Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Pre-War European Painting

Georges Dupuis
Notre Dame Embankment, Le Havre
1908
oil on canvas
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Paul Cézanne
Blue Landscape
ca. 1904-06
oil on canvas
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Claude Monet
Waterloo Bridge, Effect of Fog
1903
oil on canvas
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

"Besides this same Harmoge, which draweth different colours into one by an orderly and pleasant confusion, it is furthermore requisite that an Artist should take special care about the extreame or uttermost lines; seeing it was ever held one of the greatest excellencies in these Arts that the unrestrained extremities* of the figures resembled in the worke should be drawne so lightly and so sweetly as to represent unto us things we doe not see: neither can it be otherwise but our eye will alwayes beleeve that behind the figures there is something more to be seene than it seeth, when the lineaments that doe circumscribe, compasse, or include the image are so thinne and fine as to vanish by little and little, and to conveigh themselves quite away out of our sight."

– from Book Three (chapter three) of The Painting of the Ancients by Franciscus Junius, first published in English in 1638  edited by Keith Aldrich, Philipp Fehl and Raina Fel for University of California Press, 1991

"Unrestrained extremities" (indeterminatos terminos) = indistinct outlines. Junius speaks of two methods of achieving this effect: by lines becoming ever finer until they approach "neere to the subtiltie of the imaginarie Geometricall lines" and by a clever blending of colors which suggests a gentle recession into the background. Instead of enclosing images with sharply drawn outlines, artists define their images by colors that model the objects, blending them in such a way that the object's color, which is weaker where it is further away, and the shadow resulting from its shape are unobtrusively and cleverly combined, giving the effect of depth. He also hints here at one of the most engaging charms of traditional pictorial art, namely, that painting allows the viewers to imagine that in the space created by the artist they could, if they wished, also move to see and touch the figures from behind, and even find there other objects obscured by those they do in fact see. In his Latin text, Junius also quotes from a fragment of the Pythagorean Theages that likens this subtle merging to certain functions of the soul.

Charles Guérin
Nude Model
ca. 1910
oil on canvas
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Felice Carena
Roman Landscape
1907
oil on panel
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Maurice Lobre
Dauphin's Salon at Versailles
1901
oil on canvas
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Jean Jovenau
Still-life with Mirror
1912
oil on canvas
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Wassily Kandinsky
Landscape
1913
oil on canvas
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Pablo Picasso
Nude Youth
1906
gouache on cardboard
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Henri Matisse
Game of Bowls
1908
oil on canvas
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Maurice Denis
Sacred Spring at Guidel
ca. 1905
oil on cardboard
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Joaquín Sorolla
Hall of the Ambassadors, Alhambra, Granada
1909
oil on canvas
Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Jean Puy
Landscape
1903
oil on canvas
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Henri Rousseau
Monument to Chopin, Luxembourg Gardens, Paris
1909
oil on canvas
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

"Long garments are odious in a little bodie," sayth Symmachus. "That garment is decently put on, which doth not sweep the dust, and is not trampled upon for hanging too much upon the ground."

Old Carved Faces in Precious Materials

Bearded Man
ivory
no date, no location
British Museum

"I shall not answer any more questions.  I shall even try not to ask myself any more.  While waiting I shall tell myself stories, if I can.  They will not be the same kind of stories as hitherto, that is all.  They will be neither beautiful nor ugly, they will be calm, there will be no ugliness or beauty or fever in them any more, they will be almost lifeless, like the teller.  What was that I said?  It does not matter.  I look forward to their giving me great satisfaction, some satisfaction.  I am satisfied, there, I have enough, I am repaid, I need nothing more.  Let me say before I go any further that I forgive nobody.  I wish them all an atrocious life and then the fires and ices of hell and in the execrable generations to come an honoured name.  Enough for this evening."

 from Malone Dies by Samuel Beckett, originally published in French in 1951, first published in the author's English translation by Grove Press in 1956

Angelo Amastini
Cameo - Pscyhe
18th century
onyx
British Museum

Bust of Socrates
lapis lazuli
no date, no location
 British Museum
bequeathed by Sir Hans Sloane

