ART “4”
“2”-DAY 28 April
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>Born on 28 April 1868: Émile Bernard,
French painter and writer who died on 16 April 1941. — He was the son of a cloth merchant. Relations with his parents were never harmonious, and in 1884, against his father’s wishes, he enrolled as a student at the Atelier Cormon in Paris. There he became a close friend of Louis Anquetin and Toulouse-Lautrec. In suburban views of Asnières, where his parents lived, Bernard experimented with Impressionist and then Pointillist color theory, in direct opposition to his master’s academic teaching; an argument with Fernand Cormon led to his expulsion from the studio in 1886. He made a walking tour of Normandy and Brittany that year, drawn to Gothic architecture and the simplicity of the carved Breton calvaries. In Concarneau he struck up a friendship with Claude-Emile Schuffenecker and met Gauguin briefly in Pont-Aven. During the winter Bernard met van Gogh and frequented the shop of the color merchant Julien-François Tanguy, where he gained access to the little-known work of Cézanne. — LINKS — Self-Portrait with Portrait of Gauguin (1888, 46x55cm; 427x510cm, 49kb) _ In 1888 Bernard worked with Paul Gauguin in Pont-Aven, in Brittany. There he produced this self-portrait, which he inscribed with the text “à mon copaing Vincent” and sent to his friend Vincent in Arles. Van Gogh had actually requested a portrait of Gauguin, but Bernard replied that he did not feel confident enough to paint his older, better-known colleague. By way of a compromise he painted this self-portrait in blue and green tints, including Gauguin’s head on the wall in the background as a stylized drawing. Van Gogh was enthusiastic about the gift – “a couple of simple tones, a couple of dark lines, but it is as elegant as a real, genuine Manet”. Gauguin also sent to Van Gogh a self-portrait, _ Les Misérables (1888), which includes a portrait of Bernard in the background. –- Jeune Fille sur la Colline (1904, 64x77cm; 826x1006pix, 92kb _ .ZOOM to 1652x2013pix, 712kb) _ This is strictly a landscape with a village The young lady occupies barely 1/200 of the picture area. This image is mirror-reversed, unless Bernard signed in reversed handwriting (inspired by Leonardo da Vinci?). — Arcadia (58x36cm; 1000x619pix) — Madeleine au Bois d'Amour (1888) — Moissoneurs de Sarrasin à Pont-Aven (1888; 562x700pix, 129kb) — Moisson au bord de la mer (1891, 70x92cm; 532x700pix, 246kb) — Musiciens Espagnols (1897) — Les Bretonnes aux ombrelles (1892, 81x105cm; 579x700pix, 286kb) — La Vierge aux Saintes, published by L'Ymagier in 1895 (hand-colored lithograph, 61x41cm; 759x503pix, 146kb) —(070428) |
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Died on 28 April 1754: Giovanni
Battista Piazzetta, Venitian painter and drafstman born
on 13 February (12 December?) 1682, son of Giacomo Piazzeta. — Most of G. B. Piazzetta's works are of religious subjects, yet he also painted genre scenes and occasional portraits; especially famous are his portrait heads in black-and-white chalk. His somber art, dependent on chiaroscuro and on a limited, almost monochromatic palette, is intense in feeling and deeply realistic, in contrast to the virtuoso performances and brilliant high-keyed palette of his Venetian contemporaries. — Venetian painter, son of a woodcarver, who studied under Giuseppe Maria Crespi in Bologna and was probably influenced by him to take up genre subjects. After a period of study in Bologna in the "bottega" of Giuseppe Maria Crespi, Piazzetta settled in Venice permanently and developed his art and his career without leaving the city. At the beginning, his paintings were characterized by a harshly intense play of chiaroscuro and densely laid on paint, clearly the result of his contact with the robust brilliance of Crespi. Around half-way through the fourth decade of the eighteenth century, his paintings relaxes somewhat into a style which is characterized by the sensually sonorous timbre of colour which he achieved by means of a light which his contemporaries called "lume solivo". He settled in Venice by 1711, and after his death his family petitioned the State for a pension, claiming that his 'constant studies and his pursuit of glory rather than gain had reduced him to poverty and hastened his death'. His works are comparatively few, and though appearing to be executed with speed and facility were the product of careful deliberation and infinite pains. He made many drawings for collectors and as book-illustrations in order to support his family; his work was much influenced by Rembrandt's etchings and his paintings evolve from Baroque contrasts of chiaroscuro towards a freer and more fluid Rococo handling. Piazzetta's influence on the young Tiepolo was very great and it was Tiepolo who completed the transition to the Rococo. Most of his paintings are in Venice, including his only ceiling decoration, _ Glory of Saint Dominic, painted before 1727. Piazzetta was the son of a wood carver from whom he inherited his taste for sculpturally solid figures and a wonderful gift for engraving. Unusual for a Venetian painter, he studied in Bologna (1703 to 1705) under Giuseppe Maria Crespi, being inspired by Crespi's dramatic use of chiaroscuro. Piazzetta was also unfluenced by Guercino's altarpieces