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ART “4”
“2”-DAY 25 January |
| BIRTHS: 1708 BATONI
— 1585 VAN AVERCAMP |
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Died on 25 January 1632: Abraham
Janssens van Nuyssen, Flemish figure and portrait painter
born in 1775. — Janssens was active mainly in Antwerp. He was in Rome in 1598 and back in Antwerp by 1601. A second visit to Italy seems likely, for although in 1601 he was painting in a Mannerist style (Diana and Callisto), by 1909 (Scaldis and Antwerpia) his work had become much more solid, sober, and classical, suggesting close knowledge of Caravaggio in particular. For the next decade Janssens was one of the most powerful and individual painters in Flanders, but during the 1620s his work became less remarkable as he fell under the all-pervasive influence of Rubens. His students included Gerard Seghers and Theodoor Rombouts. — LINKS — Scaldis and Antwerpia (174x308cm) _ In addition to his favorite allegorical scenes, Abraham Janssens also painted religious and mythological themes. Janssens was slightly younger than Rubens, and for a time was his equal. After his visit to Italy, however, Rubens quickly surpassed him. Janssens painted Scaldis and Antwerpia for the State Room or 'Staetencamer' of Antwerp Town Hall. This decorative, allegorical work, commissioned by the city authorities, originally adorned the chimney breast, and consists of a paean of praise to the city's main artery, the River Scheldt. The sharp contrast between light and dark recalls Caravaggio, who had a great influence upon many of the artists of the time. — Venus and Adonis (200x240cm) _ Janssens was a contemporary of Rubens. He alloyed the characteristics of the Flemish and Italian painting. |
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Born on 25 January 1708: Pompeo-Girolamo
Batoni (or Battoni), Italian painter who died on 04 February
1787. [non “bastoni”, per piacere!] — He was the last great Italian personality in the history of painting at Rome. He carried out prestigious church commissions and painted numerous fine mythological canvases, many for eminent foreign patrons, but he is famous above all as a portraitist. After Mengs left Rome for Madrid in 1761 his preeminence in this field was unchallenged, and he was particularly favored by foreign visitors making the Grand Tour (an extensive journey to the Continent), whom he often portrayed in an antique setting. His style was a polished and learned distillation from the antique, the works of Raphael, academic French painting, and the teaching of his master Sebastiano Conca. His characterization is not profound, but it is usually vivid, and he presented his sitters with dignity. Batoni was also an outstanding draughtsman, his drawings after the antique being particularly memorable. He was curator of the papal collections and his house was a social, intellectual, and artistic centre, Winckelmann being among his friends. — LINKS — The Ecstasy of St Catherine of Siena (1743) _ Lucca Pompeo Batoni was a very cultured man who gained international fame at an early age. He was the first Italian artist consciously to work out a formal alternative to Rococo art and Venetian painting, which he felt to be outdated. He trained in Rome where he studied Raphael and classic Renaissance art. He quickly came up with a "reform" program for painting along controlled academic lines. He set out to provide a series of paintings that could be used as a model for religious art. In his paintings each figure is posed in a composed fashion. With the work of his rival Anton Raphael Mengs, Batoni's art marked the first beginnings of Neo-Classicism, in an urbane, highly polished, if very derivative manner. If we compare works on similar subjects (for example The Ecstasy of St. Francis by Piazzetta), we can measure the cultural change that Batoni was proposing.The great sense of movement contained in compositions by artists in the first half of the century could also be seen in the speed with which they painted. This was now subjected to a rigorous check. Everything was controlled and expressed in impeccable form at the cost of losing much emotional intensity. After the middle of the century, this academic way became the main influence on painting in central Italy. — Holy Family (1777, 226x150cm) _ One of the most important works of the artist. In the painting, the naturalistic, genre-like representations of Anne and Joseph are contrasted with the idealized portraits of Mary and the Child. — Sensuality (1747, 138x100cm) _ There is a companion-piece to this painting: Time Orders Old Age to Destroy Beauty. The two paintings, commissioned by Bartolomeo Talenti, are mentioned together in a letter of the artist. — Sir Gregory Page-Turner (1768, 135x99cm) [he is not shown turning pages for a pianist, nor was that his occupation or that of any of his ancestors, as far as is known] |
