Christmas-Time

by 19th century ArtAmerican ArtArtStudent ActivitiesWorksheets
Eastman Johnson, 1824–1906
Christmas-Time, The Blodgett Family, 1864, oil on canvas, 76.2 x 63.5cm, the MET, NY
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/11258

I heard the bells on Christmas Day  /  Their old, familiar carols play,  /  And wild and sweet  /  The words repeat  /  Of peace on earth, good-will to men!…  Christmas Bells by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)… a wonderful way to introduce Christmas-Time by Eastman Johnson and Wish you all Merry Christmas!!! https://www.nga.gov/collection/artist-info.1423.html and https://poets.org/poem/christmas-bells

Eastman Johnson, 1824–1906
Eastman Johnson, 1890s, albumen print (cabinet card) by Edwin S. Bennett (detail), National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, Department of Image Collections
Self-portrait of Eastman Johnson, circa 890, oil on canvas, 60.9 x 50.7 cm, Brooklyn Museum
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastman_Johnson

In 1846 Eastman Johnson was in Boston, where he was commissioned to create portraits of several of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s friends and family members. At the time, Eastman Johnson was a young man of twenty-two, but his draftsmanship was accomplished and thus he drew the attention of the established poet and Harvard professor Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. All of these portraits hang today in the Vassall/Craigie/Longfellow House in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a site that offers unique opportunities to explore 19th-century literature and arts. https://www.mainememory.net/artifact/15896     and     https://www.nps.gov/long/index.htm

Eastman Johnson, 1824–1906
Portraits of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1846, Crayon and Chalk on Paper, 21 x 19 in. Oval, Vassall-Craigie-Longfellow House
Scanned from Eastman Johnson: Painting America     https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Eastman_Johnson_portrait_of_Longfellow.jpg

Young Eastman Johnson was pleased to place himself under Henry Wadsworth Longfellow patronage, but like his patron, his dream was to travel and study in Europe… and this is exactly what he did in 1849, “when he travelled to Düsseldorf, Germany, and received rigorous training in drawing at that city’s academy. More congenial, however, was the time he spent in the studio of Emanuel Leutze,” the German/American artist who painted in 1851 Washington Crossing the Delaware “where he concentrated on painting. In 1851 he went to London to see the Universal Exposition and then relocated to The Hague, remaining for over three years. His lengthy stay at The Hague was somewhat unusual for an American artist, but he apparently found much inspiration in the Dutch Old Masters as well as ready patronage through August Belmont, the wealthy American ambassador. His European education ended with several months spent in the Parisian studio of Thomas Couture before the death of his mother brought him home in 1855.”     https://www.nga.gov/collection/artist-info.1423.html

Eastman Johnson, 1824–1906
Negro Life at the South, 1859, oil on canvas, 129.5×154.9 cm, The New-York Historical Society, The Robert L. Stuart Collection

Back in the United States, Eastman Johnson spent his time painting in his rented studio in New York City or travelling extensively, visiting members of his family in Washington, D.C., or Lake Superior, where he sketched members of the Chippewa Tribe.  His reputation was established in 1859 when, at a time when slavery was heatedly debated,  he presented in a New York exhibition a painting of the backyard of his father’s house in Washington, D.C. titled Negro Life in the South. https://www.nyhistory.org/exhibit/negro-life-south-0

Eastman Johnson, 1824–1906
Christmas-Time, The Blodgett Family (detail), 1864, oil on canvas, 76.2 x 63.5cm, the MET, NY https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/11258

In 1864, he was commissioned to paint Christmas-Time, The Blodgett Family, a group portrait with interesting narrative elements. “It shows William Tilden Blodgett (1823–1875), a supporter of the Union cause and a founding trustee of the Metropolitan Museum, with his family in the Renaissance Revival parlour of their house at 27 West 25th Street. Depicted during the Civil War, at a time of urban upheaval, the serene interior decorated for Christmas embodies the best sentiment of home, as a critic observed in 1865.”  https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/11258

Eastman Johnson, 1824-1906
The Girl I Left Behind Me, 1872, oil on canvas, 106.7 x 88.7 cm, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC

One of the foremost painters of American life, Eastman Johnson’s reputation grew further with paintings like the A Ride for Liberty—The Fugitive Slaves, of 1862 or The Wounded Drummer Boy, of 1864-1870 or The Girl I Left Behind Me, of 1872. He was financially comfortable and professionally successful. He lived in a large house in Manhattan and vacationed on the island of Nantucket, the scene of many of his paintings. He was an active member of the National Academy, the Century and Union League Clubs, the Metropolitan Museum, and even the Society of American Artists. He is remembered for his humour and kindness in helping other artists, as a good story-teller, a short, rotund kind of a man. https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/exhibitions/1664

For a Student Activity on It’s Christmas with Eastman Johnson, please… Check HERE!

