Saturday, August 26, 2017

Painted Nineteenth Century (European, First Half)

Benjamin West
Apotheosis of Nelson
1807
oil on canvas
Yale Center for British Art

DIRGE ON THE DEATH OF LORD NELSON

Why o'er the dark and troubled deep
     Is heard at times a mournful noise;
While Victors midst their triumphs weep,
     The vanquish'd in their fall rejoice!

Why burst the sobs of yonder Tars,
     But now triumphant o'er the foe;
Unmindful of their gory scars,
     Their tears that now first learn to flow?

For NELSON'S death their tears are shed,
     And grief alone their thoughts employs;
Ev'n Vict'ry's self reclines her head,
     And weeping checks her wonted joys.

Thy deeds, great Chief, shall be the theme,
     Afar on Ganges' hallow'd shores;
While Niagara's lightening stream,
     Thy dreaded name in thunder roars.

Stern MARS, as 'midst the fight he raves,
     Shall ev'ry dreadful peal prolong;
And NEPTUNE roll his gory waves,
     To sound their fav'rite's fun'ral song.

And while on high her Warrior's tomb
     Thy weeping country grateful rears;
Thy laurels o'er it e'er shall bloom,
     Still water'd by a Nation's tears.

 published anonymously in The Morning Chronicle, November 8, 1805

Paul Sandby
The Artist's Studio, Bayswater
ca. 1800-1809
oil on panel
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg
View north of Kronborg Castle, Denmark
ca. 1810
oil on canvas
Hirschsprung Collection, Copenhagen

Felice Giani
Design for ceiling decoration with Aurora
ca. 1810-1820-
watercolor
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Jacques-Louis David
The Anger of Achilles
1819
oil on canvas
Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

Ernst Ferdinand Oehme
Scharfenberg Castle at night
1827
oil on canvas
Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin

Thought chang'd the infinite to a serpent, that which pitieth
To a devouring flame, and man fled from its face and hid
In forests of night: then all the eternal forests were divided
Into earths rolling in circles of space, that like an ocean rush'd
And overwhelmed all except this finite wall of flesh.
Then was the serpent temple form'd, image of infinite
Shut up in finite revolutions, and man became an Angel,
Heaven a mighty circle turning, God a tyrant crown'd.

– William Blake, from Europe: A Prophecy

Alexandre Charles Guillemot
Mars and Venus surprised by Vulcan
1827
oil on canvas
Indianapolis Museum of Art

Johann Erdmann Hummel
Granite Basin in Berlin Lustgarten
1831
oil on canvas
Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin

Wilhelm von Kobell
Riders at the Tegernsee
1832
oil on panel
Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin

William Hilton
Cupid Armed
ca. 1833
oil on panel
Yale Center for British Art

Giuseppe Molteni
Rebecca
ca. 1835
oil on canvas
Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
Ville d'Avray
ca. 1835-40
oil on canvas
Bridgestone Museum of Art, Tokyo

Constantin Hansen
Arch of Titus, Rome
1839
oil on paper, mounted on canvas
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

Christian Albrecht Jensen
Portrait of Cathrine Jensen née Lorenzen, the artist's wife
ca. 1842-44
oil on canvas
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen