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Marie Bashkirtseff. Part 2 her later life and diaries

Marie Bashkirtseff (1858 - 1884) — Marie Bashkirtseff (1858 – 1884)

In my previous blog I concentrated on the portraiture of Marie Bashkirtseff but she will probably be remembered best for other genres

One painting by Marie Bashkirtseff which came about during her time at the Académie Julian was one commissioned by the founder of the establishment, Rodolphe Julian. He asked her to paint a canvas depicting the artists at work in his academy. The finished canvas was entitled L’Atelier Julian and is now looked upon as one of Bashkirtseff’s finest works. Initially Marie was not impressed by the commission but could see the benefit for herself, writing in her diary:

“…As for the subject, it does not fascinate me, but it may be very amusing, and then Julian is so taken with it, and so convinced… A woman’s studio has never been painted. Besides, as it would be an advertisement for him, he would do all in the world to give me the wonderful notoriety he speaks about…”

Atelier Julian (In the Studio) by Marie Bashkirtseff (1881)

The painting portrays the light and airy studio at the Académie Julian where Bashkirtseff and her fellow students would work. L’atelier Julian is a quite large oil on canvas work measuring 154 x 186cms and is currently housed in the Dnepropetrovsk State Art Museum. It is a fascinating work featuring sixteen students all taking part in a life-drawing session. The studio looks well organised, although small in size, but that maybe due to the number of people crammed into the room. As an observer, we firstly focus on the woman seated at the centre of the work. She wears a bright blue dress. In her hands are a small brush and a maulstick. She is working on a painting of the young nude model, who is holding a staff whilst standing on the raised dais so that he can be seen clearly by all the female students. If we look past this lady we see one of her colleagues staring out at us. Maybe someone is entering the room to join this artistic group. Our eyes now leave the lady in blue and we start to scan the rest of the room. It is a hubbub of activity. Some of the females are concentrating intently on their canvases whilst others partake in chit-chat. The two females in the foreground, one seated, one standing, engage in conversation. The lady standing rests her hand on a wine-coloured velvet drape which has been laid over the back of the chair. Look at the drape. See how Bashkirtsteff has showcased her artistic ability in the way she has depicted the elaborate folds of the material. Many artists in the past and in the present time like to show off their artistic skills in this way. This large and multi-faceted work was exhibited to great acclaim at the 1881 Salon.

Following a visit to Russia in 1882 to visit her relatives she returned to Paris. She had not been feeling well and decided to visit her doctor. In Dormer Creston’s 1937 biography on the artist entitled Fountains of Youth – The Life of Marie Bashkirtseff, he quoted her diary entries:

“…At the doctor’s. For the first time, I had the courage to say: Monsieur, I am becoming deaf. It can be borne, but there will be a veil between me and the rest of the world…”

Later that year her health deteriorated further and she noted in her dairy after visiting the physician that the news was not good:

“…I am consumptive, he told me so to-day…”

Despite her failing health she carried on with her art. She punished herself by working long hours almost as if she realised her time was almost up and none should be wasted. It was in 1882 that she met the French painter Jules Bastien-Lepage. He was ten years older than Marie but he became her confidante and mentor and her greatest inspiration. It has often been mooted that the two became very close romantically. He persuaded her to look beyond her wealthy lifestyle and observe and depict in her paintings those who were less financially fortunate than herself. She listened to Bastien-Lepage and soon the subjects of her work changed. Her works soon depicted the lower classes and street scenes. This was such a turn-around for a young woman who had only known the life of affluence.

The Meeting by Marie Bashkirtseff (1884)

One of her best loved paintings featuring the “real world” is entitled The Meeting which she completed in 1884 and was exhibited at that year’s Salon. It is now housed at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. It was an enormous success, both with the press and public alike. However, much to Bashkirtseff’s annoyance, her painting was not awarded a medal. In her diary she wrote of her frustration and disappointment:

“…I am exceedingly indignant because, after all, works that are really rather poor have received prizes…..There is nothing more to be done. I am a worthless creature, humiliated, finished…”

Marie believed that being awarded a medal by the Salon jurists would help to immortalise her and that, to her, was of the utmost importance as, at this time, she knew her life was coming to an end. She desperately did not want to die before her artistic talent was recognised. She dreaded being forgotten.

In this next work, Marie Bashkirtseff copies the Naturalist style of her friend and mentor, Jules Bastien-Lepage. Lepage’s naturalism focused mainly on the countryside but Bashkirtseff decided to follow his style of naturalism or realism but concentrate on an urban setting. In some ways the work is a genre scene, a depiction of everyday life. Before us are six young boys, who stand in a circle fascinated with what the tallest boy has in his hand, although it is not visible to us. Whatever it is, it has them deep in discussion. Some still wear their school smocks. The shabbiness of their clothes and shoes marks them as coming from poor working-class families and the setting is a run-down working class area. We see, behind the group of boys, the old wooden fence with the graffiti and the torn posters all inferring that the setting is one of poverty.

Bashkirtseff’s choice of depicting working-class schoolchildren in this painting may have come about as it was the subject of schooling which had become a great topic of conversation in the early 1880’s with Jules Ferry, a member of the French government at the time, establishing the law that saw the arrival of free, compulsory, secular education. However other art critics would have us believe that the depiction of the boys was simply a bourgeois stereotype that people like Bashkirtseff would adopt. Again some people wanted to look for a message in the painting, a message that may only be there in their eyes. The feminists pointed to the fact that the group are all males and further suggest that the young girl walking away alone is symbolic of the feminist movement and their desire for better integration in society. In the book, Overcoming All Obstacles: The Women of the Académie Julian by Gabriel Weisberg and Jane Becker, the writers wrote about the painting and its lack of recognition by the Salon jurists:

“…While painters at the Salon designated her for a medal, the jury passed on her submission. The public complained. While Robert-Fleury was encouraging her to include passages of draped figures (to show off her virtuosity in that skill), Marie refused, not finding drapery fitting to her modern street boys. Again the critics noted her sincerity of execution, freshness of facture, and realism in taking up the subject. While the work did not receive a medal, it was bought by the state, and several engravings and lithographs were made after it…”

Although I stated earlier that Bashkirtseff wanted to focus on urban portrayals, my next offering of her work is a beautiful painting entitled Autumn, which moves towards a landscape work. The setting is a rutted tree-lined road which runs parallel to the river. Through the trees we see an arched stone bridge which straddles the waterway. The time must be late summer or maybe early autumn as many of the trees have shed their bronze-tinted leaves while others cling to the branches and retain their summer colour. To the side of the road is a pavement. Look at the details Marie has depicted of the sidewalk. The fallen bench straddles the pavement and the road. The crumbling stonework of the pavement is clearly visible and which is now home for the fallen, windswept leaves and what looks like an abandoned newspaper lies in the gutter close to the fallen bench. Beside the pavement we see a stretch of garden fencing which has seen better days. This is an example of Naturalism in art, a style Marie Bashkirtseff had adopted due to the influence of her close friend, Jules Bastien-Lepage. The painting is devoid of people and this fact alone means we are not distracted from the artist’s detailed depiction of the area. It also avoids the work of art being focused on people and the depiction of them may turn the painting into a work of Social Realism with the landscape being looked upon as merely a background to a story within the work. The colours used by the artist set the scene for a certain time of year and also a certain time of day. One can imagine the lighting of the scene would be different at another time of day and obviously it would be a far different depiction if this had been mid-winter.

In a diary entry for May 1884, she wrote:

“…What is the use of lying or pretending? Yes, it is clear that I have the desire, if not the hope, of staying on this earth by whatever means possible. If I don’t die young, I hope to become a great artist. If I do, I want my journal to be published…”

Marie Bashkirtseff's mausoleum in Cimetière de Passy, Paris — Marie Bashkirtseff’s mausoleum in Cimetière de Passy, Paris

Four months after this entry, on October 31^st 1884, Marie Bashkirtseff died of consumption (pulmonary tuberculosis) in Paris. She was just twenty-five years old and for her, she sadly believed she had achieved little.

Inside of Marie Bashkirtseff's mausoleum — Inside of Marie Bashkirtseff’s mausoleum

She was buried in Cimetière de Passy in a large mausoleum, designed as a full-sized artist’s studio and has now become a French Heritage site. The inside of Marie Bashkirtseff’s mausoleum we see in the central background a copy of Marie’s bust which was sculpted by her friend the sculptor René de Saint Marceaux. Behind the sculpture hanging on the wall is one of Marie Bashkirtseff’s last and unfinished paintings entitled Women Saints. At either side, on pedestals are busts of her parents Sadly almost two hundred of her works were destroyed or looted during the Second World War. However her journal was published by her family in 1887. Sadly it was an abridged version which had been heavily censored by her relatives who thought a lot of the contents about them were unflattering seeing to it that a good deal of material was critical and unflattering to the family and unfit for the reading public. Having said that however, the diary stands as one of the great diaries of its time. It was not until some years later, with the discovery of Marie’s original manuscript in the Bibliothèque nationale de France that it was realised that the diaries published by the family had been heavily edited. An unabridged edition of the complete journal, based on the original manuscript, has been published in French in 16 volumes, and excerpts from the years 1873–76 have been translated into English under the title I Am the Most Interesting Book of All.

The diaries were started by a girl of fourteen and they began as a simple coming-of-age journal but later developed into an often sad account of how life conspired against her and her fight to survive.

I will leave you with an entry in her diary when she talks about how people may remember her. She wrote:

“…If I do not die young I hope to live as great artist; but if I die young, I intend to have my journal, which cannot fail to be interesting, published. Similarly: “When I am dead, my life, which appears to me a remarkable one, will be read. (The only thing wanting is that it should have been different)…”

Marie Bashkirtseff. Part 1 The portraitist and feminist

Photograph of twenty year old Marie Bashkirtseff (1878)

I had been researching the life of Jules Bastien-Lepage for a future blog when I came across the fascinating story of a Ukranian lady, a friend of his, who during her very short life excelled as a painter, a sculptor and a diarist. It was her talent as a diarist and her personal diary which led to her notoriety. I have split her lifestory, as short as it was, between two blogs, so come with me and explore the life of Maria Konstantinovna Bashkirtseva who became better known as Marie Bashkirtseff and her portraiture.

Marie Bashkirtseff was born in November 1858 at Gavrontsi, a beautiful country estate close to the provincial town of Poltava in southern Ukraine. Her father was Konstantin Bashkirtseff and her mother Mariia Babanina, who was a lady, fiercely proud of her Tartar heritage. The family were wealthy and were looked upon as being of the petite noblesse social class, which was a termed used to describe the lesser nobility of France, especially rural landowners of noble ancestry. A year later Marie’s brother Paul was born. Marie was a studious and very intelligent child, speaking Russian and French fluently and even when young she exhibited a dynamic personality. Her parents split up in 1859 and her mother took her and her brother back to her parents’ home in Tcherniakovka.

