1; 2) An earlier version (1893, Barnes Foundation)
— 3) A yet earlier version, different curtain (1877, 61x74cm, at the Met since 1929)
— 4) certainly not this one: picture without pitcher

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Saint Jerome in His Study (1630, 103x149cm; 165kb, quarter~size, 165kb _ ZOOM to half~size, 671kb _ ZOOM++ to full size, 1163kb) from the studio of Vignon.
^ Born on 10 May 1886 (? or on 08 Feb = 27 Jan Julian): Lev Samoylovich Rosenberg “Léon Nicolaevitch Bakst”, Byelorussian Jewish theater costume and scenery designer who died on 28 (27?) December 1924.
— Born Lev Samoilovich Rosenberg. Student at the Academy of St. Petersburg. Began calling himself Léon Bakst (mother’s maiden name), in the late 1890s. Established himself in Moscow and adhered to the Russian academic tradition, taking his subjects from popular life. However, little by little he began to stray from the traditional, profoundly influenced by modern French art. A proponent of the new style in Russia, he founded the group "Mir Iskousstva" ("Artistic World"), but soon left Moscow and St. Petersburg for Paris (1893). Played a considerable role during the years preceding World War I as a costume decorator and designer for the famous Russian ballets directed by Serge de Diaghileff. A bold colorist, possessing a heightened sense of an art in service to rhythm and subject to variations in lighting, Bakst realized a bold and pleasing fusion of the elements of Russian popular art and the values of modern French art, influenced notably by Aubrey Beardsley, as well as by Greek vase painting and the Fauvism of Henri Matisse. Established legal residence in Paris in 1912.
— Bakst was born in a middle class Jewish family in Grodno, Belarus, and died in Paris. He was educated at the gymnasium in St. Petersburg and then at the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts, from where he was expelled after painting a too realistic Pietà. He started his artistic career as an illustrator for magazines but changed his mind when he met Aleksandr Benois. He travelled through Europe and came in contact with European artists. After his return to St Petersburg, he began to gain notoriety for his book designs and his portraits. In 1898, together with Benois and Serge Diaghilev, he founded the group Mir Iskusstva. In 1906 he became a teacher of drawing in Yelizaveta Zvantseva's private art school where, among other students, he taught Marc Chagall. Bakst's greatest achievements are related to theater. He debuted with the stage design for the Hermitage and Aleksandrinskii theatres in St. Petersburg in 1902-3. Afterwards, he received several commissions from the Marinskii theater (1903-4). In 1909 he began his collaboration with Diaghilev, which resulted in founding of the Ballets Russes, where he became the artistic director. His stage designs quickly brought him international fame. Most notable are his costume designs for Diaghilev's Shéhérazade (1910) and L'Après-Midi d'un Faune. He settled in Paris in 1912, after being exiled because of his Jewish origins.

