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ART “4”
“2”-DAY 05 April |
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Baptized as an infant on 05 April 1626:
Jan van Kessel II, Antwerp, Flanders, still-life
and flower painter and draftsman specialized in Still
Life who died on 18 October (17 April?) 1679, sometimes designated as
Jan van Kessel I, because he was the first painter of that name. But the
real Jan van Kessel I was his grandfather, a draper. The father of Jan van
Kessel II was the painter Hieronymus (= Jeroom) van Kessel [06 Oct 1578
bapt. – 1636+]. David
Teniers the Younger [15 Dec 1610 – 25 Apr 1690] was the uncle-in-law
of Jan van Kessel II, having married in 1637 his mother's sister Anna Brueghel.
The Dutch landscape artist Jan van Kessel [1641 – 24 Dec 1680] was
apparently unrelated. — Jan van Kessel II began his training as a painter in 1635 with Simon de Vos [28 Oct 1603 – 15 Oct 1676] and was also taught by his uncle Jan Breughel II [13 Sep 1601 – 01 Sep 1678]. In 1645 he was registered in the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke as a flower painter, but he also depicted, in both oil and watercolor, animals, birds, fish and insects, as well as a variety of still-life subjects. He continued the traditions of his maternal grandfather, Jan I “Velvet” Brueghel [1568 – 13 Jan 1625], and was also influenced by Daniel Seghers [05 Dec 1590 – 02 Nov 1661]. Van Kessel painted garlands and bouquets of flowers, but is best known for small, jewel-like pictures, often on copper, of insects or shells against a light background, executed with strong color and great exactitude. Jan II taught two of his seven sons to paint, Ferdinand van Kessel [07 Apr 1648 – 1696], who painted in the style of his father, and Jan van Kessel III [1654-1708] (aka, erroneously, Jan van Kessel II)., who followed in the portrait tradition of his grandfather. — LINKS — Insects and Fruit — The Animals (1660, 175x123cm) _ This triptychon contains 40 sections (17x23cm each). The animals are placed in a setting (Netherlandish, mountainous, exotic) corresponding to the species. (8 rows of 5 separate pictures each, tiny in the reproduction) — The Mockery of the Owl (170x234cm) _ The fully-fledged animal painting emerged in the late 16th century with the rise of biological research and collections of rare creatures. Jan van Kessel in The Mockery of the Owl demonstrates a thorough knowledge of exotic animals. The artist uses a narrative subject as a vehicle for painting his animals. — Still-Life (42x77cm) _ This Antwerp artist's teacher and uncle was Jan Brueghel the Younger, and therefore he was a direct descendant on his mother's side from Pieter the Elder [1525-1569] and Jan the Elder (“Velvet”). He painted chiefly still-lifes, frequently representing food laid out sumptuously on light-colored tables and depicted with the delicacy of a miniaturist, using lively colors of a predominately red tint laid on with the tip of the brush. The documentary, informative, educational, and communicative function of these richly laid tables, in which the individual objects are simply added on and depicted from a slightly raised viewpoint, is combined with the evident intention of demonstrating the affluence of the wealthy patrons of these works. It is also possible to discern allegorical intentions alluding to the five senses or the four elements, but while such an interpretation is quite plausible, the principal aim is a purely aesthetic one, offering this profusion of beautiful objects, rendered with exquisite skill, as a simple feast for the eyes. There is a companion piece to this painting, a variation on the same theme. — Still Life with Fruit and Shellfish (1653) — Africa (central panel, detail) (1666) — Europe (central panel, detail) (1666) — 6 prints at FAMSF |
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Died on 05 April 1717: Jean-Baptiste
