| ART “4”
“2”-DAY 08
October |
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Died on 08 October 1856:Théodore
Chassériau, Parisian painter and printmaker born
on 20 September 1819. — Born in Haiti at El Limón, near Samaná (now in the Dominican Republic), Chassériau moved in 1822 with his family to Paris, where he received a bourgeois upbringing under the supervision of an older brother. A precociously gifted draftsman, he entered Ingres’s studio at the age of 11 and remained there until Ingres left to head the Académie de France in Rome in 1834. He made his Salon début in 1836 with several portraits and religious subjects, including Cain Accursed, for which he received a third-class medal. Among his many submissions in subsequent years were Susanna Bathing (1839), a Marine Venus (1838) and the Toilet of Esther (1841); these three paintings of nude female figures combine an idealization derived from Ingres with a sensuality characteristic of Chassériau. — He was the most gifted student of Ingres, whose studio in Rome in entered when he was 11, but in the 1840s he conceived an admiration for Delacroix and attempted, with considerable success, to combine Ingres's Classical linear grace with Delacroix's Romantic color. His chief work was the decoration of the Cour des Comptes in the Palais d'Orsay, Paris, with allegorical scenes of Peace and War (1844-48), but these were almost completely destroyed by fire. There are other examples of his decorative work, however, in various churches in Paris. Chassériau was also an outstanding portraitist and painted nudes and North African scenes (he made a visit there in 1846). — LINKS — The Two Sisters (1843) — Peace — The Tepidarium (1853, 171x258cm) _ detail — Un bain au sérail (1849, 50x32cm; 452x291pix, 76kb) |
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Died on 08 October 1826:Théodore
Garrard, English painter and sculptor born on 31 May 1760.
— After serving an apprenticeship under Sawrey Gilpin, later his father-in-law, Garrard became a student at the Royal Academy Schools, London, in 1778, exhibiting his first sporting picture there in 1781. Though his occasional genre paintings were better received than his many animal subjects (Sir Joshua Reynolds purchased his View of a Brew-house Yard from the Academy exhibition of 1784), he initially determined to practice as a sporting artist, probably on the advice of the notorious sportsman Colonel Thomas Thornton [1755–1823] for whom he had worked in the 1780s. — LINKS — Bay Hunter by a Lake (1790, 57x81cm) — A Farm (15x24cm) — A Thatched Barn (19x27cm) — A House by a Lane (21x37cm; 319x512pix, 20kb) — John Duke of Bedford (engraving) _ He was Viceroy of Ireland. Woburn Abbey is in the background. — Bull and Cow (31x46cm) _ they are uninterested in each other, or in anything else, it seems. — Mr Taylor's Barn, Marlow (1795, 20x24cm) _ The landscape oil sketches which Garrard painted in the 1790s were probably painted in the open air, and seem chiefly to have been made for his own enjoyment. Nevertheless, he later adapted this one for the background of one of his paintings, The Holderness Cow, which he exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1797. As well as specializing in pictures of rustic genre, Garrard also produced a wide range of animal subjects in plaster and bronze. In 1798 he helped secure the passing of an important Copyright Act for sculptors with the help of his patron, Samuel Whitbread II [1764–1815], a Whig MP and son of the founder of the famous brewery. |
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Born on 08 October 1868: Max Slevogt,
German Impressionist
painter, printmaker, and illustrator, who died on 20 September 1932. — His father, adjutant and friend of the future Prince Regent, Luitpold [1821–1912], died when Slevogt was just two years old. His mother moved to Würzburg, where he spent his schooldays. Even in his childhood and adolescence, family connections brought Slevogt to Pfalz, to an aunt in Landau and to the Finkler family in Neukastel. Initially he had planned to become a musician, but he began to study painting at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich in 1885. His fellow students included Gabriel von Hackl [1843–1926], Karl Raupp [1837–1918], Ludwig Herterich [1856–1932], and Wilhelm von Diez [1839–1907]. In 1889 he spent a term at the Académie Julian in Paris. At that time Impressionism impressed him very little. Following a trip to Italy in 1890 with the painter Robert Breyer [1866–1941] who had befriended him at the Akademie, he began