Pleasures of Rural Life:
Domestic Scenes and Animals in Academic Art
Land reforms and demographic shifts
changed rural life to an unprecedented
extent in the nineteenth century, and it is
no coincidence that paintings of peasants
increased dramatically during this period.
Some artists recorded the grittier aspects of
peasant life in order to stimulate sympathy
for the plight of rural inhabitants. Other
artists idealized rural life, conveying
reassuring the impression that
peasants lived happily in symbiotic harmony
with nature: Bouguereau's peasants are
invariably idealized: they are presented as
glorified, clean, and noble, and they are
often arranged in poses that recall ancient
Greek sculpture.
William-Adolphe Bouguereau
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
William-Adolphe Bouguereau (November 30, 1825 – August 19, 1905) was
a French academic painter. William Bouguereau was a traditionalist
whose realistic genre paintings and mythological themes were modern
interpretations of Classical subjects with a heavy emphasis on the female
human body.
Although he created an idealized world, his almost photo-realistic style
was popular with rich art patrons.
Life and career
William-Adolphe Bouguereau was born in La Rochelle, France on
November 30, 1825, into a family of wine and olive oil merchants. He
seemed destined to join the family business but for the intervention of
his uncle Eugène, a Roman Catholic priest, who taught him classical and
Biblical subjects, and arranged for Bouguereau to go to high school.
Bouguereau showed artistic talent early on and his father was convinced
by a client to send him to the École des Beaux-Arts in Bordeaux, where he
won first prize in figure painting for a depiction of Saint Roch. To earn
extra money, he designed labels for jams and preserves.
Through his uncle, Bouguereau was given a commission to paint portraits
of parishioners, and when his aunt matched the sum he earned,
Bouguereau went to Paris and became a student at the École des BeauxArts. To supplement his formal training in drawing, he attended
anatomical dissections and studied historical costumes and archeology.
He was admitted to the studio of François-Edouard Picot, where he
studied painting in the academic style. Academic painting placed the
highest status on historical and mythological subjects and Bouguereau
won the coveted Prix de Rome in 1850, with his Zenobia Found by
Shepherds on the Banks of the Araxes. His reward was a stay at the Villa
Medici in Rome, Italy, where in addition to formal lessons he was able to
study first-hand the Renaissance artists and their masterpieces.
Bouguereau, painting entirely within the traditional Academic style,
exhibited at the annual exhibitions of the Paris Salon for his entire
working life.
An early reviewer stated, “M. Bouguereau has a natural instinct and
knowledge of contour. The eurythmie of the human body preoccupies
him, and in recalling the happy results which, in this genre, the ancients
and the artists of the sixteenth century arrived at, one can only
congratulate M. Bouguereau in attempting to follow in their
footsteps…Raphael was inspired by the ancients…and no one accused him
of not being original.”
Raphael was a favorite of Bouguereau and he took this review as a high
compliment. He had fulfilled one of the requirements of the Prix de Rome
by completing an old-master copy of Raphael’s The Triumph of Galatea.
In many of his works, he followed the same classical approach to
composition, form, and subject matter. Bouguereau's graceful portraits of
women were considered very charming, partly because he could beautify
a sitter while also retaining her likeness.
In 1856, he married Marie-Nelly Monchablon and subsequently had five
children. By the late 1850s, he had made strong connections with art
dealers, particularly Paul Durand-Ruel (later the champion of the
Impressionists), who helped clients buy paintings from artists who
exhibited at the Salons. Thanks to Paul Durand-Ruel, Bouguereau met
Hugues Merle, who later often was compared to Bouguereau. The Salons
annually drew over 300,000 people, providing valuable exposure to
exhibited artists. Bouguereau’s fame extended to England by the 1860s,
and he bought a large house and studio in Montparnasse with his growing
income.
Bouguereau was a staunch traditionalist whose realistic genre paintings
and mythological themes were modern interpretations of Classical
subjects—both pagan and Christian—with a heavy concentration on the
female human body. The idealized world of his paintings, and his almost
photo-realistic style, brought to life goddesses, nymphs, bathers,
shepherdesses, and madonnas in a way that appealed to wealthy art
patrons of the era. Some critics, however, preferred Jean-François
Millet’s less-idealized depictions of hard-working farmers and laborers.
Bouguereau employed traditional methods of working up a painting,
including detailed pencil studies and oil sketches, and his careful method
resulted in a pleasing and accurate rendering of the human form. His
painting of skin, hands, and feet was particularly admired. He also used
some of the religious and erotic symbolism of the Old Masters, such as the
“broken pitcher” which connoted lost innocence.
Bouguereau received many commissions to decorate private houses,
public buildings, and churches. As was typical of such commissions,
Bouguereau would sometimes paint in his own style, and at other times
conform to an existing group style. Early on, Bouguereau was
commissioned in all three venues, which added enormously to his prestige
and fame. He also made reductions of his public paintings for sale to
patrons, of which The Annunciation (1888) is an example. He was also a
successful portrait painter and many of his paintings of wealthy patrons
remain in private hands.
Bouguereau steadily gained the honors of the Academy, reaching Life
Member in 1876, and Commander of the Legion of Honor and Grand Medal
of Honor in 1885. He began to teach drawing at the Académie Julian in
1875, a co-ed art institution independent of the École des Beaux-Arts,
with no entrance exams and with nominal fees.
In 1877, both his wife and infant son died. At a rather advanced age,
Bouguereau was married for the second time in 1896, to fellow artist
Elizabeth Jane Gardner Bouguereau, one of his pupils. He used his
influence to open many French art institutions to women for the first
time, including the Académie française.
Near the end of his life he described his love of his art: “Each day I go to
my studio full of joy; in the evening when obliged to stop because of
darkness I can scarcely wait for the next morning to come…if I cannot
give myself to my dear painting I am miserable”. He painted eight
hundred and twenty-six paintings.
In the spring of 1905, Bouguereau's house and studio in Paris were
robbed. On August 19, 1905, Bouguereau died in La Rochelle at the age of
79 from heart disease.