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Died on 25 January 1896: Lord
Frederick Leighton, English Pre-Raphaelite
painter and sculptor born on 03 December 1830. [photo]
— The acknowledged leader of the Victorian classical school of painting, Frederic Leighton was born in Scarborough, the son of a doctor. His grandfather, Sir James Leighton, was court physician to Czar Alexander I of Russia; and Sir James' son was also a doctor. Soon after Nicholas I became Czar in 1825 the Leighton family left Russia and spent the ensuing years traveling around Europe, giving their only son, Frederic, first-hand acquaintance with its cultural and artistic treasures. Unlike most major artists of the nineteenth century Leighton did not study at the Royal Academy Schools, but received his training in Brussels, Paris and Frankfurt. In 1852 he went to live in Rome, where he moved in a large artistic circle which included Thackeray, Robert Browning and some of the most important French painters of the time. On his return to England in 1855, his historical painting Cimabue's Madonna Carried in Procession through the Streets of Florence was shown at the Royal Academy, where it received a rapturous reception from the critics and was later bought by Queen Victoria. It was the start of what was to be a glittering career that took him to the very heights of his profession. Leighton settled in London in 1860 and in 1868 turned to painting subjects from mythology. His decision to abandon historical paintings coincided with a sudden upsurge of interest in Hellenism; even women's evening wear was influenced, Greek gowns that gave women a new-found freedom of movement becoming fashionable. Leighton suddenly found himself the center of attention, with his paintings the talk of London. He was elected President of the Royal Academy in 1878, and became a baron in 1896 (full title = Baron Leighton of Stretton), the only English artist to receive this honor. But by then he was a sick man who was suffering from angina. He died in 1896. His will included a bequest of £10,000 to the Royal Academy. The poet Algernon Swinburne composed a memorial elegy: 'A light has passed that never shall pass away A sun has set whose rays are unequalled in might'. Although at the time of his death Leighton was something of a national institution, his reputation quickly declined and his work and all that he stood for became objects of derision. It was to be another 60-70 years before his work would come into fashion again. Leighton's beautiful home at 2 Holland Park Road, South Kensington, London is now a museum - Leighton House. Here you can see the opulence in which Leighton lived, and view paintings by Leighton, Burne-Jones and other Pre-Raphaelite artists, including Mariana in the South (by John William Waterhouse) and The End of the Quest (by Sir Frank Dicksee). — He spent much of his youth traveling on the Continent with his family. This cosmopolitan background was of great importance to his development as an artist. After his father, a doctor, settled in Frankfurt am Main in 1846, Leighton enrolled at the Städelsches Kunstinstitut, where he studied under the Nazarene artist Edward von Steinle between 1850 and 1852. The style and subject-matter of such early works as The Death of Brunelleschi (1852) show the influence of Nazarene art and suggest the growing importance of Italy as a source of inspiration. Leighton traveled to Rome in 1852 and became friendly with Giovanni Costa and George Heming Mason, who later emerged as leading figures in the group of English and Italian artists known as the Etruscans. His first Royal Academy success, Cimabue's Celebrated Madonna Is Carried in Procession through the Streets of Florence, was painted in Rome in 1855. This huge processional work, filled with incident and detail, takes its subject from Vasari's Vite. It was bought by Queen Victoria from the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition of 1855 and its success marked Leighton as one of the most promising artists of his generation. Between 1855 and 1859 Leighton was based in Paris, where he aimed to perfect his technique and absorb the stimulating atmosphere of the studios. He met Jean-August-Dominique Ingres and Eugène Delacroix, but his art was chiefly influenced by such contemporaries as Ary Scheffer and Joseph Nicolas Robert-Fleury [1797–1890]. The period marks the beginning of a transition in his work, from the exact draftsmanship and historical detail of the Nazarenes to a broader synthesis of influences, embracing the painterly effects of Venetian art, the realistic landscapes of Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot and Charles-François Daubigny and the classical subject-matter of