The Umbrella by Marie Bashkirtseff (1883)

In May 1870, when Marie was eleven years old, her grandfather, Stepan Babanin, her brother Paul, and a motley collection of other family members, along with the family physician, Doctor Walitsky, left Tcherniakovka for good and embarked on a voyage of discovery around Russia and Europe. The extensive journey lasted almost two years until the weary travellers settled down in a villa situated in the foothills of the Mediterranean Alps overlooking the coastal resort of Nice. It was at this idyllic setting that fourteen year old Marie started to dabble with her artwork and also started to write her diary. This diary which was eventually published in 1887, three years after her death, was to become a best seller. In it she would write about her life on the Côte d’Azur with her extended family, her teenage infatuations, her dreams for the future and her loves. She had a fixed idea of what her diary would be all about, writing:

“…If I don’t live enough to be illustrious, this diary will be interesting for naturalists; the life of a woman is always curious, day by day, without affectation, as if nobody in the world should ever read it and at the same time with the intention of being read; I’m sure that you will find me pleasant… and I mean everything. Otherwise, what’s the point in writing? Apart from this, you will see that I say everything…”

Portrait of Mme X by Marie Bashkirtseff (c.1884)

Marie Bashkirtseff received a well rounded education. She was home-tutored with the family employing governesses and private tutors and she studied a number of languages including English, German, Italian, Greek and Latin. She was well versed in history, mythology and literature and it was that knowledge that found its way onto the pages of her diary. She also developed a great love of music and singing. She was an accomplished pianist, played the harp and was a talented singer and she hoped that one day she would become a professional mezzo-soprano. This plan for her future was to be dashed after a severe bout of laryngitis which irrevocably affected her vocal chords. She was devastated at this turn of events, once musing in her diary about what could have been:

“…My God! What a beautiful voice I had! It was powerful, dramatic, captivating; it gave chills in the back. And now I have nothing, not even a voice to speak with!…”

With music being a thing of the past, Marie needed another outlet for her exuberance and it came in 1877, when, aged nineteen, she decided to embark on a career as an artist. For this to happen she decided that Nice was not the place to be and insisted that the whole family should move to the European capital of art, Paris, for it was here she believed she would receive the best art tuition and be able to study the paintings of the Masters. The family opposed the move, not because they didn’t want to move to the capital but because of Marie’s fragile health. They believed that the warm climate of Nice was more suitable for Marie than the colder, damper climate of Paris. It was not because of their wish to stay warm and enjoy the sunny climate of the south but it was because Marie had been diagnosed with irreversible tuberculosis and doctors had warned against such a move. However the dominant and forceful character of Marie won the day and that year they left the south of France and moved north.

Portrait of a Woman by Marie Bashkirtseff (1882)

The Parisian establishment, which was in the forefront of art tuition, was the École des Beaux-Arts but this was not an option for Marie as, at that time, women were not allowed to enrol for study at that academy. Marie then chose to enrol at the Académie Julian, which was the only academy at the time which accepted female students, albeit the men and women trained separately. However the training for females was similar, even allowing women to participate in life drawing classes with nude models, which was frowned upon by other art establishments. It was founded by Rodolphe Julian in 1868. It was a private studio school for art students, which, as well as training aspiring male artists to pass the exams to enter the hallowed and prestigious École des Beaux-Arts, it also offered independent training in arts to wannabe female painters. Whilst there Marie received excellent artistic training under the tutelage of the likes of Rodolphe Julian, Tony Robert-Fleury, Gustave Boulanger, and Jules-Joseph Lefebvre. She revelled in this world of art and even the glamour of her social life took a back seat as she commented in her diary:

“…as for me, although feeling pleased of being in the ballroom, I’ve been thinking all the time in a pastel painted this morning with which I wasn’t satisfied…“

Marie was a perfectionist in all that she did and was highly competitive. This latter characteristic manifested itself in her fierce competition with her fellow student, the Swiss-born painter, Louise Catherine Breslau. They both exhibited works at the Paris Salons and Marie’s competitive nature soon turned to jealousy, jealous of the artistic ability of her fellow student. She looked upon Breslau as a competitor in the race to be recognised by the art critics and the public. Breslau was two years older than Bashkirtseff but was to outlive her by more than forty years and so was able to consolidate her reputation within the art world.

Parisienne, Portrait of Irma by Marie Bashkirtseff (1882)

Marie Bashkirtseff, besides her dedication to painting, developed another love whilst living in Paris. She was drawn to the feminist movement . Hubertine Auclert had founded the feminist movement known as Le Droit des Femmes in 1876, the year before Marie had arrived in Paris. It was a movement that supported women’s right to have the vote. Marie, using the pseudonym, Pauline Orell, applied her innate ability as a writer to produce articles in support of feminism. She had some of her writings published in La Citoyenne, a bi-monthly feminist newspaper first published Hubertine Auclert in Paris in 1881. In the March 1881 edition an article by Baskirtseff appeared which linked her artistic career with that of the plight of women. She cynically wrote:

“…I will not surprise anyone by saying that women are excluded from the School of Fine Arts as they are almost everywhere. Yet we admit them to the School of Medicine, why not at the École des Beaux-Arts. Perhaps one fears scandals that would cause the element in this female comedies environment…”

Jeune Femme Lisant la Question du Divorce d'Alexandre Dumas (Portrait of a Young Woman Reading) by Marie Bashkirtseff (1880) — Jeune Femme Lisant la Question du Divorce d’Alexandre Dumas (Portrait of a Young Woman Reading) by Marie Bashkirtseff (1880)

In 1880 , Marie Bashkirtseff submitted a beautiful work of portraiture to the Salon. It was entitled Jeune femme lisant la Question du Divorce d’Alexandre Dumas (Portrait of a young woman reading). It was not simply a portrait of a young woman, it was a work of art with a message. We see before us a portrait of a beautiful and stylish young woman who is totally engrossed in reading her book, The Divorce Question by Alexandre Dumas. The sitter for this portrait is thought to be Marie’s cousin, Dina Babanine, who two years after Marie’s death would marry and become the Countess Toulouse-Lautrec. There is a feminist statement behind this depiction. There is the message that beautiful women have intelligence. The title of the painting tells us the title of the book she is reading. It was the 1880 work by the well-known author, Alexandre Dumas, who was discussing divorce and the French laws appertaining to the subject. It was a controversial book and in some ways a ground-breaking one. The serious and intellectual nature of the book was a statement that women do not, as believed by many, especially men, only read frothy romantic novels. The artist was also making a statement regarding the important position of women in society. In this case, it was about her aspirations for female independence. The right to divorce and break free from an abusive relationship, the same right as men to be trained to become an artist, the women’s right to vote. It was simply her belief regarding the right of women to be equal to men.

Portrait de la Comtesse Dina de Toulouse-Lautrec, by Marie Bashkirtseff (1883)

Dina Babanin featured in another of Bashkirtseff’s works. It was a work in pastels, simply entitled Dina Babanine and was completed in 1883. Dina was Marie’s cousin and also a close life-long friend. Her early upbringing was in total contrast to that of Marie. Dina and her brother had been brought up in a very disruptive household. Her father had his marriage to their mother annulled making his children illegitimate. This beautifully crafted portrait depicts the beauty of Marie’s cousin. She wears a pale blue décolleté peignoir with a wide delicate white collar. Her face, neck and chest have been depicted using delicately blended light tones which enhance the youthful beauty of the sitter. Her full lips are pressed together but it is her eyes that catch our attention. They are dark blue in colour. She does not quite focus upon us. There is a feeling that she has lost her power of concentration and there is a blankness about her stare. Like all inquisitive and discerning observers we search for imperfections of her beauty but they are hard to find. Maybe we comment upon the slight cleft of her chin. Maybe we remark upon the flatness of her nose. However we cannot but acknowledge her overall beauty. Look at the composition. It is all about the female. There is no jewellery, no flowers attached to her simple but revealing dress with its plunging neckline. The artist wanted nothing to divert our attention from her cousin’s beauty and in that she has unquestionably succeeded.

In my next blog I will conclude her life story, look at some of her most famous paintings and reveal more about her diary.

Hendrik Willem Mesdag – his seascapes and Panorama Mesdag

The person I am featuring today was an artist of great talent, an avid art collector and an owner of a museum, which housed many of the works he had collected during his lifetime. I talked briefly about him in my previous blog which was dedicated to his friend Jozef Israels. Let me introduce you to the marine painter, Hendrik Willem Mesdag.

Along the Dutch Coast by Hendrik Mesdag (1882)

Mesdag was born in Groningen in February 1831. His father Klaas was a banker and was also active in politics and his mother was Johanna Wilhelmina van Giffen, who came from a wealthy family of silversmiths. She died when Hendrik was four years old. Hendrik had two brothers, Gilles and Taco and a sister, Ellegonda. As schoolchildren, both he and his older brother showed and early artistic talent and their father, who was also an amateur artists, decided to send them for some artistic training. They both received drawing lessons from Bernardus Buijs who had also taught Jozef Israels and later received drawing tuition from Hinderikus Egenberger. However, for Hendrik, once he left school at the age of nineteen, art became just an enjoyable pastime, and his future, like that of his father, lay in banking. Hendrik Mesdag joined his father’s bank where he remained for the next sixteen years.

Fishing Boats in the Surf by Hendrik Mesdag

In April 1856, when Hendrik was twenty-five years old, he married Sientja van Houten, who would later become an accomplished artist in her own right. She was one of seven children brought up by a wealthy family. Her father owned a large sawmill just outside Groningen. Her cousin was the renowned painter Lawrence Alma-Tadema.

Hendrik’s love of art during his days as a banker did not diminish, in fact in 1861 he enrolled as a pupil at the Academie Minerva, a Dutch art school based in Groningen. In 1863 Sientje gave birth to their son Nicolaas, who was called Klaas. Hendrik’s love of art and his desire to become a full-time professional artist came to a head in 1866 when he decided to give up his work as a banker and concentrate on his art. To give up a lucrative job took courage but it also required funding and for this he had to thank his wife who had received a sizeable inheritance when her father died and she was able to support him financially.

Pinks in the breakers by Hendrik Mesdag (1880)

Lawrence Alma-Tadema advised Hendrik to go to Brussels to study art and in the autumn of 1866 he goes to the Brussels for three years and studied art under the tutorship of Willem Roelofs, the Dutch painter and watercolourist. Fate played a hand in the artistic life of Mesdag in 1868 when he and his family went to Norderney for a holiday. Norderney is one of the East Frisian islands off the North Sea coast. It is here that Mesdag realises his love of the sea and seascapes and when he returns to Brussels he starts collecting paintings which depict the sea and it is from this time that he decides he wants to be a seascape artist.

Gales in Scheveningen by Hendrik Mesdag (1894)

Once he completes his three year study course in Brussels in 1869, the family move to The Hague where the sea views at the nearby coastal village of Scheveningen, would be plentiful. Hendrik was admitted to The Hague’s Pulchri Studio Painters’ Society. The society was formed in 1847 and was a result of mounting dissatisfaction among the young artists in The Hague who complained about their being little or no opportunities for training in art and developing their artistic skills and so the Pulchri Studio was established. It was also to be an artistic talking-shop where artists could exchange views and ideas.