In his own time, Bouguereau was considered to be one of the greatest
painters in the world by the Academic art community, and simultaneously
he was reviled by the avant-garde. He also gained wide fame in Belgium,
Holland, Spain, and in the United States, and commanded high prices.
Bouguereau’s works were eagerly bought by American millionaires who
considered him the most important French artist of that time. But after
1920, Bouguereau fell into disrepute, due in part to changing tastes and
partly to his staunch opposition to the Impressionists who were finally
gaining acceptance. For decades following, his name was not even
mentioned in encyclopedias.
Bouguereau as a teacher
From the 1860s, Bougureau was closely associated with the Académie
Julian where he gave lessons and advice to art students, male and
female, from around the world. During several decades he taught drawing
and painting to literally hundreds, if not thousands of students. Many of
them managed to establish artistic careers in their own countries,
sometimes following his academic style, and in other cases, rebelling
against it, like Henri Matisse.
Legacy
In 1974, the New York Cultural Center staged a show of Bouguereau's
work as a curiosity. In 1984, the Borghi Gallery hosted the commercial
show of his 23 oil paintings and 1 drawing. In the same year a major
exhibition was organized by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, in Canada.
The exhibition opened at the Musée du Petit-Palais, in Paris, traveled to
The Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, and concluded in Montréal. This
was the beginning of renewal of interest about Bouguereau. In 1997 Mark
Borghi and Laura Borghi organized an early Internet exhibition.
Bouguereau present day supporters also include New Jersey millionaire,
businessman, and art collector Fred Ross whose internet-based Art
Renewal Center heavily features Bouguereau's work as part of their
advocacy for the re-appreciation of academic art. Today, over one
hundred museums throughout the world exhibit Bouguereau's works[
For Bouguereau biography Also check
http://www.artrenewal.org/articles/On-Line_Books/Bouguereau_William/bio1.php
Olga Florian
Olga Wisinger-Florian (November 1, 1844 - February 27, 1926) was an
Austrian impressionist painter, mainly of landscapes and flower still lifes.
She was a notable representative of Austrian Mood Impressionism.
Having trained as a concert pianist, Wisinger-Florian switched to painting
in the mid-1870s. She was a student of Melchior Fritsch, August
Schaeffer, and Emil Jakob Schindler. From 1881 she regularly showed
paintings at the annual exhibitions mounted at the artist's house and later
often showed at Vienna Secession exhibitions. Work she showed at the
Paris and Chicago international exhibitions earned her worldwide
acclaim. The artist, who was also active in the middle-class women's
movements of the time, was awarded numerous distinctions and prizes.
Wisinger-Florian's early paintings can be assigned to what is known as
Austrian Mood Impressionism. In her landscape paintings she adopted
Schindler's sublime approach to nature. The motifs she employed, such as
views of tree-lined avenues, gardens and fields, were strongly
reminiscent of her teacher's work. After breaking with Schindler in 1884,
however, the artist went her own way. Her conception of landscape
became more realistic. Her late work is notable for a lurid palette, with
discernible overtones of Expressionism. With landscape and flower
pictures that were already Expressionist in palette by the 1890s, she was
years ahead of her time.
http://www.aeiou.at/aeiou.encyclop.w/w829941.htm Olga Wisinger-Florian at
Austrian encyclopedia AEIOU.at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olga_Wisinger-Florian
Lawrence Alma-Tadema
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema OM, RA (8 January 1836 – 25 June 1912) was
one of the most renowned painters of late nineteenth-century Britain.
Born in Dronrijp, the Netherlands, and trained at the Royal Academy of
Antwerp, Belgium, he settled in England in 1870 and spent the rest of his
life there. A classical-subject painter, he became famous for his
depictions of the luxury and decadence of the Roman Empire, with
languorous figures set in fabulous marbled interiors or against a backdrop
of dazzling blue Mediterranean sea and sky.
Though admired during his lifetime for his draftsmanship and depictions
of Classical antiquity, his work fell into disrepute after his death, and
only since the 1960s has it been reevaluated for its importance within
nineteenth-century English art.
Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema was born as Laurens Alma Tadema on 8
January 1836, in the small village of Dronrijp, in Friesland in the north of
the Netherlands. He was the sixth child of Pieter Jiltes Tadema (1797–
1840), the village notary, who had had three sons by a previous marriage,
and the third child of his mother, Hinke Dirks Brouwer (c. 1800–1863).
Hinke Brouwer was the half sister of Pieter Tadema's first wife. Her first
child died early and the second was Atje (c.1834-c. 1876), Laurence's
sister, for whom he had great affection. Tadema is an old Frisian
patronymic (meaning 'Adam-son', the suffix ma being 'son of'), while the
names Laurens and Alma came from his godfather. Laurens would later
adopt the more English Lawrence for his forename, and incorporate Alma
into his surname so that he appeared at the beginning of exhibition
catalogues, under "A" rather than under "T". He did not actually
hyphenate his last name, but it was done by others and this has since
become the convention.
The Tadema family moved in 1838 to the near town of Leeuwarden,
where Pieter’s position as a notary would be more lucrative. His father
died when Laurens was four, leaving his mother with five children:
Laurens, his sister, and three boys from his father’s first marriage. His
mother had artistic leanings, and decided that drawing lessons should be
incorporated into the children's education. He received his first art
training with a local drawing master hired to teach his older halfbrothers.
It was intended that the boy would become a lawyer; but in 1851 at the
age of fifteen he suffered a physical and mental breakdown. Diagnosed as
consumptive; given only a short time to live, he was allowed to spend his
remaining days at his leisure, drawing and painting. Left to his own
devices he regained his health and decided to pursue a career as an
artist. In 1852 he entered The Royal Academy of Antwerp where he
studied early Dutch and Flemish art, under Egide Charles Gustave
Wappers. During Alma-Tadema's four years as a registered student at the
Academy, he won several respectable awards.
Before leaving school, towards the end of 1855, he became assistant to
the painter and professor Louis (Lodewijk) Jan de Taeye, whose courses
in history and historical costume he had greatly enjoyed at the Academy.
