Category Archives: Art

Art

Edgar Degas’s The Dance Class (1874)

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The writer Edmond de Goncourt wrote in his journal in 1873: “Yesterday I spent the afternoon in the studio of a painter named Degas. Out of all the subjects in modern life he has chosen washerwomen and ballet dancers”. That same year Edgar Degas (1834-1917) would join forces with Monet, Renoir, and Cézanne, to exhibit paintings under the banner of Impressionism and would go on to achieve fame as one of the world’s great artists and renderers of movement. Half of his prodigious output (of 1200 or so works) depicted dancers and the world they inhabited, and he claimed the ballet for modern art as Cézanne claimed the landscape and Monet the haystacks and lilies.

In the 1870s Edgar Degas had become fascinated with ballet dancers, paying frequent visits to the magnificent Palais Garnier, home of the Paris Opéra and its Ballet. He haunted the wings and stalked the classes where the Opèra’s ballet master, Jules Perrot, trained groups of young girls. He would be constantly sketching his observations and accumulating ideas for paintings to render later in his studio. Degas’s pictures of ballerinas performing onstage convey exquisitely the balance, grace and radiance of the dancers, whilst at other times, Degas stripped away the poetry and illusion to show the hard work behind the scenes: the hanging around, the stretching at the bar, the rubbing of sore muscles, the tying of shoes.

It is at this point that I should signal the need to separate art from reality, for the reality of the ballet was that it had a sordid underbelly. The dancers were usually young, poor, vulnerable and ripe for exploitation by abonnés, the name for wealthy male subscription holders who often lurked in the foyers, and there was more than a hint of prostitution (often with their mothers in collusion, desperate I suppose to push their daughters up the ladder). The glamour was only on the surface.

To defend Degas from the obvious fleeting thought, however (although his character may be called into question for various other reasons such as misanthropy and anti-semitism), it is understood that his relationship to the dancers was paternal and professional rather than predatory.

Of the several hundred Degas paintings to choose from, here’s one that features the old Perrot schooling his ballerinas in The Dance Class (1874), with the dancers in various stages of preparation. The girl on the left appears to be looking at her mobile phone!

Art

Grant Wood’s American Gothic (1930)

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Grant Wood (1891–1942) was an American painter best known for his paintings depicting the rural American Midwest, particularly American Gothic (1930), which has become an iconic example of 20th century American art. Wood was born in rural Iowa and received his art training at the Art Institute of Chicago before making several trips to Europe to study Impressionism and post-Impressionism. He always returned to Iowa, however, and had a studio at the house he shared with his mother in Cedar Rapids. He was a major proponent of the art movement known as American Regionalism which arose in the 1930s as a response to the Great Depression, and incorporated paintings, murals, lithographs, and illustrations depicting realistic scenes of rural and small-town America.

It was while driving around the town of Eldon, Iowa, looking for inspiration, that Wood spotted the Dibble House, a quaint small white frame house and considered it just right for his purposes. So why “American Gothic”? Well, the house is built in the so-called Carpenter Gothic style, an architectural style borrowing ideas from Gothic architecture but rendering it in wood. Here’s the Dibble House below, with its arched Gothic style window clearly shown.

The Dibble House

Wood wanted to add figures of people he fancied should live in that house: a farmer and his daughter. He chose for his models his sister Nan Wood Graham and their dentist Dr Byron McKeeby. The woman is dressed in a colonial print apron while the man is adorned in overalls covered by a suit jacket and carries a pitchfork. It’s an odd blend, and some took it initially as a mockery of “the kind of people” who might live in such a house, but this was far from the intent of the artist who wished to simply create an authentic depiction of real people in his home state.

Wood’s models: his sister and dentist

American Gothic became one of the most familiar images of American art and has been widely parodied in American popular culture. Exuberant it ain’t, but it somehow captures a steadfast spirit befitting of the context in which it was painted.


Grant Wood
Art

Diego Velázquez’s Las Meninas (1656)

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The Spanish Golden Age of flourishing arts and literature in Spain coincided with the Spanish Empire’s political and military dominance in the 16th and 17th centuries, roughly during the reigns of the Habsburg monarchs Charles V, and the Philips II, III and IV of Spain. In literature, Cervantes was writing Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605) and Lope de Vega was knocking out about 500 plays and 3000 sonnets between the 1580s and 1630s. In art, El Greco, Francisco de Zurbarán and Bartolomé Murillo flourished, as well as the leading artist of them all, Diego Velázquez, who worked under the patronage of King Philip IV between the 1620s and 1650s.