Jouvenet, French painter born in April 1644. — Son and student of Laurent Jouvenet, uncle, godfather, and teacher of Jean Restout, Jean-Baptiste Jouvenet was the outstanding member of a family of artists from Rouen. He went to Paris in 1661 and joined the studio of Charles Le Brun [24 Feb 1619 – 12 Feb 1690]. His early works, including decorations for the Salon de Mars at Versailles, were closely imitative of the style of Le Brun and Eustache Le Sueur (Saint Bruno in Prayer). He was the most distinguished of the group of artists who collaborated with La Fosse in the decorations at Trianon and Les Invalides, but he is now best remembered as the leading French religious painter of his generation, carrying out numerous major commissions for churches in Paris and elsewhere His later work was marked both by Baroque emotionalism and by a realistic treatment of details foreign to the principles encouraged by the Academy. For example, before painting his Miraculous Draught of Fishes (1706), he studied fishing scenes on the spot at Dieppe. — LINKS — Self-Portrait (51x40cm copy; 975x760pix, 112kb) — Descent from the Cross _ {same} (1697, 424x312cm) _ This bold and vigorous painting, with its magnificent harmony of warm colors, foreshadows the most beautiful of the nineteenth-century Romantic paintings. — a different The Descent from the Cross — The Education of the Virgin (1700) — The Resurrection of Lazarus (1706) |
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Born on 05 April 1811: Jules
Dupré, French Barbizon
School painter who died on 06 October 1889, specialized in landscapes.
— {Lui, au moins, il a fait honneur a son nom. Voyez ses tableaux
du pré.}— Not to be confused with French Realist artist Julien
Dupré [1851-1910] — Dupré was a founder of modern French landscape painting. He was born in Nantes, the son of a porcelain manufacturer. Settling in Paris, he was influenced by 17th-century Dutch landscape paintings in the Louvre, by the early 19th-century English landscapist John Constable [1776-1837] and by the leading Barbizon landscapist Théodore Rousseau. (1812~1867). Dupré's work expresses the brooding, dramatic aspects of nature. In his later works, the vivid, sharply contrasting colors are applied in thick impasto. — Dupré a laissé une œuvre variée, tant par les thèmes abordés que par le style qui n’a cessé d’évoluer au grés des influences subies (hollandaise, anglaise), et des émotions du peintre. Lié au groupe des artistes de Barbizon (Rousseau,Troyon, Daubigny), il s’en détache par une perception lyrique très personnelle de la nature qui doit en partie sa puissance évocatrice à Théodore Rousseau. — He began his career in Creil, Ile de France, as a decorator of porcelain in the factory of his father, François Dupré [1781–], and later worked at the factory founded by his father in Saint-Yrieix-la-Perche, Limousin. It was in this region of central France that Dupré became enchanted by the beauty of nature. He went to Paris to study under the landscape painter Jean-Michel Diébolt [1779–], who had been a student of Jean-Louis Demarne. Dupré began to see nature with a new awareness of its moods, preferring to paint alone and en plein air. He was fascinated by bad weather, changes of light and sunsets. Many of his paintings depict quiet woodland glades, often with a pond or stream (e.g. Plateau of Bellecroix, 1830). In 1830–1831 he associated with other young landscape painters, including Louis Cabat, Constant Troyon, and Théodore Rousseau, and with them sought inspiration for his study of nature in the provinces, exhibiting the finished paintings at the annual Salons. In 1832 he visited the region of Berry with Cabat and Troyon, and in 1834 he was among the first French landscape painters to visit England. He spent time in London, Plymouth, and Southampton and painted several views of these cities (e.g. Environs of Southampton, 1835). While in England he met, and was influenced by, Constable, Turner, and Richard Parkes Bonington. He traveled to the Landes and the Pyrenees with Rousseau in 1844, and they also explored the forests of the Ile de France in search of motifs. Dupré also painted in Normandy, Picardy, and Sologne. Although he was a member of the Barbizon school, he did not visit the Forest of Fontainebleau as frequently as did others of the group, preferring instead to settle in 1849 in the village of L’Isle-Adam, north of Paris, where he remained for much of his life. — The students of Jules Dupré included his brother Léon Victor Dupré [18 Jun 1816 – 1879], and Louis Valtat. — LINKS — Paysage au Temps des