September 2017 – my daily art display

Briton Rivière

Sentimentality in art was very popular during Victorian times. I have looked at many artists whose motifs often depicted “cute” little boys and cute little girls in pretty dresses.

Even the great artists, such as John Everett Millais, with his famous 1886 painting Bubbles, realised such paintings of young children were money-spinners. This painting shows a boy blowing bubbles with a pipe and a bowl of soap suds. The boy was Millais’ four-year-old grandson, Willie James. A. & F. Pears bought the painting from Millais in 1886.

Another motif which was popular at the time in Victorian England was small animals, especially dogs. Add to that motif a touch of pathos and the painting is sold! My artist today was a master of such depictions. Let me introduce you to Briton Rivière.

His Only Friend by Briton Rivière (1871)

Briton Rivière was born in St Pancras, London on August 14^th 1840. He was the youngest child and only son of William Rivière, who was the third of twelve children, and Anne Rivière (née Jarvis) whom he had married in 1830. Briton had three elder sisters, Marion born in 1833, Henrietta Fanny born in 1835 and Annette Louise born in 1837. Briton’s love of art probably came from his parents. His mother was a still-life painter and his father trained to be an artist at the Royal Academy when he was eighteen years old and two years later began to exhibit his work at the Academy.

William Rivière was appointed Master of the drawing academy at Cheltenham College in 1849, a town at which the family then lived. There he succeeded in establishing a drawing-school which was unique of its kind, and was hailed as the best school of art outside of London. Briton Rivière’s paternal uncle Henry Parsons Rivière was also a noted watercolourist, who had exhibited his paintings at the Royal Watercolour Society, London, and the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists.

Much happened in his family life when Briton was thirteen years of age. In 1853 his eldest sister Marion married and a year later his sister Henrietta, then aged nineteen died in Brighton

Briton’s father resigned from Cheltenham College in 1859, and he, his wife and two children, Annette and Briton left Cheltenham and moved to Park Town, Oxford, where he convinced the University to initiate the study of art for undergraduates and he set up his own drawing school. His son Briton studied painting and drawing at the university. Briton Rivière had some of his works hung at the Royal Academy exhibitions from 1858 onwards but he had yet to make a breakthrough with his paintings. That all changed in 1869 when he exhibited his work, The Long Sleep. The painting pulled at the heartstrings of the viewers and was an immediate hit with Victorian art lovers. It was to be first of many which featured domestic animals and their owners intertwined with a sense of pathos. In this work we see and old man sitting in his chair besides the fire. His head lolls forward on to his chest. His clay pipe, which has slipped from his life-less fingers, lies broken on the stone floor. He is not asleep. He has died and his two faithful friends, his dogs, become agitated at his lack of movement. One jumps up to lick his face in the hope that this may awaken their master but, of course, to no avail.

In 1878 Rivière completed a work entitled Sympathy. In this work we see a young girl sitting on stairs, all alone except for her beloved pet. The story behind the painting is that she has been naughty and, as punishment, has been sent to sit on the “naughty step”. The only comfort she receives is from her beloved four-legged friend.

Companions in Misfortune by Briton Rivière

His work, Companions in Misfortune, similarly depicts a solitary human having only his animal friend as company and for many observers of the work, they can empathise with the man as in their lives they often only have the love of an animal to look forward to.

Rivière’s painting were not always sad depictions as he had the ability to inject humour into his depictions as we see in his 1882 painting Giants at Play. Rivière depicts three men at rest, enjoying themselves by playing with a tiny young bull-pup. They tantalise the dog by dragging a feather attached to a piece of string always just out of reach of the puppy. Just a harmless game or as some will have you believe it may have been the initial stage in the training that will prepare the dog for fighting and baiting

A Blockade Runner by Briton Rivière (1888)

Another humorous painting was Rivière’s 1888 work entitled A Blockade Runner in which we see a cat escape across the top of a wall to escape the clutches of its four canine assailants.