Velázquez’s earliest works are bodegones, kitchen or pantry scenes with prominent still-lifes and domestic activity such as his Woman Frying Eggs (1618) which I remember being taken with many years ago during a visit to the National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh. However, it was when he took to portraiture that he gained the attention of King Philip and was invited to become court painter. Diego was able to thrive under Philip’s wing for the rest of his life. He provided portraits for the court (he painted Philip himself over thirty times) and for luminaries of the time such as Pope Innocent X, but was also given the freedom to paint less prominent personalities such as Juan de Pareja, a former slave and fellow painter in his workshop.

His magnum opus, however, was Las Meninas (The Ladies-in-waiting or Maids of Honour). Painted in 1656 and now residing in the Museo del Prado in Madrid, Las Meninas depicts the 5 year old Infanta Margaret Theresa surrounded by her entourage of maids of honour, chaperone, bodyguard, two dwarfs and a dog. Just behind them, Velázquez portrays himself working at a large canvas and looking outwards towards the viewer. In the background there is a mirror that reflects the upper bodies of the king and queen themselves. Given the expectation that a court painting would be a formal affair, Las Meninas’ complex and enigmatic composition surprises us and creates an uncertain relationship between us and the figures depicted. Because of its unusual nature, Las Meninas has been one of the most widely analysed works in Western painting, and it’s one of “the greats” that I hope to visit one day.

Diego Velázquez, detail from Las Meninas
Art

Giotto’s Scrovegni Chapel Frescoes (c.1305)

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Before Raphael was Michelangelo, and before Michelangelo was Leonardo, and before Leonardo was Botticelli, and before Botticelli was Giotto. Giotto di Bondone (c. 1267 – 1337) was a painter and architect from Florence during the Late Middle Ages, working before the great flourishing in the arts known as the Renaissance. The 16th century art historian, Giorgio Vasari (incidentally, the first man to use the term Renaissance in print), in his Lives of the Painters, credits Giotto with breaking tangibly away from the prevalent Byzantine style and initiating “the great art of painting as we know it today, introducing the technique of drawing accurately from life”.

His two great masterworks were the design of the campanile at Florence Cathedral, and the decoration of the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua. A third may well be the famous frescoes in the Upper Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi, though this is disputed: sadly, given the period, many features of his life are hard to substantiate.

Vasari tells some stories about Giotto that sound decidedly fanciful. According to him, Giotto was a shepherd boy, discovered by the great Florentine painter Cimabue drawing pictures of his sheep on a rock. They were so lifelike that Cimabue approached Giotto and asked if he could take him on as an apprentice. Another story recounts how Giotto drew a lifelike fly onto one of his master’s paintings and laughed when Cimabue tried several times to brush the fly off. Yet another tells how the Pope requested to see an example of his artistic skill and Giotto simply sent him a perfect circle he had drawn in freehand.

Fanciful stories aside, there’s no doubting the achievement of the Scrovegni Chapel frescoes. The subject matter is not unusual for church decoration in medieval Italy, being centred on the lives of the Virgin Mary and Christ, but the style for the day was sensational: solidly three-dimensional, with faces and gestures based on close observation, and the characters clothed in garments that hang naturally and have form and weight. The expansive use of ultramarine blue pigment is remarkably effective: when you look at the chapel as a whole, it seems awash with blue (albeit faded with time, sadly).

I’ll finish with another story that’s probably apocryphal (but who knows?). The great poet Dante visited Giotto while he was painting the Scrovegni Chapel and, seeing the artist’s children flitting around, asked (rudely) how a man who painted such beautiful pictures could have such plain children. Giotto, who, according to Vasari was always a wit, replied, “I make my pictures by day, and my babies by night”.

Art

Francisco Queirolo’s Escape From Deception (1754)

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In the historic centre of Naples lies the Sansevero Chapel, a former church converted into a family burial chapel by the noble di Sangro family in 1613. In the 1750s, Raimondo di Sangro, the Prince of Sansevero, committed the last years of his life to decorating the chapel with great works of art. He had already had a rich life of enquiry and experimentation in the sciences and was well-known for his inventions as well as a deep involvement with alchemy and Freemasonry. However, since Raimondo had had run-ins with the Inquisition and had elected to destroy his scientific archive before his death, it is his artistic legacy that remains.

In particular, he commissioned three sculptors to produce a marble sculpture each, namely Antonio Corradini’s Veiled Truth, Guiseppe Sanmartino’s Veiled Christ, and Francesco Queirolo’s Escape from Deception. By good judgement or good luck – or, some said, by the mysterious powers of the occult – Raimondo’s choice resulted in all three sculptures turning out to be amazing masterpieces of exquisite skill.

Let’s look at just one of them. The Release from Deception by Genoese sculptor Francesco Queirolo shows a man’s emergence from a fisherman’s net, guided by an angel hovering above a globe as he untangles the man from the net. Every piece of this incredible sculpture is carved out of marble, including the carefully crafted knots in the net draped around the figure of the fisherman. The scene depicted is both biblical and allegorical, the net symbolising sin, worldliness or wrong-thinking, and the angel helping the man to see the error of his ways.

