September 2011 – Page 2 – my daily art display

Interior at Nice by Henri Matisse

Yesterday I managed, with great difficulty to get away My Daily Art Display blog regarding Carl Philipp Fohr. The difficulty was due to my present location, a hotel in Nice, where I am using their Wifi. I was given the choice to let Internet provider, Orange, regulate the internet site so as to prevent me accessing “inappropriate material” or going for a “free –for-all”. As an upstanding citizen, I chose the censored route but found myself barred from accessing my own site to publish a new blog. I then had to re-think my strategy and agree to be open to all uncensored access in order to access my blog !!!!. With my agreeing to a lack of censorship by Orange France I made it to my site but I am still wondering why my blog is grouped with the “XXX sites” – maybe the nude paintings has “done for me”!!!!

So by that introduction, you can gather I am not at home in North Wales enjoying this year’s summer with its torrential rain and gale force winds. My wife Kathy had decided to desert me and go off to Tuscany with her friends who were all celebrating 60^th birthdays and I was left all alone. I had thought of remaining at home, à la Cinderella and look after our Bed & Breakfast establishment but as I had a lull in bookings for three days, I decided to head off to one of my favourite destinations – Nice, in the south of France, for a few days of sun and good food. Whilst I was here I thought I would look around some of the local art galleries. I have been here numerous times but as you know, I am not a great Modern Art follower so I avoided their excellent Modern Art Gallery and instead I headed for the first time to the Henri Matisse Gallery at Cimiez, about five miles inland, and it was for that reason that I decided to make My Daily Art Display Today all about the great French Modernist painter, Henri Matisse.

Henri-Emile-Benoit Matisse was born in Le Cateau-Cambrésis, in France in 1869. His early days were spent in Bohain-en-Vermandois , in Picardy, where his parents owned a florists. At the age of eighteen he went to Paris to study law and after he had achieved his qualifications returned to his home town to work as a court administrator. It was not until he was twenty years of age that he took up painting and that was when he was at home recovering from appendicitis and his mother gave him some artist’s materials so as to occupy his time whilst recuperating. That small gift from his mother changed his life and much to the chagrin of his father, who wanted him to carry on in the legal profession, Matisse gave up law and went to Paris to study art at the Académie Julien where he studied under the great French painter William-Adolphe Bouguereau at the Académie Julian and later at the Académie des Beaux Arts under Gustave Moreau. With his initial training he became competent in painting still-lifes and landscapes. Matisse was influenced greatly by the French Masters, like Chardin, who was his favourite and the Rococo painters Poussin and Watteau as well as some of the new modern artists like Manet.

In 1896 and again in 1897, Matisse visited the painter John Peter Russell, an Australian Impressionist painter who had studied art in London and Paris, where one of his fellow students was Toulouse-Lautrec, and who had also become friends with both Monet and Vincent van Gogh. Russell was an extremely wealthy man who, after his studies in Paris, moved to Brittany and settled at Belle-Île-en-Mer a small island off the coast where he established an artist’s colony.

Matisee fathered a daughter Margueritte with his lover and model, Caroline Joblau, in 1894. Four years later he married, not to Caroline, but to Amelie Parayre who with Matisee brought up his daughter. The couple went on to have two sons, Jean in 1899 and Pierre, born a year later. Matisee and his bride honeymooned in London on the recommendation of the French Impressionist, Camille Pissaro and whilst there he combined his honeymoon with the chance to study the paintings of Turner.

In 1917, aged 48, Matisse came to Nice to recover from a bad bout of bronchitis. He loved the town and said of it:

“….I decided never to leave Nice, and remained there nearly my entire existence…”

Of the town of Cimiez, where the Matisse Museum I visited is situated about five miles inland from the coast, Matisse said of it:

“…Most people come here for the light and the picturesque. I am from Northern France; what struck me were the great flashes of colour in January and the luminous daylight…”

Of the ambience of Nice and the pleasure it brought him, Matisse said:

“…When I realized I would see that light every morning I could not believe my happiness…”

Henri Matisse died in Nice in 1954, a month short of his eighty fifth birthday and was buried in the cemetery at Cimiez.

The painting I have chosen was not at the Matisse Museum in Nice which I visited today but hangs in the Art Institute in Chicago and is entitled Interior at Nice, which he painted in 1920 and which I thought would be an appropriate choice as he, like me, loved the town. Matisse used a very vertical canvas for this painting. He accentuated this with the window curtain coming from the very top of the canvas down to below the middle. Matisse played with the perspective of the picture to give more excitement. We are looking down on the furniture in the foreground almost as if we were positioned high in the air. The floor in this painting is almost a copy of the floor in his 1919 work “The Artist and his Model“, which hangs in the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa. Both are done in the same style and colour, but give a totally different feeling to each painting. In today’s painting the warm floor serves as a refuge against the dark cool of a winter’s evening outside. In “The Artist and his Model“, the hue of the red floor is needed for added drama against all the other colours containing the same value and in some way heightened the feeling we got as we looked at the naked model posing for the artist.

So what was my impression of the Matisse Museum and the paintings and drawings which were being exhibited? The obvious answer is that if you were a Matisse fan you would be pleased with what was on offer and how it was exhibited. I went there with an open mind. I went there determined to rid myself of any preconceived ideas as I had not been a lover of his work. Over the years I have, when I see art that baffles me in its simplicity, educated myself to comment (just to myself) that “I don’t like it” and steer away from the crass comment “ a child of six could have done that”. Maybe whether I liked what I saw can be answered by saying that as a hoarder of exhibition catalogues I left the museum without buying anything – please forgive me Henri !!!

Ideal Landscape near Rocca Canterana by Carl Philipp Fohr

My Daily Art Display today looks again at a German painter who was born at the end of the 18^th century and is acknowledged as one of the most significant landscape painters of German Romanticism. His name is Carl Philipp Fohr.

