Author: jonathan5485

Just someone who is interested and loves art. I am neither an artist nor art historian but I am fascinated with the interpretaion and symbolism used in paintings and love to read about the life of the artists and their subjects.

Edwin Howland Blashfield and Evangeline Wilbour

The artist I am looking at today is the late nineteenth century American painter, muralist, art historian and travel writer, Edwin Howland Blashfield.  Blashfield was born on December 5th 1848 in Brooklyn.  He was the son of William H. Blashfield and Eliza Dodd.  His father was an engineer and wanted his son to follow in his footsteps.  On the other hand, his mother, Eliza, had been trained as a portrait painter and she encouraged her son’s artistic studies.  His father’s wishes for his son’s future were granted, and in 1863, aged fifteen, Blashfield travelled to Hanover, Germany, to study engineering. The death three months later of his companion and godfather, Edwin Howland, necessitated in his return to the United States.  Once on home soil, he enrolled on and engineering course at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, which lasted for two years.

The Roman Pose by Edwin Blashfield

While studying at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, his mother, sent some of his drawings to the French academic painter Jean Léon Gérôme, whose praise for Edwin’s work persuaded his father to allow him to take up a career in art. Blashfield followed his technical training with three months of study with Thomas Johnson, who had once been a pupil of William Morris Hunt, the American Romantic painter. He then travelled to Paris in 1867 to gain more artistic training but was denied entrance to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, so, instead, he took a place in the studio of the French history and portrait painter, Léon Bonnat from 1867 to 1870.  As well as the tuition, Blashfield met great artists living in the French capital such as Pierre Puvis de Chavannes and William-Adolphe Bouguereau whose work greatly influenced him. Blashfield led a good life in Paris thanks to his inherited wealth and during the summers he would head for the French countryside. In late 1870 the Franco-Prussian War began and Paris was under siege and later came the uprisings in the French capital, so ending his artistic training, and so to escape the troubles he travelled around Europe, visiting Belgium and then went to Florence where he remained for eight months.  He returned home to New York in 1871 and for the next three years he painted mainly costume pictures of fashionable ladies.   

The Lover’s Advance by Edwin Blashfield

He returned to Paris in 1874 and re-enrolled at Léon Bonnat’s studio where he became great friends with fellow American painters Elihu Vedder, H. Siddons Mowbray, and Frederick A. Bridgman. In 1876, he met writer Evangeline Wilbour, a pioneer of women’s history, and activist.  Evangeline was born in 1858 and often summered in her birthplace, Little Compton, Rhode Island, though she lived much of her life in New York.  She was the eldest of four children of Charles Edwin Wilbour and his wife Charlotte.  Her father’s principal business was ownership of a large paper manufacturing company and had connections with Tammany Hall, a New York City political organization, which became the main local political machine of the Democratic Party and played a major role in controlling New York City and New York State politics.  It was through this connection that Charles Wilbour received many contracts and made his fortune from William “Boss” Tweed the political boss of Tammany Hall.  Tweed fell from grace in 1871 and eventually in 1873  he was jailed for corruption.  To escape any fall-out from this, Evangeline Wilbour’s father decided to hastily leave the United States in 1874, and move to Paris with his family.

Evangeline Blashfield née Wilbour

Evangeline spent a short time in finishing schools in Florence and Paris but despite her interrupted education, her insatiable curiosity and her never-ending search for knowledge, she was looked upon as one of the most learned people of her era: fluent in French and Italian, capable in German, Arabic, and Latin; a world-class expert on history, art history, literature, and theatre.

The Dolls by Edwin Blashfield

Evangeline and Edwin Blashfield met at a dance in Paris in 1876.  Blashfield introduced her to his art, which consisted mainly of painted pictures of ladies in fancy dress, which he sold.  Evangeline and he developed a close friendship but she believed he could better himself as his main source of income was squandered on parties and trips to London.  Evangeline knew that Edwin must change his modus operandi if he was to succeed. Having met Evangeline, Blashfield’s painting motifs changed and he started to depict female gladiators fighting each other with swords, ancient women artists, and theatrical female figures thrilling with passionate intensity but this was just the start of the change Evangeline envisaged for Edwin.  The couple married in 1881 and she provided him with a substantial income. Edwin gave up his studies with Bonnat and the couple returned to New York  They set up home in the newly built studios in the Sherwood Building on West 57th Street, which was home to many of the emerging young artists of the generation. 

The Roman Aviary by Edwin Blashfield

Evangeline persuaded her husband, who was now financially sound, to abandon his painting and selling small easel pictures and instead concentrate on painting larger and more ambitious works.  However, Blashfield continued painting whimsical genre pictures and also did illustrations for the St. Nicholas Magazine. Soon after returning to New York, he worked together with his wife, producing illustrated articles for Century Magazine and Scribner’s Magazine.  Edwin and Evangeline Blashfield returned to Europe in 1887, spending time at the artist colony of Broadway, in the heart of the English Cotswolds, where they met fellow painters, Francis Millet, the leading light of the group, from Mattapoissett, Massachusett, Edwin Austin Abbey, the American muralist and John Singer Sargent. These artists, who were mainly American, were attracted to the village by its idyllic rural nature.

Iliad, The Luxor Barber by Edwin Blashfield

Later that year the Blashfields continued their travels and took a boat trip to Egypt and went to sail on the Nile aboard the boat owned by Evangeline’s father. Her father Charles Wilbour had escaped America and the time of the fall of William “Boss” Tweed and the Tammany Hall corruption scandal which might have touched him, due to the many contracts his paper-making business had with Tweed. Charles Wilbour then had concentrated on his love of all things to do with Egypt and he visited Europe and spent his time studying the Egyptian treasures of the British Museum and other great European collections. He became associated with many well-known Egyptologists and went on five Nile River expeditions.  He bought a boat which was moored on the Nile. 

The Columbian Exposition (Chicago’s World Fair ) (1893)

Influenced by his wife, Blashfield agreed to concentrate are large scale paintings and murals, and soon in the 1880s he became America’s foremost authority on mural and monumental painting after his success at the Chicago World’s Fair. The Chicago World Fair was held in Chicago in 1893.  It was also known as the World’s Columbian Exposition as a celebration of the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the New World in 1492. The Fair was held in Jackson Park, with the centrepiece being a large expanse of water epitomising the voyage Columbus took to explore the New World. The exposition was an influential social and cultural event and had an insightful effect on American architecture, the arts, American industrial optimism, and most of all, Chicago’s image. In 1892 Blashfield was approached by the American academic classical painter, sculptor, and writer, Francis Davis Millet, whom he had previously met whilst visiting the Broadway artist colony in Worcestershire.  Millet, a member of the Society of American Artists in 1880, and in 1885, was elected as a member of the National Academy of Design, New York and as Vice-Chairman of the Fine Arts Committee. He was made a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and sat on the advisory committee of the National Gallery of Art. He was decorations director for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago.   He wanted Blashfield to contribute a mural, The Art of Metalworking,  for one of the domes of the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building of the World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago. The murals Blashfield completed for Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building of the World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago were loved by attendees and it led to many more mural commissions.

Edwin Blashfield’s mural for the interior of the dome of the Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson Building.

One such commission was for the interior of the dome of the Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson Building.  It was decided that Blashfield’s murals would adorn the dome of the Main Reading Room, occupy the central and the highest point of the building and form the culmination of the entire interior decorative scheme.

His murals would decorate inside the lantern of the dome and depict Human Understanding.  They would be observed above the finite intellectual achievements which were represented by the twelve figures positioned in the collar of the dome.  These twelve seated figures represented the twelve countries, or periods, which Blashfield felt added the most to American civilization. On the right of each figure was a tablet on which was inscribed the name of the country typified and, below this, the name of the exceptional contribution of that country to human development.

Egypt represents Written Records.

Judea represents Religion.

Greece represents Philosophy.

Rome represents Administration.

Islam represents Physics.

The Middle Ages represent Modern Languages.

Italy represents the Fine Arts.

Germany represents the Art of Printing.

Spain represents Discovery.

England represents Literature.

France represents Emancipation.

America represents Science.

Edwin Blashfield at work on his murals

The precarious staging need by Blashfield to paint the murals

Blashfield’s murals featured in courthouses, state capitols, churches, universities, museums, and other places across the United States, including the grand ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New York

Westward – mural by Edwin Blashford

Blashfield completed a mural for the Iowa State Capital Building in Des Moines, which extended the full width of the east wall above the staircase.  The mural painted by Blashfield in 1905 measures 14 feet high and 40 feet wide and is simply entitled Westward. 

Detail from the Westward mural

It was painted on six pieces of canvass and placed into the frame.  It is an idealised representation which depicts early pioneers, who are crossing Iowa and heading West seeking a new life. 

Detail from the Westward mural by Edwin Blashfield

Blashfield described his mural, writing:

“…The main idea of the picture is symbolical presentation of the Pioneers led by the spirits of Civilization and Enlightenment to the conquest by cultivation of the Great West. Considered pictorially, the canvass shows a ‘Prairie Schooner’ drawn by oxen across the prairie. The family ride upon the wagon or walk at its side. Behind them and seen through the growth of stalks at the right, come crowding the other pioneers and ‘later men.’ In the air and before the wagon, are floating four female figures; one holds the shield with the arms of the state of Iowa upon it; one holds a book symbolizing Enlightenment; two others carry a basket and scatter the seeds which are symbolical of the change from wilderness to ploughed fields and gardens that shall come over the prairie. Behind the wagon, and also floating in the air, two female figures hold, respectively, a model of a stationary steam engine and of an electric dynamo to suggest the forces which come with the ‘later men.’ …”

Mural above central staircase

The mural was a reminder of the courageous journey taken by pioneers travelling west to set up home and achieve a new life for their families and descendants.  A truly noteworthy and heroic journey – or was it ?  Some did not think so and wanted the mural removed.  In Iowa, the Indigenous women-led activist group Seeding Sovereignty delivered a letter to officials seeking the removal of monuments and Blashfield’s mural from its State Capitol in Des Moines. Ronnie Free, a member of Great Plains Action Society, told the local newspaper, the Des Moines Register:

“…I feel it is a century long’s attempt at trying to erase the history of Indigenous peoples.  It covers up genocide. The term whitewashing comes to mind. I think they’re horrible, and I hate that my children have to see that…”

In its place, activists are calling for the mural and monuments to be replaced with works that celebrate the state’s Indigenous history.

Trumpets of Missouri mural by Edwin Blashfield (1918)

In 1918, Edwin Blashfield was commissioned by the Kansas City Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution to complete a mural entitled Trumpets of Missouri which would commemorate and honour the citizens of Missouri who answered the nation’s call to arms in the First World War.   The work is a rare surviving mural by the Blashfield. The Kansas City Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution was established in Kansas in 1896 and has helped promote history throughout the state from its 19th century beginning through the present. The foreground features a woman symbolizing Missouri, seated and clad in armor while watching her sons depart for war. Further historical symbolism emerges with a group of trumpeters in the background, “representing Old France, Old Spain, and the Union and Confederate forces, while in the front of her is a figure in khaki representing the Union of the present time, sounding the call to arms. Blashfield’s mural was described in the New York Times article of June 16th, 1918:

“…The composition is intended to give a historical outline of the development of the State. Before the Louisiana Purchase, Missouri belonged to France, then to Spain, and, again, to France. During the Civil War she was tossed from the Confederate to the Union side. The wide range of her racial and political affiliations is indicated in the painting. Missouri is symbolized by a seated female figure watching the departure of her troops. Over her head the Stars and Stripes billows on a strong wind in noble folds. Clad in armour, her hand grasping a sheathed sword, she looks out over a vast expanse of rolling country under a sky filled with clouds. Behind her stand a group of trumpeters representing Old France, Old Spain, the Union and Confederate forces, while in front of her is a figure in khaki representing the Union of the present time, sounding the call to arms. The troops responding are carrying the American flag and the Missouri State flag…”

Following its completion in 1918, the artwork was briefly displayed at an art gallery in Blashfield’s home state of New York, but later that year was presented by the Daughters of the American Revolution as a gift to the Kansas City Public Library to be hung in its facility at Ninth and Locust Streets. However mystery surrounds the mural and its present whereabouts. The library building was bought by U.S. Trade School and at that time the mural was in the building but sometime in the 1980s it disappeared. According to the Christies’, New York auction service website, the painting entitled Trumpets of Missouri, was sold at auction in 2014 to a private bidder for a substantial $149,000.