Beyond Man’s Footsteps by Briton Rivière

In 1894, in total contrast to these works Rivière exhibited at the Royal Academy a completely different type of work with his painting Beyond Man’s Footsteps. The setting for the painting is the Arctic, a region where no human had ventured but through Rivière’s depiction the viewer was able to imagine what it was like to be in this bleak and remote region. The foreground is dark and shadowy which contrasts with the colourful beauty of the sky brought about by the setting sun in the background. Atop the overhanging rock we see a solitary polar bear looking out over its terrain. It is thought that Rivière based the depiction of the animal on sketches he made of a polar bear he saw in London’s Regent Park zoo. The depiction of Rivière’s Arctic, free of mankind, is awesome. The Norwegian explorer, scientist, diplomat, humanitarian, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Fridtjof Nansen’s narrative of The First Crossing of Greenland was written and published in 1890 and it is believed that Rivière had read the translated version and based his painting on what he had read. One passage from the book described what Nansen had witnessed during his journey:

“…when the sun sank lowest, and set the heavens in a blaze … the wild beauty of the scene was raised to its highest’. At the foot of the ‘spires’ of huge, glittering icebergs, ‘there were marvellous effects and tints of blue, ranging to the deepest ultramarine … a floating fairy palace, built of sapphires, about the sides of which brooks ran and cascades fell … in fantastic forms…”

Saint George and the Dragon by Briton Riviere

During the 1870’s Rivière began to exhibit Classical and Religious paintings. His depiction of this classic story of George and the Dragon is somewhat unusual. Normally Saint George would be portrayed astride his horse, lance in hand but in Rivière’s work we see the dragon’s conqueror lying on the ground, exhausted, close to his fallen adversary.

Daniel in the Lion’s Den by Briton Rivière (1872)

His painting Daniel in the Lion’s Den was based on the biblical story about Daniel which tells how Daniel is raised to high office by his royal master Darius the Mede, but jealous rivals trick Darius into issuing a decree which condemns Daniel to death. Hoping for Daniel’s deliverance, but unable to save him, the king has him cast into the pit of lions. At daybreak he hurries back, asking if God had saved his friend. In the Old Testament (Daniel 6:20-22) the story unfolds:

“…When he had come near the den to Daniel, he cried out with a troubled voice. The king spoke and said to Daniel, “Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you constantly serve, been able to deliver you from the lions?”

Then Daniel spoke to the king, “O king, live forever!

“My God sent His angel and shut the lions’ mouths and they have not harmed me, in as much as I was found innocent before Him; and also toward you, O king, I have committed no crime…”

(c) Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

However, for most people the name Briton Rivière was synonymous with painting of animals and in an interview, he did for the Chums Boys Annual in August 1897 he explained how he mastered the drawing of both wild and domesticated animals:

“…I have always been a great lover of dogs but I have worked at them so much that I’ve grown tired of having them about me. However, you can never paint a dog unless you are fond of it. I never work from a dog without the assistance of a man who is well acquainted with animals….. Collies, I think, are the most restless dogs….greyhounds are also very restless, and so are fox terriers….. The only way to paint wild animals is to gradually accumulate a large number of studies and a great knowledge of the animal itself, before you can paint its picture…… I paint from dead animals as well as from live ones. I have had the body of a fine lioness in my studio….. I have done a great deal of work in the dissecting rooms at the Zoological Gardens from time to time…”

A Study in Black and White, Mrs Henrietta Riviere. (Briton Rivière’s daughter-in-law) (c.1910)

Early in his career, Rivière became an illustrator for the Punch magazine. Briton Rivière married Mary Alice Dobell in 1867. She too was a talented painter. The couple went on to have seven children, four sons, Hugh Goldwyn, Clive, Philip Lyle, and Bernard and three daughters, Millicent Alice, Evelyn, and Theodora. In 1878, when he was thirty-eight, Rivière was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy of Arts and three years later, a Royal Academician. He stood for election to become President of the Royal Academy but failed in his bid – the position being awarded to Edward John Poynter.

Briton Rivière died in London on April 20th 1920, aged seventy-nine.

Frits Thaulow. Part 2 – the realist landscape painter.

Many of Thaulow’s best known Norwegian scenes are from Åsgårdstrand, a town 100 km south of Oslo. It had become a significant centre for artists and painters from the 1880’s. The town had been home to many internationally famous painter, such as Edvard Munch, Christian Krogh, and Hans Heyerdahl, who had either visited or lived in the town. Again, like Skagen, the reason it was popular with painters was because of its unique light which the best artists wanted to depict in their works.

