Sunday, July 16, 2017

Artistic Modern Portraits (later nineteenth century)

Vincent van Gogh
Portrait of Armand Roulin
1888
oil on canvas
Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam

Vincent van Gogh
Portrait of Joseph Roulin
1889
oil on canvas
Museum of Modern Art, New York

"Des hasards les jetèrent dans la ville d'Arles, en 1888.  Ces deux hommes si dissemblables se plurent; en tout cas l'apparence de l'un, l'aîné, plut assez à l'autre pour qu'il la pienît quatre ou cinq fois: on croit donc connaître les traits qu'il avait cette année-la, à quarante-sept ans, comme on connaît ceux de Louis XIV dans tous ses âges ou d'Innocent X en 1650; et sur ses portraits en effet il reste couvert comme un roi, il est assis come un pape, cela suffit.  On connaît aussi de sa vie quelques bricoles, qu'il serait bien étonné de voir paraître là, sous sa propre figure, dans let notes prolixes de livres très savants.  On sait par exemple que l'administration des Postes le muta à la fin de 1888 d'Arles à Marseille, avancement dû à son zèle ou rétrogradation due à ses cuites, cela on ne sait; on est sûr qu'il vit pour la dernière fois Vincent à l'hôpital d'Arles en février de l'année suivante . . ."

 from Vie de Joseph Roulin, a novel by Pierre Michon (Paris: Verdier, 1988)

[Chance placed them both in the city of Arles in 1888. These two men, lacking any resemblance, appealed to each other, or at least one of them, the elder, appealed enough for the younger to paint him four or five times: we are familiar with his features in this specific year at the age of forty-seven as we are familiar with the features of Louis XIV at every stage of his life, or with those of Innocent X in 1650; thus in Van Gogh's portraits Roulin retains his hat, like a king; sits in state, like a pope. We have a few other bits and pieces of information  things he'd be astonished to see printed beneath his own image among the copious notes in scholarly books. We know for example that the Postal Administration transferred him at the end of 1888 from Arles to Marseilles, though whether this was a promotion due to zeal or a punishment for slackness we don't know; and we know that he saw Vincent for the last time in the hospital at Arles in February of the following year . . .]

Auguste Renoir
Portrait of Claude Monet
1875
oil on canvas
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Auguste Renoir
Portrait of a woman, called Madame Georges Hartmann
1874
oil on canvas
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Edward Poynter
Portrait of Eliza Eastlake
1864
oil on canvas
Yale Center for British Art

John Singer Sargent
Portrait of Mrs Joshua Montgomery Sears (Sarah Choate Sears)
1899
oil on canvas
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

John Singer Sargent
Portrait of Mrs Raphael Pumpelly
1887
oil on canvas
Berkshire Museum, Massachusetts

Joaquín Sorolla
Portrait of Agustín Otermín
1892
oil on canvas
Fundación Banco Santander, Madrid

Joaquín Sorolla
Portrait of a man
1899
oil on canvas
Fundación Banco Santander, Madrid

Edgar Degas
Portrait of Mary Cassatt
ca. 1880-81
oil on canvas
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

"We asked Degas his opinion about the picture; he considers it the finest work that Mary Cassatt ever did; he says it contains all her qualities and is particularly characteristic of her talents." 

Durand-Ruel did not know, however, what Degas had told the artist. Mary Cassatt herself relayed to Louisine his exact words, and Louisine recorded them in her Memoirs

"When he saw my Boy before the Mirror he said to Durand-Ruel: 'Where is she?  I must see her at once. It is the greatest picture of the century.' When I saw him he went over all the details of the picture with me and expressed great admiration for it, and then, as if regretting what he had said, he relentlessly added: 'It has all your qualities and all your faults  c'est l'Enfant Jésus et sa bonne anglaise [it's the Baby Jesus and his English nurse].'"

– from The Havemeyers: Impressionism Comes to America by Frances Weitzenhoffer (New York: Abrams, 1986)

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Portrait of Frederick Wenz
ca. 1886-90
oil on canvas
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

William Holman Hunt
Portrait of Dante Gabriel Rossetti at 22 years of age
1882-83
oil on panel
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery

Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Portrait of young man
1853
drawing
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery

Gustave Caillebotte
Portrait of Henri Cordier 
1883
oil on canvas
Musée d'Orsay, Paris