Evangeline Blashfield by Edwin Blashfield (1889)

Evangeline Wilbour Blashfield came from a long line of feminists and suffragists.  Her mother, Charlotte Beebe Wilbour, founded and led half-a-dozen societies for the advancement of women, including Sorosis, the nation’s first women’s professional club. Evangeline often wrote about the rights of the poor and the downtrodden. She was able to understand a deep problem that even nowadays troubles her country and politics: that the oppressed, forgotten, and disenfranchised cannot become equal citizens until they have equal voice, dignity, and history.  Evangeline was a knowledgeable historian. She understood that remembering rather than forgetting the errors and abuses of the past is the best defense against future abuses of our shared humanity. 

Evangeline Wilbour Blashfield Fountain

A gift of the Municipal Art Society of New York to the city in honor of
Evangeline Wilbour Blashfield who sought to beautify public space and provide water for vendors at the open-air marketplace originally on this site.

Evangeline Wilbour Blashfied died in New York on November 15th, 1918 aged 60.   Six months after her death, the Evangeline Wilbour Blashfield memorial fountain was dedicated to her at Bridgemarket, underneath the Queensboro Bridge.  She had lobbied for the fountain through her position in the Municipal Art Society. She wanted the vendors (and their horses), who came over the bridge from the farmlands of Queens with their wares, to have fresh water.  At the turn of the twentieth century the immigrant sons of toil who kept New York and the nation running trucked their vegetables across the bridge every day to the beautifully vaulted Bridgemarket, but the space outside was a muddy, rutted mess. Evangeline wanted a fountain to be built to beautify this space and to water the horses of the vendors at the market.

In 1928, ten years after Evangeline’s passing, Blashfield re-married.  His second wife was Grace Hall. Blashfield had been very active within the art community throughout his life. He served as President of the National Academy of Design, the National Institute of Arts and Letters (1915-16), and the Society of American Artists (1895-6). He was also a member of the Society of Mural Painters, the Architectural League, the Federation of Fine Arts of New York, and the National Commission of Fine Arts. Among his many honours, Blashfield was awarded a Gold Medal by the National Academy of Design in 1934, an honorary membership in the American Institute of Architecture, and an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts by New York University in 1926.

Edwin Howland Blashfield died at his summer home on Cape Cod on October 12th 1936, aged 87.

Christmas and Snow

Somebody once said that the only way to enjoy the sight of snow is when looking at a postcard or a painting.  I have spent a number of Christmas Days in hot climes such as Karachi and Melbourne and know that Christmas is not Christmas without snow.  So for this Christmas blog I want to look at some of the beautiful winter landscapes created by famous and not-so-famous artists to remind me of a snowy Christmas, many of which have featured in earlier blogs.

View of Bazincourt, Snow Effect Sunset by Camille Pissarro (1892)

Camille Pissarro depicted the small town of Bazincourt-sur-Epte at all times of the day, and in all seasons, in a number of his paintings.  In 1892 he completed his work entitled View of Bazincourt, Snow Effect, Sunset.  In this Impressionistic-style painting we can see how Pissarro has managed to infuse a warmth to the scene by his use of violet for the trees and the way the sun has illuminated the clouds.

Snow Scene at Argenteuil by Claude Monet (1875)

The great Claude Monet, known for his lily ponds at Givenchy, also painted a number of winter landscapes.  The first one I am looking at is his work entitled Snow Scene at Argenteuil.  Monet and his family moved to Argenteuil a small Parisian suburb twelve kilometres north-west of the heart of the French capital and was accessible from central Paris with a short train ride.  Monet painted many scenes in and around Argenteuil featuring the riverbanks of the Seine, the railway bridge which straddles the French river, which often featuring a steam train chugging across the structure.  The painting I have chosen was one of eighteen that Monet completed which depicted the snowy winter of 1874/5. It is a depiction of the Boulevard Saint-Denis, near Monet’s home. It looks towards its junction with the rue de la Voie des Bans, with the River Seine beyond.  The figures we see in the painting are plodding along the road and it could be that they are making their way to or from the nearby railway station which lies behind the artist.  The station would have been used by holiday makers and commuters on their way from Paris.  The snowy road surface has dark brown furrows made by passing carts and as we follow them we can see the town in the background.  This painting was one of the largest (71 x 91cms) snowscapes that Monet completed but does not have some of the finer details in Monet’s smaller winter paintings.

La Pie (The Magpie) by Claude Monet (1869)

My favourite winter painting by Monet was completed in 1869,  six years before the Argenteuil work.  He painted it during the winter of 1868–1869 whilst he and his girlfriend, Camille Doncieux were living near the commune of Étretat in Normandy in a house Monet’s patron, Louis Joachim Gaudibert, had arranged for them.  This is Monet’s largest (89 x 130cms) winter painting. The painting depicts a solitary magpie which has alighted on a gate which has been fitted between parts of a wattle fence. Sunlight falls upon freshly fallen snow producing blue shadows.   This “blue shadow” phenomenon later became associated with the Impressionist movement artists. Monet and those Impressionists exploited the use of coloured shadows to symbolise the actual, changing circumstances of light and shadow as witnessed in nature, and by so doing, they defied the academic convention of painting shadows black.   However all were not pleased with this new concept which led to its rejection by the Paris Salon of 1869. However present art historians today believe that The Magpie is one of Monet’s best snowscape paintings.  The painting was acquired by the Musée d’Orsay in 1984 and is considered one of the most popular paintings in their permanent collection.

Snow at Louveciennes by Alfred Sisley (1874)

It is believed that due to a series of severe winters in France in the 1870s it contributed to a sudden increase in the number of winter landscapes produced by Impressionists.  My next painting I am showcasing is one created by Alfred Sisley in 1874, entitled Snow at Louveciennes.  Before us we see a picturesque scene of stillness set in early winter’s morning in Louveciennes, a small village in the Île-de-France region in north-central France, located in the western suburbs of Paris, between Versailles and Saint-Germain-en-Laye.  Sisley depicts the sky in white, crisp blue, and grey hues. His use of perspective guides the viewer along a winding road which vanishes into the background.  The buildings in the paintings are covered with snow and we see a lone woman holding an umbrella strolling along the pathway, which has trees on either side. The artist is willing us to take a walk with the woman as she heads towards the village.  Sisley was entranced by views of the countryside during the winter months.  In fact, unlike most of us who dreaded heavy snowfall Sisley was inspired by what he saw and was especially attracted by how the variations in light came into play in snow scenes.


Effect of Snow on Petit-Montrouge by Manet (1870)

The oil on canvas painting entitled Effect of Snow on Petit-Montrouge was painted by Edouard Manet and depicts a winter view of Petit-Montrouge, in the 14th Arondissment of Paris.  Manet completed the work in 1870 whilst he was serving in the National Guard during the 1870–71 Siege of Paris in the Franco-Prussian War. There was no hint of the war, no heroic view of the battle or the bloody fighting, which was raging around the French capital, as often seen in the work of other artists’ paintings of the time.  This painting, although a snowy scene, is awash with shades of brown and black giving it a dark and foreboding ambience which could well be because the way Manet was feeling about the course of the ongoing war.  During this time Manet wrote to his wife:

“…My soldier’s knapsack serves…to hold everything necessary for painting. I shall soon start some sketches from life. They will be souvenirs that will one day have value…”

The painting depicts a view of the church of Saint-Pierre at Petit-Montrouge, and it is inscribed:

“…â mon ami H. Charlet 28 Xbre 1870. Charlet…”

 Charlet is thought to have been a comrade in the National Guard.  The dark image reflects Manet’s loss of hope regarding the impending military defeat and his deep loneliness, the deprivation and his bouts of depression he suffered during this time. It is one of the few landscapes in Manet’s oeuvre and is one of Manet’s first plein air paintings. Today it is in the collection of the National Museum Cardiff.

The Rooks have returned by Alexi Savrasov (1871)

Having looked at a painting by Monet featuring a black coloured bird against the white of the snow I had to give you one of my favourite works of art and this too features black birds and snow.  It is not quite a winter scene more “a coming of Spring motif”.  It is Alexi Savrasov’s painting entitled The Rooks have Returned, which I saw at the Tretyakov Gallery when I was in Moscow.  Savrasov was one of the most important, some would say, the most important of all the 19th century Russian landscape painters, and he was  deemed the creator of the “lyrical landscape style”. It is Savrasov’s most famous painting, and the painting is considered by many critics as being the high point in Savrasov’s artistic career.  The depiction witnesses the coming of spring as signalled by the return of the rooks.  The work is testament to Savrasov’s love for the rural Russian landscape, and he was very influenced by John Constable. The depiction we see before us is a simple, and depicts the somewhat inconsequential occurrence of birds returning home in spring to an extremely unpretentious landscape, but it was Savrasov’s way of communicating the change of seasons from Winter to Spring. Simple and yet beautiful.  The great Russian painter, the classical landscape painter, Isaac Levitan commented about its simplicity saying that although the painting was very simple, beneath its simplicity there is the tender artist’s soul, who loves nature and values it.  The painting enhanced Savrasov’s reputation as a landscape painter and it contributed to the success of the first exhibition organized by the Peredvizhniki.

Queue to a Resrvoir by Vasily Perov (1865)

Another depiction of a harsh winter and its effect on the people is Vasily Perov’s work entitled Queue to a Reservoir depicting people in freezing conditions to get themselves some water. It is a reminder of what is happening even nowadays.

Winter Landscape by Caspar David Friedrich (1811) Staatliches Museum, Schwerin.

If your taste in winter landscape paintings is not so much for aesthetic beauty but for depictions that are full of atmosphere then you should look no further than the winter scenes painted by the great German artist, Caspar David Friedrich.  His two Winter Landscape paintings of 1811 relate a poignant story.  One of the works is housed in the Staatliches Museum, Schwerin whilst the other is in the National Gallery, London. In the Schwerin picture, we observe a tiny figure, leaning on a crutch.  He gazes out on a deserted snow-covered landscape.  The sky is coloured grey/black adding to the ominous feel to the work.  The man meanders between dead or dying oak trees, and the stumps of felled trees.  It is a depiction of total barrenness and this bleakness adds to the feeling of hopelessness.  Life for him could not get any worse.

Winter Landscape with Church by Caspar David Friedrich (c.1811). National Gallery London.

However the National Gallery painting, a companion piece to the one in Schwerin, offers us a glimmer of hope for the man. This painting signifies the hope of resurrection through Christian faith. Look carefully at the snow in this work and you will see shoots of grass pushing through the snow and the evergreen trees and faint pink glow of approaching dawn affirm its message of renewal and rebirth. It is a fine example of Friedrich’s use of landscape painting as a vehicle for religious feeling and personal symbolism. As he stated, his aim was not ‘the faithful representation of air, water, rocks and trees … but the reflection of [the artist’s] soul and emotion in these objects.’

Man praying and abandoned crutches

The painting depicts a man, an invalid, who, in the Schwerin painting, we saw wandering helplessly in the snow, has now thrown away his crutches and lies against a large boulder as he prays in front of a shining crucifix protected by three fir trees, symbolising the Christian Trinity. In the background we see the silhouette of a German Gothic cathedral which is partially covered by a grey mist.  Unlike the hopelessness of the man’s situation in the first painting, Friedrich has instilled a sense of hope of a new life through Christian faith.

Hunters in the Snow by Pieter Bruehel the Elder (1565)

No compilation of winter landscape paintings would be complete without the inclusion of such works by Pieter Bruegel the Elder.  In 1565 he completed his oil on wood painting entitled The Hunters in the Snow which is also referred to as The Return of the Hunters.  The work is part of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, Austria.  It is one of his great genre painting scene with an aeriel viewpoint of a winter’s scene.  The painting was one of a twelve-work series depicting different times of the year and this one is set in the depths of winter during the months of December/January.  Before us we observe a wintry scene and in the left foreground, we see three hunters who are returning from an outing along with their dogs. They are heading down a snow-covered slope towards a small village.  Looking at the men trudging resignedly home with their dogs it appears not to have been a successful hunt with only one of the men carrying over his shoulder one dead fox, the fruit of their labour.  As if to taunt them, there are footprints of rabbits around them, which they failed to ensnare.   It is a cold overcast winters day with little or no wind as we can see by the lack of movement of the wood smoke.  Bruegel has used muted white and grey colours in this composition to give it an air of melancholy.  On the leafless trees we see crows perched on the bare branches. The setting is a flat-bottomed valley through which a river meanders. 

