Art Blog – Page 70 – my daily art display

The Rhinoceros by Pietro Longhi

My Daily Art Display painting of the day is one which when once seen will never be forgotten. Not necessarily for the breathtaking art but for the unusual subject of the painting. My featured painting to today is The Rhinoceros by Pietro Longhi.

The Rhinocerous by Pietro Longhi — The Rhinoceros by Pietro Longhi (1751)

Longhi was born in Venice in the latter part of 1701. His parents were Antonia and his father Alessandro Falca, who was a silversmith. Pietro changed his surname to Longhi once he started to paint. He studied art initially under the guidance of the painter from Verona, Antonio Balestra, and finally was accepted as an apprentice to Giuseppe Crespi the Baroque painter from Bologna. Longhi returned to Venice when he was thirty-one years of age and married Caterina Maria Rizzi and the couple went on to have eleven children. Sadly, and it is a common story of that era, only three of their children reached the age of maturity, one of whom, Alessandro, became a successful portraitist.

His early work featured a number of altarpieces and religious paintings and he was commissioned to carry out a number of frescos in the walls and ceilings of the Ca’Sacredo in Venice, which is now an exclusive hotel. Later his art turned to genre scenes of contemporary life in Venice of the aristocracy and the working class. He produced numerous works and in many instances painted many different versions of the same scene. His type of art, his satirical look at everyday Venetian life with its coffee-drinking, receptions and social soireeswas extremely popular.. Some of his paintings remind one of the type of paintings done by William Hogarth. The difference between the two was that Hogarth was often brutally satirical with his paintings in which he mocked the life of English folk whereas Longhi just wanted to chronicle the everyday life of his compatriots without standing in judgment and acting as a satirical moralist. In a number of cases his patrons, who had commissioned his work where featured in the works and maybe for that reason Longhi was careful not to offend them. Bernard Berenson, the American Art historian, talked about Longhi’s artistic style and the comparison with Hogarth when he wrote:

“…Longhi painted for the Venetians passionate about painting, their daily lives, in all dailiness, domesticity, and quotidian mundane-ness. In the scenes regarding the hairdo and the apparel of the lady, we find the subject of gossip of the inopportune barber, chattering of the maid; in the school of dance, the amiable sound of violins. It is not tragic… but upholds a deep respect of customs, of great refinement, with an omnipresent good humor distinguishes the paintings of the Longhi from those of Hogarth, at times pitiless and loaded with omens of change..”.

Longhi became Director of the Academy of Drawing and Carving in 1763 and it was around this time that he concentrated almost all his artistic efforts in to portraiture, ably assisted by his son, Alessandro. He died aged 83 in 1785.

The featured painting today is based on historical facts and revolves around the Carnevale di Venezia, the annual festival, held in Venice. The Carnival starts around two weeks before Ash Wednesday and ends on Shrove Tuesday. This grand event was described by John Evelyn, the 17^th century English traveller and diarist:

“…At Shrovetide all the world repair to Venice, to see the folly and madness of the Carnival; the women, men, and persons of all conditions disguising themselves in antique dresses, with extravagant music and a thousand gambols, traversing the streets from house to house, all places being then accessible and free to enter. Abroad, they fling eggs filled with sweet water, but sometimes not over-sweet. They also have a barbarous custom of hunting bulls about the streets and piazzas, which is very dangerous, the passages being generally narrow. The youth… contend in other masteries and pastimes, so that it is impossible to recount the universal madness of this place during this time of license….”

The painting which hangs in the National Gallery in London centres on the unusual spectacle of Clara the young rhinoceros, which was brought to Europe in 1741 by a Dutch sea captain, Douwe Mout van der Meer, who had bought the lumbering creature. It is believed that she was only the fifth rhinoceros to be imported from India to Europe since the days of the Roman Empire. Clara, after extensive travels in Europe, arrived in Venice ten years later. The female rhinoceros in Longhi’s painting, seen munching away at some hay seems somewhat docile, even depressed, as caged animals often are who suffer such a fate.

Behind her we see the keeper of the animal and a number of spectators. The keeper holds aloft a whip and the horn of the rhinoceros which according to historical notes, was not cut off but knocked off by Clara herself due to her continuous rubbing it against the sides of her cage. The small audience of seven, some of whom wear their Carnival masks stand on wooden benches in an almost triangular formation. They show no interest in the poor creature as they gaze vacuously in all different directions. The elegant lady in the front row wearing a dark lace shawl, edged in gold is Catherine Grimani. She stares directly out at us. Her white-masked suitor, on her left, is her husband John Grimani and the couple were the commissioners of the painting. Their servant stands to her right and looks straight ahead. The man to the right of the group wearing a red cloak and has a long clay pipe in his mouth has his eyes cast downwards and seems lost in his own thoughts. Above him, Longhi has painted a scroll-like notice which tells us all about the painting, which when translated reads:

“True Portrait of a Rinocerous conducted in Venice year 1751:

made for hand by Pietro Longhi

Commissions S of Giovanni Grimani Servi Patrick Veneto “.

The small girl in the back row seems totally disinterested in Clara. With the exception of the animal’s keeper brandishing the severed horn there seems no relationship with the audience and the animal on display. It is if Longhi has merely added them to please his patrons and highlight the fact that the exhibition was at Carnival time in Venice.

One thing that I found fascinating is the lady in the upper middle of the audience dressed in the blue and white gown. Instead of a white carnival mask she is wearing the soft black leather Moretta mask. Moretta, means darkness, and the masks were only worn by women and were not tied around the wearer’s head but held in place by a leather button on the inside of the mask which is held in the clenched teeth of the wearer. It has only two nearly circular openings for the eyes, restricting the lady’s breath a little, as the only airway is through the eye openings down to the nose. Sweat also has to evaporate through the openings as well, quickly making the face hot. Not only was that uncomfortable but it prevented the wearer from speaking. This enforced silence especially pleased their male counterparts !

I was going to add a male-chauvinist comment, but thought better of it !!!!!!

