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ANY DAY ...IN ART ...IN HISTORY ||| HISTORY “4” NOV 14 ||| ALTERNATE SITES

ART “4” “2”-DAY 14 November

DEATHS: 1625 PROCACCINI — 1676 COURTOIS

BIRTHS: 1833 RICHARDS — 1840 MONET — 1885 DELAUNAY

^ Born on 14 November 1833: William Trost Richards, US painter who died on 08 November 1905.
— In 1846–1847 he attended the Central High School in Philadelphia PA, but left before graduating in order to help support his family. He worked full-time as a designer and illustrator of ornamental metalwork from 1850 to 1853 and then part-time until 1858. During this period he studied draughtsmanship and painting with Paul Weber (1823–1916) and probably had some lessons at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, where he exhibited in 1852. The following year he was elected full Academician there. In 1855–1856 he toured Europe with William Stanley Haseltine and Alexander Lawrie [1828–1917], studying for several months in Düsseldorf. Finding contemporary European landscape painting less inspiring than that of the US, he returned to Philadelphia.
— Photo of Richards.
— LINKS
— "The Sheepfold," Easton's Point, Newport (1890, 51x102cm) — Rocky Sea Coast (1887, 30x60cm)
— Salt Marsh by the Sea (1877, 56x91cm) — Indian Summer (1875, 61x51cm)
— Moonlight on Mount Lafayette, New Hampshire (1873, 22x36cm) — Rocky Cove (1876)
— Tennysons Farm, Farmington, Isle of Wight — Beach with Sun Drawing Water (1872)
— Lake Squam from Red Hill (1874, 23x35cm) — Breakers at Beaver
— Paradise, Newport (1877, 69x94cm) — Truth to Nature (1860)
— Beach with Sun Drawing Water (1872)
— Sundown at Centre Harbor, New Hampshire (1874; 527x800pix, 89kb)
— Long Pond, Foot of Red Hill (1874; 823x1200pix, 199kb)
— Fort Dumpling, Jamestown

^ Died on 14 November 1625: Giulio Cesare Procaccini, Italian painter and sculptor born in 1574.
— The most distinguished member of a family of artists, he was born in Bologna and worked mainly in Milan, where the family settled when he was a child, and also in Modena and Genoa. Initially he worked mainly as a sculptor, but after about 1600 he concentrated on painting and became one of the leading painters in Milan. His style was eclectic but often very powerful, combining something of the emotional tension of Mannerism with the dynamism and sense of physical presence of the Baroque. His colors tend to be acidic, his handling of light and shade dramatic. Many of his paintings are still in Milan, but two large scenes from Christ's Passion (perhaps part of a series) are in Edinburgh and Sheffield. His father Ercole Procaccini I [bap. 23 Feb 1520 – 13 Jan 1595], and his brothers, Camillo [1554 – 21 Aug 1629] and Carlo Antonio [13 Jan 1571 – 1630] were also painters, as was Carlo Antonio's son, Ercole Procaccini II [bap. 06 Aug 1605 – 02 Mar 1680].
— Having moved to Milan with the rest of the family in the mid-1580s, Giulio Cesare Procaccini was trained as a sculptor, perhaps in the workshop of Francesco Brambilla II, and then worked (1591–1599) for the workshop of Milan Cathedral. The results of this work are difficult to identify, and the most secure attribution is the left term on the altar of St Joseph. There followed a period (1597–1602) of intense sculptural activity for the church of Santa Maria presso San Celso, for the façade of which he executed two high reliefs in marble, the Visitation and Birth of the Virgin. In 1597 he may have accompanied his brother Camillo to Reggio Emilia, where Camillo added to his earlier fresco decorations for San Prospero. Between 1597 and 1600 Giulio Cesare is documented as working as a sculptor for Cremona Cathedral, to which two sculptures, Saint Matthew and Saint John, were delivered, after many delays, in 1625. He also produced the gilded wood Guardian Angel (1597) for Santa Monica, Cremona. From Cremona he went to Parma, where he studied the works of Correggio, Parmigianino, and Girolamo Mazzola Bedoli, which had a significant impact on the style of his early paintings.
— LINKS
— Madonna and Child with Saints and Angels
— The Annunciation (1620, 237x164cm; 700x513 framed, 61kb) _ Probablement peint pour l'autel d'une église. Procaccini a traité à plusieurs reprises ce sujet, que ce soit pour d'autres tableaux d'autel, des oeuvres de dévotion ou l'ornement d'un devant d'autel.