Fohr was born in Heidelberg in 1795. His first art tuition was under the tutelage of Carl Rottmann, the genre and veduta painter, when he was aged thirteen. It is said that when Fohr was fifteen years old the Darmstadt Court Councillor, Georg Wilhelm Issel, discovered him sketching at Stift Neuberg near Heidelberg and it was because of that and because Issel recognised the young man’s artistic potential, the following year Issel invited Fohr to come to Darmstadt and he provided him with both encouragement and financial support to continue with his artistic studies. From 1813 Fohr received a number of commissions for paintings for the Grand Duchess Wilhelmina of Hesse, and it was for her that Fohr produced the Sketchbook of the Neckar Region, which consisted of a collection of watercolours of views and historical subjects of the region and a year later produced a similar sketchbook of the Baden area. Such was the quality of his work that Fohr received an annual pension of 500 guilders from the Grand Princess.

In 1815 Fohr became a student of landscape painting at the Kunstakademie in Munich, and it was here that his breakthrough into an independent and original drawing style came about. He only remained at the Academy for a year as in 1816 he decided to embark on a walking adventure through Northern Italy which was to eventually take him to Rome. It was whilst there that he came in contact with the group of artists, known as the Nazarene Brotherhood. The brotherhood’s original members were six Vienna Academy students, four of whom, Friedrich Overbeck, Franz Pforr, Ludwig Vogel, and Johann Konrad Hottinger, moved to Rome in 1810, where they occupied the abandoned monastery of Sant’Isidoro. Later they were joined by Peter von Cornelius, Wilhelm von Schadow, and others who at various times were associated with the movement. The Nazarenes believed that all art should serve a moral or religious purpose; they admired painters of the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance and rejected most subsequent painting which were beloved by the European academies, believing that it abandoned religious ideals in favour of artistic virtuosity. They also thought that the mechanical routine of the academy system could be avoided by a return to the more intimate teaching situation of the medieval workshop. For this reason, they worked and lived together in an almost monastic existence. So where did the name, Nazarenes, come from? Actually it was a derisory nickname they acquired because of their affectation of biblical style of hair and dress. The main aim of the Nazarenes was to revive the medieval art of fresco painting. Fortune looked down favourably on the group as they received two important commissions to carry out the fresco decoration of the Casa Bartholdy in 1816 and a year later to carry out similar work in the Casino Massimo in Rome and their beautifully skilled work on the two projects brought their work to international attention. However by the time the second project had been completed the Nazarene Brotherhood had all but disbanded. The legacy of this group was that of honest expression of deeply felt ideals and it was to have an important influence on subsequent movements, particularly the English Pre-Raphaelites of the mid-19th century.

So where did Fohr go next for inspiration? Sadly, Fohr’s life ended in tragic circumstances when in 1818, at the young age of twenty-three he drowned whilst swimming in the River Tiber. Even sadder was the fact that his legacy to the world was only five oil paintings.

Today’s featured painting is The Ideal Landscape near Rocca Canterana and is one of Fohr’s best-known paintings, which he completed in 1818, the year of his death. The painting shows a rocky pastoral landscape in the central mountains of Italy. In the foreground, we can see a path which winds past craggy rocks and old, gnarled trees. On this path we see a country girl dressed in some sort of festive costume. In her arms she carries a young child, whilst hand in hand with another child, who is balancing a jug on her head. If you look to the right middle-ground, under the trees, we can see a group of pilgrims who are heading towards a distant and illuminated valley. The woman and children have just been passed by two shepherds who are heading for what Fohr has depicted as a peaceful, hilly region rimmed by steep mountains.

This painting is so like the old Arcadian landscape paintings of the past, which emerged in the Renaissance and which were inspirational to later artists who wanted to depict a “paradise on earth” theme to their works. Fohr’ paradise on earth is emphasised by his inclusion of the pilgrims which alludes to the Christian Heaven. The people in Fohr’s painting, who we see wandering around the landscape symbolise the journey we have to make on this earth before we die and Fohr, in a way, is trying to remind us of the transience of all earthly things and the journey into the future, which some believe is the true goal and reason for human existence.

The picture in some ways is very simplistic but I hope you like it.

Niagara by Frederic Edwin Church

My Daily Art Display for today returns to a painting by an American artist and another member of the Hudson River School, which was a mid-19th century American art movement personified by a group of landscape painters whose artistic vision was influenced by the 18^th century European Romanticism movement. The paintings for which the group is named depict the Hudson River Valley and the area around the Catskill, Adirondack and the White Mountain ranges. The artist is Frederic Edwin Church.

Frederic Church was born in Hartford Connecticut in 1826. His father, Joseph, was a silversmith and watchmaker and through his success and that of his father who had owned a paper mill, the Church household lived a prosperous lifestyle. Frederic studied art at school and through a family neighbour, Daniel Wadsworth, was fortunate enough to be introduced to Thomas Cole, the founder of the Hudson River School, who agreed to take Frederic on as his pupil. Church thrived under Cole’s tutelage and within a year, he had some of his paintings shown in the National Academy of Design annual exhibition. The following year, 1848, Church was elected as the youngest Associate of the National Academy of Design and was promoted to Academician the following year. That year he sold his first major oil painting to the Hartford’s Wadsworth Atheneum, which had been founded by Wadsworth.

In 1848 he went to live in New York and began to teach art. In his spare time in spring and autumn he would travel throughout New York and New England, particularly Vermont, all the time sketching the beautiful scenery whilst during the winter months he would return to New York City and his home and convert his numerous sketches into a number of landscape paintings, all of which sold well. Church and a friend set forth on an adventurous trip through Central America and Ecuador. From this trip, Church’s first finished South American pictures, shown to great acclaim in 1855, transformed his career. For the next decade he devoted a great part of his attention to those subjects, producing a celebrated series that became the basis of his ensuing international fame. During a two year period, 1854 to 1856, he travelled extensively visiting Nova Scotia, and journeying throughout Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, and it was around this time that he visited the Niagara Falls. The late 1850’s were the high point of Church’s career, artistic triumph followed artistic triumph. In 1857 he made another trip to Ecuador and also took a voyage to Newfoundland and Labrador. In 1860, Church bought some farmland at Hudson, New York, and married Isabel Carnes, whom he had met during the exhibition of his paintings. He and his wife lead a settled and happy life and he spent most of his time tending to his farm but his happiness was shattered in 1865 when both his young children contracted diphtheria and died. However, with the birth of Frederic junior in 1866, Church and his wife began a new family that was eventually to number four children.