Hard Times by Sir Hubert von Herkomer

Hard Times by Sir Hubert von Harkomer — Hard Times by Sir Hubert von Herkomer (1885)

My featured artist today is the German painter Hubert von Herkomer. He was born in 1849 in Waal, a small town in southern Bavaria. He was an only child. His father Lorenz was a talented wood carver and his mother was a talented pianist and music teacher. At the age of two he and his family emigrated to America and settled in Cleveland Ohio. Their stay in America was comparatively short for in 1857 they returned to Europe, settling down in Southampton, England. Herkomer first art tuition came from his father and later in life he often said that his father had been one of the most important and positive influences on his career. He went to school in Southampton and began his art education when he attended the Southampton School of Art. One of his fellow students was Luke Fildes who was to become one of the greatest English Social Realism painters (see My Daily Art Display, May 17th). When he was sixteen years old his father took him back to Bavaria where he attended the Munich Academy for a short time. In 1866 he returned to England and enrolled at the South Kensington Schools which we now know as the Royal College of Art and at the age of twenty he exhibited, for the first time, at the Royal Academy.

Herkomer left Kensington Art School and 1867 and started a career as a book and magazine illustrator. However he found most of the work tedious and so being a young man with radical political opinions he was excited by the news that the social reformer, William Thomas, intended to launch an illustrated weekly magazine called the Graphic. Herkomer immediately fired with enthusiasm sent Thomas a drawing of a group of gypsies. The magazine owner, Thomas, was delighted with the drawings and the following week it appeared in his magazine. Over the next few years Herkomer supplied Thomas with more drawings which were published. He applied to join the staff of the magazine but was both annoyed and disappointed when his application was turned down by Thomas. Herkomer had no choice but to remain as a freelance contributor. Although devastated by the refusal he was later to recall that this rebuff was to be the making of him as an artist. He wrote about his belief that he had an obligation to pictorially depict the hard times of the poor and the importance of such magazines like the Graphic, saying:

“…It is not too much to say that there was a visible change in the selection of subjects by painters in England after the advent of the Graphic. Mr. Thomas opened its pages to every phase of the story of our life; he led the rising artist into drawing subjects that might never have otherwise arrested his attention; he only asked that they should be subjects of universal interest and of artistic value. I owe to Mr. Thomas everything in my early art career. Whether it was to do a two-penny lodging-house for St. Giles’, a scene in Petticoat Lane, Sunday morning, the flogging of a criminal in Newgate Prison, an entertainment given to Italian organ grinders, it mattered little. It was a lesson in life, and a lesson in art. I am only one of many who received these lessons at the hands of Mr. W. L. Thomas….”

(Spartacus Educational Hubert Von Herkomer)

A number of his engravings which were used in the Graphic were later reworked by Herkomer into large scale oil paintings. In 1879 he was elected an associate of the Royal Academy and became an Academician in 1890.

In 1880 Herkomer started to concentrate on portraiture which, at the time, was the most lucrative art genre. His fame grew and he spent time in America where he completed thirteen portraits during his ten week stay and for them he received the princely sum of £6000. His wealth grew rapidly and he could now afford a luxurious lifestyle. Despite the lucrative portraiture market he never lost his love of Social Realism art which drew attention to the atrocious conditions of the poor. It was in the late nineteenth century that he produced some of his great Social Realism paintings such as Pressing to the West in 1884; today’s featured painting Hard Times in 1885 and On Strike in 1891. In 1883 Herkomer started his own art school at Bushey in Hertfordshire, at which he oversaw some five hundred would-be artists. He served as Slade Professor of Art at Oxford University between 1885 and 1895 and was knighted by the King in 1907. Herkomer died in 1914 aged 65 and is buried in St James’s Church, Bushey.

The featured painting in My Daily Art Display is entitled Hard Times and was painted by Herkomer in 1885. It now hangs in the City Art Gallery of Manchester. The artist was dedicated to bringing the social problems of the poor to the eyes of the public through his oil on canvas paintings. He never forgot his early impoverished childhood and his health problems. The author Lee Edwards, who wrote extensively about Herkomer, commented:

“…Herkomer painted a number of pictures that revealed his sympathy with the poor and disadvantaged, a characteristic fostered in part by his own humble origins…”

This painting was one of his most famous works and was one of many of his paintings which featured rural scenes. His inspiration for this painting was probably the impoverished migrant workers he had seen near his home in Bushey. Herkomer actually used a real family for his painting, getting an a working labourer, James Quarry and his wife Annie to pose with their two sons Frederick George and his brother James Joseph as unemployed workers and their children. The setting for this painting was called Coldharbour Lane, a long and winding road in the Hertfordshire countryside. The outdoor setting was painted en plein air but the characters in the painting were painted later, indoors at his Art School.

The wife who sits with her children by the roadside looks sad and dejected. On the other hand, the man looks down the road and his face is one of hope and possibly optimism that something will “turn up soon” and the tools of the man’s trade lie before them signifying that strength would eventually overcome hardship. It is interesting to note the difference in Herkomer’s portrayal of the effect hardship had on men and women. So should we view this painting as one of hope or one of destitution?

I suppose the answer lies with ourselves and whether when we face problems we believe our glass is half full or half empty !

Crossing at the Schreckenstein by Ludwig Richter

About five or six years ago I was fortunate enough to be having a short break in Europe and one of my journeys was from Dresden to Prague, partly by boat on the river Elbe and partly by train. The banks of the River Elbe, like the German Rhine, is littered with palaces and castles perched high above the river. My featured painting for today entitled Crossing at the Schreckenstein by Ludwig Richter reminded me of that trip and I remember the castle well as it stood imperiously above the river.

Adrian Ludwig Richter, the son of Karl August Richter, a copper engraver, was born in 1803 in Dresden. He received his initial artistic training from his father. He attended the Dresden Academy of Art and his favoured artistic genre was that of landscape painting and at the age of twenty, with the financial backing of a Dresden book dealer, he was awarded a scholarship to travel to Rome to continue his studies. Whilst in Rome he came across Joseph Anton Koch, an Austrian landscape painter of the German Romantic Movement who was famous for idealised landscapes. It was whilst in Italy that Richter produced the first of many of his idyllic Italian landscape paintings.