to work independently as a painter in Munich. In 1893 he participated in the first exhibition of the newly founded Munich Secession, exhibiting Wrestling School (1893); the judges wanted to refuse this painting as immoral since its entwined and naked men caused offence. In the following years his paintings often appeared harsh and non-academic to conservative Munich circles. At this time Slevogt also made contributions to the journals Jugend and Simplizissimus, which were significant in the development of his graphic work. In 1898 he married his childhood friend Antonie (‘Nini’) Finkler. In the same year he went to Neukastel and on an autumn trip to an exhibition in Amsterdam of Rembrandt’s work with the art historian Karl Voll [1867–1917]. Voll instructed him in the history of art and published the first monograph on him in 1912. — LINKS — Self-Portrait (1888; 601x431pix, 112kb) — Self-Portrait (drypoint 20x15cm) — Self-Portrait seated and drawing (1911drypoint, 17x12cm) — Self-Portrait (Head) (drypoint 24x18cm) — Frau Voll mit ihrer Tochter (1895; 483x511pix, 130kb) — Segelboote auf der Alster am Abend (1905; 514x694pix, 194kb) — 62 prints at FAMSF |
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Died on 08 October 1469: fra Filippo
Lippi di Tomaso, Florentine painter born in 1406. — Fra Flippo Lippi born: Florence, [now Italy]; about 1406 died: Spoleto, Papal States [now Italy], 8 or 10 October 1469 Filippo Lippi's father and mother died when he was in his early teens, and he then lived with an aunt in Florence. When she could no longer control him, at about age fifteen, she shipped him off to become a Carmelite monk. Frescoes by Masaccio were being painted in the Brancacci chapel of the Carmelite monastery. These were probably Lippi's first contact with art. In his early twenties Fra Lippi painted frescoes in the church and in the cloister of the monastery, and became increasingly impatient of the monastic life. When he was 26, he left the monastery. According to Vasari, who wrote the Lives of the Painters, Lippi was abducted by the Moorish pirates on the Adriatic and held as a slave for 18 months. He was freed only after he painted a portrait of his owner He was alway a man dominated by love affairs and impatient of methodical or tranquil conduct. When he was 36, Lippi became rector of the church of S. Quirico at Legnaia. His amorous adventures culminated at age 50 when he fled from Prato, a small city near Florence, with one of the nuns from the convent in which he was painting. Her name was Lucrezia Buti and Fra Lippi was later given permission to marry her by the Pope. The had a son, Filippo, called Filippino (1457~1504) to distinguish him from his father, who was trained by his father and became a noted Florentine painter in the second half of the century. — Filippo Lippi (Filippo di Tommaso di Lippo) was brought up as an unwanted child in the Carmelite friary of the Carmine, where he took his vows in 1421. Unlike the Dominican Fra Angelico, however, Lippi was a reluctant friar and had a scandalous love affair with a nun, Lucrezia Buti, who bore his son Filippino and a daughter Alessandra. The two were released from their vows and allowed to marry, but Lippi still signed himself "Frater Philippus". His biography (romantically embroidered to include capture by pirates) is one of the most colorful in Vasari's Lives and has given rise to the picture of a wordly Renaissance artist, rebelling against the discipline of the Church. He must certainly have had a more eventful life than most, but there is little documentary evidence of his character and personality. Lippi was inspired to become a painter by watching Masaccio at work in the Carmine church, and his early work, notably the Tarquinia Madonna is certainly overwhelmingly influenced by him. In 1432 Lippi probably painted a fresco in the cloister of Santa Maria del Carmine, the Rules of the Carmelite Order, and in the same year he apparently left the convent permanently. He traveled to North Italy where he disseminated the latest Florentine discoveries and, at the same time, was open to the stylistic currents he found there. Lippi was in Padua in 1434 and perhaps earlier, where he was recorded together with Francesco Squarcione, the local painter and powerful personality. Back in Florence, he signed and dated the Tarquinia Madonna in 1437 and obtained an important commission for an altarpiece, the Madonna Enthroned with Saints (begun 1437) for the Barbadori family chapel in Santo Spirito, which he apparently finished during the following year. Lippi's