— LINKS
— Bacchante
— Minister of State
x— Nymph in red x— Nymph in blue x— The Faun [Nijinsky]
— 17 theatrical designs at FAMSF
^ Died on 10 May 1930: Julio Romero de Torres, Córdoba Spanish painter born on 09 November 1874.
— Nació en Córdoba en el edificio del Museo Provincial de Bellas Artes. Era hijo del matrimonio formado por don Rafael Romero Barros, pintor y director-fundador de dicho Museo Provincial, y de doña Rosario de Torres Delgado.
     Su padre, nacido en Moguer en 1838, se formó como pintor a la sombra de Eduardo Barrón. Llegó a Córdoba en 1862 para asumir las tareas de promotor y conservador de dicho Museo y hasta su muerte en 1895, intervino la creación del Museo Arqueológico en restauraciones de la Mezquita y dirigió la Escuela de Bellas Artes.
     El joven Julio Romero se introduciría por el camino de la pintura cuando ésta vivía en España bajo muy opuestas influencias: Las derivadas de Fortuny y las del realismo tipo Courbet, introducido por el catalán Martí Alsina y dirigido hacia el paisaje; las del retratismo fotográfico de Federico de Madrazo y Gleyre; y las del Impresionismo, traído por Aureliano de Beruete y Darió de Regoyos, que Joaquín Sorolla llevaría a la técnica valiente y sumaria. Posteriormente avanzó por las rutas de la plástica pictórica cuando los aires del Simbolismo francés y del Prerrafaelismo inglés fructificaban en Cataluña -donde también se daba un Naturalismo de intención social, con Baixeras a la cabeza-, para hacer brotar el modernismo.
Julio Romero seguiría progresando en el quehacer pictórico viendo como muchos pintores coetáneos -Sotomayor, Benedito, López Mezquita, Hermoso- se iban abocando a una pintura de tipos populares, a un folklorismo pictórico resuelto con técnica inspirada en el academicismo del estudio museístico, aderezado en algún caso con tímidas adquisiciones impresionistas.
     Entre esta algarabía expresiva tan contradictoria del Romanticismo -de su padre- y el Impresionismo, del Naturalismo de intención social y el Modernismo simbolista, del Academicismo folklorista y el Realismo fotográfico, se fue formando estéticamente Julio Romero de Torres, quien, como hombre inquieto que era, estaba al día de todos estos movimientos a través de contactos con artistas militantes en estas tendencias y de reproducciones litográficas, que adquiría afanosamente. Por todo esto es lógico que antes de conseguir la expresión plástica personal que le dio justa fama, pasase por muy diversas experiencias derivadas de la mayor parte de las tendencias anteriores.
     El joven pintor vivió intensamente la vida cultural cordobesa de finales del siglo XIX, que giraba en torno a la Academia de Ciencias, Bellas Letras y Nobles Artes -presidida entonces por don Teodomiro Ramírez de Arellano-, al Ateneo y a la Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País; entidades que eran decisivo estímulo intelectual con la organización de certámenes artísticos y literarios. Una Córdoba cultural aquella de la juventud de Julio Romero, en la que brillaban escritores y artistas de la talla del Conde de Torres Cabrera, Rafael García Lovera, Enrique Redel y Aguilar, Mateo Inurria y Cipriano Martínez Rücker, entre otros muchos.
     Aunque los contactos de Julio Romero con la capital de España se van haciendo frecuentes, vive intensamente este ambiente cultural cordobés y colabora con estas figuras de la intelectualidad. Participa con intensidad en todos los acontecimientos artísticos de Córdoba - años más tarde, el 21 de diciembre de 1912, la Academia de Ciencias, Bellas Letras y Nobles Artes de Córdoba le elegiría académico numerario, como reconocimiento de esta labor-, es eficaz Profesor de la Escuela de Artes y Oficios, y hasta trabaja en la restauración del artesonado de casetones con letras góticas de la Capilla Mayor de la Mezquita Catedral, devolviendo todo su esplendor a lo que se había hecho en 1489.
     Julio Romero tuvo en Madrid en todo momento la vocación abierta de conocer y tratar gentes de cualquier edad y condición, cuya conversación mereciera la pena o cuya gran personalidad le provocase admiración. Por eso, el artista de Córdoba lo mismo iba a la salita de exposiciones que se había abierto en la calle Fuencarral, número 20 -para vivir las polémicas que suscitaba la rara coexistencia de obras de Fortuny con las de Ricardo Baroja o de José Gutiérrez Solana-, o acudía a la popular Taberna del Barbas, instalada en la misma calle Fuencarral, punto de cita de la tumultuosa bohemia literaria. Frecuentaba tambien el Ateneo de Madrid, presidido por don Segismundo Moret, haciendo tertulia con los Quintero, Ortega y Gasset o Pérez de Ayala; adentrándose más de una vez en la «Cacharrería» para ver de cerca a don Joaquín Costa, manejando impetuosamente libros de consulta, o bien hablar con Pío Baroja que se refugiaba allí para escribir los capítulos de sus novelas.
     Se fue introduciendo en los más diversos ambientes del Madrid de aquellos primeros años del siglo. Entre ellos, naturalmente, el mundo del espectáculo, frecuentando el Teatro Romea que era el palacio del cuplé.
     Goza ya de la amistad y admiración de los intelectuales madrileños. Sobre todo la de Ramón del Valle Inclán; entrando a formar parte de la tertulia nocturna y valleinclanesca del Café Nuevo Levante y a la que acudían los hermanos Ricardo y Pío Baroja, Ignacio Zuloaga, José Gutiérrez Solana, Rafael de Penagos, Moya del Pino, Leandro Oroz, Anselmo Miguel Nieto, ángel Vivanco, Luis Alemany y otros muchos artistas y escritores.
Valle Inclán y Romero de Torres como inseparables amigos que eran, se dedicaron más de una vez a organizar actos en pro de «lo nuevo». Esto les llevó a dar el digamos «espaldarazo intelectual» a un novillero que por entonces estaba causando tanto asombro como vivas discusiones por su sentido revolucionario del toreo, nos referimos a Juan Belmonte.
     En 1914 estalla la Guerra Europea y también el nombre de Julio Romero de Torres salta al primer plano de la actualidad, encabezando un manifiesto, junto a un selecto grupo de intelectuales, sobre la defensa de los valores espirituales y adhiriéndose a la causa de los aliados.
     En agosto de 1922 viaja a la República Argentina acompañado de su hermano Enrique. En los últimos días de este mismo mes se inauguró la exposición, que fue presentada en el catálogo por un espléndido texto de Ramón Valle Inclán. La muestra constituyó un éxito sin precedentes.
     En los primeros meses de 1930, Julio Romero de Torres, agotado por el exceso de trabajo y afectado de una dolencia hepática, se halla en su Córdoba natal tratando de recuperarse. Está cansado, y por otra parte, el ver desaparecer a sus amigos le afecta cada día más. Pero sigue pintando en su estudio de la Plaza del Potro, y realiza entre los meses de enero y febrero la que sería su obra final La chiquita piconera.
     El hecho de haber sido la última obra del pintor y alguna otra circunstancia, han sido las causas de que este cuadro haya sido exaltado hasta el delirio en coplas y artículos, considerándolo como el mejor cuadro de Julio Romero de Torres. Pero refiriéndonos a la crítica de Antonio M. Campoy cuando escribe « A Romero de Torres se le ha confundido con un folklorista, y lo que es peor: se creyó que sus esenciales concepto y manera estaban resumidos en «la chiquita piconera», cuando ésta, exactamente, puede ser la antítesis del gran pintor de La consagración de la copla y Carmen, que son ni más ni menos que las dos obras cumbres del Prerrafaelismo español».
     El 10 de Mayo de 1930 moría Julio Romero de Torres en su casa de la Plaza del Potro en Córdoba hecho que conmocionó a toda la ciudad de Córdoba que se echó a la calle en su entierro debido a la gran admiración que había cosechado entre sus paisanos.

