Category: Art Blog

William James Muller. Part 2.

The Later years

The Gaol Burning and St Paul’s Bedminster by William Muller (c.1831)

William Muller’s home in the city of Bristol was rocked by civil unrest in 1831.  The Reform Riots, as they became known, took place between the 29th and 31st of October and were part of the 1831 riots in England. The riots came about because of the second Reform Bill which was voted down in the House of Lords, and consequently shelved efforts at electoral reform.  The Bristol Riots were a reaction to the statement in Parliament of a senior judge, Sir Charles Wetherell, that the people of Bristol were not in favour of reform, despite 17,000 signatures on a petition supporting the reforms. 

The Burning of the Bishop’s Palace by William Muller (c.1831)

It was at a time when only five per cent of the population, (and they had to be men!) had the right to vote which was based on their wealth.  Wetherell  came to Bristol on his annual visit to Bristol, public meetings were organised in Queen Square on 10th, 11th and 12th October to decide on how to carry the fight forward. Demonstrators met Wetherell on his arrival in Bristol on October 29th, and soon, full scale rioting broke out, with angry crowds of protesters taking control of the city for two days. 

The Burning of the Mansion House, Queens Square by William Muller (1831)

Troops were brought in to end the riots and Wetherell escaped dressed as a woman while the crowds stayed, looting the wine cellar of the Mansion House and becoming drunk and reckless. Over the next two days rioters broke into Bridewell Jail and Lawford’s Gate Prison and set prisoners free. The Tollhouses, the Bishop’s Palace and, in Queen Square, the Mansion House and the Custom House, were all attacked.

Ruins of Warehouses in Prince Street by William Muller (c.1831)

Nineteen-year-old William Muller and his younger brother, Edmund, witnessed the riots first hand.  William made several sketches of the buildings in flames and the ruins of what remained.   Later he turned the sketches into a number of paintings such as Rioting in Queen’s Square, The Remains of the Mansion House, Ruins of the Custom House, with only the bare and broken columns standing.  He also completed a work entitled Removing the Prisoners at night to the Gaol, with the glare of burning buildings all around.

Of all Muller’s painting trips he undertook, North Wales was one of his favourite destinations. In a letter to a friend he called the area, Our English Switzerland. His first foray to the region was in June 1833 when he along with fellow artists, John Skinner Prout and Samuel Jackson left Bristol, crossed the River Severn and traversed the Brecon Beacons, finally arriving at the foothills of Cader Idris.

Llyn y Cau by Richard Wilson (1765)

The three men climbed part of the way up the mountain to gain a view of Llyn-y-Cau, a lake Muller referred to as Wilson’s Lake after Richard Wilson’s magnificent depiction of the lake in his 1765 painting.

Swallow Falls, Betwys y Coed by William Muller (1837)

Muller and Prout parted company with Jackson and explored the Conwy Valley from Betwys-y-Coed, all the way down to the sea. Muller was so taken with what he saw that he returned to the area on several occasions. During the winter of 1841 he and his brother travelled to North Wales and stayed at an inn in “Roe” now the small village of Rowen which was up-river from the coastal town of Conwy. He returned the following summer to paint en plein air in oils. In a letter to a fellow artist he wrote:

“…I paint in oil on the spot, and rather large, indeed. I am more than ever convinced in the actual necessity of looking at nature with a much more observant eye than the mass of young artists do, and in particular at skies. These are generally neglected…”

Salmon Trap on the River Lledr by William Muller (1842)

Interior with Goats, Betwys y Coed by William Muller (c.1833)

In July 1834, twenty-two year old Muller set off for Europe on a seven-month journey of discovery along with his good friend and fellow artist, the watercolourist, George Arthur Fripp.  They left Bristol docks on a schooner and sailed to Antwerp.  Having disembarked they went to Brussels and then moved across the German border, arriving in Cologne.  They then followed the river south, eventually arriving at Heidelberg where they rested for several days.

The Doge’s Palace, Venice by William Muller (1834)

The pair crossed the Alps and arrived in Northern Italy, visited the area around Lake Maggiore and staying in the lakeside town of Baverno.  Finally they arrived in Venice where they stayed for almost two months.

The Falls of Tivoli by William Muller (1837)

At the end of November 1834 they moved to Florence on their way to Rome where they spent that Christmas.  The one place Muller was determined to visit was Tivoli a town 30 kilometres north-east of Rome, where many British watercolourists had visited and stayed to capture the spectacular views.  Muller made many sketches and in 1837 completed his painting The Falls of Tivoli.

View of Bristol from Clifton Wood by William Muller (1837)

Muller returned to Bristol from his European tour in February 1835 and he set about converting his European and North Wales sketches into finished oil paintings.   In 1838 he once again left the shores of England and this time his ultimate destination was Egypt.  He went via Paris where he managed to visit the Louvre and was impressed by the landscape works of the Dutch painter, Jacob van Ruisdael and the Swiss painter, Francisco Mola.  Muller travelled overland to Marseille and then embarked on a sea passage to Malta and Constantinople.  From there he took a boat to the Greek island of Siros and then journeyed to Piraeus and Athens where he stayed for six weeks.

Temple of Theseus by William Muller (1839)

Whilst in the Greek capital Muller completed more than forty watercolours, many of which were of the Acropolis or views from this elevated monument.   Athens had been a popular destination for artists and this love of the area could be put down to James Stuart and Nicholas Revett’s 1762 book, Antiquities of Athens.  It was the first of four volumes and was the first accurate survey of ancient Greek architecture ever completed. Their detailed drawings done at the sites of the ancient ruins between 1751 and 1754 transformed our understanding of Greek architecture.

In November 1838 Muller left Greece and set sail on a French steamer for Egypt.  He disembarked at Alexandria.  Although earlier artists, such as Turner, and the marine painter Clarkson Stanfield, had produced drawing of Egyptian sites using sketches made by amateur artists, none had actually visited the country and it is thought that William Muller was one of the first established European artists to set foot in Egypt. 

