Monday, August 31, 2015

Necromantic Symbolism

Johann Heinrich Schönfeld
Allegory of Time (Chronos & Eros)
1630s
Palazzo Barberini, Rome

Johann Heinrich Schönfeld
Saul & Endor the Magus
1630s
Palazzo Barberini, Rome

At Palazzo Barberini in Rome several years ago the pair of small paintings above introduced me to the work of Johann Heinrich Schönfeld (1609-1684). The Barberini catalogue entry by Rossella Vodret offers a certain amount of background about this distinctive and little-known artist 

"After an initial artistic training in southern Germany, Schönfeld came to Rome in 1633. There he joined the Schildershent, the informal band of Flemish, Dutch and German painters in Rome. From a stylistic point of view, however, he was more influenced by his exposure to the neo-Venetian, classical experience of Poussin and his circle. Moving from Rome to Naples, where he stayed from 1638-39 to 1648, Schönfeld was an important vehicle for the transfer of this Roman style to that city. In the art world of Naples, where the hierarchial division between the genres was more pronounced, he specialized in painting subjects from ancient history and mythology. It was his aptitude in this area that drew the attention of Flavio Chigi, whom he met during the course of his second stay in Rome. Chigi, the nephew of Pope Alexander VII, preferred to collect paintings with obscure allegorical or necromantic symbolism. Schönfeld's clear and subtle colors, the vibrant and nervous brushstrokes, and the strong, direct light render his figures evanescent and almost unstable. These elegant and elongated figures, derived from engravings by Callot, are placed in strongly classical settings that are similar to contemporary theatrical scenes."

Bellow, one of the Mannerist prints by Jacques Callot (1592-1635) cited in the Barberini catalogue as the source of Schönfeld's "elongated figures." Callot was French by birth but spent much of his career in Italy. He was the most successful print-maker of his generation.

Jacques Callot
John the Baptist Preaching
1634-35
etching
Rijksmuseum

Johann Heinrich Schönfeld
Alexander the Great before the Tomb of Achilles
1630s
Palazzo Barberini, Rome

Schönfeld's surviving paintings are scattered throughout Europe. I was not able to locate any in United States collections. In 2010, to honor the 400th anniversary of the painter's birth, a retrospective of his work was staged in Augsburg, the city where Schönfeld settled after eighteen years in Italy, and the city where he died.

Johann Heinrich Schönfeld
Artist Sketching Roman Ruins
c. 1634-35
Deutsche Barockgalerie, Augsburg

Johann Heinrich Schönfeld
Simon's Revenge on the Philistines
1633-34
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Johann Heinrich Schönfeld
Roman Carpriccio
c. 1635
Private collection

Johann heinrich Schönfeld
Die Plünderer
c. 1635
Braith-Mali Museum, Germany

Johann Heinrich Schönfeld
Rape of the Sabine Women
1630s
Hermitage, St. Petersburg

Johann Heinrich Schönfeld
Saint Cyriakus
c. 1640
Private collection

Johann Heinrich Schönfeld
Scythians at the Tomb of Ovid
c. 1640
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

Johann Heinrich Schönfeld
Triumph of Venus
c. 1640-45
Gamaldegalerie, Berlin

Johann Heinrich Schönfeld
Adoration of the Holy Trinity
c. 1647-49
Louvre

Johann Heinrich Schönfeld
Atalanta & Hippomenes
1650s
Brukenthal Museum, Romania

Johann Heinrich Schönfeld
The Marriage Feast at Cana
1670s
Hermitage, St. Petersburg


Sunday, August 30, 2015

Rocks in the Forest

Paul Cézanne
Rocks in the Forest
1890s
Metropolitan Museum

A century ago, these first six Cézanne oils were hanging together in the same house on 5th Avenue in New York. Louisine Havemeyer, their owner, was the widow of a superlative speculator who dominated the sugar markets of the late 19th century. H.O. Havemeyer succeeded in ruining his competitors and accumulating colossal wealth, but then he suddenly died. Mrs. Havemeyer spent the next thirty years collecting art, simultaneously launching herself as a militant activist for women's suffrage. By the terms of her will, something like two thousand works of art (including the six Cézannes) were left to the Metropolitan Museum.

Paul Cézanne
Still Life
1893-94
Metropolitan Museum

Paul Cézanne
Gulf of Marseilles
c. 1885
Metropolitan Museum

Paul Cézanne
Mont Sainte-Victoire
1882-85
Metropolitan Museum

Paul Cézanne
Portrait of Gustave Boyer
c. 1870-71
Metropolitan Museum

Paul Cézanne
Still Life
c. 1877
Metropolitan Museum

The six Cézanne watercolors below did not belong to Mrs. Havemeyer. The first is today at the Met nevertheless, while the others were deposited over the years at the Morgan Library by other American plutocrats.