art, and probably this painting, are warmly praised by Domenico Veneziano in a letter of 1438 to Piero, son of Cosimo de' Medici, with whom Fra Filippo had close dealings. In 1442, with Medici support, Pope Eugenius IV awarded him an important benefice. A large payment was made in 1447 for Saint Bernard's Vision of the Virgin, produced for the Palazzo della Signoria, as well as final payments for The Coronation of the Virgin, made for Sant'Ambrogio, which was commissioned in 1441. From about 1440, however, Lippi's style changed direction, becoming more linear and preoccupied with decorative motifs - thin, fluttering draperies, brocades, etc. Lippi is associated particularly with paintings of the Virgin and Child, which are sometimes in the form of tondi, a format he was among the first to use - a beautiful example, showing the wistful delicacy and exquisite pale lighting that characterizes his best works, is in the Pitti, Florence. Another formal innovation with which Lippi is closely associated is the "sacra conversazione" - his Barbadori Altarpiece is sometimes claimed as the earliest example of the type. Fra Filippo began to fresco the enormous choir of the Cathedral of Prato in 1452 (after Fra Angelico had turned down the assignment). He was aided by his chief assistant of the period, Fra Diamante; the work dragged on for years. As a fresco painter Lippi's finest achievement is this cycle on The Lives of Saints Stephen and John the Baptist (1452-1465). In Prato, Lippi also obtained a number of other assignments and purchased a house there in 1455. He is appointed chaplain in the nunnery of Santa Margherita in Prato. By 1458 he completed a painting for the king of Naples, a commission negotiated by the Medici, for whom Filippo produced an Adoration of the Child (now lost) in 1459. In spite of his secular activities, Filippo's late works are infused with religious feeling and are far more lyrical than the early ones. The Nativity in Florence, in Berlin, and in Florence, as well as the Madonna and Child in Florence are examples. By 1466 he had put the finishing touches on the frescoes in Prato; in the previous year negotiations had been underway for him to fresco the choir of the Cathedral of Spoleto in Umbria. The actual painting began in 1467 with the assistance of Fra Diamante, who completed the work about the time of Lippi's death in 1469. Despite the wishes of the Florentines, who wanted him to be interred in his native city, Fra Filippo was buried in Spoleto, where there is a monument dedicated to him in the Cathedral with an inscription by the humanist poet Angelo Poliziano. Filippo Lippi was not dedicated to the study of nature firsthand; instead, he depended largely upon painted and sculptured prototypes, and his figures are often inorganic and unanatomical, rendered without an ultimate conviction for their three-dimensional presence. Nor was Filippo deeply motivated by a desire to imitate antiquity; there are remarkably few paraphrases from ancient sculpture, and when isolated, they appear to have been achieved indirectly, filtered through Donatello or Luca della Robbia. For the most part his painted architecture, the buildings he invented, cannot even vaguely be reconstructed. Like Fra Angelico, Fra Filippo Lippi was taken with landscape, and he was successful in this genre in the backgrounds of many pictures; but his world is predominantly fantasy, accentuated by an unnaturalistic palette. Lippi, however, had moments of the greatest power, like the frescoes in Prato, which stand among the finest and most eloquent statements of the age. Lippi was highly regarded in his day (he was patronized by the Medici, who came to his aid when he was imprisoned and tortured for alleged fraud) and his influence is seen in the work of numerous artists, most notably Botticelli, who was probably his student. Four centuries later he was one of the major sources for the second wave of Pre-Raphaelitism. — LINKS — Madonna and Child (1465) — Virgin and Child with Scenes from the life of Saint Anne (1452) — The Annunciation (1430) — Annunciation (1449) — A Man and Woman == Fresco cycle in the Spoleto Cathedral (1466-1469): Lippi started his last and most ambitious work, the fresco cycle Life of the Virgin, in September 1467 in the conch of the apse of the Spoleto Cathedral. The cycle remained incomplete at his death but was finished a couple of months later, in December 1469, by his son Filippino, who was still very young at the time. The arrangement of the scenes is simple and symmetrical. The priestly grandeur of the images is drafted with graphic clarity. — Annunciation (1004x820pix, 185kb) — Nativity (1003x830pix, 194kb) — Death of the Virgin (825x1036pix, 183kb) — Coronation of the Virgin (703x975pix, 138kb) _ detail (1081x720pix, 194kb) |