Prayers in the Desert by William Muller (Exhibited at the RA in 1943)

Muller was impressed with Alexandria, likening it to a kaleidoscope of humanity but the Egyptian town was, in his view, bettered by what he saw when he visited Cairo with its long delicate minarets and Asyut but it was the mass of people of these cities that astonished him the most.  His most exciting time was when he mingled with the people at the slave market and he liked to immerse himself amongst the crowds dressed in their highly coloured clothes.

The Ramesseum at Thebes, Sunset by William Muller (1840)

In December 1838, Muller left Cairo and journeyed down the River Nile and on December 10th got his first sight of the pyramids at Giza.  In his book, An Artist’s Tour of Egypt he recounted life on the small river boat:

“…it is tedious, to an extent one can form little conception of, to be shut up in a small boat, with not enough room to stand upright – 9 feet long and in its widest 6 – with little to do but shoot from its windows at crocodiles, pelicans and other birds, in particular vultures;  of these being particularly fond of objects of Natural History, I made a tolerably numerous collection…..Shooting, sketching and smoking, at the expiration of twenty days I found I had arrived at Dundara…”

The Entrance to a Small Temple at Medinet Habu, Luxor, by William Muller (1840)

On January 1st 1839, at the end of his four hundred mile journey up the Nile, Muller arrived at Thebes.  Here on the eastern banks were temples at Luxor and Karnak and on the western side the Ramesseum,  the ruined mortuary temple of Ramesses II at Qurnah, the Valley of the Kings, the Valley of the Queens and many more monuments. 

The Pyramids by William Muller (1843)

Despite the sometimes treacherous conditions, his expedition resulted in some of the finest travel records of any artist of the 1840s.  Muller eventually returned home to Bristol via Malta, Naples, Rome and London in March 1839.  Once home he set about completing paintings from sketches he made during is long journey.

In late Autumn 1839 William decided that he needed metropolitan success with his work and left Bristol and moved to London and he and fellow artist, Edward Dighton moved into a residence on Rupert Street, Haymarket and later 22 Charlotte Street, Bloomsbury.  Muller and Dighton joined the Clipstone Street Academy at which figurative painting was taught using models and life classes and this was important to Muller who had been weak when it came to drawing figures.

Tomb in the Water, Telmessos, Lycia by William Muller (1845)

Muller, along with fellow artist, Harry Johnson, visited the eastern Mediterranean for the second time when the pair travelled to Lycia, a remote part of south west Turkey, in September 1843.  There, he had camped for months and encountered ferocious storms, torrential rain, and endured living close to malarial swamps.  Muller eventually made his way home in April 1844 after being away for eight months.  He left his numerous sketches in London to be framed and headed to Bristol to stay with his brother.  He contacted his patron, William Wethered, and and on May 7th 1884, wrote to him about the Lycia expedition:

“…I am home at last – after a most fatiguing travel…….I will look forward to showing you what I have done in sketches – they are satisfactory I believe, & contain some splendid subjects – but I almost question if I had foreseen what I have had to go through to obtain them if I should ever have visited the country…”

Flower Piece by William Muller (1845)

In early 1845 William Muller became ill, probably exhausted due to overworking.  He had at that time numerous commissions to complete and he believed they would lead to him becoming a very successful painter.  He was disappointed and annoyed with how is paintings were exhibited at that year’s Royal Academy exhibition but nevertheless carried on painting despite his rapidly deteriorating health.  His fingers became swollen and he was finding it difficult to hold a paint brush.  On September 8th 1845 whilst his brother was setting his palette for him to work on a still-life painting, William Muller fell back and died aged just 33.

Wooded Landscape with Children by William Muller (1845)

Muller is buried in the Unitarian burial ground, Brunswick Cemetery, off Brunswick Square, Bristol. His grave is marked by a simple polished black stone slab inscribed Sacred to the memory of William James Muller who died Sep 8th 1845.   A bust of the painter is located at the entrance to the cloister in Bristol Cathedral.

Stacey Gillian Abe

When I was in London last week I made my first visit to the Unit London Gallery.  The gallery is in the heart of London’s Mayfair at No.3 Hanover Square which is off Regent Street, very close to Oxford Street underground station.  It is well known for representing some of the finest local and international talent, and provide an unhindered showcase for artists who operate outside of the mainstream art world  and by so doing, has successfully launched and enhanced the careers of many influential contemporary artists.

Unit London

The gallery was hosting two exhibitions and my blog today is all about one of those, which closed at the end of January.  It was a large display of work by the Ugandan multi-disciplinary contemporary artist, Stacey Gillian Abe entitled Shrub-let of Old Ayivu.  Like my previous blog featuring Kyu Hun Kim the artwork is best described as unusual but this does not detract from its beauty.

Bibiana’s Window, by Stacey Gillian Abe (2022)

The name of the exhibition is unusual but Stacey says it can be traced back to the clan  is a descendant of.  She explains:

 “…Ayivu is one of the major clans of the Lugbara-speaking people from Arua in the West Nile region of Uganda.  We are a tribe intersecting three countries that is Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan and Uganda. Our people are spread out within these countries, and I belong to the Ayivu clan in Uganda.  Shrublet of Old Ayivu is a metaphoric term which alludes to growths that have originated for a long time from a place of great significance that eventually create the perfect conditions for shrub-lets to morph and branch out of the old ways to form new connections independent of their origin.  The shrub-let is representative of this transportation from traditions, mindsets, norms and past lives, places to mention but a few…”

The Farmer’s Daughter by Stacey Gillian Abe (2022)

She goes on to say that the imagery of the plant life also extends to the colour of the models themselves. Jute is seen as a symbol of the Ayivu clan, and it is a motif that unites all of the work on display.  She reveals that jute is a plant of many uses, so this totem recurring in the work is a symbol of possibilities and growth.

Stacey Gillian Abe was born in Kampala, Uganda, in 1991. From an early age she loved art. For her, it all started with painting and drawing in high school in 2008. In 2014, she graduated from Kyambogo University, Kampala, with a BA in Art and Industrial Design.