Richter returned to Dresden in 1826 and two years later went to work as a designer at the Meissen factory. Richter made many hiking trips through the mountains of Bohemia and along the Elbe and gradually his landscape art changed from the idealistic landscapes to the topographically accurate ones. Richter was a lifelong lover of the works of Caspar David Friedrich and his influence can be seen in a number of Richter’s works. In most cases he would add figures to his landscapes and through them tell a story. In 1841 he became a professor at the Dresden Academy and would often take parties of students on walking tours through the local mountains where they would sketch and return to the college where they would use them to complete their works of art.

In 1874 at the age seventy-one an eye disease caused his sight to deteriorate to such an extent that he had to give up his art work. He died in 1884 at Loschwitz , a few month short of his 81^st birthday.

The title of today’s painting Crossing at Schreckenstein is also known as Crossing the Elbe at Schreckenstein near Aussig and I have even seen it referred to as Ferry at the Schreckenstein. So what do we see before us? One can almost hear the tune from the harp as the ferryman and his boat transport their passengers across the Elbe. Note the varied age of the passengers, spread between the child through to the old man and it was thought that Richter’s ferryboat was a “ship of life” in which the passengers of all ages are united. The ferryman leans back as he heaves on his paddle. With pipe in his mouth, his eyes are raised towards the hilltop castle. He still seems in awe of the great edifice notwithstanding how many daily crossing of the river he makes.

At his feet there seems to be a small cargo of plants which are being transported across the waterway and next to them we see a young girl standing with a pole in her hand. We do not know whether she is the ferryman’s helper or just another passenger. In the middle of the boat we focus our attention on a young man, standing up with his back to us, who like us, stares up at the castle whilst the old man plays a folk song about times past.

A young couple cuddle up together. His hand rests on hers as she holds on to a posy of flowers. Neither of them are aware of the beauty of their surroundings or their fellow travellers. They only have eyes for each other. A man sits in front of the elderly harp player, resting his chin on his hand, his eyes cast downwards. He too seems unaware of the surrounding landscape. He is lost in thought. A small boy at his feet with his hand resting over the gunwale of the craft, drags a small branch through the calm water, slightly rippled by the current. The curved shape of the upper part of the painting in some way lends it a somewhat solemn and religious feel.

The setting for this picture was probably one Richter saw on his many hikes along the banks of the Elbe. Maybe the last word on the painting should be given to the artist himself. He described his work in his autobiography, Lebenserinnerungen eines deutschen Malers, which was edited by his son:

“…As I remained standing on the bank of the Elbe after sunset, watching the activities of the boatmen, I was particularly struck by an old ferryman who was responsible for the crossing. The boat loaded with people and animals, cut through the quiet current, in which the evening sky was reflected. So eventually it happened that the ferry came over, filled with a colorful crowd among who sat an old harpist who, instead of paying the penny for his passage, played a tune on his harp….”

The view is as magnificent today as it was in the time of Richter with the once mighty castle perched above the river. Bridges and locks now straddle the waterway and the ferryman’s efforts are no longer needed. If ever you visit the area be sure to take the river journey down the mighty Elbe and savour the splendour of the river banks.

Madame Récamier by Jacques-Louis David, Francois Gérard and Magritte

My Daily Art Display today is about one woman and three paintings. The woman in question was Jeanne-Francois Julie Adélaïde Bernard Récamier and she was a celebrated French beauty and some would say she was the most beautiful and graceful woman of her day. Add brains, confidence and charms to this exquisite loveliness and you have as they said, the perfect woman.

She was born in Lyons in 1777. Her father Bernard was a banker and when she was young she and her father moved to Paris. At the tender age of fifteen she married Jacques Récamier a wealthy banker, some thirty years her senior. Her residence in Paris was a place of rest for the distinguished men of the day. She was the perfect hostess. She was witty, a great conversationalist and a natural beauty and the soirées she held at her salon attracted the most important politicians and literary figures. Invitations to her salon were much in demand, as to be a guest at her house guaranteed one the best of food and drink and the company of the “great and good”. The fact that you attended one of her gatherings meant that you had achieved social respectability. She entertained the likes of Lucien Napoleon, the young brother of Napoleon Bonaparte, and painters such as Gustave Moreau and Jacques-Louis David. Madame Récamier, who had a sweet disposition and was unspoiled by the constant homage she received, was extremely well liked. Strangely, there was never a hint of scandal regarding all the men that came to visit her.

All was going well until her husband was ruined financially through the policies of Emperor Napoleon whom he had bankrolled and because of this the visitors to her salon were sympathetic to her and her husband and her house became a home for people who wanted Napoleon’s reign to come to an end. This led to the Récamiers being forced into exile on the orders of Bonaparte and they fled to Italy for their own safety. Madame Récamier did not return to France until the fall of Napoleon in 1815. Husband and wife returned to Paris and she re-opened her salon but further financial setbacks befell them in 1819 and she had to move to a small apartment and despite the downsizing she still was inundated with eminent writers and statesmen.

Even in old age and with little money Madame Récamier retained her popularity. Her health began to fail and she became almost blind but despite that she never lost her attraction. Juliette Récamier died of cholera in 1849 aged 72 and is buried in the Cimitière de Montmartre.