^ Born on 14 November 1840: Claude~Oscar Monet, French painter who died on 05 December 1926.
— [Dommage qu'il n'ait pas été auteur dramatique: on aurait eu des pièces de Monet] [A-t-il eu une fille? La petite Monet?] [S'il faisait de l'équitation, son cheval devenait un porte-Monet] [Si sa femme avait fait du théâtre, elle serait devenue la Monet de la pièce. Et on aurait pu accuser ses imitatrices de faire la Monet]
— Monet, with Pissaro [10 Jul 1830 – 12 Nov 1903], is recognized as being one of the creators of Impressionism, and he was the most convinced and consistent Impressionist of them all. From his earliest days as an artist, he was encouraged to trust his perceptions and the hardships he suffered never deterred him from that pursuit.
      Claude Monet was born in Paris but all his impressions as a child and adolescent were linked with Le Havre, the town to which his family moved about 1845. His father had a grocery store there. In his youth he painted caricature portraits and exhibited them in the art supplies store in which Eugène Boudin worked at the time. Eventually Boudin persuaded the young Monet to paint in the open air with him and become a landscape painter. His family was not against his wish to become a painter, but his independent views, criticism towards academic art and refusal to enter a decent school of art led to constant quarrels with his family. After finishing his military service in Algeria (1860-1861) Monet attended the Académie Suisse and there made the acquaintance of Pissarro and Cézanne [19 Jan 1839 – 22 Oct 1906]. Later, in 1862, he entered the Atelier Gleyre, where he met Bazille 06 Dec 1841 – 28 Nov 1870], Renoir [25 Feb 1841 – 03 Dec 1919] and Sisley [30 Oct 1839 – 29 January 1899]. In 1860s, the young artists frequented the Café Guerbois, a place often visited by Emile Zola and Édouard Manet [23 Jan 1832 – 30 Apr 1883].
      An important turning point in Monet’s artistic career came in 1869, when he and Renoir painted La Grenouillère, a floating restaurant at Bougival. The canvases they produced were the beginning of a new artistic movement, Impressionism, called so later.
      In 1870, Monet married his model Camille Doncieux [–1879], who had born him his son Jean [1868-1914]; in 1879 their second son, Michel, was born. Camille sat for many of Monet's pictures, e.g. The Walkers, Women in the Garden (all four are Camille), The Walk. Lady with a Parasol, La Japonaise, and many others. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871 and a short civil war (Commune) that followed, Monet lived in London and was introduced to Paul Durand-Ruel, a celebrated art dealer, who did much to popularize Impressionist works. In 1874, in an atmosphere of increasing hostility on the part of official artistic circles, Monet and his friends formed a group and exhibited on their own for the first time. One of his works at this exhibition, Impression: Sunrise (Impressions: Soleil Levant), gave its name to the Impessionist movement.
      The following years saw a flourishing of Impressionism. Monet took part in the group’s exhibitions of 1874, 1876, 1877, 1879 and 1882. In those years he created such masterpieces as La Gare Saint-Lazare and Rue Saint-Denis, Festivities of 30 June, 1878. However, his canvases found few buyers. Desperately poor, he constantly looked for places where life was cheaper, and lived at Argenteuil from 1873 to 1878, at Vétheuil from 1879 to 1881, at Poissy in 1882, and at Giverny from 1883 until his death.
      In the late 1880s, his painting began to attract the attention of both the public and critics. Fame brought comfort and even wealth. During that period the artist was absorbed in painting landscapes in series: The Rocks of Belle-Ile (1886), Cliffs at Belle-Ile (1886), Poplars on the Bank of the River Epte (1890), Poplars on the Banks of the Epte (1891), Poplars on the Bank of the River Epte (1891). Light is always the ‘principal person’ in Monet’s landscape, and since he was always aiming at seizing an escaping effect, he adopted a habit of painting the same subject under different conditions of light, at different times of day. In this way he painted a series of views, all of the same subject, but all different in color and lightning.
      In 1890, Monet bought the property at Giverny and began work on the series of haystacks, which he pursued for two years. Monet painted the stacks in sunny and gray weather, in fog and covered with snow: Haystack, Snow Effects, Morning (1890), Haystack. End of the Summer. Morning. (1891), Haystack at the Sunset near Giverny (1891). In 1892 he married Alice Hoschedé [–1911] his old friend.
      Monet’s renowned series of the cathedral at Rouen seen under different light effects was painted from a second-floor window above a shop opposite the façade. He made eighteen frontal views. Changing canvases with the light, Monet had followed the hours of the day from early morning with the façade in misty blue shadow, to the afternoon, when the sunset, disappearing behind the buildings of the city, weaves the weathered stone work into a strange fabric of burnt orange and blue: The Rouen Cathedral. Portail. The Albaine Tower (1894), The Rouen Cathedral at Noon (1894), The Rouen Cathedral (1893-1894), The Rouen Cathedral at Twilight (1894), The Rouen Cathedral in the Evening (1894).
      In 1899, Monet first turned to the subject of water lilies: The White Water Lilies (1899), The Japanese Bridge (1899), Water-Lilies (1914), Water-Lilies (1916), Water-Lilies (1917), the main theme of his later work.
— Claude Oscar Monet was a French impressionist painter who brought the study of the transient effects of natural light to its most refined expression.