Thomas Couture's followers. The years 1859–1864 were marked for Leighton by reverses and critical hostility. He returned to London in 1859 and for five years his contributions to the Royal Academy were systematically rejected or badly hung — a response indicative of the degree to which he was seen as a threatening and alien influence. A member of the Hogarth Club, he established close links with Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Edward Burne-Jones and others of the Pre-Raphaelite circle, and his work was championed by John Ruskin. In 1862 Leighton received a commission from Cornhill Magazine to illustrate George Eliot's Romola. These illustrations, together with such paintings as Dante in Exile (1864), are expressions of his renewed interest in Renaissance Italy. At the same time, he was increasingly preoccupied with the formal problems of academic painting. Though Dante in Exile is a full-blooded historical set piece, evoking the early Renaissance world of the Nazarenes, its structure owes more to Raphael and its painterly effects are indebted to the Venetian school. The Syracusan Bride (1866) defines the areas of interest that Leighton pursued with ever greater rigor for the rest of his life. Like Cimabue, it is a formal processional work. Its classically draped figures are inspired by the Parthenon sculptures (of which Leighton kept a cast in his studio) and its subject, drawn from lines in the second Idyll of Theokritos, is incidental to the artist's main intention: to represent idealized figures of artistic grace. The psychological content of Leighton's work became increasingly complex in the late 1860s and the 1870s. Canvases of this period frequently show the confrontation between the forces of life and death, as in Hercules Wrestling with Death for the Body of Alcestis (1871, 132x265cm). The struggling figures of Hercules and Death reflect the artist's desire to wrest beauty from the hold of decay. In catching the transience of ideal beauty, Leighton revealed himself to have been not only a classical painter but also a full-blooded aesthete. Leighton made five trips to North Africa and the Near East (1857, 1867, 1868, 1873 and 1882), resulting in numerous oil sketches, which are striking for their direct, uncluttered depiction of the barren desert landscape (e.g. The Temple of Philae (Looking up the Nile), 1868). After his stay in Damascus in 1873, he included decorative Eastern accessories in several paintings, though only a few — for instance Portions of the Interior of the Grand Mosque of Damascus (1875) — were actually set in Damascus. A more notable result of this trip was the Arab Hall, designed by George Aitchison and added to Leighton's home between 1877 and 1879. Leighton's own decorative schemes recall his early paintings in the Nazarene style. They include two frescoes (1878–1883) for the South Kensington Museum and the ceiling decoration (completed in 1886) commissioned by the US banker Henry Gurdon Marquand for the music room at his house in New York. Leighton's interest in sculpture was a natural extension of his increasingly sculptural treatment of the painted canvas. While his paintings exploit to the full the expressive possibilities of drapery, his sculptures rely instead on the representation of idealized nude figures. His interest in Hellenic art and its revival brought him into sympathy with the sculptor Hamo Thornycroft, who was with Leighton one of the senior figures in the revival of sculpture known as New sculpture. Leighton's Athlete Wrestling with a Python (1877) presents to the spectator both the physical and the psychological struggle for supremacy between man and snake. With its allusions to the Laokoon group, the Athlete was a product of the complex eclecticism that was so important to Leighton's artistic development. Equally fine, though in striking contrast to this work, is the languid figure of The Sluggard (1884), which pays homage to Donatello. After his election as President of the Royal Academy in 1878, Leighton was increasingly regarded as the leader of the Victorian art establishment. The themes already dominant in his art remained constant throughout the last 20 years of his life. In Captive Andromache (1888), arguably his masterpiece, the confident academic underpinning of the composition enhances and enriches the palpable emotion of the subject. An austere figure, Leighton never married and such works as Captive Andromache provide indications of the extent to which he subordinated his own emotions to the demands of his art. Increasingly in his last years a note of melancholy entered his work. Mythological subjects, such as the Return of Persephone (1891) and Clytie (1896), manifest a yearning engendered by loss and sorrow that finds solace in sleep, as represented in The Garden of the Hesperides (1892) or Flaming June (1895). These paintings, rich in color and handling, are the final statement of the most intellectual and rigorous adherent of the Aesthetic Movement. The inclusion of two illustrations of Leighton's drawings in the first number of the Yellow Book (1894) indicates the extent to which a younger generation of artists led by Aubrey Beardsley, Charles Ricketts and Laurence Housman [1867–] appreciated his generous encouragement of their efforts and recognized him as their spiritual antecedent. Leighton died exhausted by his battle with heart disease and the demands of his public role as President of the Royal Academy. He had already almost outlived his age, and it is significant that he left no school of followers to continue a tradition that itself was almost exhausted. — LINKS — Self-portrait (1880 76x64cm) — Self-portrait as a Boy _ not convincing. — Jonathan's Token to David (1868, 171x124cm; 1188x862pix _ ZOOM to 2375x1724pix; 3029pix) _ This painting illustrates a scene from the Old Testament. After the prophet Samuel anointed David as King Saul's successor, Saul became jealous and plotted David's death. Here the artist shows David's loyal friend Jonathan (Saul's son) preparing to shoot three arrows as a warning to David who is hiding in a field. Most artists who interpreted the story of Jonathan and David's friendship depicted the emotional climax when the two say their final farewells. Leighton chose an earlier scene in order to celebrate the ideal of heroic male beauty. Jonathan's pose derives from the famous Renaissance sculpture of David by Michelangelo. — Flaming June (1895, 121x121cm) _ Flaming June is an excellent example of the lack of respect given to Victorian art between the years 1920-1970. This painting was put up for auction in the 1960s and failed to meet its reserve price of $140. It was then promptly snapped up by the Museo de Arte de Ponce in Puerto Rico. Thirty years later, in 1990, Leighton's Dante in Exile fetched £1'000'000 at auction - an illustration of how fashion dictates the art market. It had been thought for many years that the model for this painting was Dorothy Dene, who was the inspiration for Leighton's work from the mid 1880s. However it now seems more likely that the model was Mary Lloyd. She also posed for Sir Frank Dicksee's Magic Crystal, William Blake Richmond's mosaic angels in Saint Paul's Cathedral and Sir John Millais' A Disciple (1895). Mary Lloyd also sat for Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Edward Burne-Jones, Ford Madox Brown, and William Holman Hunt. — Phoebe (56x61cm) _ This painting is one of Leighton's most compelling single figure works. The entirely original perspective of viewing her on a slightly upward angle gives her a regal and monumental elegance which, along with the deep tonality of the background, accentuates her subtle expression of bemused interest and curiosity. The viewer is at once also curious about her circumstance and entranced by her vivid glowing features and riveting beauty. The model was Dorothy Dene, an actress who was one of Leighton's favorite models. She appears also in Flaming June and The Bath of Psyche. Leighton was instrumental in helping her with her acting career. Dene was her stage name. Her real name was Alice Pullan, one of four daughters and her family was long time friends of Leighton. It seems as if Phoebe were watching Queen Yseult and empathizing with the pain on her face as she wrings her hands in despair. She appears to be thinking, "Physical Beauty is never enough ... from one who knows". Despite Dene's help from Leighton, her acting career fizzled, and was left depending on him for support and social position for many years. Even on the basis of a digitized scan one can see that this ranks among one of Leighton's finest portraits: the pose recalls his confident painting of Sir Richard Burton, and the creams and golds of Phoebe's clothes and flesh suggest the Venetian glories of Veronese and Titian. — The Bath of Psyche (1890, 189x62cm) _ The story of Psyche originates in the tale Psyche et Cvpido written by Lucius Apuleius in the 2nd century AD. The beautiful Psyche was thought by many to be the incarnation of Venus, the Roman goddess of love. Cupid, Venus's son, fell in love with Psyche and eventually they were united for ever. Leighton based the pose of Psyche on an ancient statue of 'Venus Leaving the Bath' that he had seen in Naples in 1859. The artist himself may well have designed the frame which, with its Ionic columns on either side, echoes the architectural details in the background of the picture. — Light of the Harem (1880, 152x84cm) — Daedalus and Icarus (1869, 138x106cm) — The Garden of the Hesperides (1892, 169x169cm) _ According to legend, the garden island of the Hesperides was where the daughters of