Street in Kragerø by Frits Thaulow (1882)

Thaulow visited the Norwegian coastal town of Kragerø which was, and still is, a place where people went to “get away from it all”. It was a location which the great Norwegian painter Edvard Munch fell in love with, calling it ” Perlen blandt kystbyene (The Pearl of the Coastal Towns). The town of Kragerø is characterized by clear, blue water and beautiful views.

Houses in Kragerø by Frits Thaulow (1882)

However, in one of Thaulow’s paintings of the town, Houses in Kragerø, we see a more realistic depiction of it. Gone are the blue water and beautiful views and instead we see an everyday view of the backs of the old houses with clothes pegged to a washing line fluttering in a strong breeze. There is a lack of bright colours, a lack of blue skies, just a simple depiction of an area of the town, “warts and all”.

Haugsfossen ved Modum by Frits Thaulow (1883)

In 1883 after a visit to Blaafarveværket, a cobalt mining and industrial company located at Amort in Modum in the Norwegian county of Buskerud, some thirty miles west of Oslo. Here there is the spectacular Haugsfossen waterfall and it was here that Thaulow completed his 1883 painting entitled Haugsfossen ved Modum. It is a spectacular painting and once again we witness Thaulow’s great talent when it comes to painting scenes which include stretches of water. The green tones used for the water when combined with shades of white in contrast to the black rocks allow us to imagine the ferocity of the water has it hurtles down the waterfall, carrying with it fallen logs.

Thaulow travelled to Venice on a number of occasions in the 1890’s and made many sketches and paintings of the city highlighting the city’s canals and architecture and completed many paintings of that city. In 1892, Thaulow returned once again to France but this time to make it his home. Originally, he lived in Paris but soon tired of the hustle and bustle and preferred a quieter life in the smaller towns of Dieppe, Montreuil-sur-Mer, Quimperle in Brittany and further south, the town of Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne.

Back Mills, Montreuil-sur-Mer by Frits Thaulow (1892)

Frits Thaulow had met Claude Monet when he was in Paris and a friendship between the two plein-air painters developed. Both Thaulow and Monet painted in Normandy with Monet preferring to base himself on the coast and depict the stormy sea and the windswept coastal landscapes whereas Thaulow preferred the tranquillity of painting on quiet rivers.

Thaulow’s weather tends to be calmer which in a way was more in keeping with his temperament. Thaulow said of himself:

“…I am more drawn to the gentle and harmonic than to the vigorous…”

Thaulow had urged Monet to paint in Norway, and the French artist finally acquiesced and travelled there in the winter of 1895, to visit his stepson, Jacques Hoschedé, who lived in Christiania. It proved a disastrous visit because of the severe winter climate with the temperature at minus twenty degrees Celsius when he arrived and because of the amount of snow falling, painting outdoors was a very difficult chore for Monet. One of the works completed during the visit was Sandvika. This small town just south-west of Oslo, looks as though it had been done in a blizzard.

It is interesting to note the colours used in the painting – cold blues and lavender whereas Thaulow often used gold and yellow in his winter scenes giving it a slightly warmer feeling. Maybe Monet just wanted to make sure we knew how cold and uncomfortable it was to paint winter scenes in such conditions whereas Thaulow was more forgiving.

The Akerselven River in the Snow by Frits Thaulow

Despite the adverse conditions, Monet painted twenty-nine Norwegian scenes during his two-month stay and these included at least six views of Sandvika. It is thought that the iron bridge we see in the foreground may have reminded Monet of the Japanese bridge at his home in Giverny. Monet never returned to Norway – he had had enough of the cold and inhospitable climate.

Evening in Camiers by Frits Thaulow (1893)

The Normandy coastal village of Camiers, which lies about ten miles south of Boulogne-sur-Mer, was visited by Thaulow in 1893 and that year he completed a painting depicting the village, entitled Evening in Camiers in which we see the sun setting over the dunes and rose-tinted houses caught up in the evening sunlight.