In the background we see an idealised landscape depicting jagged mountain summits which do not exist in Bruegel’s homeland but which would have been seen with him during his time in the Alps.   At the bottom right of the painting we see the large wheel of a watermill which has been frozen stiff.  Below on the frozen lake people are ice skating.  To the returning hunter’s left we can see an inn with villagers preparing a roaring fire in preparation of roasting a pig.  The sign on inn is hanging askew.  The image on the sign depicts a stag named Saint Hubertus, who is the patron saint of hunters. The words are in Dutch, Dit is Guden Hert, which means in English “This is the Golden Deer”.

The Census at Bethlehem by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1566)

Another winter painting by Bruegel the Elder is his 1566 work entitled The Census at Bethlehem, also known as The Numbering at Bethlehem.  It depicts the collecting of names of the villagers so as to enforce a tax collecting regime.  Bruegel would have painted this following the harsh winter of 1565.  In this work Bruegel depicts a scene which pre-dates the Nativity and the birth of Christ. The scene before us takes inspiration from the Gospel of Luke, chapter 2, verses 1 to 5.

“…In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered in their own towns. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth to the city of David called Bethlehem … with Mary with whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child…”

Although the story behind the painting is set in the Holy Land, Bruegel Bruegel combines this biblical narrative with life during his own time.  He has set his work in a Flemish village in winter at sunset with the ruined castle in the right-hand side of the background being based on the towers and gates of Amsterdam. People are gathered at a building on the left registering their details.  We can just about make out the Habsburg double-headed eagle on a sign on the building.  Villagers are streaming towards the census point, two of whom are Joseph and the Virgin Mary, who is with child, riding on a donkey. People are mingling in the cold, and we see happy children playing with toys on the ice and having snowball fights. There is the strange sight of a spoked wheel at the centre of the painting and this has occasionally be deemed to symbolise the wheel of fortune. To the right, a man in a small hut is shown holding a clapper, a warning to keep away from leprosy. Leprosy was endemic in that part of Europe when the painting was created. There is a begging bowl in front of the hut. In the background, men drink at a makeshift bar, and in the distance we see a well-kept church and a crumbling castle.

Bruegel once again treats a biblical story, in this case, the Census of Quirinius, as a contemporary event. He wants to liken the harsh events of the Roman occupation with the severity of the Spanish administration, who at Bruegel’s time, were ruling the southern Netherlands.  It is also thought that Bruegel was condemning the bureaucracy he was having to fight on a daily basis.

Census at Bethlehem by Pieter Bruegel the Younger (c.1590)

Pieter Brueghel the Elder’s son Pieter Bruegel the Younger and his studio made dozens of copies of his father’s painting after he died in 1569.  One, thought to be completed before 1600, was sold at auction for $10 million in 2013. One other copy, dated from 1610, is also at Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels.

Love of Winter by George Bellows (1914)

I will almost end this compilation of winter scenes by highlighting two works completed by the distinguished American artist, George Bellows.  George Bellows was born in Columbus, Ohio in 1882 and after passing through the various school years arrived at Ohio State University at the age of nineteen.  It was here that his sporting prowess came to the fore and at one time it was thought that he may take up baseball professionally.  During his time at the university, he funded himself by working as a commercial illustrator.  However, Bellows had one aim in life and that was to become an artist, so much so, that he quit the university just before he was due to graduate and moved to New York to study art.

He enrolled in the New York School of Art and became a student of Robert Henri.  It was through Henri that Bellows came into contact with a group of artists known as The Eight and later became part of  The Ashcan School.  The Eight was a group of artists whose fame derives from, and for what they will always be remembered for, their one and only joint exhibition in 1908 at the Macbeth Gallery in New York.  The exhibition was a sensation and it is now looked upon as one of the most important events in the development of twentieth-century American art.

It is said that Bellows wrote to a friend in January 1914:

“…There has been none of my favourite snow. I must always paint the snow at least once a year.”

Unknown to him these were prophetic words as on February 13th 1914 New York City was hit by a major blizzard and it was this occurrence which led to Bellows painting his famous 1914 work entitled Love of Winter.  The whole winter scene was intensified by Bellows with his use of bright reds, yellows, and greens and the feel of movement in the painting is achieved by his broad slashing brushstrokes.  The enthusiastic group of skaters and onlookers of differing ages, differing social classes echoes the diverse populations who appreciated  the public parks and the leisure activities on offer to them in early 20th-century New York City.

Blue Snow, The Battery by George Bellows (1910)

His other snow scene I wanted to show you is entitled Blue Snow, The Battery which he completed in 1910.  The setting for the painting is Battery Park which lies adjacent to the financial district of Manhattan.  There is a breathtaking beauty about this work of art.  His imaginative and powerful use of blue energizes the scene of the southern tip of Manhattan.  Bellows painted a number of scenes with New York City under snowfall and as with this work it is amazing how he has developed a strong sense of light and visual texture contrasting the white and blue of the snow and the dark grimy outline of the old buildings.  It is a beautiful strong composition which is normally housed at the Columbus Museum of Art.

Winter Landscape by Wassily Kandinsky (1909)

The inclusion of a blue tint in the depiction of the snow gave Bellows’ winter scene a colder ambience. Snow is white but a tinge of blue adds to its portrayal but what about other colours for snow? Wassily Kandinsky’s painting Winter Landscape is one of the works in which the individualities of the artist, who was one of the founders of abstract art, are shown in the full extent. The motif of thin black trunks is often used by Kandinsky in his landscapes. Bright colouring with predominant pink, yellow, blue and black is based on immediate visual impressions: the artist seeks to convey various light effects in the snow illuminated by the setting sun. Kandinsky explained his choice of colours:

“…Colour provokes a psychic vibration. Colour hides a power still unknown but real, which acts on every part of the human body…”

Your thoughts ?

I hope you enjoy this over-long blog but it is holiday time and hopefully you have plenty of time to read it. I end by wishing you a Happy Hanukkah, A Happy Christmas and a peaceful and prosperous New Year.

Jonathan

Hans Makart Revisited

Self Portrait by Hans Makart (1878)

The artist I am looking at today, and had written about in 2013, was one who was revered by many of the art critics of the time and yet hated by others, who baulked at his general lack of interest in factual accuracy in his depictions and for disparaging important episodes in history by including unwarranted female nudity in his paintings.    It would appear that he refused to tone down his flamboyant lifestyle and was known as much for the outrageous society parties he held in his studio as for his works of art.  Let me introduce you to the Austrian painter, Hans Makart.

Mirabell Palace and Gardens, Salzburg

“Hans” Johann Evangelist Ferdinand Apolinaris Makart was born to Johann Makart and Maria Katharina Rüssemayr in Salzburg on May 28th, 1840. His father, an amateur painter, worked as the chamberlain of the Mirabell Palace, which was the home of the powerful Prince-Archbishop. Few facts are known about the early years of Makart, but because of his father’s job, it is thought that he grew up surrounded by the Neoclassical grandeur of this magnificent palace and its extensive Baroque gardens.  It is more than likely that living amongst the splendour of the palace with its luxurious furnishings influenced young Makart who would later in life indulge in the excesses of extravagance and ornamentation as depicted in his artwork as well as his work as a designer and decorator.

The Valkyrie by Hans Makart (1877)

It seems likely that his father, having failed as an artist, urged his young son to take up painting and to endeavour to succeed where he had been unsuccessful.  Sadly, in 1849, Hans Makart’s father died shortly after his son had celebrated his tenth birthday. A year after his father’s death the family moved to Vienna and Makart went to study painting under the Austrian painter, Johan Fischbach, at the Academy of Fine Arts, a public art school in Vienna. Living in Vienna, Makart immersed himself into the worldly life of the great capital, where the women were beautiful and elegant, where dress was held of paramount importance, and where Society balls and entertainments went on through the greater part of the year. In the midst of living such a life, the world Makart witnessed was seen on its brightest most appealing side, and as a young man his ideas were developed into a passion for beauty. From his time and experiences of life in Vienna, Makart could never paint a woman unless she was adorned in the most sumptuous clothes, and he could never help depicting the female with the grace and beauty that distinguished the ladies of the Austrian capital.

Die Japanerin by Hans Makart (1870)

However, Makart’s time at the Academy did not go well and as I have recounted many times in previous blogs, he, like many young aspiring painters, could not accept the precise structure and order of the Academy, as far as the teaching methodology and the type of artwork which those in charge celebrated. He was impatient to escape the endless routine of art school drawing. It was not for him and his stay at the Academy ended in 1851 when he was dismissed after only one year.  Those in authority at the Academy gave the reason for his dismissal as his lack of natural talent.  It could well have been that Makart’s love of intense colour, movement, and sensuality, a style which was similar to that of Titian or Rubens was unacceptable to the Academy hierarchy who wanted students to follow a more sombre, well-ordered classicism that still dictated academic art at the time.  Makart would develop his own recognisable style but that would be ten years in the future.

Die Liebesbrief (The Love Letter) by Hans Makart

Makart believed in himself and was completely impervious to criticism, whether it be his artistic style or his decadent lifestyle.  He was a rebel and proud of it.  He left Vienna and travelled to Munich where the next two years passed without him receiving any formal artistic tuition.  Makart became aware that he needed to learn the technique of his business — the mechanical side of it, so to speak — in short, to learn to paint and for that to happen he needed a good tutor. 

Sarah Bernhardt by Hans Makart (1881)

In 1853, Makart enrolled in the Munich Academy where he was tutored by the German realist painter Karl von Piloty, who was noted for his historical subjects, and recognised as the foremost representative of the realistic school in Germany.

Moderne Amoretten (Modern Cupids) by Hans Makart (1868)

In 1864, after studying under Piloty for some years, twenty-four-year-old Makart left Munich.  His confidence in his ability had been heightened during the years under the guidance of Piloty.  He was now full of self-confidence. During this early period, he perfected his highly decorative style. Makart also journeyed to London, Paris and Rome visiting all the major art galleries. In 1868, while he was staying in the Italian capital, Makart was invited to submit a piece for the opening of the Austria Artists’ Society in Vienna. Makart sent over his colossal three-part work Modern Cupids, along with painstaking instructions on how it should be displayed. All three paintings were bought by the Count Johann Palffy, who became one of Makart’s regular patrons. 

Dame mit Federhut in Rückenansicht (Lady with Feather Hat from Behind) by Hans Makart (1875)

It has to be said that Makart was neither totally impressed by Raphael’s Madonnas which he saw in Rome, nor was he moved by the gilded glories that crown the virgin martyrs, and there can be no doubt that the Italian capital failed to fire his soul.  However, when he moved to Venice all that was to change. It was the art he witnessed in that city that fired his imagination and would influence him for the rest of his life.  Makart had always been a devoted colourist and in Venice he witnessed the colourful works of Veronese, Titian and Tintoretto. These three Italian (Venetian) Masters were to be his mentors.  To him, they were inspirational.

Hans Makart’s Studio in Vienna

Makart’s artistic achievements came to be noticed by the Emperor of Austria, Franz Joseph who, in 1869, summoned him to work in Vienna.  Buoyed up by this prestigious support, Makart requested set of lavish apartments.  That request was denied but instead the Emperor arranged for Makart to be given a studio which had been converted from a disused foundry. Far from being disheartened, Makart transformed this industrial space into the plush, decadent heart of Viennese society. It was not just his art which was colourful.  His lifestyle was equally flamboyant and rich in vibrancy.  His studio, in the Ring-Strasse, at the heart of Vienna, was resplendent.  It was transformed into a ballroom-like space and decorated in lustrous colours.  It was here that he depicted females adorned in beautiful satin gowns in shimmering satin tones.  In his studio he surrounded himself with richly ornamented German chests of the Renaissance, Chinese idols, Greek terracotta, Smyrna carpets and old Italian and Netherlandish pictures mingling beside antique and medieval weapons.  The walls of his studio were covered with splendid vessels, weapons, sculpture and costumes. Makart turned his hand to interior design, costume design, furniture design and soft-decoration, and his studio overflowed with statues, flowers, fine fabrics, and music. It acted thus as the perfect artistic backdrop for his models – largely nude women – who were also welcomed into his high-society circle.