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Born on 08 October 1878: Alfred
James Munnings,
English painter who died on 17 July 1959. — He grew up in the countryside of the Waveney Valley and left school at the age of 14 for a six-year apprenticeship with a firm of lithographers in Norwich, where he came to excel as a lithographic draftsman while also studying painting in evening classes. He left the printing business after his apprenticeship, supporting himself through freelance poster work and occasional sales of paintings. The loss of sight in his right eye in an accident in 1898 did not deflect his determination to paint, and in 1899 two of his pictures were shown at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. — LINKS — Off to the Meet (168kb) — Going out at Epsom (1929, 40x58cm) — The Hop Picker (1910, 52x61cm) — Near Dedham (1902, 46x61cm) — A Saddled Hunter in a Landscape (49x61cm) _ a saddled horse, no human anywhere. — Pigs In A Wood, Cornwall (63x76cm) _ a sow and six piglets. — Saddling for the Point-to-Point (56x62cm) |
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Died on 08 October 1455 (or 14 July 1455): Antonio
Pisanello (or Pisano) di Puccio, Italian artist born in
1395 before 27 November. — Italian painter, draftsman, and medallist, who was the last and most brilliant artist of the ornate, courtly International Gothic style. Originally named Antonio Pisano, he studied under Gentile da Fabriano, whose graceful, detailed style he inherited. Pisanello produced paintings, frescoes, drawings, and portrait medallions for the courts of Milan, Rimini, Naples, Mantua, Ferrara, and Verona. His well-known small painting, Princess of the House of Este (1443), exemplifies his style; it shows a woman in profile against a tapestrylike floral background and is characterized by elegant long lines, clear colors, and exquisite drawing of details. His frescoes, such as his masterpiece Saint George and the Princess (1438), show to the greatest extent his precise and loving representation of the natural details of human figures, animals, flowers, and objects. His numerous drawings are also fastidiously detailed, and in some of them, particularly those of female nudes, he achieves a strength of three-dimensional modeling that establishes an important link between the Gothic and Renaissance styles. — Pisanello è fra i grandi talenti del Rinascimento; ma non potrebbe dirsi affatto ch’egli ruppe col passato. Egli non ha la vigorosa inquietudine d’un innovatore; ma una raffinatezza, una preziosità, da ultimo rampollo d’un nobile lignaggio. L’evoluzione artistica dette nell’opera di Pisanello lo specchio ideale d’un prodotto parallelo dell’evoluzione sociale: la cavalleria, ormai al tramonto nell’interpretazione dei singoli oggetti del mondo naturale, non restò forse addietro a nessun contemporaneo, di qualsiasi parte del mondo. Dipinse uccelli come soltanto i giapponesi. I suoi bracchi e levrieri, i suoi cervi, non la cedono neppure a quelli dei Van Eyck. Il suo posto, approssimativamente, è fra i tardi miniaturisti medievali franco-fiamminghi; i Limbourg da una parte, e dall’altra i Van Eyck — LINKS — Ginevra d'Este (1434, 43x30cm) Eseguito nei primi anni del rapporto di Pisanello con Ferrara, il dipinto mostra l’effigie di profilo di una giovane dama, identificata con Ginevra d’Este, sorella di Leonello. Sulla manica dell’abito della dama appare infatti l’impresa estense con il vaso biansato con le ancore, mentre il rametto di ginepro appuntato sull’abito è un chiaro richiamo al suo nome. La presenza della siepe di aquilegie e garofani sullo sfondo, simboli rispettivamente di fertilità, e di amore e matrimonio, e della farfalla, che può assumere la medesima valenza simbolica, ha condotto all’ipotesi che si tratti di un ritratto matrimoniale, eseguito poco prima delle nozze di Ginevra con Sigismondo Malatesta, nel 1434. Ma la valenza simbolica delle aquilegie, interpretabili anche come simbolo di dolore e morte, ha fatto anche ipotizzare una possibile esecuzione del ritratto dopo la tragica morte di Ginevra. L’identificazione dell’effigiata con Ginevra non è comunque unanimemente accettata, alcuni studiosi hanno infatti riconosciuto nella dama un ritratto di Margherita Gonzaga, figlia di Gianfrancesco e moglie di Leonello d’Este dal 1435 al 1439. — Madonna col Bambino