— Encendiendo la mecha (1924, 63x40cm; 615x376pix, 19kb)
— Mujer con pistola (1925, 52x34cm; 611x404pix, 19kb)
— La escopeta de caza (1929, 63x37cm; 619x355pix, 15kb) .
— El cohete (1931, 63x37cm; 592x351pix, 14kb)
— Viernes Santo (450x287pix, 16kb)
^ Born on 10 May 1827: David Johnson, US Hudson River School painter who died on 30 January 1908.
— Few nineteenth-century US painters produced an oeuvre with a greater variety of subject than did David Johnson. Predominantly remembered as a landscape painter of the US northeast wilderness, Johnson also produced still lifes, portraits, and an occasional genre subject. His art evolved from the traditional selected observation of nature as transformed by the Hudson River School artists' notion of the ideal, to an art that incorporates the precise clarity of vision as practiced by the US Pre-Raphaelites. Later in his career Johnson employed the diffused suggestions of nature developed by the Barbizon artists in France. Partly as a result of Johnson's stylistic fluctuations, his career has only recently been reexamined and the full richness of his abilities more accurately defined.
      Very little is known about David Johnson's life. He probably received his early training from his brother, who was a portrait painter. In 1850, when he took a few lessons from Jasper Francis Cropsey, he was already an accomplished artist. He perhaps enrolled for two sessions in the antique class at the National Academy of Design, and at an early age knew and traveled with leading landscape painters, including John Kensett, John Casilear, and Benjamin Champney. He exhibited frequently at the National Academy of Design, and lived and painted in New York City during most of his career. He produced paintings of high quality based on locations in the Catskills, the White Mountains, New Hampshire, Virginia, and Warwick, New York, where Cropsey lived, and in 1876 he was awarded a first-class medal at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Johnson owned several European paintings, but there is no specific evidence to suggest he ever traveled abroad.
— Born and raised in New York City, David Johnson surprisingly did not avail himself of local opportunities for a formal education. He was self-trained, having painted in the company of such artists as John Kensett and Jasper Cropsey, refining his natural abilities through their examples. As did other members of the first and second generations of the Hudson River School painters, he spent his summers in the popular rural locales of the Northeast.
      By the early 1870s Johnson's method of painting had evolved into a tightly controlled technique. That hard-edged realism was tempered in the late 1870s by his use of poetic light and atmospheric haze, revealing an interest in the Barbizon School. This wedding of the poetry of that school with the precision of the Hudson River School would become his hallmark. Yet in reviews of the time he was noted for his exact brushwork, which always remained dominant. Using a fine brush and minute, almost invisible strokes, he created richly detailed and delicate vistas.
— photo of Johnson