It was in 1869 that Mesdag worked on his painting Les Brisants de la Mere du Nord (Breakers of the North Sea) which, when it was exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1870, was awarded the gold medal. In September 1871, tragedy struck Hendrik and Sentije when their eight year old son Klaas, their only child, died. It was from that time onwards that Sientje took up painting.

Hendrik Mesdag’s collection of paintings had grown so large that it filled his house and in 1878 he decided to build a museum in the garden, next to his house, to accommodate his ever-growing collection. That same year, his father Klaas died aged 85. Although most of the works of art by Hendrik Mesdag were seascapes and paintings depicting bomschuiten (fishing boats) one of his most famous works came about in 1879 when he received a commission from a group of Belgian entrepreneurs to paint a panorama. A panorama or panoramic painting was a massive work of art, which depicts a wide and all-encompassing view of a particular subject. They could be depictions of a battle, historical event or a landscape and were very popular in the nineteenth century, a time before television or the cinema. The commission was simple – the group wanted Mesdag to complete a painting without any borders ! The Belgians gave Mesdag free rein on the subject of the panorama and he was allowed to pick his team of artists to complete the task. The commission intrigued Mesdag and he agreed to it and formed a team of artists which included Théophile de Bock and twenty-three-year-old George Hendrik Breitner, who was still a student at The Hague Academy , the artist, Bernard Blommers , as well as his wife Sientje.

Mesdag decided this was an opportunity to depict his beloved coastal village of Scheveningen.

In March 1881, Mesdag and his team of painters set to work on the panorama. They made numerous sketches of the town and the surrounding coast and slowly over the next four and a half months the panorama often referred to as Panorama Mesdag evolved. The work when completed was 14 metres high with a circumference of 120 metres, a square footage of 1600 square metres. The finished work was housed in a purpose-built museum in The Hague and could be viewed from an observation gallery in the centre of the room. When one stood at this central observation point, it was if one was standing on top of a high sand dune and one could observe the sea, the beaches and the coastal village of Scheveningen. The museum housing the panorama was opened to the public on August 1^st 1881 but after five years it went bankrupt. Mesdag , who was concerned as to the fate of his panoramic painting, bought the museum and kept it open despite it losing money year on year.

Panorama Mesdag as seen from central observation platform

It is still open to the public and it is still one of the The Hague’s greatest tourist attractions. Can you imagine what it would be like to stand on that central observation platform – take a look now at http://panorama-mesdag.nl/ and see this wonderful work, which is the largest circular canvas in Europe.

In his later years Mesdag received many honours. In 1889, he was elected chairman of Pulchri Studio Painters’ Society, the society he joined twenty years earlier, and remained in that post until 1907. He received the royal distinction of Officer in the Order of Oranje-Nassau in 1894. In February 1901 Mesdag is promoted to Commander of the Order of the Dutch Lion.

Hendrik Willem Mesdag and his wife Sientje Mesdag-van Houten, (1906)

In March 1909 his beloved Sientje died, aged 74. Two years later in 1911, Hendrik Mesdag is taken seriously ill and although he recovers, his health slowly deteriorates. Hendrik Willem Mesdag died in The Hague in July 1915, aged 84.

One may compare the seascapes and depictions of fishing boats with the artist, Jozef Israels, whom I looked at in my last blog. Israels’ depictions were often full of angst and doom and gloom whereas Mesdag’s works were simply depictions of what he saw, without any need to have the works populated by people and all had a story behind them. I end with a quote from the author, Frederick W Morton who wrote an artcle in the May 1903 edition of the American art journal, Brush and Pencil . He wrote about Mesdag’s seascapes:

“…Other artists have painted more witchery into their canvases, more tenseness and terror. A Mesdag has not the glint of colour one finds in a Clays or the awful meaning one reads in Homer. On the contrary, many of his canvases are rather heavy in tone and are works calculated to inspire quiet contemplation rather than to excite nervous. But he is a great marine-painter because he thoroughly knows his subject – he has sat by it, brooded over it, studied it in its every phase – and by straightforward methods, without the trick of palette or adventitious accessories, has sought to make and has succeeded in making his canvases convey the same impression to the spectator that the ocean conveyed to him…”

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Much of the information for this article came from the Mesdag Documentation Society and their excellent website Mesdag.com (http://www.mesdag.com/index.html)

Jozef Israels Part 2 – The Peasants and his later life

I ended my last blog, which looked at the life of Jozef Israels, around 1856 when he was living in the small fishing town of Zandvoort and spent much of his time sketching and painting scenes involving the local fishing community.

The Day Before Parting by Jozef Israels (c.1862)

Israels left the coastal area around 1858 and returned to Amsterdam where he remained until 1870. In 1860 he completed a work entitled De dag voor het schieden (The Day before the Parting), which can now be found in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. It is a beautiful soulful depiction. It is a depiction of sadness. But why the sadness? Is it like the paintings depicting families waiting for their fisherman husbands and fathers to return from the hazards of the sea? Actually it is not, it is about death. The setting is the interior of a cottage. In the dimly lit background there is a coffin which lies across two chairs. The wooden coffin is covered with a pall and is barely illuminated by a solitary candle.

Light streams into the room from the left and illuminates the two characters featured in the work. The lighting of the foreground is in stark contrast to the background. It was the artist’s clever use of chiaroscuro (the strong contrast of light and dark), which in some ways was a contrast between life and death. In the foreground we have the mother leaning against the chimney breast as she sits on a chair, besides her in the fire hearth lies an empty overturned wicker log basket. Her face is red from all the tears she has wept. She leans forward and rests her face on her right hand whilst her left hand clutches hold of a book, probably the bible and her thumb keeps the place of the passage she was reading. On the floor, at her feet, sits a young girl. She leans against her mother to get comfort. Her right hand lies across her mother’s knee. She stares at the coffin. Her left hand lies in her lap, grasping the loop of the cord attached to her toy cradle which lies by her side. This painting is not only a depiction of sorrow it is a depiction of poverty. The mother and daughter do not wear shoes despite the coldness of the red-tiled floor. The fireplace, with its blue surround tiles, is empty and so too is the wicker log basket indicating that they have no fuel for the fire. The large black chain over the fireplace which would hold pots or a kettle for food and drink hangs idly. Have they food?

This wonderful work of art received the gold medal when it was exhibited in Rotterdam in 1862 and that same year it was shown at the International Exhibition in London. Israels himself, some forty years later, admitted that this painting made his reputation. In 1906 he commented on the work:

“…I painted it in 1860 – I know it was then because it was the year before I was engaged. It was made ‘pour la gloire’. It was exhibited in Rotterdam in 1862 and got the Gold medal, the last year the medal was given…………………….There is good colour in that picture; I could do no better – some people say I cannot do now so well…”

In May 1863 Jozef Israels married Aleida Schaap and the couple had two children, a daughter Mathilde Anna Israëls who was born in February 1864 and a son, Isaac Lazarus in February 1865. His son became a fine art painter and was associated with the Amsterdam Impressionism movement. At the time of his son’s birth Jozef Israel wrote about him saying:

“…With the help of the Lord, he will become a better painter than his father…”

Jozef Israels moved to The Hague in 1870 and here he began to associate himself with The Hague School of Painters. This group of artists were active between 1860 and 1890. For these artists reality was the key to their work, not idealised reality but depicting true reality, warts and all. The colours used by these artists was often gloomy and sombre and consisted mainly of various tints of grey, so much so they were often termed the Grey School. This only changed in the latter years of the School with the influence of the Barbizon painters and the early Impressionists who instilled a lighter and brighter palette.

In 1876, with a number of close artistic colleagues, Israels launched the Dutch Drawing Society (watercolours in those days were termed drawings)

The Cottage Madonna by Jozef Israels (1871)

During his lifetime, Jozef Israels was one of the most famous living Dutch artist and earned the nickname ‘the Dutch Millet.’ The two artists saw in the life of the poor and humble peasants a motive for expressing with peculiar intensity their wide human sympathy. Millet’s depictions of peasant life were much lighter in tone and were simply a look at peaceful rural life. For Israels it was different, his depictions of peasant life was very much more sombre and carried a message of hardship and despair. The French novelist and art critic, Louis Edmond Duranty who was a great supporter of the realist cause said Israels’ depiction of peasant life was painted with gloom and a sense of anguish.

Jozef Israëls primarily painted scenes from the lives of simple farm labourers or fishermen. Sometimes, as in my next painting, he singled out tragic moments in their lives. This next work of art really tugs at one’s heart strings. It is entitled Alone and can be found at the Mesdag Museum in The Hague. Hendrik Mesdag, a contemporary and great friend of Israels, was a leading artist of The Hague School and he and his wife, Sientje played an active role in The Hague art world. Hendrik Mesdeg was not just an artist, he was an avid art collector. His collection grew so much that, in 1877, he had a museum built to house it

Alone in the World by Jozef Israels, (1881)

The setting for the painting, Alone in the World, is the inside a sparsely furnished bedroom of a peasant’s cottage. There is an air of bleak despondency about the scene we see before us. A man sits on the side of a bed. His bony workman’s hands rest on his knees, his posture is unmoving. He is wracked by sadness as his wife has died despite all he had done for her. Her body lies in the half-light which streams in from the left of the painting on to the bed and also illuminates the table on which are a pitcher of water and an empty glass as well as the bed. The greyish colour of the dead woman’s skin makes her almost indistinguishable from that of her bedclothes.

It is interesting to note that Jozef Israels and Sientje Mesdeg talked about this work years after its completion and on a broader aspect of art. They considered the anecdotal aspect of art and whether genre paintings should tell a tale. They failed to agree. Sientje was adamant that there was never a need for art to tell a story, whereas Jozef Israels countered saying that a “felt” work is good even if badly delineated. There is no doubt that this work is a “felt” work as we, the observers, can understand the feelings of the man at a time of his great loss.

Convalescent Mother and Child by Jozef Israels (1871)

A painting I really like which combines the reality of illness and sentimentality is Israels 1871 work entitled Convalescent Mother and Child. In the painting we see a mother slumped in a chair, head lolled to one side, her knitting lies abandoned in her lap. Walking towards her is her barefooted young child struggling to carry a small table towards her. The child is trying to be a help to his sick mother. Look at the concentrated expression on the child as he makes a great effort to move the table towards her.

A Jewish Wedding by Jozef Israels (1903)

In later years his paintings were influenced by the works of Rembrandt and this next work of art, entitled The Jewish Wedding, is a fine example of this. Jozef Israels was a committed orthodox Jew and his mother had once hoped that he would become a Rabbi. He produced a number of paintings depicting Jewish ceremonies. Here before us we see bride and groom under the chupa in the ceremony of sanctification of the joining together of the couple in marriage, surrounded by family and wedding guests. The couple in the painting are depicted in bright sunlight which was a symbol of the happiness of the occasion.