Foins) (66x105cm; 1/3 size, 102kb _ ZOOM to 2/3 size, 402kb) — Paysage (43x59cm; 2/5 size, 72kb _ ZOOM to 4/5 size, 275kb) thatched houses by a canal or pond. — La Grenouillère (24x35cm; half~size _ ZOOM to full size ) — Vaches en Paturage (1837; 600x824pix _ ZOOM to 1400x1923pix) — Mer Agitée (1870; 600x772pix _ ZOOM to 1400x1801pix) — Terrain Éboulé en Forêt de Compiègne (1876, 33x42cm; 600x755pix _ ZOOM to 1400x1761pix) — Le Chemin Creux (1850, 101x81cm; 600x481pix _ ZOOM to 1400x1123pix) — Chênes de Fontainebleau (1843, 81x99cm; 960x1170pix _ ZOOM to 1833x2234pix) — Vue_du_Panthéon_et de_l'Église Saint-Étienne_du_Mont,_Paris. — Les Berges d'une Rivière (1831, 30x54cm) — Paysage avec Dame en Rouge (1830) |
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Born on 05 April 1913: Antoni
Clavé, Catalan French painter, stage designer, lithographer,
and occasional sculptor. — Born in Barcelona, he worked as a house painter while taking evening classes in drawing at the Barcelona School of Art. Then he supported himself for several years by making drawings for children's comics and designing posters. He also began to experiment with paintings and collages. He fought in the Republican Army in the Spanish Civil War and arrived in France as a refugee in 1939. He moved the same year to Paris, where he at first made his reputation as an illustrator; had his first Paris one-man exhibition at the bookshop Au Sans Pareil in 1940, but only began to paint seriously in 1941 under the influence of Vuillard and Bonnard. In 1944 he met Picasso and began making figure compositions of kings, harlequins, children, etc. and still lifes influenced by his recent work. He was active as a designer for the ballet and opera from 1946 to 1954, then he gave up this and book illustration to concentrate on painting. From 1956 he incorporated collage elements in many of his paintings, his work gradually becoming more and more abstract. — LINKS — Untitled (S-stencil?) (40x60cm; half~size, 245kb _ ZOOM to full size, 906kb) — Artist at his Easel (49x64cm; half~size, 229kb _ ZOOM to full size, 851kb) — Carmen, third of a portfolio of eight Metropolitan Opera Fine Arts Posters (91x61cm; 1/4 size, 85kb _ ZOOM to half~size, 281kb _ ZOOM++ not recommended to excessive full size, 1082kb) — Enfant à la pastèque (1948, 55x46cm) |
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Died on 05 April 1862: Barend Cornelis Koekkoek
{pronounced "quack, quack"?}, Dutch painter born on 11 October
1803. — He received his first lessons from his father, Johannes Hermanus Koekkoek [1778–1851], and also studied at the Tekenacademie in Middelburg. Subsequently he became a student at the Amsterdam Rijksakademie under Jean Augustin Daiwaille [1786–1850]. He first participated in an exhibition in 1820. Between 1826 and 1834 he traveled constantly, visiting the Harz Mountains, the Rhine and the Ruhr. His first great success came in 1829 when he won the gold medal of the Amsterdam society Felix Meritis with Landscape with a Rainstorm Threatening. The painting is notable for its accurate and sober study of nature; it marked Koekkoek’s commitment to a style of landscape divorced both from the predominantly topographical approach of the 18th century and from the flat and decorative manner of contemporary mural painting. In 1834 he moved permanently to Cleve in Germany, where he developed into one of the most important landscape painters of his generation and achieved international fame. — Paul Joseph Constantin Gabriël and Johannes Tavenraat were students of Koekkoek. — LINKS — Winter Landscape (1838) — Heuvellandschap met rustend boerenvolk onder een eik paneel (38x52cm) — View of a Park (1835) |
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Born on 05 April (05 August?) 1865: Robert Polhill Bevan,
English Camden
