Art History – Page 82 – my daily art display

The Island of the Dead by Arnold Böcklin

The Island of the Dead by Arnold Bocklin (1880-1886)

My Daily Art Display today is The Island of the Dead, a painting by the Swiss artist Arnold Böcklin. He painted five versions of this work between 1880 and 1886 but curiously never gave any a title. It was his Berlin art dealer Fritz Gurlitt who invented the name for the painting. For me, today’s offering exudes a sinister air of menace. For some reason, it reminds me of death and it permeates a feeling of foreboding. It is believed that the English Cemetery in Florence, where his baby daughter was buried, and which was close to Böcklin’s studio was part of the inspiration for this painting.

The earliest version of this picture was commissioned by Marie Berna whose husband had recently died. The predominate feature of the painting is the high-cliffed rocky island, viewed at night across an expanse of water. The centre of this island is dominated by cypress trees which were customarily associated with graveyards. Dark storm-like clouds gather in the background. Approaching, and almost at the island, is a small row boat carrying a white figure who is standing ready to alight from the craft.

Should we look for an interpretation of this picture? Should we seek some symbolism for various facets of the painting? According to the artist himself there is no need, as this, as he termed it, was simply “a dream picture”. Böcklin liked people to find their own meanings in his paintings. A number of themes used in his paintings stemmed from classical literature and many believe the upright figure dressed in white in today’s painting resembled Charon the boatman who ferried the souls of the dead across the river Styx to Hades.

Arnold Böcklin was born in 1827 in Basel. He studied in Dusseldorf. At the start of his artistic career he concentrated on landscapes and travelled extensively through Europe where he studied Renaissance art and discovered the wonders of Mediterranean landscapes. He returned to his homeland in 1871 but spent the last days of his life in Fiesole a town near Florence where he died in 1901 at the age of 73.

Today’s painting inspired many people. Rachmaninoff after seeing the painting in Paris in 1907 composed a symphonic poem (Op.29) as did Heinrich Schulz-Beuthen and Max Reger. The artist and his works were a favourite of Adolf Hitler who at one time owned eleven of Böcklin’s paintings. I have also read that in the series finale of the TV drama series Lost a driver from Oceanic Airways wears a uniform with the name tag ‘Bocklin,’ presumably referencing this painting.

Wanderer above the Sea of Fog by Casper David Friedrich

Wanderer above the Sea of Fog by Caspar David Friedrich (1818)

My Daily Art Display painting today is a mesmerising scene of a young man, believed to be a portrait of the artist himself, with his back to us perched on a rocky outcrop gazing out reverentially over a landscape which is almost hidden by thick swirls of fog and clouds. He is bedecked in a green frock-coat, leaning slightly on his walking stick, his curly blonde hair caught by the wind. We, the viewer, look with the eyes of this young man and can just make out, through the thick pervading grey fog, a middle ground with its small clumps of trees which stand atop a rocky escarpment. Further into the background one can see the tall greyish-blue toned mountains, lightly shrouded by the clouds, above which we are able to observe the sky with its slight glowing hue indicating that we are witnessing either the start or end of the day.

Casper David Friedrich, the German Romantic artist, painted Wanderer above the Sea of Fog in 1818 and it can be found in the Kunsthalle in Hamburg. It is one of the great Romantic landscape paintings of its time. The setting for his painting is a fusion of various mountains in the Saxony and Bohemia region. The outcrop of rocks on which the man stands is on the Kaiserkrone. The painting draws attention to the smallness and insignificance of an individual in comparison to the untamed and possibly hostile natural setting. Many of Friedrich’s paintings let people share his captivation with encountering nature in solitude whether it be from a rocky outcrop as in today’s painting or the frozen arctic as depicted in his painting The Arctic Sea. He was a Romantic artists and their belief was that any artist who wanted to explore his own emotions, had necessarily to stand outside of the throng of money-making, political gimmickry, and urban noise in order to assert and maintain their positions.