      Monet was born in Paris, but he spent most of his childhood in Le Havre. There, in his teens, he studied drawing; he also painted seascapes outside with the French painter Eugene Louis Boudin. By 1859 Monet had committed himself to a career as an artist and began to spend as much time in Paris as possible. During the 1860s he was associated with the preimpressionist painter Edouard Manet, and with other aspiring French painters destined to form the impressionist school — Camille Pissarro, Pierre Auguste Renoir, and Alfred Sisley.
      Working outside, Monet painted simple landscapes and scenes of contemporary middle-class society, and he began to have some success at official exhibitions. As his style developed, however, Monet violated one traditional artistic convention after another in the interest of direct artistic expression. His experiments in rendering outdoor sunlight with a direct, sketchlike application of bright color became more and more daring, and he seemed to cut himself off from the possibility of a successful career as a conventional painter supported by the art establishment.
      In 1874 Monet and his colleagues decided to appeal directly to the public by organizing their own exhibition. They called themselves independents, but the press soon derisively labeled them impressionists because their work seemed sketchy and unfinished (like a first impression) and because one of Monet's paintings had borne the title Impression: Sunrise (1872). Monet's compositions from this time are extremely loosely structured, and the color was applied in strong, distinct strokes as if no reworking of the pigment had been attempted. This technique was calculated to suggest that the artist had indeed captured a spontaneous impression of nature. During the 1870s and 1880s Monet gradually refined this technique, and he made many trips to scenic areas of France, especially the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts, to study the most brilliant effects of light and color possible.
      By the mid-1880s Monet, generally regarded as the leader of the impressionist school, had achieved significant recognition and financial security. Despite the boldness of his color and the extreme simplicity of his compositions, he was recognized as a master of meticulous observation, an artist who sacrificed neither the true complexities of nature nor the intensity of his own feelings. In 1890 he was able to purchase some property in the village of Giverny, not far from Paris, and there he began to construct a water garden (now open to the public)—a lily pond arched with a Japanese bridge and overhung with willows and clumps of bamboo.
      Beginning in 1906, paintings of the pond and the water lilies occupied him for the remainder of his life; they hang in the Orangerie, Paris; the Art Institute of Chicago; and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Throughout these years he also worked on his other celebrated “series” paintings, groups of works representing the same subject—haystacks, poplars, Rouen Cathedral, the river Seine—seen in varying light, at different times of the day or seasons of the year. Despite failing eyesight, Monet continued to paint almost up to the time of his death, on 05 December 1926, at Giverny.
— Painter, artist. Initiator, leader, and unswerving advocate of the Impressionist style. In mature works, developed method of producing several studies of the same subject in series, changing canvases with the light or as his interest shifted. These "series" were generally dated and were often exhibited in groups. Moved with his family to Le Havre in 1845. He attended public school in Le Havre and learned to draw from François-Charles Ochard, although the early instruction he received from Eugène Boudin was more critical. In 1859 Monet traveled to Paris where he attended the Académie Suisse and began a friendship with the older Camille Pissarro. He received formal art training in 1863 in the studio of Charles Gleyre, where he met Bazille, Renoir, and Sisley. Despite the acceptance of paintings at the Salons of 1865 and 1866, he suffered severe financial problems.
      In 1873 Monet and other artists in his circle formed the Société Anonyme Coopérative d'Artistes-Peintres-Sculpteurs-Graveurs, which in 1874 held its first group show, later known as the first impressionist exhibition. Monet exhibited Impression: Sunrise, the painting from which the impressionists derived their name. Monet also participated in the second (1876), third (1877), fourth (1879), and seventh (1882) impressionist exhibitions. During his career, Monet painted in a number of locations throughout France as well as in London, Venice, the Low Countries, and Scandinavia. He established studios at Argenteuil (1871), then Vetheuil (1878), and finally Giverny (1883), where he bought a house and property in 1890 and began to concentrate on the famous paintings of his gardens. As Monet grew older, his eyesight deteriorated, but despite his failing vision, he continued to paint until his death. His last years were preoccupied by his grand cycles of water lily paintings.
— LINKS
— Le Pont Japonais (1925, 88x115cm; recommended 915x1200pix; 1013kb_ ZOOM to 1525x2000pix; 3246kb) _ Monet made the footbridge in his garden at Giverny the subject of two series in 1895-1900 and 1919, and he returned to its wisteria-covered frame repeatedly in the 1920s. With its raw vigor and passionate coloring, this picture underscores an observation Monet once made of his water landscapes in general - it reveals "the instability of a universe transforming itself every moment before our eyes."
— Grainstack, Sun in the Mist (1891, 60x100cm; recommended 718x1200pix; 773kb_ ZOOM to 1196x2000pix; 2281kb) _ In the late 1880s, Claude Monet analyzed visual perception by representing the same subject under varying conditions of light, atmosphere, and weather. In one such series, he depicted the grainstacks near his house in Giverny. These conical structures of wheat, 5 to 7 meters high, protected the grain from rain and rodents. Typical of farming practice in France, the stacks came to symbolize the country's rural prosperity. Monet studied the grainstacks during different seasons as the sunlight changed in intensity. This picture shows the autumn dawn, at a moment when the sun evaporates the night's mist. The grainstack is seen against the morning light, which forms a halo around it. Up close, one sees a flickering patchwork of broken brushstrokes, each one a notation of light. At a distance, these colors coalesce into a brilliant, shimmering image.
— Haystacks, Snow Effect (1891, 65x92cm; 446x635pix, 131kb) _ Monet’s paintings of haystacks were among the boldest of his career. In the early 1890s he made a series of 25 pictures, each showing massive stacks of grain under a variety of light and weather conditions. Here they are seen against snow and sunshine, their bulky forms casting bright blue shadows. The intense colors and almost abstract pattern that they make fascinated Monet. But the picture’s real subject is the atmosphere itself – a freezing mist that positively glows with light.
— Thames below Westminster (1871, 47x72cm; 415x635pix, 91kb) _ Monet thought that London’s smog, made the city a very exciting subject for painting. In this view of the Thames, this mixture of fog and smoke is tinged with weak spring sunshine. Monet renders nearly the entire scene in pale, closely matched colours, observing how the plumes of smoke rising from the steamboats add to the foggy atmosphere. Only the wooden pier on the right stands out. Its striking geometry contrasts to the misty, ghostlike towers of the Houses of Parliament behind.
— Water Lilies (1916, 166x142cm; recommended 1/6 size; 261kb _ ZOOM to 1/3 size; 985kb _ ZOOM++ to 2/3 size; 3857kb)
— Waves Breaking (1881, 60x81cm; recommended 1/3 size; 263kb _ ZOOM to 2/3 size; 975kb)
— Sailboats on the Seine (1874, 54x65cm; recommended 2/5 size; 318kb _ ZOOM to 4/5 size; 1328kb)
— The Grand Canal, Venice (1908, 73x90cm; recommended 3/10 size; 173kb _ ZOOM to 3/5 size)
— Still Life with Pheasants and Plovers (1879, 68x90cm; recommended 904x1200pix _ ZOOM to 1507x2000pix)
— Garden in Bordighera, Impression of Morning
— Impression: Sunset, Pourville (1882) — Impression: Sunrise (1872)
— La Seine à Bougival le Soir (1869, 60x74cm)
— The Headland of the Hève at Low Tide (1865, 90x150cm)
— La Plage à Honfleur (1865, 60x81cm) — Camille Monet en Japonaise (1876)
— La Rue Montargueil Pavoisée (1878) — Nénuphars I (1905) — Boulevard des Capucines (1873)
— Le Déjeuner sur l'Herbe (1865; 755x1074pix) _ central detail (1113x978pix) _ detail at left (800x584pix, 144kb) _ study for this detail: The Strollers (1059x778pix) _ not to be confused with the less dressy Le Déjeuner sur l'Herbe (1863, 214x269cm) by Manet.
— 1034 images at Webshots — 189 images at ABC.