Joseph Israels died in Scheveningen in August 1911. aged 87.

Jozef Israels. Part 1 – The Plight of the Fisherman

Portrait of Jozef Israels by Jan Veth (1887)

My previous three blogs looked at Russian landscape painters and although they were leading exponents of this 19^th century genre they may have been unknown to many people nowadays. The artist I am looking at today is probably also not known by most people but he had a great influence of the early works of the Dutch master, Vincent van Gogh. Just before Christmas I went to Amsterdam to visit the newly refurbished Van Gogh Museum and I suggest that it is “must visit” museum for any travellers to the Dutch city.

Peasant Family at Table, by Jozef Israels (1882)

The museum was awash with colour from Van Gogh’s landscape paintings but I was fascinated by his darker early works and his fascination with the hard-working peasants and I wanted to know more about what influenced him to spend so much of his early life concentrating on depictions of the peasant class. It was then I came across Jozef Israels and his 1882 painting entitled Peasant Family at the Table, a work of art which led to a similar depiction, by van Gogh, of peasants sitting around a table having a meal which is entitled The Potato Eaters and I featured this work of art in My Daly Art Display (Feb 7^th 2012). However this blog is not about Van Gogh but the Dutch artist, Jozef Israels who influenced him. In this first blog about Jozef Israels I want to look at his paintings depicting the harsh life of fishermen and their families.

Josef Israels was a Dutch Jewish painter born in Groningen in January 1824. His father was to Hartog Abraham Israel, a professional broker and merchant who had married Mathilda Solomon Polack. Jozef was the third-born of ten children and he had six brothers and three sisters. As is the case of many young aspiring artists, Jozef’s father did not see his son’s future as an artist but wanted him to carry on the family business and it was only after a long struggle and great determination that Jozef persuaded his father to let him study art. It was a compromise, as during his artistic studies he worked as a stockbroker’s clerk in his father’s business. At the age of eleven he received his first drawing lessons from the landscape artist J. Bruggink who worked at Minerva Academy in Groningen and a year later became a pupil of Johan Joeke Gabriel van Wicheren. In 1838, aged fourteen he was tutored by the Groningen painter, Cornelis Bernudes Buys.

In 1842, shortly after his eighteenth birthday Jozef went to Amsterdam to study drawing under the tutelage of Jan Adam Kruseman and, in 1844, attended art classes at the Amsterdam Royal Academy of Art. Kruseman had made his name as a painter of historical, biblical and genre scenes but was probably more famous for his portraiture. In 1845 Jozef Israels left his native Netherlands and travelled to Paris where he worked in the studio of the neo-classical history painter, François-Édouard Picot. Picot was one of the artists who was favoured by the French rulers of the time. He was an esteemed artist who taught many of the aspiring artists of the time such as Alexandre Cabanel and William-Adolphe Bouguereau. His romantic historical paintings influenced Israels. The Romanticism genre of Louis Gallait and Ari Scheffer also left their mark on the twenty-two year old. During his stay in Paris he attended classes at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts presided over by such artistic luminaries as James Pradier, Horace Vernet and Paul Delaroche and he would spend time at the Louvre where he copied the works of the great Masters.

The Academies at the time pushed the genre of paysage historique, historical landscape painting depicting idealised landscape works of art with their historical connotations. This art genre went back to the 17^th century Baroque era of Nicolas Poussin and Claude Lorrain and aspiring landscape painters from the Academies made their way to Italy to paint their landscapes interspersed with historical monuments, the settings of which were favoured by the dazzling Mediterranean sunlight. This favourable Italian climate had given the artists the chance to paint en plein air.

However, Jozef Israels, whilst he was living in the French capital, delved into the alternate world of landscape painting, the world of Realism, and the works of the Barbizon painters some of whom he had the chance to meet. For them it was the landscape which was the beauty in itself and did not require the addition of mythological or biblical figures. If figures were to be added it should be those of hard working peasants whose inclusion added reality to the work and dispensed with romanticism. However Jozef Israels was not sold on their ideas for landscape painting and soon reverted to his painting which were more likely influenced by the painter Ari Scheffer (see My Daily Art Display May 15 2012 and Sept 30th 2014) depicting subjects from Romantic poetry or influenced by the work of the Belgian history painter, Louis Gallait and depicted figures from Dutch national history.

In 1847 Israels returned to Holland and his work concentrated on his portraiture and historical subjects, often with Jewish themes. The problem for Israels was that by the 1850’s, the genre of history paintings in the Netherlands was falling from favour and he realised that to sell his art he needed to think of a different painting genre. Fate took a hand as Jozef was taken ill and in 1855, as a cure for his health problems, he moved out of the city and went to live in the small fishing village of Zandvoort, where he believed the sea air would aid his recovery. He immersed himself in the local village life and became aware of the hard life endured by the village’s fishing community and he decided to record some of their sufferings in his works of art. His paintings depicted the hard life of the fishermen and their families and the unforgiving nature of the sea.

Along mother's grave by Jozef Israels (1856) — Passing mother’s grave by Jozef Israels (1856)

In 1856 he painted one of his most famous works featuring Zandvoort fishing folk. It was a life-size work measuring 224cms x 178cms entitled Passing Mother’s Grave. The painting depicts a fisherman passing his wife’s grave. He walks hand in hand with his son whilst carrying his baby daughter. The bare-footed trio alluded to the poverty of the fishing folk and for this trio life without the woman had added to their problems.The work is housed in the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.

Fishermen carrying drowned man by Jozef Israels (c.1861)

Another work of art featuring the plight of fishermen and their families was Jozef Israels’ painting entitled Fishermen Carry a Drowned Man which is housed in the National Gallery in London. It is thought that this work was completed around 1861, sometime after Jozef returned to Amsterdam from Zandvoort but used sketches he had made whilst living in the fishing village. The work is all about suffering and the hard life experienced by fishermen and their families and it was this eking of sympathy from the observer which was so like that of Jean-François Millet and his peasant paintings. Let’s look at this sombre work with its dark grey skies. A line of fishermen and their family trudge up the dunes from the shore. A grief-stricken woman leads the way with her two children at her side. They too are aware of the loss. Maybe the woman is the widow of the dead fisherman. She is leading the line of mourners. Behind her the body of the dead fisherman is carried by two burly men whilst to the left of them is a weeping woman. The dead man’s companions follow on carrying the fishing equipment from their boat. The work of art was exhibited at the 1861 Salon and in 1862 at the London International Exhibition and was hailed a triumphant success.

The third painting by Jozef Israels with this fishing/sea-going motif is entitled Anxiously Waiting. Once again observers of this work can empathize with the woman we see sitting on the dunes looking out to sea. On her knee sits her baby child. She is bare-footed which tells us of her and her family’s financial state. The sky has an orange hue indicating an oncoming storm. We see the white crests of the waves which signify the wind is beginning to increase in its ferocity. Her husband has left home in the fishing boat and has yet to return and she anxiously awaits sight of his boat.

In his painting Unloading the Catch we see that fishing was not just about the men that went to sea but the wives, parents and children who needed to help, notwithstanding their age or their state of health. Look at the line of helpers. An elderly woman bent over supporting herself with her cane, a man with a basket over his shoulder holding the hand of his daughter, two mothers carrying their babies , all have to help with the unloading of the day’s catch from the beached fishing boat.

Three Women Knitting by the Sea by Jozef Israels

In a number of his paintings he liked to connect the wives of the fishermen and the sea, the workplace of their husbands and fathers. In most it was the about the wife, worried about the safety of her husband, and the prospect of him not returning home safely. A painting by Jozef Israels with a lighter mood was his work entitled Three Women Knitting by the Sea. In the background we see a fishingboat at sea ,whilst in the foreground, we have the three ladies happily chatting away as they knit.

In his work On the Dunes we see a familiar depiction of a woman sitting on the dunes looking out to sea. On her back is her empty basket which, once the boat has landed with its catch, will be filled with fish which she will have to carry back to the village. Her wait will not be long as on the horizon we catch sight of the returning fishing boat. The sky is light and the sea is calm and for this day her beloved will return home safely.

An insight into the domestic life of a fisherman’s wife can be seen in his painting Mending the Nets. The scene is the interior of a cottage. A mother sits before a tiled fireplace mending her husband’s fishing nets whilst her young child sits in a wooden forerunner to today’s baby buggy. The baby looks over the side at the cat which she tantalises with a strand of wool.

In my next blog I will look at some more of the paintings by Jozef Israels, in which he depicted peasant life and I will conclude his life story.

Alexsei Savrasov – the lyrical landscape artist

Portrait of Alexei Savrasov by Vasily Perov (1878)

My last two blogs featured the life and works of the great nineteenth century landscape painter, Isaac Levitan. Whilst I was researching his early life as a student at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture I came across the name of Alexei Kondratyevich Savrasov who was one of Levitan’s tutors. Having a rest from writing about Levitan, I had a look at some of the works of Savrasov, who had influenced Levitan and amongst them I came across the most exquisite painting and the one Savrasov was probably most famous for; but more about that later.

Alexei Savrasov was born on 12 May 1830 into the family of a Moscow merchant. As a young boy he developed the love of drawing and by the age of twelve he was experimenting with painting gouache and watercolour landscapes and during his early years he managed to exchange his paintings with vendors for chicken feed. He persuaded his father to let him study art and at the young of eight he attended the painting school.

In 1844, when Savrasov was fourteen years of age, and plans for his future career had to be discussed with the family. His father was adamant that his son should follow him and become a merchant and thus end all the time his son spent painting which his father regarded as just a hobby. However for Alexei, his heart was set on becoming an artist. Alexei eventually had his way and enrolled at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture and in 1848 he was fortunate to join the special studio of perspective and landscape painting which was run by Karl Rabus, who was the Professor of Landscape painting. Alexei loved the genre of landscape painting and began to specialise in it. Soon he was widely acknowledged by the tutors as the best student of landscape painting in the School. During the last years at the painting school, Savrasov, received a bursary from a well-known Moscow art patron and member of the Moscow Art Society, Likhachev, which enabled him to go on a painting and sketching trip to Odessa, where he captured the beauty of the local landscape.

View of the Kremlin from the Krymsky Bridge in Inclement Weather by Alexei Savrasov (1851)

In 1850 Savrasov graduated from the Moscow School of Painting receiving the official title of “unclassed artist”. One of the first paintings Savrasov completed after leaving the art school was entitled View of the Kremlin from Krymski Bridge during Inclement Weather. The storm clouds rush from the right to the left of the painting pushed relentlessly by the strong winds which have caused the branches of the trees to bend towards the river. The sun has pierced the clouds and illuminated the Kremlin in the background of the painting. In the foreground of the painting we see that the sun has lit up a small patch of land where the water from the Moskva River laps the sandy ground. A woman, pail in hand, rushes past. Her hand clutches her coat to hold it closed while the wind whips at her skirt which is billowing in the gale.