The idea of one man, with his mallets and chisels and rasps and rifflers, struggling with one block of marble to “free the form trapped inside the block”, as Michaelangelo used to describe it, is a compelling one. I myself have only fleetingly passed through Naples, but if I ever return, I shall be seeking out the Sansevero Chapel; I’d like to see this “in the flesh”, so to speak!

Art

Théophile Steinlen’s Le Chat Noir Poster Art (1896)

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Le Chat Noir (you probably don’t need that translating!) was a 19th century nightclub in the bohemian district of Montmartre in Paris. It opened in 1881 at 84 Boulevard de Rochechouart by the impresario Rodolphe Salis, and closed, after a sixteen year glory period, in 1897, not long after Salis’ death. It is thought to be the first modern cabaret: a nightclub where the patrons sat at tables and drank alcoholic beverages whilst being entertained by a variety show on stage and a master of ceremonies.

Le Chat Noir soon became popular with poets, singers and musicians, since it offered an ideal venue and opportunity to practice their acts in front of fellow performers and guests. Famous men and women of an artistic bent began to patronise the club, including poet Paul Verlaine, can-can dancer Jane Avril, composers Claude Debussy and Erik Satie, artists Paul Signac and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and many others from the movements of symbolism and the avant garde.

The cabaret also published a weekly magazine (also called Le Chat Noir), featuring literary writings, poetry, political satire, and news from the cabaret and the local art scene. The iconic poster art, which most people will recognise (and a few may even have it in magnet form on their fridge) was by Swiss Art Nouveau artist and printmaker, Théophile Steinlen.

Yep, my fridge!

Steinlen was in his early twenties and still developing his skills as a painter when he was encouraged by fellow Swiss artist François Bocion to move to the artistic community of Montmartre. Once there, Steinlen was introduced to the crowd at Le Chat Noir, which led to commissions to do poster art for them and other commercial enterprises. Here’s a selection of his poster art, starting with the famous La Tournée du Chat Noir (produced for when Salis took his cabaret show on tour). All Steinlen’s posters have an enduring appeal, and I’d bet that all of them are familiar to you.

Théophile Steinlen

 

Art

Sir Henry Raeburn’s The Skating Minister (1790)

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Several times, in a former job role, I had occasion to travel by train to Edinburgh’s Waverley Station and from thence to our site in Livingston, where I would do my thing, stay overnight, and make the return journey home the next day. Although usually the booked train tickets allowed little room for extracurricular activities, there was one occasion on which I managed to engineer a couple of spare hours to visit Edinburgh’s National Gallery. It’s a five-minute walk from Waverley Station, past the Walter Scott monument and along Princes Street Gardens, and it is well worth the effort.

One of the more unusual of its collection is Henry Raeburn’s The Skating Minister. Painted around 1790, it depicts the Reverend Robert Walker, minister at Edinburgh’s Canongate Kirk, skating on Duddingston Loch. It was practically unknown until 1949 (when it was acquired), but has since become something of an icon of Scottish culture, painted as it was during the Scottish Enlightenment. It is today rare for Duddingston Loch to be sufficiently frozen for skating, but in the Little Ice Age that encompassed the 18th century, the loch was the favourite meeting place of the Edinburgh Skating Club, of whom Robert Walker was a prominent member.

Sir Henry Raeburn was Edinburgh’s own, too. Born in Stockbridge, a former village now part of Edinburgh, he was responsible for some thousand portraits of Scotland’s great and good. He was disinclined to leave his native land and, as a result, his renown in Scotland is not matched in England where the names of Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough dominate the portraiture of the period. But in the Scottish National Gallery, he is far from forgotten, and his Skating Minister will remain a firm favourite there for years to come.

 
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Artemisia Gentileschi’s Judith Slaying Holofernes (1620)

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The first member of the artistic Gentileschi family that I became aware of was the Italian Baroque artist, Orazio Gentileschi, whose Rest on the Flight to Egypt I came across a few years back in Vienna’s magnificent Kunsthistorisches Museum. However, as acclaimed as Orazio was, it is his daughter, Artemisia, whose name has come down to us today bearing the most critical acclaim, and not just because she is championed as a woman who thrived in a man’s world, but also because she was literally a brilliant and accomplished world-class artist.

