Diego Rodríguez Velázquez June 6, 1599 – August 6, 1660) a Spanish
painter who was the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV. He was an individualistic artist of the
contemporary Baroque period, important as a portrait artist. In addition to numerous renditions of
scenes of historical and cultural significance, he painted scores of portraits of the Spanish royal family,
other notable European figures, and commoners, culminating in the production of his masterpiece Las
Meninas (1656).Velazquez, in article: Las Meninas
Pope Innocent X, 1650
One of the infantas, Margaret Theresa, the eldest daughter of the new Queen, appears to be
subject of Las Meninas (1656, English: The Maids of Honour), Velázquez's magnum opus.
However, in looking at the various viewpoints of the painting it is unclear as to who or what is
the true subject. Is it the royal daughter, or perhaps the painter himself? The answer may lie in
the image on the back wall, depicting the King and Queen. Is this image a mirror, in which case
the King and Queen are standing where the spectator stands? Are they the subject of Velazquez's
work? Or is the work simply a court painting? Much is still in speculation about the true subject
of this masterpiece, and many of the questions that are asked may never be truly answered.
Created four years before his death, it serves as an outstanding example of the European baroque
period of art.. Another interpretation is that the portrait is in fact a mirror, and that the painting
itself is in the perspective of the King and Queen, hence their reflection can be seen in the mirror
on the back wall.
It is said the king painted the honorary Cross of Saint James of the Order of Santiago on the
breast of the painter as it appears today on the canvas. However, Velázquez did not receive this
honor of knighthood until three years after execution of this painting. Even the King of Spain
could not make his favorite a belted knight without the consent of the commission established to
inquire into the purity of his lineage. The aim of these inquiries would be to prevent the
appointment to positions of anyone found to have even a taint of heresy in their lineage—that is,
a trace of Jewish or Moorish blood or contamination by trade or commerce in either side of the
family for many generations. The records of this commission have been found among the
archives of the Order of Santiago. Velázquez was awarded the honor in 1659. His occupation as
plebeian and tradesman was justified because, as painter to the king, he was evidently not
involved in the practice of "selling" pictures.
Johannes, Jan or Johan Vermeer
(Dutch pronunciation: [joˈhɑnəs jɑn ʋərˈmeːr]; baptized in Delft on 31 October 1632 as Joannis,
and buried in the same city under the name Jan on 15 December 1675) was a Dutch painter who
specialized in exquisite, domestic interior scenes of middle class life. Vermeer was a moderately
successful provincial genre painter in his lifetime. He seems never to have been particularly
wealthy, leaving his wife and children in debt at his death, perhaps because he produced
relatively few paintings.[3]
Vermeer worked slowly and with great care, using bright colours and sometimes expensive
pigments, with a preference for cornflower blue and yellow. He is particularly renowned for his
masterly treatment and use of light in his work.[4]
Vermeer painted mostly domestic interior scenes. As Koning points out: "Almost all his
paintings are apparently set in two smallish rooms in his house in Delft; they show the same
furniture and decorations in various arrangements and they often portray the same people, mostly
women".[5]
Recognized during his lifetime in Delft and The Hague, his modest celebrity gave way to
obscurity after his death; he was barely mentioned in Arnold Houbraken's major source book on
17th century Dutch painting (Grand Theatre of Dutch Painters and Women Artists), and was
thus omitted from subsequent surveys of Dutch art for nearly two centuries.[6][7] In the 19th
century Vermeer was rediscovered by Gustav Friedrich Waagen and Théophile Thoré-Bürger,
who published an essay attributing sixty-six pictures to him, although only thirty-four paintings
are universally attributed to him today.[2] Since that time Vermeer's reputation has grown, and he
is now acknowledged as one of the greatest painters of the Dutch Golden Age.
The Milkmaid
Girl with a Pearl Earring.
Pieter Bruegel the Elder (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈpitəɾ ˈbɾøːɣəl]; c. 1525 – 9
September 1569) was a Flemish renaissance painter and printmaker known for his landscapes and
peasant scenes (so called genre painting). He is sometimes referred to as "Peasant Bruegel" to
distinguish him from other members of the Brueghel dynasty, but is also the one generally meant when
the context does not make clear which Bruegel is being referred to. From 1559 he dropped the 'h' from
his name and signed his paintings as Bruegel.
Bruegel specialized in genre paintings populated by peasants, often with a large landscape element, but
also painted religious works. Making the life and manners of peasants the main focus of a work was rare
in painting in Brueghel's time, and he was a pioneer of the Netherlandish genre painting. His earthy,
unsentimental but vivid depiction of the rituals of village life—including agriculture, hunts, meals,
festivals, dances, and games—are unique windows on a vanished folk culture and a prime source of
iconographic evidence about both physical and social aspects of 16th century life.
house.