Rosa Bonheur

by 19th century ArtArtStudent ActivitiesWorksheets
Rosa Bonheur, 1822 – 1899
The Horse Fair, 1835–-55, oil on canvas, 244.5 cm × 506.7 cm, the MET, NY

“Ah! If nations could only agree to employ their resources to perfect agriculture and improve transportation, and to bring all their girl children a good education, what an explosion of happiness there would be on earth!” Rosa Bonheur said and I couldn’t agree more… She was a formidable lady and I like her!     https://www.quotetab.com/quote/by-rosa-bonheur/ah-if-nations-could-only-agree-to-employ-their-resources-to-perfect-agriculture

Anna Klumpke, 1856–1942
Rosa Bonheur, 1898, oil on canvas, 117.2 x 98.1 cm, the MET, NY

Rosa Bonheur was a lucky, talented lady! Her progressive painter father, Oscar-Raymond Bonheur, trained her to become a commercially successful painter and a spirited woman of staunch belief in women’s equality. “To my father’s doctrines, I owe my great and glorious ambition for the sex to which I proudly belong and whose independence I will defend until my dying day.” She was the oldest of four children, two girls and two boys, born to a pianist mother, who patiently and ingeniously taught her reluctant daughter how to read and write. Sophie Bonheur, Rosa’s mother noticed how reluctant her spirited daughter was to do her homework and how enthusiastic she was to draw. As the artist recalled ‘…One day she had a bright idea…She told me to draw an ass opposite the A and a cow opposite the C and so on…’ Rosa not only learnt how to read and write but, but inspired by her mother’s teaching method, she developed a lasting love and deep understanding of animals.   https://www.theartstory.org/artist/bonheur-rosa/life-and-legacy/

Rosa’s formal education started at a boarding school run by Mme. Gilbert, but “…The Gilberts refused to harbour… such a noisy creature as I and sent me back home in disgrace…my tomboy manners had an unfortunate influence on my companions, who soon grew turbulent… ” Her father decided to take charge. She was 13 years old when Rosa started working at her father’s Studio first training to do pencil drawings of plaster casts and engravings, later still life paintings working from nature, landscapes, animals, and birds. Finally, she was sent to study painting and sculpture at the Louvre, the youngest of all students as she was only 14 years old.

Rosa Bonheur, 1822 – 1899
Ploughing in Nevers, 1849, oil on canvas, 1,340×2,600 mm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris

In 1841 Bonheur exhibited at the Paris Salon for the first time. By 1843 she was successful and selling her paintings regularly so much so that she was able to travel the country for inspiration and more paintings of French landscapes and animal studies. At the 1848 Salon Rosa Bonheur was awarded a gold medal, and the French government commissioned her to paint Ploughing in Nevers, exhibited at the 1849 Salon, to honour the age-old tradition of field ploughing by animal power.     https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/becoming-modern/avant-garde-france/realism/v/rosa-bonheur-plowing-in-the-nivernais-1849     and     https://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/works-in-focus/painting/commentaire_id/ploughing-in-nevers-2040.html?tx_commentaire_pi1%5BpidLi%5D=509&tx_commentaire_pi1%5Bfrom%5D=841&cHash=60f905d6af

Rosa Bonheur, 1822 – 1899
The Horse Fair, 1855, reduced version, 120 cm × 254.6 cm, National Gallery, London

Bonheur’s most famous painting was accomplished in 1855. Titled The Horse Fair, it is monumental in size and shows the famous horse market in Paris, on the tree-lined Boulevard de l’Hôpital, near the asylum of Salpêtrière, where Rosa Bonheur, dressed as a man by special police permission, sketched, preparing the painting, twice a week, from the summer of 1850 to the end of 1851. Rosalia Shriver writes that “When (the painting) was finally finished and exhibited at the Salon of 1853, its creator was only 31 years old. Yet no other woman had ever achieved a work of such force and brilliance, and no other animal painter had produced a work of such size.” Bonheur herself said that when she paints horses her “…dream is to show the fire which comes out of the horses’ nostrils; the dust which rises from their hooves. I want this to be an infernal waltz.” https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/435702      and     Rosalia Shriver, Rosa Bonheur: With a Checklist of Works in American Collections, Art Alliance Press, Philadelphia 1982

Rosa Bonheur, 1822 – 1899
The Horse Fair, ca. 1852, oil on canvas, 26.67 x 63.5 cm, Albright-Knox Art Gallery