Hesperus sang a lullaby to the dragon guarding the golden apples, which were later to be stolen by Hercules. This design is full of youth, and beauty; the color is rich and warm - almost voluptuous ... We have the tree of life with its golden apples; for a rocky coast we have the beautiful Garden of Hesperides, with the purple ocean beyond. The three daughters of Atlas sit beneath a the wonderful tree, around the trunk of which is wound the body of a huge serpent. The girl in the center, who is half-draped, caresses the scaly hide of the monster; her sister on the right sings to the accompaniment of a lyre; while the maiden on the left toys carelessly with the food which she holds in a bowl. The grace and serenity of the composition are eminently characteristic of the artist’s later manner. — Music Lesson (1877, 93x118cm) — Mother and Child (1865, 48x82cm) — The Painter's Honeymoon (1864, 84x78cm) — Biondina (1879, 52x41cm) — The Countess Brownlow (1879, 234x132cm) — Old Damascus: Jew's Quarter (1874 134x108cm) — The Syracusan Bride (1866, 135x424cm) — A Roman Lady aka La Nanna (1859, 80x52cm) — At the Fountain (1892, 128x95cm) _ The painting shows us a young, pure, and tender woman, “in the maiden meditation, fancy free.” Here the tones are limpid and soft, a delicate color predominating. The sky is of a beautiful light-blue color, with white clouds; the cool whiteness of the marble is accentuated by the fresh running water; and the palest of pale lemons hang on the wall. — Return of Persephone (1891, 203x152cm) — Nausicaa (1878, 145x67cm) — Dante in Exile (1864, 152x254cm) _ detail: left _ detail: right _ (ZOOM _ ZOOM detail:left _ ZOOM detail:right) — A Girl Feeding Peacocks (1863, 188x160cm) — Odalisque (1862cm) — 'And the sea gave up the dead which were in it' (1892, circular 229cm diameter _ ZOOM) _ The title is taken from Apocalypse 20: ”And the sea gave up the dead which were in it.” It is a vision of the Last Judgment. Three figures dominate the spacious canvas. In the center is a man - the only living being of the group - who with his right arm supports his wife, while with his left he clasps his boy who clings with filial affection to his side. The three are being slowly drawn by some unseen mysterious all-compelling force from the depths of an inky and turbulent sea upwards. The man’s eye is fixed upon the heavens, which are strangely troubled and filled with an unnatural light - “a dramatic sky,” as the artist describes it - and it expresses hope tempered with fear. The interval between death and judgment is at an end; the soul has dawned; and filled with thoughts of his early career, the man gazes with awe upon the great white throne, whereupon sits the author of his being with the great book of Life. His wife still sleeps the sleep of death; but a certain warmth of color in the limbs of the half naked boy indicates his rapid return to life. Near the dominant group is a half risen corpse, whose arms are folded, and who is still clad in the burial garments; while king and commoners are rising in the background. For “the dead, small and great,” are to stand before God. This picture was originally intended for the decoration, in mosaic, of the dome of Saint Paul’s; eight large circles were to be filled by Leighton, and a number of smaller ones by Poynter. — Captive Andromache (1888, 197x406cm) _ detail: left _ detail: right — The Daphnephoria 1874 - (1876, 226x518cm) _ detail: left _ detail: right _ The Daphnephoria is the epitome of them all, and in the Daphnephoria are figures of rare beauty, draperies matchless in their adaptation to figure, vivid light as of Italy, movement, color, gladness, everything except that which was only born when Paganism lost its joyousness and its life. For those to whom the classical times are living, and especially the classical times in their decadence, there is in Leighton's work an ineffable charm. — Greek Girls Picking up Pebbles by the Sea (1871, 84x130cm) — Cimabue's Celebrated Madonna (1855, 222x520cm) _ detail: left _ detail: right _ John Ruskin's review: "This is a very important and very beautiful picture. It has both sincerity and grace, and is painted on the purest principles of Venetian art - that is to say, on the calm acceptance of the whole of nature, small and great, as, in its place, deserving of faithful rendering. The great secret of the Venetians was their simplicity. [...] Everything in [their art] is done as well as it can be done. Thus, in the picture before us, in the background is the Church of San Miniato, strictly accurate in every detail; on the top of the wall are oleanders and pinks, as carefully painted as the church; the architecture of the shrine on the wall is well studied from thirteenth-century Gothic, and painted with as much care as the pinks; the dresses of the figures, very