Although de Taeye was not an outstanding painter, Alma-Tadema
respected him and became his studio assistant, working with him for
three years. De Taeye introduced him to books that influenced his desire
to portray Merovingian subjects early in his career. He was encouraged to
depict historical accuracy in his paintings, a trait for which the artist
became known. Alma-Tadema left Taeye’s studio in November 1858
returning to Leeuwarden before settling in Antwerp, where he began
working with the painter Baron Jan August Hendrik Leys, whose studio
was one of the most highly regarded in Belgium. Under his guidance
Alma-Tadema painted his first major work: The Education of the children
of Clovis (1861). This painting created a sensation among critics and
artists when it was exhibited that year at the Artistic Congress in
Antwerp. It is said to have laid the foundation of his fame and reputation.
Alma-Tadema related that although Leys thought the completed painting
better than he had expected, he was critical of the treatment of marble,
which he compared to cheese. Alma-Tadema took this criticism very
seriously, and it led him to improve his technique and to become the
world's foremost painter of marble and variegated granite. Despite any
reproaches from his master, The Education of the Children of Clovis was
honorably received by critics and artists alike and was eventually
purchased and subsequently given to King Leopold of Belgium.
Merovingian themes were the painter's favorite subject up to the mid1860s. It is perhaps in this series that we find the artist moved by the
deepest feeling and the strongest spirit of romance. However Merovingian
subjects did not have a wide international appeal, so he switched to
themes of life in ancient Egypt that were more popular. On these scenes
of Frankish and Egyptian life Alma-Tadema spent great energy and much
research. In 1862 Alma-Tadema left Leys's studio and started his own
career, establishing himself as a significant classical-subject European
artist.
1863 was to alter the course of Alma-Tadema's personal and professional
life: on 3 January his invalid mother died, and on 24 September he was
married, in Antwerp City Hall, to Marie-Pauline Gressin, the daughter of
Eugene Gressin, a French journalist of royal descent living near Brussels.
Nothing is known of their meeting and little of Pauline herself, as AlmaTadema never spoke about her after her death in 1869. Her image
appears in a number of oils, though he painted her portrait only three
times, the most notable appearing in My studio (1867). The couple had
three children. Their eldest and only son lived only a few months dying of
smallpox. Their two daughters, Laurence (1864–1940) and Anna (1867–
1943), both had artistic leanings: the former in literature, the latter in
art. Neither would marry.
Alma-Tadema and his wife spent their honeymoon in Florence, Rome,
Naples and Pompeii. This, his first visit to Italy, developed his interest in
depicting the life of ancient Greece and Rome, especially the latter since
he found new inspiration in the ruins of Pompeii, which fascinated him
and would inspire much of his work in the coming decades.
During the summer of 1864, Tadema met Ernest Gambart, the most
influential print publisher and art dealer of the period. Gambart was
highly impressed with the work of Tadema, who was then painting
Egyptian chess players (1865). The dealer, recognizing at once the
unusual gifts of the young painter, gave him an order for twenty-four
pictures and arranged for three of Tadema's paintings to be shown in
London. In 1865, Tadema relocated to Brussels where he was named a
knight of the Order of Leopold.
On 28 May 1869, after years of ill health, Pauline died at Schaerbeek, in
Belgium, at the age of thirty-two, of smallpox. Her death left Tadema
disconsolate and depressed. He ceased painting for nearly four months.
His sister Artje, who lived with the family, helped with the two daughters
then aged five and two. Artje took over the role of housekeeper and
remained with the family until 1873 when she married.
During the summer Tadema himself began to suffer from a medical
problem which doctors in Brussels were frustratingly unable to diagnose.
Gambart eventually advised him to go to England for another medical
opinion. Soon after his arrival in London in December 1869, Alma-Tadema
was invited to the home of the painter Ford Madox Brown. There he met
Laura Theresa Epps, who was seventeen years old, and fell in love with
her at first sight.
The outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in July 1870 compelled AlmaTadema to leave the continent and move to London. His infatuation with
Laura Epps played a great part in his relocation to England and Gambart
felt that the move would be advantageous to the artist's career. In stating
his reasons for the move, Tadema simply said:
"I lost my first wife, a French lady with whom I married in 1863, in
1869. Having always had a great predilection for London, the only
place where, up till then my work had met with buyers, I decided to
leave the continent and go to settle in England, where I have found
a true home."
With his small daughters and sister Artje, Alma-Tadema arrived in London
at the beginning of September 1870. The painter wasted no time in
contacting Laura, and it was arranged that he would give her painting
lessons. During one of these, he proposed marriage. As he was then
thirty-four and Laura was now only eighteen, her father was initially
opposed to the idea. Dr Epps finally agreed on the condition that they
should wait until they knew each other better. They married in July 1871.
Laura, under her married name, also won a high reputation as an artist,
and appears in numerous of Alma-Tadema's canvases after their marriage
(The Women of Amphissa (1887) being a notable example). This second
marriage was enduring and happy, though childless, and Laura became
stepmother to Anna and Laurence. Anna became a painter and Laurence
became a novelist.
After his arrival in England, where he was to spend the rest of his life,
Alma-Tadema's career was one of continued success. He became one of
the most famous and highly paid artists of his time, acknowledged and
rewarded. By 1871 he had met and befriended most of the major PreRaphaelite painters and it was in part due to their influence that the
artist brightened his palette, varied his hues, and lightened his
brushwork.
In 1872 Alma-Tadema organized his paintings into an identification system
by including an opus number under his signature and assigning his earlier
pictures numbers as well. Portrait of my sister, Artje, painted in 1851, is
numbered opus I, while two months before his death he completed
Preparations in the Coliseum, opus CCCCVIII. Such a system would make
it difficult for fakes to be passed off as originals.
In 1873 Alma-Tadema became the last denizen, with limited rights short
of citizenship. The previous year he and his wife made a journey on the
Continent that lasted five and a half months and took them through
Brussels, Germany, and Italy. In Italy they were able to take-in the
ancient ruins again; this time he purchased several photographs, mostly
of the ruins, which began his immense collection of folios with archival
material sufficient for the documentation used in the completion of
future paintings. In January 1876, he rented a studio in Rome. The family
returned to London in April, visiting the Parisian Salon on their way back.
