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ART “4”
“2”-DAY 03 January
v.5.01 |
| DEATH:
1809 DANLOUX |
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Born on 03 January 1915: Jack
Levine, US painter and printmaker who was prominent in the US
Social Realist school of the 1930s. Trained first at the Jewish Welfare Center in Roxbury, Massachusetts, and later at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in his native Boston, Levine also studied at Harvard University from 1929 to 1931. From 1935 to 1940 he was intermittently part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) Federal Art Project. During this period he set up a studio in the slums of Boston, where he depicted the poor and created satirical portrayals of corrupt politicians. Levine gained attention through paintings such as Brain Trust (1936) and The Feast of Pure Reason (1937). In the latter work, a police officer, politician, and a wealthy man huddle together, presumably striking a deal; this theme of corruption would continue in much of his work. In works such as The Trial (1954), Gangster Funeral (1953), The Patriarch of Moscow on a Visit to Jerusalem (1975), and a triptych, Panethnikon (1978), that depicts an imaginary meeting of the United Nations Security Council, he continued in the vein of biting social satire. Technically, these works reflect the dramatic distortions of European Expressionists such as Chaim Soutine [1894 – 09 Aug 1943] and Georges Rouault [27 May 1871 – 13 Feb 1958]. Levine's satirical tendencies drew sharp criticism from President Dwight D. Eisenhower [14 Oct 1890 – 28 Mar 1969] when he saw some of Levine's works in a 1959 State Department show in Moscow. But, in 1973, upon the purchase of Levine's Cain and Abel (1961), Pope Paul VI [26 Sep 1897 – 06 Aug 1978] told him that his work would always be welcome in the Vatican Museum, an unusual distinction for a US artist, a Jewish one at that. Levine married the painter Ruth Gikow, and their daughter Susanna also became an artist. — LINKS — The Patriarch of Moscow on a Visit to Jerusalem (1975, 213x237cm) — Volpone at San Marco (1977, 102x89cm) — Reconstruction (1962, 89x102cm; 656x758pix, 76kb) — King David (etching 25x20cm; 2/3 size) — The Prisoner (aquatint 33x46cm; 3/8 size) — Runway (1999, 61x53cm; 432x678pix, 65kb) — Orpheus in Vegas (1984, 102x152cm; 315x468pix, 62kb) — Study for Bloomsbury Group (1965, 76x107cm; 308x432pix, 63kb) — Girls of Tunbridge Alley # 1 (1968 etching) — McHeath at Tunbridge Alley (1968 etching) — Moritat (1968 etching) |
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Born on 03 January 1887: August
Robert Ludwig Macke, German expresssionist
painter who was killed in combat in France, on 26 September 1914, soon after
Germany declared war on France (03 Aug 1914) at the start of Word War I.
— {It is not true that he was run over by a Mack truck.} — He was a leader of Der Blaue Reiter group, one of the sources of German Expressionism. Macke was influenced, particularly in his earlier work, by his teacher Lovis Corinth [21 Jul 1858 – 12 Jul 1925], as well as by the Cubists and the Impressionists. A lyrical temperament, however, is revealed in his works, which avoid the often violent style and subject matter of his fellow Expressionists. His art combines the tradition of French painting, its sense of the grace of movement and atmosphere in landscape painting, with the cosmic sentiment of German art. In 1914 Macke traveled to Tunis with Paul Klee [18 Dec 1879 – 29 Jun 1940], and there he painted a series of works that place the subject upon a grid of various pure colors. These paintings demonstrate the effect that Orphic Cubism had upon Macke and number among his most widely admired works. — He began his artistic training in autumn 1904 at the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf, but he was far more interested by the instruction at the Kunstgewerbeschule, run by Peter Behrens, where he attended evening courses given by the German printmaker Fritz Helmuth Ehmcke [1878–1965]. Friendship with the playwrights of the Düsseldorfer Theater, Wilhelm Schmidtbonn and Herbert Eulenberg, awakened Macke’s interest in the stage. With the German sculptor Claus Cito, he developed designs for stage sets, including those for a production of Macbeth, which led to an offer by the theater to employ him, but Macke turned it down. In April 1905 Macke travelled with Walter Gerhardt, his future wife Elizabeth Gerhardt’s brother, to northern Italy and Florence. His drawings of this period reveal freshness and a receptive sensibility. In July 1906 he went to the Netherlands and Belgium with Schmidtbonn, Eulenberg and Cito, continuing on with Schmidtbonn to London, where he visited the city’s museums. In November 1906 he broke off his studies at the academy. After encountering