beautifully designed, are painted with as much care as the architecture; and the faces with as much care as the dresses - that is to say, all things, throughout, with as much care as the painter could bestow. [...] The painting before us has been objected to, because it seems broken up into bits. Precisely the same objection would hold, and in very nearly the same degree, against the best works of the Venetians. All faithful colourists' work, in figure-painting, has a look of sharp separation between part and part. [...] Although, however, in common with all other works of its class, it is marked by these sharp divisions, there is no confusion in its arrangement. The principal figure is nobly principal, not be extraordinary light, but by its own pure whiteness; and both the master and the young Giotto attract full regard by distinction of form and face. The features of the boy are carefully studied, and are indeed what, from the existing portraits of him, we know those of Giotto must have been in his youth. The head of the young girl who wears the garland of blue flowers is also very sweetly conceived. [...]" Ruksin also associated Leighton's painting with lines from the Mrs. Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Casa Guidi Windows: "I hold, too, That Cimabue smiled upon the lad / At the first stroke which passed what he could do; / Or else his Virgin's smile had never had Such sweetness in't." — The Spirit of the Summit (1894, 198x102cm) — Richard Burton (1875) — Lieder Ohne Worte (1861, 102x63cm) _ This was the first significant work by Leighton after his return to London from his studies on the Continent. The title refers to the ‘Songs without Words’ to which the girl is listening: the sound of the gently trickling water and the singing of the blackbird behind her. Leighton was aware that his audience would connect it with Mendelssohn’s set of piano pieces of the same title, which were very popular in England at this time. The subject’s ‘timelessness’, and the harmony of composition and colouring, suggest the ability of music to evoke specific moods. Leighton commented that in this picture he sought 'to translate to the eye of the spectator something of the pleasure which the child receives through her ears.' — {Is that a washing machine on which she is leaning? Are those stereo speakers on the ceiling? Is that a bottle of wine behind her? And has she been drinking too much from it, which explains why she looks so groggy?} — Portrait of a girl about 10 years old perhaps. — Cymon and Iphigenia (1884, 163x328cm) _ According to Leighton this painting, more than any of his other pictures, represented 'both my art and my style'. The story is taken from Boccaccio, and tells how Cymon, a wild and brutish young man, is so struck by the sight of the sleeping Iphigenia that he falls in love with her, gives up his former wild ways and marries her. [See also Cymon and Iphigenia _ by Millais (1848) _ by West (1773) and in caricature by Gillray (1796)] — Pavonia (1859, 53x42cm) _ The model for this painting was Nanna Risi who eventually married the German painter Anselm Feuerbach [12 Sep 1829 — 04 Jan 1880 click this for links to some of the many pictures of Nanna by Feuerbach]. — Clytie (1896) _ Clytie was the nymph who loved Apollo, was abandoned by him, and turned into a sunflower, which always turns its head to the sun. The model was Dorothy Dene. — Antigone (1882) The model for this picture was Ada Alice Pullman, who was twenty when she met Leighton and began modeling for him in 1879. Leighton helped her find other work, paid for a visit to Italy, and encouraged her in her ambition to become an actress. Under the stage name of Dorothy Dene she made her London debut in 1885, and in May 1886 scored her greatest success, as Cassandra in an adaptation of Aeschylus. Leighton has sent the heroic - size, head and bust of Antigone, the face full of expression and noble in form. The head is turned sideways, and the eyes render an ideal of passionate suffering and an appeal to the higher powers. The rosy and white carnations, the rich and ruddy lips, large eyes and broad eye-lids, are proper to the artist's facial types. — [The Prophet, the Queen, and the Nubian Slave???] (1229x1117pix, 165kb) the title is not stated. |
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Born on 25 January 1585: Hendrick
van Avercamp “de Stomme van Kampen”, Dutch painter