View in the Neighbourhood of Oranienbaum by Alexei Savrasov (1854)

Savrasov travelled to the Ukraine in 1852 and steadily built up a portfolio of sketches and paintings and with them he started to develop a reputation as an up and coming artist. Two years later, in 1854, he received a painting commission for several works of art for the Russian Art Academy from the Grand Duchess Maria Nikolayevna, She was one of the daughters of Emperor Nicholas I of Russia. She was an avid and well-known art collector and President of the Russian Academy of Arts in St Petersburg. To carry out his commission, Savrasov moved from Moscow to the Gulf of Finland, close to St Petersburg. Two of the paintings he produced, View in the Neighborhood of Oranienbaum and Seashore in the Neighborhood of Oranienbaum, are now looked upon as excellent examples of the genre known as romantic landscapes These works of art by Savrasov allowed him to depict, with great fondness, the charm and appeal of a summer evening at the sea, with the moistness associated with the sea air in the shade of ancient rocks, whilst envisioning the twilight which we observe under the spreading branches of trees. The works Savrasov produced during this period, and these two works in particular, earned him the title of Fellow of the Russian Art Academy.

Alexi Savrasov had studied at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture for ten years from 1844 to 1854, some of the time under the tutorship of Karl Rabus. When Rabus died in 1857 Savrasov was asked to take over Rabus’ landscape class which he did and remained in post until 1882. During his tenure he took many students under his wing, including the subject of my last blog, Isaac Levitan. Savrasov was an excellent teacher and much loved and admired by his students. In 1857 Savrasov married Sophia Hertz, the sister of art historian and archaeologist, K. Hertz; the couple went on to have several children. In their home they entertained artists and collectors including the famous art collector and patron of the arts, Pavel Tretyakov, who gave his name to the Moscow Art Gallery.

After leaving the Moscow School of Art in 1862, Savrasov took up the suggestion made to him by the Art Amateurs’ Society and left Russia on a painting expedition of Europe. He travelled to that year’s World Fair in London, where he exhibited his painting View of the Surroundings Oranienbaum, and was amazed by what he saw and was unstinting in his praise, writing:

“…no academies in the world could so advance an artist as the present world exhibition…”

View of the Swiss Alps from Interlaken by Alexsei Savrasov (1862)

On the way back home he visited Paris, Switzerland, Copenhagen, Berlin, Dresden, Leipzig. During his European travels the two landscape painter whom he admired the most were the English artist, John Constable and the Swiss landscape painter Alexandre Calame. One of the paintings he completed in 1862 originated from his travels through Switzerland. It was entitled View of the Swiss Alps from Interlaken and was completed in 1862.

I particularly like his painting entitled Rafts which he painted in 1868.

Elk Island in Sokolniki by Alexi Savrasov (1869)

However the painting of his which drew the most acclaim in this period was a beautiful landscape work entitled Elk Island in Sokolniki, which he finished in 1869 and for which he was awarded the first prize at a painting competition organised by the Moscow Art Amateurs’ Society. Elk Island straddles the boundary between the centre of Moscow and its suburbs to the north of the city. It is home to a remarkable variety of animal and plant life. The area was believed to have been a favourite place for Ivan the Terrible to enjoy falconry and bear-hunting. The area was given the name Elk Island in the early 17^th century, when documents say that the place was used for hunting “all manner of game birds, and especially elk”.

Caves Monastery near Nizhny Novgorod by Aklexei Savrasov (1871)

In December 1870 Savrasov, his wife and family went to live in Yaroslavl which lies on the Volga, three hundred kilometres north of Moscow. Whilst there he produced the beautiful work of art entitled Caves Monastery near Nizhny Novgorod, which is now housed in the Gorky State Art Museum in Nizhny Novgorod. It was one of the largest canvases Savrasov ever painted. The left hand side of this wide panoramic view is taken up by the confluence of the Oka and Volga Rivers with the blue lagoons whilst the right hand side of the painting depicts the Pechersky Voznesensky monastery. The original monastery is believed to have been founded around 1330 by St. Dionysius, who, along with several followers, arrived in Nizhny Novgorod from Kiev Pechersk Lavra also known as the Kiev Monastery of the Caves, (pechery meaning ‘caves), hence the title of the painting. On arrival at Nizhny Novgorod they dug a cave on the shoreline of the Volga and later it became the site of a monastery and church. The original monastery was destroyed by a landslide in 1597; but in the same year a new monastery was built a short distance upstream.

Detail from Caves Monastery near Nizhny Novgorod

In the right foreground, we see suburban homes with their small gardens awash with greenery which contrasts with the towering white stonework of the monastery.

The Rooks have Come Back by Alexei Savrasov (1871)

The last work of Savrasov, which I am showcasing, is the one I talked about at the start of this blog. Its beauty and simplicity immediately struck me and I was reminded of one of my favourite artists Pieter Breugel the Elder who had a propensity of including rooks or magpies in his winter scenes, such as his 1565 painting The Hunters in the Snow. This painting by Savrasov entitled The Rooks have Come Back was completed in 1871 at the height of his artistic career.

Members of the Peredvizhniki group (Savrasov,with beard, standing, third from left)

A year earlier he had became a member of the Peredvizhniki group, often known as The Wanderers or The Itinerants who were a group of Russian Realist artists, who like many artists throughout Europe railed against the Academic restrictions and decided to go off on their own and set up artists’ cooperative. The Wanderers eventually evolved into the Society for Travelling Art Exhibitions. It is a simple painting with an equally simple theme – the birds returning home in Spring. It was a transitional depiction. A transition of nature from winter to spring heralded by the return of the rooks. This landscape work with all its simplicity was termed a lyrical landscape painting later to be termed a mood landscape painting and Savrasov was one of the founding exponents of this type of landscape art. His pupil Isaac Levitan would continue with this style. Of this painting the artist, art critic and leader of the Russian Democratic Art movement, Ivan Kramskoi, wrote:

“…The Rooks Have Come Back was the best he’d ever seen; and despite the fact that there were similar landscapes painted by other renowned Russian artists, only “The Rooks” mirrored the artist’s soul.

Savrasov’s former pupil and fellow landscape painter Isaac Levitan declared the painting:

“…to be “very simple, but beneath the simplicity there is the tender artist’s soul, who loves nature and values it…”

Although the year 1871 and this painting marked the height of Savrasov’s fame it also marked the beginning of the end of the great man for in February 1871 Savrasov’s life took a tragic turn with the sudden death of his baby daughter. This was the third child he and his wife had lost. Maybe it was “the straw which broke the camel’s back” as Savrasov never recovered from this loss and descended into deep depression and despite friends who tried to help him he took to alcohol to ease the pain.. His work suffered and by 1882 he could no longer hold down the post of professor at the Moscow Art School and was sacked. His wife eventually left him and took their children with her, His bad manners and unpleasant demeanour caused friends and family to eventually desert him and his alcoholism and lack of sales of his work culminated in the 1880’s with him living the life of a pauper. In 1890 Savrasov went to live with Evdokiya Morgunova, and the couple had two children.

Savrasov's grave in Vagankovo Cemetery, Moscow — Savrasov’s grave in Vagankovo Cemetery, Moscow

Alexei Savrasov died in September 1897 in a city hospital, in a ward for paupers. When it came to his funeral, the doorkeeper of the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture and Pavel Tretyakov, who later founded the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, were the only people to attend Savrasov’s funeral .

I will leave you with a quote from his pupil Isaak Levitan, who wrote of his mentor:

“…One of the most profound Russian landscape-artists has passed away. With him, lyricism came to landscape painting, and boundless love for one’s native land. Yes, Savrasov was the father of Russian landscape painting, and this undisputed merit of his will never be forgotten in the field of Russian art…”

Isaac Levitan. Part 2 – The later years

Portrait of Anton Chekhov by Isaac Levitan (1886)

Anton Chekhov, the writer and physician, was born in January 1860. He was the third of six children and was brought up in the coastal town of Taganrog which lay on the north shore of the Sea of Azov in southern Russia. In 1876, when he was sixteen years old his father, Pavel, was in the process of building a new house but ran out of money and was mired in a huge debt. Rather than face the prospect of languishing in a debtors prison he escaped the town and moved to Moscow where his elder sons, Alexander and Nikolai were studying. Alexander was attending Moscow University and Nikolai was an art student at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. Anton Chekhov remained behind in Taganrog to finish his studies at the local secondary school and was also charged with the task of selling the family’s possessions. It was not until three years later in 1879 that Anton Chekhov joined the family in Moscow.

Anton Chekhov enrolled at the Moscow State Medical University and it was shortly after arriving in Moscow that he was introduced to Isaac Levitan by his brother Nikolai who was a fellow student of Levitan at the Moscow School of Painting. Anton Chekhov was just eight months older than Levitan and the close friendship between the two great men of the Russian Arts steadily grew and it would last until the end of their lives. This was a coming together of two Masters of Russian literature and the visual arts, and this close camaraderie led to a close style in the way the two considered and dealt with artistic challenges, so much so that their names are often quoted side by side both in specialized literature and popular writings.

The Watermill, Sunset by Isaac Levitan (1880)

Levitan completed a beautiful but small landscape painting, The Watermill, Sunset. It measured just 33cms x 52cms. He painted this work in the summer of 1880 when he was spending time in the small riverside town of Plyos on the banks of the mighty Volga River. Levitan loved the area and this period could be looked upon as one of the happiest times of his life. His friend Anton Chekhov said that when his artist friend and he were in Plyos he could detect a smile on Isaac’s face. Sadly, because of family tragedies and his unending fight against poverty, Levitan rarely smiled and was often the victim of melancholia.

Isaac Levitan had developed a great love of nature which almost certainly originated from his time at the Moscow School of Painting and the time he spent with one of his tutors, the Russian landscape painter, Alexei Savrasov. Savrasov was one of the most eminent of all 19^th century Russian landscape artists and was renowned for his lyrical style and melancholic works of art. He was looked upon as the creator of the lyrical landscape style.

In all, Levitan painted this view three times. The first, which we see above, is housed in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, and the other two, which were painted later, form part of two private Russian collections. The scene is set at sunset and the mill is in shadow whilst the forest, on the opposite side of the river in the background is bathed in evening sunlight. The light slants in from the right illuminating the far bank. It is the ending of the day and although the blue skies suggest otherwise, the location will soon be cast in darkness. In the foreground, the focal point is the wooden mill and the small rickety bridge which crosses over the small waterfall, the water of which powers the mill. In many of Levitan’s paintings he depicts small bridges crossing over water along with jetties which often had boats moored to them.