French Impressionism on a trip to Paris in summer 1907, Macke began to paint in this manner; in autumn of that year he went to Berlin to join the studio of the German painter Lovis Corinth. However, work in the studio, and Corinth’s way of suggesting corrections, did not suit Macke’s temperament, nor did the city’s oppressive atmosphere. He returned to Bonn in early 1908. His future wife’s family provided him with the means for further travel, first to Italy and then together with his wife and her uncle Bernhard Koehler, who later became his patron, to Paris. Through Koehler he gained an insight into the art market in Paris and became acquainted with Ambroise Vollard. In 1908–1909 Macke served his one-year of compulsory military service. Once again in Paris on his honeymoon in 1909, he met Louis Moilliet and, through him, Karl Hofer. — August Macke was born in Meschede, Germany, and during his childhood he spent time in Basle where he came into contact with the work of Böcklin [1827 – 16 Jan 1901]. He was taught by Corinth [21 Aug 1858 – 1925], and traveled widely throughout Europe. He married the beautiful Elisabeth Gerhardt in 1909. He met Franz Marc [08 Feb 1880 – 04 Mar 1916] in 1910 in Munich, and with him established the Blaue Reiter the following year. In 1912 they both journeyed to Paris, where they discovered Cubism and the work of Delaunay [12 Apr 1885 – 25 Oct 1941]. In 1914 he visited North Africa with Paul Klee [18 Dec 1879 – 29 Jun 1940]. Macke was killed in battle, at the age of 27, that same year in the stupid World War I. His early Impressionist style developed into a use of strong, sunlit color applied in painterly facets of light. His preferred subject matter remained urban scenes of shopping and leisure. His North African work had a more structured appearance, and in 1913 he experimented with pure abstraction and also produced many watercolors. Upon Macke's death, Franz Marc, who was later also to be killed (near Verdun) in the same hellish war, wrote this obituary: August Macke- "Young Macke"- is dead. Those who have followed the course of German art during these last, eventful years, those who sensed what the future held in store for the development of that art, also knew Macke. And those of us who worked with him- we, his friends, we knew what promise this man of genius secretly bore in him. His life described one of the boldest and most beautiful curves in the development of German art; and with his death that curve has been rudely broken. There is not one among us who can take it further. Each of us goes his own way; wherever our paths meet, we shall feel his absence. We painters know that without his harmonies whole octaves of color will disappear from German art, and the sounds of the colors remaining will become duller and sharper. He gave a brighter and purer sound to color than any of us; he gave it the clarity and brightness of his whole being. — LINKS — Selbstbildnis (1906; 87kb) — Selbstporträt mit Hut (1909; 94kb) — Drei Mädchen in einer Barke (1911; 505x800pix, 109kb) _ There is no indication that one is a butcher, another a baker, and the third a candlestick maker. Whatever their occupation, they apparently can't afford clothes. Their boat looks like a gondola, complete with gondolier. — Gartentor (1914; 124kb) — Mädchen unter Bäumen (1914; 133kb) — Lady in a Green Jacket (1913, 44x44cm; 624x588pix, 68kb) — Tegernseer Bauernjunge (1910) — Der Sturm (1911) — Helle Frauen vor dem Hutladen (1913; 800x539pix, 101kb) — Hutladen (1913; 118kb) — Hutladen (1914; 109kb) — Elisabeth Gerhardt Nähend (1909) — Frau des Künstlers mit Hut (1909) — Porträt mit Äpfeln: Frau des Künstlers (1909) — Bildnis Franz Marc (1910; 113kb) _ Franz Marc was a painter whom Macke met in 1910 in Munich, and with him established the Blaue Reiter the following year. — Der Mackesche Garten in Bonn (1911) — Farewell (1914, 101x130cm; 457x587pix, 52kb) — Man Reading in the Park (1914, 86x100cm; 507x587pix, kb) — Kinder mit Ziege (1913) — Zoologischer Garten I (1912) — Clown (2362x1392pix, 1111kb) — In the Park (620x967pix, 109kb) — Zwei Mädchen in Landschaft (1911; 459x618pix, 222kb) |
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Died on 03 January 1809: Henri-Pierre