Caspar David Friedrich was born in Greifswald, Germany in 1774. At the age of twenty, he began his studies at the Academy in Copenhagen. In 1798 he moved and settled down in Dresden but travelled extensively throughout Germany. His landscapes, like that of his painting today, were based entirely of those of northern Germany and show in detail the breathtaking magnificence of the hills, harbours and weather conditions of that area which Friedich had observed. Many of his scenes are devoid of people and concentrate on menacing ravines, intimidating cliffs and terrifying seas of ice. One can see that in his landscape paintings, Friedrich gave more emphasis to threatening landscapes rather than the benign beautiful ones often painted by other artists.

David d’Angers, the French sculptor and contemporary of Friedrich said of Caspar David Friedrich, “Here is a man who has discovered the tragedy of landscape.”

Christina’s World by Andrew Wyeth

The other day I came across what I thought was a simple landscape painting, which at first glance was a simple rural scene with a solitary figure, seemingly resting, in the foreground. I had guessed it was an American landscape. My mind went back to the photographs of the Mid-West plains. I was half right in as much as it was an American landscape but not of the Mid West but of Maine. The female figure in the foreground was of a young woman, and my perception was that she was just raising herself from the ground after a pleasant lie in the meadow-like surroundings. Maybe I should be forgiven for jumping to conclusions from just a fleeting glance but it was simply my first impression. Look and see what you make of it after you have taken that first momentary look.

In fact this is not as simple a painting as one might have first believed. Christina’s World was painted in 1948 by the American artist Andrew Wyeth and despite me having never seen it before, it is said to be one of the best known American paintings of the mid twentieth century and is presently hanging at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The girl whom I took to be just simply raising herself from the ground after a period of relaxation is in fact a young woman afflicted with polio from early childhood which had paralysed her lower body and is actually crawling across a field to her home which can be seen in the distance.

The artist was inspired to create this painting when looking through a window of his summer house in Cushing Maine and he saw his young neighbour, Anna Christina Olson, who suffered from infantile paralysis, which resulted in her inability to walk, gazing up at her house from the large tree-less field in front of it. The model he used for the picture of the girl was not Christina herself, who was in her mid-fifties at the time of the painting, but Andrew Wyeth’s young wife Betsy who was in her mid-twenties. The painting of the young woman in a pink dress with wasted limbs has a haunting quality to it. The landscape and the rural house are all painted in great detail. Wyeth’s attention to detail is amazing. Each blade of grass and each strand of the woman’s hair is painted individually. The style of the painting has been termed “magic realism”which is defined as an artistic genre in which meticulously realistic painting is combined with surreal elements of fantasy or dreams. Wyeth commenting on his artistic style said:

“I search for the realness, the real feeling of a subject, all the texture around it…I always want to see the third dimension of something…I want to come alive with the object.”

Of the picture in general, Wyeth commented:

“The challenge to me was to do justice to her extraordinary conquest of a life which most people would consider hopeless.”

Have you a favourite painting which you would like to see on My Daily Art Display?

If so, let me know and tell me why it is a favourite of yours and I will include it in a future offering.

The Moneychanger and his Wife by Marinus Claeszoon van Reymerswaele

The Moneychanger and his Wife by Marinus Claesz van Reymerswaele (1539)

Yesterday’s painting by Jan Gossaert was termed an “occupational portrait” and today I offer you another one. This painting entitled The Moneychanger and his Wife was painted by the Dutch artist Marinus Claeszoon van Reymerswaele in 1539. It is almost certainly an adaption of a painting of a similar name painted in 1514 by the Dutch painter Quentin Massys whom he met whilst in Antwerp,. Marinus was born in 1490 in the “lost coastal city” of Reimerswaal , which was flooded in 1530 and totally lost to the sea in 1634. He studied at the University of Leuven in 1504 and trained as a painter in Antwerp in 1509. He was known for his satirical paintings.

It is interesting to note that the Spanish Association of Accounting and Business Administration (Associatión Española de Contabilidad y Administración) (AECA) adopted a section of this painting as a symbol of their association.

The reason they wanted to use it was given as:

“The painting which has inspired our logotype is internationally famous as an image of financial activity during the Renaissance: it shows a scene typical of the counting house of a banker of the period. The subject of the pair of moneychangers shows us a new profession which has appeared in the period, a profession related to the world of finance, taxes and commercial accounts. Reymerswaele adapts the subject of the banker and his wife from Massys’s painting now in the Louvre in Paris. In Reymerswaele’s painting, the bourgeois married couple are seen counting out gold and silver coins, and the husband is weighing them with great care in a small set of scales, since most of them would be clipped or scraped. The coins are probably the product of tax-collection, an exchange of foreign currency or the repaying of a loan. This would imply the use of the abacus which the banker has at his right on the table, and then the setting out of accounts in the accounts book which the wife is holding in her delicate fine hands.”

Take a close look at the two figures in the painting. They both exude an air of elegance in their wearing of expensive and lavish clothes. There is a definite air of opulence. Puyvelde, the Flemish art historian, wrote that the realist portrait of the Moneychanger and his Wife is a caricature of rapacious and greedy business people commenting that “the profit motive is more clearly marked in the faces and thin fingers” In sixteenth century painting, long curved fingers was a sign of greed or even avarice. Long fingers and long noses were also used to represent Jews. The male person in this painting could well be Jewish and at this time, as it is nowadays, the Jews played a very important part in the economic activity of Flanders. In those days the main bankers were Italian Lombards but the Jews acted as money lenders to the less wealthy members of the public such as butchers and bakers. Unfortunately, many of those who borrowed the money had trouble repaying their loans and this probably reinforced the strong anti-Semitic feeling which was prevalent at the time.

The Prado museum guide comments on the painting:

“In this painting we find all the characteristics of Northern European painters: minute detail, fine quality raw material, an empirical approach to reality, and above all, the naked sordidness with which Van Reymerswaele approaches one of the principal evils of his time: usury, the greater of all possible sins in a commercial society such as Flanders. Corruption and fraud affected all levels of society, even the clergy, producing a critical reaction on the part of writers, theologians and artists”.

Most art historians have seen in Reymerswaele’s paintings a satirical and moralising symbolism, The Money Changer and his Wife being the representation of greed. Others think that the picture shows economic activity in a respectable way. Flanders at that time was the centre of a flourishing industrial and commercial activity, and also was the centre of a mercantile trade in works of art. Both things led to a representation of the professional activity of moneychangers, goldsmiths, and bankers in a way that shows those activities as respectable professions. The second view is the one implicitly shared by economists when choosing this picture to illustrate many books on economics or business

So, what do you make of the picture?

Portrait of a Merchant by Jan Gossaert

Today’s featured painting is by the a Netherlandish artist who was also known by his place of birth. Jan Gossaert was born around 1478 in the town of Maubeuge a town which now lies in present day France, from which his other name, Mabuse, derived. He worked around Bruges in the early days and in 1503 was in Antwerp where he became a master in the painter’s guild. Five years later he entered the service of Philip of Burgundy and travelled with him and his entourage to the Vatican. In 1509 he moved back to the Netherlands to Philip’s castle in Middelburg where he remained until 1517. In that year Philip was made Bishop of Utrecht and Gossaert went with him to Duurstede Castle. Philip of Burgundy died in 1524 and Gossaert returned to Middelburg where he entered the service of Philip’s half-brother Adolf of Burgundy as court painter. He spent most of his last days here and in the Zeeland area in the South West of Netherlands. Jan Gossaert died in Antwerp in 1532 aged fifty four.

My Daily Art Display today is Gossaert’s Portrait of a Merchant, an oil on panel painting, which he completed around 1530 just two years before his death. The painting belongs to the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC but is likely to be included in an exhibition of the artist’s work at the National Gallery, London in March 2011.