— LINKS
— Old Kate's Bridge, Ulster County, New York (1872, 46x77cm; 3/8 size, 191kb _ ZOOM to 3/4 size, 755kb)
— Brook Study at Warwick (1873, 66x102cm _ ZOOM)
— View of Dresden, Lake George (1874, 37x62cm)
— Croquet on the Lawn (1873, 51x86cm; 706x1219pix, 216kb)
— Androscoggin River (1869, 14 x 22 in; 709x1125pix, 164kb)
— Schooley's Mountain, New Jersey (1878, 45x61cm; 396x510pix, 117kb gif) _ Although Johnson is known to have painted with Cropsey in New Jersey in 1850, this painting does not appear to be the work of a beginning artist. He also painted in New Jersey in 1877 and again in 1880. Schooley's Mountain probably dates from one of those visits. Johnson's fondness for painting rocks, which began in the 1850s, is apparent in the foreground of this work, the largest boulder becoming a focal point within the composition. Instead of being painted with the geological accuracy one might find, for example, in a major work by Frederic Church, the rocks are treated here as an important pictorial element, a strikingly textured surface upon which to explore the effects of light and shadow. Although there is no visible human presence in Schooley's Mountain, it is a typically hospitable scene despite the rugged terrain of the foreground. Water was Johnson's other frequently chosen theme, which, along with rock formations, showed up early in his career and persisted throughout his life. Schooley's Mountain is an unusual, imbalanced composition, with the heavy cluster of trees on the left side in stark contrast with the comparative weightlessness of the right side with its open field and the lake. It may have been an attempt at a less contrived scene and possibly a further exploration of an earlier lake composition of 1870, in which Johnson attempted to break from his formulaic rut of a foreground river bank, middle ground of water, and mountain background.

Died on a 10 May:

1964 (05 May?) Godfrey Clive Miller, New-Zealander Australian artist born on 20 August 1893. After completing his architectural studies in Wellington in 1917, he met the Dunedin painter A. H. O’Keefe and determined to be an artist. He was able to do this with the assistance of a private income. He travelled to China, Japan and the Philippines and in 1919 moved to Warrandyte, on the outskirts of Melbourne, where he began painting. He studied intermittently in London from 1929, with some attendance at the Slade School of Fine Art, and traveled extensively through Europe and the Middle East until the beginning of World War II, when he returned to Australia and lived in Sydney.

^
Born on a 10 May:

1878 (24 June?) Konstantinos Parthenis, Egyptian-born Greek artist who died in July 1967. He studied in Vienna under the German painter Karl Dieffenbach [1851–] and first exhibited at the Boehms Künstlerhaus in 1899. His first exhibition in Athens was in 1900. From 1903 to 1907 he lived on the island of Poros where he painted the frescoes for the church of Saint Nicholas. In 1908 he decorated the church of Saint George in Cairo. From 1909 to 1911 he lived in Paris, where he participated in the Salon d’Automne. In 1910 he received an award for his painting The Hillside, and in 1911 he won first prize at an exhibition of religious art for his painting The Annunciation. He returned to Greece in 1912, living in Corfu for five years, before finally settling in Athens in 1917. In 1918 he was commissioned to decorate the church of Saint Alexander at Paleo Phaliro. In 1920, after a retrospective exhibition of his work at the Záppeion, Athens, he received the art and literature award of the Academy of Athens. In 1937 he won the gold medal at the Exposition internationale des arts et techniques dans la vie moderne in Paris for his painting Hercules Fighting the Amazons, and at the Venice Biennale in 1938 the Italian government bought another of his paintings of The Annunciation. Parthenis' students included Diamantis Diamantopoulos, Nikos Engonopoulos, Niko Ghika , Yannis Moralis.