At the end of 1867, Frederic Church and his family embarked on a long trip to Europe, North Africa, the Near East, and Greece that was to last eighteen months and was to lead to several important paintings. As Church got older he spent more and more time on his farm and farming. From the 1870’s onwards Church suffered badly from rheumatoid arthritis and it badly affected his right arm which curtailed much of his art work although he did teach himself to paint with his left hand. Frederic Church died in 1900, aged 74 and is buried in Spring Grove Cemetery in Hartford, Connecticut.

Today’s painting by Frederic Church entitled Niagara is one of four he painted of this waterfall. This one was painted in 1857 and guaranteed for him, still a young man of thirty-one, the role of America’s most famous painter. It is probably the most famous painting of it ever made. During the 19th century, American artists flocked to the Falls to paint the various views of it. The Falls were looked upon as the nation’s greatest natural wonder. This picture was painted from the Canadian shore, a short distance above Table Rock, and includes the sweep of the Horseshoe Fall and the edge of Goat Island in a notable depiction of water and light. The time is towards evening. We can see an amazing amount of detail in every stage of the water’s journey as it cascades downwards. Look at how Church has incorporated an optical flourish of the rainbow against the falling waters.

The painting was introduced to the American public shortly after its completion, as a one-painting exhibition at the commercial gallery of Williams, Stevens, and Williams in New York City. People flocked to see the work and were willing to pay 25 cents each to view the monumental canvas, which measured 109cms x 230cms and sometimes they would use opera glasses or other optical aids to augment the experience. With their 25 cents admission fee the people would also receive a pamphlet that reprinted contemporary critics’ praise of Church’s picture and offered exhibition-goers the opportunity to purchase a print of the work. Within a fortnight of the exhibition’s opening more than a hundred thousand people had paid to see it. Art critics lavished praise on the work describing it as “the finest oil picture ever painted on this side of the Atlantic.” After this success in New York the painting was taken to a number of American cities before it made two tours of Britain and was exhibited at the 1867 Exposition Universelle in Paris where it won a prize

The painting now hangs in the The Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington DC

Les Charbonniers by Claude Monet

Monet_men_unloading_coal — Les Charbonniers by Claude Monet (c.1875)

When I think of Impressionism and Impressionist paintings I think of light airy scenes. I think of lily ponds and flowering arches at Givenchy. I think of colourful young things boating on the mirror-like waters of the Seine. I think of people sitting on the banks of the Seine staring out at blue cloudless skies. I think of fashionable people promenading along the Grand Jatte in gorgeous sunlight. I associate Impressionism and the paintings associated with that particular “–ism” as being light, colourful and full of smiling faces on the people as they relax from the rigours of their working lives.

That all changed when I came across the work of the Impressionist, Caillebotte and his Floor Scrapers (see August 3rd). Today, I am featuring another darker and more sombre painting by one of the greatest Impressionist painters of all time, Claude Monet. He painted today’s painting in 1875 when he was thirty five years old and living at Argenteuil. It is entitled Les Charbonniers (The Coalmen) or sometimes referred to as Les déchargeurs de charbon (Men unloading coal).

Before us is a view of the docks at the Quai de Clichy, a little downriver from Paris. Framed at the top of the painting in the background, we can just make out through the haze, the broad arch of the Pont de Clichy railway bridge, one which Monet would have crossed many times as he took the train from Argenteuil to Paris. It is also a bridge which he featured in a number of his paintings. Horses and carts can be seen crossing the nearer bridge, the Pont d’Asnières. These carts will transport the coal from the quayside to nearby factories, the chimneys of which we can just make out in the distance as they pump out their smoky pollutants. Also on the bridge we see a few pedestrians gazing down at the unloading operation.

It is a dark and atmospheric picture. We do not have the brightness of a summer’s day. It is a dull grey wintery day with a smoke-filled sky. We see the men struggling with their heavy bags of coal perched on their shoulders as they struggle up the narrow wooden ramps between ship and quay over the murky waters of the Seine, balancing like tightrope walkers on a high wire. The wooden walkways bend ominously under the strain of man and his load. We can just imagine the ominous groaning and creaking of the wood as it takes the strain. Hour upon hour these men will trudge mechanically back and forth until all the coal has been discharged from the boat. This is a labour intensive operation. Les charbonniers have an unenviable job with its physical strain on the body coupled with the inhalation of coal dust into their lungs. In the holds of the vessel itself we see men filling baskets with coal ready for the charbonniers to take them ashore. These men will probably not live to an old age. Unfortunately for them, the invention of quayside cranes and cargo escalators had yet to be realised. This discharge of the coal from the boat would be a long operation, as fully loaded, the coal barge could probably transport about 300 tons of coal, which could take anything up to two weeks to manually unload.

The sailing barge has probably brought its cargo of coal from the mines in Belgium and Northern France along the Canal de Saint-Quentin which connects the rivers Oise, Escaut and Somme. The canal, a great feat of engineering, was opened by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1810.

The painting by Monet is simply a depiction of urban life and he might not have intended it as a political treatise with regards the conditions suffered by some working class people. However the artist has given the painting a dark and solemn ambience which emphasizes the plight of some of the lowest paid workers. This work was one of 29 works Monet presented in the fourth Impressionist exhibition.