Levitan’s moody landscapes and the artists and poets who had influenced this style of art were commented upon by Alexandre Benois in his 1916 book, The Russian School of Painting. He wrote:

“…He brought to a summation that which Vasiliev, Savrasov and Polenov had foretold. Levitan discovered the peculiar charm of Russian landscape “moods”; he found a distinctive style to Russian landscape art which would have been distinguished illustrations to the poetry of Pushkin, Koltzov, Gogol, Turgenyev and Tyutchev. He rendered the inexplicable charm of our humble poverty, the shoreless breadth of our virginal expanses, the festal sadness of the Russian autumn, and the enigmatic call of the Russian spring. There are no human beings in his paintings, but they are permeated with a deep emotion which floods the human heart…”

To supplement his income Levitan gave private painting lessons and he collaborated with the Chekhov brothers on the illustrated magazine “Moscow”. Levitan also spent time spent time on the popular Russian magazines, “Raduga” (Rainbow) in1883) and “Volna” (Wave) in 1884, where he worked on graphics and lithographs for the publications. He also collaborated with illustrations for Mikhail Fabritsius’ guide book, The Kremlin in Moscow. During the summers of the mid and late 1880’s Levitan spent much of his time with the Chekhov family, who had a summer residence on the Babkino estate close to the banks of the Istra River. The estate was owned by Alexsei Kiselev and he and his wife Marila would entertain artists and writers at their many soirees. Levitan eventually moved into the Chekhovs home and set up his own studio. One painting he completed in 1886, whilst staying with the Chekhovs was The Istra River.

In the Crimean Mountains by Isaac Levitan (1886)

His impoverished upbringing during which he often had no idea where or when his next meal would come from combined with the stress of being an artist trying to eke out a living had affected his health and he was diagnosed as having a degenerative heart disease and advised to move to a warmer climate further to the south of the country and so in late March 1886 Isaac Levitan visited the Crimea for the first time. It was here that he completed more than sixty sketches and paintings during his two months sojourn including one entitled In the Crimean Mountains which depicted an area around the town of Feodosiya, in eastern Crimea. It is a painting which manages to capture the bright sun and the intense heat of the mountainous setting. Levitan exhibited all the sketches he had completed whilst staying in the Crimea at the Moscow Society of Art Lovers (MSAL). All were purchased and with that success came financial stability for Isaac Levitan.

Evening on the Volga by Isaac Levitan (1888)

Between 1887 and 1890 Levitan would travel far and wide spending the long summer months in small towns along the Volga River, such as Plës (Plyos) and Vasil’sursk and two of his paintings of that time, Evening on the Volga (1888) and Evening: The Golden Plyos (1889) depicted the beauty of the river and the townships, which were situated on the banks of the great waterway, during the hours of sunset.

Evening: Golden Ples by Isaac Levitan (1889)

Levitan painted the Volga River scenes in various weather and light conditions and by doing so was able to convey associated moods. The Volga series established Levitan as the painter of the landscape of mood and his style became popular with other Moscow landscape artists of the time.

The Mediterranean Coast by Isaac Levitan (1890)

Levitan realised that much could be learnt from European artists and so, in March 1890, he embarked on a tour visiting Berlin and Paris and the Cote d’Azur towns of Nice and Menton. From his visit to the south of France, he completed a work entitled The Mediterranean Coast which is a truly beautiful depiction of the multi-coloured sea and the pebbled shoreline. He went on to Italy and visited Venice and Florence, Germany and Switzerland. However Levitan was a true Russian and despite the lure of the artistic life in the European capitals he preferred to return to his homeland.

In March 1891 Isaac Levitan became a member of the Society of Travelling Art Exhibitions, and by the end of the year, displayed ten of his paintings at a Moscow Society of Art Lovers (MSAL) exhibition. His exhibits met with unreserved acclaim from both his fellow artists and the public.

Quiet Abode, The Silent Monastery by Isaac Levitan (1890)

Another of Levitan’s works of art I really like was completed in 1890, ten years after The Watermill painting, and was entitled Quiet Abode, The Silent Monastery. The monastery in question is the Krivooserski Monastery which is close to the river town of Yuryevets, located at the confluence of the Unzha and the Volga Rivers, some 350 kilometres north east of Moscow. Levitan had visited the area in the summer of 1890. In the painting we see the monastery in the background nestled amongst the high trees with just the ornate cupolas peaking above the tree canopy. In the foreground we can see a curved rickety wooden-planked bridge which traverses the slow-flowing river. The surface of the river shimmers in the sunlight. Look how beautifully Levitan has depicted the reflection of the monastery and the trees in this still expanse of water.

Anton Chekhov was so impressed with his friend’s painting that he introduced it into his 1895 novel, Three Years, in which he had the heroine of the story, Yulia Sergeievna, visit an Easter Week art exhibition and stand in front of what he described as

“…a small landscape… In the foreground was a stream, over it a little wooden bridge...”

Above the Eternal Peace by Isdaac Levitan (1894)

One of the most haunting works by Levitan was his painting entitled Above the Eternal Peace which he completed in 1894. The first thing that strikes you about this evocative work is it is the depiction of an endless landscape. In the background we have a beautiful depiction of threatening heavy grey clouds which are intermingled with fluffy white ones, all of which are reflected on to the still waters of the lake below. In the foreground, sitting isolated on a verdant promontory which juts into the lake, is a small church with its gleaming silver cupola. Behind the church is the graveyard. It is separated from the church by some birch trees which have been bent over by strong winds. The graveyard looks abandoned and is rather overgrown and some of the crosses have lean over from the constant force of a strong wind which raced unhindered across the exposed promontory. The picture was painted on the shore of Lake Udomlia in Tver province, 250 kilometres north of Moscow.

My final offering is another haunting work of art, not for its pictorial depiction but because where and what it is being depicted. It was a depiction of a well-trodden road which led convicts towards their penal colonies in Siberia. The painting is entitled The Vladimirka Road and Levitan completed it in 1892. The Vladimir Highway familiarly known as the Vladimirka was a 190-kilometre road which went from Moscow to Vladimir and Nizhny Novgorod, Siberia in the east. Siberia was at this time the customary place of exile, and this road depicted in the painting saw an endless movement of prisoners in shackles being marched from Moscow to the Siberian penal colonies. Levitan’s work of art is not just another landscape painting it is a combination of his realistic vision with a message. Before us is a somewhat desolate landscape but the point of the painting is to remind people, who look at the depiction, of the traumatic history of the road. It was about exile but it was not just about the exile of prisoners to Siberia. Levitan himself probably reflected on his own life at the time as in 1892 through to the beginning of 1893, by order of the Moscow governor-general, the Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, about 20,000 Jews were deported from Moscow. Isaac Levitan was among those forced from his home and this expulsion because of his religion had traumatised him.

Everything about the painting reflects his troubled mind. Levitan has depicted the sky and the fields in dull and rather uninviting tones. Before us we have a flat and almost lifeless landscape with just the odd trees in the background. There is little or no vegetation and the path has been almost reduced to gravel due to the thousands of prisoners who had been marched along it over the years. Look at the colours he has used. Instead of bright greens and yellows he has gone for dull browns and lacklustre darker greens. The sky is grey with no hint of blue to uplift the painting. There is no sign of the sun which would have brightened the landscape but that was not the intention of the artist. There are no people depicted as he and many other realistic landscape artists believed the inclusion of people into a landscape painting detracted from the surroundings. Most of Levitan’s landscapes are without people. This work of art was termed a mood landscape in which the artist has transferred his mood into the way he depicts the scene. There is nothing uplifting about the view. There is nothing in the scene that would raise one’s spirits but that is just as Levitan wanted it to be. It was Levitan’s way of depicting hopelessness. It was the historical hopelessness of those who trudged their way to what would simply be slave labour. It was his own feeling of despair at his plight as a persecuted Jew.

To put a more uplifting spirit to this road the Bolsheviks, post-Russian Revolution, renamed it Shosse Entuziastov (“Enthusiasts’ Highway”) and many years later it became known as the Volga Motorway.

In March 1894 Levitan moved to the Tver Region, and later to Gorki. His health was deteriorating and by 1895 the degenerative heart disease which had been diagnosed ten years earlier was making life more difficult for Levitan. He was in constant pain and had little energy. His physical ailment triggered mental health issues in the form of depression and it was known that on a number of occasions he attempted to end his life. The only thing which gave him happiness was his love of nature. In 1897, he had become world-renowned as a landscape painter and he was elected to the Imperial Academy of Arts and in 1898 he was named the head of the Landscape Studio at his alma mater, the Moscow School of Painting.

Levitan spent the last year of his life at Chekhov’s home in the Crimea. Even though Levitan was aware that he was dying his last works were ones of brightness of colour. An example of this is one which remained unfinished at the time of his death in 1890. It was entitled The Lake although Levitan called it Rus’. It is believed that he labelled the work thus as he believed the painting reflect ed tranquillity and the eternal beauty of Russian nature and embodied all that was good about his homeland – its landscape, its people and its history.

Portrait of Isaac Levitan by Valentin Serov (1883)

In 1898 Levitan was given the title of academic of landscape painting. He still taught in the Moscow College of Art, Sculpture and Architecture. His paintings were constantly on display at Russia-wide exhibitions, at International exhibitions in Munich and the World Exhibition in Paris. He became internationally famous. His health started failing, his heart disease progressing quickly. He went abroad for some last-ditch medical treatment but any slight improvement was short lived. Isaac Levitan completed over a thousand paintings, during his short life. He died on 22 June 1900, just forty years of age. Levitan never married and had no children. He was buried in the Jewish cemetery at Dorogomilovo, Moscow. In April 1941 Levitan’s remains were moved to the Novodevichy Cemetery, close to the grave of his friend Anton Chekhov.

In August 2008 in the village of Eliseikovo, Petushinsky District near Vladimir – the Levitan House of Landscape was opened. Isaac Levitan first came to this area in May 1891, on invitation of the historian Vassily Kluchevsky, who had a summer home by the Peksha River. In 1892, Levitan returned, but on this occasion it was not from choice as it was the time when the Russian authorities banished Jews from Moscow. The great Russain opera singer and friend of Levitan, Fyodor Shalyapin, spoke of the art of his friend:

“…It has brought me to realization that the most important thing in art is this feeling, this spirit, this prophetic word that sets people’s hearts on fire. And this prophetic word can be expressed not only in speech and gesture but also in line and colour…”

Isaac Levitan. Part 1, His early life and paintings

From the portraiture and the religious works of the 16^th century Italian painter Giovanni Battista Moroni I am moving in a completely different direction. I am focusing on the Russian Empire and one of, if not the greatest Russian landscape painter of the nineteenth century. Today let me introduce you to Isaac Levitan.

Isaac Ilyich Levitan was born in August 1860 in the small schetl of Kibart. A schetl is a small settlement with a large Jewish population. Kibart was close to the border town of Verzhbolovo, and was then part of what was known as Russian Poland. The town is now part of Lithuania and is known as Virbalis. Levitan was one of four children who was born into an intellectual working class Jewish family. His father, Elyashiv Levitan, was a language teacher, teaching French and German at the nearby school in Kowno (now Kaunus, Lithuania) He alaso supplemented his pay as a teacher by acting as a translator for a French building company, which was constructing a nearby bridge over the Lieponio River for the St. Petersburg to Warsaw railway. Elyashiv spent a lot of his free time educating his children at home. Both Isaac’s mother and father were interested in art and so, when their son and his brother Axel also showed an interest in it, they were only too pleased to nurture their children’s love of drawing and painting.