(1558)
Netherlandish Proverbs (1559), with peasant scenes illustrating over 100 proverbs
The Tower of Babel (1563) oil on board
A detail of Children's Games (1560)
The Land of Cockaigne (1567), an illustration of the medieval mythical land of plenty called
Cockaigne
The Blind Leading the Blind (1568)
Willem de Kooning
(April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch American abstract expressionist artist who was
born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
In the post-World War II era, de Kooning painted in a style that came to be referred to as
Abstract expressionism or Action painting, and was part of a group of artists that came to be
known as the New York School. Other painters in this group included Jackson Pollock, Franz
Kline, Arshile Gorky, Mark Rothko, Hans Hofmann, Adolph Gottlieb, Robert Motherwell, Philip
Guston and Clyfford Still.
Willem de Kooning, Woman V (1952-53), National Gallery of Australia
Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix
(26 April 1798 – 13 August 1863) was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his
career as the leader of the French Romantic school.[1] Delacroix's use of expressive brushstrokes
and his study of the optical effects of colour profoundly shaped the work of the Impressionists,
while his passion for the exotic inspired the artists of the Symbolist movement. A fine
lithographer, Delacroix illustrated various works of William Shakespeare, the Scottish writer
Walter Scott and the German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
In contrast to the Neoclassical perfectionism of his chief rival Ingres, Delacroix took for his
inspiration the art of Rubens and painters of the Venetian Renaissance, with an attendant
emphasis on colour and movement rather than clarity of outline and carefully modeled form.
Dramatic and romantic content characterized the central themes of his maturity, and led him not
to the classical models of Greek and Roman art, but to travel in North Africa, in search of the
exotic.[2] Friend and spiritual heir to Théodore Géricault, Delacroix was also inspired by Lord
Byron, with whom he shared a strong identification with the "forces of the sublime", of nature in
often violent action
Liberty Leading the People (1830)
Delacroix's most influential work came in 1830 with the painting Liberty Leading the People,
which for choice of subject and technique highlights the differences between the romantic
approach and the neoclassical style. Less obviously, it also differs from the Romanticism of
Géricault and the Raft of the Medusa.
"Delacroix felt his composition more vividly as a whole, thought of his figures and crowds as
types, and dominated them by the symbolic figure of Republican Liberty which is one of his
finest plastic inventions…"[13]
Probably Delacroix's best known painting, it is an unforgettable image of Parisians, having taken
up arms, marching forward under the banner of the tricolour representing liberty, equality, and
fraternity; Delacroix was inspired by contemporary events to invoke the romantic image of the
spirit of liberty. The soldiers lying dead in the foreground offer poignant counterpoint to the
symbolic female figure, who is illuminated triumphantly, as if in a spotlight.
The French government bought the painting but officials deemed its glorification of liberty too
inflammatory and removed it from public view. Nonetheless, Delacroix still received many
government commissions for murals and ceiling paintings. He seems to have been trying to
represent the spirit and the character of the people,[
Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins
(July 25, 1844 – June 25, 1916) was an American realist painter, photographer[2], sculptor, and
fine arts educator. He is widely acknowledged to be one of the most important artists in
American art history.[3][4]
For the length of his professional career, from the early 1870s until his health began to fail some
40 years later, Eakins worked exactingly from life, choosing as his subject the people of his
hometown of Philadelphia. He painted several hundred portraits, usually of friends, family
members, or prominent people in the arts, sciences, medicine, and clergy. Taken en masse, the
portraits offer an overview of the intellectual life of Philadelphia in the late 19th and early 20th
centuries; individually, they are incisive depictions of thinking persons. As well, Eakins
produced a number of large paintings which brought the portrait out of the drawing room and
into the offices, streets, parks, rivers, arenas, and surgical amphitheaters of his city. These active
outdoor venues allowed him to paint the subject which most inspired him: the nude or lightly
clad figure in motion. In the process he could model the forms of the body in full sunlight, and
create images of deep space utilizing his studies in perspective.