This work of art is termed an “occupational portrait” and were traditional forms of art at this time in northern Europe. The subject of this work is believed to be Jeronimus Sandelin a businessman and later a tax collector in Zeeland. In the foreground we see the businessman’s tools of his trade; writing implements, sealing wax, scales and a pile of coins. Behind him are two sheaves of papers, one marked “Alrehande Missiven” (miscellaneous letters) and the other is marked “Alrehande Minuten (miscellaneous drafts)

As is the case nowadays, successful businessmen and bankers in those days were viewed with great wariness and mistrust even though they were a necessity of life. Look closely at the expression on the face of the subject. How would you describe his facial expression? Is it an almost haughty arrogance in his look towards us? Maybe it could be described as a furtive look. On the other hand is his arrogant gaze a counter to his insecurity felt by many of his kind who were aware of their own unpopularity.

The sixteenth century Dutch humanist and theologian Erasmus questioned the morality of such businessman asking “ When did Avarice reign more largely and less punished”

Sounds like something we would read in today’s newspapers !!!!!!

The Beggar known as the Club-foot by Jusepe de Ribera

Jusepe de Ribera, the Spanish painter, also known as José de Ribera was born in Játiba near Valencia in 1591. After visiting Parma, Padua and Rome, he settled down in Naples in 1616, which in those days was under the control of Spain. It was here that he spent most of his career. His developed style of painting owed a lot to the influence of the Italian artist of the day, Caravaggio. Ribera became a painter to the Spanish Viceroy who was later succeeded by the Duke of Monterey, a person who secured many commissions for him from the Augustine Monastery in Salamanca. Ribera remained in Naples where he died in 1652.

His painting Boy with a Club Foot, which can be found in the Louvre, Paris, is today’s featured work of Art and was completed in 1642 and highlights his more mature style both through its composition and also because of the subject. It is believed a Flemish art dealer had commissioned this painting as the theme of beggars in paintings such as The Beggars by Bruegel the Elder and Murillo’s The Young Beggars had become very popular.

The painting, which is typical of his more mature style, shows a disabled Neapolitan beggar, probably a dwarf (originally the painting was entitled The Dwarf) with a club foot, clutching a piece of paper with the words “ Da mihi elimosinam propter amorem dei” which translates to “For the love of God give me alms”. The reason for this piece of paper to be held by the young beggar could be that it was his licence to allow him to beg, which was mandatory in Naples in those days. It also could be, as some have interpreted, that he, the boy, suffered from speech problems and was unable to voice his request for help. It is interesting to see how Ribera has portrayed the beggar, not as a grovelling child, looking downcast and miserable in some dark and grubby alleyway. Here before us is not a down-trodden child but a youngster, standing upright, with a cheeky smiling face and a look of defiant pride as he almost gaily carries his crutch over his shoulder, set against a light and tranquil background. The boy is shown close up and we are looking at him from a low viewpoint which gives the subject a sort of monumentality and self-esteem which would normally have been afforded to a noble person.

The Burial of Atala by Girodet

The Burial of Atala by Anne-Louis Girodet (1808)

A novella written in 1801 by the French writer Francois-René de Chateaubriand entitled Atala tells of the tragic love story of Chactas, a Natchez Indian and Atala the half-caste Christian daughter of Simagan, the chief of the Muscogees, an enemy Indian tribe, who had captured and sentenced Chactas to death. Atala eventually frees him from captivity and they run away together. They are helped by Père Aubry, a Christian missionary and hermit, who takes them to his cave and gives them refuge. Atala falls in love with Chactas, but cannot marry him as she has taken a vow of chastity. In despair she takes poison. Père Aubry assumes that she is merely ill, but in the presence of Chactas she reveals what she has done, and Chactas is filled with anger until the missionary tells them that in fact Christianity permits the renunciation of vows. They tend her, but she dies.