^ Died on 14 November 1676: Jacques Courtois “le Bourguignon”, French painter specialized in cavalry battles, born on 12 February 1621. — {puisqu'il était Courtois, je serai courtois avec lui en ne faisant aucune plaisanterie sur son nom}.
— Jacques Courtois and his brother Guillaume [1628-1679] were active in Italy and often known by the Italian forms of the names, Giacomo and Guglielmo Cortese. They came from Burgundy and both had the nickname Il Borgognone or Le Bourguignon. Jacques was a prolific painter of battle scenes, fairly close in style to those of Salvator Rosa, but more colorful.
Courtois is an example of a painter who has escaped notice in terms of art history, because of both his isolation from his native Franche Comté (incorporated into France by Louis XIV) and his lack of association with Italian art, even though he spent his whole career in Rome. Courtois evolved the archetypal small battle piece, depicting plenty of violence and the smoke of combat, a format that was to remain standard right up to the end of the eighteenth century, though few of its exponents were French. Authentic works by Courtois frequently appear on the art market, but much of his oeuvre has till to be identified.
— LINKS
— Bataille de Mongiovino (138x276cm) _ The painting is one of a series of battle pieces representing the victories of the patron, in this instance against the troops of Pope Urban VIII in 1643. The painting is signed in the center by the Italian name of the artist: Iacomo Cortesi.
— Bataille d'Arbelles, 331 av. J.C. (188x328cm; 402x726pix, 78kb poor definition)
— Rencontre de Cavaliers (74x96cm; 474x600pix, 85kb poor definition)

^ Born on 14 November 1885: Sonia Stern Terk Delaunay, French painter and designer who died on 05 December 1979.