No less important in Eakins' life was his work as a teacher. As an instructor he was a highly
influential presence in American art. The difficulties which beset him as an artist seeking to paint
the portrait and figure realistically were paralleled and even amplified in his career as an
educator, where behavioral and sexual scandals truncated his success and damaged his reputation
The Gross Clinic
In The Gross Clinic (1875), a renowned Philadelphia surgeon, Dr. Samuel D. Gross, is seen
presiding over an operation to remove part of a diseased bone from a patient's thigh. Gross
lectures in an amphitheater crowded with students at Jefferson Medical College. Eakins spent
nearly a year on the painting, again choosing a novel subject, the discipline of modern surgery, in
which Philadelphia was in the forefront. He initiated the project and may have had the goal of a
grand work befitting a showing at the Centennial Exposition of 1876.[46] Though rejected for the
Art Gallery, the painting was shown on the centennial grounds at an exhibit of a U.S. Army Post
Hospital. In sharp contrast, The Chess Players was accepted by the Committee and was much
admired at the Centennial Exhibition, and critically praised.[47]
96 by 78 inches, The Gross Clinic is one of the artist's largest works, and considered by some to
be his greatest. Eakins was elated by the project and stated that "it is very far better than anything
I have ever done".[46] But if Eakins hoped to impress his home town with the picture, he was to
be disappointed; public reaction to the painting of a realistic surgical incision and the resultant
blood was ambivalent at best, and it was finally purchased by the college for the unimpressive
sum of $200. Eakins borrowed it for subsequent exhibitions, where it drew strong reactions, such
as that of the New York Daily Tribune, which both acknowledged and damned its powerful
image, "but the more one praises it, the more one must condemn its admission to a gallery where
men and women of weak nerves must be compelled to look at it. For not to look it is
impossible...No purpose is gained by this morbid exhibition, no lesson taught—the painter shows
his skill and the spectators' gorge rises at it—that is all."[48] The college now describes it thus:
"Today the once maligned picture is celebrated as a great nineteenth-century medical history
painting, featuring one of the most superb portraits in American art".
El Greco
(1541 – April 7, 1614) was a painter, sculptor and architect of the Spanish Renaissance. "El
Greco" (The Greek) was a nickname,[a][b] a reference to his ethnic Greek origin, and the artist
normally signed his paintings with his full birth name in Greek letters, Δομήνικος
Θεοτοκόπουλος (Doménikos Theotokópoulos).
El Greco was born on Crete, which was at that time part of the Republic of Venice, and the
centre of Post-Byzantine art. He trained and became a master within that tradition before
travelling at age 26 to Venice, as other Greek artists had done.[1] In 1570 he moved to Rome,
where he opened a workshop and executed a series of works. During his stay in Italy, El Greco
enriched his style with elements of Mannerism and of the Venetian Renaissance. In 1577, he
moved to Toledo, Spain, where he lived and worked until his death. In Toledo, El Greco received
several major commissions and produced his best-known paintings.
El Greco's dramatic and expressionistic style was met with puzzlement by his contemporaries but
found appreciation in the 20th century. El Greco is regarded as a precursor of both
Expressionism and Cubism, while his personality and works were a source of inspiration for
poets and writers such as Rainer Maria Rilke and Nikos Kazantzakis. El Greco has been
characterized by modern scholars as an artist so individual that he belongs to no conventional
school.[2] He is best known for tortuously elongated figures and often fantastic or
phantasmagorical pigmentation, marrying Byzantine traditions with those of Western painting.[3]
Portrait of An Old Man (presumed self-portrait of El Greco), circa 1595–1600, oil on canvas,
A View of Toledo 1596-1600
View of Toledo, is one of the two surviving landscapes painted by El Greco. The other, called
View and Plan of Toledo lies at Museo Del Greco, Toledo, Spain.
Along with Vincent van Gogh's The Starry Night, some landscapes by William Turner, and some
works by Monet, it is among the best known depictions of the sky in Western art, and features
sharp color contrast between the sky and the hills below. Painted in a Mannerist (or Baroque)
style, the work takes liberties with the actual layout of Toledo (some buildings are depicted in
different positions than their actual location, but truthfully depicts on the side the Castle of San
Servando). It is signed on the lower right corner by El Greco.
Style
It's very rare to find an isolated landscape in the spanish paintings during the Renaissance and
even during the Baroque. This makes El Greco the first landscaper in the history of Spanish art.