The original version of the The Horse Fair is part of the collection, and proudly exhibited, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York along with two small studies of the painting on paper. The Albright-Knox Art Gallery has also a small oil on canvas study. Finally, a reduced version of the painting, dating in 1855, is exhibited in the London National Gallery of the United Kingdom, where Bonheur was highly successful , more so than in France. Interestingly, Bonheur’s fame and popularity in Britain led to a meeting with the Queen of England who, along with many of her countrymen appreciated Bonheur’s sentimental approach to landscape and rendering of animals.     https://mymodernmet.com/rosa-bonheur-facts/

Rosa Bonheur, 1822 – 1899
The Horse Fair, 1840–99, black chalk and graphite, 18.4 x 41.1 cm, the MET, NY
The Horse Fair, 19th century, black chalk, grey wash, heightened with white, 13.7 x 33.7 cm, the MET, NY

For a RWAP (RWAP stands for Research-Writing-Art-Project) student Activity, please… check HERE!

“Art is a tyrant. It demands heart, brain, soul, body. The entireness of the votary. Nothing less will win its highest favor. I wed art. It is my husband, my world, my life dream, the air I breathe. I know nothing else, feel nothing else, think nothing else.”     https://www.quotetab.com/quotes/by-rosa-bonheur

Émile Zola by Édouard Manet

by with No Comment 19th century ArtArtImpressionismStudent Activities
Édouard Manet, 1832-1883
Portrait of Émile Zola, 1868, oil on canvas, 146,0 x 114,0 cm., Musée d’Orsay

“My dear Zola, – I am making up my mind to hold a private show. I have at least two score pictures to exhibit. I’ve already been offered a site in a very good location near the Champ de Mars. I am going to stake the lot and seconded by men like yourself, am hopeful of success. See you soon. Cordially, yours ever, All of us here are delighted with your article, and I am instructed to send you thanks.” This is a quote of Manet’s letter to Zola, Wednesday, 2 January 1867. My new POST Émile Zola by Édouard Manet further shows the relationship between the two men.     https://quotepark.com/quotes/1886775-edouard-manet-my-dear-zola-i-am-making-up-my-mind-to-hold-a-p/

It was 1866 and Émile Zola, disappointed with the way the French Academy and critics treated Édouard Manet’s work in the Salon of 1866 wrote an article on Manet in La Revue du XXe siècle and defended him. He did not stop, however, with this first article. The following year, 1867, when Manet organized a private exhibition on the fringes of the Universal Exhibition, Zola was once more present, supporting his friend, writing about Manet’s New Manner in Art, in the January La Revue du XXe siècle. Later in 1867, Zola republished the 1867 article in the form of a separate pamphlet. Zola wrote that he “instinctively loved” Manet’s Art replying to the critics who vilified the painter by saying  “I replied to them [to the crowd and to the art critics] that fate had undoubtedly already marked at the Louvre Museum the future place of the Olympia and of the Luncheon on the Grass.” This pamphlet was distributed on May 22, 1867, the opening day of the Private Exhibition of Edouard Manet, organized at his expense by the painter in a pavilion near the Pont de l’Alma.     https://www.librairie-faustroll.com/librairie-en-ligne/6684-zola-emile-edouard-manet-1867-dentu-edition-originale-de-cette-rare-plaquette-complet-de-l-eau-forte-d-apres-olympia.html     and     https://msu.edu/course/ha/446/zolamanet.htm

According to the Musée d’Orsay presentation “To thank him, Manet offered to paint Zola’s portrait. The sittings took place in Manet’s studio, rue Guyot. The setting was arranged for the occasion with items characteristic of Zola’s personality, tastes and occupation. On the wall is a reproduction of Manet’s Olympia, a painting which sparked a fierce scandal at the 1865 Salon but which Zola held to be Manet’s best work. Behind it is an engraving from Velazquez’s Bacchus indicating the taste for Spanish art shared by the painter and the writer. A Japanese print of a wrestler by Utagawa Kuniaki II completes the décor. The Far East, which revolutionised ideas on perspective and colour in European painting, played a central role in the advent of the new style of painting. A Japanese screen on the left of the picture recalls this. Zola is seated at his work table. He is holding a book, probably Charles Blanc’s L’Histoire des peintres frequently consulted by Manet. An inkwell and a quill on the desk symbolise the writer’s occupation. This portrait sealed the start of a loyal friendship between Manet and Zola, both eager for success.”     https://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/works-in-focus/search/commentaire_id/emile-zola-313.html

The symbolist artist Odilon Redon (1840-1916), known today for the “dreamlike” paintings, observed penetratingly Zola’s Portrait and in his Salon review (La Gironde, 9 June 1868), wrote… “It is rather a still life, so to speak, than the expression of a human being”. Apparently Zola himself was not entirely delighted with his portrait, which Manet presented to him, and Charles-Marie-Georges Huysmans (1848-1907) the French novelist and art critic noticed that he had relegated the painting to an antechamber of his home.     http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/paintings-analysis/portrait-of-emile-zola.htm

For a Student Activity, please… check HERE!

