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ART “4” “2”-DAY   07 December
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DEATH: 1709 HOBBEMA
BIRTHS: 1756 SPAENDONCK — 1894 DAVIS — 1598 BERNINI
^ Born on 07 December 1756: Cornelis van Spaendonck, French painter who died in January 1840.
— Still Life of Flowers (1793, 79x63cm) _ Cornelis van Spaendonck was born in the Dutch city of Tilburg, but by the age of seventeen he had followed his older brother Gerardus, also a gifted still life artist, to Paris, where they both enjoyed long and successful careers. Cornelis, for example, was director of the great Sèvres porcelain works. In this painting there is technical virtuosity and finish. Its lush cornucopia of flowers spilling over the canvas may have some symbolism, for example, in the echo of the poppy on the left, the symbol of sleep, in the sleeping figures in relief on the right. But the dominant feeling is enjoyment of nature's generosity and the artist's skill.
just kidding!!! click for REAL self-portrait^ Born on 07 December 1894: Stuart Davis [self~portrait >], US Abstract painter who died 24 June 1964.
— He grew up in an artistic environment, for his father was art director of a Philadelphia newspaper, who had employed Luks, Glackens, and other members of the Eight. He studied with Robert Henri 1910-13, made covers and drawings for the social realist periodical The Masses, which was associated with the Ash-can School, and exhibited watercolors in the Armory Show, which made an overwhelming impact on him. After a visit to Paris in 1928-29 he introduced a new note into US Cubism, basing himself on its Synthetic rather than its Analytical phase. Using natural forms, particularly forms suggesting the characteristic environment of American life, he rearranged them into flat poster-like patterns with precise outlines and sharply contrasting colors (House and Street, 1931). He later went over to pure abstract patterns, into which he often introduced lettering, suggestions of advertisements, posters, etc. (Owh! in San Pao, 1951). The zest and dynamism of such works reflect his interest in jazz. Davis is generally considered to be the outstanding American artist to work in a Cubist idiom. He made witty and original use of it and created a distinctive American style, for however abstract his works became he always claimed that every image he used had its source in observed reality: `I paint what I see in America, in other words I paint the American Scene.' [was he legally blind?]
— LINKS
— Self~Portrait (1919) — Ivy League (1953 screenprint 13x20cm) — Untitled [because uninteresting?] (color screenprint 28x36cm) — Report from Rockport (1940, 61x76cm) — The Mellow Pad (1951, 66x107cm) — Rapt at Rapport's (1952) — Night Life (1962) — Untitled (Male and Female Figures) clothed (1914) — Detail Study for Cliché (1957)
^ Died on 07 December 1709: Meindert Hobbema, Dutch painter born in 1638.
— Dutch painter. Hobbema is second only to his teacher, Jacob van Ruisdael, as a Dutch landscape painter. His favorite subject matter was the wooded countryside; his scenes include villages, farmhouses, tree-shaded streams, and, especially, water mills. Hobbema's large, luminous compositions feature a masterly draftsmanship and painstaking detail; his palette tends to be subdued.
      Much of his work was completed before 1668, when he married and, with the help of his wife, received an appointment as a municipal tax official. Hobbema's work did not achieve full recognition until after his death, when his superbly organized, tranquil scenes, such as his Avenue at Middleharnis (1689) and Water Mill with a Red Roof (circa 1670, Art Institute of Chicago), were appreciated as the final masterpieces of the Dutch landscape tradition in painting. — LINKS
— A Water mill, (1667) — Landscape with a Washerwoman (47x64cm)
— The Alley at Middelharnis (1689, 104x141cm) _ Hobbema painted a narrow range of favorite subjects over and over again. In 1668 he became a wine gauger with the Amsterdam customs and excise, and thereafter seems to have painted only in his spare time. His new position, which he held until the end of his life, probably accounts for the slackening and a certain unevenness in his production during his late decades. A few works of this later period show his compositions broken up into too many detailed areas. The trees acquire an almost linear sharpness, and the pictorial effect hardens.
      Yet there are some notable exceptions, one of which almost seems a miracle, because in this work Hobbema not only revives his old grandeur, but surpasses himself as a composer and painter of the Dutch countryside. This is the rightly famous The Alley at Middelharnis. It does not take away from the glory of this picture that there are precedents in Dutch landscape painting that date back for the first decades of the century for the conception of a strongly foreshortened road lined with trees in a wide flat landscape.