Landscape on the Volga by Isaac Levitan (1878)

In the Spring of 1870 the family moved to Moscow and the following year his older brother Axel enrolled at the Moscow College of Art, Sculpture and Architecture, which was one of the largest educational institutions in Russia. Two years later, in September 1873, Isaac also registered as a pupil at the college to study art. His initial artistic training concentrated on copying but, after a year, he moved on to a class which focused on nature and art and soon he was embroiled in the genre of landscape painting, which was later to make him famous. He had first-class teachers at the college, including the landscape painters, Alexi Savrasov, the head of the landscape department, his successor, Vasily Polenov and the Realist painter Vasily Perov, who was the founder of the Peredvizhniki often known as The Wanderers or The Itinerants, who were a group of Russian realist painters who in protest at academic restrictions formed an artists’ cooperative. The group later evolved into the Society for Travelling Art Exhibitions.

Autumn Road in a Village by Isaac Levitan (1877)

Isaac loved the challenge of landscape painting and was greatly influenced by the landscape work of the Barbizon painters as well as the work of the French realist painter Camile Corot. Things were proceeding well for Isaac until 1875 when, at the age of fifteen, tragedy struck with the death of his mother and in 1877, after contracting typhus and having endured a long illness during which time he could not earn money, his father died. Now Isaac was without financial support. He had neither money to pay the college fees nor the money to live. He was asked to leave the college due to non-payment of his tuition fees but was rescued by the kindness of friends who gave him the money so that he could continue studying and later, thanks to the College Council who appreciated his talent, the tuition fees were waived and furthermore they awarded him a small bursary.

A Sunny Day, Spring by Isaac Levitan (1876)

In 1877, the year that his father died, the fifth Travelling Art Exhibition was held at the Moscow College of Art. Isaac Levitan submitted two of his works with great hopes of a medal. He had completed one of the works, Solnechnyi den Vesna (A Sunny Day, Spring) the previous year, whilst his other entry, Vecher (Evening) had been completed in 1877. Levitan was disappointed in the judges’ decision. He didn’t receive a medal for either work but was granted a diploma which allowed him to become an art teacher.

The year 1879 proved to be a year of turmoil and triumph for nineteen year old Levitan. The turmoil occurred on the morning of April 20, 1879; Tsar Alexander II was attacked by a thirty-three year old former student, Alexander Soloviev, as he walked towards the Square of the Guards Staff. The result of this assassination attempt was a crackdown on groups of people who were believed to be a threat to the Tsar. The government issued an edict that there would be a mass deportation of Jews from the big cities of the Russian Empire. This meant that Isaac’s family were forced to move out of the centre of Moscow to the eastern suburb of Saltykovka. Later that year, due to pressure on the local government officials by art lovers, Isaac Levitan was allowed to return to the city.

Autumn Day, Sokolniki, by Isaac Levitan (1879)

The triumph came that December, when Isaac entered his painting, Osenniy den Sokolniki (Autumn Day, Sokolniki) in the second students’ exhibition. Levitan liked to paint views of different settings in the Moscow area. Considered to be one of the best works of this period is his poignant work entitled Autumn Day, Sokolniki, which he completed in 1879. The painting reveals to us Levitan’s belief in the connection between nature and human feelings. The painting is a depiction of a grey-clouded autumn sky and one can imagine the rustling sound of the wind through the trees causing the dying leaves to fall to the ground. The path which disappears into the distance is the focal point of the painting. It is empty with the exception of a woman dressed in black, who strolls towards us.

This work of art by Levitan was his reminder of his joy of walking along the forest path of his beloved Sokolniki Park. The park lies to the northeast of the city and was so named because of its connection with falconry which took place there and was the favourite sport of members of the royal court (sokol is the Russian word for falcon). This work of art received great revues and the following year it was purchased by the art collector and philanthropist, Pavel Tretyakov, the founder of the famous Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. This marked the initial public recognition of Isaac Levitan and his art. The painting can now be seen at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.

It was around the end of the 1870’s that Isaac Levitan met the writer Anton Chekhov. The meeting came about as Anton’s brother, Nikolai, was a fellow student of Levitan at the Moscow College of Art. This was to be a friendship which lasted all Levitan’s life.

In my next blog I will continue looking at the life of Isaac Levitan and feature some of his most important later works.

Giovanni Battista Moroni – his religious works

In today’s blog I complete my look at the 16^th century Italian painter, Giovanni Battista Moroni, and look at some of his religious works.

Moroni had studied under Alessandro Bonvicino (Il Moretto) and in the 1540’s he eventually rose to become the main studio assistant at his Master’s Brescia workshop. Moroni went on to ply his trade in Bergamo, his home town of Albino and the town of Trent during which time, the town hosted the Catholic ecumenical Council of Trent. The first Council being held between 1546 and 1548 and Pope Julius III instigated the Second Council of Trent, which began in May1551 and ended two years later. During these days Moroni received many commissions to paint altarpieces for the local churches.

The Last Supper by Giovanni Battista Moroni (1566-9)

One such religious work was The Last Supper which Moroni completed in 1569. The setting for the work is a covered logia, which is part of an architectural setting through which we glance out at a distant blue-skied landscape. The first thing that strikes you about this rendition of the famous religious scene is the man in black who stands behind those partaking in the meal. We can tell by his dress that he is not one of the Apostles. He stands behind St John and is acting as a waiter to the diners. He is the dominant character in the painting but why was he included? We know the painting was commissioned in December 1565 by the Confraternita del Santissimo Sacramento, a regional Brotherhood of the Blessed Sacrament in the small Bergamo commune of Romano di Lombardia and was not completed until 1569. There has been much speculation about the identity of the man in black with some people, such as the 19^th century Italian art historian, Milesi Locatelli, who in his 1869 three-volume biography Illustri Bergamaschi. Studi critic-biografici, and more recently Maria Calì in her 1980 book, “Verita” e “religione” nella pittura di Giovan Battista Moroni, both stated that it was the artist himself but why the confraternity would want Moroni to include himself is hard to rationalize. Simone Facchinetti who co-wrote the book which accompanies the Royal Academy’s Moroni exhibition believes that the man in black is Lattanzio da Lallio, the parish priest of the Romano di Lombardia church at the time of the painting and his position of power over the confraternity and the fact that he was arranging the painting commission with Moroni, may have allowed/asked the artist to have himself depicted in the painting.

My next couple of religious works by Moroni are very interesting. The depiction in each case is believed to have come from what was taught by Saint Ignatius of Loyola in his Spiritual Exercises, often termed the Ignatian Spirituality. The Spiritual Exercises are a compilation of meditation, prayer, and contemplative practice developed by St. Ignatius Loyola to help people deepen their relationship with God. They were a set of Christian meditations, prayers and mental exercises. When one prayed, St Ignatius believed that one should meditate on a biblical passage so as to bring the person praying closer to God. He gave precise instructions on the matter of composition or envisioning the place. The religious composition is the fruit of mental prayer. It is a sort of vision arising in the mind of the one who is praying. It is seeing with the eyes of the imagination a physical location in which the thing the worshipper wishes to contemplate is to be found.

A Man in Contemplation Before the Crucifixion with St John the Baptist and St. Sebastian by Giovanni Battista Moroni (c.1575)

The first painting is entitled A Man in Contemplation Before the Crucifixion with St John the Baptist and St. Sebastian which was completed by Giovanni Battista Moroni around 1575. The painting is housed in the Bergamo church, Chiesa di Sant’ Alessandro della Croce. In this work a man in the foreground has turned towards us and points towards a painted scene of the Crucifixion which is being witnessed by St John the Baptist on the left and St Sebastian on the right. The latter can be seen holding the arrows shot at him during the first attempt on his life. Sebastian is often depicted in paintings tied to a tree or a pillar and shot with arrows but according to legend he did not die and was rescued by Irene of Rome, later Saint Irene. Later, around AD 288, he was clubbed to death for openly criticising the Roman Emperor Diocletian.

A Gentleman in Adoration before the Baptism of Christ by Giovanni Battista Moroni (c.1555)

The second work depicts a man praying and at the same time concentrating his mind on a story from the Bible, which in this case is the baptism of Christ by St John. What we see before us is what, through deep meditation, the praying man has conjured up in his mind during prayer. The painting is entitled Gentleman in Contemplation of the Baptism of Christ which Moroni completed around 1555. The young man, with his hands clasped in prayer, stands upright before the biblical scene he is imagining, separated from it by some architectural ruins. In the background we have a Lombardy landscape and in the middle ground we see the two figures by a stream which almost certainly alludes to the River Jordan where Christ was baptised by John. The painting is now part of the Gerolamo and Roberta Etro collection. Gerolamo, an avid art collector, was the founder in 1968 of Etro the Italian luxury fashion house.

The Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine by Giovanni Battista Moroni (c.1545-50)

My final offering of a religious work by Moroni is The Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine and was completed around 1550. It is a beautiful and delicate work of art and is housed at the Ashmoleon Museum in Oxford. In the painting we see a depiction of St Catherine, an early Christian martyr of royal birth, seated next to the Virgin Mary, who cradles the Christ Child. Catherine is receiving a wedding-ring from Him, which symbolises her spiritual closeness to God. In her left hand she holds a palm frond which was adopted into Christian iconography to represent the victory of martyrs, a victory for the faithful against those who want to claim their soul. St Catherine, who died in Alexandria, Egypt, in the early 4th century AD, when she was in her twenties. She was martyred at the hands of the pagan emperor Maxentius.

The setting for the painting is inside a room, which has a large window, through which can be seen a town. It is thought that it is the town of Bergamo, as to the left, one sees the town’s Torre Civica, which was built in the twelfth century. The small oil on canvas painting, which measures 86cms x 68cms, is thought to have been designed for private devotion. Furthermore the original recipient of the work is thought to have been a young girl, who would then identify herself with the teenage martyr, Catherine.

Giovanni Moroni was part way through a commission to paint The Last Judgement in the church at Gorlago, a commune of Bergamo, close to his home town of Albino. He never completed the commission as he died in February 1579. Although his exact birth date is not known it is reckoned he was in his mid-fifties when he died.

The portraiture of Giovanni Battista Moroni

Last week, I went to the Royal Academy which was staging three very different exhibitions. Each one had its supporters and it was interesting to walk through each and compare the works on display. I know that is somewhat foolhardy as one would never contemplate and compare the athletic prowess of a baseball star with a soccer star or a football star with and ice hockey player. Each has a skill of their own and one cannot make a comparison across different sports so I suppose I should not contrast the works of Allen Jones with Anselm Keifer or Giovanni Moroni. All are so different and it is up to one’s individual taste as to what one believes is the most beautiful and the most eye-catching.