Thaulow the Painter and his Children by Jacques-Emile Blanche (1895)

Through an 1895 painting by Jaques-Emile Blanche we get an insight into Thaulow’s family life. In the portrait, Thaulow the Painter and his Children, also known as The Thaulow Family, Frits Thaulow appeared with his daughter Else, aged 15 from his first marriage and two of the children from his second marriage, Harold then aged 8 and Ingrid aged 3. The third child from his second marriage, Christian, was only born that year and does not appear in the work. The painting is housed in the Musée d’Orsay. Blanche’s portrait was presented at the Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in 1896, was greeted with unanimous critical acclaim, which prompted Blanche to say later that this work was the one that “made him a painter”.

The Adige River at Verona by Frits Thaulow

In the 1890’s Thaulow travelled to various European cities constantly sketching and painting what he observed. On his trip through northern Italy in 1894, he visited Verona on his way to Venice and completed a painting entitled The Adige River at Verona. In this work Thaulow used only muted colours and understated tonal harmonies which depict the view of the fast-flowing Adige River as it passes beneath the five arches of the sixteenth century Ponte della Pietra. In the background, we can see the Duomo of S. Maria Matricolare, and to the right the Sanmicheli’s campanile.

Small town near La Panne by Frits Thaulow (1905)

In the summer of 1905 Frits Thaulow spent some time with his family at La Panne, a small Flemish coastal resort. He had bought himself a small car and with this new-found transport was able to drive himself and his family to small Belgian towns in the area always looking for subjects for his paintings. One such painting was his 1905 work entitled Small Town Near La Panne. In the painting, we see small town houses nestled on the river bank and in the mid-ground a small arched bridge. Thaulow made three versions of this scene all slightly different in the way he depicted the bridge and the houses.

Evening at the Bay of Frogner by Frits Thaulow (1880)

Thaulow received several honours for his artistic work including his appointment as commander of the 2nd Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav in 1905. He received the French Legion of Honour, Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus from Italy and the Order of Nichan Iftikhar from Tunisia.

Johan Frederik “Frits” Thaulow
1847-1906

Thaulow developed diabetes in 1897, a time before insulin had been developed and his condition worsened over the next nine years Thaulow died in Volendam, in the Netherlands on November 5^th 1906, aged 59.

Thaulow was a painter working within the framework of Realism, to which he made an original contribution. He forged a friendship with Monet and Rodin and was a valuable connection between Norwegian and French art.

Frits Thaulow. Part 1 – the early days.

Portrait of Frits Thaulow by Christian Krohg

As a painter, I wonder whether you have a favourite motif. Is there one aspect of your landscape work, maybe the sky, maybe trees, etc., which you feel that you excel at? If so, do you try and incorporate that feature into many of your paintings? My artist today seems to be a virtuoso when it came to depictions of water and the reflections on the surface and so many of his paintings include stretches of water. Let me introduce you to the Norwegian Impressionist landscape painter Johan Frederik Thaulow, better known as “Frits” Thaulow.

An Orchard on the Banks of a River by Frits Thaulow

Johan Frederik Thaulow was born on October 20^th, 1847 in the Norwegian capital, Christiania (renamed Oslo in 1925). He was one of ten children. His father was Harald Conrad Thaulow, a wealthy pharmacist and his mother was Nicoline (“Nina”) Louise Munch. In order to satisfy his father’s wishes he carried on with his normal school and college studies and eventually attained a doctorate but his real love was for art and specifically maritime art and so, in 1870, aged twenty-three, he went to Copenhagen to try to become a marine painter.

Sailing Ships in the Strait South of Kronborg by Carl Frederik Sorensen (1857)

He enrolled on a two-year course at the Academy of Art in Copenhagen and one of his tutors was Carl Frederik Sørensen, the great Danish marine painter, whose paintings often depicted the relationship between weather and the effect it had on sea conditions.

In 1873, Thaulow left Copenhagen and travelled to Karlsruhe where, for two years, he attended the Baden School of Art. At the time one of the professors lecturing at the academy was the Norwegian Romanticist landscape and marine painter, Hans Fredrik Gude.

