Jean-Étienne Liotard

Jean-Étienne Liotard
Portrait of Anne-Germaine Larrivée,
Madame Paul-Louis Girardot de Vermenoux
ca. 1775
pastel on vellum
Cabinet d'Arts Graphiques
des Musées d'Art et d'Histoire, Genève

Jean-Étienne Liotard
Woman with Hyacinths
ca. 1750-60
pastel on vellum
Cabinet d'Arts Graphiques
des Musées d'Art et d'Histoire, Genève

Jean-Étienne Liotard
Miniature of Laura Tarsi, a Grecian Lady
ca. 1745-50
watercolor and gouache on ivory
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Jean-Étienne Liotard
Frankish Woman of Pera in Constantinople
ca. 1750
pastel on paper
Cabinet d'Arts Graphiques
des Musées d'Art et d'Histoire, Genève

Jean-Étienne Liotard
Frankish Woman and her Servant
1750
oil on canvas
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City

Jean-Étienne Liotard
Portrait of Ekaterina Mavrocordato,
Princess of Moldova
1742-43
drawing (red and black chalk)
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Jean-Étienne Liotard
Portrait of Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor
1762
pastel on vellum
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Jean-Étienne Liotard
Portrait of Maria Theresa, Holy Roman Empress
1762
pastel on vellum
Cabinet d'Arts Graphiques
des Musées d'Art et d'Histoire, Genève

Jean-Étienne Liotard
Portrait of Maria Theresa, Holy Roman Empress
1762
pastel on vellum
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Jean-Étienne Liotard
Portrait of Madame Sophie of France
ca. 1762
pastel on vellum
Cabinet d'Arts Graphiques
des Musées d'Art et d'Histoire, Genève

Jean-Étienne Liotard
Portrait of Johanne Salome von der Asseburg
1748
pastel on vellum
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Jean-Étienne Liotard
Portrait of Jeanne-Marie Liotard
ca. 1745
pastel on vellum
Cabinet d'Arts Graphiques
des Musées d'Art et d'Histoire, Genève

Jean-Étienne Liotard
Portrait of Madame Marc Liotard de la Servette,
née Marianne Sarasin
1775
pastel and gouache on paper, mounted on canvas
Cabinet d'Arts Graphiques
des Musées d'Art et d'Histoire, Genève

Jean-Étienne Liotard
Self Portrait
ca. 1781
mezzotint
Graphische Sammlung, Zentralbibliothek Zürich

Jean-Étienne Liotard
Portrait of the artist's wife Marie Gargues
and their daughter Marie-Jeanne
ca. 1768
watercolor and charcoal on paper
Cabinet d'Arts Graphiques
des Musées d'Art et d'Histoire, Genève

Jean-Étienne Liotard
Divan in Liotard's Rooms in Constantinople
ca. 1738-42
drawing
Cabinet d'Arts Graphiques des Musées d'Art et d'Histoire,Genève

Nobody knew this better than Ruskin, the propagator of the theory of the innocent eye.  Indeed I know of no clearer analysis of what is here involved in the painter's art than another paragraph from Ruskin's little manual:  "While form is absolute, so that you can say at the moment you draw any line that it is either right or wrong, colour is wholly relative.  Every hue throughout your work is altered by every touch that you add in other places; so that what was warm a minute ago, becomes cold when you have put a hotter colour in another place, and what was in harmony when you left it, becomes discordant as you set other colours beside it; so that every touch must be laid, not with a view to its effect at the time, but with a view to its effect in futurity, the result upon it of all that is afterwards to be done being previously considered.  You may easily understand that, this being so, nothing but the devotion of life, and great genius besides, can make a colourist."  

In stressing this need for the imitator of nature to hold the effect of all elements upon each other simultaneously in his mind, Ruskin has, without realizing it, amended his own theory of childlike vision.  For this mental act rests on knowledge of how colors will affect each other.  In fact, it demands a willingness to use a pigment which in isolation still looks unlike the area to be matched in order that it may look like it in the end.  This power, I believe, is not only independent of the eye, or the image on the retina, it has also very little to do with visual memory.  There are psychological types, we are told, who can hold a visual impression for quite some time after it has vanished from their eyes.  They keep something like a color photograph in their minds, even when closing their eyes.  Obviously such a faculty may be useful for a painter who wants to memorize a scene and who can devote more time to painting than to looking.  But the claims that have been made for this so-called "eidetic faculty" in relation to art seem to me as unfounded as are those for the innocent eye.  For we have seen that even the humble task of copying nature facsimilewise presents difficulties of a much higher order than those of remembering.  Whether the artist has his prototype in front of him or "in his mind" can make little difference here.  That power of holding on to an image that Ruskin describes so admirably is not the power of the eidetic; it is that faculty of keeping a large number of relationships present in one's mind that distinguishes all mental achievement, be it that of the chess player, the composer, or the great artist.