— Sonia Delaunay was a true Renaissance woman of many talents and aspirations. Although she found incredible successes in her life as a wife, mother, socialite, businesswoman and artist, she often lived in the shadow of her husband, Robert Delaunay. It was only decades after her husband’s death that Sonia Delaunay acquired the attention and appreciation that she fully deserved. As a vanguard of the modern female artist movement, Sonia exerted an influence upon the world of art and culture that remains unforgettable and momentous.
      Sonia Delaunay was born Sarah Stern in the small Ukrainian town Gradizhsk. As a young child, Sonia loved her father immensely and hated her mother just as strongly. She was impressed by the fortitude, honesty and calmness of her father, who worked as a hard laborer in a nail factory. On the other hand, her mother, an incessant complainer, irked the future artist. The general likes and dislikes Sonia found in her parents would greatly influence her own personality development later on in life, even though she was separated from both her father and her mother at the age of five when she was adopted by her uncle Henri Terk. Henri was an auspicious lawyer in St. Petersburg and was married to a relatively powerful wife named Anna. The affluent Jewish couple adopted the child in 1890 and renamed her Sonia Terk. In Saint-Petersburg, Sonia lived in the Terks’ beautiful home, furnished with her uncle’s formal studies and reproductions of famous paintings; she also received the best education money could buy. Every summer, the Terks traveled around Europe, staying at their Finnish country home and visiting the most prominent art galleries and museums on the continent. Thus, Sonia developed a taste for the arts at quite an early age.
      Sonia did not receive formal artistic training until she was 16, when she was enrolled in one of St. Petersburg’s most respected secondary schools. There, her art teacher urged the Terks to send the precocious Sonia to Germany so that she could study art more seriously. Sonia finished her secondary school studies at the age of 18 and immediately entered the Karlsruhe Academy of Fine Arts. The Terks, aware that Sonia would be alone and independent for the most part, preferred to school her in Karlsruhe rather than in Munich so that Sonia could be close to extended family members. From 1903 to 1905, Sonia studied under a strict professor who helped her develop a strong stylistic foundation. In 1905, Sonia left for Paris, the center for arts and entertainment, and would rarely return to Russia thereafter.
      Sonia loved life in Paris -- the excitement, the experimentation, the creativity. At first, she roomed with four other Russian girls in a pension on rue Campagne Premier. Every night, the girls entertained large parties of friends. In addition to having an active social life, Sonia had a serious academic career at the Académie de la Palette in Montparnasse. However, she grew to dislike the harsh, critical teaching style used by her professors and decided to paint on her own for the most part. Her paintings at this time, such as Finnish Landscape (1906) and Three Nudes (1908), were heavily influenced by Van Gogh, Gauguin and Matisse, and it is obvious in these paintings that Sonia was struggling to find her own style.
      Sonia soon came into contact with Wilhem Uhde, an influential art dealer and collector. He was an outgoing and charismatic man of bourgeois upbringing, and was thus able to penetrate Parisian art circles quite effortlessly. When Sonia met Uhde, he had already established an impressive art collection of Fauvist works. Sonia was immediately drawn to Uhde, particularly to his knowledge of modern art. On 05 December 1908, the two were married unexpectedly in a civil ceremony in London and had a brief honeymoon at the Bucklers Hotel. Ultimately, however, their marriage appears to have been loveless and based only upon intellectual similarities and social usefulness. Their marriage of convenience allowed Sonia to remain in Paris in spite of pressure from her family to return to Russia, while it allowed Uhde to hide his homosexuality. Sonia further benefited from the marriage through Uhde’s power in the art world. He housed solo shows of her early Parisian artwork and introduced her to the artistic elite. Nonetheless, Sonia still had not defined her personal style and continued to mimic the styles of the masters.

     In 1909, Sonia met Robert Delaunay [12 April 1885 – 25 Oct 1941] and the two became lovers shortly thereafter. The two had numerous similarities, such as having been brought up by rich extended relatives. Most of all, though, they shared a comparable love for art. Uhde and Sonia divorced in 1910, and Sonia immediately married Robert. The Delaunays’ son Charles was born just two months after their wedding. The family ate, drank and breathed art, exchanging ideas, working next to one another, and constructively criticizing each other’s work. The Delaunays lived well beyond their means and entertained large groups of friends, spending money they never had. Every Sunday, their home became an open house to young avant-garde artists.
      Sonia Delaunay never separated the decorative arts from the fine arts, and she gave as much attention to the design of furniture around the home as she did to large canvasses. Her talent was completely instinctive, as Sonia -- for her own amusement -- created numerous everyday trinkets of contrasting and complementary colors for their home. Sonia also became interested in dressmaking. She used random scraps of material in adventurous combinations for her family’s clothing, although she was not initially interested in the fashion world. Around this time, Sonia became obsessed with color. Her paintings explored the power, versatility and vibrancy of colors. Furthermore, she encouraged Robert to paint with color, as many of his paintings had become more and more monochromatic.
      Throughout their marriage and even after Robert’s death, Sonia put herself and her needs in the background, emphasizing those of her husband. Robert became so obsessed with painting that he neglected to take care of himself and his son. In addition, his temper was also hard to control. Nonetheless, Sonia loved Robert unconditionally, and she kept quiet about these dissatisfactions. Sadly, the family was temporarily separated soon after Charles’ birth when their son became ill. Sonia moved with Charles to Nice to stay with relatives, and then moved to Normandy. Alone, Robert and Sonia were able to study one another’s work. By the time the two were reunited, their artwork had become extremely abstract.
^     In 1912, the Delaunays’ close friend Guillame Apollinaire came to live in their studio. Apollinaire had undergone trial for the disappearance of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre and sought refuge in the Delaunays’ home. Sonia and Robert defended their friend earnestly throughout the whole process. Apollinaire was one of the most devoted fans of the Delaunays’ artwork and had termed their interpretation of Cubist style “Orphism.”
      In 1914, Sonia was persuaded by a friend to move the family to Madrid. There, their son Charles caught typhoid fever. Robert had little talent as a father, so Sonia was left to care for Charles herself. To reconnect, the couple took a seaside vacation together when Charles was better. Afterwards, Sonia returned to Paris to prepare their apartment. However, when she went back to Madrid for her family, she found Robert again totally immersed in his work and captivated by the Iberian landscape. Nonetheless, the Spanish heat was too intense, and the Delaunays decided to move instead to coastal Portugal so that Robert could continue his art in cooler surroundings. Sonia immediately fell in love with all of Portugal and began painting day into night. As seen in paintings such as Disk (1916), the vibrant colors and light of the Iberian Peninsula had captivated her as well, and she was the happiest she had ever been.