Gude had previously been a professor at the Düsseldorf Academy of Art and through his popularity especially with his fellow countrymen, had built up a sizeable number of Norwegian students. When he left the Academy to take up a post at the Baden School of Art many followed him.

In October 1874, Thaulow married Ingeborg Charlotte Gad, whose sister Mette-Sophie Gad had married Paul Gaugin, and a year later the couple had a daughter, Nina, but the marriage ended in divorce in 1886. In September of that same year, Thaulow re-married. His second wife was Alexandra Lasson, the daughter of Carl Lasson, a noted Norwegian attorney. Alexandra was fifteen years younger than Thaulow. The couple went on to have three children, two sons and a daughter. Harald was born a year after the marriage, Ingrid born in 1892 and Christian who was born in 1895.

High Tide, Le Havre (1878) by Frits Thaulow

In 1875, Thaulow departed Karlsruhe and journeyed to Paris where he lived for most of the next four years. During his time in the French capital he concentrated on his marine and coastal paintings whilst also absorbing the exciting times of the French art scene. The year before his arrival, the Impressionists had held their first exhibition at the former Parisian studio of the photographer Nadar at 35 Boulevard des Capucines Another influence on Thaulow was the work of the French realist painter, Jules Bastien-Lepage. Thaulow believed in realism in art and considered that his fellow Norwegian artists should also consider this genre. Paris had always been popular with aspiring artists and had been fashionable among Norwegian artists. Thaulow became part of a group of Scandinavian landscape painters living in Paris, and worked with the Swedish painter Carl Skanberg, who was famous for his coastal, harbour paintings.

In the autumn of 1879 Thaulow left Paris and along with his friend and fellow artist Christian Krohg, a naturalist painter, illustrator, author, and journalist, and then the two arrived at Skagen from Norway in Thaulow’s little boat. Skagen was situated on the east coast of the Skagen Odde peninsula in the far north of Jutland. In the late 1870’s until the end of the nineteenth century, Denmark’s Skagen Art Colony became a magnet to numerous artists in the summer months who were drawn to the isolated fishing village and the quality of the light. The twilight of the early morning and evening was often referred to as the “blue hour” during which the sun is at a sizable depth below the horizon and this is a time when the remaining, indirect sunlight takes on a predominantly blue shade.

The Skagen area also provided beautiful and unspoiled landscapes and seascapes. The artists were hailed as part of a modern breakthrough movement, which wanted to abandon the academic tradition of neoclassical painting styles which was taught at the Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen and in its place these artists decided to follow the dictates of realism and naturalism which was part of the ethos of the Barbizon plein-air painters. They also became followers of the impressionist movements and by doing so, they could portray everyday life and everyday people in an un-idealized way. It was here that Thaulow’s depictions concentrated on the lives of the fishermen and the boats which had been dragged up onto the shore.

After his stay in Skagen, Thaulow returned to Norway in 1880. He became one of the leading young figures in the Norwegian art scene, together with Christian Krohg and Erik Werenskiold and with them organised the first National Art Exhibit in late 1882, known as the Høstutstillingen or Autumn Exhibition. This first Høstutstillingen was held in Oslo as a radical protest the established bourgeois dominance of the Christiania Art Society and these three organisers decided that they would not let, unlike the Christiania Art Society, an artist jury to decide what could be included in the exhibition.

Thaulow spent the next twelve years in Norway. It was a period during which Realist painting based on the French model was accepted in Norway. And Thaulow’s personal interpretation of the Norwegian landscape was generally believed to be new. Although based in Norway he made several trips abroad visiting Scotland and Venice and returning to Paris

View of Overgaden, Christianshavn by Frits Thaulow (1881)

One of my favourite works by Thaulow is one he completed in 1881 entitled View of Overgaden, Christianshavn. Christianshaven is a district of Copenhagen and the Christianhaven Canal bisects the neighbourhood. Christianshavns Kanal is now noted for its bustling sailing community with numerous houseboats and sailboats, particularly in the northern half of the canal. Overgaden oven Vandet and Overgaden neden Vandet are the two streets running along each side of the waterway. Beside Thaulow’s masterful depiction of the water, look at the detailed portrayal of the buildings and cobbled walkways.

………………………………………….. to be continued.

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