Virtual Trip to meet the Pre-Raphaelites

by with No Comment 19th century ArtArtTravel
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1828–1882
Monna Vanna, 1866, oil on canvas, 88,9 cm × 86,4 cm, TATE Britain, London

“Conception, my boy, fundamental brain work, is what makes all the difference in art…” once said, Dante Gabriel Rossetti. During COVID 19 Days, we need a new meaningful Conception of our Life, and how we can make it powerful and fulfilling… just like ART! London, home of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and his Brotherhood friends, is an ideal Virtual Trip to meet the Pre-Raphaelites! Please… Stay in the comfort of your HOME! Snack on something deliciously BRITISH! …and ACTION!

The Guildhall Art Gallery in London, founded in 1886 as the “Collection of Art Treasures worthy of the capital city,” exhibits some superb examples of Pre-Raphaelite works.

According to the TATE experts “The Pre-Raphaelites were a secret society of young artists (and one writer), founded in London in 1848. They were opposed to the Royal Academy’s promotion of the ideal as exemplified in the work of Raphael. …Inspired by the theories of John Ruskin, who urged artists to ‘go to nature’, they believed in an art of serious subjects treated with maximum realism. Their principal themes were initially religious, but they also used subjects from literature and poetry, particularly those dealing with love and death. They also explored modern social problems.”    https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/p/pre-raphaelite.

Let’s uncover the mysteries of this secret society of painters with the help of our KIDS and the TATE    https://www.tate.org.uk/kids/explore/who-is/who-are-pre-raphaelites …and let’s explore Pre-Raphaelite London! https://theculturetrip.com/europe/united-kingdom/england/london/articles/a-pre-raphaelites-tour-of-london/    and    https://www.standard.co.uk/go/london/arts/pre-raphaelite-art-london-best-paintings-exhibitions-a3965701.html

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1828–1882
Monna Vanna, 1866, oil on canvas, 88,9 cm × 86,4 cm, TATE Britain, London

Movie Time with the Pre-Raphaelites… and ACTION!

Effie Gray is a 2014 British biographical film written by Emma Thompson and directed by Richard Laxton. It is based on the true story of John Ruskin’s marriage to Euphemia Gray and the subsequent annulment of their marriage.     https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1605798/     and     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BLzK1z0EII

Desperate Romantics is a six-part television drama series about the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, first broadcast on BBC Two between 21 July and 25 August 2009. Discussing the series’ billing as “Entourage with Easels,” Franny Moyle, whose book about the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Desperate Romantics: The Private Lives Of The Pre-Raphaelites was an inspiration for the series, said: “I didn’t pitch it as ‘Entourage with easels’ … I pitched it as a big emotional saga, a bit like The Forsyte Saga. Having said that, I think it was a useful snapshot – a way of getting a handle on the drama.”     https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1346018/?ref_=kw_li_tt     and     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4BraAD71cE

The BBC Documentary, The Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Revolutionaries, examines the 19th century Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood art movement. This 3-Part Documentary explores its origins, some early works and the criticism faced by the Brotherhood.    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkWONORqHZw     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oe9JOWEYldU     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSCRU73LIms

FOOD… with Victorian Recipes

What did the Victorians eat? Mrs. Avis Crocombe was the head cook at Audley End House in the 1880s. She compiled many different recipes in her handwritten cookery book, which includes a range of Victorian delights – including a recipe for a roasted swan! Will they prove interesting to taste?     https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/inspire-me/victorian-recipes/

Singer with a Glove…

by with No Comment 19th century ArtArtImpressionismStudent ActivitiesWorksheets
Edgar Degas, 1834 – 1917
Singer with a Glove, c. 1878, pastel on canvas, 53.2 x 41 cm, Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum

“Art is not what you see, but what you make others see,” Edgar Degas once said. What do we really see in his pastel painting of a Singer with a Glove?

“What a creature he was, that Degas!” Renoir said about him, and he was right! A reluctant Impressionist, the offspring of a wealthy family with Creole ties, Edgar Degas studied in the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and then in July 1856, he travelled to Italy, where he would remain for the next three years drawing and painting numerous copies of works by the great masters of the Renaissance. However, Degas’s Italian art studies were not conventional. He learnt the secrets of each painter’s art by focusing his attention to a particular detail that had caught his attention, a secondary figure in a large composition, or a minor portrait in a master’s painting.