 

– E.H. Gombrich, Art and Illusion: a Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation (Princeton University Press, 1960)

Rudolf von Alt

Rudolf von Alt
Garden Room, Palais Rasumofsky on Landstrasse, Vienna
1845
watercolor on paper
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Rudolf von Alt
Salon, Palais Rasumofsky on Landstrasse, Vienna
1836
watercolor on paper
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Rudolf von Alt
Study, Palais Rasumofsky on Landstrasse, Vienna
1842
watercolor on paper
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Rudolf von Alt
Salon, Palais Liechtenstein on Herrengasse, Vienna
1837
watercolor on paper
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Rudolf von Alt
Bedroom, Palais Liechtenstein on Herrengasse, Vienna
1837
watercolor on paper
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Rudolf von Alt
Salon, Liechtenstein Residence on the Jägerzeile, Vienna
1842
watercolor on paper
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Rudolf von Alt
Interior, Liechtenstein Residence on the Jägerzeile, Vienna
1845
watercolor on paper
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Rudolf von Alt
House of Prince Liechtenstein
in Bauernmarkt, Vienna
1846
watercolor on paper
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Rudolf von Alt
Landhaus and Zeughaus, Graz
1885
watercolor on paper
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Rudolf von Alt
Staircase in the Upper Belvedere, Vienna
1882
watercolor on paper
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Rudolf von Alt
Gothic Oriel Windows, Klosterneuburg Abbey near Vienna
1841
watercolor on paper
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Rudolf von Alt
Library, Schloss Eisgrub
(formerly in Austria, now in the Czech Republic)
1852
watercolor on paper
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Rudolf von Alt
Small Marble Salon, Schloss Feldsberg
(formerly in Austria, now in the Czech Republic)
1845
watercolor on paper
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Rudolf von Alt
Blue Salon, Schloss Feldsberg
(formerly in Austria, now in the Czech Republic)
1845
watercolor on paper
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Rudolf von Alt
Gun Room, Schloss Feldsberg
(formerly in Austria, now in the Czech Republic)
1845
watercolor on paper
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Rudolf von Alt
Self Portrait
1883
watercolor on paper
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

We have seen that we enjoy nothing more than the demand made on us to exercise our own "imitative faculty," our imagination, and thus to share in the creative adventure of the artist.  But if this pleasure is to be felt, the transformation must not be so easy as to be automatic.  The further illusionist skill advanced, the more frequently we therefore hear of the difference between a work of art and the mere trick of deception.  In 1823 the great neoclassical critic, Quatremère de Quincy, devoted a whole book to this important distinction.   Our pleasure in illusion, he insisted, rests precisely in the mind's effort in bridging the difference between art and reality.  This very pleasure is destroyed when the illusion is too complete. "When the painter packs a vast expanse into a narrow space, when he leads me across the depths of the infinite on a flat surface, and makes the air circulate . . . I love to abandon myself to his illusions, but I want the frame to be there, I want to know that what I see is actually nothing but a canvas or a simple plane."  

These demands have been echoed ever since in French art criticism.  They formed the basis of the aesthetics of Puvis de Chavannes and his Swiss follower Hodler and were given their most famous formulation in the injunction by Maurice Denis to the Nabis: "Remember that a picture, before being a battle horse, a nude woman, or some anecdote, is essentially a plane surface covered with paint in a certain arrangement."  It is a fact not very difficult to remember for those who are engaged in storing paintings or packing them into trunks.  But is it possible to "see" both the plane surface and the battle horse at the same time?  If we have been right so far, the demand is for the impossible.  To understand the battle horse is for a moment to disregard the plane surface.  We cannot have it both ways.  

– E.H. Gombrich, Art and Illusion: a Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation (Princeton University Press, 1960)

Contrived

Macrino d'Alba (Gian Giacomo d'Alladio)
Adoration of the Child with Angels, Saints and Donor
1505
tempera on panel
Galleria Sabauda, Turin

Daniel Hopfer
Interior of Church of St Katharina in Augsburg
with the Parable of the Widow's Mite
ca. 1510
etching
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna

Peeter Neeffs the Younger
Interior of Antwerp Cathedral
ca. 1660
oil on panel
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Cornelia Pabst
Interior of the Church at Harderwijk
1917
oil on canvas
Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands

Gian Paolo Panini
Interior of the Pantheon, Rome
1735
oil on canvas
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Wenceslaus Hollar
Garter Feast in the Time of Charles I
1672
etching (book illustration)
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Adolph Menzel
Coronation of Kaiser Wilhelm I
1864
gouache on paper
(sketch for painting)
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Lorenzo Sacchetti
Stage Design
ca. 1781-84
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