Forbes Africa Under 30

In 2018 Abe made it onto the 2018 FORBES AFRICA Under 30 list which is the definitive list of Africa’s most promising young change-makers.  There are thirty “game-changers”, all under the age of 30, in each of the three sectors – business, technology and creative, a total of ninety young African people who were said to be challenging conventions and rewriting the rules for the next generation of entrepreneurs, creatives and tech gurus.  Abe was placed in the “creative” group of thirty.  Over six hundred candidates had been put forward and months were spent researching, verifying and investigating them.

Of herself, Abe describes herself as being reticent:

“…My passion started from the need to express myself more, I am not an introvert but a bit reserved…”.

Her way of expressing herself is through her art.  She says that a huge part of her practice now revolves around highlighting complex situations as autobiographical documentations of past and continuous experiences.

Fatou by Gillian Stacey Abe (2022)

Unit London gallery describes the exhibition I went to see:

“…Stacey Gillian Abe’s first solo exhibition at their gallery as an exploration of memory, time and emotion. It focuses on the concept of shared memory, Abe’s latest body of work examines how memories have been passed down through her family’s lineage, alluding to the ways in which traditions are absorbed and transformed from generation to generation.  These ideas are represented in the jute plant and flowers that are detailed in various paintings. A fibrous plant with multiple uses, jute is a totem for the Ayivu clan, one of the major clans in Arua in the West Nile Region of the artist’s native Uganda. The shrublet appears in sections of embroidery that decorate Abe’s paintings, becoming a motif that connects each canvas. Most importantly, Shrub-let of Old Ayivu questions how memory can be shared. With her paintings, Abe explores the transference of abstract memory, of subjects that are not easily explained visually. These notions do not simply materialise through composition or through the artist’s own subjectivity. Instead, they take shape within the space of the canvas itself, seemingly forming from the subject’s own consciousness. Each painting and each figure tell a different story, becoming part of a tapestry of interwoven threads…”

The Sitting I by Gillian Stacey Abe (2022)

The colour Abe uses for her figures is further explained by the gallery:

“…These ideas of generational memory link to Abe’s striking use of the colour indigo. Acutely aware of the colour’s presence in African history, the artist acknowledges its role in centuries-old textile traditions in West Africa. The rich dye was subsequently introduced to East Africa through the exchange of textiles, facilitating the East African slave trade or the Arab Slave Trade and the Indian Ocean Trade. Here, Abe references Catherine McKinley’s study Indigo: In Search of the Colour that Seduced the World (2011), which details that one length of indigo was equivalent to one human body. Through the Indian Ocean trade, Abe’s home country of Uganda also encountered trade routes from the coast to the mainland in the mid-1800s. Her village of Arua, positioned at the intersection of Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan and Uganda, saw many Congolese people from the surrounding areas abducted into the slave trade to work in silk production…”

What We Wanted by Gillian Stacey Abe

In Abe’s own words:

“…Indigo for a skin tone in my work signifies a tribe, a breed of black, a people that are not limited to social, economic, cultural, political or historical constraints…”

In the exhibition, Shrub-let of Old Ayivu, Abe also shows us her fascination with indigo via its connection to cloth and material. She is fascinated with the colour and this manifests itself as an exploration of the relationship between cloth and the body. Through embroidery and the cloth there is a strong visual element throughout Abe’s body of work, which allows her to revisit the traditional, historical and personal significance attached to fabric.

See you Later, Again. by Gillian Stacey Abe

During the last three years Abe has carried out wide-ranging research on  the colour indigo.  It is a colour that has been viewed as both very rich and very valuable, but in her mind also one that has fashioned narratives around the black body. She says that indigo is a dominant colour in her work and she utilises it as a skin tone for her subjects. In a strange way it allows the observer  to behold  the black body in a different light.

Too Much and Not the Mood by Gillian Stacey Abe

Like my previous blog featuring the work of Hun Kyu Kim, Abe’s work is one you either love or hate. I actually found the exhibition fascinating.

Rupert Bunny

Rupert Bunny

In my last blog, I looked at the life and works of the Australian painter Agnes Goodsir, who had spent a large part of her life in Paris.  Today I am showcasing another Australian artist, Rupert Bunny, who also spent many years in the French capital and was one of the most successful expatriate Australian artists of his generation.

Self portrait by Rupert Bunny (c.1920)

Rupert Charles Wulsten Bunny was born in St Kilda, Melbourne on September 29th 1864.  Rupert was the third son of a English-born, Eton educated, Brice Frederick Bunny.  His father had studied law and was called to the Bar in 1844, becoming a talented equity barrister in London.  The news of the discovery of gold in the 1850s in New South Wales and Victoria whetted Brice’s appetite and in October 1852 he arrived on Australian soil intending to make a quick fortune before returning to London.  However neither of his plans materialised, as after six months of prospecting he had nothing to show. However, the one bit of luck he had was when he emigrated to Australia he brought with him all his law books and so, after his failed prospecting period, he went to Melbourne and resurrected his legal career in October 1853.  In June 1856 Rupert Bunny’s father married German-born Maria Hedwig Dorothea Wulsten, who had followed him to Australia. They set up home in St Kilda, where he was active in the Municipal Council.  In 1873 Brice Bunny was appointed an acting County Court judge but his health started to deteriorate and he had to resign from the legal profession.  He died on 2 June 1885 at St Kilda, Victoria, leaving three sons, one of them a barrister, and three daughters. His wife, Rupert’s mother, died in 1902.

Hair Drying by Rupert Bunny (c.1908)

Rupert Bunny had three sisters, Alice and Annette who were five and two years older than him and Hilda who was three years younger.  He also had two older brothers, Herman and George and a younger brother Brice. Rupert attended the Alma Road Grammar School in St Kilda, and later the Hutchins School in Hobart.  In 1881 he enrolled at the University of Melbourne where he studied civil engineering.  He was not happy with the course and abandoned it.  At one time he decided he wanted to become an actor, but this future path was abruptly blocked by his parents.  Maybe as a compromise between his desires and those of his parents, he settled for joining the National Gallery Schools under British-born Oswald Rose Campbell and Irish-born George Frederick Folingsby, who was the director of the National Gallery and master in the School of Art.  Whilst there he became friends with his fellow students including Frederick McCubbin, E. Phillips Fox and Louis Abrahams.