0246-0015_madame_recamier — Madame Récamier by Jacques-Louis David (1800)

Let us look now at the first of my three paintings and for this we must go back to the year 1800 when the artist Jacques-Louis David, a frequent visitor to her salon, was asked to paint a portrait of Madame Récamier. The painter who favoured the Neoclassical style was looked upon as the pre-eminent painter of his day. He had the young twenty-three year old lady bedecked in a white empire-line sleeveless dress like a modern version of a vestal virgin. We view her from a distance and so her face looks quite small. It is thought that David wanted his painting to be not just a mere portrait but an ideal of feminine elegance and charm. Her antique pose, the bare décor and light dress all epitomize his neoclassical ideals. She is shown in an almost bare space with the exception of the Pompeian furniture. She reclines on a French empire méridienne sofa, looking slightly backwards over her right shoulder. We know that David never finished the painting, which may account for the bareness of the canvas. Besides the sofa there is just a stool and candelabra shown in the painting. There is an austere minimalism to this painting.

Madame Récamier became impatient with David and the slowness of his work and, unbeknown to him, commissioned one of his pupils, Francois Gérard, to paint her portrait instead. David, when he heard about this new commission was furious and said to Madame Récamier:

“….Women have their whims, and so do artists; allow me to satisfy mine by keeping this portrait….”

The painting never left David’s atelier until it was finally exhibited at the Louvre in 1826.

Madame Recamier by Francois Gerard — Madame Récamier by Francois Gérard (1802)

And so to the second of my three paintings; the one Madame Récamier commissioned Gérard to paint in 1802. Besides the fact that she thought David was taking too long to complete the painting, she was also unhappy with what she saw on his canvas. She thought his depiction of her was too low-key and was displeased with his portrayal of her in a Neoclassical style.

Gérard was by no means a novice painter. In fact he was looked upon as one of the most popular portraitists of the day. Her instructions to him were quite simple. She wanted to be painted in a more natural setting. She wanted a more close-up portrait which would emphasise her natural curvaceous beauty and she wanted her complexion to be somehow echoed in the colour of the background. She must have been delighted with the finished painting. The red curtain which acts as a backdrop compliments the sitter giving her flesh a rosy tint. Look how the slight twist of her body, the low neckline of her Empire dress which only just cover her breasts and her bare feet exude a seductive yet charming air. There is an erotic charisma about her demeanour. However, it was not looked upon as erotic at the time. It was said to be just an intimate and thoughtful pose. Gérard’s version was not a type of Neoclassical painting. He has followed more closely the Romanticism movement of the late 18^th century.

Madame Récamier by Magritte — Perspective: Madame Récamier by David by Magritte

So finally and briefly let us look at the third painting of Madame Récamier. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, the Surrealist painter René Magritte made a series of “Perspective” paintings based on well-known works by the French artists François Gérard, Jacques Louis David, and Édouard Manet, in which he substituted coffins for the figures represented in the original paintings. This 1951 irreverent work of art by Magritte, entitled Perspective: Madame Récamier by David is almost identical to the painting by Jacques-Louis David with the one big exception – where Madame Récamier reclined seductively; Magritte substituted her body with a coffin. The only reminder we have of the lady is her white gown which we see cascading to the floor.

I will let you decide which painting you prefer and will close with one final piece of useful (useless?) information. The next time you go into a furniture shop looking for a sofa and the haughty salesperson talks to you about possibly purchasing a récamier you will know what he is talking about as the piece of furniture we see Madame Récamier reclining on in Jacques-Louis David’s painting was named after her!!

A Flood by John Everett Millais

I begin My Daily Art Display today with an extract from The Illustrated London News newspaper telling of the disastrous flooding which occurred in Sheffield on Saturday March 19th 1864

The Illustrated London News
Saturday, March 19, 1864

“… In arguably the greatest tragedy ever to befall Sheffield — indeed one of Britain’s worst disasters, in terms of loss of life — almost 250 people perished, possibly more, when a reservoir dam burst in the hills a few miles from the town, shortly before midnight on the night of 11th March 1864. The entire reservoir is said to have emptied in only 47 minutes, as in excess of a hundred million cubic feet of water (between 600 and 700 million gallons, or — as noted in one of the articles — two million tons weight) crashed down the Loxley and lower river valleys, destroying almost everything in its path and inflicting terrible damage to property and livelihoods in its wake. …..”

John Everett Millais painted The Flood in 1870. It is believed that he was motivated to paint his flood scene by the tragic events which occurred in Sheffield in March 1864 when a dam collapsed in the middle of the night and the ensuing flood killed hundreds of villagers who lived downstream of the dam. Among the many local newspaper reports there was one telling of a baby, still in its cradle, being swept away in the swift flowing waters.

In the painting, we see the baby wide awake with little idea of what is happening around him or her. The baby just looks upwards and seems mesmerised by the raindrops which cling to the thin branches of a tree. The wide-eyed and open-mouthed expression of the baby would in normal circumstances cause us to smile at the child’s inquisitiveness but unlike the baby, we are only too aware of its fate. On the other hand, the black cat, which is sharing the ride on the cradle, is conscious of the peril and it too is also open-mouthed as it howls in fear of its life. A household jug floats alongside the cradle reminding us of the devastating affect the raging water had as it swept unchecked in and out of the small impoverished village dwellings.

In the background on the left we can see a bridge almost submerged by the flood water and further to the right there is a house on the river bank and we can observe the water level has already reached the height of the ground floor windows. To the right in the background men in a boat can be seen drifting quickly and uncontrollably on the tide of muddy water.

The painting hangs in the Manchester Art Gallery and it was intetersting to hear various comments from people as they studied the painting. Some thought, as they looked at the smiling baby, that it was a charming picture whilst others tended to focus on the event itself and the probable drowning of the young child and found the painting rather disturbing.

You see, it is all in the eye of the beholder !

Manfred on the Jungfrau by Ford Madox Brown

Manfred_on_the_jungfrau_FordMaddoxBrown_1842-e1300021478301 — Manfred on the Jungfrau by Ford Madox Brown (1842)

My Daily Art Display today once again has a connection with a number of blogs I have done earlier. On July 14^th I showcased The Funeral of Shelley by Fournier and one of the mourners at this event was the English Romantic poet Lord Byron who is centre stage in today’s offering. On June 15^th I featured the artists Ford Madox Brown and today he is once again the artist who painted today’s work. Finally, this is yet another work of art which has a connection with a poem. My Daily Art Display painting today is entitled Manfred on the Jungfrau and is by the English painter Ford Madox Brown.