1861 Fannie Moody, British artist.

1699 Bartolomeo Nazari (or Nazzari), Italian artist who died on 24 August 1758.


^ Happened on a 10 May:
1999 The Cézanne painting Still Life With Curtain, Pitcher and Bowl of Fruit is sold for 60.5 million. The problem is that there is no “the” such painting. There are five! But which one is it? Not one of the following, though probably similar:
1) Nature morte avec rideau et pichet fleuri (1895 or 1899, 55x74cm, at the Hermitage since 1930; 874x1198pix)
     In subject close to the works of the Old Masters, this work is perhaps one of Cezanne's greatest still lifes. But Cezanne was not interested in conveying the different textures of the objects, as were Dutch 17th-century painters: objects were important to him only as far as they presented clear, three-dimensional forms. The contrasting of different masses, modelled by resonant light, creates a dynamic composition and gives an element of tension to the space. At the same time, the painting is dominated by a balance of form and color which creates an impression of unity and stability in this material world. Despite the prosaic subject matter, the components of the still life exist in a world of supra-real, essential values. They embody the powerful energy of nature, eternal and yet eternally changing.
     Cézanne painted five still lifes showing the same flower-decorated pitcher and, in the background, the same brownish curtain with leaves. In view of the fact that the curtain appears (as backdrop to Pierrot and Arlequin) also in a much earlier work, Mardi-Gras (1888) known to have been painted in Paris, it may be presumed that all five compositions were done there, although this painting shows a second drapery or rug that the artist subsequently used in his Aix studio [another theory: he bundled up his stuff in that curtain to take with him when he moved]. At first sight this painting seems a relatively straightforward representation of a classic still-life subject, but on closer examination anomalies emerge. The central dish of fruit, for instance, is tilted so precariously that it threatens to slide out at the onlooker. Likewise the tabletop slopes leftwards out of the picture, and the perspective of the side of the table is awry. Sometimes we seem to be looking up, sometimes down at the objects, as if the artist had changed his viewpoint. There is nothing arbitrary in the liberties that Cézanne has taken. On the contrary, by subtly adjusting the way things look and registering tonal relationships with almost scientific precision, he has endowed his still life with an extra measure of tangible reality and heightened our experience of forms in space. In the other two more elaborate variants of this theme. Cézanne switches his viewpoint even more drastically, in a way that anticipates Cubist still lifes of 1908-09. Far from being at odds with the rest of the highly worked picture, the 'unfinished' passage in the right-hand bottom corner plays an important pictorial role. The transparency of the napkin provides a necessary note of spontaneity and emphasizes the solidity of everything else in the still life. It is also important to remember that Cézanne never thought in terms of ‘finished’ pictures; he had the courage to stop before killing a picture with a last fatal brushstroke. _ Other reproduction of this same one _ The Hermitage's own reproduction (different color balance)
— 2) An earlier version (1893, Barnes Foundation)
— 3) A yet earlier version, different curtain (1877, 61x74cm, at the Met since 1929)
— 4) certainly not this one: picture without pitcher

<<< ART 09 May
ANY DAY La consagración de la copla y Carmen, que son ni más ni menos que las dos obras cumbres del Prerrafaelismo español».
     El 10 de Mayo de 1930 moría Julio Romero de Torres en su casa de la Plaza del Potro en Córdoba hecho que conmocionó a toda la ciudad de Córdoba que se echó a la calle en su entierro debido a la gran admiración que había cosechado entre sus paisanos.