François de Nomé
Palatial Interior
1620
oil on canvas
Museum de Fundatie, Zwolle, Netherlands

Donat Hübschmann
Arch for Triumphal Entry of Emperor Maximilian II into Vienna
1563
woodcut
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Gaetano Gandolfi
Marriage at Cana
ca. 1770-80
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Giuseppe Galli-Bibiena
Fantastic Arcade with Figures
before 1757
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Cigoli (Lodovico Cardi)
Compositional Study for Pentecost
ca. 1600-1610
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Rudolf von Alt
Staircase of the Vienna Court Opera
1873
watercolor and gouache on paper
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

workshop of Daniel Hopfer
Christ and the Woman taken in Adultery
before 1536
etching
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Joseph Höger
Interior of the Grenzschloss
1839
watercolor on paper
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Vasari returns to this problem in his discussion of Titian's late manner. "Certainly his way of procedure in these last works differs greatly from that of his youth, for the early works are executed with a certain refinement and an incredible industry so that they can be seen at close quarters and from afar, while his last ones are executed with crudely daubed strokes and blobs in such a way that one sees nothing at close quarters, though they look perfect from a distance.  That was the reason why many who wanted to imitate him in this to show themselves practiced masters have made crude paintings, for though it may seem that such paintings are done without effort, this is not true at all."

Titian's late manner became proverbial in the theory of art because of this magic of transformation.  Lomazzo tells of a visit by Aurelio Luini to the workshop of the aged master: "There he saw a miraculous landscape painting which at first glance appeared to Aurelio a mere daub, but when he stepped far back it looked to him as if the sun shone inside and made the roads recede here and there."

Vasari's influential book carried the message to the North that the traditional method of meticulous care in the finish of paintings was only one of two possible approaches.  In his didactic poem on the art of painting, which was written about 1600, Carel van Mander translated Vasari's account of Titian's manners into a rhymed stanza and continued: "And herewith, apprentices, I wanted to place before your eyes two perfect manners toward which you may now guide your path according to your bent, but I should still advise you to begin by applying yourselves to the neat manner."   

The Dutch connoisseur who had read his van Mander would therefore know there was a place in the kingdom of art for both Dou with his painstaking attention to smooth finish, and for Frans Hals or the late Rembrandt.  One of Rembrandt's few utterances about his art that have been preserved proclaims his adherence to the second manner: "Don't poke your nose into my pictures," he is reported to have said, "the smell of paint will poison you."

– E.H. Gombrich, Art and Illusion: a Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation (Princeton University Press, 1960)

Elegy

Paris Bordone
Flora
1540
oil on canvas
Musée du Louvre

John Dugdale
Sheep
1993
platinum print (gift of Maurice Sendak)
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Charlotte Bosanquet
Hall at Vinters, Maidstone, Kent
1843
watercolor on paper
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Robert Motherwell
Elegy to the Spanish Republic #1
1948
ink on paper
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Paris Bordone
Portrait of a Man
ca. 1530-35
oil on canvas
Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence

John Dugdale
Untitled
1993
platinum print (gift of Maurice Sendak)
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Charlotte Bosanquet
Lady Cullam's Morning Room
1842
watercolor on paper
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Robert Motherwell
Elegy to the Spanish Republic #54
1957-61
oil on canvas
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Paris Bordone
Mythological Scene
ca. 1530-40
oil on panel
Barber Institute of Fine Arts, University of Birmingham, West Midlands

John Dugdale
Untitled
1993
platinum print (gift of Maurice Sendak)
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Charlotte Bosanquet
Paneled Drawing Room at Foscourt
1849
watercolor on paper
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Robert Motherwell
Elegy to the Spanish Republic #57
1957-61
oil on canvas
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Paris Bordone
Salvator Mundi
ca. 1540-50
oil on canvas
Accademia Carrara, Bergamo

John Dugdale
Untitled
1993
platinum print (gift of Maurice Sendak)
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Charlotte Bosanquet
Staircase at Beaurepaire
1843
watercolor on paper
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Robert Motherwell
Elegy to the Spanish Republic #108
1965-67
oil on canvas
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Paris Bordone
Virgin and Child with St John the Baptist and St George
ca. 1530
oil on canvas
Pushkin Museum, Moscow

Orpheus

What does the song hope for? And the moved hands

A little way from the birds, the shy, the delightful?

            To be bewildered and happy,

            Or most of all the knowledge of life?

But the beautiful are content with the sharp notes of the air;

The warmth is enough. O if winter really,

            Oppose, if the weak snowflake,

            What will the wish, what will the dance do? 

– W.H. Auden (1937)