e i santi Antonio abate e Giorgio _ (47x29cm) La tavola, l’unica firmata tra le poche rimasteci di Pisanello, raffigura, nella parte superiore, la Vergine all’interno di un clipeo di luce. Nella parte inferiore, sullo sfondo di un’impenetrabile foresta, appaiono i santi Antonio abate e Giorgio, entrambi accompagnati dagli animali accomunati al loro culto: il maiale e il drago. Nei tratti di san Giorgio, perfettamente abbigliato secondo la moda cavalleresca dell’epoca e con una grande cappello di paglia in testa, è stato talvolta riconosciuto il ritratto del giovane Leonello d’Este. Infatti, secondo alcuni studiosi, l’opera deve essere identificata con la tavola raffigurante la Madonna citata in una lettera di Leonello d’Este del 1432. Non tutti concordano però sulla datazione, che è stata da molti posticipata al quinto decennio del secolo, considerando il dipinto l’ultima tavola nota di Pisanello. — Visione di sant'Eustachio _ Visione di sant’Eustachio 1435-1440 circa tempera su tavola; 65 x 53 Londra, National Gallery Il soggetto del dipinto, la miracolosa visione del crocifisso tra le corna di un cervo apparsa all’ufficiale dell’esercito di Traiano Eustachio durante una battuta di caccia nel bosco, offre a Pisanello l’occasione di impiegare tutte le sue straordinarie capacità di pittore del mondo naturale. Tra tutte le sue opere, infatti, la tavola di Londra è quella per la quale sono conservati il maggior numero di disegni preparatori, che ritraggono dal vero soprattutto i numerosi animali. Anche in questo caso, com’era accaduto per il San Giorgio di Verona, Eustachio appare perfettamente abbigliato secondo i dettami della contemporanea moda da caccia. — Cicogna (1435, 19x21cm) Eccezionale disegnatore, Pisanello riprodusse sovente nei suoi fogli varie specie di animali, seguendo in ciò la pratica dei maestri lombardi. Già Giovannino de Grassi e Michelino da Besozzo avevano infatti mostrato una predilezione per la raffigurazione dal vero del mondo naturale, in particolare animale, che Pisanello deve aver approfondito durante il suo soggiorno a Pavia. Egli si recò nella città lombarda per eseguire la decorazione del castello visconteo, ricordata dalle fonti, ma di cui non rimane alcuna traccia, se non nella successiva produzione del pittore. La Cicogna, messa in relazione da alcuni studiosi con il Sant’Eustachio della National Gallery di Londra, mostra affinità tecniche con i fogli preparatori agli affreschi eseguiti in Sant’Anastasia a Verona. — Madonna della quaglia _ Madonna della quaglia 1420 circa Verona, Museo Civico di Castelvecchio Si tratta della prima opera nota di Pisanello, in cui sono evidenti i legami con l’opera di Michelino da Besozzo, Gentile da Fabriano e i massimi esponenti del “gotico internazionale”. Le affinità maggiori si scorgono con la Madonna del roseto del museo di Castevecchio a Verona, variamente attribuita a Michelino o a Stefano da Verona. Anche la Madonna della quaglia di Pisanello appare in un rigoglioso giardino, sullo sfondo di un roseto, attributo tradizionale della Vergine. I due cardellini rimandano alla crocifissione di Cristo, occasione in cui, secondo la tradizione, si sarebbero macchiati di rosso, mentre la quaglia è simbolo di resurrezione. — San Giorgio, la principessa e il drago _ (1438, 223x620cm) _ L’affresco è ciò che rimane di una più ampia decorazione eseguita da Pisanello nell’arco di ingresso della cappella Pellegrini nella chiesa domenicana di Sant’Anastasia a Verona. Le scene perdute raffiguravano l’uccisione del drago da parte di san Giorgio e sant’Eustachio, mentre l’affresco superstite mostra il momento in cui san Giorgio giunge nei pressi della città libica di Silena e si imbatte nella figlia del re, destinata a essere sacrificata a un terribile drago che terrorizzava i cittadini. La storia è narrata nella Legenda aurea di Jacopo da Varagine ed è resa con dovizia di particolari da Pisanello, che, in accordo con la tradizione tardo-gotica, trasforma san Giorgio in un cavaliere del suo tempo e dissemina la composizione di ricercati particolari decorativi. Si conoscono parecchi disegni preparatori alla composizione, tra cui un foglio per le figure degli impiccati, con ogni probabilità preso dal vero. — Saint George and the Princess of Trebizond, detail (1430) — Emperor Sigismund (1432) — La lussuria — Studio per la Decollazione del Battista — Madonna col Bambino e i santi Antonio abate e Giorgio — Ginevra d’Este — Visione di sant’Eustachio — Torneo cavalleresco — Ritratto di Leonello d’Este — Medaglia di Leonello d’Este — Medaglia di Alfonso V d’Aragona |