     In 1921, the Delaunays returned to Paris. Soon after their return, Sonia began working with Dada propagandist Tristan Tzara on fashion pieces and fabric designs. Together, the two created the famous “poem-dresses” and the costumes for Tzara’s play Coeur à Gaz. Sonia was gaining worldwide attention with her fabrics of geometric designs. Even Hollywood actresses were buying her designs, thus funding the Delaunay lifestyle. Delaunay’s artistry had turned into a business enterprise, and her apartment became a boutique, fashion studio and fabric house. In 1925, Sonia featured her fashion designs in the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs. Sonia also gave an impressive lecture at the Sorbonne on the influence of painting on clothing designs. In this lecture, Sonia also introduced the novel idea of prêt-à-porter clothing and other newfound freedoms in women’s fashion.
      In the 1930s, the Great Depression put Sonia’s life on hold. The demand for fine art was dwindling, and the Delaunay family could not depend on painting for income. Sonia saw this as an incredible opportunity to withdraw from her artistic career and encouraged Robert to do the same. The two wasted away their days enjoying one another’s company and living a carefree lifestyle. By the end of the 1930s, they faced financial failure and once again had to promote their artwork to support their lifestyle. Both Sonia and Robert’s artwork was featured in a myriad of exhibitions towards the end of this decade.
      The 1937 Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans La Vie Moderne showcased some of Sonia’s best work. For two years, Sonia worked on the decoration of two exhibition buildings, though she threatened to withdraw her name from the Exposition contract after several disputes with Félix Aublet, the decorator in charge. Nevertheless, the Exposition works were eventually displayed and garnered much money for the Delaunays. A few months after the Exposition, Sonia suffered a severe asthma attack and was informed that she had emphysema. The news had no effect on her life, however, and she continued to work just as hard as ever, becoming even more dedicated to abstract art.
      In 1941, Robert died. Immediately after his death, Sonia organized retrospectives of his work as a tribute to his life. To some, it seemed as though she kept herself alive by keeping Robert’s memory alive. To finance this expedition, she sold most of her major possessions and rented out her apartment in Mougins. Sonia lived instead in random hotels and in friends’ homes, selling Robert’s paintings now and then if she could. When Sonia returned to Paris in January of 1945, she was about 60 years old and depressed. Her apartment in Paris was a mess, her health was in shambles, and her financial situation was tenuous. Charles, who had experienced much success with the Parisian radio scene, constantly criticized his mother for her reckless spending habits. Furthermore, she was a bit disillusioned by the young Parisian artists who in her opinion lacked a necessary spirituality. Although she enjoyed their company, she had little faith in their artwork, which was quite academic and theoretical rather than instinctual. In 1946, Sonia wanted only to be alone for a bit in the town of Gambais. She would not produce any artwork again until 1950, when she collaborated with Hans Arp and Alberto Magnelli on a lithograph project. During the 1950s, Sonia began to feel a bit overlooked, for her artwork had received little to no attention. Having come to the conclusion that Robert’s work had gained enough notice, she decided to concentrate on her own artwork. She painted prolifically during this period, pumping out and exhibiting numerous gouache paintings. In the 1960s, she again went through bouts of depression, as many of her friends had been dying. She was faced with bleak loneliness and trusted nobody.
      In 1964, Sonia, almost 80 years old, met the writer/poet/art-enthusiast/editor Jacques Damase at the Opéra in Paris. She felt a strangely comfortable attraction to Damase and confided in him her deepest thoughts. She went to London to see him in 1965, and the two soon began to see each other regularly. Following her maternal instincts, she wished to cure his drinking and emotional problems. Similarly, Damase looked after Sonia, providing her with a selfless and supportive friendship. Damase helped coordinate Sonia’s most important retrospective, a full-scale tribute to her works at the Musée National d’Art Moderne. Sonia had finally gained the respect she was in search of and truly enjoyed the fame. For the rest of her life, Sonia lived in the lap of luxury, wearing the finest clothing and traveling to the most cultured places. Sonia died peacefully in her studio.
      Sonia Delaunay never stood on the shoulders of her husband or friends. By making a well-respected name for herself and by herself, Sonia also made a name for women artists in general. Despite being faced with endless adversity, Sonia never once deserted her position in life as mother, wife or artist. Her fortitude, combined with her incredible skill, allowed her to become one of the most esteemed artists in modern history.