Ford Madox Brown, although his parents were English, was born in Calais in 1821. His father, Ford Brown was a ship’s purser in the navy and his mother, Caroline Madox, came from an old Kentish family. He initially studied art in Belgium, in Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp. One of his teachers was the Belgian painter Gustave Wappers. Madox Brown also spent time in France and Italy before coming to England in 1845. He married his first wife Elisabeth Bromley in 1841, who was his cousin, and they went on to have a daughter, Lucy. In that same year he had his first painting exhibited at the Royal Academy. In the winter of 1845 he travelled to Switzerland and Rome. During his time in the Italian capital he visited the studios of a group of German Romantic painters who had been sarcastically termed the Nazarenes as they would go around dressed in flowing robes and wearing their hair long, in a biblical-like style. The aim of their artistic style was simply to add a kind of honesty and spirituality to their paintings which they believed had been missing from contemporary works of art and in some ways it was a reaction against Neoclassicism and the rigidity of Academicism. Their philosophies would influence the Pre-Raphaelite movement

In 1846 Elizabeth Bromley died of consumption. Five years later Madox Brown married for the second time, this time to Emma Hill. The couple already at that time had a two-year old daughter, Catherine. In 1848 he met, for the first time, Daniel Rossetti and Holman Hunt, two of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Ford Madox Brown was never a member of the Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood although he was closely associated with the group of artists and in fact Rossetti approached him and asked to be allowed to work under his tutelage at his studio. Madox Brown had a varied career but although he was highly thought of by his contemporaries, he never achieved popular success. Madox Brown painted many historical pictures and for most of the 1880’s he worked on subjects of local social history for Manchester Town Hall. Ford Madox Brown died in 1893, three years after the death of his wife Emma.

So what has the painting to do with Lord Byron? The Manfred of the painting’s title was the central character and romantic hero in Lord Byron’ famous dramatic poem Manfred and the painting depicts a scene from the poem. The twenty-four year old poet, Lord Byron, had returned to London after a long period of travelling around Portugal, the Mediterranean and Aegean Sea Europe, in 1812 and had the first two parts of a four-part narrative poem published. They were hailed by the literary critics as masterpieces and Byron became an overnight success and a leader of the social and literary circles of London. However his fall from grace came shortly after with his well publicized affair with the married socialite Caroline Lamb, who famously said of Byron that he was “mad, bad and dangerous to know”. The affair, which lasted six months, was broken off by Byron but his spurned lover continued to pursue him. Byron turned his affections to Annabella Millbank. She was so different in character to Caroline Lamb. She was from a wealthy family, very well educated and a somewhat prim religious woman with very strict morals. After two years of being pursued by Byron she agreed to marry him in 1814. The marriage was doomed to failure because of the complete difference in their characters.

In 1815, Byron’s financial situation was dire as he refused to sell his work as he fervently believed the sums offered were too small. He struggled to sell property to bolster his finances and he became depressed with life in general. He drank heavily and became violent towards his wife. His wife actually believed he was going mad. Byron had an affair with a chorus girl that year despite his wife being pregnant with their first child, a daughter Ada, who was born in the December of 1815. His then turned to his half sister, Augusta Leigh, the daughter from Byron’s father’s first wife, for friendship but this led to what many believe was an incestuous relationship. Finally the marriage split asunder and the couple separated in January 1816. The separation was bitter amidst rumours of marital violence, adultery with an actress and incest, all of which scandalised the public. Incest at the time was a very serious offence and it is believed that Byron’s hasty departure from the country that year was because of his fear of prosecution.

So what has all this to do with today’s painting? Whilst Byron, who was now living at the Villa Diodati in Switzerland, toured the Bernese Alps he wrote most of his great dramatic narrative poem Manfred. The poem recounts the tale of this Alpine nobleman who had an incestuous relationship with his sister, Astarte, and who not being able to come to terms with this relationship, committed suicide. Manfred is wracked with guilt blaming himself for her death and conjures up seven spirits from whom he seeks forgetfulness so as the death of his sister would cease to haunt him. They cannot help and he himself attempts suicide and one of these attempts is portrayed in Ford Madox Brown’s painting in which we see Manfred about to hurl himself off the top of the mountain, the Jungfrau. The poem tells of this time:

“..And you, ye crags upon whose extreme edge
I stand, and on the torrent’s brink beneath
Behold the tall pines dwindled as to shrubs
In dizziness of distance, when a leap,
A stir, a motion, even a breath, would bring
My breast upon its rocky bosom’s bed
To rest for ever – wherefore do I pause?
…Thou winged and cloud-cleaving minister,
Whose happy flight is highest into heaven,
Well may’st thou swoop so near me…
…How beautiful is all this visible world!
How glorious in its action and itself!…”

His suicide attempt fails as a fur-clad chamois hunter, whom we see in the painting standing behind Manfred, rescues him before he can leap to his death. In the painting, Madox Brown depicts the tormented Manfred holding his head in his hands with his face contorted with anguish as he prepares to end his life. His red robes, which flutter violently in the mountain wind, contrast starkly with the clear blue sky. In the background to the left we can just make out a castle, which to me, resembles Neuschwanstein, the Disney-like edifice which we see on so many pictures and postcards.

It cannot be just coincidental that Byron having had an incestuous affair with his step sister should write a poetic story about another incestuous relationship and its dire consequences and many believe that his poem was about himself and his earlier relationship which scandalised society.

I had hoped to see the painting yesterday when I visited the Manchester Art Gallery but alas it has been taken down for some restoration work in preparation for the forthcoming Ford Madox Brown exhibition which will be held in this gallery in September. I will return then and cast my eye over Manfred and his tortured state of mind.