Anonymous Gem-cutter
Cameo - Bust of Young Woman
ca. 1400-1450 (cameo - Italy)
ca. 1530-50 (mount - Antwerp)
onyx cameo, gold, ruby, emerald
British Museum

John Bacon the Younger
Portrait-bust of Richard Payne Knight
1812
marble
British Museum

Anonymous English Gem-cutter
Cameo - Queen Elizabeth I 
17th century
sardonyx
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

The Lyte Jewel
Locket with Miniature portrait of
King James I by Nicolas Hilliard
1610
enameled gold, diamonds
British Museum

Roman Empire
Miniature Bust of Man in Armor
AD 235-250
carved bone
British Museum

Anonymous European jeweler
Pendant - Nereid with child
late 16th century
enameled-gold
pearls, emeralds, rubies, diamonds
British Museum

Louis François Roubiliac
 Portrait-bust of King Charles I
1759
terracotta
British Museum

Roman Empire
Cameo - Trajan and Plotina
AD 117-138
sardonyx
British Museum

Sèvres Manufactory
Bust of Denis Diderot
modeled by Marie-Anne Collot
ca. 1768
porcelain
British Museum

"Ideas of power also have their sublime aspect, but power that threatens has greater impact than power that protects. The bull is more beautiful than the cow; the horned bull that bellows more beautiful than the the bull idly at pasture; the wild horse, its mane flaying in the wind, more than the horse mounted by its rider; the wild ass more than the donkey; the tyrant more than the king; crime, perhaps, more than virtue, and cruel gods more than well-intentioned gods, as the sacred law-makers know well."

– from the Salon of 1767 by Denis Diderot, English translation by John Goodman (Yale University Press, 1995)

David Le Marchand
Relief of Louis XIV Victorious
ca. 1690-96
ivory
British Museum

Sèvres Manufactory
Busts of Voltaire and of Jean-Philippe Rameau
ca. 1767-73
porcelain
British Museum

Monday, February 27, 2017

Impressionist Personae at the Hermitage

Edgar Degas
After the bath
ca. 1895
pastel
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Edgar Degas
Woman combing her hair
ca. 1885
pastel
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

"Indeed God the maker and framer of the Universe hath in all his creatures imprinted plaine and evident footsteps of this most beautifull Harmonie, which all Artificers endeavour to follow; neither hath any Artificer without the carefull observing of this Symmetrie attained to any shew or shadow of that beauty, which by a due composition and agreement of all the parts among themselves draweth and delighteth the eyes: and this is 'that concinnitie of the bodie and due connexion of all the parts' Philostratus speaketeh of.  'For one of the members being cut away from the rest and along by it selfe, hath nothing that any man should esteeme; but all of them mutually together doe accomplish a perfect systeme, being by their communion made into a bodie, and thereto inclosed all about with the band of Harmony,' as Dionys. Longinus speaketh. 'The beautie of the bodie,' sayth Stobaeus, 'is a Symmetrie of the parts referred one to another, and all to the whole.'  Wherefore as the true pulchritude of naturall bodies is no where found, without this concinnitie of Harmonie; so the right imitation of them consisteth in the due observation of the same Proportion."

– from Book Three (chapter two) of The Painting of the Ancients by Franciscus Junius, first published in English in 1638  edited by Keith Aldrich, Philipp Fehl and Raina Fel for University of California Press, 1991

Edgar Degas
After the bath
1884
pastel
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Edgar Degas
Woman brushing her hair
1889
pastel
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Paul Cézanne
Woman in blue
ca. 1900
oil on canvas
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Paul Cézanne
Smoker
ca. 1890-92
oil on canvas
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Paul Cézanne
Girl at the Piano (Overture to Tannhäuser)
ca. 1868
oil on canvas
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Paul Cézanne
Self-portrait
ca. 1872
oil on canvas
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Paul Gauguin
Piti Teina
1892
oil on canvas
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Paul Gauguin
Conversation
1891
oil on canvas
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Vincent van Gogh
Portrait of Madame Trabuc
1889
oil on canvas
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Auguste Renoir
Woman on Staircase
1876
oil on canvas
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Auguste Renoir
Portrait of a woman
ca. 1876
oil on canvas
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Claude Monet
Woman in a garden
1876
oil on canvas
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Durable Features carved by Ancient Romans