For me, the choice was a no-brainer. I have always liked paintings from the 16^th and 17^th century and I have always admired the genre of portraiture and so my favourite, by far, was the Giovanni Battista Moroni exhibition which is on at the Sackler Gallery until January 25^th. In my next two blogs, I would like to whet your appetite by looking at the life and some of the works of art of one of the greatest Italian portraitists of the sixteenth century and by doing so try and persuade you to visit the wonderful exhibition.

Giovanni Battista Moroni was the son of architect Francesco Moroni and Maddalena di Vitale Brigati. He was born around 1522 in the Venetian Lombardy region of northern Italy, in the commune of Albino, in the province of Bergamo. It was a time close to the end of the Italian Renaissance period which had started back in the fourteenth century. It was an exciting period of cultural change which brought about new styles of art, music, literature, and architecture. This was a time designated as the Cinquecento also known as High Renaissance period and it was during this time that a secular theme started to manifest itself in the subject for paintings. Moroni was apprenticed to Alessandro Bonvicino more commonly known as Il Moretto da Brescia who had a studio in Trento which at the time hosted the great meeting of Catholic clergy at the Council of Trent between 1545 and 1563. For Roman Catholicism, this was It was the most important ecumenical council which had been called to come up with ideas to counter the Protestant Reformation.

In this first blog about Moroni I want to concentrate on his portraiture and I have chosen four of my favourite works from the exhibition. One of his most famous works and considered to be one of the masterpieces of sixteenth century portraiture, is entitled Il Tagliapanni (Portrait of a Tailor), which he completed around 1570. What is mystifying about this portrait is the fact that the title of the work although telling us this is a portrait of an artisan the costume of the man before us would seem to have aristocratic connotations. The setting for the portrait is a bare room, which is not well illuminated and which contrasts with the way Moroni has illuminated the head of the tailor form a light source coming from the left of the painting. The lack of furnishings allows us to concentrate on the subject of the painting. The figure, who stands by his cutting bench, is the tailor. He is wearing doublet and hose. He has a cream fustian jacket and wears full red breeches, which almost, but not quite, hides a similar coloured codpiece. The colour of the clothing worn by the tailor was a change from Moroni’s normal male portraits as he had, as a rule, had his sitters dress in all-black clothing which was the Spanish fashion-style of male sitters. Around his waist is a sword belt – another hint of aristocracy. He looks out at us pensively. Maybe he just considering carefully what he is about to do. He has a pair of scissors in his right hand, on the small finger of which is a gold ring set with a ruby. His left hand spreads out a piece of black cloth which he is about to cut. One can just make out the faint white lines on the cloth which are a guide to the pattern which he is about to cut out. This is not an impoverished tradesman and much speculation has been made as to who is this man. Because of the richness of his clothes, some art historians, like Francesco Rossi in his 1991 book Il Moroni, would have us believe that he was an aristocrat who has turned to selling fabrics. Others believe that not to be the case. However the manner which the tailor is depicted gives one a distinct impression that the tailor was financially secure. In the Grazietta Butazzi a leading authority on the history of fashion an article appeared in the 2005 edition on men’s fashion between fifteenth and seventeenth centuries and they were adamant that the style of costume on Moroni’s tailor was not out of place with his professional status as a tailor and that it was similar to garments seen on prints of the time, which depicted men in his trade.

Gian Gerolamo Albani by Giovanni Moroni (1568-70)

The next portrait by Moroni, which I am featuring, is of Gian Gerolamo Albani and with it comes an amusing anecdote. Albani was a powerful politician and military man in the Lombardy Veneto region. In 1563 he fell from grace and was exiled for five years on the Adriatic isle of Hvar and banished from Veneto . Gian Gerolamo Albani had had to endure this fall from power following his implication in the murder by Albani’s son of a family member of the rival Brembati family, Achille Brembati. From Hvar Gian Girolamo moved to Rome and in 1570, at the age of sixty-one, was made a cardinal in the Catholic Church by Pope Pius V. Pope Pius V, who was born Antonio Ghislieri, and served his time in the Catholic Church as an inquisitor, was a friend of Gian Battista Albani and it was Albani that had once saved the life of the future pope.

Moroni favoured his sitters to adopt a three-quarter style profile but in this portrait of Albani he sits directly facing the viewer. There is an aura of power about this man before us. He sits upright in a Dantesca chair, book in hand. He wears a luxurious black robe which is lined with lynx fur, which can also be seen appearing from slashes around the shoulders and cuffs. This “slash and puff” fashion style will again be seen in the portrait of his daughter, Lucia. Around his neck, adding an even more prestigious appearance is a gold chain on which hangs the lion of St. Mark, which alludes to Albani being a member of the Knights of the Order of St. Mark, an honorific Order of Chivalry title conferred on him by Andrea Gritti, who was at the time, Doge of the Republic of Venice. The winged Lion passant holding a drawn sword in one paw and an open book with the motto Pax tibi, Marce Evangelista meus (Peace to you, Mark, my Evangelist) in the other. On the reverse there was a portrait of the Doge and St Mark.

And so to the anecdote I mentioned about this portrait. The seventeenth century Italian art biographer and painter, Carlo Ridolfi, wrote about the origin of this portrait in his 1648 book Le Maraviglie dell’arte: ovvero Le vite degli ’illustri pittori veneti, e dello sato, (The Marvels of art: namely The Lives of illustrious Venetian painters, and the state):

“…Gian Geralamo Albani, a gentleman from Bergamo, a member of the Albani family, finding himself in Venice, sought Titian out to have his portrait painted. He was asked from which area he came and let it be known that he was from Bergamo. ‘What’ replied Titian, ‘do you think you will get a better portrait from my hands than you would get in Bergamo from your Moroni? Best leave this work to him, for it will be more valuable and more distinctive than mine’. Sig. Albani then returned to Bergamo and told the story to Moroni who produced this stupendous portrait now belonging to Sig. Giuseppe Albani…”

Portrait of Lucia Albani Avogadro ('La Dama in Rosso') by Giocvanni Battista Moroni (c.1555-60) — Portrait of Lucia Albani Avogadro (‘La Dama in Rosso’) by Giocvanni Battista Moroni (c.1555-60)

Whether the story is true or false I will let you decide but Gian Albani must have been already aware of Moroni and his skills as a portraitist as some ten years earlier, Moroni completed a female portrait entitled Portrait of Lucia Albani Avogadro (‘La Dama in Rosso’). She was one of Gian Albani’s daughters. This is an exquisite work and can now be seen at the National Gallery in London. The sitter for this work is Lucia Albani Avogadro an Italian poet. Lucia was one of seven children of Gian Gerolamo Albani, the head of the powerful Albani family of Bergamo. This is not just a painting of a beautiful woman but a depiction of and an insight into of the fashion of the time. Lucia Albani married Faustino Avogadro , her third cousin, when she was sixteen years old. Her husband was a member of the powerful aristocratic family from Brescia.

She is depicted in three quarter profile seated on a Dantesca chair. She wears a glittering red brocade dress with an open bodice which was popular in the 1550’s. The silk was almost certainly given its exquisite colour by the use of the scales of the female cochineal insect from which the carminic acid is derived and which yields shades of red such as crimson and scarlet. Once again we see the fashionable puff and slash style on the dress around the shoulders and upper chest . This fashion style was popular with both men and women. Portraits of Henry VIII often showed him wearing clothes which had the “puff and slash” stylisation. The “puff and slash” effect was achieved by cutting slashes in the garment and pulling puffs of the undergarments through those slashes.

The lady sits upright on the chair. In her left hand is a fan which rests on her lap. She is bedecked with expensive jewellery, including bracelets with agates, a ring on the finger of each hand, both set with precious stones. Around her neck is a single strand of pearls which accompany a set of pearl earrings. Her hair is swept to the back of her head in a most intricate fashion and is held in place by a gold chain with cabochon emeralds. Lucia was not just renowned for her beauty but for her literary skill as a poet but this portrait bears no reference to her literary work, it is simply a depiction of a beautiful lady and alludes to her aristocratic status.

Portrait of Faustino Avogadro by Giovanni Battista Moroni (c.1555-60)

My fourth and final offering of portraiture by Moroni has a connection to the lady in the previous work. The work is entitled Portrait of Faustino Avogadro and is sometimes referred to as The Knight with the Wounded Foot or A Knight with his Jousting Helmet. Giovanni Battista Moroni completed the portrait somewhere between 1555 and 1560 and is currently housed in the National Gallery in London. Avogadro stands in front of an old wall, the base of which is made of marble. There is an element of decay about this backdrop with green vegetation growing out of the cracks in the wall and brown streaks of damp running down across the marble

Faustino is predominately dressed in black. It is a familiar style of the mid 1500’s. He wears a high-collared white shirt and short puffed black pantaloons. Over his shirt we see a torp-coloured jacket and over this, lying open, is a gambeson or arming doublet. This is a padded jacket which was worn as part of protective armour. It could be worn separately, or combined with chain mail or plate armour. The garment was made using a sewing technique known as quilting and was made of linen or wool. In battle, a thrust of the enemy’s sword could penetrate the rings of the chain mail and this often drove the damaged rings deep into the wound. A lightly padded garment, such as the gambeson worn under the chain mail reduced the risk of these types of injuries.

Avogadro’s right hand touches the hilt of his long sword whilst he rests his left arm on his lavishly crested helmet which is adorned with an ostrich feather. Around him are pieces of armour scattered on the floor, the light glinting on the highly polished surface of the steel pieces. Besides this being a portrait of an aristocratic gentleman it is a depiction which is testament to his military rank and his involvement in tournament combat. If one looks closely at his left knee one can see a sort of supporting brace on it which is attached to his left foot. Some art historians believe this contraption was the result of an injury; hence the painting’s “sub-title” The Knight with the Wounded Foot. However, Cecil Gould, a British art historian and curator, who specialised in Renaissance painting and once a Keeper and was at one time Deputy Director of London’s National Gallery, wrote in his 1975 National Gallery Catalogues: The Sixteenth Century Italian Schools that the brace we see in the portrait was more likely to be present to help remedy a congenital defect of the ligaments of the left ankle. One would have thought that such a cumbersome contraption would have put paid to Avogadro’s taking part in tournaments, but apparently not.

Avogadro, like his father-in-law was involved in the deadly feud between the Albani and Brembati families with his servant being sentenced to death for his part in the murder of Count Achille Brembati in 1563. Following this, Avogadro and his wife Lucia Albani fled their Bergamo home and went into exile in Ferrara to escape the aftermath and consequences of the murder. A year later Faustino was dead. It was reported that he fell down a well when he was drunk. Fell or pushed? One will never know for sure. Four years later in 1568, his widow Lucia died, aged 34

In my next blog I will look at some of the religious paintings of Giovanni Battista Moroni.