Calais Pier by Joseph Mallord William Turner

5820683284_5f352be302 — Calais Pier by Turner (1803)

I am fast approaching my 300^th edition of this blog and many of you may think it strange that in all that time I have never featured an artist much loved by many, Joseph Mallord William Turner. In some ways, of course, it is an omission but I have to be honest and state that Turner is not one of my favourite artists. Yes, I am aware that statement is artistic anathema and pictorially sacrilegious but everybody’s likes and dislikes are different. I am a person who loves detail and clarity in a painting and the haziness” of a lot of Turner’s painting is just not for me. I was at a local gallery the other day and when asked which was my favourite painting on display, I pointed to a mountain scene and the person who asked me to decide commented that it was too much like a photograph for his liking. There lies my dilemma. I don’t want a framed photograph on my wall but I do want clarity of detail. I am happy with an idealised landscape. I just want to study the intricate details of the artist’s work.

Less about my likes and dislikes and on to today’s offering which is one of Turner’s paintings, which is without the haziness that I dislike. It is entitled Calais Pier and was completed by Turner in 1803 and is in the safe keeping of the National Gallery in London. I touched briefly on Turner’s life a few days ago when I featured the artist Thomas Girtin, a friend and contemporary of Turner. I know many books have been written about Turner’s life but let me briefly go through the life of today’s artist

Turner was born in 1775 in Covent Garden, London. His father, William Gay Turner was a wig maker and when they became unfashionable he became a barber. His mother was Mary Mallord Marshall. His mother and father had married in 1773 and a year after Turner was born his mother gave birth to his sister, Mary Ann. Sadly and with devastating consequences she died in 1786, at the age of eight. Her death virtually destroyed her mother who became mentally unstable and eventually in 1799 she was committed to the Bethlem Royal Hospital Mental Hospital (Bedlam) where she died in 1804.

Because of his mother’s mental problems, and the problems arising from her condition, the young Turner left home for about a year and went to live in Brentford with his mother’s brother, Joseph William Mallord Marshal. Whilst living with his uncle’s family he attended the John White’s School. It was during the time when he was being brought up by his uncle’s family that Turner started to show an interest in art. For holidays he would often be taken to Margate and it was around this time, 1786, that eleven year old Turner first signed and dated his drawings of the seaside town and the surrounding areas. These early drawings of his were often proudly displayed by his father in his shop window. After early schooling, Turner, aged fourteen, was accepted as a student at the Plaister Academy of the Royal Academy of Art schools in 1789 where he studied for exams which would afford him membership of the Royal Academy itself. After just one year, when he was fifteen he was accepted into the Royal Academy, which at the time was headed by Sir Joshua Reynolds, the great English painter, and who was on the selection panel of the artistic establishment. Turner went on to have his first painting, a watercolour entitled The Archbishop’s Palace, Lambeth, accepted into the Academy’s Summer Exhibition in 1790 and six years later he had his first oil painting entitled Fisherman at Sea shown at the exhibition. Turner exhibited some of his work at almost every subsequent Royal Academy Summer Exhibitions for the rest of his life.

After leaving the Royal Academy Schools, Turner embarked on many European journeys, visiting Paris where he studied in the Louvre, visiting Switzerland and Italy where he spent some time in Venice. He also often travelled around Britain with his friend and fellow artist, Thomas Girtin. During one of his British journeys when he was twenty-two, he visited Otley, Yorkshire and met and became great friends with Walter Fawkes, a wealthy landowner and Member of Parliament, who was to become one of Turner’s patrons and who commissioned many works from the artist.

Although Turner never married, he did have two children by his mistress Sarah Danby whom he met in 1799. Sarah, a widow nine years his senior, gave birth to two of his children, Evelina in 1801 and Georgiana in 1811. Art historians would have us believe that Turner over time became very eccentric and only had a handful of close friends. However, he was always close to his father and for thirty years his father lived with Turner. His father died in 1829 and this devastated and depressed the artist. Not only had his father been supportive of him he would often act as his studio assistant.

In 1833, on one of his journeys back to Margate, Turner met Sophie Caroline Booth who had been recently widowed and lived in the town. They became lovers and in the 1840’s she bought herself a small cottage in Chelsea and Turner went to live with her. He was to remain with her until his death at the house of his lover in December 1851. He was buried in St Paul’s Cathedral and lies next to Sir Joshua Reynolds.

I chose the featured painting today, Calais Pier as I have been associated with the sea and ships almost all my life and I am only too aware of the ferocity of the seas around the British and Channel coasts and so in some way it was a return to my seafaring past when I was in ships and had to watch helplessly when my ship battled against the ferocity of a storm and the mountainous seas which the winds had whipped up. This painting by Turner is based on his own experience of rough weather during his first ferry crossing to France in 1802 at which time he made many sketches of the crossing from Dover to Calais. We need to remember that in those days there was no such thing as weather forecasts and so vessels would put to see and were at the mercy of the weather.

We have before us a sombre scene of vessels being wildly buffeted by the gale-force wind and giant waves. In the centre of the work with the dark sails we see the Dover-Calais ferry crammed full of people. The English flag flutters wildly at the top of the mast. Next to it, with the white sail, is a French fishing boat which looks to be perilously close to the English ferry. The sails and the deck of this vessel are spectacularly lit up by a shaft of sunlight which has managed to penetrate the black storm clouds. Pulling away from the quay and heading into the rough seas, we see another small boat with its fishermen. One of its crew can be seen remonstrating wildly towards the other fishing boat, maybe to alert them to the dangers of colliding with the ferry. It seems a foolhardy act for the men to set sail in the little boat considering the ferocity of the storm or risk being crushed by the waves against the pier itself. It is almost as if maybe the storm has taken everybody by surprise. On the pier we see people trying to carry on as normal. Women wearing local hats and wearing wooden clogs gather the morning catch of what looks like skate and set about gutting the fish.

This is wonderfully dramatic painting and whereas we are use to being able to see and hear the rough seas and the sound of violent storm on television, in the days of Turner it was just the magic of the artist who could bring such things to the attention of people. Turner has magically given us an insight into the happenings during a storm at sea. We can almost hear the people shouting to be heard. We see the wild billowing of the ships’ sails and see and sense the sound of the crashing of the waves against the pier. We almost feel that we are there on the Calais Pier.