The Descent from the Cross by Rupert Bunny (1898)

The painting was hung at the 1898 Royal Academy in London

In 1884, at the age of twenty, Rupert Bunny left Australia and went to London.  Once in the English capital he enrolled at St Johns Wood Art School where one of his tutors was the English painter, Philip Calderon. Two years later, in 1886, he left England and headed for Paris to study under Jean-Paul Laurens in his studio at the Académie Julian. He left Laurens in 1886 and went to study at the Académie Colarossi where he studied under the French painter, Pierre Paul Léon Glaize.  His studies here made him an accomplished academic history painting – paintings on a large scale, with complex compositions based on mythological, historical and biblical subjects, and the depictions would characteristically contain multiple figures. From 1888, now in Paris, Bunny exhibited at the Parisian Salon de la Société des Artistes Français (Old Salon).

The Tritons by Rupert Bunny (1890)

During the late 1880s he produced a series of large-scale, delicately coloured sea idylls peopled with mythological and pagan creatures including mer-folk. Having a German mother, Rupert remembered the German myths and legends. Bunny often drew inspiration from the German myths and legends that she would read to him and characters from these often appeared in his depictions.  These stories were balanced by his father telling his son tales from the bible and Greek and Roman mythology.  One such painting was entitled The Tritons which Bunny completed in 1890. The painting was exhibited in Paris at the Old Salon in 1890, and it was the first painting by an Australian to receive an honourable mention at the event. The painting depicts a group of tritons, who were legendary creatures that lived both on land and at sea.  They are enjoying a lazy moment in their calm surroundings.  Rupert Bunny, in this work, lays before us some of the features which would become characteristics of his work, such as an attraction he had for mythological subjects and the depiction of the mystery and glamour within an intimate setting. Look how he has expertly shaped a twilight atmosphere by the use of subtle colour schemes, as is the case where the pale blue, silvery ocean and pink-toned sky are quietly reflected in the flesh tones of the figures.

Pastoral by Rupert Bunny (1893)

His 1893 painting entitled Pastoral is a good example of the large-scale mythological works Bunny painted during his early years in France.  The painting is an allegory about the life-changing power of music. Before us we see youths and pagan beings who are all mesmerised by the strains of the pipes and soothed into a state of heightened consciousness.  The figures we see in the painting are contemporary youths and Rupert used their inclusion to show that Arcadia was not something we read about in days gone by but a state of mind.  There is a dream-like quality about the depiction and note the inclusion of vermillion poppies, a flower which symbolised sleep.

Madame Melba by Rupert Bunny (1902)

Rupert Bunny, besides being a great artist, was also a talented pianist and composer.   The love of all things musical probably persuaded him to paint a number of portraits of the Australian soprano, Dame Nellie Melba.  She had, during the latter days of the nineteenth century, moved to Europe to cement a career as a professional singer.  Rupert’s portrait of her entitled Madame Melba was completed around 1902.  Rupert had known her since the 1880s.  The painting, once completed, hung in the singer’s London home.  Later, she presented it to Her Majesty’s Theatre in Melbourne.  The National Gallery of Victoria bought the painting in 1980 and later it was loaned to Government House in Melbourne Victoria.

Percy Grainger by Rupert Bunny (1904)

Bunny created portraits of a number of Europe-based Australian musicians and performers.  He was commissioned, by twenty-two-years-old Australian pianist and composer, Percy Grainger, to paint his portrait in the early days of his professional musical career.  Grainger became acquainted with Bunny through Nellie Melba. Whilst living in London Rupert Bunny attended gatherings at Grainger’s rooms at King’s Road where the guests would sing many of Grainger’s compositions.  In this portrait, the young musician is portrayed as a relaxed young gentleman in the tradition of what was termed the ‘swagger’ portrait, which aptly reflected Grainger’s own ambitions. In Grainger’s left hand is a sheet of music, a conscious reference to Grainger’s celebrated career.

Portrait of the Artist’s Wife by Rupert Bunny (c.1895)

Portrait of the Artist’s Wife, Jeanne Morel by Rupert Bunny (1902)

In 1892, Rupert Bunny met his future wife, Jeanne Heloise Morel who was a fellow art student.  It was love at first sight as Bunny was bowled over by her beauty.  John Longstaff, a fellow Australian painter who was living in Paris, remembers the first meeting between Rupert and Jeanne, saying:

“…I remember … the very night they met, and how he fell in love with her at first sight.  She was a regular Dresden china girl with a deliciously tip-titled nose…”

The meeting was to prove a turning point in Rupert’s life, not just with the romance which followed, but by his change in his artistic style.  A colleague of Bunny commented:

“…  Jeanne changed not only Bunny’s life but also his art, which now focused on subjects in which beautiful women played the central role, with Jeanne as his favourite model…”

Rupert Bunny was influenced by Morel and she became his favourite model who featured in his depictions of the idyllic and leisured lifestyle of the Belle Epoque. Her graceful form and sensuous features were seen in many of his works, embodying Bunny’s feminine ideal. Bunny was also greatly influenced by the English Pre-Raphaelite painters such as John Everett Millais.

 Portrait of Mlle Morel by Rupert Bunny (1895)

 Portrait of Mlle Morel by Rupert Bunny, which he completed in 1895, is the first, major full-length portrait by Bunny of Morel. It is a tender depiction of his then girlfriend that he painted and was submitted and accepted into the Paris Salon that year.  It was a painting which marked the turning point of Rupert Bunny’s art from the Allegorical to the Belle Époque.

A Summer Morning by Rupert Bunny (1905)

Jeanne Heloise Morel was born on July 29th 1871 in Paris.  Her mother was Marguerite Morel, an unmarried servant. Her father, who was never named on the birth certificate, was said by Jeanne to be Eugénie François Morel, who served as an officer in the French Navy.  Jeanne received training in Fine Arts at the Orphanage of Arts at 96 rue de Vannes in Paris.  In 1884, when she was thirteen-years-old, Jeanne made her public debut at the Société des Artistes and subsequently exhibited at the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, working in oils.  Jeanne-Heloise Morel married Rupert Bunny in London in March 1902.