The Espousals of Catterina Cornaro by Hans Makart (c.1873)

A good example of Makart’s large colourful paintings is his work entitled  The  Espousals  of  Catterina  Cornaro, (Venice pays tribute to Caterina Cornaro), which he completed around 1873.  Caterina Cornaro was the last monarch of the Kingdom of Cyprus, also holding the titles of the Queen of Jerusalem and Armenia. She had been engaged by proxy to the King of Cyprus, James II Lusignan, since 1468, when she was just fourteen years old, and at the same time she was declared the daughter of the Republic of Venice. It was not until 1472 that she went to Cyprus for her wedding.  The painting depicts representatives from  Cyprus  and  Venice,  of  dignified  men, of  procurators  of  St.  Mark, of women in foreign garb of  bright colour,  who  crowd  round  their  young  mistress,  the  queen  of the  feast,  rejoicing,  amid  the  splendid  architecture  of  the piazza.  Sadly the marriage did not last long as eight months after the ceremony.  James died and according to his will Catherine, who was carrying his child, became regent.  Caterina’s son James died under suspicious circumstances in 1474 before his first birthday.

Death of Cleopatra by Hans Makart (1876)

Around 1875 Makart completed some paintings depicting the death of Cleopatra.  They both portray Cleopatra, the legendary queen of Egypt, contemplating suicide. The Roman Emperor Octavian’s forces had fought their way into Alexandria, and knowing that her country had fallen, Cleopatra withdrew to her tomb with her closest attendants, Iras and Charmion.  In one of the paintings, we see Cleopatra reclining on a bed of fabrics, semi-nude and wearing jewelry and her crown. To her left, one of her servants weeps, whilst just below the queen another has already died. A brazier burns on the left-hand side.

Death of Cleopatra by Hans Makart (1875)

In both paintings the asp is menacingly depicted.  It is a thin, black form with a tiny wisp of a tongue, and stands out against Cleopatra’s breast.  This adds a sense of eroticism, and danger to the painting which reminds us of the line from Shakespeare’s play, Anthony and Cleopatra:

“…The stroke of death is as a lover’s pinch, which hurts and is desired…”

There is a sensuous decadence about Makart’s depiction of Cleopatra’s naked, bejeweled body and the way his use of chiaroscuro picks out the stark whiteness of Cleopatra’s body, as if she were spot-lit on a stage.

Das Schlafende Schneewittchen (The Sleeping Snow White) by Hans Makart (1872)

Makart’s life in Vienna enabled him to immerse himself into the worldly life of the great Austrian capital, a city where the women were beautiful and elegantly dressed and where Society balls and entertainments are held throughout the greater part of the year. In the midst of living such a life, the world the painter witnessed was seen on its brightest side, and consequently, as a young man his ideas were developed into a passion for beauty.

The Dream after the Ball by Hans Makart

In 1878, Makart took a post as a professor at the Viennese Academy in 1878.  This was the very same institution which had expelled him for lack of artistic talent in the late 1850s. Two years later, he became the institution’s head of a particular school for historical painting, a position he held until he died. It was during this time that Makart, as teacher, met Klimt, one of his students. Klimt had an important role in continuing Makart’s legacy after his death. In addition to his position as a professor, Makart’s work kept him well-off and well-known. Even the negative comments regarding his art appeared to simply inspire him to strive more.

Statue of Hans Makart in Vienna City Park (“Stadtpark”)

Hans Makart died on October 3rd 1884, aged 44. He was buried in the Wiener Zentralfriedhof in Vienna. Makart influenced many painters who followed him, the most notable being Gustav Klimt, who is said to have idolized him. It can be seen in Klimt’s early style which is based in historicism and has clear similarities to Makart’s paintings. Jugendstil, the Austrian Art Nouveau, of which Klimt was a part and it has been suggested that primacy of sexual symbolism in Jugendstil artworks were influenced by the sensuality in many of Makart’s paintings.

Eppo Doeve

Eppo Doeve

After my blog on Anton Pieck the other week, I received a comment from Barbara Matthias, who asked me to look at the life and work of another Dutch painter, Eppo Doeve.  Having never heard of him, I was intrigued.  I managed to scrape together some information about his life and works of art he had completed, so here is a blog on the twentieth century painter and cartoonist.

Aardappeleters (Potato Eaters) by Eppo Doeve

Jozef Ferdinand (Eppo) Doeve was born on July 2nd 1907 in Bandung, the capital city of the Indonesian province of West Java in the Dutch East Indies.  He was the eldest child of a civil servant, Justin Theodorus Doeve and his wife Helena Rosina Kepel and he had four sisters. Both parents were of mixed European and Indian blood.  Eppie, as Doeve was called at home, went to a Catholic School run by the Ursuline Sisters and then later went through the local secondary education system.   Once Doeve had been awarded his diploma, he was allowed to make some trips through the Dutch East Indies. Because of his parents, Eppi developed a love and interest for plants and flowers and this made him choose to study agronomy in the Netherlands.  Agronomy is the science and technology of producing and using plants by agriculture for food, fuel, fibre, chemicals, recreation, or land conservation .  Of his dream for his future Doeve said:

“… I wanted to be a tea planter, somewhere near Garoet, there is nothing more delicious imaginable, isn’t there?…” 

A portrait of the actor Louis van Gasteren Senior by Eppo Doeve (1944)

Besides his love of plants and flowers, Doeve was a multi-talented child and was very artistic from an early age. He played various instruments and could draw well. He was also very humble and did not consider himself very special, despite the fact that he received painting commissions whilst he was still young but he still looked upon drawing and playing music as hobbies and, not being in any way, future professions.

Winston Churchill by Eppo Doeve

When Doeve was twenty he attended the Landbouwhoogeschool (Agricultural science college) in Wageningen in The Netherlands. He enjoyed student life and would contribute drawings to the monthly college magazine, Wagenische Studentencorps.  His love of music was also sated at the college as he was very busy with the jazz band of the association. All his plans and aspirations ended in the early 1930s after the tea market in India collapsed and it was a turning point in his life and his future plans had to be revisited.

Fisherwoman in Regional Costume by Eppo Doeve (1968)

Above all, Doeve wanted to stay in The Netherlands and not return to the Dutch East Indies, to do this he had to find a way to achieve that goal.  He realised that his drawing ability may be the secret to a new life.  He had already earned some money at the Amsterdam advertising agency De LaMar Advertising Company and was able to work regularly at the agency from 1932 onwards. Doeve went from there to other advertising companies and publishers, such as De Groene Amsterdammer, an independent Dutch weekly news magazine published in Amsterdam, and later he moved to the large publishing house, Haagsche Post. In the 1930s Doeve also worked on the Belgian magazine Radiobode, which listed radio programmes.   The magazine was first published in 1931 and had a circulation of approximately 20,000 copies. His graphic work for the Radiobode was loved and became collectables and was praised by such contemporary luminaries such as the young and up-and-coming illustrator, Fiep Westendorp, and one of Doeve’s young colleagues, Marten Toonder, a Dutch comic strip creator, born in Rotterdam and who became the most successful comic artist in the Netherlands

In 1953, Doeve became an even more famous Dutchman when he provided the sketch of Hugo de Groot,  the Dutch diplomat, lawyer, theologian and jurist, for the new 10 Guilden banknote.

1940 issue of Radio Bode with Eppo Doeve’s graphics for the Paul Vlaanderen series

In the 100th issue of Aether, the magazine about the history of broadcasting and phonography, published in July 2011, there is a drawing by Doeve with an article about radio plays. It is a drawing for the well-known AVRO radio play Paul Vlaanderen.  Paul Vlaanderen was the name of the fictional Dutch detective and was based on the novelist, Francis Durbridge’s character Paul Temple, who was a fictional detective in a long-running English radio serial, which first broadcast in 1938.

One of the many advert posters for Heineken Beer designed by Eppo Doeve

Doeve became skilled at every form of graphic art, without having had a formal education. He was commissioned to illustrate commercials, stage sets, book illustrations, and just simple paintings.   Doeve mastered them all.  One of his colleagues, Alexander Pola, commented:

“…He could do everything he wanted, and wanted everything he could…”

For the Dutch weekly magazine, Elseviers Weekblad, he submitted articles, illustrations and political prints.  In addition, he regularly appeared on television. After years of being called J.F. Doeve in the press, he was then referred to by his nickname Eppo.

Portrait of Tinnie van der Elzen by Eppo Doeve (1940)

Eppo Doeve was also a fine portrait artist as can be seen in his 1940 work entitled Portrait of Eugenia Henriette Maria (Tinnie) van der Elzen.  She was Doeve’s first wife, the daughter of a well-to-do family in Arnhem, whom he married in July 1934.  In the background, a landscape is visible in which the castle of Cannenburgh (Vaassen) can be identified.

Poster for Eppo Doeve Retrospective

This painting was exhibited during the retrospective exhibition Eppo Doeve Terug in Wageningen in 2019. Doeve painted the portrait in the typical ‘magisch realisme‘ (magic realism) style of the late 1930’s, an artistic genre in which realistic narrative and naturalistic technique are combined with surreal elements of dream or fantasy.

Portrait of the artist André van der Burght at the age of 63 by Eppo Doeve

Jozef Ferdinand (Eppo) Doeve died on June 11th 1981, aged 73. After his death, piles of beautiful drawings were discovered in his studio.

Eppo Doeve in his studio (August 1954)

The studio was a chaotic mess and many sketches were found behind the heater and at the bottom of the cupboards, almost as if he had hidden them.

Joseph Farquharson RA

Self Portrait (1882)

We are approaching a time when we have to expect very cold weather and for some of us the oncoming of snow.  So as we are at the beginning of the Christmas month I thought I would treat you to some snowy scenes by one of the greatest exponent of such panoramas.  Permit me to introduce the nineteenth century Scottish painter, Joseph Farquharson, whose snowy winter landscape paintings were featured on many Christmas cards.

Joseph Farquharson was born in Edinburgh on May 4th 1846.  He was the son of Francis Farquharson, a doctor and laird of Finzean in Kincardineshire. Joseph’s brother Robert was a highly respected physician and local Member of Parliament.  Joseph’s mother, Alison Mary Ainslie, was a celebrated beauty, one of the daughters of the lawyer Robert Ainslie, who was a close friend of the poet Robert Burns.

Road to Loch Maree by Joseph Farquharson

Joseph’s early days were spent in his father’s house in Northumberland Street Edinburgh, below the Queen Street Gardens.  Later the family moved to Edinburgh’s Eaton Terrace and finally to the family estate at Finzean, in Aberdeenshire. Joseph was brought up in a strict family environment and was educated in Edinburgh.  Although his father encouraged him to sketch and paint and even let him use his own set of paints, he only allowed his son to paint on Saturdays.  Joseph developed his artistic skills and at the age of twelve, Francis Farquharson bought his son his first set of paints and a year later Joseph exhibited his first painting at the Royal Scottish Academy.

Joseph Farquharson’s first formal art training came in the 1860’s when he enrolled at the Trustees’ Academy in Edinburgh, the forerunner of the Edinburgh School of Art where his tutors included the landscape painter, Peter Graham R.A. who would be a constant influence on Farquharson and Graham’s style can be seen in many of Joseph’s works.  Joseph then spent time at the Life School of the Royal Scottish Academy.

Day’s Dying Glow by Joseph Farquharson (1873)

Joseph Farquharson’s first exhibit at the Royal Academy, was in 1873 when his 1873 painting, Day’s Dying Glow, was on display.

Mrs Farquharson of Finzean (the artist’s stepmother) by Joseph Farquhardson (1871)

Farquharson followed the trend of other leading Scottish artists and concentrated on exhibiting his work in London rather than Edinburgh and Glasgow, as this was where the opportunity to sell their work was the greatest.  Besides his Scottish landscape scenes, Joseph was also a a talented portrait painter and his first portrait to be exhibited was of his stepmother, Mary Ann Girdwood Farquharson, which he completed in 1871.

A Scottish Interior, the Box Bed by Joseph Farquharson (c.1874)

Joseph Farquharson produced a realist genre painting around 1874 entitled A Scottish Interior, the Box Bed which depicts a bed inside a cupboard and table and chair in a kitchen/bedroom/living room. The free-standing box or press bed developed into a very sophisticated piece of furniture, when cabinet-makers designed “secret” press beds disguised as wardrobes or sideboards, or hidden behind rows of bookshelves and drawers, even when there was no pressure on space, and no need to provide a mini-bedroom within a shared living area.