Turner exhibited the painting at the Royal Academy in 1803 but like many of his works it was not well received. Many thought it was an unfinished work especially the foreground.

The Barque of Dante by Eugène Delacroix

Dante and Vergil in Hell by Delacroix — The Barque of Dante by Delacroix (1822)

When I first saw today’s featured painting I was immediately reminded of Géricault’s Raft of Medusa, which was My Daily Art Display on June 10th. There was something about the look of suffering and desperation on the faces of the men on Géricault’s sinking raft that I could see on the faces of Delacroix’s men in today’s painting. My Daily Art Display today looks at the painting entitled Dante and Virgil in Hell by Eugène Delacroix. The painting is also known as The Barque of Dante and was painted by the French artist in 1822.

The painting is based on Canto VIII of the Inferno, the first part of the 14^th century epic poem the Divine Comedy written by the Italian poet Dante Alighieri. The poem is an allegory recording the journey of Dante through Hell along with his guide, the Roman poet Virgil. According to the poem Hell is made up of nine concentric circles of suffering located within the Earth. Each circle representing one sin and is the place where those who have committed that sin and who are unrepentant will end up and receive an appropriate punishment. The sinners of each circle are punished in a fashion befitting their crimes. Each sinner is made miserable for all of eternity by the key sin they have committed. The circles represent a gradual increase in wickedness, culminating at the centre of the earth, where Satan is held in bondage.

The painting by Delacroix is based on the fifth circle and is all about the sin of Wrath. The first circle is nominated as Limbo and the people in there have simply never been baptised into the Church. The ninth circle is Treachery which is looked upon as the most heinous of sins. I was amused to note that those unfortunates that had committed the sin of Lust were only allocated the second circle – maybe for a hot blooded Italian, like Dante Alighieri, lust was hardly a sin at all !!!

The Fifth Circle of Hell is the swamp-like water of the river Styx and in its murky waters, the angry people fight each other on the surface, and the morose and brooding people lie gurgling beneath the water. The character in the poem, Phlegyas, the guardian of the river, reluctantly transports Dante and Virgil across the River Styx in his skiff. This lower part of Hell where the characters in the painting find themselves is the marshy swamp that lies outside the walls of the city of Dis, the City of the Dead, which houses the lower parts of Hell, and which we see burning in the left background of the painting.

1822_delacroix_debt_to_gericault — Delacroix and Géricault comparison

At the beginning I said I saw a similarity between Géricault’s Raft of Medusa painting and this painting by Delacroix. I actually managed to find a picture which also highlights the likeness in the facial expression of a man in each work. The main picture, on the right, is of the man in the left foreground of today’s painting as he lies in the water and shown in the inset we have the face of the man who is in the centre of the Géricault’s raft looking sky-wards. Go back to my earlier blog on Géricaults painting and see if you agree. Some three years after Géricault completed his Raft of Medusa painting in 1819, Delacroix completed what was his first major work and one which he exhibited in the 1822 Salon, the art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. The oil on canvas painting which measures 189cms x 246cms now hangs in the Louvre.

Dante is given a steadying hand by Virgil as they falteringly stand up in the boat as it ploughs its way through the choppy water of the River Styx, which is heaving with the tormented souls who have been trapped in this fifth circle of hell for their sins of wrath. The Neo-Classical style which was prevalent at the time can be seen in the way Delacroix has grouped his figures. The main characters are set in the centre of the painting whilst the subsidiary figures are painted much lower down on a horizontal plane, each holding a classical pose which gives the artist a chance to concentrate on their musculature. Look how the artist has depicted the gale-force weather condition the boat party have to endure. See how Delacroix has depicted the blue garment of Phlegyas as he rows his boat. Although wrapped around his body it flies wildly in the face of the strong wind which roars in from the left of the painting. The guardian of the river is using every ounce of his strength as we see the muscles of his broad back ripple as he pulls on the oar. He seems to be sure-footed as he has made this rough crossing many times. Dante holds his right arm aloft to try and steady himself against the wind’s ferocity, whilst Virgil takes his other hand in an attempt to steady him against the onslaught. The boat has slewed around and is a little off course as it tries to reach the fiery City of Death.

Look at the characters in the water. A couple lay back exhausted whilst the others display the anger and hatred which has conspired to send them to this part of Hell. Look at the piercing demonic eyes of the man that clings to the front of the boat and the staring rage of the man in the water in the right foreground as he seems to be attacking another with his teeth as his adversary grips him by the back of his neck.

Delacroix_head — The head and demonic face by Delacroix

Look carefully at the man clinging to the gunwale on the far side of the small boat. See how the muscles and sinews in his arm are almost at breaking point as he tries to heave himself on board. His reddened eyes are demonic. It is a frightening depiction of a face and Delacroix admitted that it was his best depiction of a head in the painting.

I am interested to look at the contrast in expressions between our two main characters, Dante and Virgil. Whereas Dante has a look of horror and fear on his face, Virgil’s facial expression is one of calm and tranquillity as if he is completely detached from what is going on around him. There is also a stark contrast of colours used by Delacroix. Dante’s red cowl and the fiery inferno of Hell in the background is in sharp contrast to the blue of Phlegyas’ flowing blue robe.

There is such raw emotion in this painting. We are looking at a world of insanity. We see before us the rage of angry men who have yet to come to terms with their fate. We almost wrap our arms around ourselves to protect us from the storm we view and this fifth circle – the circle of Wrath. Delacroix had worked non-stop for very long hours for nearly three months to have this painting ready for the April opening of The Salon in 1822 and by the time he had completed this work he was totally exhausted. The work was exhibited with the title:

“…Dante et Virgile conduits par Phlégias, traversent le lac qui entoure les murailles de la ville infernale de Dité…”

Which translated was:

“Dante and Virgil led by Phlegyas, across the lake surrounding the infernal city walls of Dis”

But later came to be known as its present title The Barque of Dante. The painting received mainly favourable reviews and a few months later it was bought by the French State for 2000 Francs and it was housed in the Musée du Luxembourg but in 1874 transferred to its present location, The Louvre.