Town Group painter and lithographer who died on 08 July 1925. — Self-Portrait (1914, 46x26cm) >>> — He studied at the Westminster School of Art and in Paris. In 1890–1891, having encountered Paul Sérusier at the Académie Julian in Paris, he made his first visit to Brittany, where he worked with the Pont-Aven group; he also developed an interest in lithography. After contact with Renoir, Bevan made a second visit to Brittany in 1893–1894, when he met and was influenced by Gauguin. From the early 1900s Bevan adopted a divisionist or pointillist style in paintings that often depicted London street scenes and horse trading, as in Horse Sale at the Barbican (1912), and landscapes painted on summer holidays in Devon and Cornwall, of which Green Devon (1919) is a striking example. In the last years of his life his style changed, the paint becoming thicker and more textural, with a new attention to the juxtaposition of masses. At times he approached a Cubist geometry of form, for example in rural scenes such as Hay Harvest (1916), while retaining the use of clear, pure color, and luminous colored shadows. His lithographs, which he made again from 1919, show a fluent and expressive line, with formal massing expressed through graduations of tints, as in London Church (1924), giving them a tonal delicacy equivalent to his oil paintings. Bevan was a founder-member of the Camden town group. Having contributed to the formation of the London Group he broke away in 1914 to form the Cumberland market group with Charles Ginner and Harold Gilman. Always keen to retain links with the French art scene, he and Ginner organized the exhibition Peintres Modernes Anglais at the Galerie Druet in Paris in 1921. — Born at Hove in Sussex on 05 April 1865 Bevan was the fourth of six children. His father was a banker with a comfortable financial life style. First educated at Winchester and then by private tutors, his first teacher of drawing was Alfred Pearce who became one of the chief designers at ‘Doultons’. In 1888 Bevan went to the Westminster School of Art studying under Fred Brown before moving to Julian’s in Paris, a somewhat leisurely apprenticeship possible because of family backing. 
At twenty-seven Bevan went to Tangiers and joined a group of artists. He
had a great love of horses and for one season he was Master of the Tangier
Hunt. Bevan moved on to Brittany for two years and then lived in a lonely
farmhouse at Hawkridge on Exmoor for three years where he indulged in hunting,
painting and print making (mostly of hunting subjects). In the summer of 1897 Bevan attended the wedding ,in Jersey, of his friend Eric Forbes Robertson who was marrying an art student from Poland. The bridesmaid was also a Polish art student, Stanislawa de Karlowska [<<< portrait by him, 1920, 46x38cm]. It was apparently love at first sight but because of language difficulties they had to communicate in French which was their only common language. Many were the letters Bevan wrote her and then he journeyed into the depths of Polish countryside to her father’s house. They were married in Warsaw on 09 December 1897. The Bevans set up home near Swiss Cottage in London but made regular visits between 1899 and 1904 to Poland where he painted landscapes and horses. An exhibition of his work in 1908 at the first Allied Artists’ Exhibition broke his isolation as an artist and he became part of the circle of the Fitzroy Street Group and an original member of the Camden Town Group, the London Group and the Cumberland Market Group. — LINKS — Horse Sale at the Barbican (1912, 79x122cm; 326x512pix, 32kb) _ Bevan was fond of riding and often painted horses, almost always in London. They were either cab horses or, as here, horses being sold in a market. The auctioneer is standing in the decorated box in the background. Bevan's attitude in choosing to paint London, where he lived, matched the urban realism of the Camden Town Group, implied in their name. This is one of his largest paintings, and was carefully designed in detail in a preparatory drawing. The flat and textured color that characterises this work first appears in Bevan's paintings at about this time. This picture was included in the Camden Town Group exhibition of 1912 After training in London and Paris, Bevan worked in the early 1890s at Pont Aven in Brittany. There he met Gauguin. The influence of French Post-Impressionism, with its emphasis on the flat, patterned surface of the painting and its use of prominent outlines is very clear in Bevan's work. His paintings, however, tend to use more subdued colors, appropriate to his English urban subjects. After settling in London in 1910 he began to paint scenes of