Danloux, French artist born on 24 February 1753. — He was orphaned at an early age and was brought up by an uncle who was an architect and contractor. Around 1770 his uncle apprenticed him to genre painter Nicolas-Bernard Lépicié [16 Jun 1735 – 14 Sep 1784]. He exhibited for the first time in 1771 at the Exposition de la Jeunesse in Paris, where he showed A Drunkard at a Table. About 1773 he was admitted into the studio of history painter Joseph-Marie Vien [18 Jun 1716 – 27 Mar 1809], whom he followed to Rome in 1775 on the latter’s appointment as Director of the Académie de France. Danloux’s sketchbooks show that he also visited Naples, Palermo, Florence, and Venice. He was not interested in the monuments of antiquity but concentrated instead on drawing landscapes and, in particular, portraits, among them that of Jacques-Louis David. Settling in Lyon, France, in 1783, Danloux established himself as a portraitist in the relaxed, informal manner of Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin. After Danloux moved to Paris in 1785, his reputation grew as a portraitist to the aristocracy. Danloux paid great attention to rendering fabrics, embroidery, and accessories in both oils and chalk. After another sojourn in Rome, Danloux returned to Paris in 1789, where he was commissioned to make portraits of the royal family. Soon the French Revolution forced him to flee to London. Influenced by fashionable English portrait painters like George Romney, Danloux excelled in family groups and portraits of children, whom he captured in natural, spontaneous poses. He also began painting history subjects. He returned to Paris in 1801 and spent his remaining years frustrated by his failure to establish himself as a history painter. — LINKS — Mademoiselle Rosalie Duthé (1792; 55kb) — {Ne pas confondre “voir Duthé” et “boire du thé”, bien qu'on (bien con?) puisse deviner que ce que servait à boire au peintre la demoiselle Duthé était du thé.} — Master Gardiner (1802, 75x62cm; 814x667pix, 34kb _ ZOOM to 1072x1000pix, 69kb) — Le supplice d'une vestale (1790, 188x170cm; 916x826pix, 35kb) — Captain Joseph Sydney Yorke [1768-1831] (1795, 76x64cm; 826x700pix) _ A half-length portrait of Sir Joseph Yorke, Admiral of the Blue, in a captain's (under three years) undress uniform. He is facing almost full-front with his head turned towards the left with his left arm outstretched. His jacket has gold braid and gold naval buttons and he wears a necktie. In the background the inclusion of the sea denotes his naval career. Even in this small half-length, the pose has a dynamic tension often characteristic of Danloux's work. His best known portraits, in which this is even more apparent, are the large full-lengths of Admiral Duncan, victor of Camperdown, 1797, and the one of Admiral Lord Keith taking the Cape of Good Hope in 1796. |
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Baptized as an infant
on 03 January 1591: “Moïse” Jean Valentin de Boulogne
, French painter, active in Italy, who died on 20 (18? 19?) August
1632. — (not to
be confused with sculptor Jean de Boulogne = Giambologna [1529 – 13
August 1608]) — He studied under Simon Vouet. He spent most of his career in Rome, where he came under the influence of Caravaggio and Bartolomeo Manfredi. He continued to paint in a variant of their dramatic chiaroscuro style even after this had fallen out of fashion in Italy. Although he is best known for his low-life genre scenes of the kind popularized by Manfredi, these represent only one aspect of a more varied oeuvre that also includes devotional pictures, allegories and portraits. The poetic character of his style, at once violent and tender, makes him one of the most engaging French painters of the 17th century. — Moïse Valentin (also called Le Valentin and Valentin de Boulogne), French Caravaggesque painter active in Rome from about 1612. His life is obscure; the name Moïse (the French form of Moses) by which he was called was not his Christian name (which is unknown) but a corruption of the Italian form of 'monsieur'. He did, however, have one major public commission: The Martyrdom of SS. Processus and Martinian (1629), painted for Saint Peter's as a pendant to Poussin's The Martyrdom of Saint Erasmus. About fifty works are attributed to him. They vary in subject — religious, mythological, and genre scenes and portraits — but the same models often seem to reappear in them, and all his work is marked by an impressively solemn, at times melancholic, dignity. He was one of the finest of Caravaggio's followers and one of the most dedicated, still painting in his style when it had gone out of fashion. He died after taking a cold bath in a fountain following a drinking bout; his death was much lamented in the artistic community. — Nicolas Tournier was a student of Valentin de Boulogne. — LINKS — Cheerful Company with Fortune-teller (1631, 190x265cm; 893x1250pix, 154kb _ ZOOM, with the right-hand 30% in deep shadow cropped out, to 1786x1786pix, 569kb) _ The half-length portraits, the fortune tellers, musicians and guardhouse scene are typical motives for Valentin de Boulogne. Much is known about how this late work came into being: a Sicilian aristocrat living in Madrid, Fabrizio Valguarnera, when on a visit to Rome in 1631, placed a commission with Valentin for a “picture of people featuring a gypsy, with soldiers and other women playing instruments”. Clients