The Joyless Winter’s Day by Joseph Farquharson (1883)

However, Joseph Farquharson will be remembered for his bleak wintry landscapes often depicting sheep and the shepherd. One such painting can be seen in London’s Tate Britain, entitled The Joyless Winter’s Day which he completed in 1883. Despite blizzard conditions, Farquharson painted this en plein air although, he was in the relative comfort of his specially constructed mobile painting hut, which had the added benefit of a stove. This relative comfort enabled Farquharson to capture the remarkably realistic effects of a snow storm. Before you worry about the health of the sheep I have to tell you that those you see were made in plaster by a local sculptor

Sheep in a Snowstorm by Joseph Farquharson

Farquharson was famed for his Scottish snow scenes, and with the exception of 1914, he had a new painting exhibited at the Royal Academy every year between 1894 and 1925. . Farquharson combined a career as an artist with his inheritied responsibility as laird of the Finzean estate in Aberdeenshire, where many of his landscapes were painted.

The Stormy Blast by Joseph Farquharson (1898)

But it was not just about snow and blizzards.

The Winding Dee by Joseph Farquharson (1889)

Some of his landscape paintings depicted the beauty of the Highlands, such as his 1889 painting featuring the River Dee, which rises in the Cairngorms and flows through southern Aberdeenshire to reach the North Sea at Aberdeen.

Corn Stooks by Joseph Farquharson (1880)

Harvesting, Forest of Birse, Aberdeenshire (1900)

Some of his paintings depicted the agricultural times in rural communities during the summer months.

When the West with Evening Glows by Joseph Farquharson (1901)

One of Farquharson’s greatest skills was his ability to depict scenes at sunrise and sunset as this can be seen in his beautiful 1901 painting entitled When the West with Evening Glows. It is a snowy winter landscape, and we look along a snow-covered path, which runs through fields, with groups of trees on either side, as seen in the mid ground of the painting. In foreground we see freshly-made footprints in the deep snow, with three crows having landed close to the footprints. The whole scene is illuminated by the warm glow of the rising sun from behind the hills in the background.

When the West with Evening Glows by Joseph Farquharson (1910)

The above 1910 painting is a slightly smaller version of the work which is owned by the Royal Academy. This version was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1910 and now hangs in the collection of the Bristol Museum & Art Gallery. This painting was a commission Farquharson received from one of his patrons, who failed in his bid to buy the larger original version. Farquharson often copied his own paintings in order to satisfy his clients’ requests, or to provide an original for engravers tasked with the reproduction of a successful composition. It was such a popular painting with the public that thousands of prints of this work were sold. In his 1913 essay in the Christmas edition of the Art Annual, The Art of Joseph Farquharson, A.R.A, Archdeacon William Macdonald wrote about these popular works:

“…There is not one of Farquharson’s pastoral landscapes which is not treated from the contemplative or poetic point of view: the poetry of snow either in its suggestion of desolation, or of the endurance of peasantry life, or the exquisite beauty of rare tints in the sun or moon on deep snow surfaces and seen through leafless trees… and the varied voices with which Nature elevates us from the prosaic, the commonplace and the ugly in her countless moods…”

Market on the Nile by Joseph Farquharson (1893) 

The Orange Seller by Joseph Farquharson (1893)

For the first four years of the 1880’s Farquharson spent the winters in Paris and studied with Carolus-Duran who installed in the minds of his students the importance of using the brush straight away and to think in terms of form and colour. In 1885 Farquharson went to North Africa. Among the works created during the subsequent 8 years were The Egyptian and On the Banks of the Nile opposite Cairo

On the Banks of the Nile opposite Cairo by Joseph Farquharson

Joseph Farquharson was elected Associate of the Royal Academy in July 1900, Royal Academician in February 1915 and finally, Senior Royal Academician in 1922.

Beneath the Snow Encumbered Branches by Joseph Farquharson (1901)

In addition to exhibiting over 200 works at the Royal Academy he showed seventy-three at the Royal Society of Arts and one hundred and eighty-one at the Fine Art Society. He also exhibited at the Royal College of Art and Tate Britain. The renowned artist-critic, Walter Sickert made Farquharson the subject of an essay comparing him favourably with Gustave Courbet. In it he extolled Farquharson’s tension and realism and criticized the pretension of his polar opposites, the Bloomsbury Group, who he wrote “fortunately does not run in the North of Scotland”. The remarkable realism of Farquharson’s work can be attributed to his desire to work en plein air. Farquharson painted so many scenes of cattle and sheep in snow he was nicknamed ‘Frozen Mutton Farquharson’

Farquharson inherited the title of Laird in 1918 after the death of his elder brother Robert. Joseph Farquharson died on April 15th 1935, three weeks before his eighty-ninth birthday..

Anton Pieck

Anton Pieck

When one thinks of artists, one looks to the greats such as Veronese or Goya or Turner and some are maybe somewhat “sniffy” when graphic artists and illustrators are lumped together with such luminaries.  My artist today was reviled by serious art lovers for his artwork being petty kitsch. Still, friend and foe had to admit that he was an accomplished draftsman with a highly unique, instantly recognizable and barely imitated style. However, whether you love or hate his work my featured artist today is one of the great illustrators of his time and whose works have brought unbridled happiness to many.  For those who have never seen any of his works, let me introduce you to the Dutch graphic artist Anton Pieck.

Anton Pieck aged 1 year-old, on the left, next to his twin brother Henri Pieck

Anton Franciscus Pieck and his twin brother, Henri, were born in the Dutch town of Den Helder on April 19th, 1895.  He was the son of Henri Christiaan Pieck, who was a machinist in the Royal Dutch Navy, so he was often away from home for lengths of time. His wife was Stofffelina Petronella Neijts who gave birth to their first child, Coenraad, in 1891 but who died when he was just one year old.   Anton’s twin brother Henri Christiaan became a Dutch architect, painter and graphic artist but who would lead a different, more exciting and dangerous life than his brother Anton. As an adult Henri became active within the Dutch Communist Party, and was recruited as a spy for Soviet Russia. Henri’s artistic interests differed from those of Anton as his main love was modern art, whereas Anton loved old-fashioned illustrations and paintings . When the twins were six years old, they took drawing lessons from J. B. Mulders, who ran after-school art classes at their school. He recognized the talent of the twins and taught them the basics of perspective and proportion, and these lessons quickly bore fruit.  When he was ten, Anton won a prize at an exhibition for his still life watercolour depicting a brown pot on an old stove, and in recognition, among other things, he received five tubes of watercolour paints.  More awards followed during his teenage years.

River Spaarne and the Bakenesser Tower by Anton Pieck

In 1906, after Anton’s father retired, the family moved to live in The Hague. Anton and his brother, after finishing secondary school, enrolled on a drawing course in the evenings at the Royal Academy of Art. They later received training at the drawing institute Bik and Vaandrager.  When the brothers were aged fourteen, they obtained the first stage of their teaching certificate and 3 years later they completed their teaching certificates and were able to call themselves drawing teachers.  Anton went to teach at his old school, Bik and Vaandrager. Henri Pieck was considered the better artist of the twins and is allowed to go to the Academy of Fine Arts in Amsterdam. This was a personal blow to Anton who never came to terms with the fact that his twin brother was looked upon as the more skillful artist. One could almost say that Henri was looked upon as an artist whereas Anton was looked upon as a drawing teacher!

During the First World War the Netherlands remained neutral, but still many young Dutchmen were mobilized so as to be on standby in case their country became embroiled in the fighting.  Anton Pieck was one of those men and became a sergeant, however he spent most of his spare time sketching for his fellow recruits. A somewhat damning psychological army report on him in 1915 described Pieck as:

“…someone who looks more at the past than the future and will therefore never amount to anything…”

Not considered as “fighting material” and unlikely to be used for military duties, Pieck was sent back to The Hague, where he gave drawing lessons to other soldiers. This was pure heaven for Anton as for four evenings a week he would oversee two-hour sketching lessons.   Pieck was then able to spend all his time doing what he loved best.

A boat on the River Amstel near Ouderkerk with the house “Wester Amstel” by Anton Pieck

When Anton graduated from the Bik en Vaandrager Institute, they offered him the position as an art teacher which he accepted and held the position until 1920.  He then applied and was accepted as an art teacher at the newly established Kennemer Lyceum, a high school in the Haarlem suburb of Overeen.  He would continue to work there until his retirement in 1960 at the age of 65.  Throughout those years teaching students, he always made time for his own work.

Hofje van Loo with communal water pump by Anton Piecke. The Hofje (Courtyard) van Loo is a hofje on the Barrevoetstraat 7 in Haarlem

Teaching art was not his great love and he was never quite satisfied with his job and he couldn’t wait for his daily teaching duties to end so that he could dash home and continue drawing and painting. However, being employed as a teacher gave him financial stability and this in turn gave him the comfort of only choosing commissions which pleased him, rather than being forced to work on work he disliked. Whilst employed at the school as a teacher, Anton would also illustrate diplomas, bulletins, ex-libris bookplates, birth cards and other administrative documents for his school.

The River Spaarne with the Waag building designed by Lieven de Key at the end of the 16th century by Anton Pieck

In the 1920’s Anton Pieck published his first drawings. It was also around this time that Anton forged a close friendship with the Flemish novelist Felix Timmermans and it is said that Timmermans’ jovial attitude rubbed off on Pieck whom he advised to “lighten up” and be more spontaneous and follow his own spirit.

A recent edition of Felix Timmerman’s book.

For the 10th edition of Timmerman’s very successful book, Pallieter, published in 1921, Timmermans asked Pieck to provide the illustrations to go side-by-side with the text. Through correspondence, Timmermans indicated what he wanted to see on the illustrations. The book was described as an ‘ode to life’ written after a moral and physical crisis. Pallieter was warmly received as an antidote to the misery of World War I in occupied Belgium. For Pieck, this was just a start of his book illustration journey as he went on to illustrate about 350 books. 

In 1921 Pieck illustrated Felix Timmermans’ book Pallieter by the Flemish author Felix Timmermans.  As the book was set in Flanders Pieck decided to visit there to soak up the atmosphere in the various towns.  Above is an ink illustration from one of the chapters, A beautiful winter day in which the main character, Pallieter, goes out on a clear winter day and hears organ music. He heads towards the sound, but only sees two children playing with mud.

Anton Pieck’s way of announcing the birth of son Max Pieck sent to all the staff of the Kennemer Lyceum in 1928

In 1917, Anton Pieck met Jo van Poelvoorde, the sister of fellow soldier Hendrik van Poelvoorde. Jo was a teacher at the Royal Dutch Weaving School. Her first impressions of Anton were that he was friendly, but also taciturn and absent. Gradually he opened up more and became more talkative. Anton and Jo entered into a relationship and twenty-seven-year-old Anton Pieck married twenty-nine-year-old Josephina Johanna Lambertina (Jo) van Poelvoorde, on March 8th 1922 at The Hague. After the marriage the couple moved to Overveen. From their marriage three children were born, Elsa, Anneke and Max.

Harpenden Engeland by Anton Pieck

Throughout his life, Anton was an enthusiastic traveller and visited England, France, Ireland, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Poland and Morocco during which he built up a collection of sketches.  He was a great lover of quaint buildings and had no interest in modern architecture.  For him, it was a joy to study nature as well as picturesque cities and villages. He was so in love with Belgium and England that he termed them “his second mother countries” as their towns had not been “ruined” by modernisation as had happened in his homeland The Netherlands.

The ruins of Brederode in Santpoort by Anton Pieck (c.1950)

Anton Pieck was a twentieth century man as he only lived his first five years in the nineteenth century.  Having said that, Pieck loved to look back with pleasure on what he considered to be a more appealing century – the nineteenth century.

The Warmoesstraat, Amsterdam by Anton Pieck

He had fallen in love with the Dickensian era and had completed many paintings, drawings, etchings and engravings depicting Dickensian scenes. He depicted gentlemen in high hats or ladies adorned in crinoline, people taking coach rides, watching a magic lantern show or listening to barrel organs or chamber concerts.  All such scenes gave him great pleasure and they all contributed to his artistic ideal. Anton Pieck was adamant that when it came to commissions, he would only accept those which allowed him to illustrate novels or short stories set in bygone days.