Dolce Far Niente (Sweet Idleness) by Rupert Bunny (c.1897)

The painting’s title means sweet idleness or the sweetness of doing nothing. Rupert Bunny would paint numerous similarly composed works featuring  groups of women relaxing, dreaming, dressing or undressing close by expanses of water.  The French art critic Gustave Geffroy was a great believer in Rupert Bunny and loved his work, Dolce Far Niente and in a review of the Salon of 1897 at which the painting was exhibited, he wrote:

“…To discover the promises and creations of newcomers, it is necessary to research, to go to canvases attracted by a soft radiance, a quiet force, a secret charm….I like the poetry of Dolce Far Nniente by Mr Bunny [of] women with graceful bodies, and beautiful and instinctive faces, who dream by the sea…”

Gustave Geffroy was a great advocate of Bunny’s work for the next three decades and in a 1917 review he wrote:

“He is a brilliant and spirited artist…at one and the same time, a realist and a visionary, an observer of truth and a poet of the world of dreams…”

Endormies by Rupert Bunny (c.1904)

Rupert Bunny’s 1904 painting entitled Endormies (Sleepy) portrays two female figures at the water’s edge relaxing and lost in a world of dreams. Rupert modelled the sleeping figure once again on his wife Jeanne Morel.  Her elegant and sensuous physical qualities enhanced many of his paintings.  In this depiction the artist has included a rose by the side of one of the sleeping women.  The rose was a traditional symbol of love and sensuous power.  The white swans we see in the background symbolise the attributes of grace and beauty. Rupert, like many artists also used the motif of a small dog, which often signifies marital fidelity.  In this painting Rupert has placed the animal sleeping at the feet of his mistress.

Summer Time by Rupert Bunny (1907)

In all Rupert Bunny’s depictions of his wife Jeanne and her friends there was an aura of beauty and elegance.  The clothes which adorned the females were typified in their fashionable trimmings and reflected the stylishness of the apparently endless summers that was La Belle Époque. The public loved these works of art and they became the most commercially and critically successful works of his career. Rupert Bunny’s 1907 work entitled Summer Time splendidly validates his skill as a draughtsman and his consummate treatment of large-scale works such as this one which measures 250 x 300 cms. It was exhibited at that year’s Paris Salon. It was his most ambitious work.

in situ at the Art Gallery of New South Wales

The painting depicts a spirit of leisure and sensuality as we observe seven voluptuous women relaxing inside a bathhouse on the Seine. It is a floating swimming pool sealed off from public view where women could bathe modestly. We see 0ne of the women is undressing preparing to climb down into the water while another female, on the left of the painting, is getting dressed before she emerges into public view.

The Rape of Persephone by Rupert Bunny (1913)

Rupert Bunny was never afraid to shy away from changing his artistic style.  He had a refreshing willingness to keep reinventing himself and during his life, he simply kept an eye on what was the most fashionable style, so that his popularity would not wane.  Of the painting, The Rape of Persephone, one art critic, George Bell, described it as:

“…a glorious riot of colour from the finest imaginative Australia has produced…”

Fresque by Rupert Bunny (1921)

Rupert Bunny moved through successive styles and was strongly influenced by British pre-Raphaelites French primitives, symbolists and Post-Impressionists.  He was particularly influenced by Matisse and his love of Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes, an itinerant ballet company begun in Paris that performed throughout Europe between 1909 and 1929. 

Salome by Rupert Bunny (c.1919)

The paintings of Rupert Bunny around this time began to be ones of heightened colour and abstracted, rhythmical forms.

In 1933, Bunny returned to live in Melbourne where he continued to paint until his mid-70s. He died on May 25th 1947, aged 82.  Rupert’s forte was his ability to change with the times and he was always open to new artistic influences.  Throughout his life he had always been motivated when it came to his painting. He never tired of experimenting with colour combinations and was never afraid to take risks. He was a master colourist.

Much has been written about Rupert Bunny and this blog has just scratched at the surface of his life but I hope it will tempt you into reading more about this great Australian painter.

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Christmas and Snow

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

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

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

Snow Scene at Argenteuil by Claude Monet (1875)

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

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

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

Snow at Louveciennes by Alfred Sisley (1874)

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

The Rooks have returned by Alexi Savrasov (1871)

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

Queue to a Resrvoir by Vasily Perov (1865)

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

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

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

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

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

Man praying and abandoned crutches

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Love of Winter by George Bellows (1914)

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

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

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

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

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

Blue Snow, The Battery by George Bellows (1910)

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

Winter Landscape by Wassily Kandinsky (1909)

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

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

Your thoughts ?

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

Jonathan

Anton Pieck

Anton Pieck

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

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

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

River Spaarne and the Bakenesser Tower by Anton Pieck

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A recent edition of Felix Timmerman’s book.

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

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

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

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

Harpenden Engeland by Anton Pieck

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

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

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

The Warmoesstraat, Amsterdam by Anton Pieck

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

Greeting card of Winchester by Anton Pieck

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

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

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

Anton Pieck’s vision for De Efteling

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

Anton Pieck at Efteling

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

Frau Holle at Efteling

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

Frau Holle by Anton Pieck

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

Anton Pieck Museum

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

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

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

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

Anne Goldthwaite

Anna Goldthwaite Self Portrait

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

Portrait of a Young Man by Anna Goldthwaite (1913)

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

 

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

Young Mother by Anne Goldthwaite

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

Young Nude Woman in a Hat by Anne Goldthwaite

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Page from the memoirs of Anne Goldthwaite

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

Anne Goldthwaite later recalled her time in Paris and wrote:

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

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

The House on the Hill by Anne Goldthwaite (1911)

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

Cottage in Alabama by Anne Goldthwaite (c.1920)

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

Rebecca by Anne Goldthwaite (c.1925)

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

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

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

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

The Atmore, Alabama Post Office

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anne Goldthwaite (1869-1944)

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

Zdenka Rosalina Augusta Braunerová

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

A Bend in the Vlatava River by Zdenka Braunerová

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

View at Brod by Amálie Mánesová,

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

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

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

Élémir Bourges and the two Brauner sisters – 1883

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

Julius Zeyer

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

Vilém Mrštík

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

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

Brauner was equally scathing about Mrštík either, saying:

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

Landscape near Tabor by Zdenka Braunerová.