Regarding its enigmatic symbolism, it is thought that it could be related to the mystic spirit that
the city was involved during those times.[1] The English art historian David Davies asserts that
the philosophies of Platonism and ancient Neo-Platonism, the works of Plotinus and PseudoDionysius the Areopagite, the texts of the Church fathers and the liturgy offer the keys to the
understanding of El Greco's style.[2] Summarizing the ensuing scholarly debate on this issue, José
Álvarez Lopera, curator at the Museo del Prado, Madrid, concludes that the presence of
"Byzantine memories" is obvious in El Greco's mature works, though there are still some
obscure issues concerning his Byzantine origins needing further illumination.[3]
Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin
(French pronunciation: [øˈʒɛn ãˈʁi ˌpol oˈ ɛ]; 7 June 1848 – 8 May 1903) was a leading French PostImpressionist artist. He was an important figure in the Symbolist movement as a painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramist, and writer. His bold experimentation with coloring led directly to the Synthetist style of
modern art while his expression of the inherent meaning of the subjects in his paintings, under the
influence of the cloisonnist style, paved the way to Primitivism and the return to the pastoral. He was
also an influential proponent of wood engraving and woodcuts as art forms.[1][2]
Historical significance
Spirit of the Dead Watching 1892, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY
Primitivism was an art movement of late 19th century painting and sculpture; characterized by
exaggerated body proportions, animal totems, geometric designs and stark contrasts. The first
artist to systematically use these effects and achieve broad public success was Paul Gauguin. The
European cultural elite discovering the art of Africa, Micronesia, and Native Americans for the
first time were fascinated, intrigued and educated by the newness, wildness and the stark power
embodied in the art of those faraway places. Like Pablo Picasso in the early days of the 20th
century, Gauguin was inspired and motivated by the raw power and simplicity of the so-called
Primitive art of those foreign cultures.
Gauguin is also considered a Post-Impressionist painter. His bold, colorful and design oriented
paintings significantly influenced Modern art. Artists and movements in the early 20th century
inspired by him include Vincent van Gogh, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque,
André Derain, Fauvism, Cubism and Orphism, among others. Later he influenced Arthur Frank
Mathews and the American Arts and Crafts Movement.
John Rewald, an art historian focused on the birth of Modern art, wrote a series of books about
the Post-Impressionist period, including Post-Impressionism: From Van Gogh to Gauguin
(1956) and an essay, Paul Gauguin: Letters to Ambroise Vollard and André Fontainas (included
in Rewald's Studies in Post-Impressionism, 1986), discusses Gauguin's years in Tahiti, and the
struggles of his survival as seen through correspondence with the art dealer Vollard and others.
Edgar Degas
(US: /deɪˈ ɑː/, UK: /ˈdeɪ ɑː/; French:, born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, was a French artist famous for
his work in painting, sculpture, printmaking and drawing. He is regarded as one of the founders of
Impressionism although he rejected the term, and preferred to be called a realist.[1] A superb
draughtsman, he is especially identified with the subject of the dance, and over half of his works depict
dancers. These display his mastery in the depiction of movement, as do his racecourse subjects and
female nudes. His portraits are notable for their psychological complexity and depiction of human
isolation.[2]
In the late 1880s, Degas also developed a passion for photography.[15] He
photographed many of his friends, often by lamplight, as in his double portrait of Renoir
and Mallarmê. Other photographs, depicting dancers and nudes, were used for
reference in some of Degas's drawings and paintings.[16]
As the years passed, Degas became isolated, due in part to his belief that a painter
could have no personal life.[17] The Dreyfus Affair controversy brought his anti-Semitic
leanings to the fore and he broke with all his Jewish friends.[18] His argumentative nature
was deplored by Renoir, who said of him: "What a creature he was, that Degas! All his
friends had to leave him; I was one of the last to go, but even I couldn't stay till the
end."[19]
Although he is known to have been working in pastel as late as the end of 1907, and is
believed to have continued making sculpture as late as 1910, he apparently ceased
working in 1912, when the impending demolition of his longtime residence on the rue
Victor Massé forced him to move to quarters on the boulevard de Clichy. [20] He never
married and spent the last years of his life, nearly blind, restlessly wandering the streets
of Paris before dying in September 1917.
Artistic style
The Dance Class (La Classe de Danse),1873–1876, oil on canvas, by Edgar Degas
Degas is often identified as an Impressionist, an understandable but insufficient
description. Impressionism originated in the 1860s and 1870s and grew, in part, from
the realism of such painters as Courbet and Corot. The Impressionists painted the
realities of the world around them using bright, "dazzling" colors, concentrating primarily
on the effects of light, and hoping to infuse their scenes with immediacy.