Greeting card of Winchester by Anton Pieck

What Pieck liked to depict were things which looked old or dilapidated.   Buildings and their interiors which were crooked and looked ramshackle and run-down.  For Anton, nothing was to look new or be built completely straight. Anton’s first visit to England appears to have been around 1937 when, on a voyage by ship to North Africa, he had managed to come ashore in Southampton and was able to made sketches of some of the old commercial buildings and to visit the city of Winchester where he sketched some of the old Tudor buildings and historic inns, one of which was turned into a greetings card.

Besides prints and greeting cards, calendars were produced each year with a selection of Anton Pieck’s drawings.

He would also produce a number of ex libris bookplates, a book owner’s identification label that was usually pasted to the inside front cover of a book. Above is one he created for his son, Max. 

Anton Pieck’s vision for De Efteling

Anton Pieck’s work over the years and his popularity with the Dutch people was probably in the minds of  the mayor of Loon op Zand, R.J. van der Heijden and filmmaker Peter Reijnders who had envisioned the building of a fantasy-themed amusement park, De Efteling, in Kaatsheuvel in the Dutch province of North Brabant in 1951, named after a 16th-century farm named Ersteling.  The men approached Anton Pieck to design the theme park but he initially refused but later changed his mind on the proviso that only original materials are used for building the houses, such as coloured roof tiles and old stones.  Anton then set about designing het Sprookjesbos, the fairy tale forest.

Anton Pieck at Efteling

Initially, the Fairy Tale Forest was designed and based upon ten different fairy tales, all of which were brought to life using original drawings by Pieck.  Added to Pieck’s designs were mechanics, lighting and sound effects designed by the Dutch filmmaker Peter Reijnders. The life-sized dioramas, shown together in an atmospheric forest, were a incredible success and in 1952, the first full year, Efteling was open, it had 240,000 visitors and since 1978, the park has grown in size and is now become one of the most popular theme parks in the world.

Frau Holle at Efteling

Pieck designed all the houses, buildings and the special animatronic inhabitants who were inhabitants of the fairy tale forest, such as Little Red Riding Hood at her grandma’s house, Sleeping Beauty’s castle, Frau Holle’s well and Hansel and Gretel’s gingerbread house.  Frau Holle, also known as Mother Hulda, is a German fairy tale character from the 1812 book, The Grimm Brothers’ Children’s and Household Tales (Grimms’ Fairy Tales). 

Frau Holle by Anton Pieck

Frau Holle is often depicted shaking out bed linen over an outside balcony then it begins to snow.  It is still a common expression in Hesse and Southern parts of the Netherlands and beyond to say “Hulda is making her bed” when it begins to snow.  Like many other tales collected by the Brothers Grimm, the story of Frau Holle was also a moral tale explaining that hard work is rewarded and laziness is punished.

Anton Pieck Museum

Anton Pieck retired from teaching in 1960.  He was made a Knight in the Order of Orange-Nassau. Pieck died on November 24th 1987 at the age of 92. Three years before his death the Anton Pieck Museum House for Anton Pieck was opened in Hattem,  a municipality and a town in the eastern Netherlands.

Anton Pieck loved nature, the past and Dutch cityscapes. Sadly, during the course of the 20th century, large swathes of that old Netherlands he loved disappeared due to bombing during the war, the renovation and rejuvenation of the city centers from the 1960’s and the construction of the complicated road network. As a result, Anton became sad and depressed at what he witnessed during his latter years, saying in 1985:

“… Yes, I have known this country very well. What is still there now, I see as a mess of the past. That makes me sad, yes…”

Whatever you may think about the artistic style of Anton Pieck, one has to feel warmed by the depictions and undergo a desire to be back in olden days when life may have been simpler, or was it ?

Emma Hilma Amalia Löwstädt-Chadwick

The artist I am looking at today was one of several successful Swedish female artists who spent time studying in Paris during the 1880s. Her artwork was displayed every year at the great Paris Salons as well as in Sweden.  Let me introduce you to Emma Hilma Amalia Löwstädt-Chadwick.

Portrait of Emma by her husband by Francis Brooks Chadwick

Emma Hilma Amalia Löwstädt was born in Stockholm on August 10th, 1855. Her father was Carl Rudolf Löwstädt, a well-off and well-respected businessman whose successful business acumen had made him one of Stockholm’s leading tailors.  Rudolf was a fervent and active communist, who had adopted his political stance during his time as an apprentice in Paris where he had become friends with the philosopher Etienne Cabet.  Emma’s mother was Carolina née Nordqvist. Emma’s paternal grandfather was Carl Theodor Löwstädt, a painter of miniatures, an illustrator, and a lithographer. 

Eva Löwstädt-Åström portrait by her sister Emma Löwstädt-Chadwick

Emma Löwstädt was the second eldest of five children. Her mother Carolina died when Emma was just nine years old, a few weeks after she had given birth to her youngest child, Eva. Eva later went on to also become a well-known artist, Eva Löwstädt-Åström.

French landscape shepherd with pigs by Emma Lowstadt Chadwick

Emma loved to paint and draw as a young girl and her father, who had once hoped to become a painter, encouraged her in her artistic pursuits.  His support and his financial resources meant that he could help his daughter, not just financially, but also through assisting her in every way he could whilst she resided abroad.  Emma started her artistic education at the Technical School, then studied at the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm from 1874 to 1880.

Interior with woman by Emma Lowstadt Chadwick

Her classmates included aspiring, and soon to be well-known, artists such as Julia Beck, Carolina Benedicks-Bruce, Eva Bonnier, Mina Carlson-Bredberg, Karin Larsson, and Jenny Nyström. Emma shone as a student, gained approving attention for her artwork and won many prizes in the annual competitions held by the Royal Swedish Academy of Art.

Off to Sea by Emma Löwstädt-Chadwick

During the summer of 1879 Emma spent time on the Breton coast where she was able to practice the new French trends of Impressionism and painting en plein air. Her motifs included flocks of sheep, at the seaside as well as depicting the lives of people who lived in the northern coastal towns of France. This style of painting which Emma embraced was so different from what she had been taught and had practiced at the Royal Swedish Academy of Art.

Beach Parasol, Brittany (Portrait of Amanda Sidwall) by Emma Löwstäd (1880)

One of her most famous paintings whilst she was travelling around the towns on the Brittany coast was entitled Beach Parasol, Brittany (Portrait of Amanda Sidwall), which she completed in 1880. It depicted her friend Amanda Stilwell painting en plein air on the beach. Amanda Sitwell, like Emma, had studied at the women’s department of the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts and then gone to Paris  to continued her studies under Tony-Robert Fleury at the Académie Julian.  

The Card Party by Emma Löwstädt-Chadwick

In 1880 Emma Löwstädt-Chadwick returned to Paris from Brittany and enrolled at Académie Julian, which, at the time, was one of the few private schools which accepted female students. Emma’s teachers were Jean-Charles Cazin and Tony Robert-Fleury. During her first year as a student one of her paintings was accepted for display at the Paris Salon,  This, to her, was a great achievement, as all artists fought to get their work accepted at such a prestigious event.  Acceptance was a form of recognition, which could lead to public mentions as well as gold and silver medals. Her paintings were accepted at the Salon every year throughout the 1880’s and into the 1890’s and her works would be at the Salon as late as in 1924. In 1887 she received special mention at the Salon for her painting entitled Five o’clock tea.

Woman and Child by Emma Löwstädt-Chadwick

Emma Löwstädt, after completing her studies at Académie Julian in Paris, travelled south to the village of Grez-sur-Loing.  Beautiful landscapes had always played a prominent part in the artistic education of the painter and Grez had that beauty in abundance.  Grez-sur-Loing had once been an artistic retreat for American and British artists during the latter years of the 1870’s, but later became the focal point for the Scandinavian, although predominantly Swedish, artists. From 1880 until the turn-of-the-century, the colony at Grez-sur-Loing thrived, providing an abundant source of inspiration for Swedish artists, all of whom sought an escape from the hustle-and-bustle of life in the French capital.

Portrait of her husband, Francis Chadwick by Emma Löwstädt-Chadwick

It was whilst living in Grez-sur-Loing that Emma met the wealthy Bostonian painter, Francis Chadwick , who was an important and innovative figure in the American art world in the late nineteenth century. Chadwick was a portrait, figure and landscape painter, and he became part of the expatriate American art community at Grez.  Emma and Chadwick eventually fell in love and in 1882 the couple married.

Pension Laurent in Grez-sur-Loing by  Elias Erdtman (1886)

They had a house built there and later purchased Pension Laurent, which was one of only two boarding houses in Grez-sur-Loing.  Emma’s husband was a wealthy man which allowed the couple to live a carefree life, and they travelled together on many painting-trips to a variety of countries such as America, Spain, North Africa, Italy, and Great Britain, providing new motifs for Emma Löwstädt-Chadwick’s paintings.

Resting by Emma Löwstädt-Chadwick

Emma Löwstädt-Chadwick had her work exhibited at the World’s Fairs held in Paris in 1889 and in 1900 and she received an “honourable mention” in 1889 for her painting entitled Fångvakterska. More of her work appeared at the World’s Fair in Chicago in 1893 part of a group exhibition by twenty Swedish female artists exhibiting there in The Women’s Building. With her husband she lived an expatriate artistic life moving between Cornwall, London and France, where they spent much time with the artists’ colony at Grez sur Loing.

Emma Löwstädt-Chadwick depicted in Swedish Journal, Idun nr 50, 1892.

In later life, she had transitioned from painting to etching and her graphics were popular with Parisian collectors. Her motifs for her etchings were much the same as for her painting: genre pictures with peasants and fishermen and quiet interiors, but she also executed a series of very suggestive Paris images.

The Young Mother by Emma Löwstädt-Chadwick

In 1885, Emma Löwstädt-Chadwick was one of 84 artists who signed up to the Opponentrörelsen (Opponent Movement), a protest against the stultified Royal Swedish Academy of Art and its teaching methodology.  The protest group was led by Ernst Josephson and in 1885, the members submitted their written demands to the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts for a modernization and reform of art education, exhibition activities and support for artists.  The demands were rejected by the Academy and so the group formed the the Konstnärsförbundet (‘the Artists’ Association’) and the following year, Emma Löwstädt-Chadwick joined the group and took part in several of their exhibitions.

Sleeping Child by Emma Löwstädt-Chadwick

My favourite painting by Emma is her 1885 work entitled Sleeping Child.  Emma has managed to capture the sleeping figure in an immediate and moving manner. In a way, it is a study of the vulnerability of small children in our culture.  Emma Löwstädt-Chadwick, through the medium of her paintings, wanted to study the home, human relations and our basic need for mutual recognition.  It is truly a beautiful depiction of an innocent child.

Portrait of a Girl (thought to be one of her daughters) by Emma Löwstädt-Chadwick

Emma Löwstädt-Chadwick died in Avignon on January 2nd 1932, aged 76.

Anne Goldthwaite

Anna Goldthwaite Self Portrait

The artist I am showcasing today is a lady who hailed from the American Deep South.  Anne Wilson Goldthwaite was born into a genteel Montgomery, Alabama family on June 28th, 1869.  She was a true daughter of the South and the oldest of four siblings. Her father was Richard Wallach Goldthwaite, who served as an artillery captain for the Confederacy during the Civil War and the son of Alabama senator George Goldthwaite.

Portrait of a Young Man by Anna Goldthwaite (1913)

Her family moved to Dallas,Texas when she was young and remained there for the majority of her childhood while her father looked for work.  After her parents both died, in the early 1880s, she and her siblings were taken back to Alabama where they lived with different relations. Anne went to live with her aunt Molly Arrington and her aunt’s nine children.  Her aunt presented her to society as a promising young debutante who was destined to become a southern belle. However this ended when her fiancé was killed in a duel.

 

As a teenager Anne liked to sketch and paint and soon developed into a talented artist, so much so, that in 1898, one of her uncles, Henry Goldthwaite, who was so impressed by her artistic talent, he offered to pay for her to have private art tuition.  He offered to support her financially for up to ten years if she relocated to New York City to study art. Anne Goldthwaite accepted his offer and arrived in New York around 1898.  She then enrolled at the National Academy of Design, where she studied etching with the German-born immigrant, Charles Mielatz and was tutored in painting by the Scottish-American painter and illustrator, Walter Shirlaw and American artist, Francis Coates Jones.