— Encendiendo la mecha (1924, 63x40cm; 615x376pix, 19kb)
— Mujer con pistola (1925, 52x34cm; 611x404pix, 19kb)
— La escopeta de caza (1929, 63x37cm; 619x355pix, 15kb) .
— El cohete (1931, 63x37cm; 592x351pix, 14kb)
— Viernes Santo (450x287pix, 16kb)
^ Born on 10 May 1827: David Johnson, US Jasper Francis Cropsey, he was already an accomplished artist. He perhaps enrolled for two sessions in the antique class at the National Academy of Design, and at an early age knew and traveled with leading landscape painters, including John Kensett, John Casilear, and Benjamin Champney. He exhibited frequently at the National Academy of Design, and lived and painted in New York City during most of his career. He produced paintings of high quality based on locations in the Catskills, the White Mountains, New Hampshire, Virginia, and Warwick, New York, where Cropsey lived, and in 1876 he was awarded a first-class medal at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Johnson owned several European paintings, but there is no specific evidence to suggest he ever traveled abroad.
— Born and raised in New York City, David Johnson surprisingly did not avail himself of local opportunities for a formal education. He was self-trained, having painted in the company of such artists as John Kensett and Jasper Cropsey, refining his natural abilities through their examples. As did other members of the first and second generations of the Hudson River School painternbsp; Julio Romero tuvo en Madrid en todo momento la vocación abierta de conocer y tratar gentes de cualquier edad y condición, cuya conversación mereciera la pena o cuya gran personalidad le provocase admiración. Por eso, el artista de Córdoba lo mismo iba a la salita de exposiciones que se había abierto en la calle Fuencarral, número 20 -para vivir las polémicas que suscitaba la rara coexistencia de obras de Fortuny con las de Ricardo Baroja o de José Gutiérrez Solana-, o acudía a la popular Taberna del Barbas, instalada en la misma calle Fuencarral, punto de cita de la tumultuosa bohemia literaria. Frecuentaba tambien el Ateneo de Madrid, presidido por don Segismundo Moret, haciendo tertulia con los Quintero, Ortega y Gasset o Pérez de Ayala; adentrándose más de una vez en la «Cacharrería» para ver de cerca a don Joaquín Costa, manejando impetuosamente libros de consulta, o bien hablar con Pío Baroja que se refugiaba a
— Old Kate's Bridge, Ulster County, New York (1872, 46x77cm; 3/8 size, 191kb _ ZOOM to 3/4 size, 755kb)
— Brook Study at Warwick (1873, 66x102cm _ ZOOM)
— View of Dresden, Lake George (1874, 37x62cm)
— Croquet on the Lawn (1873, 51x86cm; 706x1219pix, 216kb)
— Androscoggin River (1869, 14 x 22 in; 709x1125pix, 164kb)
— Schooley's Mountain, New Jersey (1878, 45x61cm; 396x510pix, 117kb gif) _ Although Johnson is known to have painted with Cropsey in New Jersey in 1850, this painting does not appear to be the work of a beginning artist. He also painted in New Jersey in 1877 and again in 1880. Schooley's Mountain probably dates from one of those visits. Johnson's fondness for painting rocks, which began in the 1850s, is apparent in the foreground of this work, the largest boulder becoming a focal point within the composition. Instead of being painted with the geological accuracy one might find, for example, in a major work by Frederic Church, the rocks are treated here as an important pictorial element, a strikingly textured surface upon which to explore the effects of light and shadow. Although there is no visible human presence in Schooley's Mountain, it is a typically hospitable scene despite the rugged terrain of the foreground. Water was Johnson's other frequently chosen theme, which, along with rock formations, showed up early in his career and persisted throughout his life. Schooley's Mountain is an unusual, imbalanced composition, with the heavy cluster of trees on the left side in stark contrast with the comparative weightlessness of the right side with its open field and the lake. It may have been an attempt at a less contrived scene and possibly a further exploration of an earlier lake composition of 1870, in which Johnson attempted to break from his formulaic rut of a foreground river bank, middle ground of water, and mountain background.

Died on a 10 May:

1964 (05 May?) Godfrey Clive Miller, New-Zealander Australian artist born on 20 August 1893. After completing his architectural studies in Wellington in 1917, he met the Dunedin painter A. H. O’Keefe and determined to be an artist. He was able to do this with the assistance of a private income. He travelled to China, Japan and the Philippines and in 1919 moved to Warrandyte, on the outskirts of Melbourne, where he began painting. He studied intermittently in London from 1929, with some attendance at the Slade School of Fine Art, and traveled extensively through Europe and the Middle East until the beginning of World War II, when he returned to Australia and lived in Sydney.

^
Born on a 10 May:

1878 (24 June?) Konstantinos Parthenis, Egyptian-born Greek artist who died in July 1967. He studied in Vienna under the German painter Karl Dieffenbach [1851–] and first exhibited at the Boehms Künstlerhaus in 1899. His first exhibition in Athens was in 1900. From 1903 to 1907 he lived on the island of Poros where he painted the frescoes for the church of Saint Nicholas. In 1908 he decorated the church of Saint George in Cairo. From 1909 to 1911 he lived in Paris, where he participated in the Salon d’Automne. In 1910 he received an award for his painting The Hillside, and in 1911 he won first prize at an exhibition of religious art for his painting The Annunciation. He returned to Greece in 1912, living in Corfu for five years, before finally settling in Athens in 1917. In 1918 he was commissioned to decorate the church of Saint Alexander at Paleo Phaliro. In 1920, after a retrospective exhibition of his work at the Záppeion, Athens, he received the art and literature award of the Academy of Athens. In 1937 he won the gold medal at the Exposition internationale des arts et techniques dans la vie moderne in Paris for his painting Hercules Fighting the Amazons, and at the Venice Biennale in 1938 the Italian government bought another of his paintings of The Annunciation. Parthenis' students included Diamantis Diamantopoulos, Nikos Engonopoulos, Niko Ghika , Yannis Moralis.