Artemisia flourished in the first half of the 17th century, working in her father’s workshop in Rome but also later working in Florence, Venice, Naples and even in London where both she and her father had a spell working as court painters for Charles I not long before the outbreak of the English Civil War. She specialized in painting naturalistic pictures of strong and suffering women from myth, allegory, and the Bible – Susanna and the Elders, Judith Slaying Holofernes, Delilah, Salome, Bathsheba, Lucretia, Cleopatra, Jael, Mary Magdalene…

Her works are convincing depictions of the female figure, anywhere between nude and fully clothed, and she clearly had a wonderful talent for handling colour and building depth. Her Judith Slaying Holofernes, painted between 1614 and 1620, is a dramatic piece of art theatre. It depicts the scene of Judith beheading Holofernes, an episode taken from the apocryphal Book of Judith in the Old Testament, in which the Assyrian general Holofernes is assassinated by the Israelite heroine Judith. The painting shows the moment when Judith, helped by her maidservant, beheads the general after he has fallen asleep drunk. Artemisia was just seventeen when she painted this, so precocious was her talent.

That she was a woman painting in the seventeenth century is worthy of note, of course (how much more art would exist today had talented female artists, the ones that were less connected or gutsy than Artemisia, been allowed to express themselves?). But purely on her work alone she was one of the most progressive and expressive painters of her generation, and that was a generation that was already rich in artists inspired and flourishing in the footsteps of Caravaggio. As it happens, she is due to be commemorated this spring in a retrospective exhibition at London’s National Gallery. I’ll be there, hopefully!

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Gustave Caillebotte’s The Floor Scrapers (1875)

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Many leading artists in mid-19th century France liked to test their artistic skills by depicting farm workers and peasants at toil in the countryside – Courbet’s The Stone Breakers (1850) and Millet’s The Gleaners (1857), for example.

As the century wore on, some artists began to explore the concept of men and women at work in urban settings – Manet’s The Road-Menders in the Rue de Berne (1878) springs to mind, as does Women Ironing (1884) by Degas. Of this genre, a personal favourite of mine comes from Gustave Caillebotte and is called The Floor Scrapers (Les Raboteurs de Parquet).

It depicts three topless men working on hands and knees, scraping away at a parquet floor in a Parisian apartment (thought to be Caillebotte’s own studio). The composition is documentary-style, focusing on the actions and techniques of the floor-scrapers. Daylight enters the room from a window on the far wall and glosses the smooth floorboards with a white sheen. There are several floor-scraping tools as well as an opened bottle of (presumably cheap) wine. The diagonal alignment of the floorboards is offset by the rectangular panels on the far wall and by the curlicue motif of the iron grill on the window and the wood shavings that litter the floor. It is a masterpiece of realist painting.

His piece was perfectly in keeping with academic traditions, in terms of its perspective and the modelling and positioning of the nude torsos of the workers. However, despite this, the painting was rejected at the 1875 Salon because of its ‘vulgar’ realism. There’s no accounting for taste. So Caillebotte threw his lot in with the Impressionists and exhibited it at the Impressionist Exhibition of 1876.

These days, The Floor Scrapers is held in the Musée d’Orsay, although when I visited, a few years ago, I was disappointed to find it was not on display – you can’t win ‘em all (and I’ll just have to visit again when next in Paris)!

Art

Katsushika Hokusai’s Ejiri In Suruga Province (c.1830)

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The Edo period in Japan was a 250 year period of stability, lasting between 1603 and 1868, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate. It was a rich time for the development of Japanese culture and saw the development of Japanese cultural themes recognisable today like kabuki theatre, Geisha girls, sumo wrestling and ukiyo-e woodblock print art.

Ukiyo-e translates as “pictures of the floating world” and referred to the hedonistic lifestyle prevalent in the pleasure districts of Edo (modern-day Tokyo). Thus, we see a variety of erotic themes in this art, but also plenty of landscapes, flora and fauna, and scenes from history and folk tales. A famous proponent of ukiyo-e was Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849), best known for his woodblock print series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji which includes the internationally iconic print, The Great Wave off Kanagawa.

Hokusai created the Thirty-Six Views both as a response to a domestic travel boom and as part of a personal obsession with Mount Fuji. The series depicts Mount Fuji from different locations and in various seasons and weather conditions. It was this series, and specifically The Great Wave print, that secured Hokusai’s fame both in Japan and overseas. They are wonderfully simple yet evocative pieces.

The series was produced from around 1830 to 1832, when Hokusai was in his seventies and at the height of his career. As well as The Great Wave, you may also recognise Rainstorm Beneath the Summit and Fine Wind, Clear Morning. My personal favourite, however, is Ejiri in Suruga Province: a sudden gust of wind takes some travellers by surprise, blowing away the hat of a man who tries in vain to catch it. Bits of paper whirl away from a woman’s backpack and scatter into the air. The woman’s wind-tossed cloth covers her face, and the tall tree in the foreground loses its leaves. Other travellers face the wind, crouching low to avoid it and clinging to their hats. Fuji, meanwhile, stands white and unshaken, affected neither by the wind nor the human drama.

Ejiri in Suruga Province