Paul Cézanne
Bathers by a Bridge
c. 1900-06
Metropolitan Museum

Paul Cézanne
Trees
19th century
Morgan Library

Paul Cézanne
Plaster Cupid
19th century
Morgan Library

Paul Cézanne
Mont Sainte-Victoire
19th century
Morgan Library

Paul Cézanne
Still Life 
c. 1902-06
Morgan Library

Paul Cézanne
Bare Trees on a River
c. 1900-05
Morgan Library

Saturday, August 29, 2015

Monumental Polaroids


My daughter's commitment to making regular Mabel Polaroids has now maintained its steady course without interruption for five years. It has weathered the very disappearance of Polaroid film itself, which still existed when this project started. This present group covered a remarkable clutch of big events pressed into a remarkably short time  which included 1) the End of Preschool, 2) the Fifth Birthday, and 3) the Start of Kindergarten.






Polaroids accumulate, one per week, in a special box on a special shelf at Mabel's house. When six or eight or ten of them are ready, I put them into a special envelope and carry them home with me. Then I scan them and crop them and shove them up on Spencer Alley so that all the wise people who love to look at pictures of Mabel will be able to see them, and also so that my daughter can download the scans. I make high resolution scans in case either one of us wants to make paper prints, but usually we don't do that since we have the paper originals. Which I have to make a special effort to remember to return to the special box on the special shelf at Mabel's house after I have finished scanning them. My daughter uses one Polaroid (but not in any particular order) for the Monday post every week on Pippa's Cabinet, her own highly organized blog, which stands in such stark contrast to the randomness of mine. On Pippa's Cabinet each Polaroid comes with a lively story or two about the enthralling child. There will surely be future manifestations of these same Polaroids  perhaps not even imagined yet  as they become yearly more remote and more treasured and more venerable.

Friday, August 28, 2015

Pink & Silver

Johannes Verspronck
 Andries Stilte as Standard Bearer
1640
National Gallery of Art (U.S.)

In the portrait above a gentleman in pink satin and silver lace wraps himself in a blue satin banner. His blue satin sash is tied in a huge bow at back, like an obi. Dyed-to-match ostrich plumes ornament a swaggering black hat. The supple creamy gloves appear to be lambskin. Andries Stilte is the name of this proud and splendid man who serves today as uniformed greeter for a group of Dutch paintings from the 17th century.  

Caspar van Wittel
Castel Sant'Angelo from the South
1690s
Private Collection

Netherlandish Painter
Flying Putti
c. 1650
Rijksmuseum

Hendrik Goltzius
Fall of Man
1616
National Gallery of Art (U.S.)

Adriaen Hanneman
Henry Duke of Gloucester
c. 1653
National Gallery of Art (U.S.)

Gerrit van Honthorst
The Concert
1623
National Gallery of Art (U.S.)

Joachim Wtewael
The Golden Age
1605
Metropolitan Museum

Joachim Wtewael
Moses Striking the Rock
1624
National Gallery of Art (U.S.)

Johannes Lingelbach
Battle Scene
c. 1651-52
Getty

Jacob Ochtervelt
The Love Letter
1670s
Metropolitan Museum

Rembrandt
Portrait of a Woman
1632
Metropolitan Museum
(Gift of Louisine Havemeyer)

Jacob van der Ulft
Capriccio with Seaport & Triumphal Arch
c. 1690
Victoria & Albert Museum

Louis Vallée
Silvio with wounded Dorinda
c. 1651
National Gallery of Art (U.S.)

Jacob van Loo
Diana & her Nymphs
1654
National Gallery of Denmark

Thursday, August 27, 2015

Trevi

Hubert Robert
Trevi Fountain under Construction
c. 1760
Morgan Library

Hubert Robert (1733-1808) left France to refine his eye in Italy from 1754 to 1765. He made immense quantities of studies there, later using them back home as resources for a long and lucrative career. The drawings grouped here are preserved at the Morgan Library in New York. Above, Robert's sketch from about 1760 of the not-yet-famous Trevi Fountain in Rome, still under construction.  

Hubert Robert
Temple of Neptune, Paestum
c. 1760
Morgan Library

Hubert Robert
Italian Garden
1760s
Morgan Library

Hubert Robert
Campidoglio, Rome
1762
Morgan Library

Hubert Robert
Stables at the Villa Giulia
1760s
Morgan Library

Hubert Robert
Villa Madama
1760s
Morgan Library

Hubert Robert
Arch of Titus
1760s
Morgan Library 

Even in the middle of the eighteenth century  long after the revival of Italian art had come and gone  the surviving triumphal arches of Rome remained half-buried in medieval debris, a point that Robert actually exaggerated in the drawing of the Arch of Titus immediately above. Below, Robert surely intended the viewer to understand that the artist perched on a precarious arrangement of chairs and trestles, with board propped on knees, should be read as himself.

Hubert Robert
Draughtsman in Italian Church
1763
Morgan Library

Hubert Robert
Villa d'Este
18th century
Morgan Library