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

St Lawrence on Petrin Hill by Zdenka Braunerova

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

VEČERNÍ KRAJINA by Zdenka Braunerova

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

Brauner’s Mill in Solutions

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

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

Holger Drachmann

The Artist, the Poet, the Lover of Women.

Holger Drachmann

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

Andreas Drachmann

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

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

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

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

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

Rocky Coast by Holger Drachmann

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

Våde ovn, Bornholm. by Holger Drachmann

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

A wreck hut on Skagen’s beach by Holger Drachmann

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

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

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

Georg Brandes

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

Digte (Poems)

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

Kristian Zahrtmann – Portrait of Vilhelmine Erichsen (1867)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Polly Culmsee

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

Emmy Culmsee

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

Amanda Jensine Nielsen (Edith)

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

Holger Drachmann by Peder Severin Kroyer

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

Drachmanns Hus in Skagen

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

Rudolph von Alt

Self-portrait (1890)

The focus of my blog today is to look at the life and work of the nineteenth century Austrian painter Rudolph Ritter von Alt.  The word “Ritter”is used as a title of nobility in German-speaking areas.  It translates approximately to the British designation “Sir”, denoting a Knight.  It is not a first or middle name of the person.  The artist was born Rudolph Alt and used the title of a Ritter after he gained nobility in 1889.

View from the Artist’s Studio in Alservorstadt toward Dornbach by Jakob Alt (1836)

Rudolph was born in Vienna on August 28th 1812.  His father, Jakob Alt, the son of a carpenter, was a German landscape painter and lithographer who was born in Frankfurt am Main in 1789 where he received his first artistic tuition and later moved to Vienna where he enrolled at the city’s Academy of Fine Arts.  Jakob Alt travelled through Austria and Italy, hiking through the Austrian Alps, all the while painting scenes of beauty. He also depicted many scenes of the neighbourhood along the River Danube and in the city of Vienna.

Room of Archduke Ludwig Victor in the Hofburg, Vienna by Franz Alt (1861)

Rudolph Alt had a younger brother, Franz, who was nine years his junior and who also became a famed Austrian landscape painter. His work can be seen in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Cooper Hewitt Museum (Smithsonian), the Albertina Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest and other international collections.

The Dachstein Mountain from Lower Lake Gosau by Rudolphe von Alt (1838)

Rudolphe, like his father before him, went on many hiking-trips through the Austrian Alps and northern Italy and fell in love with the spectacular landscapes he witnessed.

View of the Strada Nuova against the Giardini Pubblici in Venice by Rudolph von Alt (1834)

 In 1833, he travelled to Venice where he pictorially recorded his visit. He was inspired by the city of Venice and took the opportunity to visit neighbouring areas as well as the Italian capital, where he completed a number of architectural paintings

The Capitol in Rome by Rudolphe von Alt (1835)

Rudolphe von Alt was a talented watercolourist and during his journeys around Italy he completed many watercolours featuring various Italian cities.

Port of Santa Lucia, Naples by Rudolphe von Alt (1935)

In 1830, five years before he took the throne, Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria started to develop a plan which entailed the commissioning of paintings depicting the most beautiful views of the Austrian Empire. Jakob Alt, and his eldest son, Rudolf were two of the commissioned artists and between them they painted about one hundred and seventy of the three hundred completed works.  The project came to an end in 1849 a year after Ferdinand abdicated.

The Josef square in Vienna by Rudolphe von Alt (1831)
The St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna by Rudolphe von Alt (1831)
View of Salzburg by Rudolpe von Alt (1831)

Der Hohe Markt in Wien  by Rudolphe von Alt (1836)

Rudolphe’s watercolour depictions of interiors of wealthy patrons’ residences brought him more recognition from the Austrian public

Interior at Palais Windischgrätz in Renngasse in Vienna by Rudolphe von Alt (1848)

Salon in the Apartment of Count Lanckoroński in Vienna by Rudolphe von Alt (1881)

The library in the Palais Dumba by Rudolphe von Alt (1877)
The Blue Drawing Room at the Valtice Palace by Rudolphe von Alt (1845)

The grandeur of the interior of many palaces was captured by Rudolphe in his magnificent watercolour paintings. Originally the Gothic Valtice palace was founded in the 12th century by the bishops of Passau and in 1530 Valtice became the place of residence of the princely family of Liechtenstein, one of the wealthiest families in Europe. 

Drawing Room at the Rasumofsky Palace by Rudolphe von Alt (1836)

A less formal room was captured by Rudolphe von Alt in his 1836 watercolour entitled Drawing Room at the Rasumofsky Palace. The palace was commissioned by Prince Andrey Razumovsky  as a Neoclassic embassy which would be worthy of the representative of the Russian Tsar, Alexander I. It was built at the prince’s own expense on Landstraße, close to the centre of Vienna. Razumovsky then filled the rooms of the palace with antiquities and modern works of art.

The Staircase of the State Opera Thatre, Budapest by Rudolphe von Alt (1873)

A large number of Rudolphe von Alt’s paintings are held in the Princely House of Liechtenstein collections in Vaduz, Liechtenstein and Vienna.  The Princely House of Liechtenstein is one of the oldest noble lineages in Europe being first mentioned in the twelfth century.  The Princely House of Liechtenstein is one of the oldest still extant noble lineages in Europe. The first documented bearer of this name was a Hugo von Liechtenstein, mentioned in archival sources dating to between 1120 and 1143.