My Daily Art Display for today is the painting completed in 1808 entitled The Burial of Atala by the French artist Anne-Louis Girodet who was inspired by the poignant story of the would-be lovers Chactas and Atala. The death scene, set inside the mouth of the cave, is a representation of the traditional paintings of the “burial of Christ” but in this instance the emotions of passion, love and death are all entwined. The monumental arrangement of the three figures, the setting of the grotto and the solitary cross seen in the background against the sky reminds one of his earlier painting The Dead Christ Supported by the Virgin.

Girodet, usually known as Girodet-Trioson, a name he took in honour of a surgeon Dr Trioson, who adopted him after he was orphaned, was born in Paris in 1767. He started school and studied architecture and military studies before concentrating on art. He became a pupil of Jaques-Louis David one of the greatest Neoclassical painters. Girodet was looked upon as a star pupil winning a number of prestigious prizes for his works of art. As was the case in today’s painting, Girodet often preferred literary themes for his paintings. He also gained a reputation as a first class portraitist and many of his works revolved around the power and glory of Napoleon.

When he was 48 his adopted father, Dr Trioson died leaving him a sizeable inheritance. From then until his death in 1824 Girodet had no need to earn money by selling his paintings and instead concentrated on his other love, the writing of poetry.

The Marne at Chennevières by Camille Pissarro

The Banks of the Marne at Chennevieres by Pissarro (1864)

The painting featured in My Daily Art Display can be found in Edinburgh at the National Gallery of Scotland. It is entitled The Marne at Chennevières and is an oil on canvas painting completed in 1864 by Camille Pissarro.

Pissarro, a French Impressionist painter, was born Jacob Abraham Camille Pissarro in 1830 in the small port town of Charlotte Amalie on the Carribean Island of St Thomas in the Danish West Indies. His father, Abraham Gabriel Pissarro, of French-Sephardic Jewish descent and his mother Rachel Manzano-Pomié, a Creole from the Dominican Republic ran a flourishing general store in the Danish West Indies. At the age of 12, Pissarro was sent to a French boarding school in Paris where he started to become interested in art. He remained there until 1847 when he returned to the Caribbean to help his parents with the running of the shop. He soon became bored with this humdrum life and wanted to concentrate on his true love, art. However his parents did not support his ambition. Whilst sketching locally at the busy port he met Fritz Melbye a Danish painter who had come to the island from Copenhagen in the hopes of becoming a marine artist. It was he who inspired Pissarro to develop into a full time professional painter and Melbye became not only a close friend to Pissarro but his art teacher. Pissarro, having no support for his desire to become a full time artist, ran away to Venezuela with Melbye in 1852 where they lived for three years. In 1855, after his parents pledged to support his artistic ambitions, he returned home and later went to Paris to continue his artistic studies in the likes of École des Beaux-Arts and Académie Suisse and studied under Corot and Courbet.

During the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 and 1871 Pissarro had to flee to London from his home in Louveciennes, a western suburb of Paris. Sadly, a number of his paintings were destroyed by the invading Pruissian soldiers. He remained in London until 1890 but returned to visit the English capital on a number of occasions and painted many local scenes.

Pissarro died in Paris in 1913 aged 73 and his grave can be found in the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

Strong blues, greens and whites dominate this painting of the River Marne and its banks as it meanders passed the town of Chennevières. Chennevières’ church and houses are just visible at the top of the right bank. Paintings by Daubigny and Corot inspired Pissarro’s carefully structured composition and Courbet’s work influenced his extensive use of a palette knife. The small factory buildings and ferry boat add a contemporary note. The painting was exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1865.

Las Meninas, after Velazquez by Pablo Picasso

Las Meninas by Picasso — Las Meninas, after Velazquez by Pablo Picasso (1957)

The last art gallery I visited when I was in Vienna earlier this month was the Albertina. They were advertising two main exhibitions, one of Michaelangelo sketches and one of works by Picasso. I made this gallery my last port of call and in a way I was pleased with that decision. I liked the Michaelangelo sketches but, sad to say, I am not a lover of Picasso’s works of art. As an art lover, I know that is a terrible thing to admit to, but one knows what one likes and vice versa. Why should I pretend that I love his work when in fact I can find little to like about it.