horse-drawn cabs and — as here — horse sales. In these works the nobility of the animal is contrasted with the drab but respectful character of the onlookers. — Devonshire Valley (501x600pix, 46kb) _ Bevan’s first visit to Applehayes, with his wife, was in the summer of 1912. They returned in 1913 and 1915. Due to the war Squire Harrison found it impossible to continue offering hospitality to his artist friends. Bevan had taken a special liking to the Blackdown Hills and from 1916 to 1919 he rented a cottage called Lytchetts in the Bolham Water Valley, Clayhidon. He would stay there from early May to the middle of November for a long working holiday. His wife and children, Robert and his sister (later Mrs. Charles Baty), would visit him during the school holidays. At intervals, particularly during the winter months he would travel with his family to Poland to visit relatives. On one such trip whilst drawing at Opatow he was apprehended by Russian Police for alleged spying (the second time this happened was whilst drawing in Camden Town). Lytchetts was owned by the Chard family, who lived at Harts Farm. Anne Chard remembers Bevan from her childhood recalling he was of a shy retiring disposition and not easy to communicate with. However she, her brother and sisters frequently saw him. A solitary gentleman tramping miles across the Blackdowns carrying either a sketch book and pencils or paints and easel tucked under his arm. Anne could remember Bevan’s look of pleased amusement when turning suddenly from the easel he encountered a child gazing in wonder at the remarkable likeness on canvas of two dearly loved shire horses, Prince and Farmer. On another occasion the Chard children having been asked to collect Prince from the common decided to mount and play at hunting on the way home. Three young children hanging on for dear life trotting along a narrow lane where they met the tall familiar figure and gaily called out "Good afternoon, Mr. Bevan". The artist lifted his bowler hat in acknowledgement and stopped dead in his tracks gazing incredulously at the spectacle before him. He was dressed in a light grey check suit with a watch-chain across his waistcoat. A bow tie and spats added to the elegance of his appearance. One of his nicknames in London was "Prime Minister" because of his bearing and attire. In 1920 Bevan moved away from Clayhidon but remained close by at Goulds Farm, Luppitt. In 1922 he spent a few weeks in a farm house near his old friend Harrison and in 1923 Bevan bought Marlpits, in the middle of Luppitt Common. Whilst alone at Marlpits in 1925 cancer was diagnosed. He was taken to London by car but failed to recover from the serious operation involved and died in St. Thomas’s Hospital on 08 July 1925. As can be seen, of the three artists Bevan spent by far the most time in Clayhidon and naturally more of his works of the area have survived. However he was very critical and may have destroyed much work. Very little survives from his three years on Exmoor. During his first visit in 1912 Bevan painted Evening in the Culm Valley (private collection). During his next visit in 1913 he produced Haze Over The Valley and Devonshire Valley. From the third visit in 1915 he painted at least seven works including Dunn’s Cottage (City Art Gallery, Leeds). Leeds Art Gallery acquired this in 1983 and the assistant keeper Jonathan Benington wrote to the Clayhidon Local History Group requesting information about the building for an article he was writing. He had concluded by consulting a large Scale Ordnance Survey map that it must be Dunsgreen Farm. We were able to tell him of the correct location. The cottage was known as Shepherds Villa. It is now much altered but still standing at the bottom of Applehayes Lane. Frank Dunn was Squire Harrison’s groom and lived there. A sketch of the cottage is in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. The Little Oak Tree (King George VI Art Gallery, Port Elizabeth, South Africa) was first exhibited as The Back of Dunn’s Cottage. Brimley Hill and a crayon and watercolor Sunshine at Applehayes are others. Then follows a series painted in the Rosemary Lane area. Rosemary No.I and Rosemary No.II (private collections), Rosemary (Victoria and Albert |