Rome
Head of Apollo
 100 BC - AD 50
marble
British Museum
Hellenistic

Rome
Head of Apollo
100 BC - AD 50
marble
British Museum
Hellenistic

Rome
Head of Apollo
100 BC - AD 50
marble
British Museum
Hellenistic

"Then Phoibos Apollo started to consider what men he should bring in as ministers to serve him at rocky Pytho. While he was pondering this, he noticed a swift ship on the wine-faced sea, and in it were many fine men. Cretans from Cnossos the city of Minos, the ones who perform sacrifices for the god, and who announce the rulings of Phoibos Apollo of the golden sword, whatever he says when he gives his oracles from the bay tree down in the glens of Parnassus. They were sailing on business in their dark ship towards sandy Pylos and Pylos' folk. But he, Phoibos Apollo, intercepted them, and out at sea leaped onto the swift ship in the likeness of a dolphin, and lay there, a huge and fearsome beast. If any of them took it in mind to touch him, he would toss him off in any direction, shaking the ship's timbers. So they sat quiet in the ship in terror; they did not slacken the sheets along the hollow ship, or slacken the sail of the dark-prowed craft, but as they had originally rigged it, so they sailed on, with a brisk southerly speeding the vessel from astern . . . They wanted to halt the ship there and disembark to consider the wondrous creature, and see whether the beast would stay on the deck of the hollow ship or plunge off into the salt swell that teems with fish. But the well-built craft would not obey the rudder, but continued to hold its course past rich Peloponnese; the far-shooting lord Apollo was steering it effortlessly with his breath. . . . So then they sailed and they came to Crisa with its sunny vine slopes, into the harbor, and the seagoing ship grounded on the sands. There the far-shooting lord Apollo darted off the ship, looking like a star in broad daylight, with countless sparks flying off him, and the brilliance was heaven-high. He disappeared into the sanctum through the precious tripods, and there he lit a flame to manifest his divine force. The whole of Crisa was filled with the radiance, and the Crisaeans' wives and fair-girt daughters yelled aloud under Phoibos' impulse, for he had put terror into everyone. From there again he flew back to the ship, fast as thought, in the likeness of a sturdy yeoman in his first prime, his hair falling over his broad shoulders, and he addressed them in winged words  Sirs, who dwelt in wooded Cnossos before, now you will return no more to your lovely city and your fine individual homes and your dear wives: you will occupy my rich temple here, which is widely honored by men. For I am Zeus' son, I declare myself Apollo: and I brought you here over the mighty main not with any ill intent, but you are to occupy my rich temple here, which is greatly honored by all men, and you shall know the gods' intentions. By their will you shall be held in honor for all time."

– from the Hymn to Apollo translated by Martin L. West in the Loeb Classical Library volume, Homeric Hymns (Harvard University Press, 2003)

Rome
Bust of Antinous
AD 130-140
marble
British Museum
Townley Collection

Rome
Bust of Antinous
AD 130-140
marble
British Museum
Townley Collection

Rome
Head of a woman
50-30 BC
limestone
British Museum
Cleopatra-type

Rome
Bust of Demosthenes
100 BC - AD 50
marble
British Museum
after model of Polyeuktos
 
Rome
Head of Aphrodite
AD 100
marble
British Museum
after model of Pheidias

Rome
Bust of Augustus
1st century AD
marble
British Museum

Rome
Bust of Augustus
1st century AD
marble
British Museum

Rome
Bust of Aphrodite of Knidos
1st-2nd century AD
marble
British Museum
after model of Praxiteles

Rome
Bust of Faustina the Elder
2nd century AD
marble
British Museum

Rome
Portrait-head of a woman
AD 105-115
marble
British Museum

Rome
Colossal Bust of Zeus
AD 130-150
marble
British Museum
excavated at Hadrian's Villa

"Of Zeus, best and greatest of the gods, I will sing the wide-sounding ruler, the one that brings to fulfillment, who consults closely with Themis as she sits leaning against him.  Be favorable, wide-sounding son of Kronos, greatest and most glorious."