Dance of Death by Bernt Notke

: Dance of Death by Bernt Notke (1463-66)

Often when I research a painting for my Daily Art Display I am amazed by the complexity of the history of the painting or the biography of the artist and I find myself being sucked deeper and deeper into the story behind the work of art. The deeper I go the more I realize how difficult it will be to précis what I have found so that the blog does not become too boring and burdensome. My featured work of art today is an example of this complexity but, to be honest, the more complex a painting becomes the more interested I become and the more I need to dig deeper into the story. I hope that the story behind My Daily Art Display today does not cross the line which separates intrigue and tedium.

My featured artist today is Bernt Notke. He was born around 1435 in Lassan, the German town near to the Baltic Sea coast, close to the border with Poland. He was a painter, sculptor and woodcarver and was considered to be one of the most important exponents of his work in the whole of Northern Europe during his lifetime. Today I am looking at his enormous tempera on linen Dance of Death frieze which he completed in 1466 and part of which can be seen in Tallinn at the St Nicholas Church Art Museum of Estonia.

Dance of Death paintings were quite common in the late Medieval times up to the beginning of the 16^th century and they were painted to remind people that no matter how rich or poor they were, or no matter how powerful they were, death would take them all. In those days, epidemics, such as the Black Death, were both recurrent and numerous and they would kill millions of people. The Hundred Years War between 1337 and 1453 alone claimed three million lives. The devastation caused by such events enabled people to understand only too well the meaning of these paintings. They were artistic expressions of the everyday fears of people with the subject of death. The character “Death” in these works was viewed not as a destroyer but as a messenger of God summoning his people to the world beyond the grave.

The title Dance of Death varied slightly from country to country. For example, it was known as Danse Macabre in France, Danza de la Muerte in Spain and Totentanz in German but all had the same meaning. We have come across this type of thing before when we have looked at Vanitas paintings. Vanitas being the Latin word for emptiness and corresponds in this case more to the word “meaningless” – the meaningless of earthly life. Vanitas works were to be a stark reminder to us of the transience of life and the inevitability of death. Such paintings would usually incorporate objects which would in some way remind us of death such as a skull or skeleton, or an almost burnt-out candle, watches or hour glasses which symbolized time passing and in still life vanitas paintings rotting food could also be used as a symbol of decay.

Normally the Dance of Death paintings or frescoes were painted on the walls of cloisters or on walls within some churches. In general we would see Death depicted as an emaciated corpse or skeleton paired with a person from a particular social class as they carry out their dance of death. Below each pair there would be a verse, the first part of which would be spoken by Death addressing his victim often in cynical and sarcastic terms. This is then followed by the victims reply as he or she begs for their life.

: The join between two fragments of the painting

In the featured work today we see just the surviving part of Notke’s Dance of Death. His original work was 30 metres in length but this only remaining fragment is only 7.5 metres in length. The fragment can be viewed today at the church museum in Tallinn and actually comprises of two pieces, one 6.4 metres long and a much smaller piece approximately 1.15metres long which incorporates the king, and which were joined together in 1843. However if you look carefully at the join you can see that the background doesn’t run smoothly from one side to another nor does the hand of the devil attach itself to any part of the body of the king, so is there something missing or is it a case that the joining of the two pieces was not carried out correctly? Further restoration work on this painting was carried out in Moscow in 1962.

: Preacher, Musician and Pope

In the painting, we see on the far left the preacher in his pulpit reprimanding his congregation. Next to the pulpit we see “death” seated playing what looks like bagpipes and I must say in this case “death” looks a little like ET ! Why the bagpipes? The thought behind this is that bagpipes are known to be able to “wake the dead”. The inclusion of this musician does add to the sense of macabre and of course he is the musician who will play as the characters to the right of him perform the Dance of Death. Moving to the right we see another figure of “death” balancing a coffin on his shoulder with his right hand, whilst at the same time his left hand grasps the clothing of the pope as he begins to lead him in the dance. To the right of the pope we observe another figure of “death”. His right hand is grasping the left wrist of the pope whilst his left hand, which is behind him, holds the Emperor’s wrist. This interconnection between earthly figures and the figures of “death” continues along the line as they start to dance. In the surviving part of the painting we have five people facing out at us. They are the pope, the empress, the emperor, the cardinal and the king and between each we see “death” in the form of a skeleton.

: Empress and Cardinal with verses

As I stated earlier, in Dance of Death works a two part verse is often written below each character. The first part of the eight-line verse is made up of words from the living person begging for his or her life and the second part is the eight-line reply from Death, the last line of which being and introduction to the next mortal along the chain. An example of this is the verse below the Empress which when translated is:

I know, Death means me!
I was never terrified so greatly!
I thought he was not in his right mind,
after all, I am young and also an empress.
I thought I had a lot of power,
I had not thought of him
or that anybody could do something against me.
Oh, let me live on, this I implore you!

And Death replies:

Empress, highly presumptuous,
methinks you have forgotten me.
Fall in! It is now time.
You thought I should let you off?
No way! And were you ever so much,
You must participate in this play,
And you others, everybody —
Hold on! Follow me, Mr Cardinal!

The Cardinal now says his piece:

Have mercy on me, Lord, [when it] shall happen.
I can in no way escape it.
[When] I look in front or behind me,
I feel Death by me at all times.
What will the high rank avail me
[the rank] that I had? I must leave it
and become more unworthy at once
than an unclean, stinking dog.

And Death replies:

You were in status equal to
an apostle of God on earth,
in order to strengthen the Christian belief
with words and other good works.
But you have, with great haughtiness,
been riding your high horse.
Therefore you most mourn so much more now!
Now step here in front you too, Mr King!

And so it goes on along the line of mortals, all wanting to plead their case only to be refused by the inflexibility of Death.

: On display in the St Nicholas’s Church art Museum in Tallinn

I would love to go and see this painting and sad to say I was in Tallinn about six years ago but knew nothing about this great work of art. If you ever go to Tallinn make sure you add this painting to your “must

The Miraculous Draught of the Fishes by Konrad Witz

Konrad~1 — The Miraculous Draught of the Fishes by Konrad Witz (1444)

From yesterday’s late nineteenth century Swedish painter Sven Richard Bergh I am going back in time, almost five centuries, for today’s featured artist. My Daily Art Display today looks at an exquisite painting by the 15^th century German-born early Renaissance artist Konrad Witz.