Technically, Degas differs from the Impressionists in that he "never adopted the
Impressionist color fleck",[22] and he continually belittled their practice of painting en
plein air.[23] "He was often as anti-impressionist as the critics who reviewed the shows",
according to art historian Carol Armstrong; as Degas himself explained, "no art was
ever less spontaneous than mine. What I do is the result of reflection and of the study of
the great masters; of inspiration, spontaneity, temperament, I know nothing."[24]
Nonetheless, he is described more accurately as an Impressionist than as a member of
any other movement. His scenes of Parisian life, his off-center compositions, his
experiments with color and form, and his friendship with several key Impressionist
artists—most notably Mary Cassatt and Édouard Manet—all relate him intimately to the
Impressionist movement.[25]
Degas's style reflects his deep respect for the old masters (he was an enthusiastic
copyist well into middle age)[26] and his great admiration for Jean Auguste Dominique
Ingres and Eugène Delacroix. He was also a collector of Japanese prints, whose
compositional principles influenced his work, as did the vigorous realism of popular
illustrators such as Daumier and Gavarni. Although famous for horses and dancers,
Degas began with conventional historical paintings such as The Young Spartans, in
which his gradual progress toward a less idealized treatment of the figure is already
apparent. During his early career, Degas also painted portraits of individuals and
groups; an example of the latter is The Bellelli Family (c.1858–67), a brilliantly
composed and psychologically poignant portrayal of his aunt, her husband, and their
children. In this painting, as in The Young Spartans and many later works, Degas was
drawn to the tensions present between men and women. In his early paintings, Degas
already evidenced the mature style that he would later develop more fully by cropping
subjects awkwardly and by choosing unusual viewpoints.
L'Absinthe, 1876, oil on canvas
forays into history painting to an original observation of contemporary life. Racecourse
scenes provided an opportunity to depict horses and their riders in a modern context.
He began to paint women at work, milliners and laundresses. Mlle. Fiocre in the Ballet
La Source, exhibited in the Salon of 1868, was his first major work to introduce a
subject with which he would become especially identified, dancers.[27]
In many subsequent paintings dancers were shown backstage or in rehearsal,
emphasizing their status as professionals doing a job. From 1870 Degas increasingly
painted ballet subjects, partly because they sold well and provided him with needed
income after his brother's debts had left the family bankrupt.[28] Degas began to paint
café life as well, in works such as L’Absinthe and Singer with a Glove. His paintings
often hinted at narrative content in a way that was highly ambiguous; for example,
Interior (which has also been called The Rape) has presented a conundrum to art
historians in search of a literary source—Thérèse Raquin has been suggested[29]—but it
may be a depiction of prostitution.[30]
As his subject matter changed, so, too, did Degas's technique. The dark palette that
bore the influence of Dutch painting gave way to the use of vivid colors and bold
brushstrokes. Paintings such as Place de la Concorde read as "snapshots," freezing
moments of time to portray them accurately, imparting a sense of movement. The lack
of color in the 1874 Ballet Rehearsal on Stage and the 1876 The Ballet Instructor can
be said to link with his interest in the new technique of photography. The changes to his
palette, brushwork, and sense of composition all evidence the influence that both the
Impressionist movement and modern photography, with its spontaneous images and
off-kilter angles, had on his work.[25]
Place de la Concorde, 1875, oil on canvas, by Edgar Degas, Hermitage Museum, St.
Petersburg
Blurring the distinction between portraiture and genre pieces, he painted his bassoonist
friend, Désiré Dihau, in The Orchestra of the Opera (1868–69) as one of fourteen
musicians in an orchestra pit, viewed as though by a member of the audience. Above
the musicians can be seen only the legs and tutus of the dancers onstage, their figures
cropped by the edge of the painting. Art historian Charles Stuckey has compared the
viewpoint to that of a distracted spectator at a ballet, and says that "it is Degas'
fascination with the depiction of movement, including the movement of a spectator's
eyes as during a random glance, that is properly speaking 'Impressionist'."[31]
Musicians in the Orchestra, 1872, oil on canvas, by Edgar Degas
Degas's mature style is distinguished by conspicuously unfinished passages, even in
otherwise tightly rendered paintings. He frequently blamed his eye troubles for his
inability to finish, an explanation that met with some skepticism from colleagues and
collectors who reasoned, as Stuckey explains, that "his pictures could hardly have been
executed by anyone with inadequate vision".[32] The artist provided another clue when
he described his predilection "to begin a hundred things and not finish one of them",[33]
and was in any case notoriously reluctant to consider a painting complete.
His interest in portraiture led Degas to study carefully the ways in which a person's
social stature or form of employment may be revealed by their physiognomy, posture,
dress, and other attributes. In his 1879 Portraits, At the Stock Exchange, he portrayed a
group of Jewish businessmen with a hint of anti-Semitism. In 1881 he exhibited two
pastels, Criminal Physiognomies, that depicted juvenile gang members recently
convicted of murder in the "Abadie Affair". Degas had attended their trial with
sketchbook in hand, and his numerous drawings of the defendants reveal his interest in
the atavistic features thought by some 19th-century scientists to be evidence of innate
criminality.[34] In his paintings of dancers and laundresses, he reveals their occupations not only
by their dress and activities but also by their body type: his ballerinas exhibit an athletic
physicality, while his laundresses are heavy and solid.[35]
At the Races, 1877–1880, oil on canvas, by Edgar Degas, Musée d'Orsay, Paris.