were thus able to specify requirements. The crowded inn scene thus contains all the elements that were popular in this genre: loud music is being played at one table, hardly anyone pays attention to a fight that is developing at the next one; only one soldier tries to intervene. A little girl takes the opportunity to steal the purse of one of the brawlers. Amid all this confusion, a fortune-teller reads a young man’s palm. Themes and figures were interchangeable in these scenes. They all appealed differently to the perception of viewers, which is why such images were often regarded as allegories of the senses, hearing first and foremost in this case. Valentin’s achievement lies not so much in inventing a suitable pictorial form for the theme as in his artfully varied poses and skilful painting.His subtle handling of light gives structure to the work and defines the positions of the figures in the space. The chiaroscuro is inspired by Caravaggio [1571–1610]. Valentin’s work is based on the secular scenes of Caravaggio’s early period, but he combined them with the dark, highly contrasting colors of the master’s late style. — Crowning with Thorns (128x95cm; 950x698pix, 96kb) _ after a Caravaggio painting (now lost, possibly this, or even this). — The Last Supper (1626, 139x230cm; 680x1090pix, 94kb) _ The painting shows the most dramatic moment of the Last Supper, when Jesus reveals to the disquieted apostles that one of them would betray him. Beside Christ, Saint John rests his head on the table and sleeps, in keeping with an iconographic tradition popular in Emilia. Meanwhile Peter, to the left of Christ, raises his hands in a gesture of astonishment. In the left foreground, Judas can be seen holding a purse behind his back: this contains thirty coins, the price of his treachery. This painting is one of the masterpieces of Valentin's maturity. His compositional scheme shows classical influence, with the solemn and monumental figure of Christ at the exact center of the scene and the symmetric composition around him, with the apostles distributed regularly around the table. Such stylistic elements are distant from the convulsed and turbulent compositions Valentin had preferred earlier in his career. In contrast to these, which constitute a large p
— Christ Driving the Money Changers out of the Temple (1618, 195x260cm; 773x1029pix, 137kb) _ The attribution to Valentin (1845) has been followed by all successive critics. The close dependence of this French artist on the style of Caravaggio extends even to the copying of individual passages like the figure lying on the ground to the left or the fleeing, screaming boy to the right. This, as well as, the use of strong light, chiaroscuro, and the realistic definition of the faces suggest a precocious date, perhaps around 1618. Despite the dependence on Caravaggio's style, the complex composition is fundamentally new. Everything is arranged along diagonals, carefully studied to give an overall sensation of whirling motion. Isolated in the center of all this is the powerful figure of Christ. With his arm raised against a terrorized, fleeing crowd, this figure is a very individual interpretation of its prototype, the Christ at the center of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel Last Judgment. — Saint John the Baptist (1630, 130x90cm; 980x747pix, 93kb) [about Saint John the Baptist] — Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence (1622, 195x261cm; 669x900pix, 121kb) _ Saint Lawrence was a Christian martyr of Spanish birth who died in Rome in 258, one of the most venerated saints since the 4th century. He was ordained deacon by Pope Sixtus II and met his death shortly after the pope's own martyrdom. Tradition has it that the pope, when arrested, instructed Lawrence to give away to the poor the church's treasures, consisting of precious vessels and money, for which, as deacon, he was responsible. No sooner had he done so than Lawrence was ordered by the Roman prefect to surrender them to him, whereupon Lawrence, indicating the poor and sick around him, said, 'Here are the treasures of the Church'. For this he was condemned to be roasted on a gridiron, a torture he underwent with equanimity, merely observing, 'See, I am done enough on one side, now turn me over and cook the other'. Valentin de Boulogne was a French Caravaggesque painter who came so close to the master that he was perfectly in place among his Italian contemporaries, French characteristics being confined to certain details. |
| — Martyrdom
of Saints Processus and Martinian (1629, 308x165cm; 1138x730pix, 100kb)
_ This painting was commissioned for Saint Peter's, and it was the only
important commission of the whole career of Valentin. It is of interest
because the artist modified his largely tenebrist style to suit the situation.