with their "big splashes" of color. The immediate effect of these influences was that he developed a dramatic pictorial style with tremendous emotional power. He tended to use strong chiaroscuro, contrasting brilliantly-lit areas and others plunged into shade. His palette contained a lot of muted browns, partly due to which his pictures convey a strong religious feeling. However, thanks to his contacts with Tiepolo (with whom he worked in the church of the Gesuati and who had been at first influenced by him) Piazzetta's work gradually became lighter and more luminous, although he never painted frescos. Even when decorating the ceiling of a chapel he painted on canvas. Piazzetta produced many fine secular compositions for collectors, including The Fortune Teller and Rebecca at the Well. He was also an excellent illustrator and engraver. Finally, Piazzetta played a key role in teaching and was one of the founders of the Venetian Academy of Fine Art. — Painter, illustrator, and designer, Piazzetta was one of the outstanding Venetian artists of the 18th century. His art evolved from Italian Baroque traditions of the 17th century to a Rococo manner in his mature style. Piazzetta began his career in the studio of his father, Giacomo, a woodcarver. Soonafter assisting the latter to carve the still-surviving bookcases of the library of the Church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo at Venice, he abandoned the family profession and began to study painting under Antonio Molinari. In about 1703 he went to Bologna, where he worked in the studio of Giuseppi Maria Crespi. He was back in Venice by 1711 and continued to work there until his death. Little is known of the dating of Piazzetta's paintings, especially those of his youth. His “St. James Led to Martyrdom” (Venice) dates to 1717; at this period he was a powerful influence on the young Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, who was to become the most famous Venetian painter of the 18th century. In about 1725-27 he undertook his only ceiling painting, the Glorification of St. Dominic, for the Chapel of the Sacrament in Santi Giovanni e Paolo. The Ecstasy of St. Francis, perhaps his finest religious work, dates from about 1732, and some three years later he was commissioned to execute an Assumption for the elector of Cologne. The celebrated Fortune Teller is dated 1740. The Pastoral and the Idyll by the Seashore, both inthe same Rococo-pastoral vein, must have been painted about the same time or a little before. In his last years he carried out a number of large-scale decorations with subjects taken from classical history. In 1727 Piazzetta was elected a member of the Clementine Academy of Bologna, and, on the foundation of the Venetian Academy in 1750, he was made its first director and teacher of drawing from the nude. He was a very slow worker and in spite of his popularity was compelled to produce innumerable drawings for sale to support his large family. — Domenico Maggiotto was an assitant of Piazzetta, whose students included Giovanni Battista Casanova, Giuseppe Angeli, Domenico Maggiotto, Georges Desmarées, Franz Anton Kraus, Giuseppe Nogari, Johann Heinrich Tischbein I, Paul Troger. — LINKS — The Virgin Appearing to Saint Philip Neri (1725, 367x200cm; 1262x650pix, 113kb) _ Starting from a triangular compositional layout which derives from Titian, Piazzetta packs the picture with vibrant emotion thanks to the creative tension between the characters and the still-life inserts. — Three Dominican Saints (1738, 345x172cm; 1350x671pix, 113kb) _ The saint represented with wide gesture in the center is Saint Vincent Ferrer. He is flanked by Saint Hyacinth and Saint Louis Bertrand. — The Ecstasy of Saint Francis (1729; 1238x610pix, 72kb) _ This altarpiece is composed along three parallel diagonals that cut across the composition from left to right. The most important section is in the center where Piazzetta contrasts the luminous and robust figure of the wonderful angel with the lifeless, dark, and heavy figure of the fainting saint. The descriptive detail (such as the scruffy wooden structure or the figure of Brother Leo with his back to us) accentuate the feeling of isolation and intense mysticism. — The Guardian Angel with Saints Anthony of Padua and Gaetano Thiene (1729, 250x112cm; 1288x601pix, 91kb) — Idyll at the Coast (1741, 197x146cm, 920x692pix, 81kb) — Rebecca at the Well (1740, 102x137cm; 808x1111pix, 126kb) — Shepherd Boy (700x860pix, 97kb) — The Fortune Teller (1740, 154x114cm; 940x672pix, 98kb) _ The main subject is the meeting of two young peasant girls with one of them trying to attract the attention of the little dog which her companion is rather nonchalantly holding in her left arm. This moment of everyday life is transformed into pastoral idyll by the extremely careful fitting together of the planes of the scene and the grouping of the figures who are dominated by the glowing beauty of the young country-girl on whom the "lumo solivo" concentrates and who thus becomes the highest note of the rich symphony of chromatic shadings. — Saint James Brought to Martyrdom (1723, 165x138cm; 1140x950pix, 170kb) |
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Died on 28 April 1905: Arthur
Fitzwilliam Tait, English US painter born on 05 August 1819,
specialized in Animals.