The Health of the Bride by Stanhope Alexander Forbes

N01544_9 — The Health of the Bride by Stanhope Alexander Forbes (1889)

My Daily Art Display today features Stanhope Alexander Forbes, an artist of the Newlyn School. The term “Newlyn School” refers to the artist colony located in and around the fishing village of Newlyn, in Cornwall, from the 1880s until the early 20th century, which specialized in landscape painting. Like the Continental artist colonies of the Barbizon School near Paris, and Pont-Aven in Brittany, artists gathered in Newlyn to paint landscape scenes in a purer setting, with strong natural light. Newlyn’s plein air painting followed the Impressionist doctrine of naturalism, which is a true-to-life style which involves the representation or depiction of nature with the least possible distortion or interpretation. The artists of the Newlyn School would work directly in nature, using subject matter drawn from rural working life, especially that of the fishermen. Newlyn provided the perfect setting for artists with the long hours of strong natural light, a climate which was much milder than the rest of the country and the seaside town was surrounded by coastal and inland areas of natural beauty. For the impoverished artist, Newlyn was, in those days, a cheap place to live and following new rail connections between Cornwall and London it proved very accessible.

Forbes was born in Dublin in 1857. His father worked as a railway manager and his mother, Juliette, was French. His uncle, James Staats Forbes, was a noted art collector who also worked for the railways. The family often used to make trips to France and it was whilst on vacation there that young Stanhope developed an interest in art. The family moved from Ireland to London when his father was transferred and it was at this time that Stanhope attended Dulwich College and later became a student at the Royal Academy Schools where he staged his first exhibition in 1878. Two years later he and his friend and fellow artist he had met at Dulwich College, Henry La Thangue, went to Paris where they studied art under the French painter, Léon Bonnat. In 1881, having become familiar with the plein air paintings of the French naturalist painter Jules Bastien-Lepage, he decided to travel to Brittany, staying at Cancale where he painted A Street in Brittany. This painting met with great acclaim when it was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1882 and the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, purchased it that same year. Forbes was greatly encouraged and he described the success of the painting as a turning point in his career. He once again returned to Brittany in 1883 staying this time at Quimperlé. He visited Pont-Aven in October and met many fellow artists there.

In 1884 he arrived in Newlyn and soon became a leading figure in the growing colony of artists. His national reputation was established with the acceptance of his A Fish Sale on a Cornish Beach which he painted in 1885 and exhibited at the Royal Academy in London. In 1889 he painted The Health of the Bride which is today’s featured work. It was with the money he received from the sale of this painting to Henry Tate, the wealthy English sugar merchant and philanthropist that enabled him to marry Elizabeth Adela Armstrong, a fellow artist who had moved to Newlyn in 1885. Canadian-born, she was one of the leading women artists of her day. In 1886 Forbes became a founding member of the New English Art Club

Ten years later in 1899, as the number of artists in Newlyn dwindled, Stanhope and his wife Elizabeth founded their own Newlyn School of Painting. Her marriage to Stanhope Forbes was a partnership of equals, and their School of Painting was very much a joint enterprise. In 1910 he was elected to the Royal Academy. His wife Elizabeth died of cancer in 1912 and three years later in 1915 Stanhope Forbes remarried, this time to Maudie Palmer, a former pupil of the school and close friend of the family. Sadly, in August 1916, his son Alec died, killed fighting in the front line in France.

Stanhope Forbes died in Newlyn in 1947, a few months short of his 90^th birthday. In 2000, some fifty years after he died, his painting The Seine Boat which he completed in 1904, sold for £1.2 million and was a world record price for one of his works.

Today’s painting entitled The Health of the Bride was completed by Forbes in 1889, the year of his own marriage. According to Cook, Hardie & Payne’s book on Forbes, entitled Singing from the Walls, Life & Works of EA Forbes, Forbes wrote about his painting to Sir Henry Tate the purchaser of the work. In the letter he wrote:

“…I myself will be rather occupied down here – no less a matter than my own wedding. It was inevitable after painting this picture…”

As to why Forbes should prefer such an indoor subject we need to go to Caroline Fox’s book Stanhope Forbes and the Newlyn School in which she quotes the comments of the artist about the reason behind the painting:

“…Standing in one of these inn parlours I had first thought of a painting of an anglers’ meeting – you will notice one or two cases of fish on the wall – but it occurred to me that a wedding party could be much more picturesquely grouped, even though one had to paint them in the smarter, more conventional Sunday clothes…”

In his painting we have members of different generations of a family seated around a table in an inn for a wedding breakfast. Standing up, to the right, is a sailor, toasting the bride who avoids his gaze and the gazes of the other celebrants. She just shyly looks down at her bouquet. The painting is lit from different angles. Although this is not an open air scene which was the norm for the Newlyn School of Painters, Forbes has stuck closely to their modus operandi. The sitters are locals and not professional models and the setting for the scene is a recognisable place – in this case the local inn at Newlyn. The local fishing industry which played a big part in Newlyn life is not forgotten as in the picture, on the rear wall of the inn, we can see a painting of a ship and if we look through the window of the pub we can just make out the mast and rigging of a ship.

The painting was bought by Sir Henry Tate for £600 and it became part of a collection which the philanthropist gave to the nation when the Tate Gallery was founded in 1897. The painting was well received and was highly praised when exhibited at the 1899 Royal Academy. It now hangs in the Tate Britain in London.

Charles Beale by Mary Beale

For My Daily Art Display today, I am staying with an English artist but instead of a landscape painter and a man as was the case yesterday I am focusing on a lady artist, one of the most important portrait painters of 17^th century England and who has been described as the first professional female English painter. Her name is Mary Beale and the subject of today’s portrait painting is her husband Charles.