By the later 1870s Degas had mastered not only the traditional medium of oil on canvas, but
pastel as well. The dry medium, which he applied in complex layers and textures, enabled him
more easily to reconcile his facility for line with a growing interest in expressive color.
In the mid-1870s he also returned to the medium of etching, which he had neglected for ten
years. At first he was guided in this by his old friend Ludovic-Napoléon Lepic, himself an
innovator in its use, and began experimenting with lithography and monotype.[36] He was
especially fascinated by the effects produced by monotype and frequently reworked the printed
images with pastel.[36] By 1880, sculpture had become one more strand to Degas's continuing
endeavour to explore different media, although the artist displayed only one sculpture publicly
during his lifetime.
La Toilette (Woman Combing Her Hair), c. 1884–1886, pastel on paper, by Edgar Degas,
Pushkin Museum, Moscow
These changes in media engendered the paintings that Degas would produce in later life.
Degas began to draw and paint women drying themselves with towels, combing their hair, and
bathing (see: After the Bath). The strokes that model the form are scribbled more freely than
before; backgrounds are simplified.
The meticulous naturalism of his youth gave way to an increasing abstraction of form. Except for
his characteristically brilliant draftsmanship and obsession with the figure, the pictures created
in this late period of his life bear little superficial resemblance to his early paintings. Ironically, it
is these paintings, created late in his life, and after the heyday of the Impressionist movement,
that most obviously use the coloristic techniques of Impressionism.[37]
For all the stylistic evolution, certain features of Degas's work remained the same throughout his
life. He always painted indoors, preferring to work in his studio, either from memory or using
models.[38] The figure remained his primary subject; his few landscapes were produced from
memory or imagination. It was not unusual for him to repeat a subject many times, varying the
composition or treatment. He was a deliberative artist whose works, as Andrew Forge has
written, "were prepared, calculated, practiced, developed in stages. They were made up of
parts. The adjustment of each part to the whole, their linear arrangement, was the occasion for
infinite reflection and experiment."[39] Degas himself explained, "In art, nothing should look like
chance, not even movement".[28]
[edit] Sculpture
Degas's only showing of sculpture during his life took place in 1881 when he exhibited The Little
Fourteen Year Old Dancer, only shown again in 1920; the rest of the sculptural works remained
private until a posthumous exhibition in 1918. Degas scholars have agreed that the sculptures
were not created as aids to painting, although the artist habitually explored ways of linking
graphic art and oil painting, drawing and pastel, sculpture and photography. Degas assigned the
same significance to sculpture as to drawing: "Drawing is a way of thinking, modelling
another".[28]
After Degas's death, his heirs found in his studio 150 wax sculptures, many in disrepair. They
consulted foundry owner Adrien Hébrard, who concluded that 74 of the waxes could be cast in
bronze. It is assumed that, except for the Little Dancer Aged Fourteen, all Degas bronzes
worldwide are cast from surmoulages (i.e., cast from bronze masters). A surmoulage bronze is
a bit smaller, and shows less surface detail, than its original bronze mold. The Hébrard Foundry
cast the bronzes from 1919–1936, and closed down in 1937, shortly before Hébrard's death.
In 2004, a previously unknown cache of 73 plaster casts created from wax originals sculpted by
Degas was discovered. Although not previously catalogued, the casts were consistent with the
73 originals that Degas’s heirs gave to Hébrard Foundry in 1918. Art scholars are not in
agreement as to what these casts actually are.[40] Walter F. Maibaum, an authority on 19th and
20th century European art, said: ―The moment I gazed upon these remarkable plasters I
instantly knew that everything that had been written about Degas’ sculptures in the past had to
be reconsidered‖. After examining them, Dr. Gregory Hedberg, Director of European Art for
Hirschl and Adler Galleries in New York, concluded that the entire group of plasters were made
during Degas’s lifetime between 1887 and 1912 by the artist’s close friend Albert Bartholomé
whom he entrusted with the task. It appears, from their condition and provenance, that no
bronzes were ever cast from these 73 plasters.
Plans to cast the newly discovered Degas sculptures, which differ in the rendering of details
from the Hébrard casts, have created disagreement among Degas scholars and admirers, some
of whom are reserving judgment regarding the authenticity of the plasters.[41]
L'Absinthe, 1876, oil on canvas
pastel
La Toilette (Woman Combing Her Hair), c. 1884–1886,
Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio
(c. 1488/1490[1] – 27 August 1576[2] better known as Titian /ˈtɪʃən/) was an Italian painter, the
most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore,
near Belluno (in Veneto), in the Republic of Venice. During his lifetime he was often called da
Cadore, taken from the place of his birth.