The subject, a gruesome one, is of the Martyrdom of Saint
Processus and Saint Martinian. It was subsequently replaced by a mosaic.
A possible reason for the lightening of the artist's style is the fact that the picture had to match the already completed Martyrdom of Saint Erasmus by the young Nicolas Poussin, who had in turn modified his style towards a much more Caravaggesque approach, especially in his realistic treatment of the gruesome subject-matter. Neither painter received such a commission again, and these two altarpieces stand out in their respective careers, proving that young French artists did appeal to influential people — in this case officials of the Papacy — with the money to give commission. It could also be argued that this was because by the end of the 1620s pure Caravaggism as such was already out of fashion among all successful Italian painters working in Rome. — The Martyrdom of Saint Bartholomew [about Saint Bartholomew] — The Judgment of Solomon (1626, 176x210cm; 844x1040pix, 127kb) _ The influence of Caravaggio's dramatic style which revolutionized European painting at the beginning of the seventeenth century can be seen clearly in Valentin's work. He would have come into contact with Caravaggio's work in Rome where he went as a very young man, and spent all of his short career. In The Judgment of Solomon the strength of forms outlined against the shadow, so reminiscent of Caravaggio, does not preclude an atmosphere of mystery and poetry that is peculiar to Valentin. Louis XIV owned several of his paintings; five are still hanging in the King's bedchamber in the Chateau de Versailles. — a very slightly different The Judgment of Solomon (1620, 174x213cm; 810x1020pix, 101kb) _ Though this painting was at one time thought to be a copy, it is now considered to be Valentin's original. A prominent member of Rome's colony of transalpine painters, this Frenchman was active in the papal city from around 1613 until his death in 1632. A replica of this picture, with slight variations and dated to 1626, is listed above. In both versions, Valentin arranges his scene along a central axis that coincides with the figure of Solomon: to either side are counterbalanced groups, each centering on one of the two female protagonists of this biblical narrative. The figures are emphasized as much as possible by the strong and direct light. Between the original and the second version, variants in the arms of the woman to the right (gathered to her breast in the 1626 picture) have the effect of giving greater movement to the scene and better emphasizing the figure of the true mother. Differences in the idealization of the figures, the more refined and subtle definition of the light and chromatic range in the 1626 picture, and the more intense rendering of the chiaroscuro in the 1620 painting lead to the conclusion that the latter is earlier than the 1626 one and must have been painted around 1620. This conclusion is supported by the many similarities between the 1620 picture and other confirmed works by Valentin that date to the same years. — Judith and Holofernes (1626, 106x141cm; 770x1099pix, 108kb) _ The figure of Judith emerges from the obscurity of the background with crude determination, rivaling the best productions of the Caravaggisti, particularly Bartolomeo Manfredi. — The Four Ages of Man (1630, 96x134cm; 433x600pix, 39kb) — The Fortune Teller (1628, 125x175cm; 750x1076pix, 96kb) Valentin's mature style of about 1630 was already slightly out of fashion, but it was at this time that he produced some of his best pictures. One of these is The Fortune Teller, which belonged to Louis XIV. The artist has, as usual, concentrated on the lowlife aspect of the subject — a gypsy telling fortunes to a hapless youth — yet the refinement of the tones and delicacy of the brushwork raise the painting above those of all his contemporaries in these respect. (The only Italian to achieve such refinement, although it was of a different character, was Gentileschi.) — The Concert (1625, 173x214cm; 820x1019pix, 90kb) _ The scene of this concert is an interior characterized only by a classical low-relief. Valentin's Caravaggism emerges not only from the subject but also from the melancholic characterization of the figures and the violent contrasts of light and shadow. — Cardsharps (1625, 95x137cm; 760x1127pix, 114kb) _ Of all French painters active in Rome in the 1620s, the most consistent, and the only one who can be claimed to have genius, is Valentin. He died relatively young, without leaving Rome. Many of his earlier pictures, painted when he was much closer in spirit to Caravaggio, have remained unidentified until recently. The best example of his early work is the Dresden Cardsharps which is based on a similar composition by Caravaggio (unfortunately missing since the late nineteenth century). In the Dresden painting Valentin has seized on the evil nature of the villain, creating an obvious story completely lacking in subtlety, but delicacy is shown in his handling of the paint which, as always in his work, is very much more refined than that of Caravaggio. — Give to Caesar what is Caesar's (600x859pix _ ZOOM not recommended to badly patterned 1400x2005pix, 605kb) |
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