      Hobbema altered earlier schemes by centralizing the whole composition, focusing interest on the middle and far distance as well as the immediate foreground with its uncultivated grove on one side and an orderly arrangement of saplings on the other, and by the unprecedented height of the lopped, thin trees which carry interest to the towering sky (regrettably, the sky was extensively damaged before 1871; much of its paint surface is the work of modern restorers). The painting offers a topographically accurate view of the village of Middelharnis on the island of Over Flakee (Province of South Holland) in the mouth of the Maas; the view of the village from the Steene Weg (formerly Boomgaardweg) looks much the same today. This masterpiece is the swan song of Holland's great period of landscape painting which fully deserves its high reputation.
— Landscape — Road on a Dyke (1663, 108x128cm) — The Travelers — The Water Mill (60x85cm) — The Water Mill (1665, 80x66cm) — The Water Mill (1667, 77x111cm) — Wooded Landscape with Water Mill (1664) — A Wooded Landscape (1664, 56x50cm)
^ Born on 07 December 1598: Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Italy, greatest Baroque sculptor in Italy, also an architect, painter, and dramatist, the last of Italy's remarkable series of universal geniuses. He died on 28 November 1680.
— Cet architecte dit "Le Cavalier Bernin "est aussi peintre et sculpteur. On lui doit, sous la Renaissance la grande colonnade de Saint Pierre à Rome (1656-1657). Il fut appelé en France par Louis XIV pour achever le Louvre, mais ses plans furent refusés.
— Bernini is the single most important artistic talent of the Italian baroque. Although most significant as a sculptor, he was also highly gifted as an architect; painter; draftsman; designer of stage sets, fireworks displays, and funeral trappings; and playwright. His art is the quintessence of high baroque energy and robustness. In sculpture his ability to suggest textures of skin or cloth as well as to capture emotion and movement was uncanny. Bernini reformed a number of sculptural genres, including the portrait bust, the fountain, and the tomb. His influence was widespread throughout the 17th and 18th centuries and was felt by such masters as Pierre Puget from France, the Italian Pietro Bracci, and the German Andreas Schlüter.
      The life of Bernini was dominated by his work, and his biography is defined by the immense number of projects he undertook. His career developed almost entirely in Rome, although he was born in Naples. His father, Pietro Bernini, a talented sculptor of the late Mannerist style, was his son's first teacher. Young Gian Lorenzo soon surpassed his father in excellence, however. Many of Bernini's early sculptures were inspired by Hellenistic art. The Goat Amalthea Nursing the Infant Zeus and a Young Satyr (redated 1609) typifies the classical taste of the youthful sculptor. Group sculptures by earlier masters such as Giambologna were noted for their Mannerist multiple views. Bernini's groups of the 1620s, however, such as the Abduction of Proserpina (1622) present the spectator with a single primary view while sacrificing none of the drama inherent in the scene.
      From the 1620s also date Bernini's first architectural projects, the façade for the church of Santa Bibiana (1626), Rome, and the creation of the magnificent baldachin (1633), or altar canopy, over the high altar of Saint Peter's Basilica. The latter commission was given to Bernini by Pope Urban VIII, the first of seven pontiffs for whom he worked. This project, a masterful feat of engineering, architecture, and sculpture, was the first of a number of monumental undertakings for St. Peter's. Bernini later created the tombs of Urban VIII (1647) and Alexander VII (1678) that, in their use of active three-dimensional figures, differ markedly from the purely architectural approach to the sepulchral monument taken by previous artists. Bernini's immense Cathedra Petri (1666), in the apse of St. Peter's, employs marble, gilt bronze, and stucco in a splendid crescendo of motion, made all the more dramatic by the golden oval window in its center that becomes the focal point of the entire basilica.
      Bernini was the first sculptor to realize the dramatic potential of light in a sculptural complex. This was even more fully realized in his famous masterpiece Ecstasy of Saint Teresa (1652), in which the sun's rays, coming from an unseen source, illuminate the swooning saint and the smiling angel about to pierce her heart with a golden arrow. Bernini's numerous busts also carry an analogous sense of persuasive dramatic realism, be they allegorical busts such as the Damned Soul and Blessed Soul (both 1619), or portraits such as those of Cardinal Scipione Borghese (1632) or Louis XIV of France (1665).