View from the Klausen Valley to Modling Castle by Rudolphe von Alt (1827)

The family’s art collection had its beginnings in the sixteenth century and has been influenced over time by the varying interests of individual princes.  The collection has been assembled over several centuries, and now the Collections of the Prince von und zu Liechtenstein are one of the most important private art collections in the world, containing around 1,600 paintings with masterpieces ranging from the early Renaissance to the second half of the nineteenth century, including works by Lukas Cranach the Elder, Quentin Massys, Raphael, Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck, Frans Hals, Rembrandt, Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller, Friedrich von Amerling and Hans Makart and today’s artist, Rudolphe von Alt,

Organ Base by Master Anton Pilgram in St Stephen’s Cathedral, Vienna by Rudolphe von Alt (1876)

Alt demonstrated a remarkable talent for expressing certain peculiarities in nature. He managed to paint nature authentically by focusing on the different hues of sky, the colour-tone of the air and the vegetation.

Ansicht von Jägerndorf mit ländlicher Staffage by Rudolphe von Alt

His later works were more Impressionistic in style but maybe above all von Alt will be remembered for his exquisite architectural and indoor scenes, genres that made him famous in Vienna.

Alservorstadt, Vienna

Rudolphe Ritter von Alt died in Vienna on March 12th 1905, aged 92. Most of his paintings are held by various museums in Vienna.

Carl and Karin Larsson. Part 2.

Karin Larsson with her firstchild, Suzanne (1885)

Carl and Karin Larsson married in late 1882 and in 1884 their first child, Suzanne was born.  Their second child, a son Ulf, was born in 1887 but sadly died when he was eighteen. In all, Carl and Karin had eight children.  After Ulf came Pontus in 1888, Lisbeth in 1891, Brita in 1893, Mats in 1894 but he died aged just two months, Kersti in 1896 and finally Esbjörn in 1900.  It is quite obvious that Karin’s time was taken with the upbringing of their children.

Lilla Hyttnäs by Carl Larsson

In 1888 the couple returned to Sweden with their two children and on deciding to settle permanently in Sweden Karin’s father, Adolf Bergöö, gave them a wooden cottage in the countryside of central Sweden, which had belonged to relatives. The house named Lilla Hyttnäs, was situated in the town of Sundborn, in Falun Municipality, 250 kilometres north-west of Stockholm. 

Ett Hem by Carl Larsson

Carl remembered his first visit to the cottage accompanied by his father-in-law and in his 1899 book, Ett Hem (A Home) he wrote:

“…The cottage stood right on a bend in the Sundborn River, just where it gets a smidgeon wider. Everything inside was spick and span, the furniture was simple, but old fashioned and robust, handed down by their parents, who had lived in the vicinity. While I was here, I experienced an indescribably delightful feeling of seclusion from the hustle and bustle of the world, which I have only experienced once before (and that was in a village in the French countryside). When my Father in law suggested buying me a small property in the same village, I declined, saying that only something resembling this little idyll would suit an artist…”

The Kitchen by Carl Larsson (1898)

Lilla Hyttnäs soon became Carl and Karin’s mutual art project in which their artistic talents found expression in a very modern and personal choice of colour schemes and interior design. The couple favoured bright colours, and filled the rooms with handcrafts, which mirrored the Arts and Crafts Movement which had inspired them.  The Arts and Crafts movement was an international trend in the decorative and fine arts that first emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in the British Isles and then spread to the rest of Europe and America.

Karin Larsson weaving.

Karin Larsson was a young mother, but on top of that she was an ambitious woman who although she had stepped back from her painting, she had replaced the canvas with other artistic goals that would see her use needles, thread and silks instead of brushes and paint.  She would now concentrate on home furnishings which would brighten up the old cottage.  The cottage interior had now taken the place of the canvas.  Her great inspiration was William Morris, who was a leader of the English Arts and Crafts movement, and she liked to incorporate foliage designs across her upholstery.  Karin’s husband, Carl, created a series of twenty-six watercolours, entitled A Home which depicted the beautiful interior designs of his wife.

The Studio (From “A Home” watercolor series) by Carl Larsson

Karin Larsson spent mch time designing fabrics for their furniture. One example of this is the chair cover (below).

Chair cover designed by Karin Larsson

Her beautifully, highly colourful designs were used for bench cushion covers.

Bench cushion cover designed by Karin Larsson

The transition from painting to textile art and home furnishings by married females was in those days an acceptable evolution and was not seen as something forced upon them by their husbands.  In the work she lovingly put together to create their home she was able to express herself through the medium of textiles, and furniture design.

Rocking Chair designed by Karin Larsson

Karin’s life at Lilla Hyttnäs was tiring.  She had to cope with the everyday house chores and eight children to manage.  Her eighth child, a son, Esbjorn had been born in 1900.  However, she still found time to design and weave a large amount of the textiles which she utilised in her home.  She also spent time embroidering, and designing clothes for herself and the children.   The aprons, known as karinförkläde in Swedish, were worn by her and the other women who worked at the house.

Daddy’s Room by Carl Larsson

Carl Larsson’s bedroom at Lilla Hyttnäs was a through-room. The door is wide open to the end room where his wife and the smaller children slept. The white four-poster bed with embroidered curtains stands in the middle of the floor. It has several ingenious features, such as a bench, a chamber-pot cupboard and a small, built-in bedside table. Look closely at the background and you will see that this is also a self portrait as we can just observe the artist, looking in a mirror, doing up his collar buttons.

Cosy Room by Carl larsson

The interiors of the Larsson home were characterised by rural simplicity. Nevertheless, every detail was carefully designed, with influences from England, Scotland and Japan.

The Kitchen by Carl Larsson

The kitchen, which was first and foremost a place for household chores, did not display the same modern interior style and comfort as the rest of the house.

Through Larsson’s paintings and books their house has become one of the most famous artist’s homes in the world. The descendants of Carl and Karin Larsson now own this house and keep it open for tourists each summer from May until October. The rooms of the house featured in many of Carl’s paintings and books.

Self portrait in New Studio by Carl Larsson

Besides depictions of their home featuring in his artwork which highlighted Karin as a talented interior designer, Carl featured his wife and children in many of his paintings.