Among the most important of his pictures during this period was An
Audience at Agrippa's (1876). When an admirer of the painting offered to
pay a substantial sum for a painting with a similar theme, Alma-Tadema
simply turned the emperor around to show him leaving in After the
Audience.
On 19 June 1879, Alma-Tadema was made a full Academician, his most
personally important award. Three years later a major retrospective of
his entire oeuvre was organized at the Grosvenor Gallery in London,
including 185 of his pictures.
In 1883 he returned to Rome and, most notably, Pompeii, where further
excavations had taken place since his last visit. He spent a significant
amount of time studying the site, going there daily. These excursions
gave him an ample source of subject matter as he began to further his
knowledge of daily Roman life. At times, however, he integrated so many
objects into his paintings that some said they resembled museum
catalogues.
One of his most famous paintings is The Roses of Heliogabalus (1888) –
based on an episode from the life of the debauched Roman Emperor
Elagabalus (Heliogabalus), the painting depicts the psychopathic Emperor
suffocating his guest at an orgy under a cascade of rose petals. The
blossoms depicted were sent weekly to the artist's London studio from the
Riviera for four months during the winter of 1887–1888.
Among Alma-Tadema's works of this period are: An Earthly Paradise
(1891), Unconscious Rivals (1893) Spring (1894), The Coliseum (1896) and
The Baths of Caracalla (1899). Although Alma-Tadema's fame rests on his
paintings set in Antiquity, he also painted portraits, landscapes and
watercolors, and made some etchings himself (although many more were
made of his paintings by others).
For all the quiet charm and erudition of his paintings, Alma-Tadema
himself preserved a youthful sense of mischief. He was childlike in his
practical jokes and in his sudden bursts of bad temper, which could as
suddenly subside into a most engaging smile.
In his personal life, Alma-Tadema was an extrovert and had a remarkably
warm personality. He had most of the characteristics of a child, coupled
with the admirable traits of a consummate professional. A perfectionist,
he remained in all respects a diligent, if somewhat obsessive and
pedantic worker. He was an excellent businessman, and one of the
wealthiest artists of the nineteenth century. Alma-Tadema was as firm in
money matters as he was with the quality of his work.
As a man, Lawrence Alma-Tadema was a robust, fun loving and rather
portly gentleman. There was not a hint of the delicate artist about him;
he was a cheerful lover of wine, women and parties.
Later years
Alma-Tadema's output decreased with time, due in part to ill health but
also to his obsession for decorating his new home where he moved in
1883. Nevertheless, he continued to exhibit throughout the 1880s and
into the next decade, receiving a plentiful amount of accolades along the
way, including the medal of Honour at the Paris Exposition Universelle of
1889, election to an honorary member of the Oxford University Dramatic
Society in 1890, the Great Gold Medal at the International Exposition in
Brussels of 1897. In 1899 he was Knighted in England, only the eighth
artist from the Continent to receive the honor. Not only did he assist with
the organization of the British section at the 1900 Exposition Universelle
in Paris, he also exhibited two works that earned him the Grand Prix
Diploma. He also assisted with the St. Louis World’s Fair of 1904 where he
was well represented and received.
During this time, Alma-Tadema was very active with theater design and
production, designing many costumes. He also spread his artistic
boundaries and began to design furniture, often modeled after Pompeian
or Egyptian motifs, illustrations, textiles, and frame making. His diverse
interests highlight his talents. Each of these exploits were used in his
paintings, as he often incorporated some of his designed furniture into
the composition, and must have used many of his own designs for the
clothing of his female subjects. Through his last period of creativity
Alma-Tadema continued to produce paintings, which repeat the
successful formula of women in marble terraces overlooking the sea such
as in Silver Favorites (1903). Between 1906 and his death six years later,
Alma-Tadema painted less but still produced ambitious paintings like The
Finding of Moses (1904).
On 15 August 1909 Alma-Tadema’s wife, Laura, died at the age of fiftyseven. The grief-stricken widower outlived his second wife for less than
three years. His last major composition was Preparation in the Coliseum
(1912). In the summer of 1912, Alma Tadema was accompanied by his
daughter Anna to Kaiserhof Spa, Wiesbaden, Germany where he was to
undergo treatment for ulceration of the stomach. He died there on June
28, 1912 at the age of seventy-six. He was buried in a crypt in St. Paul’s
cathedral in London
Alma-Tadema's works are remarkable for the way in which flowers,
textures and hard reflecting substances, like metals, pottery, and
especially marble, are painted – indeed, his realistic depiction of marble
led him to be called the 'marbelous painter'. His work shows much of the
fine execution and brilliant colour of the old Dutch masters. By the
human interest with which he imbues all his scenes from ancient life he
brings them within the scope of modern feeling, and charms us with
gentle sentiment and playfulness.
From early in his career, Alma-Tadema was particularly concerned with
architectural accuracy, often including objects that he would see at
museums – such as the British Museum in London – in his works. He also
read many books and took many images from them. He amassed an
enormous number of photographs from ancient sites in Italy, which he
used for the most precise accuracy in the details of his compositions.
Alma-Tadema was a perfectionist. He worked assiduously to make the
most of his paintings, often repeatedly reworking parts of paintings
before he found them satisfactory to his own high standards. One
humorous story relates that one of his paintings was rejected and instead
of keeping it, he gave the canvas to a maid who used it as her table
cover. He was sensitive to every detail and architectural line of his
paintings, as well as the settings he was depicting. For many of the
objects in his paintings, he would depict what was in front of him, using
fresh flowers imported from across the continent and even from Africa,
rushing to finish the paintings before the flowers died. It was this
commitment to veracity that earned him recognition but also caused
many of his adversaries to take up arms against his almost encyclopedic
works.
Alma-Tadema's work has been linked with that of European Symbolist
painters. As an artist of international reputation, he can be cited as an
influence on European figures such as Gustav Klimt and Fernand Khnopff.
Both painters incorporate classical motifs into their works and use AlmaTadema’s unconventional compositional devices such as abrupt cut-off at
the edge of the canvas. They, like Alma-Tadema, also employ coded
imagery to convey meaning to their paintings.
Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema was among the most financially successful
painters of the Victorian era, though never matching Landseer. For over
sixty years he gave his audience exactly what they wanted: distinctive,
elaborate paintings of beautiful people in classical settings. His incredibly
detailed reconstructions of ancient Rome, with languid men and women
posed against white marble in dazzling sunlight provided his audience
with a glimpse of a world of the kind they might one day construct for
themselves at least in attitude if not in detail. As with other painters, the
reproduction rights for prints were often worth more than the canvas,
and a painting with its rights still attached may have been sold to
Gambart for £10,000 in 1874; without rights it was sold again in 1903,
when Alma-Tadema's prices were actually higher, for £2,625. Typical
prices were between £2,000 and £3,000 in the 1880s, but at least three
works sold for between £5,250 and £6,060 in the 1900s. Prices held well
until the general collapse of Victorian prices in the early 1920s, when
they fell to the hundreds, where they remained until the 1960s; by 1969
£4,600 had been reached again (the huge effect of inflation must of
course be remembered for all these figures).
The last years of Alma-Tadema's life saw the rise of Post-Impressionism,
Fauvism, Cubism and Futurism, of which he heartily disapproved. As his
pupil John Collier wrote, 'it is impossible to reconcile the art of AlmaTadema with that of Matisse, Gauguin and Picasso.[27]
His artistic legacy almost vanished. As attitudes of the public in general
and the artists in particular became more skeptical of the possibilities of
human achievement, his paintings were increasingly denounced. He was
declared "the worst painter of the 19th century" by John Ruskin, and one
critic even remarked that his paintings were "about worthy enough to
adorn bourbon boxes." After this brief period of being actively derided,
he was consigned to relative obscurity for many years. Only since the
1960s has Alma-Tadema’s work been reevaluated for its importance
within the nineteenth century, and more specifically, within the
evolution of English art.
He is now regarded as one of the principal classical-subject painters of
the nineteenth century whose works demonstrate the care and exactitude
of an era mesmerized by trying to visualize the past, some of which was
being recovered through archaeological research.
Alma-Tadema's meticulous archaeological research, including research
into Roman architecture (which was so thorough that every building
featured in his canvases could have been built using Roman tools and
methods) led to his paintings being used as source material by Hollywood
directors in their vision of the ancient world for films such as D. W.
Griffith's Intolerance (1916), Ben Hur (1926), Cleopatra (1934), and most
notably of all, Cecil B. DeMille's epic remake of The Ten Commandments
(1956). Indeed, Jesse Lasky Jr., the co-writer on The Ten
Commandments, described how the director would customarily spread
out prints of Alma-Tadema paintings to indicate to his set designers the
look he wanted to achieve. The designers of the Oscar-winning Roman
epic Gladiator used the paintings of Alma-Tadema as a central source of
inspiration. Alma-Tadema's paintings were also the inspiration for the
design of the interior of Cair Paravel castle in the 2005 film The
Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
In the late 1960s, the revival of interest in Victorian painting gained
impetus, and a number of well-attended exhibitions were held. Allen
Funt, the creator and host of the American version of the television show
Candid Camera, was a collector of Alma-Tadema paintings at a time when
the artist's reputation in the 20th century was at its nadir; in a relatively
few years he bought 35 works, about 10% of Alma-Tadema's output. After
Funt was robbed by his accountant (who subsequently committed
suicide), he was forced to sell his collection at Sotheby’s in London in
November 1973. From this sale, the interest in Alma-Tadema was reawakened. In 1960, the Newman Gallery firstly tried to sell, then give
away (without success) one of his most celebrated works ‘The Finding of
Moses,’ (1904). The initial purchaser had paid £5,250 for it on its
completion, and subsequent sales were for £861 in 1935, £265 in 1942,
and was "bought in" at £252 in 1960 (having failed to meet its reserve),
but when the same picture was auctioned at Christies in New York in May
1995, it sold for £1.75 million. On November 4, 2010 it was sold for
$35,922,500 to an undisclosed bidder at Sotheby's New York, a new
record for the artist and a Victorian painting.
For more biographical information on Sir Lawrence alma-Tadema check
http://www.artrenewal.org/pages/artist.php?artistid=8
http://www.artrenewal.org/articles/On-Line_Books/AlmaTadema/tadema1.php
John William Waterhouse
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
John William Waterhouse (baptised, 6 April 1849 — died, 10 February
1917) was an English Pre-Raphaelite painter who is most famous for his
depictions of female characters from Greek and Arthurian mythology.
Waterhouse was one of the final Pre-Raphaelite artists, being most
productive in the latter decades of the 19th century and early decades of
the 20th, long after the era of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Because
of this, he has been referred to as "the modern Pre-Raphaelite", and
incorporated techniques borrowed from the French Impressionists into his
work
Early life
Waterhouse was born in the city of Rome to the British painters William
and Isabella Waterhouse in 1849, in the same year that the members of
the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, including Dante Rossetti, John Millais
and William Holman Hunt, were first causing a stir in the London art
scene. The exact date of his birth is unknown, though he was baptised on
6 April, and the later scholar of Waterhouse's work, Peter Trippi, believed
that he was born between 1 and 23 January. His early life in Italy has
been cited as one of the reasons why many of his later paintings were set
in ancient Rome or based upon scenes taken from Roman mythology.
In 1854, the Waterhouses returned to England and moved to a newly built
house in South Kensington, London, which was near to the newly founded
Victoria and Albert Museum. Waterhouse, or 'Nino' as he was nicknamed,
coming from an artistic family, was encouraged to get involved in
drawing, and often sketched artworks that he found in the British Museum
and the National Gallery. In 1871 he entered the Royal Academy of Art
school, initially to study sculpture, before moving on to painting.
Early career
Waterhouse's early works were not Pre-Raphaelite in nature, but were of
classical themes in the spirit of Alma-Tadema and Frederic Leighton.
These early works were exhibited at the Dudley Gallery, and the Society
of British Artists, and in 1874 his painting Sleep and His Half Brother
Death was exhibited at the Royal Academy summer exhibition. The
painting was a success and Waterhouse would exhibit at the annual
exhibition every year until 1916, with the exception of 1890 and 1915. He
then went from strength to strength in the London art scene, with his
1876 piece After the Dance being given the prime position in that year's
summer exhibition. Perhaps due to his success, his paintings typically
became larger and larger in size.