who died in 1664 give or take a year. — Active in Kampen, he was the most famous exponent of the winter landscape. He was deaf and dumb and known as “the mute of Kampen”. His paintings are colorful and lively, with carefully observed skaters, tobogganers, golfers, and pedestrians Avercamp's work enjoyed great popularity and he sold his drawings, many of which are tinted with watercolor, as finished pictures to be pasted into the albums of collectors. His nephew and student Barent Avercamp (1612-79) carried on his style in an accomplished manner. — LINKS — Enjoying the Ice (1634) — Winter Landscape with Iceskaters (1608) — River Landscape (18x28cm) _ After an apprenticeship in Amsterdam with portrait and historical painter Pieter Isaacsz., Hendrick Avercamp began to specialise in painting winter landscapes. In composing these he drew on a large supply of sketches of individual figures drawn from life. These rapid sketches of people going about their daily activities and pastimes on the ice or in the open field also served for composing, back in the studio, more developed, colored drawings such as this River Landscape. His lively pen, the bright color contrasts and the spatial continuity between the foreground and middle ground provide this scene with a freshness characteristic of the innovative middle period of Avercamp's career. The drawing attracts us with its narrative and realistic style. It is also very ingeniously structured, as can be seen in the skilful positioning of the man on the shore in the left-hand foreground, and in the lively interaction between the wind-swelled sails of the smaller and larger ships. The fishermen look on motionless, revealing the sober, at times humorous but never mocking eye that Avercamp casts on his surroundings. The contours of the figures are drawn in pen and the intervening space is carefully filled in with water color and bodycolor. Avercamp probably borrowed the use of aquarelle and gouache from Jan Brueghel the Elder and the Flemish emigrants living in Amsterdam, such as Hans Bol, Jacob Savery and David Vinckboons, whose works he had got to know during his apprenticeship with Pieter Isaacsz. Avercamp was one of the first Dutch draughtsmen who in the early 17th century developed this aquarelle technique specifically as a separate, independent art form. His pen drawings, illuminated with water colors, were so carefully finished and richly detailed that they were highly sought after by connoisseurs and art lovers. Indeed some were not, as was customary, kept in albums, but glued to panels and framed, and hung as a cheap alternative to paintings. Avercamp directed his efforts not only at the local art market in and around Kampen, but also and in particular at that of Amsterdam, where, according to contemporary documents, he was held in high renown. — A Scene on the Ice near a Town (1615, 58x90cm) _ Hendrick Avercamp was known as de stom van Kampen (the mute of Kampen) because he was dumb. He was baptized in the Old Church in Amsterdam on 27 January 1585 but in the following year his parents moved to Kampen where his father was the town apothecary. Avercamp seems to have trained in Amsterdam with Pieter Isaacsz., who was a history painter, portraitist and draughtsman in an elegant, late Mannerist style quite unlike that of Avercamp. Avercamp's manner is based in the first place on that of the Flemish followers of Pieter Bruegel the Elder and he presumably came into contact with some of his followers who had settled in Amsterdam, such as David Vinckboons. Avercamp developed the style of Bruegel and Vinckboons in the direction of more decorative effects, creating scenes crammed with small figures and full of incident. He also possessed a refined sense of color, carefully placing pinks, reds, blacks and whites with touches of yellow and green to create delicate and subtle effects. He principally painted winter scenes and made many watercolors of these and of fishermen and peasants: a large group of these watercolors is in the Royal Collection. There are dated paintings by Avercamp from 1608 until 1632 but they show relatively little development in style: the earlier paintings are more 'Flemish', that is, closer to Bruegel and his followers; but once he had mastered a successful style Avercamp saw little need to change it substantially. The dating of paintings which do not bear a date is therefore difficult but this particular winter landscape appears to be from about 1615. It has been supposed that the building on the right is the Half Moon Brewery at Kampen but only a few barrels outside suggest it is a brewery, and the vaguely indicated town in the distance does not seem to be Kampen. The tower is closer to that of the Sint Cunerakerk in Rhenen. Avercamp was buried in the Sint Nicolaaskerk in Kampen on 15 May 1634. His nephew, Barent Pietersz. Avercamp, who also lived and worked for much of his life in Kampen, was a close follower, as was Arent Arentsz. of Amsterdam. — Winter Scene on a Canal _ Avercamp spent most of his life in the small quiet town of Kampen on the eastern shore of the Zuider Zee. Residence relatively far from the principal artistic centres of the Netherlands helps to explain why this delightful artist, who