Young Mother by Anne Goldthwaite

She also spent one summer in Princeton, New Jersey, in the 1890’s, where she met then-professor Woodrow Wilson who had been appointed by Princeton to the Chair of Jurisprudence and Political Economy.  Two decades later he would become the twenty-eighth President of the United States.  He commissioned her to paint a portrait of his wife.

Young Nude Woman in a Hat by Anne Goldthwaite

In 1906, Anne Goldthwaite decided to travel to Paris to further her interest in the early modern painting styles of Fauvism and Cubism.

4 Rue de Chevreuse, Paris by Anne Goldthwaite (1908)

On her arrival in Paris Anne headed for the American Girls Art Club at 4 rue de Chevreuse, on the Left Bank.   The property was built by the Duc de Chevreuse and back in the 18th century it was the Dagoty porcelain factory. Later, in 1834,  it was turned into a Protestant school for boys called the Keller Institute.  It was in the 1890’s that Elisabeth Mills Reid, a wealthy American philanthropist and wife of the American ambassador, had the idea to turn it into a residential club for American women artists in Paris.  Anne Goldthwaite made this her base for the next six years.  According to Mariea Caudill Dennison’s article in the Woman’s Art Journal (2005) entitled The American Girls’ Club in Paris: The Propriety and Imprudence of Art Students, 1890-1914, Anne viewed the Club as a “chateau that was not a club at all, but a glorified pension for American women art students. We paid little board and lived in the midst of luxury and romance”

One day, while she was at the Luxembourg Gardens sketching, she met American writer Gertrude Stein. After a long conversation, Stein invited Anne to visit her apartment, but Anne was somewhat wary due to Stein’s scruffy appearance but eventually she agreed. Goldthwaite recalls Stein describing her as

“…a large, dark woman…who looked something like an immense brown egg. She wore, wrapped tight around her, a brown kimono-like garment and a large flat black hat, and stood on feet covered with wide sandals…”

Gertrude Stein’s legendary Montparnasse apartment at 27 rue de Fleurus

Despite Anne having doubts about Gertrude Stein, she was impressed with what she saw in Stein’s apartment.  A large collection of contemporary paintings hung on the walls.  Little did Anne realise that this chance meeting with Gertrude Stein, the most influential pre-war and avant-garde person of the time, would provide her with an opportunity to join the art circle of Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso. In her memoirs, Goldthwaite wrote about he visit to Stein’s apartment:

“…Crossing a little pebbled court, we went into a beautiful large studio filled with antique Italian furniture. The walls were covered with the most remarkable pictures I had ever seen. I knew they must be pictures because they were framed and hanging on the walls […] There was what I know now was a head by Picasso, looking like a design made of the backbones of fish; “Le Joie de Vivre [sic] ” by Matisse; a small grey canvas by Cezanne, and a yellow nude on a peach-colored background, the feet hanging down as in an ascension […] This was my introduction to what we now call Modern Art, made some six days after my arrival in Paris. It was with surprise, later, that I saw American students who had been in Paris a long time, yet had not heard the names of Matisse, Picasso, et. al., and had never heard of l’Art Moderne, or if they had, thought it completely negligible …”

Anne was adamant that but for Gertrude Stein, Modernism would not have arrived in America. A page from her unpublished memoirs testifies to this belief. She wrote:

Page from the memoirs of Anne Goldthwaite

“Cones” refers to the Baltimore Cone sister, Dr Claribel and Etta Cone, who from 1898 to 1949 amassed a collection of primarily post-impressionist and modern French masterpieces.

Anne Goldthwaite later recalled her time in Paris and wrote:

“…Fate gave me several years in Paris at the most exciting time: during the great reconstruction from art to modern art…”

During her stay in Paris Anne moved from one atelier to another searching for a teacher that she could work with.  Eventually, she joined a small group of young artists called Académie Moderne.  This was a free art school in Paris, founded by Fernand Léger and Amédée Ozenfant who also taught at the academy.  The school attracted students from Europe and America.  They also held an exhibition each spring and their work was periodically critiqued by the post-impressionist painter, Charles Guerin.

The House on the Hill by Anne Goldthwaite (1911)

According to an article in the American Art Annual published in 1911, Anne served as president of the American Woman’s Art Association (AWAA) which was based at the The American Girl’s Club, from 1910-1911.

Cottage in Alabama by Anne Goldthwaite (c.1920)

In 1913, the Association of American Painters and Sculptors, also known as the International Exhibition of Modern Art organised a grand art exhibition.  It was the first large exhibition of modern art in America, and a shocking introduction of Modernism to an American audience. It was an exhibition that had been held in the vast spaces of U.S. National Guard armories.  It was a three-city exhibition which started in New York City’s 69th Regiment Armory, on Lexington Avenue between 25th and 26th Streets, on February 17th and ran until March 15th.   The exhibition then moved to the Art Institute of Chicago and finally arrived at The Copley Society of Art in Boston.  The Armory exhibition, as it became known, was an important event in the history of American art for it introduced Americans, who were accustomed to realistic art, to the experimental styles of the European avant-garde, which included Fauvism and Cubism. The show acted as a catalyst for American artists, who wanted to become more independent and by so doing, create their own artistic language.  Upon her return to America in 1913, Anne Goldthwaite exhibited two of her works at the New York Armory exhibition.  One was entitled The Church on the Hill, now known as The House on the Hill which she had completed around 1911.  The other painting was entitled Prince’s Feathers.

Rebecca by Anne Goldthwaite (c.1925)

Now back in America, Anne lived most of her adult years in New York but travelled south during the summer months to spend time with her family.  She became a member of the Dixie Art Colony in Wetumpka, Alabama, which was thought to be one of the Deep South’s first art colonies. These summers she spent in and around Montgomery established Anne Goldthwaite as one of the South’s most important regional artists for the period.  During this time she often depicted rural African Americans in their post-slavery contexts in oil paintings, watercolours, and etchings.

Women’s suffrage march on New York’s Fifth Ave. in 1915

Anne Goldthwaite’s politics were said to be progressive and she was a staunch supporter of women’s suffrage, serving on the organizing committee for the 1915 Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture by Women Artists for the Benefit of the Women’s Suffrage Campaign, open from September 27-October 18, 1915 at the Macbeth Gallery in New York which coincided with the Women’s Suffrage March held that year in New York during which it was said that 20,000 supporters attended.

The Atmore Post Office mural: The Letter Box, by Anne Goldthwaite, 1938

The Atmore, Alabama Post Office

The Great Depression hit America at the end of 1929 and lasted almost ten years.  It was both a financial depression and a mental depression which affected many American citizens.  The American government thought that cheering people up during these hard times was something they needed to achieve.  It was part of the New Deal, a series of programs, public works projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1939.  One of the projects in the New Deal was the Public Works of Art Project which was developed to bring artist workers back into the job market and assure the American public that better financial times were on the way. The idea was to employ artists to beautify American government buildings.  The mission of the post office murals was multifaceted – to boost morale in communities, employ artists by the thousands and create world-class art that was accessible to everyone. The murals revolved around local folklore, landscapes, industry and, unsurprisingly, mail delivery. They told the story of life across the United States.

Tuskegee Post Office mural: The Road to Tuskegee, by Anne Goldthwaite, 1937

Anne Goldthwaite had two of her murals accepted for Alabama post offices.  One was in the town of Atmore, the other was in the town of Tuskegee. The Road to Tuskegee mural painted in 1937 by Anne Goldthwaite was restored and moved to the new Tuskegee post office in 1996.

Portrait of Frances Greene Nix by Anne Goldthwaite (c.1940)

Anne Goldthwaite executed a number of portrait commissions, one being that of Frances Nimmo Greene Nix, the Museum Director, Artist, Portrait Painter, and Writer.  Frances was clerk, director, and curator of the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts and studied with Anne Goldthwaite.

Goldthwaite’s work is included in the permanent collections of The Metropolitan Museum, Whitney Museum, Montgomery Museum, Montgomery Alabama, Greenville County Museum of Art and History, Greenville, South Carolina.  She was a member of the National Association of Women Artist, New York (Co-founder), Watercolor Society, Salons of America and the Society American Etchers/Brooklyn Society of Etchers.  Goldthwaite began teaching at the Art Students League, where she was a very popular teacher until her death in 1944.

Anne Goldthwaite (1869-1944)

Anne Goldthwaite died in New York City on January 29th 1944, aged 74.

Zdenka Rosalina Augusta Braunerová

In my blog today I am looking at the life and works of the nineteenth century Czech painter, Zdenka Rosalina Augusta Braunerová. Her views and lifestyle influenced many painters and writers, many of whom were her friends. She became a patron of many artists, but she also supported folk art, especially in Moravian Slovakia and Horňácko. She was graceful and educated, and also extremely talented. She decided to devote her whole life to painting and graphics and never regretted it. She almost married several times and yet died unmarried. The life of this girl from a good family was unconventional, but definitely interesting.

A Bend in the Vlatava River by Zdenka Braunerová

Zdenka was born in Prague on April 9th 1858 and was baptized as Zdislava Rosalina Augusta.  She was born into a wealthy family and was the last of four children of the well-known Czech politician and prominent lawyer, František August Brauner and his wife Augusta, née Neumannová She had two older brothers, Vladamir and Bohuslav and an older sister, Anna.  Zdenka showed interest in drawing and painting since her childhood, when she spent long hours in her children’s room, where she spent hours painting. She was encouraged to paint by her mother, who was herself an amateur painter and who came from an old noble family. 

View at Brod by Amálie Mánesová,

Zdenka’s parents further encouraged their daughters interest in art and sent Zdenka to study with Amálie Mánesová, a talented landscape artist who ran a private painting school for ladies and girls from aristocratic and bourgeois families. This early art education, like the teaching of young children to play a musical instrument, was common for children in families of similar status at that time. It was part of the fashionable manner in which young girls became young ladies. Zdenka loved to paint and draw so much so that her normal schoolwork suffered and she received mediocre grades for her school work.  Notwithstanding this deterioration of her exam results, Zdenka pressed on with her art tuition at a girls’ college, where the director was the prominent Czech painter, Soběslav Hipplolyt Pinkas.

One of her tutors was Antonin Chitussi, a Czech Impressionist landscape and cityscape painter, and he was unclear as to whether painting to Zdenka was merely a hobby and not a future profession and, in truth, Zdenka was also undecided as to whether painting or her singing would become a future pathway. Antonín Chittussi was not only one of her first art teachers, he was her first love and during her time with him she devoted herself mainly to landscape painting. Chittussi introduced her to the technical secrets of drawing and painting, urging her to diligence, study nature and the right choice of motifs. Zdenka wanted to move the relationship with Chittussi to another level, that of an equal union of two independent artists who would inspire each other.  This was a step too far for Chittussi and the relationship died.

Following the the death of her father in 1880, Zdeňka began attending the Académie Colarossi in Paris.  Here her teacher was Francoise Courtoise, with whom she concentrated mainly on figurative and historical painting.

Élémir Bourges and the two Brauner sisters – 1883

After her sister Anne’s marriage to the French writer Élémir Bourges, Zdenka adapted her lifestyle to her future profession as a painter. She often travelled between Paris and Prague, still attending the Colarossi School and at the same time wanting to be close to her mother back home in Prague.

Julius Zeyer

Another of her many relationships came three years later with a young poet, Julius Zeyer, an artist seventeen years her junior, but maybe because of the age difference, this was not a long-lasting liaison. Another reason according to some historians, was that Julius Zeyer was homosexual and his relationship with the very attractive Zdenka remained only platonic.

Vilém Mrštík

In the spring of 1894 in Oslavany, the thirty-one-year-old Czech playwright and literary critic Vilém Mrštík met thirty-six-year-old Zdenka Braunerová.  She was five years older than him, which was somewhat strange as previously Vilém only had relationships with much younger women.  Mrštík actually perceived her as an old lady describing her as:

 “…An interesting person, she has enough of the world, enough of Prague, and with all the fire a lady approaching old virginity, but still strong and with the lush decoration of the former beauty…”

Brauner was equally scathing about Mrštík either, saying:

“….He is not pretty. The nose is plebeian, the eyes small, black, short-sighted with a stud, and the mouth with strong lips…”

Landscape near Tabor by Zdenka Braunerová.