Later career
In 1883 he married Esther Kenworthy, the daughter of an art
schoolmaster from Ealing who had exhibited her own flower-paintings at
the Royal Academy and elsewhere. They did not have any children. In
1895 Waterhouse was elected to the status of full Academician. He taught
at the St. John's Wood Art School, joined the St John's Wood Arts Club,
and served on the Royal Academy Council.
One of Waterhouse's most famous paintings is The Lady of Shalott, a
study of Elaine of Astolat, who dies of grief when Lancelot will not love
her. He actually painted three different versions of this character, in
1888, 1894, and 1916. Another of Waterhouse's favorite subjects was
Ophelia; the most famous of his paintings of Ophelia depicts her just
before her death, putting flowers in her hair as she sits on a tree branch
leaning over a lake. Like The Lady of Shalott and other Waterhouse
paintings, it deals with a woman dying in or near water. He also may have
been inspired by paintings of Ophelia by Dante Gabriel Rossetti and
Millais. He submitted his Ophelia painting of 1888 in order to receive his
diploma from the Royal Academy. (He had originally wanted to submit a
painting titled "A Mermaid", but it was not completed in time.) After this,
the painting was lost until the 20th century, and is now displayed in the
collection of Lord Lloyd-Webber. Waterhouse would paint Ophelia again
in 1894 and 1909 or 1910, and planned another painting in the series,
called "Ophelia in the Churchyard".
Waterhouse could not finish the series of Ophelia paintings because he
was gravely ill with cancer by 1915. He died two years later, and his
grave can be found at Kensal Green Cemetery in London.
http://www.jwwaterhouse.com/
John William Waterhouse (1849-1917), affectionately known as Nino in
his younger days, was born in Rome on the 6th of April, 1849. Both of his
parents were English painters who moved to Italy in pursuit of art.
Waterhouse and his parents eventually moved back to England sometime
in the late 1850's. While growing up, Waterhouse assisted his father in art
studio where the young Waterhouse developed his talents for sculpting
and painting. In England, after several attempts at admission to the Royal
Academy, he finally succeeded entrance in 1870. In 1885, Waterhouse
became an Associate of the Royal Academy, and then a full member,
Royal Academician, in 1895.
Although often classified as a Pre-raphaelite for his style and themes,
Waterhouse is truly a Neo-Classic painter. Some of Waterhouse's earlier
works were focused on Italian themes and scenery, reflecting his love for
his birth place. Later on, his works picked up the styles and classical
themes of Pre-raphaelites such as Alma-Tadema and Frederick Leighton.
Waterhouse went on to paint well over 200 paintings depicting classical
mythogolgy, historical and literary subjects, particularly those of Roman
mythology and classic English poets such as Keats and Tennyson. Femme
fatale is a common theme in his works, as most are of beautiful elegaic
women and of many men are victims.
Waterhouse is one of the rare artists who became popular and relatively
well-off financially when he was alive. He continued to paint until his
death on the 10th of February, 1917 after a long illness. His style became
a major influence on many of the later Pre-raphaelites including Frank
Dicksee and Herber James Draper.
Today, many of his works are in private collections or somewhere
unknown; however, most of his famous paintings can be found scattered
all over England. Among these is "The Lady of Shalott" - 1888, which can
be found in London; "Hylas and the Nymphs" - 1896, at Manchester City
Art Gallery, and "Echo and Narcissus" - 18xx, at the Walker Art Gallery in
Liverpool. His other famous works can be found around the world
including Germany (La Belle Dame Sans Merci), Scotland (Penelope and
the Suitors), and Australia (Circe Invidiosa).
For more biographic information on William Waterhouse, Check
http://www.artrenewal.org/pages/artist.php?artistid=79
William Powell Frith, R.A., British, 1819-1909
Richard Ansdell, R.A., British, 1815-1885
The Pet Fawn, ca. 1860
The Pet Fawn is among several collaborations between Frith and Ansdell,
described in an 1868 sale catalog as “one of the best joint works of these
distinguished painters.” This sentimental rural scene -- later engraved -of a young girl carrying a fawn with a tri-colored collie on her left and
deer surrounding her elegantly typifies a most popular genre at the time.
The Pet Fawn has all the elements of this type’s appeal: the young
maiden with her red cheeks demonstrates Frith’s careful study of
character and human form, while the majesty of the animals, the distant
dark clouds with patches of sunshine, and hovering birds in the sky are
Ansdell’s signature traits.
Frith and Ansdell were leading Victorian painters, both Royal
Academicians. Frith painted light-hearted literary and historical subjects
but was best known for his vivid scenes of contemporary life, especially
the huge crowds on Derby Day or at Paddington Station. He enjoyed
great success as well with his books My Autobiography and Reminiscences
published in 1877 and Further Reminiscences in 1888. Ansdell painted
mostly sporting events of huntsmen with horses and dogs, as well as rural
themes with gamekeepers or shepherds with domestic and wild animals,
often in such historical settings as the Scottish Highlands. In fact, his
animal subjects were compared to those of Edwin Landseer, the foremost
British animal painter of the 19th century.
William Powell Frith
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
William Powell Frith (19 January 1819 – 9 November 1909), was an
English painter specialising in portraits and Victorian era narratives, who
was elected to the Royal Academy in 1852. He has been described as the
"greatest British painter of the social scene since Hogarth,"
Born in Aldfield, North Yorkshire, Frith was encouraged to take up art by
his father, a hotelier in Harrogate. He moved to London in 1835 where he
began his formal art studies at Sass’s Academy in Charlotte Street, before
attending the Royal Academy Schools. Frith started his career as a
portrait painter and first exhibited at the British Institution in 1838. In
the 1840s he often based works on the literary output of writers such as
Charles Dickens, whose portrait he painted, and Laurence Sterne.
He was also a member of The Clique, which also included Richard Dadd.