Recognized by his contemporaries as "The Sun Amidst Small Stars" (recalling the famous final
line of Dante's Paradiso), Titian was one of the most versatile of Italian painters, equally adept
with portraits, landscape backgrounds, and mythological and religious subjects. His painting
methods, particularly in the application and use of color, would exercise a profound influence not
only on painters of the Italian Renaissance, but on future generations of Western art.[3]
During the course of his long life, Titian's artistic manner changed drastically[4] but he retained a
lifelong interest in color. Although his mature works may not contain the vivid, luminous tints of
his early pieces, their loose brushwork and subtlety of polychromatic modulations are without
precedent in the history of Western art.
The Rape of Europa (1562) is a bold diagonal composition which was admired and copied by Rubens. In
contrast to the clarity of Titian's early works, it is almost baroque in its blurred lines, swirling colors, and
vibrant brushstrokes.
Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi, better known as
Sandro Botticelli
(Italian pronunciation: [ˈsandro botːiˈtʃɛlːi]) (c. 1445[1] – May 17, 1510) was an Italian painter of the Early
Renaissance. He belonged to the Florentine school under the patronage of Lorenzo de' Medici, a
movement that Giorgio Vasari would characterize less than a hundred years later as a "golden age", a
thought, suitably enough, he expressed at the head of his Vita of Botticelli. Botticelli's posthumous
reputation suffered until the late 19th century; since then his work has been seen to represent the
linear grace of Early Renaissance painting. Among his best known works are The Birth of Venus and
Primavera.
The Birth of Venus, 1486. Uffizi, Florence
Botticelli never wed, and expressed a strong aversion to the idea of marriage, a
prospect he claimed gave him nightmares.[13]
The popular view is that he suffered from unrequited love for Simonetta Vespucci, a
married noblewoman. According to legend, she had served as the model for The Birth
of Venus and recurs throughout his paintings, despite the fact that she had died years
earlier, in 1476. Botticelli asked that when he die, he be buried at her feet in the Church
of Ognissanti in Florence. His wish was carried out when he died some 34 years later,
in 1510.
Some modern historians have also examined other aspects of his sexuality. In 1938,
Jacques Mesnil discovered a summary of a charge in the Florentine Archives for
November 16, 1502 which read simply "Botticelli keeps a boy", under an accusation of
sodomy. The painter would then have been fifty-eight; the charges were eventually
dropped. Mesnil dismissed it as a customary slander by which partisans and
adversaries of Savonarola abused each other. Opinion remains divided on whether this
is evidence of homosexuality.[14] Many have firmly backed Mesnil,[15] but others have
cautioned against hasty dismissal of the charge.[16] Yet while speculating on the subject
of his paintings, Mesnil nevertheless concluded "woman was not the only object of his
love".[17]
Sir Peter Paul Rubens
(Dutch pronunciation: [ˈrybə(n)s]; 28 June 1577 – 30 May 1640), was a Flemish Baroque painter,
and a proponent of an extravagant Baroque style that emphasised movement, colour, and
sensuality. He is well-known for his Counter-Reformation altarpieces, portraits, landscapes, and
history paintings of mythological and allegorical subjects.
Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec or simply Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (French
pronunciation: [ i də tuluz loˈt k ) (24 November 1864 – 9 September 1901) was a French
painter, printmaker, draughtsman, and illustrator, whose immersion in the colourful and
theatrical life of fin de siècle Paris yielded an œuvre of exciting, elegant and provocative images
of the modern and sometimes decadent life of those times. Toulouse-Lautrec is known along
with Cézanne, Van Gogh, and Gauguin as one of the greatest painters of the Post-Impressionist
period. In a 2005 auction at Christie's auction house a new record was set when "La
blanchisseuse", an early painting of a young laundress, sold for $22.4 million U.S.[1]
Alcoholism
Lautrec was often mocked for his short stature and physical appearance, and this led
him to drown his sorrows in alcohol.[15] At first this was just beer and wine, but his tastes
quickly expanded. He was one of the notable Parisians who enjoyed American style
cocktails, France being a nation of wine purists. He would have parties at his house on
a Friday night and force his guests to try them.[10] The invention of the cocktail
"Earthquake" or Tremblement de Terre is attributed to Toulouse-Lautrec; a potent
mixture containing half absinthe and half cognac (in a wine goblet, 3 parts Absinthe and
3 parts Cognac, sometimes served with ice cubes or shaken in a cocktail shaker filled
with ice).[16]
1893 saw Lautrec's alcoholism begin to take its toll, and as those around him began to
realise the seriousness of his condition there were rumours of a syphilis infection. [17]
Finally, in 1899, his mother and a group of concerned friends had him briefly
institutionalised.[17] He had even gone to the length of having a cane that he could hide
alcohol in so he could have a drink on him at all times.[10]
Death
An alcoholic for most of his adult life, Toulouse-Lautrec was placed in a sanatorium
shortly before his death. He died from complications due to alcoholism and syphilis at
the family estate in Malromé at the age of 36. He is buried in Verdelais, Gironde, a few
kilometres from the Château Malromé, where he died.