discovered the pictorial qualities of flat landscapes and was the first to specialize in winter scenes of outdoor sport and leisure, had little influence on the development of Dutch landscape painting. Avercamp's pictures peopled with motley crowds of all ages and classes skating, sledging, golfing, and fishing on the frozen canals of Holland fascinate social historians as well as art historians. The latter sometimes find him a troublesome painter, because it is difficult to trace his development. The plain fact seems to be that he did not have a marked one. From the very beginning he could paint a landscape with a high horizon, a great accumulation of detail, and a number of light colors, or one with a low horizon, few details, and vivid colors in the foreground which lighten as they recede to the distance. The two possibilities existed simultaneously and could be used at will until the end of his career, depending on either the artist's, or his patron's predilections. — Winter Landscape (1610, 25x34cm) _ Avercamp's early Winter Landscape, with its general view and colorful narrative character, is very much in the tradition of the famous winter landscapes by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. But Avercamp's winter landscapes painted after the 1620s - reflecting the trends of the period - are composed with the now fashionable low horizon and vanishing-point perspective. |
subito,
come Kleudgen fu attratto dal mare, dai pescatori dell'Arziglia e naturalmente
dagli ulivi e le palme. Fu nel 1909 che divenne ospite permanente di Bordighera
e fra la Città Vecchia e la Via dei Colli fece costruire la sua villa che porta
ancora oggi il suo nome e nel grande giardino lo studio, la famosa Specola. La
vicinanza di Montecarlo gli ispirò deliziosi quadri e bozzetti di vita mondana,
ma il suo fedele amico, la sua fonte d'ispirazione fu il mare che dominava dalla
sua Specola e che rappresentò in tutti i suoi aspetti. Dopo numerose esposizioni
la sua fama andò sempre aumentando. Verso il settantesimo anno la salute dell'illustre
artista cominciò a declinare.— He was born in Monza. His mother was Giulia
Bianchi (Mose Bianchi's sister) and his father was professor Martino Mariani.
After attending the secondary school (liceo) he started in 1879 working as a bank
clerk in Milan, following his father's advice. But soon, thanks to his friend
Uberto dell'Orto, he was apprenticed to the painter Eleuterio Pagliano. In 1883
Porto di Genova, a night scene, is shown at the Brera Exhibition. It
was made in 1882 during a period spent at his sister's house. In the same year
he takes part in the International Exhibition in Nice and in the National Exhibition
of Fine Arts in Rome. In 1884 he opens his first studio at Villa Sala in Monza;
he wins the award "Principe Umberto" thanks to the painting Saluto del Sol
Morente shown at the Brera Academy. In 1885 he receives the silver medal
at the International Exhibition at the Crystal Palace for the painting L'Onda.
In 1886, after his father's death, he moves with his family to Prince Porcia's
house. In 1887 Four paintings are shown at the first International Exhibition
of Arts in Venice: Ritratto della Contessa Rossi Martini, L'Onda, Pescatori
di Notte, L'Ora che Volge al Desio. In 1888, with his works Tramonto
nel Porto di Genova and Sorge la Luna he wins the golden medal at
the 3rd International Exposition in Munich. In 1889 he paints the bust of King
Umberto for the Cappella Palatina in Rome. He takes part in the Universal
Exposition of Paris with his works Cantuccio di Primavera and Acqua
a Catinelle. In 1898 he paints Rittratto della Signora Beddicom con la
Figlia that will be shown the following year at the Royal Academy. In 1900
he settles in Milan for four years and is appointed Councillor of the Brera Academy
by the ministry of Education. In 1906 he partecipates in the International Exposition
of Milan with the paintings In Val Seriana, Interno di Caffé, All'Eden,
La Violetta, Impressione, and with seventeen monotypes. in 1907 he gets marries
opera singer Marcelllina Caronni, nicknamed "La nana" (the dwarf). In 1909 he
returns to Bordighera and goes to live in via della Madonnetta (today called via
P. Mariani) in the villa that had belonged to Senator Agnelli. In 1914, after
his mother's death Mariani devotes himself to a welfare institution for the combatants.
In 1923, at the Gallery Pesaro in Milan there is an exhibition, organized by the
artist himself, with 348 paintings, among which Ricordi del Vecchio Cairo, Impressioni
di Genova, Ricordi di Monzo, Vita di Bordighera, Impressioni di Montecarlo. In
1927 he dies in Bordighera. — In
Zelata (49x74cm; 333x510pix, 55kb) — Ragazza
in giardino (1898, 54x39cm; 661x473pix, 61kb) — Marina
(1887, 80x109cm; 253x350pix, 24kb)
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