Edgar Degas, 1834 – 1917
Self-Portrait, 1863, oil on canvas, 925 x 665mm, Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon

Upon his return to France in 1859, and for the next thirteen years, Degas kept busy exhibiting, annually, at the Salon (1865-1870) drawing attention with his historic paintings, defending Paris as an enlisted member of the National Guard, during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, and travelling extensively visiting friends in France or spending a year visiting family in New Orleans (1972). In 1873 Degas was back in Paris, facing the death of his father and financial ruin due to enormous business debts amassed by his brother René. He sold his house and Art Collection to preserve his family’s reputation, and started fresh, producing much of his greatest work, joining a group of young artists who were soon to be known as the Impressionists.

Edgar Degas, 1834 – 1917
A Cotton Office in New Orleans, 1873, oil on canvas, 73 cm × 92 cm, Musée des beaux-arts de Pau, France

Degas participated in seven of the Impressionist Exhibitions (1874-1886) taking a leading role in their organization and final disbanding in 1886. Deeply conservative in his social views, Degas disliked the term “Impressionism” that was popularly attached to the group as much as he disliked and mocked painting “en plein air” like Monet and others did, writing “You know what I think of people who work out in the open. If I were the government I would have a special brigade of gendarmes to keep an eye on artists who paint landscapes from nature. Oh, I don’t mean to kill anyone; just a little dose of bird-shot now and then as a warning.”

He was very much, however, an Impressionist in painting the reality of the Parisian world around him with a strong sense of immediacy, using blazing and luminous colours, the force of light, and off-centre compositions. By the late 1860s women became Degas’s source of inspiration, and conforming to contemporary ideas, Degas painted hard-working women like milliners and laundresses, but women entertainers as well, like Ballet Dancers and Singers.

Edgar Degas, 1834 – 1917
Singer with Glove, 1878, pastel on paper marouflé on toile, 62,5 x 48 cm, Copenhague, Ordrupgaard, Danemark
Café Singer, 1879, oil on canvas, 53.5 × 41.8 cm, Art Institute of Chicago
Singer with Glove, 1878, drawing on paper, Louvre Museum
http://www.degas-catalogue.com/fiches.php?id=25

The Singer with a Glove is one such painting. Using the harsh artificial light needed to illuminate the stage of the famous Parisian Café Chantant, maybe his favourite Café des Ambassadeurs, Degas presents the singer as she holds an operatic note holding her gloved hand up to stress her effort! He uses harsh light and strong colours… shades of orange, washes of pink and green, stark black and pure white. Degas uses light and colours to dominate his composition and create… drama needed to stress new values for France’s newly established Third Republic!

Bibliography on Degas is extensive and interesting. For easy access to Internet short articles on the painting in focus, please go to https://www.harvardartmuseums.org/art/228652    and    https://fashionhistory.fitnyc.edu/1884-degas-singer-in-green/    and    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Degas#cite_note-26

For a student Activity on the painting of the Harvard Art Museums Singer with a Glove by Edgar Degas, please… click HERE!

The work of my Dear Student Kalypso I.

Theodoros Ralli

by with No Comment 19th century ArtArtGreek ArtOrientalismStudent ActivitiesWorksheets
Theodoros Ralli, 1852-1909
Veiled Woman, 1889, oil on vellum, diameter 22 cm, ALPHA Bank Collection

“Art is ANYTHING you can get away with” Andy Warhol once said… How true is he when we consider the artistic oeuvre of Theodoros Ralli and his amazing Orientalism! A wealthy Greek ex-patriate artist, living between the West, mostly in Paris, and the East, Cairo during the cold month of winter, Theodoros Ralli is a true cosmopolitan of the late 19th century Gilded Age.

“A perfect Parisian type, wearing a beret à la Hermonville and a light brown vest with gold trim buttoned to the neck, still very youthful and of an open, jovial character, Mr. Ralli is a delightful conversationalist and very gallant.”

Not just so… Theodoros Ralli, born in Constantinople, at the crossroads of East and West, the mythical capital of the Byzantine Empire and the alluring EAST, was destined to become the most representative of the Greek, Orientalist painters. He was “the offspring of a wealthy family from the island of Chios, active in commerce in England and around the world.” Theodoros Ralli had no financial problems to pursue, unobstructed, his passion for the Arts. The photographs of his Parisian Studio that still survive today preserve his appearance and way of living. Documents of the period present him as a personality, and discuss “his courtesy, gentility, humour, patience, tenacity, smoking habit, love of Wagnerian opera, a weakness for watercolourists, aversion to long-term relationships, industriousness and his love for the fair sex, in Parisian Studios he had the nickname of Don Juan.”  All documents “reinforce the picture of a man who despite his genteel and fragile appearance, disposed of enormous psychic reserves, had an iron will and the perseverance to become what he had dreamed of becoming: a painter.”