1861 Fannie Moody, British artist.

1699 Bartolomeo Nazari (or Nazzari), Italian artist who died on 24 August 1758.


^ Happened on a 10 May:
1999 The Cézanne painting Still Life With Curtain, Pitcher and Bowl of Fruit is sold for 60.5 million. The problem is that there is no “the” such painting. There are five! But which one is it? Not one of the following, though probably similar:
1) Nature morte avec rideau et pichet fleuri (1895 or 1899, 55x74cm, at the Hermitage since 1930; 874x1198pix)
     In subject close to the works of the Old Masters, this work is perhaps one of Cezanne's greatest still lifes. But Cezanne was not interested in conveying the different textures of the objects, as were Dutch 17th-century painters: objects were important to him only as far as they presented clear, three-dimensional forms. The contrasting of different masses, modelled by resonant light, creates a dynamic composition and gives an element of tension to the space. At the same time, the painting is dominated by a balance of form and color which creates an impression of unity and stability in this material world. Despite the prosaic subject matter, the components of the still life exist in a world of supra-real, essential values. They embody the powerful energy of nature, eternal and yet eternally changing.
     Cézanne painted five still lifes showing the same flower-decorated pitcher and, in the background, the same brownish curtain with leaves. In view of the fact that the curtain appears (as backdrop to Pierrot and Arlequin) also in a much earlier work, Mardi-Gras (1888) known to have been painted in Paris, it may be presumed that all five compositions were done there, although this painting shows a second drapery or rug that the artist subsequently used in his Aix studio [another theory: he bundled up his stuff in that curtain to take with him when he moved]. At first sight this painting seems a relatively straightforward representation of a classic still-life subject, but on closer examination anomalies emerge. The central dish of fruit, for instance, is tilted so precariously that it threatens to slide out at the onlooker. Likewise the tabletop slopes leftwards out of the picture, and the perspective of the side of the table is awry. Sometimes we seem to be looking up, sometimes down at the objects, as if the artist had changed his viewpoint. There is nothing arbitrary in the liberties that Cézanne has taken. On the contrary, by subtly adjusting the way things look and registering tonal relationships with almost scientific precision, he has endowed his still life with an extra measure of tangible reality and heightened our experience of forms in space. In the other two more elaborate variants of this theme. Cézanne switches his viewpoint even more drastically, in a way that anticipates Cubist still lifes of 1908-09. Far from being at odds with the rest of the highly worked picture, the 'unfinished' passage in the right-hand bottom corner plays an important pictorial role. The transparency of the napkin provides a necessary note of spontaneity and emphasizes the solidity of everything else in the still life. It is also important to remember that Cézanne never thought in terms of ‘finished’ pictures; he had the courage to stop before killing a picture with a last fatal brushstroke. _ Other reproduction of this same one _ The Hermitage's own reproduction (different color balance)
— 2) An earlier version (1893, Barnes Foundati/88938982OYZtYM_fs.jpg" target="_blank">Androscoggin River (1869, 14 x 22 in; 709x1125pix, 164kb)
— Schooley's Mountain, New Jersey (1878, 45x61cm; 396x510pix, 117kb gif) _ Although Johnson is known to have painted with Cropsey in New Jersey in 1850, this painting does not appear to be the work of a beginning artist. He also painted in New Jersey in 1877 and again in 1880. Schooley's Mountain probably dates from one of those visits. Johnson's fondness for painting rocks, which began in the 1850s, is apparent in the foreground of this work, the largest boulder becoming a focal point within the composition. Instead of being painted with the geological accuracy one might find, for example, in a major work by Frederic Church, the rocks are treated here as an important pictorial element, a strikingly textured surface upon which to explore the effects of light and shadow. Although there is no visible human presence in Schooley's Mountain, it is a typically hospitable scene despite the rugged terrain of the foreground. Water was Johnson's other frequently chosen theme, which, along with rock formations, showed up early in his career and persisted throughout his life. Schooley's Mountain is an unusual, imbalanced composition, with the heavy cluster of trees on the left side in stark contrast with the comparative weightlessness of the right side with its open field and the lake. It may have been an attempt at a less contrived scene and possibly a further exploration of an earlier lake composition of 1870, in which Johnson attempted to break from his formulaic rut of a foreground river bank, middle ground of water, and mountain background.

Died on a 10 May:

1964 (05 May?) Godfrey Clive Miller, New-Zealander Australian artist born on 20 August 1893. After completing his architectural studies in Wellington in 1917, he met the Dunedin painter A. H. O’Keefe and determined to be an artist. He was able to do this with the assistance of a private income. He travelled to China, Japan and the Philippines and in 1919 moved to Warrandyte, on the outskirts of Melbourne, where he began painting. He studied intermittently in London from 1929, with some attendance at the Slade School of Fine Art, and traveled extensively through Europe and the Middle East until the beginning of World War II, when he returned to Australia and lived in Sydney.