Toulouse-Lautrec's last words reportedly were: "Le vieux con!" ("The old fool!", although
the word "con" can be meant in both simple and vulgar terms[18]). This was his goodbye
to his father.[10] Although another version has him saying, using the word "hallali" which
is used by huntsmen for the moment the hounds kill their prey, "I knew, papa, that you
wouldn't miss the death." ("Je savais, papa, que vous ne manqueriez pas l'hallali"). [19]
After Toulouse-Lautrec's death, his mother, the Comtesse Adèle Toulouse-Lautrec, and
Maurice Joyant, his art dealer, promoted his art. His mother contributed funds for a
museum to be created in Albi, his birthplace, to house his works. The Toulouse-Lautrec
Museum now owns the world's largest collection of works by the painter.
At the Moulin Rouge
Edward Hopper
(July 22, 1882 – May 15, 1967) was a prominent American realist painter and printmaker. While most
popularly known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolorist and printmaker in
etching. In both his urban and rural scenes, his spare and finely calculated renderings reflected his
personal vision of modern American life.[1]
In 1905, Hopper landed a part-time job with an advertising agency, where he did cover designs
for trade magazines.[17] Much like famed illustrator N. C. Wyeth, Hopper came to detest
illustration. He was bound to it by economic necessity until the mid-1920s.[18] He temporarily
escaped by making three trips to Europe, each centered in Paris, ostensibly to study the
emerging art scene there. In fact, however, he studied alone and seemed mostly unaffected by
the new currents in art. Later he said that he ―didn’t remember having heard of Picasso at all.‖[14]
He was highly impressed by Rembrandt, particularly his Night Watch, which he said was ―the
most wonderful thing of his I have seen; it’s past belief in its reality.‖[19]
Hopper began painting urban and architectural scenes in a dark palette. Then he shifted to the
lighter palette of the Impressionists before returning to the darker palette with which he was
comfortable. Hopper later said, "I got over that and later things done in Paris were more the kind
of things I do now.‖[20] Hopper spent much of his time drawing street and café scenes, and going
to the theater and opera. Unlike many of his contemporaries who imitated the abstract cubist
experiments, Hopper was attracted to realist art. Later, he admitted to no European influences
other than French engraver Charles Méryon, whose moody Paris scenes Hopper imitated.[21]
Nighthawks 1942
Frida Kahlo de Rivera
(July 6, 1907 – July 13, 1954; born Magdalena Carmen Frieda Kahlo y Calderón)[2][3] was a
Mexican painter, born in Coyoacán,[4] and perhaps best known for her self-portraits.[5]
Kahlo's life began and ended in Mexico City, in her home known as the Blue House. She gave
her birth date as July 7, 1910, but her birth certificate shows July 6, 1907. Kahlo had allegedly
wanted the year of her birth to coincide with the year of the beginning of the Mexican revolution
so that her life would begin with the birth of modern Mexico. At the age of six, Frida developed
polio, which caused her right leg to appear much thinner than the other. It was to remain that
way permanently.[6] Her work has been celebrated in Mexico as emblematic of national and
indigenous tradition, and by feminists for its uncompromising depiction of the female experience
and form.[7]
Mexican culture and Amerindian cultural tradition are important in her work, which has been
sometimes characterized as Naïve art or folk art.[8] Her work has also been described as
"surrealist", and in 1938 André Breton, principal initiator of the surrealist movement, described
Kahlo's art as a "ribbon around a bomb".[7]
Kahlo had a volatile marriage with the famous Mexican artist Diego Rivera. She suffered lifelong
health problems, many of which derived from a traffic accident during her teenage years. These
issues are represented in her works, many of which are self-portraits of one sort or another.
Kahlo suggested, "I paint myself because I am so often alone and because I am the subject I
know best."[9] She also stated, "I was born a bitch. I was born a painter."[10]
Frida Kahlo, Self-portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird
Frederic Sackrider Remington
(October 4, 1861 – December 26, 1909) was an American painter, illustrator, sculptor, and
writer who specialized in depictions of the Old American West, specifically concentrating on the
last quarter of the 19th century American West and images of cowboys, American Indians, and
the U. S. Cavalry.