Karin and her first child Suzanne by Carl Larsson (1887)

In 1905 Carl featured his seventh child, eleven-year-old Kersti in his watercolour work.

Kersti in Black by Carl Larsson (1907)

In his 1890 watercolour it was his third-born child, two-year-old son, Pontus, who featured.

Pontus on the Floor by Carl Larsson (1890)

The Christmas spirit was captured in some of his family portraits.

Brita dressed as Iduna

Carl and Karin’s fifth child, daughter Brita, was depicted as Idun or Iduna, the Norse goddess of Spring and rejuvenation.  Norse mythology tells us that Idun was the keeper of the magic apples of immortality, which the gods must eat to preserve their youth.  Iduna carried her apples in a box made of ash (called an eski), along with her fruit, and this box served as one of Idun’s major symbols. 

Azalea by Carl Larsson featuring his wife Karin

Carl Larsson travelled away on a number of occasions leaving the household and his children the sole responsibility of his wife.  Karin employed the carpenters and painters needed to transform Lilla Hyttnäs and was the one who made all the decisions with regards its interior.  He never underestimated the role she played in their marriage and this was evident when you look at his artwork and read his books.

In the Corner by Carl Larsson

In his book Ett Hem, there is an amusing watercolour by Carl of his son Pontus sitting rather gloomily on his chair in an empty room.  Larsson talked about the depiction saying that he took the idea from the sight of a gloomy little boy who had been sent from the table as he had misbehaved during the family meal and had been left to deliberate on his misbehaviour whilst languishing in the beautiful room. Pontus’ bad behaviour was probably not a factor in this work but his punishment was real, that of having to sit still for such a long period whilst his father sketched the scene !  The depiction is probably more about the room itself and the combination of the striped chair covers and rugs, with the tiles of the fireplace.

The Door

The central part of the painting is taken up by the door.  The design of which is a mix of irregularity on the lower panel whilst the panel above  is a drawing based on a poem by the English Victorian artist and writer Kate Greenaway’s poem:  There was an old woman, who lived on a  hill and changed by the artist to There was a little woman who lived with Carl Larsson.  Above the door we see decorations, and even though it was a classical temple, it is surrounded by leaves.

The Reading Room by Carl Larsson

In many of his paintings featuring the interior of Lilla Hyttnäs and his family, reading was a recurring topic and was probably a means of enhancing the idea that his young family were well educated, unlike himself, during his torrid childhood.

Karin Reading by Carl Larsson (1904)

Homework by Carl Larsson

Carl and Karin Larsson’s popularity increased considerably with the progress of colour reproduction technology in the 1890s.   The Swedish publishing house Bonnier published books written and illustrated by Carl Larsson and containing full colour reproductions of his watercolours, such as Ett Hem. (A Home).

Das Haus in der Sonne by Carl Larsson

However, the print runs of these rather expensive art books were small in comparison to those published in 1909 by the German publisher Karl Robert Langewiesche.  He had chosen a number of Carl’s watercolours, drawings and text by the artist, which culminated in the publication in 1909 0f Das Haus in der Sonne (The House in the Sun), which became one of the German publishing industry’s best-sellers of the year with forty thousand copies sold in three months, and which required more than forty print runs.  Carl and Karin were delighted with the success.

 Car Larsson’s 1907 mural Gustav Vasa’s procession into Stockholm, 1523  (7 x 14 metres)
Nationalmuseum Stockholm.

For all his paintings depicting his wife, children and beloved home, all his illustrating work for books and newspapers, he considered his large-scale frescoes as his most important work.  He created frescoes for schools, museums and other public buildings.  In 1907, Larsson completed his mural of Gustav Vasa’s procession into Stockholm, 1523, which was hung with his other commissioned murals in the National Museum in Stockholm, part of a series of murals which he had been working on since the mid-1890s.

Midvinterblot (Midwinter Sacrifice) by Carl Larsson (1915)

In 1915 Carl had just completed his last monumental work, Midvinterblot (Midwinter Sacrifice), which measured 6 x 14 metres (20ft x 46ft). This was yet another fresco commission he had received from the National Museum in Stockholm and this would like several other of his works adorn the walls of the museum. This new fresco painting would be placed on the wall of the hall which led to the central staircase of the museum.  The painting, entitled Midvinterblot (Midwinter Sacrifice) depicts a legend from Norse mythology in which the Swedish king Domalde is sacrificed at the Temple of Uppsala in order to avert famine. Larsson was rightly excited with the commission but devastated when the museum rejected the finished work.  Larsson was extremely bitter with the museum’s decision.  In his autobiography, he wrote:

“…The fate of Midvinterblot broke me! This I admit with a dark anger. And still, it was probably the best thing that could have happened, because my intuition tells me – once again! – that this painting, with all its weaknesses, will one day, when I’m gone, be honoured with a far better placement…”

Later in the book Larsson admitted that the paintings depicting his family and home:

“…became the most immediate and lasting part of my life’s work. For these pictures are of course a very genuine expression of my personality, of my deepest feelings, of all my limitless love for my wife and children…”

The controversial rejection of Larsson’s painting rumbled on well past his death in 1919.  Some schools of Swedish artists loved the work whilst others hated it.  The painting was never hung in its designated space and the wall remained bare. 

The painting’s final resting place.

In 1987, one artist from the “school of detractors” offered the museum a monumental painting for free, provided it would adorn the empty space but the museum declined the offer.  The painting was then sold to a Japanese art collector, Hiroshi Ishizuka, who in 1992, agreed to lend it back to the museum for its major Carl Larsson exhibition.  The painting was hung exactly where Larsson had intended.  On seeing the giant painting, the public loved it and wanted the museum to buy it from the Japanese owner.  With the aid of public and private donations, the museum and the Japanese owner came to an agreed price and in 1997 the painting was purchased by the museum and the painting remained in its “rightful” place and it remains part of the museum collection.

Carl Larsson died on January 22nd 1919 aged 65. His wife Karin died nine years later on February 18th 1928 aged 68.