The Artist’s Studio in Paris

Theodoros Ralli studied painting under the academic teacher and Orientalist painter Jean-Leon Gerome until approximately 1880, sharing his teacher’s aversion towards Impressionism and the avant-garde movements of the later 19th century. He exhibited, uninterruptedly, in the official French Salons, the World Exhibitions of Paris, as well as many other exhibitions both inside and outside France, winning medals and establishing international recognition. He travelled extensively to Greece and many Middle Eastern countries, drawing inspiration for his paintings. He kept two Studios, one in Paris and another in Cairo, where he kept warm and stimulated during wintertime.

Theodoros Ralli, 1852-1909
Veiled Woman, 1889, oil on vellum, diameter 22 cm, ALPHA Bank Collection

Orientalism in later 19th century Art is a tantalizing, multi-faceted, genre much loved by Europeans of the time. We can trace it back to the merchants of the Silk Road, the few adventurous Northern European travellers of the “Grand Tour,” or the Venetian Renaissance fiestas painted by Veronese, the Dutch Curiosity Cabinets, Rococo eroticism or to the many Odalisques that inspired both Ingres and Delacroix. Then we have to consider Napoleon, his Egyptian Campaign of 1798-1801, and the gradual European desire for… political involvement and colonialism. Whatever the cause of European curiosity and pathos for the East, it lingered for a long time, inspiring and creating great works of art. https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/euor/hd_euor.htm    and    https://www.artuk.org/discover/stories/inspired-by-the-east-thoughts-about-orientalism

For a Student Activity on Orientalism inspired by Theodoros Ralli, please… Click HERE!

Written both in Greek and English, this is a valuable source of information for the Artist: Theodoros Ralli, Looking East – The catalogue was first published on the occasion of the exhibition “Theodoros Ralli. Looking East” Benaki Museum, Museum of Islamic Art, 11th December 2014 – 22nd February 2015 https://www.benaki.org/images/publications/pdf/rallis.pdf

For Browsing through a collection of paintings by Theodoros Ralli, go to https://paletaart.wordpress.com/2012/07/09/%CF%81%CE%AC%CE%BB%CE%BB%CE%B7%CF%82-%CE%B8%CE%B5%CF%8C%CE%B4%CF%89%CF%81%CE%BF%CF%82-rallis-theodoros-1852-1909/

Still Life à la cafetière

by with No Comment 19th century ArtArtBasil and Elise Goulandris Foundation AthensPost-ImpressionismStudent ActivitiesWorksheets
Vincent van Gogh, 1853 – 1890
Still Life à la cafetière, Still Life with Coffee Pot, May 1888, Oil on Canvas, 65 × 81 cm, Basil and Elise Goulandris Foundation, Athens

The three primary colours, red, blue yellow, a touch of orange… and how you can create a masterpiece! Still Life à la cafetière in the Basil and Elise Goulandris Foundation, at Athens, is a case to study!!!

“Painting Still Lifes is the beginning of everything,” Van Gogh said back in the winter of 1884/85, and as Dutch in origin, he was so right! Let’s not forget the Netherlandish attachment to this genre. During his prolific career that did not last more than a decade, from 1881 until his death in 1890, Van Gogh painted more than 170 Still Lifes! https://www.museum-barberini.com/en/van-gogh/

He started by “paying tribute” to his Dutch, 17th-century tradition of painting Still Lifes with sombre, melancholy, earthy tones. We can describe these early Still Life paintings as experiments in colour! Direct, powerful, and sincere, these early Still Life studies were created while living with his parents in Nuenen. Across a dark background, he used humble everyday objects that were probably used by his family for their everyday meals. By mixing primary colours himself, his palette was dark, brown and greyish, and the objects he was presenting were brought to life with touches of white paint. His painting, titled Still life with three bottles and earthenware, is a perfect example. https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/collection/s0138V1962?v=1

Vincent van Gogh, 1853 – 1890
Still Life with three bottles and earthenware, 1884/5, oil on canvas, 39,5 x 56 cm, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

That was not enough for Van Gogh! He felt the need to develop and evolve, to practice and struggle in getting better… and so, he travels to Paris, gets in touch with Impressionism, and his Still Life paintings gradually acquire the bright Mediterranean colours of Southern France, which he so loved. Painting Still Lifes during the Paris period is very important for him. He studies every book he can get on the fundamentals of “Colour Theory” and experiments until his colour palette dramatically changes. He doesn’t mix colours any more, he uses them separately, he combines complementary colours and gets rid of the use of browns. In Paris, painting flowers fascinates him, changing his technique intrigues him, communicating his feelings as well as what he sees becomes his objective. The newly authenticated Vase with Poppies at the Wadsworth Atheneum is such a representative example of his efforts at the time. https://www.theartnewspaper.com/blog/two-van-gogh-exhibitions-in-a-single-week

Vincent van Gogh, 1853 – 1890
Vase with Poppies, ca. 1886, oil on canvas, Wadsworth Atheneum, 56.0 cm × 46.5 cm, Hartford, Connecticut