      Bernini's secular architecture included designs for several palaces: Palazzo Ludovisi (now Palazzo Montecitorio, 1650) and Palazzo Chigi (1664), in Rome, and an unexecuted design for the Louvre presented to Louis XIV in 1665, when Bernini spent five months in Paris.
      He did not begin to design churches until he was 60 years old, but his three efforts in ecclesiastical architecture are significant. His church at Castelgandolfo (1661) employs a Greek cross, and his church at Ariccia (1664), a circle plan. His third church is his greatest. Sant' Andrea al Quirinale (1670) in Rome was constructed on an oval plan with an ovoid porch extending beyond the facade, echoing the interior rhythms of the building. The interior, decorated with dark, multicolored marble, has a dramatic oval dome of white and gold.
      Also dating from the 1660s are the Scala Regia (1666), connecting the papal apartments in the Vatican Palace to St. Peter's, and the magnificent Piazza San Pietro (designed 1667), framing the approach to the basilica in a dynamic ovular space formed by two vast semicircular colonnades. Bernini's most outstanding fountain group is in the spectacular Fountain of the Four Rivers (1651) in the Piazza Navona. Bernini remained a vital and active artist virtually up to the last day of his life. His final work, Bust of the Savior, presents a withdrawn and restrained image of Christ indicative of what is now known to have been Bernini's calm and resigned attitude toward death.
^
— Bernini was perhaps the greatest sculptor of the 17th century and an outstanding architect as well. Bernini created the Baroque style of sculpture and developed it to such an extent that other artists are of only minor importance in a discussion of that style.
      Bernini's career began under his father, Pietro Bernini, a Florentine sculptor of some talent who ultimately moved to Rome. The young prodigy worked so diligently that he earned the praise of the painter Annibale Carracci and the patronage of Pope Paul V and soon established himself as a wholly independent sculptor. He was strongly influenced by his close study of the antique Greek and Roman marbles in the Vatican, and he also had an intimate knowledge of High Renaissance painting of the early 16th century. His study of Michelangelo is revealed in the Saint Sebastian (1617), carved for Cardinal Maffeo Barberini, who was later Pope Urban VIII and Bernini's greatest patron.
      Bernini's early works attracted the attention of Cardinal Scipione Borghese, a member of the reigning papal family. Under his patronage, Bernini carved his first important life-size sculptural groups. The series shows Bernini's progression from the almost haphazard single view of Aeneas, Anchises and Ascanius Fleeing Troy (1619) to strong frontality in Pluto and Proserpina (1622) and then to the hallucinatory vision of Apollo and Daphne (1624), which was intended to be viewed from one spot as if it were a relief. In his David (1624), Bernini depicts the figure casting a stone at an unseen adversary. Several portrait busts that Bernini executed during this period, including that of Cardinal Robert Bellarmine (1624), show a new awareness of the relationship between head and body and display an ability to depict fleeting facial expressions with acute realism. These marble works show an unparalleled virtuosity in carving that obdurate material to achieve the delicate effects usually found only in bronze sculptures. Bernini's sensual awareness of the surface textures of skin and hair and his novel sense of shading broke with the tradition of Michelangelo and marked the emergence of a new period in the history of Western sculpture.
     With the pontificate of Urban VIII (1623-44), Bernini entered a period of enormous productivity and artistic development. Urban VIII urged his protégé to paint and to practice architecture. His first architectural work was the remodeled Church of Santa Bibiana in Rome. At the same time, Bernini was commissioned to build a symbolic structure over the tomb of Saint Peter in Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome. The result is the famous immense gilt-bronze baldachin executed between 1624 and 1633. Its twisted columns derive from the early Christian columns that had been used in the altar screen of Old Saint Peter's. Bernini's most original contribution to the final work is the upper framework of crowning volutes flanked by four angels that supports the orb and cross. The baldachin is perfectly proportioned to its setting, and one hardly realizes that it is as tall as a four-story building. Its lively outline moving upward to the triumphant crown, its dark colour heightened with burning gold, give it the character of a living organism. An unprecedented fusion of sculpture and architecture, the baldachin is the first truly Baroque monument. It ultimately formed the center of a programmatic decoration designed by Bernini for the interior of Saint Peter's.