The principal influence on his work was the hugely popular domestic
subjects painted by Sir David Wilkie. Wilkie's famous painting The Chelsea
Pensioners was a spur to the creation of Frith's own most famous
compositions. Following the precedent of Wilkie, but also imitating the
work of his friend Dickens, Frith created complex multi-figure
compositions depicting the full range of the Victorian class system,
meeting and interacting in public places. In Ramsgate Sands, Life at the
Seaside (1854) he depicted visitors and entertainers at the seaside resort.
He followed this with The Derby Day, depicting scenes among the crowd
at the race at Epsom Downs, which was based on photographic studies by
Robert Howlett. This 1858 composition was bought by Jacob Bell for
£1,500. It was so popular that it had to be protected by a specially
installed rail when shown at the Royal Academy of Arts. Another wellknown painting was The Railway Station, a scene of Paddington station.
In 1865 he was chosen to paint the Marriage of the Prince of Wales.
Later in his career he painted two series of five pictures each, telling
moral stories in the manner of William Hogarth. These were the Road to
Ruin (1878), about the dangers of gambling, and the Race for Wealth
(1880) about reckless financial speculation. He retired from the Royal
Academy in 1890 but continued to exhibit until 1902.
Frith was a traditionalist who made known his aversion to modern-art
developments in a couple of autobiographies – My Autobiography and
Reminiscences (1887) and Further Reminiscences (1888) – and other
writings. He was also an inveterate enemy of the Pre-Raphaelites and of
the Aesthetic Movement, which he satirised in his painting A Private View
at the Royal Academy (1883), in which Oscar Wilde is depicted
discoursing on art while Frith's friends look on disapprovingly. Fellow
traditionalist Frederic Leighton is featured in the painting, which also
portrays painter John Everett Millais and novelist Anthony Trollope.
Frith lived a curious domestic life - married to Isabelle with twelve
children, whilst a mile down the road maintaining a mistress (Mary Alford,
formerly his ward) and seven more children - all a marked contrast to the
upright family scenes depicted in paintings like Many Happy Returns of
the Day. Frith married Mary on the death of Isabelle in 1880. In his later
years he painted many copies of his famous paintings, as well as more
sexually uninhibited works, such as the nude After the Bath. A wellknown raconteur, his writings, most notably his chatty autobiography,
were very popular.
In 1856 Frith was photographed at 'The Photographed Institute' by Robert
Howlett, as part of a series of portraits of 'fine artists'. The picture was
among a group exhibited at the Art Treasures Exhibition in Manchester in
1857.
He is buried in Kensal Green Cemetery London W10.
Exhibitions
The first major retrospective in Frith's native Britain for half a century
was staged at the Guildhall Art Gallery, London in November 2006. It
transferred to Mercer Art Gallery in Harrogate, North Yorkshire in March
2007. Frith's study for his last major work, The Private View, 1881, is in
the Mercer Art Gallery.
Bibliography
•
Christopher Wood, William Powell Frith: A Painter and His World :
Sutton Publishing Ltd; illustrated edition, 2006 : ISBN-10:
0750938455
•
M Bills, William Powell Frith: Painting the Victorian Age : Yale
University Press; annotated edition 2006 : ISBN-10: 0300121903
•
William Powell Frith, My Autobiography and Reminiscences :
BiblioBazaar (reprint), 2009 : ISBN-10: 1116497743
For More biographical information check
http://www.artrenewal.org/pages/artist.php?artistid=183
WILLIAM POWELL FRITH was born in Yorkshire, where his father a selfmade man had become a prosperous innkeeper in Harrogate. He had two
brothers and a sister. It would seem that Frith senior was ambitious for
his talented son, not surprisingly, given his own early life in domestic
service. Contrary to comment made elsewhere, Frith's father was an
affectionate parent, who had a good relationship with his son. In March
1835 Young Frith, accompanied by his father, and carrying a large
portfolio of his drawings boarded the stagecoach to London. It is
fascinating to record that the scheduled time for this journey was twenty
four hours, just before the dawn of the railway age. Once established in
London the young painter attended Sass's Academy, where he was
rigorously trained in the basic techniques of panting. He later attended
the Royal Academy Schools.
Frith's early paintings were mainly historical genre. He became part of a
group of slightly younger artists who called themselves 'The Clique.'
Fellow members of this group were Richard Dadd, the fairy painter who
later became insane and killed his own father, Augustus Egg, H.N. O'Neil,
and John Phillip.
Frith worked diligently, and success came early. He became ARA in 1845,
and a full Academician in 1852. In 1851 the painter visited Ramsgate, the
result of this being the first of his famous large scale crowd scenes
Ramsgate Sands, which after over three years work was exhibited at the
RA in 1854, and bought by Queen Victoria-Frith was a successful artist
overnight. He received a large sum for the painting, but failed to keep all
the rights to income from it, such as the sale of engravings. This was an
error that the commercially astute painter did not repeat. Frith
continued in this vein with Derby Day, 1858, The Railway Station, 1862,
and Private View at The RA, of 1883. These pictures form a valuable
record of life in Victorian England, and must have been the result of a
stupendous amount of work. Frith seems to have been drawn towards
crowds in his private as well as his artistic life. He lived in Bayswater,
with his wife Isabelle, with whom, unfortunate woman, he had twelve
children. Not content with this the fruitful Frith established another
family only a mile away with Mary Alford, with whom he ultimately had
seven more children. For a considerable time Isabelle Frith was in blissful
ignorance of her husband's extra mural activities. Her suspicions became
aroused, however, when she saw her husband posting a letter near their
home, when he was supposed to be on holiday in Brighton. Following the
death of Isabelle in 1880, Frith married his mistress. If he then started
yet another family with yet another woman, I have been unable to
establish, but perhaps, by then, time had cooled his ardour! It is worth
noting that the artist was a popular, genial figure, with a reputation for
helping younger artists.
In 1863, Frith was informed by Sir Charles Eastlake, President of the
Royal Academy, that the Queen wished him to paint a picture of the
forthcoming wedding ceremony of her son the Prince of Wales and
Princess Alexandra of Denmark. Frith duly painted the picture for a fee of
three thousand pounds, and it involved more than a year's concentrated
work. He had felt compelled to undertake this commission and actually
charged the Queen less than he would have charged another patron.