So why am I making it one of My Daily Art Display offerings? The reason is that yesterday I offered you Las Meninas by Velazquez and today I am offering you one of Picasso’s many interpretation of that work of art which I saw at the Albertina and I will let you judge which version pleases you the most.

Pablo Picasso was fourteen years of age when he first saw Velazquez’s painting of the two Maids of Honour and the Indfanta entitled Las Meninas and this was just a few months after his seven-year old blonde-haired sister had died from diphtheria. Two years later, at the age of sixteen, Picasso produced his first sketch relating to the Las Meninas characters. In all, from the time of his adolescence, Picasso, who adored the Velazquez painting, devoted much time to analysing and interpreting this work of art.

Today’s painting for My Daily Art Display is Las Meninas after Velazquez by Pablo Picasso and was completed in 1957. It is one of his fifty eight interpretations of Velazquez’s original painting of the same name. The main characters in Picasso’s work remain the same as in the original Velazquez painting, namely, Velázquez; Doña Agustina de Sarmiento and Doña Isabel de Velasco the two maids of honour (las Meninas) , Doña Margarita, the Infanta; the two dwarves, Maribárbola and Nicolasito Pertusato, and he even reproduces the shape of the dog lying on the floor. In the background, he also keeps the looking-glass, in which one can see two images which represent the king and queen of Spain.

So it is up to you to look at today’s and yesterday’s versions of Las Meninas and decide for yourself which you prefer.

Las Meninas by Velazquez

My Daily Art Display painting of the day is Las Meninas (the Maids of Honour), an oil on canvas work by Diego Rodriquez de Silva y Velázquez. He completed this painting in 1656 just four years before his death at the age of sixty one. It is often referred to as “a painting about a painting”.

In the painting, the setting of which is believed to be Velazquez’s high-ceilinged studio in Madrid’s Alcázar palace, the painter has just stepped out from behind the great canvas. At the centre of the painting is the five-year old princess Doña Margarita Maria of Austria, simply known as the Infanta, with her two maids of honour (las Meninas), Doña Maria Agustina on the left and Doña Isabel Velasco on the right. These girls, who were brought up to serve at court and come from aristocratic families, look respectfully at the Infanta. Various courtiers stand in the background. José Nieto the Queen’s Chamberlain stands in the doorway. Doña Marcela de Ulloa and a Guarda Damas (male escort for ladies of the court) stand directly behind the two Maids of Honour. In the foreground with his foot on the dog is the dwarf Nicolasito Pertusato and to the left of him is a second dwarf, Maribárbola

So who is the subject of the painting? Although the two maids of honour, are focusing their attention on the Infanta, almost all the other characters are looking out of the surface of the painting. So who are they looking at? If one looks carefully at the mirror on the rear wall, one can make out the fading reflection of the Infanta’s parents, King Philip IV and Queen Mariana. Are they whom everybody is looking at? Does this mean the king and queen were spectators watching the artist at work or in some way were they actually the subject of the painting on Velazquez’s easel? One interpretation of this faded reflection in the mirror is that Velazquez’s drew it thus in the belief that the fall of the Spanish empire would begin, and its power fade, once the king had died

The size of this painting, over ten feet tall and nine feet across place it in the noble convention of portraiture of the time and an exceptional example of the European baroque period. Thomas Hoving, a former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, wrote of the painting in his book Great Works of Art of Western Civilisation:

“… [it could] well be the most thrilling portrayal of humanity ever created, a combination of portrait, self portrait, illusion, reality, dream, romance, likeness and propaganda ever painted…”

Frederic Taubes, American artist and author, in his book The Illustrated Guide to Great Art in Europe, For Amateur Artists wrote of the painting:

“….the overall mastery in the use of pictorial means, the fact that it (Las Meninas) stands at the highest level any artist could attain, would not alone establish the painting in the galaxy of masterpieces. It is rather the imponderable that raises the realistic representation to the sphere of the transcendental….”