Witz was born in Rottweil is now a german town some fifty kilometres north of the Swiss border and is part of the federal state of Baden-Württemburg, in south-west Germany It was, at the time when Witz was born in 1400, a freie Reichsstadt (Free Imperial City) and formally ruled by the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire until 1463. At that time the town joined the Swiss Confederation where it remained until 1802 and the onset of the Napoleonic Wars when it reverted to part of the Wurttemburg dukedom. Witz although born in Germany always considered himself to be Swiss.

Through historical records we know that a certain “Master Konrad of Rottweil” joined the painter’s guild in Basle in 1434 and in the same year Witz was granted citizenship of Basle, the Swiss town along with the city of Geneva where Witz spent most of his life. His style of painting lends one to believe that at some time he received training in the Flemish and Netherlandish painting styles. Witz is noted as one of the first painters to incorporate realistic landscapes into religious paintings, an example of which we will see in today’s featured painting.

My Daily Art Display featured work today is part of an altarpiece by Konrad Witz entitled The Miraculous Draught of the Fishes which he completed in 1444 two years before he died. Art historians believe that this beautiful work is amongst the high points of Early Renaissance painting. Because of hinge marks on the frame of the painting, we know it to be the left exterior wing of the altarpiece commissioned by Bishop Francois de Mies for the high altar of the chapel of Notre Dame des Maccabées of the Cathedral of Saint Peter in Geneva, which belongs to the Swiss Reformed Church. The right hand exterior wing depicted the release of St Peter from prison but sadly the central panel is lost. The interior wings of the triptych depict, on one side, the Adoration of the Magi and on the other Saint Peter’s presentation of the donor, Bishop Francois to the Virgin and Child. Fortunately the wings survived the Protestant Iconoclasm, the collective name for the destruction of catholic churches and possessions which had been raging in Europe since the early sixteenth century and hit Geneva in 1535. During this Protestant Iconoclasm, hundreds of catholic churches, chapels, abbeys and cloisters in the Netherlands were totally destroyed by rampaging Protestant mobs along with all their contents such as, altars, icons, chalices, paintings, and church books. The painting is signed and dated 1444 on the original lower frame.

It is by far the most famous of Witz’s works and is sometimes looked upon as the first “real” landscape painting, a painting in which one can recognise a certain landscape as compared with “an idealised landscape” where it is a composite of many places morphed into one idealised picture. In today’s painting we are standing on the north-west shore of Lac Lehman (Lake Geneva), near Geneva and looking across to the south-east. We can see the Saleve mountains in the background and included in the scene is the recognisable peak of Mont Blanc. In the middle ground on the right we can see a pointed jetty and across the water is the staccato line of a breakwater. Although Witz has given us a true landscape the characters and the scene before us are an amalgam of ideas and the exact subject of the painting is somewhat blurred.

Although the landscape has been identified as Lake Geneva the figures in the painting are all part of biblical stories which obviously took place in the Holy Land. One reason for this could be that Witz met with his sponsor of the altar, the Bishop of Geneva, François de Mies, during the Ecumenical Council held in Basle. It was at this Council that it was decided to the elect Amadeus VIII of Savoy to the throne Pontifical under the name of Felix V. He was to become the last of the Antipopes. It could be reasoned that by transposing geographically the biblical scene to the land of the pontiff was therefore more of political move that an artistic impulse.

There are three biblical stories going on within this one painting. Firstly, we have the man who was to become the first pope, Saint Peter, unsuccessfully trying to walk on water. (Matthew 14:22-26). Secondly we see Saint Peter, this time in the boat with some of his fellow disciples, fishing which reminds us of the parable of the fishes (Luke 5:1-11). Lastly, the painting reminds us of the story of the resurrected Christ on the shores of the sea of Tiberius appearing to his disciples as they were in a boat fishing.

This is a beautifully executed painting. Remember that this is an early 15th century painting. Look how the artist has skilfully depicted the water with its reflected shadows of the buildings and jettylook at the mirrored reflections of the people in the boat. Observe the transparency of the water in the foreground as we see the legs of Saint Peter splayed apart as he walks in the shallows having failed to master the “walking upon the water”.

This oil on panel work of art could be seen at Musée d’Art Histoire in Geveva. I say “could” as it has been taken down for some restoration work to be carried out upon it and will not be re-hung until March 2012.

Nordic Summer Evening by Sven Berg

Nordic Summer Evening by Richard Bergh (1900)

I chose today’s painting for My Daily Art Display as it reminded me of the painting I featured on June 9^th, Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy by David Hockney. Today’s painting is by the Swedish painter Sven Richard Bergh and is entitled Nordic Summer Evening which he completed in 1900.

Berg was born in Stockholm at the end of 1858. He was the son of the Johan Edvard Bergh, who formerly spent time as a lawyer before devoting his life to his landscape painting and becoming an art teacher. His mother was also an artist and so their son was introduced to art at a very early age. The family were wealthy and mixed with the cultural elite of Stockholm. Sven Berg studied at the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts in Stockholm. He travelled on many occasions to France, often to escape the exacting academicism of that art establishment, where he visited the artist’s colony at Grez-sur-Loing just south of Fontainebleau. The colony was modelled on another famous Parisian artist colony at Barbizon, which was set up some thirty years earlier. Grez-sur-Loing was the home of en plein air painters and artists from around the world descended on this colony. The 1880’s saw the arrival in the colony of many Scandanavian artists. It was whilst in France that Berg was strongly influenced by the French en plein air method of painting and the French Symbolist movement. Berg became an established portrait painter but was equally praised for his landscape works. In the 1890’s he was in the forefront of Swedish Romanticism movement in art. He went on to set up an art academy and wrote many books on the subject of art. He became director of the National Museum of Art in Stockholm in 1915. He died in 1919 aged 60.