— Tait was born near Liverpool, England and was the son of a maritime merchant. At the age of eight, when his father faced financial destitution, Tait was sent to live with relatives in the country outside of Lancaster. There he discovered a love for animals, nature, hunting and fishing that inspired him throughout his life. Tait first became curious about the US upon seeing the traveling exhibition of Indian portraits and artifacts by George Catlin, in Paris in the late 1840’s. He was so intrigued by Catlin’s interpretation of the US West that he left for the United States in 1850. Although he settled in New York City, Tait spent much of his time in the Adirondack Mountains painting landscapes, wildlife and sportsmen. His romantic and dramatic depictions of life in the Adirondacks were enormously popular throughout the pre-Civil War era. Although he never traveled farther west than the Adirondacks, Tait is considered one of the principal painters of the American frontier along with artists George Catlin, William Ranney and Karl Bodmer. During his career, Tait illustrated approximately thirty-six prints for the renowned Currier and Ives Lithographers. His specialty, however, was medium-sized, moderately priced animal paintings, which he produced in great numbers. Despite changing trends in the art world, Tait enjoyed a steady clientele until his death. — LINKS –- Maternal Solicitude(1873, 50x61cm; 620x760pix, 36kb) –- The Prairie Hunter: “One rubbed out!” (1852, 36x53cm; 558x825pix, 38kb _ .ZOOM to 1090x1512pix, 164kb _ .ZOOM+ to 1584x2160pix, 725kb) — The Surprise (1879, 56x65cm) almost monochrome — Grouse Family (1855, 69x112cm) almost monochrome — Early Morning in the Adirondacks (1883, 102x142cm) _ During the year 1882-1883, Tait and William Sonntag collaborated on five paintings including this one. Tait, an avid huntsman and established wildlife and sporting artist, was known for his depictions of stylistic deer near the water’s edge and ducks in flight against thin fog. Sonntag was a Hudson River School landscape painter who became famous for his images of idealized yet rugged Eastern American landscapes. In Early Morning in the Adirondacks, Tait painted his signature deer and ducks into Sonntag’s majestic mountain landscape. The joint efforts and specific talents of these two artists resulted in this meticulously rendered and powerful painting. — Barnyard (December 1860, 41x66cm) _ Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait arrived in New York City from Liverpool in 1850. In the early 1840s in Manchester, England, he had worked for Agnew's Repository of the Arts where he was exposed to the art of Edwin Landseer and John Frederick Herring and was encouraged to try his own hand at the lithographer's art. Barnyard demonstrates his strong familiarity with English sporting paintings and prints. Tait's kinship with Herring is apparent in the similarity of this painting to Herring's account of his own painting (1861) less than a year later: "It represents a stable, a white horse ... white ducks, brown ducks and a black cat," and Herring continues, noting his "colorman's compliment" on his "management of white, at all times a difficult color to treat without appearing dirty." Like Herring, Tait was above all a colorist, and the white horse dominates his scene, its whiteness enshrouded by a dark background and circumscribed by a blue-green wall with shuttered window at the right. The white horse is solitary in his stature and nurturing role. After 1862, Tait's production of horse paintings declined as he turned increasingly to deer hunting and Adirondack sites for his sporting subjects. However, his pride in this genre is evidenced by his having exhibited a painting of the same size and date as Barnyard in the National Academy of Design show in the spring of 1861. His choice of Feeding Time (1860) over Barnyard for the exhibition may have been determined by its inclusion of a figure raking hay, which suggested greater academic proficiency. Tait's specificity in signing "Morrisania" on this oil marks a moment of joy in his life. He and his wife Marian had purchased a farm in Westchester County just a year before, which provided him with the opportunity to paint animals out-of-doors, thereby capturing the effects of light and color in a manner that was not available to the prestigious Mr. Herring. — Good Hunting Ground (1801, 57x67cm) — William Dodge as Pistol (1853, 86x102cm; 856x1001pix, 58kb) _ in a play by Shakespeare, possibly in King Henry IV, Part 2 or more probably in King Henry V, the other two men in the picture being probably Gower and Fluellen. _ This is one of the few Tait non-animal paintings (except for the deer-head trophy on the wall). — October in the Forest (1877, 36x56cm) — 44 images at the Athenaeum —(060610) |
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