Vincent van Gogh moved to Arles in early 1888, and his palette positively explodes with colour and vibrant brushstrokes. The Basil and Elise Goulandris Foundation painting Still Life à la cafetière is an amazing example of his final period. Quoting a description of the painting in a Van Gogh letter to his brother Theo, we read… “A coffee pot in blue enamel, a cup (on the left) royal blue and gold, a milk jug checkered light blue and white, a cup (on the right) white with blue and orange patterns on a plate of earthenware yellow-grey, a pot of barbotine or majolica blue with red, green, brown patterns, finally two oranges and three lemons; the table is covered with a blue cloth, the background yellow-green, thus six different blues and four of five yellows and oranges.” The art of simplicity at it’s best. Once more, dispassionate items of his everyday life, search for immediacy and turn into a moving painting of extraordinary vitality. The three primary colours, lots of blues and greens, an amazing red borderline that encloses the painting, juxtapose to “touches” of complementary oranges. A diagonal composition with crossed lines animates the composition. Incredible brushstrokes forcefully convene in the enamel coffee pot, creating a sense of perspective. He works like a man in a frenzy and creates a world, his world, that feels ALIVE! Color, Space, and Creativity: Art and Ontology in Five British Writers, by Jack Stewart, 2008, Rosemont Publishing & Printing Corp., page 224, and https://goulandris.gr/en/artwork/vincent-van-gogh-still-life-coffee-pot

For a Student Activity, please… check HERE!

Celebrating the Greek War of Independence

by with No Comment 1821-Greek Independence Day19th century ArtSocial StudiesStudent Activities
K. G. Papagiannaki,
The Greek Boy, 1837, oil on canvas, 0,28×0,21 cm, Benaki Museum, Athens

It was for these children that we fought… Celebrating the Greek War of Independence …paraphrasing the words of Yanni Makrigianni, 1794-1864, Greek Revolutionary Fighter of 1821!

If you wish to learn more about the Greek War of Independence and the preparation for the Bicentennial Celebration in 2021, please VISIT the official Greece 1821-2021 Bicentennial site: https://www.greece2021.gr/en/ and/or https://www.greece2021.gr/

For our Youngsters…

For celebratory mood and quality time with your youngster, you can VISIT the National Historical Museum site http://www.nhmuseum.gr/en and then go to http://www.nhmuseum.gr/el/ekpaideysi/ekpaideytiko-yliko/.

This a Colouring Page Activity (in Greek BUT easy to understand and DO) on famous figures of the Greek War of Independence. It was inspired by the Exhibition The 1821 Greek War of Independence Retold in… Playmobil! Activity is very EASY! http://www.nhmuseum.gr/el/ekpaideysi/ekpaideytiko-yliko/

To do the Colouring Activity Press on each picture you wish your child to colour – download it – print it – DONE! You can choose between heroes and heroines of the Greek War of Independence and celebrate an important moment in Greek History.

From top to bottom the Colouring Page Figures are: Theodoros Kolokotronis, Odysseas Androutsos, Laskarina Bouboulina, Konstantinos Kanaris, Manto Mavrogenous, Germanos, Metropolitan Paleon Patron, Andreas Lontos, Asimo Goura, Ioannis Makrigiannis, Domna Visvizi, Christos Kapsalis, Andreas Pipinos, Dimitrios Papanikolis

Colouring 1821-Greek War of Independence

For an easy to print Celebrating the Greek War of Independence Worksheet, please… check HERE!

A Tiffany Drawing and the final product!

by with No Comment 19th century ArtAmerican ArtArt NouveauStudent Activities
Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company, 1892–1902
Design Drawing, ca. 1898–99, Watercolor and graphite on paper, 28.9 x 40.6  cm, the MET, NY
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/17504
Louis Comfort Tiffany, 1848–1933
Bowl, 1898–1902, Enamel on Copper, 15.6 x 24.1 x 24.1 cm, the MET, NY https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/51.121.29/

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has in its American Wing’s Collection two items I particularly like. The first is a Watercolour Design Drawing by the Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company illustrating a very special copper bowl belonging to Louis Comfort Tiffany’s private collection. The second item is the actual Enamel on Copper Tiffany Bowl, lushly decorated with plums among leaves in a very organic way, shimmering and glowing…