Mary Beale was born in 1633, in Barrow in the county of Suffolk. Her father was the Reverend John Craddock, who was the local puritan rector. He was an amateur painter and was acquainted with all the local artists, one of whom was Peter Lely, a portrait painter. Although Mary Beale was never a pupil of Peter Lely there is no doubt that throughout her life she was influenced by his artistic style. Her mother was Dorothy Brunton who sadly died when Mary was just ten years of age.

In 1652, at the age of eighteen, she married Charles Beale, a cloth merchant and amateur artist and she went to live with him in Covent Garden, London. The Beales had two sons who survived past childhood, Bartholomew and Charles. Her husband, Charles became deputy clerk of the patents office in about 1660, by which time Mary had begun to study portraiture. In 1664, the Beales moved away from London. Charles had lost his job at the patents office and so they had a loss of income and they decided life would be cheaper in the country, so they moved to a farmhouse in Allbrook in Hampshire. A second reason for the move was for their own safety as that year saw the onset of the Great Plague in London which was to kill a fifth of the population of London.

In 1670, Mary and her family, returned to London and she set up a studio in Pall Mall. Here she painted many portraits of the aristocracy and local gentry. Her husband, not only acted as her assistant, but looked after the business side of her artistic venture and her son Charles trained as an artist in his mother’s studio. Her work was very popular and she received many commissions. In her husband’s diary he recorded that in the 1670’s his wife received no fewer than 140 commissions for portraits. Having returned to London she became reacquainted with Peter Lely who had been made the Court Artist to Charles II and many of Mary’s commissions were to paint copies of Lely’s works.

Mary Beale died in 1699, and was buried at St James’s, Piccadilly. Her husband died in 1705. The Beales’ first child Bartholomew died when he was young. Her second son also called Bartholomew studied portraiture but eventually gave up any thoughts of being a full time artist and took up medicine. Her third son Charles jnr. became a painter specialising in miniatures.

The painting today, simply entitled Charles Beale, is a portrait of her husband. She has portrayed him as a poet and clothed him accordingly in a style of unkempt abandon. His disheveled state was that of the preserve of poetic and melancholic genius. I love the informality of this painting with the sitter’s relaxed pose dressed in a brown gown underneath which we can see an open-necked chemise. This portrait is in direct contrast to the portraiture norm when the sitter is expected to be shown in a strong courtly pose. This is a portrait that exudes casualness and familiarity which of course one expects of a husband’s portrait carried out by his loving wife. This portrait has done away with the use of background drapery or Arcadian imagery which was so popular at the time and would no doubt have been included if this had been a commissioned work. It is an engaging and intimate portrait. The couple were very much in love and in his notebooks he always referred to his wife as his “Dearest and most Indefatigable Heart”. There was great equality in their relationship and the fact that after losing his job he “worked” for his wife, which was acting against all contemporary notions of married life. Religious, social and medical teaching stressed the secondary role to be played by women, whose place was determined forever by Eve’s original Sin. But Charles had no qualms about his position of apparent subservience. Mary was a firm believer of equality between a husband and his wife and between man and woman outside of marriage. She even put down her thoughts on the subject in 1660 when she wrote Essay on Friendship. In Tabitha Barber’s book Mary Beale she quotes Mary’s thoughts on the subject of friendship and equality between husband and wife, writing:

“…This being the perfection of friendship that it supposes its professors equally, laying aside all distance, & so levelling the ground, that neither hath therein the advantage of other…”’

Regarding the relationship in marriage between husband and wife, Mary wrote:

“…In marriage, God had created Eve as ‘a wife and Friend but not a slave…”

Mary Beale painted numerous portraits of her husband Charles which is testament to the deep affection between them.

This painting presently hangs in a private collection.

Morpeth Bridge by Thomas Girtin

I am returning today to an English Victorian artist whom I showcased back on June 25^th. The featured artist in My Daily Art Display today is one of the greatest watercolour painters of his time, Thomas Girtin, and the painting I am featuring today is a work he completed in 1802 entitled Morpeth Bridge.

Thomas Girtin was born in Southwark, London in 1775. His father was a prosperous brush-maker but died when Thomas was still very young. His mother remarried and her husband, a Mr Vaughn, was a pattern-draughtsman. Girtin’s artistic training started when he was only eight years of age. He took drawing lessons from Thomas Malton, a painter of topographical and architectural views. Another of Malton’s pupils at the time was J M W Turner. It was around this time that he signed up to a seven year apprenticeship with Edward Daves, a watercolourist and mezzotint engraver. In 1794 and 1795 Girtin and his friend Turner were put to work copying Dr Thomas Munro’s collection of J R Cozen’s drawings and colouring prints with watercolours and slowly but surely both young men learnt their trade.

When Girtin was nineteen years of age he exhibited his first work at the Royal Academy and soon his reputation as a watercolourist grew. His style of watercolour painting was such that he has been recognised as being the originator of Romantic watercolour painting. With fame came commissions and patronage and Girtin acquired two very wealthy patrons, Lady Sutherland and Sir George Beaumont, who played a crucial part in the creation of London’s National Gallery by making the first bequest of paintings to that institution.

In 1800, Girtin married Mary Ann Borrett, the sixteen year old daughter of a well-to-do City goldsmith, and set up home in St George’s Row, Hyde Park. By 1801, his fame as an artist had spread and he was a prized houseguest at his patrons’ country houses. His work was in such demand that he could charge 20 guineas for a painting. In late 1801 to early 1802, he went to live in Paris. It was during his sojourn in Paris that he painted watercolours and made a series the pencil sketches which he engraved on his return to London. They were published as Twenty Views in Paris and its Environs after his death. In the spring and summer of 1802, Girtin produced what many believe was his greatest work, a 360 degree panorama of London, entitled the “Eidometropolis”. It was 18 feet high and 108 feet in circumference. It was hailed as his greatest masterpiece.