      Bernini next supervised the decoration of the four piers supporting the dome of Saint Peter's with colossal statues, though only one of the latter, Saint Longinus, was designed by him. He also made a series of portrait busts of Urban VIII, but the first bust to achieve the quality of his earlier portraits is that of his great patron, Cardinal Scipione Borghese (1632). The cardinal is shown in the act of speaking and moving, and the action is caught at a moment that seems to reveal all the characteristic qualities of the subject.
      Bernini's architectural duties increased after the death of Carlo Maderno in 1629, when Bernini became architect of Saint Peter's and of the Palazzo Barberini. By this time he was not only executing works himself but also having to rely on assistance from others as the number of his commissions grew. He was successful in organizing his studio and planning his work so that sculptures and ornamentations produced by a team actually seem to be all of a piece. Bernini's work, then and always, was also shaped by his fervent Roman Catholicism (he attended mass every day and took communion twice a week). He would agree with the formulations of the Council of Trent (1545-63) that the purpose of religious art was to teach and inspire the faithful and to serve as propaganda for the Roman Catholic church. Religious art should always be intelligible and realistic, and, above all, it should serve as an emotional stimulus to piety. The development of Bernini's religious art was largely determined by his conscientious efforts to conform to those principles.
      Under Urban VIII Bernini began to produce new and different kinds of monuments - tombs and fountains. The tomb of Urban VIII (1647) shows the pope seated with his arm raised in a commanding gesture, while below him are two white marble figures representing the Virtues. Bernini also designed a revolutionary series of small tomb memorials, of which the most impressive is that of Maria Raggi (1643). But his fountains are his most obvious contribution to the city of Rome. His first, the Barcaccia in the Piazza di Spagna (1627-29), is analogous to the baldachin in its fusion of sculpture and architecture. The Triton Fountain in the Piazza Barberini (1642-43) is a dramatic transformation of a Roman architectonic fountain - the superposed basins of the traditional geometric piazza fountain appearing to have come alive. Four dolphins raise a huge shell supporting the sea god, who blows water upward out of a conch.
      Bernini's early architectural projects, however, were not invariably successful. In 1637 he began to erect campaniles, or bell towers, over the facade of Saint Peter's. But, in 1646, when their weight began to crack the building, they were pulled down, and Bernini was temporarily disgraced. Patronage of Innocent X and Alexander VII
      Bernini's most spectacular public monuments date from the mid-1640s to the 1660s. The Fountain of the Four Rivers in Rome's Piazza Navona (1651) supports an ancient Egyptian obelisk over a hollowed-out rock, surmounted by four marble figures symbolizing four major rivers of the world. This fountain is one of his most spectacular works.
      The greatest single example of Bernini's mature art is the Cornaro Chapel in Santa Maria della Vittoria, in Rome, which completes the evolution begun early in his career. The chapel, commissioned by Cardinal Federigo Cornaro, is in a shallow transept in the small church. Its focal point is his sculpture of The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa (1645-52), a depiction of a mystical experience of the great Spanish Carmelite reformer Teresa of Ávila. In representing Teresa's vision, during which an angel pierced her heart with a fiery arrow of divine love, Bernini followed Teresa's own description of the event. The sculptured group, showing the transported saint swooning in the void, covered by cascading drapery, is revealed in celestial light within a niche over the altar, where the architectural and decorative elements are richly joined and articulated. At left and right, in spaces resembling opera boxes, numerous members of the Cornaro family are found in spirited postures of conversation, reading, or prayer. The Cornaro Chapel carries Bernini's ideal of a three-dimensional picture to its apex. The figures of Saint Teresa and the angel are sculptured in white marble, but the viewer cannot tell whether they are in the round or merely in high relief. The natural daylight that falls on the figures from a hidden source above and behind them is part of the group, as are the gilt rays behind. The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa is not sculpture in the conventional sense. Instead, it is a framed pictorial scene made up of sculpture, painting, and light that also includes the worshiper in a religious drama. In his later years, the growing desire to control the environments of his statuary led Bernini to concentrate more and more on architecture. Of the churches he designed after completing the Cornaro Chapel, the most impressive is that of Sant'Andrea al Quirinale (1658-70) in Rome, with its dramatic high altar, soaring dome, and unconventionally sited oval plan. But Bernini's greatest architectural achievement is the colonnade enclosing the piazza before Saint Peter's Basilica. The chief function of the large space was to hold the crowd that gathered for the papal benediction on Easter and other special occasions. Bernini planned a huge oval attached to the church by a trapezoidal forecourt - forms that he compared to the encircling arms of the mother church. The freestanding colonnades were a novel solution to the need for a penetrable enclosure. The piazza guides the visitor toward the church and counterbalances the overly wide facade of Saint Peter's. Bernini's oval encloses a space centred on the Vatican obelisk, which had been moved before the church by Sixtus V in 1586. Bernini moved an older fountain by Maderno into the long axis of the piazza and built a twin on the other side to make a scenographic whole. The analogies to Bernini's oval plan of Sant'Andrea al Quirinale are fascinating, as are the differences in meaning and function.