The MET “Recent Acquisitions, A Selection: 2005–2006”: The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v. 64, no. 2 (Fall, 2006) page 53, Publication has the acquisition report of the Tiffany Design Drawing with a plethora of information. We learn, for example, that it presents a large enamel bowl in the Repoussé technique. The artist of the drawing used the Watercolour medium to better represent the luminosity of purple and green translucent enamels. We also learn, through notations, the formulas for the enamel colours used by the artists, and that ten days and 50 hours of work were required to make the piece. Two names written on the paper are of particular importance. “Munson” refers to Julia Manson, the lady in charge of the Tiffany enameling workshop and “Leslie Nash,” a later addition, a Tiffany production manager and original owner of the Drawing. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/metpublications/Recent_Acquisitions_A_Selection_2005_2006_The_Metropolitan_Museum_of_Art_Bulletin_v_64_no_2_Fall_2006

Iridescent Tiffany Enamels were particularly esteemed and in high demand. The large Enamel on Copper Bowl at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is a rare and prized item to admire and study in order to realize high-quality craftsmanship. What I find astonishing is that the Tiffany enameling department was small, production was limited, and exclusively staffed by women artists. The first lady in charge was Patricia Gay, followed by Julia Munson, the artist of our Bowl-in-focus. As described by the sited MET publication, “The shape of the Bowl alludes to the plump, rounded form of the ripe plum. Fruit, leaves, and branches are rendered in repoussé in high relief, and the plums are so three-dimensional that they look almost as if they could be plucked off the bowl…” The MET Publication, pp.77-78, Louis Comfort Tiffany at The Metropolitan Museum of Art [adapted from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v. 56, no. 1 (Summer, 1998)] is a wonderful source of information for Tiffany and his accomplishments. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/metpublications/Louis_Comfort_Tiffany_at_the_Metropolitan_Museum_of_Art

For a Student Activity on Louis Comfort Tiffany, please… check HERE!

Repoussé: method of decorating metals in which parts of the design are raised in relief from the back or the inside of the article by means of hammers and punches; definition and detail can then be added from the front by chasing or engraving. The name repoussé is derived from the French pousser, “to push forward.” This ancient technique, which has been used extensively throughout the history of metalworking, achieved widespread popularity in Europe during the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries.

Wondrous Birds

by with No Comment 19th century ArtArtStudent Activities
Hans Thoma, 1839–1924
Wondrous Birds, 1892, 92.4 x 74.0 cm, North Carolina Museum of Art

“A romantic realist who has devoted his life to making love to Nature and expressing it in glowing colour.” Writes Huntly Carter, for Hans Thoma, the painter of Wondrous Birds!

Born in the Black Forest area, the son of a Miller, Hans Thoma developed a keen eye for the beauty of his ancestral home. His landscapes, genre paintings, and prints have little in common with contemporary artistic styles and ideas. He is “in love” with nature, its idyllic simplicity, ethereal quality, and effortless grandeur. He created his very own, distinctive, creative manniera, close to that of the early German masters, particularly that of Albrecht Altdorfer and Lucas Cranach the Elder. His love for nature, his attention to “local” colouring, drawing and the importance of outline, his fondness for “homeland” scenery, brings him close, but not part of another group of special artists, the Pre-Raphaelites.

According to North Carolina Museum of Art “Hans Thoma painted several compositions of flying storks that are quite remarkable for the bird’s-eye viewpoint from which they are represented, almost as if the artist were flying beside them. Although Thoma was known to have been profoundly interested in symbolism and mythology, he never publicly explained the meaning or symbolism of his Wundervögel.” NCMA offers an interesting introduction to Wondrous Birds and an educational lesson plan at https://learn.ncartmuseum.org/artwork/wondrous-birds/ and https://learn.ncartmuseum.org/lesson-plans/a-birds-eye-view/

Hans Thoma, 1839–1924
Self-portrait in front of a birch forest, 1899, oil on canvas, 91 x 75.5 cm, Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Hans Thoma started his career in art, entering, in 1859, the Karlsruhe Academy under the tutelage of Johann Wilhelm Schirmer and Ludwig des Coudres. Visiting Paris in 1868 was the second important step he took. The great French Realist, Gustav Courbet, became his teacher, mentor and the third step to artistic maturity. In 1874 he visited Italy and fell under the spell of Renaissance Art. In 1899 Hans Thoma was named Director of the Karlsruhe Academy, his reputation was firmly established through exhibitions and his days were spent between Düsseldorf, Paris, Italy, Munich, and Frankfurt. Today, many of his paintings have found their way into museums and private collections and are widely exhibited… Scholars of 19th century Art describe him as a Romantic Realist, a member of the “German Romans” group. For more on Hans Thome and the artistic environments in 19th century Germany, please, check: German Masters of the 19th Century, Paintings and Drawings from the Federal Republic of Germany, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1981, New York https://libmma.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p15324coll10/id/71300

“A bird’s-eye view is an elevated view of an object from above, with a perspective as though the observer were a bird, often used in the making of blueprints, floor plans, and maps.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird%27s-eye_view

For student RWAP (Research-Writing-Art-Project) please… check HERE!