Sadly, his health was deteriorating and that November, Girtin died in his painting room; the cause was variously reported as asthma or “ossification of the heart.” Girtin’s early death reportedly caused his friend Turner to remark, “Had Tom Girtin lived I should have starved”

Today’s painting, Morpeth Bridge was completed around 1802, the year of Girtin’s death. He had travelled around Northumberland two years earlier and made a number of sketches of the countryside and towns. In the painting, we see the bridge silhouetted against a starkly lit building. Despite the gold and light brown hues of the buildings, there are dramatic contrasts of light and shade and the sky above is dark and threatening and there is an ominous, almost sinister, mood about the setting. The great clouds which pass overhead dramatically darken some of the buildings and water. There is just a hint of a break in the clouds where we catch a glimpse of blue sky which is reflected in the mirror-like surface of the still water and the arc of the bridge. Girtin was able to convey drama and tension in his paintings by his clever depiction of light.

The painting hangs in the Laing Gallery in Newcastle upon Tyne.

Granida and Daifilo by Gerard van Honthorst

honthorst-granida — Granida and Daifilo by Gerard van Honthorst (1625)

As I research paintings and artists for my blog, I delve into various books which I have and of course use the internet. One of the best art history magazines about is The Burlington Magazine which is published monthly. However although I have, in a rush of blood to the head, almost signed up for it, the cost of a few pence under £20 per issue I feel is just too much. However the other day I bought the Centenary Anthology of the magazine from eBay and although I have just skimmed through some of the 250+ pages I am pleased with my purchase. It was as I flicked through the pages I came across a beautiful work by Gerard van Honthorst and I thought it was time to feature this Dutch painter and one of his works.

Gerard or Gerrit van Honthorst was born in Utrecht in 1592. His father was a textile painter and his younger brother Willem also went on to become an artist. His first taste of art came when he was apprenticed to the great Dutch painter Abraham Bloemaert. Bloemaert, who resided in Utrecht, was an outstanding teacher and virtually all the aspiring young Utrecht painters of that time, who went on to become famous, had at one time studied under this artistic master.

In his early twenties, Honthorst travelled to Italy and during his stay in Rome where he lived in the palace of a patron of Caravaggio, Vincenzo Giustiniani, he was influenced by the works and style of the famous artist who was at the height of his popularity. Whilst in Italy, Honthorst developed a similar artistic style to Caravaggio in the way he often portrayed his figures in the darkness of night lit by candlelight and this style acquired him the Italian nickname Gherardo delle Notti (Gerard of the Night). His paintings were very popular and he managed to acquire a number of wealthy patrons including the powerful Scipione Borghese the Italian Renaissance cardinal who was a great patron of the arts and an avid art collector. He was also patron to Caravaggio. Another of his patrons was Marchese Vincenzo Giustiniani an aristocratic Italian banker and art collector

Honthorst returned to Utrecht around 1620 and that same year married Sophia Coopmans. Along with his fellow artist, Hendrick ter Brugghen, they set up an art school in Utrecht. Due to the influence of Caravaggio on the works of the two Dutch painters and the way their paintings showed strong and bold contrasts between light and dark known as chiaroscuro, they were looked upon as representing Utrecht Caravaggism.

In 1622 van Honthorst joined the Guild of St Luke in Utrecht and three years later was made president of the society. Van Honthorst fame as a painter spread and he was much sort after as a teacher so much so that in 1627 he moved to a much larger house and turned part of it into his workshop. The following year, following his rising artistic reputation reaching the English court, he was invited to work at the court of King Charles I. He remained in England until the end of 1628 at which time he returned to Utrecht.

In 1637 Van Honthorst moved to The Hague when he became the court painter to the Princess of Orange and received a number of commissions for portraits from the Dutch ruler Frederick Hendrick, Prince of Orange and his family and during this period he also worked on the decoration of the royal residences. His fame spread and he received many royal commissions from the likes of the French Queen Maria de Medici, mother of King Louis XIII, King Christian IV of Denmark and Elizabeth of Bohemia, Charles I of England’s sister.

With success came great wealth and he was fortunate enough to live a luxurious lifestyle. Gerard van Honthorst died in Utrecht in 1656, aged 64.

The featured painting in today’s My Daily Art Display is entitled Granida and Daifilo which Gerard van Honthorst completed in 1625 and was commissioned by Stadholder Frederick Hendrick for his residence at Honselaerdijk and was to form part of a number of paintings of pastoral scenes.

The title of the painting refers to the characters in a pastoral play written by Pieter Hooft, the Dutch historian, poet and playwright entitled Granida. The story of the play was that Granida and Daifilo were lovers. Granida, the daughter of an eastern king, was betrothed to Prince Tisiphernes but one day became lost while out hunting. She came upon a shepherd Daifilo and his mistress Dorilea who had just quarrelled. Daifilo fetched water for the princess to drink and fell in love with her. He followed her to court and, after several twists and turns in the story, they fled to the woods together to live a pastoral life. However, Daifilo was taken prisoner by one of Granida’s several suitors. The play had a happy ending and the couple were finally reunited after the intervention of Tisiphernes who took pity on the young pair and gave up his claim to her.

The colours of this painting are bright and the details of the two protagonists in this amorous scene set in this idealised woodland setting give it a touch of classicism. Nevertheless, there is a touch of realism, which was associated with the Caravaggists as we see the dirty soles of Daifilo’s feet. In the background to the right we see the soldiers approaching the lovers with the intent to arrest them.

The play set a fashion for pastoral idyll in the Netherlands where Granida and Daifilo became iconic symbols of love. The play was noted for the delicacy of its poetry and the simplicity of its moral. The moral to this tale was that individuals and nations can be at peace only when rulers and subjects alike shun ambition and seek only to serve. Though not well known today, it was a very popular work in early 17th century Netherlands, and Granida and Daifilo were the subject of many important paintings by Dutch masters.

The painting can be found in the Centraal Museum, Utrecht