Logistically the execution of picture of the picture was a nightmare, as
members of the Royal Family had problems attending their sittings due to
their heavy commitments. Many of the other aristocratic sitters had the
same problems in attending, caused in large part by their arrogance and
stupidity. It is a pleasure note that Frith was quite capable of repaying
their arrogance with like behaviour, by the simple expedient of telling
them that he would have to inform the Queen of their failure to attend.
This he did in a very straightforward manner! The date of the Royal
Wedding was 10th March 1863, the occasion being marked with much
enthusiasm and popular rejoicing.
Frith, not surprisingly, used photographs as an aid in painting these large
canvases.
Following the Private View at the Royal Academy, in 1883 the artist's
output, and, the quality of his work started to decline. Frith then started
to concentrate on writing his reminiscences at considerable length - and
very good they are too. He also wrote the biography of John Leech (18171864 humorous artistic contributor to Punch).
A Contemporary View of W P Frith In His Seventies.
The Pall Mall Gazette 1892.
Mr W. P. Frith's many admirers will be glad to learn that there is
one canvas at Burlington House this year bearing his signature. It is
entitled The New Model, and will be found in gallery 1X. Mr Frith is
now one of the four Honorary Retired Academicians; that is to say
that he retains the honour of affixing RA to his name, has the right
of sending four works to the Summer Exhibition, and possesses
nearly all the privileges with none of the responsibilities of a fullblown Academician. He is the only retired member who has sent
anything to the exhibition; since Mr Calder Marshall, Mr Pickersgill,
and Mr George Richmond do not exhibit. Mr Frith, as everybody
knows, was for at least a quarter of a century the most popular
painter in this country. Of later years he has not done so much in
the way of painting, but has devoted a great deal of his leisure to
literary work, in the shape of an entertaining volume of
reminiscences, and a life of John Leech. He is over seventy; but has
nothing of old age about him beyond his years and a whitened head.
William Powell Frith died in 1909.
Sources: Various. The prime source for information about The
Marriage of the Prince of Wales, was the late Jeremy Maas's
excellent book The Prince of Wales's Wedding.
Source: Victorian Art in Britain.
Richard Ansdell (Liverpool 1815-1885)
Richard Ansdell was a Liverpool sporting and animal painter, who began
studying painting in 1836 and by 1840 was exhibiting at the Royal
Academy.
Following the vogue for Highland subjects, he painted many Scottish
subjects in the popular Landseer manner - stags in glens, Mooreland
scenes, sheep dipping, cattle, shooting parties, etc. He also painted
battles and historical scenes.
In 1856 Ansdell went to Spain with John Phillip, and again the following
year by himself. Phillip and Ansdell collaborated on several Spanish
pictures, and from this time many Spanish genre scenes and landscapes
appear in Ansdell’s work. He is also said to have collaborated with
Thomas Creswick and William Powell Frith.
Ansdell exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1840 and 1885 (a total
of 149 works) and also at the British Institution. He was elected A.R.A. in
1861 and R.A. 1870. He was President of the Liverpool Academy between
1845 and 1846.
Many of his pictures were engraved and became very popular. His studio
sale was held at Christie’s on 19 March 1886.
Although best known for his Landseer-type works, some of Ansdell’s large
portrait groups, such as “The Caledonian Coursing Club” sold at Christie’s
on 25 April 1969, show him to have been an artist of considerable ability.
http://www.haynesfineart.com/artists/richard-ansdell-uk.htm
Read more: RICHARD ANSDELL (1815-... - Online Information article about RICHARD ANSDELL (1815-...
http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/ANC_APO/ANSDELL_RICHARD_1815_1885_.html#ixzz1Du3nO26E
http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/ANC_APO/ANSDELL_RICHARD_1815_1885_.html
Hans Zatzka
Hans Zatzka (Austrian 1859-1945) was a well known and regarded Austrian
fantasy artist whose most popular and valuable works depict figures of
young maidens, angels, floral and other cheerful and warm scenes. In the
past thirty years alone, the high quality and detail of his beautiful
paintings have caught the attention of International collectors and art
dealers alike, making his works something very sought after, which in
turn has helped his artworks reach steady record high prices at auction
houses worldwide.
In the late 19th and early 20th century, many of Zazka's charming works
were photographed and turned into commercial and collectable
postcards. Though no information about his works being exhibited in
museums is currently available, most of Zatzka's works are currently in
private collections and, during the years, very few have become available
on the open market.
At the young age of eighteen, Zatzka joined Austria's Academy of Fine
Arts under the leadership of Professor Blaas. For his fine early works, in
1880 he received The Golden Fügermedal award.
Zatzka, like many other artists of the era, traveled around Europe
working and selling his art and on one of many trips to Italy, he
developed a special interest in Religious themes, decorating churches
with frescos as well as painting several religious scenes of Madonna's,
Jesus, Saints, Angels and others. In 1885 Zatzka was commissioned to
paint "The Naiad of Baden" a ceiling fresco at Kurhaus Baden. Most of
Zatzka's income came from his work in religious art and special church
commissions.
Numerous leading art dealers from around the world that specialize in
late 19th and early 20th century European genre paintings have come to
the conclusion that the painter signing his works Bernard Zatzka, Joseph
Bernard or J. Bernard is almost certainly the artist Hans Zatzka. The
consensus seems quite plausible when comparing works known to have
been executed by Hans Zatzka together with similar works displaying the
signature; Joseph Bernard, J. Bernard or Bernard Zatzka.
The charming fantasy subject matter of the young girl and cupid
expressed in this painting, clearly support the consensus that they are
more than likely the same person. The use of pseudonyms in the world of
art is of course quite common and well documented. It was prevalent at
the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century
particularly for those painters working under contract with specific
dealers and galleries. In lieu of being limited in the amount of works they
could sell under contract using their proper name, painters would often
simply sign their works with a pseudonym thereby allowing them to
expand their sales base while at the same time avert breaking any
contractual agreements they might have with their distributors. A number
of art sales databases have apparently merged the works of Joseph
Bernard the French sculptor and Joseph Bernard the painter artist.
Research by Claudio Boltiansky - Copyright ©