After attending a preparatory school in Rugby, he was sent to St Paul’s School, London (1899–1901), where it was intended that he should be educated for the army. As he showed no interest in this he was allowed to move in 1902 to Westminster School of Art in London, where he remained for over two years. While there he was encouraged by Simon Bussy [1870–1954], a French painter who knew Matisse, and who was engaged to Grant’s cousin Dorothy Strachey. In the winter of 1904–1905 Grant visited Italy, where he copied the frescoes by Masaccio and Masolino in the Brancacci Chapel, S Maria del Carmine, Florence, and was also much impressed by the work of Piero della Francesca. In 1906–1907 he studied at La Palette art school in Paris under Jacques-Emile Blanche, before visiting Italy again. His early work of this period reflects his study of works in the Louvre, as in Still-life on Table (1906), which shows the influence of Chardin. He also spent two terms at the Slade School of Fine Art, London (1907–1908).
LINKS
Lytton Strachey (1909, 53x66cm) _ Biographer Lytton Strachey [01 March 1880 – 21 January 1932] was a leader of the Bloomsbury Group, to which he introduced his cousin Duncan Grant.
Lemon Gatherers (1910, 56x81cm) — A Landscape near Cadiz (1962, 64x74cm)
Dancers (1911, 53x66cm) _ Duncan Grant was a leading figure in the Bloomsbury Group. In 1909 he visited the Paris studio of Matisse, whose Dancers may have partly inspired this painting. The vibrant colours and dynamic forms also reflect the influence of Gauguin, Cézanne and Van Gogh. These were the chief artists introduced to British audiences through Roger Fry’s Manet and the Post-Impressionists exhibition, which was held at the Grafton Galleries in London between 1910 and 1911.
The Queen of Sheba (1912, 120x120cm) _ Grant painted this in the spring of 1912 as part of an abortive decorative scheme for Newnham College, Cambridge. His cousin, Pernel Strachey, had been a student there and later became its Principal. Grant based the Queen of Sheba on Pernel Strachey, and King Solomon upon her brother, Grant's great friend the writer Lytton Strachey. Lytton had a long square-cut auburn beard at this time, and Grant gives this physical attribute to King Solomon. Diaghilev's Russian Ballet had been giving performances in London and Grant's costumes probably owe a debt to this Russian influence. Also Carl Goldmark's opera The Queen of Sheba was premiered in London in the winter of 1911.

Died on a 08 May:

1923 John Seymour Lucas, British painter born in 1849. — LINKSNews from the Front (1898, 72x96cm)
After Culloden, Rebel Hunting (1884, 142x196cm) _ In the last battle fought on British soil, at Culloden, on 16 April 1746, 5000 exhausted and starving Jacobite Highlanders led by Bonnie Prince Charlie desperately tried to resist 9'000 invading British Redcoats commanded by William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland “the Butcher”. The Redcoats, while losing only 50 of theirs, in 40 minutes massacred some 1000 Scots. After their victory, the English hunted down the surviving Scots for several weeks and killed another 1000 of them. The English cruelty extended to civilians too: “Besides the military prisoners, several gentlemen supposed to be disaffected to the government were apprehended by the Duke of Cumberland's orders, shutup with the common prisoners, and were for some time denied the use of bedding. Nor did the softer sex, whose Jacobite predilections had pointed them out as objects of displeasure, escape his resentment. Several ladies, among whom were Ladies Ogilvy, Knloch, and Gordon, were seized and kept in durance in the common guard, and were limited along with the other prisoners of the miserable pittance of half-a pound of meal per day, with scarcely as much water as was necessary to prepare it for use. As the wounded prisoners were utterly neglected, many who would have recovered, if properly treated, died of their wounds.” _ A painting of The Battle of Culloden, by Mark Churms _ Read all about The Battle of Culloden here, or in this other account, and more details can be found here.

1828 Christian August Lorentzen, Danish artist born on 10 August 1749. — [Did Lorentzen run a low-rent zen center on the side?]

1721 Johann Georg Stuhr, German artist born in 1640.

1670 Jacob Weyer (or Weier), German artist born in 1620. — Relative? of Hermann Weyer [1596-1621]? of Gabriel Weyer [05 Nov 1576 – 17 Sep 1632]?


Born on a 08 May:


1876 Ludvig Peter Karsten, Norwegian artist who died in 1926. Karsten, Ludvig (Peter) (b Christiania [now Oslo], 8 May 1876; d Paris, 19 Oct 1926). Norwegian painter. He studied at the Royal School of Design in Kristiania (1891–5) and in 1896 studied with Karl Raupp (1837–1918) in Munich. Back in Norway, he obtained tuition from Christian Krohg and other eminent artists before applying to the Kunstakademie in Munich in 1900. The same autumn he studied with Eugène Carrière in Paris, where he met several of the future Fauvists, including Henri Matisse and André Derain. The greatest influence on his development as a painter was, however, Edvard Munch, whom he met in 1901. Karsten’s favourite subjects during this period were figures, portraits and landscapes. Consumption (1907; Oslo, N.G.), a full-length frontal presentation of an old, sick woman, was directly inspired by Munch’s portrait of his sister Inger (1892; Oslo, N.G.), although it also reveals an independent talent.

1834 Antonio Ermolao Paoletti, Italian artist who died on 13 December 1912.

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