— Couverture (1911) This quilt was made for the Delaunays’ son Charles before his birth. The blanket is composed of various patches of fur and fabric, much like the fabric worn by Russian peasants at the time. The fabric pieces show geometric design patterns, and their arrangement is clearly Cubist. The blanket served as a model for many of Sonia’s later works and is one of Sonia’s early experiments with abstract art. The patterns and materials are completely random. The piece’s harmony also indicates that Sonia paid extreme attention to color composition.
— endpapers and binding for Blaise Cendrars, "Pâques à New York" (1912) _ Soon after designing the Couverture, Delaunay made a series of appliqué collage bookbindings, most notably for Cendrars' Pâques à New York. Similar in this respect to the quilt, the bookbindings play with the effects of juxtaposed surfaces. Appearing frequently are the Russian folk art motifs, the rainbow and the arc, as well as the triangles and trapezoids of patchwork construction that Delaunay was using in her paintings during the same period (Le Bal Bullier is one example). These motifs serve as building blocks that can be detached and reassembled in each subsequent design. Delaunay's procedure accentuates the autonomy of the unit or building block; each shape remains distinct even while participating in a larger composition. The detachable quality of the building blocks reminds the viewer of the initial gesture of the simultaneous craft, that of assembling rather than inventing, selecting rather than originating.
— Le Bal Bullier (1912-1913) _ One series of Sonia’s early large-scale works that explored simultaneous color contrast. The Bal Bullier was a famous dancehall where the Delaunays and their friends often met. It was extremely popular among students and shop girls, but many poets and artists frequented the haunt to take up the stylish new dances, such as the fox trot and tango. These new dance forms inspired Sonia to create this painting, as she was fascinated with the way colors swirled in the figures of the dancers. Sonia used mattress ticking in all four versions of the Bal Bullier paintings because she could not afford real canvasses. Sonia loved painting colors in motion, and in these paintings, she adopts the point of view of the dancer in that everything shown is in constant motion. The lines are swirling and chaotic, and the technique is obviously abstract. Thus, the painting can be read from any direction. The colors of this painting are relatively muted. Greens and dark blues shadow the bright reds and oranges. The Bal Bullier experiences would also be the basis for many of the dresses Sonia designed later on in her career.
— Three Studies for the Electric Prisms (1914) _ These works were originally exhibited in the Salon des Indépendants. Sonia used a myriad of materials in this study series, including crayons, watercolor, cut papers and oil paints. She was obsessed with the nature of light, especially the way in which light from electric street lamps was distorted into halos as it fell onto the Parisian streets. These street lamps were a relatively novel invention at the time and replaced the old Parisian gaslights. In these paintings, Sonia showcased circles of light distorted by a prism. The paintings evoke feelings of movement, depth and rhythm quite effectively through Sonia’s masterful manipulation of color combinations.
— Marché au Minho (1915) _ One of the paintings Sonia created during her joyful stay in Vila de Conde in northern Portugal. There, the light was kind to her art. Sonia wrote, “The light of Portugal was not violent, but exalted every color.” Sonia was inspired by the many intense colors found in the peasants’ houses, clothing, food and ceramics. She also liked the straight, planar lines used in the Portuguese architecture. In this painting, Sonia freed herself from formal arrangement. The placement of colors and shapes is quite haphazard.
— article: High Decoration: Sonia Delaunay, Blaise Cendrars, and the Poem as Fashion Design

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Died on a 14 November:

1908 Lorenzo Delleani, Italian painter born on 17 January 1840. He attended the Accademia Albertina in Turin, and he first exhibited work at the Società Promotrice delle Belle Arti in Turin at the age of 15. Having already made his name as a history painter, from 1860 he painted from nature, dedicating himself primarily to landscapes with figures, for example the famous Processions, a genre in which he is today considered as one of the most important artists of his time. Delleani worked on such paintings, all of the same format, daily and dated each precisely. His earliest landscapes were small-scale views of Venice and its lagoon, dating from 1873. In 1878 he completed some smaller works on panel, such as The Orchard, The Seine at Paris, and The Market Place at Berne.