^
Born on a 10 May:

1878 (24 June?) Konstantinos Parthenis, Egyptian-born Greek artist who died in July 1967. He studied in Vienna under the German painter Karl Dieffenbach [1851–] and first exhibited at the Boehms Künstlerhaus in 1899. His first exhibition in Athens was in 1900. From 1903 to 1907 he lived on the island of Poros where he painted the frescoes for the church of Saint Nicholas. In 1908 he decorated the church of Saint George in Cairo. From 1909 to 1911 he lived in Paris, where he participated in the Salon d’Automne. In 1910 he received an award for his painting The Hillside, and in 1911 he won first prize at an exhibition of religious art for his painting The Annunciation. He returned to Greece in 1912, living in Corfu for five years, before finally settling in Athens in 1917. In 1918 he was commissioned to decorate the church of Saint Alexander at Paleo Phaliro. In 1920, after a retrospective exhibition of his work at the Záppeion, Athens, he received the art and literature award of the Academy of Athens. In 1937 he won the gold medal at the Exposition internationale des arts et techniques dans la vie moderne in Paris for his painting Hercules Fighting the Amazons, and at the Venice Biennale in 1938 the Italian government bought another of his paintings of The Annunciation. Parthenis' students included Diamantis Diamantopoulos, Nikos Engonopoulos, Niko Ghika , Yannis Moralis.

1861 Fannie Moody, British artist.

1699 Bartolomeo Nazari (or Nazzari), Italian artist who died on 24 August 1758.


^ Happened on a 10 May:
1999 The Cézanne painting Still Life With Curtain, Pitcher and Bowl of Fruit is sold for 60.5 million. The problem is that there is no “the” such painting. There are five! But which one is it? Not one of the following, though probably similar:
1) Nature morte avec rideau et pichet fleuri (1895 or 1899, 55x74cm, at the Hermitage since 1930; 874x1198pix)
     In subject close to the works of the Old Masters, this work is perhaps one of Cezanne's greatest still lifes. But Cezanne was not interested in conveying the different textures of the objects, as were Dutch 17th-century painters: objects were important to him only as far as they presented clear, three-dimensional forms. The contrasting of different masses, modelled by resonant light, creates a dynamic composition and gives an element of tension to the space. At the same time, the painting is dominated by a balance of form and color which creates an impression of unity and stability in this material world. Despite the prosaic subject matter, the components of the still life exist in a world of supra-real, essential values. They embody the powerful energy of nature, eternal and yet eternally changing.
     Cézanne painted five still lifes showing the same flower-decorated pitcher and, in the background, the same brownish curtain with leaves. In view of the fact that the curtain appears (as backdrop to Pierrot and Arlequin) also in a much earlier work, Mardi-Gras (1888) known to have been painted in Paris, it may be presumed that all five compositions were done there, although this painting shows a second drapery or rug that the artist subsequently used in his Aix studio [another theory: he bundled up his stuff in that curtain to take with him when he moved]. At first sight this painting seems a relatively straightforward representation of a classic still-life subject, but on closer examination anomalies emerge. The central dish of fruit, for instance, is tilted so precariously that it threatens to slide out at the onlooker. Likewise the tabletop slopes leftwards out of the picture, and the perspective of the side of the table is awry. Sometimes we seem to be looking up, sometimes down at the objects, as if the artist had changed his viewpoint. There is nothing arbitrary in the liberties that Cézanne has taken. On the contrary, by subtly adjusting the way things look and registering tonal relationships with almost scientific precision, he has endowed his still life with an extra measure of tangible reality and heightened our experience of forms in space. In the other two more elaborate variants of this theme. Cézanne switches his viewpoint even more drastically, in a way that anticipates Cubist still lifes of 1908-09. Far from being at odds with the rest of the highly worked picture, the 'unfinished' passage in the right-hand bottom corner plays an important pictorial role. The transparency of the napkin provides a necessary note of spontaneity and emphasizes the solidity of everything else in the still life. It is also important to remember that Cézanne never thought in terms of ‘finished’ pictures; he had the courage to stop before killing a picture with a last fatal brushstroke. _ Other reproduction of this same one _ The Hermitage's own reproduction (different color balance)
— 2) An earlier version (1893, Barnes Foundation)
— 3) A yet earlier version, different curtain (1877, 61x74cm, at the Met since 1929)
— 4) certainly not this one: picture without pitcher

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