Suprisingly, a relationship developed between them.  It was not an even relationship as Zdenka was cautious at first and only considered friendship. But Mrštík, fell in love with Zdenka and the “friendship” developed into a love affair.  The well-educated Brauner was probably attracted to Mrštík by his goodness, earthiness and often violent reactions. She tended to choose men who were painful, complex, and depressed.  Zdenka had a habit of wanting to protect, educate and form men in her own way.  She was manipulative and looked upon men as being people she could mould into her perfect person.  This was not the basis of a long-lasting relationship and was doomed.  However, she thought Mrštík would be different.  Mrštík was not the intellectual type and unlike her, did not discuss art passionately. He was an earthy Moravian. To Zdenka, he even seemed naïve but this trait endeared him to her but the relationship was doomed. 

St Lawrence on Petrin Hill by Zdenka Braunerova

In early 1896, Mrštík even began to talk about marriage and Zdenka agreed but they broke up in March 1897, just before the wedding, . They finally separated. Mrštík was convinced that he had fallen in love with an idea and not the woman. He became very bitter with the break-up and in an ungentlemanly way he said various unpleasant things about Zdenka – about her overripe old virginity and few talents in the intimate area.  Zdenka, in turn, stated that his writing to be inferior. It was not an edifying ending to the affair

VEČERNÍ KRAJINA by Zdenka Braunerova

Although having attended the private Collarossi Academy, she was not satisfied with the tuition and returned to her homeland. Zdenka was still extremely interested and found inspiration in French art, but still retained the patriotism for her country. The more time she spent in Paris the more she missed her homeland.  In Paris, with her sense of patriotism, she would dance in Czech costume and  sang Czech national songs, and by doing so, she would move closer to the Czech culture and art. This love of her homeland inspired many French artists and helped forge lasting friendships there.  One such artist who was swayed by Zdenka’s love of her homeland was Auguste Rodin who visited Bohemia and Moravia at her invitation in 1905. 

Brauner’s Mill in Solutions

Zdenka often spent time working in a studio in Solutions, a small town, west of Prague.  Her studio was in the so-called Brauner’s mill.

Zdenka Braunerová lived in Prague’s Lesser Town in Všehrdova Street. She died there on May 23rd 1934, aged 76, and is buried in the Vyšehrad cemetery.

Holger Drachmann

The Artist, the Poet, the Lover of Women.

Holger Drachmann

The subject of this week’s blog is the nineteenth century Danish poet, dramatist and painter Holger Drachmann. Holger Henrik Herholdt Drachmann was born on October 9th, 1846 in Copenhagen. He was the son of Andreas Drachmann and his wife Vilhelmine.  Holger was one of five children, having an older sister, Erna and three younger sisters, Mimi, Johanne and Harriet.

Andreas Drachmann

His father. Andreas, initially trained as a barber whilst studying for his medical exams. In 1831 he was an assistant to a surgeon in the Danish navy and eventually passed his exams to become a surgeon in 1836.  He left the navy in 1845 and became a physician at Langgaard’s orthopaedic institute and in  1859 he founded the first institute of medical gymnastics in Copenhagen.

Coastal party north of Årsdale, by Holger Drachmann (1869.)

In March 1857, when Holger was ten years old, his mother Vilhelmine died.  She was just thirty-six years old.  Once he completed his schooling in 1865 he went to University where he remained for three years.  He then transferred to the Academy of Fine Arts and studied under Carl Frederik Sørensen, a noted marine painter and soon Holger developed a love for that painting genre.  Art was a great love of Holger but around this time he developed another love, a love of literature. 

View of the island of Maïre west of the Goudes district, Marseille by Holger Drachmann

This painting above is thought to have been painted by Holger during his voyage around the Mediterranean in 1867.

Rocky Coast by Holger Drachmann

The beauty and ferocity of the sea is captured in Drachmann’s painting entitled Rocky Coast. It depicts the unstoppable waves of the blue-green sea crashing violently against a towering rock formation in the foreground of the painting.  To the left, we see heavy grey storm clouds.  It is a depiction which is devoid of figures and one’s focus is simply concentrating on the violent force of nature.  There is nothing noted as to the location of the scene but during his lifetime he visited many places, such as the Orkney Isles, and Norway, with their rocky coasts and archipelagos or it could have been locations in Newfoundland or Nova Scotia, places he visited during his long trip to North America.

Våde ovn, Bornholm. by Holger Drachmann

To further his interest in marine painting, Holger went to stay on the island of Bornholm.  This Danish island is located in the Baltic Sea, to the east of mainland Denmark, and south of Sweden.  It was here he painted a number of seascapes. One of his Bornholm paintings depicted Vade Ovn, a notable rock or group of rocks attached to the underlying bedrock. It is a grotto, part of the area known as Helligdomsklipperne.

A wreck hut on Skagen’s beach by Holger Drachmann

The Skagen artists’ colony is now as famous as the ones at Barbizon or Newlyn and Holger Drachmann was an important figure in the history of the Skagen artists’ colony, for it was he, who first arrived there in 1872 together with Norwegian Frits Thaulow, and he then persuaded many artists to go there with him during the following years. He fell in love with the area with its  breath-taking nature and the simple life it afforded people.

View from Knippelsbro with the Sugar Factory by Holger Drachmann
Fishing boats in Stormy Weather by Holger Drachmann

Besides his love of painting and fame as an artist, Holger Drachmann had two other great loves. He had the love of literature and poetry and was a renowned poet. He was part of the Scandinavian Modern Breakthrough Movement which was a movement of naturalism and which debated the literature of Scandinavia, which replaced romanticism near the end of the 19th century.

Georg Brandes

Around 1870, Drachmann became motivated by the writings of the Danish critic and scholar Georg Brandes, who had greatly influenced Scandinavian and European literature.  It was a time when art became secondary to literature in Drachmann’s life.  He had travelled quite extensively around England, Scotland, France Spain and Italy and had started a habit of sending accounts of his travels to the Danish newspapers. 

Digte (Poems)

Drachmann made his debut in 1872 as a prose writer with the collection With Coal and ChalkIn and that same year he had a book of his poems entitled Digte (Poems) published. He also joined the group of young Radical writers who were also followers of Brandes.  For Drachmann it was a time of contemplation and soul searching as to whether painting or writing would be his prime driving force. Drachmann established his position as the greatest poet of the Danish modern movement of his time with such collections as Dæmpede Melodier (1875; “Muted Melodies”), Sange ved Havet (“Songs by the Sea”) and Venezia (both 1877), and Ranker og Roser (1879; “Weeds and Roses”). The prose Derovre fra Grænsen (1877; “From Over the Border”) and the verse fairy tale Prinsessen og det Halve Kongerige (1878; “The Princess and Half the Kingdom”), demonstrated a patriotic and romantic trend that brought him into conflict with the Brandes group.   Drachmann was one of the most popular Danish poets of modern time though much of his work is now forgotten. He unites modern rebellionist attitudes and a really romantic view of women and history. 

Kristian Zahrtmann – Portrait of Vilhelmine Erichsen (1867)

Earlier I said that Drachmann had two great loves other than his art. He loved writing and poetry as I have just recorded but his other great love was women !

Whilst on the island of Bornholm in 1869, Holger Drachmann met his first wife Vilhelmine Charlotte Erichsen, She had been a good friend and muse for both Drachmann and another artist, Kristian Zahrtmann who was also living on Bornholm and who had painted her portrait when she was fourteen-years-old.   Zahrtmann was besotted with the young girl who modelled for him.  In a letter in 1868 to his friend and fellow artist August Jerndorff ,  he wrote:

“…I have had a young girl of mine of mine painting who interests me greatly. An adorable child – she is 16 years old – cannot be seen; After all, she is at an unfortunate age for most people, to which is added an extraordinary height and width, a short neck and stooped posture, but these are flaws that only all the more accentuate her beauty. A more regular face is unthinkable- – Her hair and eyes are almost black, her mouth bulging, and the pale yellow color, with its vexing and the utterly regular, narrow eyebrows, becomes so southern and melancholic dreamy that I can be so seized by it that the brush shakes in my hand. She herself does not know that she is beautiful, on the contrary, I think that she considers the yellow-laden color hideous, and at all she knows very little, both of knowledge and of what life is and gives…”

Marie Henriques (on the left) and Eva Drachmann painting, probably at the Art School for Women in Copenhagen, (c.1900)

But three years later, in 1869, when she was seventeen, Vilhelmine fell in love with twenty-three-year-old Drachmann and they got engaged.  Two years later, on November 3rd 1871 Holger and nineteen-year-old Vilhelmine married  in Gentofte Sogn, København.  To be able to marry Vilhelmine had to lie about her age, declaring that she was twenty-one.   Holger was twenty-five years old and so did not need her parents’ permission for the marriage.  On November 4th 1874 they had a daughter, Eva, but at the end of that year, they separated and finally divorced in 1878. It was a bad-tempered divorce and in a fit of rage Vilhelmine destroyed all correspondence and manuscripts from Holger that she possessed. Eva Drachmann wrote about her mother and father in her 1953 book Vilhelmine, my mother:

“…They divorced after 4 years of marriage. As the poet’s muse, Vilhelmine had entered into a cohabitation of whose seriousness and difficulties none of them had the slightest concept. Of the two, she was the largest child. She didn’t have time to grow up before it was all over. As an old woman, she reflected on how fateful the disaster came………. After all, in childhood and growing up, she had done nothing useful – nothing but dream…”

Eva Drachmann married for the first time in 1899 and the ceremony was held in a local manor house as the parish priest of the local Flade Church, refused to marry the couple in the parish church, citing Eve’s father’s godless lifestyle.

Polly Culmsee

Around 1866, three years before he met his first wife, Vilhelmine, Holger Drachmann had struck up a friendship with Valdemar Culmsee, the son of Frederick Culmsee, the owner of the Havreholm Paper Mill on the Danish island of Zealand.  It was during a visit to their home in 1866 that he met Emmy Culmsee, Valdemar’s twelve-year-old sister and her older sister Polly who was sixteen. Polly had later married Charles Thalbitzer and had two children with him but around the time Holger Drachmann and his wife had separated in 1874 she had a relationship with Holger and had his child, Agnes Gerda.  Polly eventually divorced her husband and she and Holger left Denmark for Sweden because of the social scandal they had created in Copenhagen.  They intended to be married in Paris when Drachmann was legally divorced from his wife. Now living in the Swedish town of Lund, Polly fell ill and Drachmann took her to a local doctor, Alphons Theorin, and sought his help with the care of Polly. Bizarrely, Polly transferred her affection from Holger to the doctor who in turn fell passionately in love with his patient which created yet another scandal as the doctor abandoned his wife and their three children and ran off with Polly to the central Swedish town of Sveg, where he managed to arrange a position as a provincial doctor.

Emmy Culmsee

The bizarre story of Holger Drachmann love life does not end there.  Polly’s younger sister Emmy had moved with her parents to Kristiania, where she stayed until she travelled to Hamburg in 1876 to study languages and it was in this German city that she once again met Holger.  He told her he was devastated by a relationship break-up and she was very comforting.  However he failed to impart to her that the relationship had been with her married sister, Polly. On finding out about the involvement of her sister she broke off with Holger and settled into a life as a German language teacher.  However, in 1878 whilst on holiday in Hamburg, out of the blue, she received a call from Copenhagen from Holger Drachmann’s married sister Erna Juel-Hansen. She told Emmy that Holger had suffered a breakdown when Polly left him.  Emmy went to Copenhagen and cared for Holger and nursed him back to full health.  Emmy and Holger married and they adopted his and Polly’s daughter, Agnes Gerda.  Emmy and Holger went on to have four more children of their own. 

Amanda Jensine Nielsen (Edith)

Sadly in 1887 Holger, for whatever reason, began an affair with Amanda Jensine Nielsen a cabaret artist in Copenhagen, despite the fact that he was married and twice her age.  He and Amanda became lovers and he would refer to her as Edith.  He even mentioned her in his 1890 novel Forskrevet, a depiction of Denmark in 1880 and the then political dispute between Right and Left, as well as the cultural dispute between citizen and bohemian

Holger Drachmann by Peder Severin Kroyer

Eventually Holger grew tired of his affair with Edith and moved on to another young actress.  His many scandalous affairs with his “muses” were often the fuel of his inspiration.  On his deathbed he said that his two biggest muses were Vilhelmine and Edith.

Drachmanns Hus in Skagen

Holger Drachmann died in Copenhagen on January 14th 1908, aged 61.   He is buried in the sand dunes at Grenen, near Skagen and following his death his Skagen home, Drachmanns Hus, became a museum.