1884 Frederick William Hulme, British artist born on 22 October 1816.

1884 Abraham Hulk I, Dutch British artist born on 01 May 1813. — [Known as “the incredible Hulk”?]
Unloading the Barges -- Kruseman

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1857 Cornelis Kruseman, Dutch artist born on 25 September 1797. At the age of 14 he attended a drawing academy in Amsterdam, where he was taught by Charles Hodges and J. A. Daiwaille [1786–1850] among others. He painted portraits (e.g. Mrs Brak-Haskenhoff, 1818), biblical subjects and Italian peasant scenes, which are reminiscent of the works of his French contemporary Léopold Robert. He worked in a classicizing style, which favored pure line and ideal beauty. He went to Italy in 1821, spending two years in Rome, where he was particularly inspired by the picturesque details of Italian daily life and studied the Italian Old Masters. Typical of his work from this period is Piety, which combines, with careful lighting and modeling, a religious scene, a history piece and an imaginative treatment of local peasant life. After his return from Italy in 1825 Kruseman settled in The Hague, where he lived until 1854. He was in Italy again between 1841 and 1848, where he produced such paintings as The Captured Butterfly. — The students of Cornelis Kruseman included his nephew Jan Adam Kruseman [12 Feb 1804 – 17 Mar 1862], Alexander Hugo Bakker Korff, David Joseph Bles, Herman Frederik Carel ten Kate [16 Feb 1822 – 26 Mar 1891], Johan Philip Koelman, Raden Saleh. — Unloading the Barges (26x37cm) >>>

^ 1813 Jean-Pierre-Louis-Laurent Hoüel, French painter and engraver born on 28 June 1735. He was born into a family of prosperous artisans and at the age of 15 was sent to the drawing academy in Rouen run by Jean-Baptiste Descamps [1715–1791]. Presumably Descamps introduced him to the art of 17th-century Dutch and Flemish artists. Descamps also recommended his promising pupil to the Paris engraver Jacques-Philippe Le Bas, whose studio Hoüel entered in 1755. While in Paris Hoüel taught engraving to the celebrated amateur Blondel d’Azincourt (who had inherited a superb collection from his father Blondel de Gagny). This was Hoüel’s entry into cultivated high society, including the circle of the enlightened patron and hostess Mme. Geoffrin. — LINKS

^ 1797 Januarius Johann Rasso Zick, German painter and architect born on 06 February 1730. He was first trained with by his father Johann Zick [10 Jan 1702 – 04 March 1762] and was then apprenticed (1745–1748) to the master mason Jacob Emele (1707–1780) in Schussenried — hence his later description of himself as pictor et architectus. Januarius’s first dated painting is from 1750: Saint Benedict Awakens a Monk from Death. He went on working under his father, with interruptions, until 1759, on commissions that included frescoes and panels at Würzburg and Bruchsal. His panel paintings include David Playing the Harp Before Saul (1753) and closely imitate the ‘Rembrandt’ style of his father. In 1757, during a visit to Paris, he studied with the copper-engraver Jean-Georges Wille and met his French contemporaries. He then went via Basle to Rome, where he completed his studies with Anton Raphael Mengs. In 1758 Zick became a member of the Augsburg academy and won a prize for Mercury in the Sculptor’s Workshop. In the same year he painted 34 panels for the ‘Watteau-Kabinett’ in Schloss Bruchsal (destroyed in 1945), using his Paris experience. — The painters of the Zick family worked for over five generations in the 18th and 19th centuries in Upper Bavaria, Swabia, Franconia, and the Rhineland. (1) Johann Zick and his son (2) Januarius Zick were primarily fresco painters, though the latter also did many panel paintings. They included the direct descendants descendant of Januarius Zick, Konrad Zick [1773-1836], Gustav Zick [1809-1886], and Alexander Zick [1845-1907], who, while relatively minor figures, all shared a gift for portrait painting. — Gerhard von Kügelgen was a student of Januarius Zick.

1673 Mario Nuzzi (de Fiori, della Penna), Italian artist born in 1603.

1505 date sometimes given for the death of Alvise Luigi Vivarini, instead of the preferred date 06 September 1503.

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Born on a 14 November:

1883 date sometimes given for the birth of Louis Casimir Ladislas Marcoussis (originally Markus), Polish French Cubist painter, while the preferred date is 10 November 1878.

1852 Antonio Mancini, Italian painter who died on 28 December 1930. He entered the Istituto di Belle Arti, Naples, at the age of 12; while still an adolescent he produced accomplished works such as Head of a Young Girl (1867). On his graduation in 1873, Mancini, together with Francesco Paolo Michetti and Vincenzo Gemito, was at the forefront of Verismo in Neapolitan art. Sharing a studio with Gemito, he painted the street boys, musicians, and dancers of Naples, creating an anti-academic, popular art. His patron, Albert, Count Cahen of Antwerp [1846–1903], encouraged him to visit Paris in 1875, where he met Manet and Degas. After a second visit in 1877, he lightened his previously somber palette and his style moved away from sensual modeling to become more decorative.

1829 Hendrik Dirk Kruseman van Elten, Dutch artist who died on 12 July 1904.

1800 Robert Léopold Leprince, French painter who died on 06 February 1847, son of painter and lithographer Anne-Pierre Leprince and brother of the painters Auguste-Xavier Leprince [28 Aug 1799 – 24 Dec 1826] and Gustave Leprince [1810–1837].

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