In the featured painting today we see a man and a woman standing on a terrace. They have turned away from us and are looking out over a stretch of water which has a calm mirror-like aspect. It is sunset and we see the last of the evening’s orange light on the surface of the water and the forest in the background. The sunlight adds a bluish tinge to the balustrade of the terrace. This is typical of Nordic light paintings. “Nordic Light” was used to describe Scandinavian landscape painting in the late 19th and early 20th century. We see a boat tied up on the pier. There is a feeling of sexual tension between the two characters as they stand well apart and avoid each other’s gaze.

The setting for the painting is Ekholmsnäs Manor and we are looking over Kyrkviken, the narrow sea inlet, towards the island of Lidingö, part of the Stockholm archipelago. The people in the painting were Berg’s close friends. The man, who was of “royal blood” as well as being a well known artist and patron to many artists, was the Duke of Narke, Prince Eugen Napoleon Nicolaus of Sweden and Norway and the youngest son of King Oscar II of Sweden and Norway. The woman in the painting was the singer Karin Pyk.

Head of a Girl by Jan van Scorel

Head of a Young Girl by Jan van Scorel (c.1530-35)

As I have written in previous blogs, I am always pleased to discover a “new” artist, one that I had never come across before even though they may have been well known to many of you. Today I have just such an artist.

I have always loved landscape paintings above all other genres of art but I am slowly coming to appreciate more and more a well executed portrait. Today I have such a portrait.

I am always enchanted by a painting of a beautiful face such as the painting by Gerald Brockhurst, entitled Jeunesse Dorée (May 16^th). Today I have such a painting.

My Daily Art Display today is a painting by the Dutch painter Jan Van Scorel entitled simply Head of a Girl.

Jan van Sorel was born in 1495 in the small village of Schoorl, which lies 8kms north west of Alkmaar. Like many people of the time his surname is derived from the name of his birthplace. It is thought that he started his artistic journey of discovery in Haarlem studying under the likes of Pieter Gerritsz van Roestraten, the Dutch Golden Age painter and Cornelis Buys also known as the Master of Alkmaar. It is also known that around the end of 1518, when he was in his early twenties, he studied under Jan Gossaert in Utrecht and was probably through Gossaert’s recommendation that van Scorel began travelling through Europe. He journeyed south from the Netherlands heading towards Italy, stopping off in a number of German towns including Nuremburg, where he met and stayed with Albrecht Dürer, before crossing the Alps into Austria. Historical records show that he was registered in Venice between 1518 and 1522. It was whilst he lived in Venice that he came across the works of Gorgione which were to have a great influence on his artistic career.

He left Venice with a group of Dutch pilgrims and set off on a pilgrimage passing through Malta, Rhodes and Cyprus before arriving at Holy Land and visiting Jerusalem and Bethlehem. His Holy Land experiences were to feature in many of his later paintings. Returning from the Holy Lands he headed for Rome and in 1522, aged twenty-seven, he became the painter to the Vatican under the rule of Pope Adrian VI, the Dutch pontiff, who was a native of Utrecht, and who himself sat for a portrait by van Scorel. He also became the curator of the vast collection of papal antiquities in the Belvedere and this allowed him to see the Vatican’s artistic treasures including the works of Michelangelo and Raphael and through this van Scorel gained great inspiration from their works of art. In 1524 van Scorel returned to his homeland and settled in Utrecht where he remained for the rest of his life and where he continued to paint and teach art. One of his students was the great Dutch artist Maarten van Heemskerck who is famous for his religious works and portraits. Van Scorel died in Utrecht in 1562, aged 67.

Van Scorel was a highly educated man. He spoke many languages and was not only a painter; he was also skilled as an engineer and architect. His journey to Italy was to become an essential ritual for the next generation of Dutch and Flemish artists and their coming into contact with the Mannerist circles in Rome and Florence allowed them to introduce the style in their own country. Van Scorel was considered by many as the artist who introduced High Italian Renaissance art to the Netherlands and was considered to be the leading Netherlandish Romanist of the time. Romanism was the style of painting of a group of Netherlandish artists in the late 15th and early 16th century who began to visit Italy and started to incorporate Renaissance influences in their work. The greatest proponent of this style of art was Jan Gossaert. The influence of Michelangelo and Raphael showed in their works in the way they would use classical imagery such as mythological scenes and nudes.

Four years after van Scorel’s death came The Iconoclasm, the Dutch name being Beeldenstorm, which literally translated means “storm of icons” and is the collective name for the destruction of catholic churches and possessions which had been raging in Europe for the past forty years but only came to Utrecht and the rest of the Netherlands between August and October 1566. During this Protestant Beeldenstorm, hundreds of catholic churches, chapels, abbeys and cloisters in the Netherlands were totally destroyed by rampaging Protestant mobs along with all their contents such as, altars, icons, chalices, paintings,and church books. Unfortunately during this turbulent time of religious fanaticism, a large number of Van Scorel’s works were destroyed. The Beeldenstorm marked the beginning of the revolution against the Spanish forces, which had occupied the Netherlnads and the Catholic Church which had asserted its authority over its people.

Unfortunately I have little to tell you about the painting itself. Head of a Girl was painted by Jan van Scorel between 1530 and 1535 and now hangs in the Kunsthistoriches Museum in Vienna. Before us we see just the head and neck of the girl. She fills the painting and the plain background helps us to concentrate on her face. There is no symbolism associated with this painting. Nothing needs to be interpreted. The title of the painting speaks for itself. What you see is what you have – the face of a lovely young girl. Her dark almond-shaped eyes avert our gaze as she peers to her left. The light comes from her right hand side and the left side of her face is in shade. She has a small mouth with full red lips. Her red hair is plaited on top of her head. I am taken by her gentle expression of contemplation. I can almost detect a hint of sorrow in her gaze or maybe it is a look of acquiescence. All in all, this young woman, whoever she may be, is truly beautiful and deserves to be in My Daily Art Display.