      Bernini's most spectacular religious decoration is the Throne of Saint Peter, or the Cathedra Petri (1666), a gilt-bronze cover for the medieval wooden throne (cathedra) of the pope. Bernini's task was not only to make a decorative cover for the chair but also to create a meaningful goal in the apse of Saint Peter's for the pilgrim's journey through the great church. The seat is seemingly supported by four imposing bronze figures representing theological doctors of the early church: Saints Ambrose, Athanasius, John Chrysostom, and Augustine. Above, a golden glory of angels on clouds and rays of light emanates from the Dove of the Holy Spirit, which is painted on an oval window. The cathedra was produced about the same time as the piazza, and the contrast between these two works shows Bernini's versatility. Both works were done for the Chigi pope, Alexander VII (1655-67), who was one of Bernini's greatest patrons. The tomb that Bernini designed for Alexander VII (1678) was largely executed by his pupils.
      In addition to his large works, Bernini continued to produce a few portrait busts. The first of these, of Francesco I d'Este, duke of Modena (1651), culminates his revolution in portraiture. Much of the freedom and spontaneity of the bust of Cardinal Scipione Borghese is kept, but it is united with a heroic pomp and grandiose movement that portray the ideals of the Baroque age as much as the man.
      Bernini went to Paris in 1665, in what was his only prolonged absence from Rome. The trip was made in response to invitations that for many years had been extended to him by King Louis XIV, and the purpose was the design of a new French royal residence. By this time, Bernini was so famous that crowds lined the streets of each city along the route to watch him pass. His initial reception in Paris was equally triumphant, but he soon offended his sensitive hosts by imperiously praising the art and architecture of Italy at the expense of that of France. His statements made him unpopular at the French court and were to some degree responsible for the rejection of his designs for the Louvre. The only relic of Bernini's visit to France is his great bust of Louis XIV, a linear, vertical, and stable portrait, in which the Sun King gazes out with godlike authority. The image set a standard for royal portraits that lasted 100 years.
      Bernini's late works in sculpture are inevitably overshadowed by his grandiose projects for Saint Peter's, but a few of them are of outstanding interest. For the Chigi Chapel in the Church of Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome, he carved two groups, Daniel in the Lions' Den and Habakkuk and the Angel (1655-61). These works show the beginnings of his late style: elongation of the body, expressive gesture, and simplified yet emphatic emotional expression. The same characteristics are already found in the figures supporting the Throne of Saint Peter and culminate in the moving Angels for the Sant'Angelo Bridge in Rome, which Bernini redecorated with the help of assistants between 1667 and 1671. Pope Clement IX (1667-69) so prized the Angels carved by Bernini that they were never set up on the bridge and are now in the church of Sant'Andrea delle Fratte in Rome.
      The redecorated Sant'Angelo Bridge leading across the Tiber forms an introduction to the Vatican, and Bernini's other works - the piazza, Scala Regia, and the baldachin and cathedra within Saint Peter's - form progressively more powerful expressions of papal power to support and inspire Roman Catholic pilgrims to the site. Bernini completed one more decoration in Saint Peter's in his last years: the altar of the Santissimo Sacramento Chapel (1674). The pliant, human adoration of the angels contrasts with the timeless architecture of the bronze tabernacle that they flank and typifies Bernini's late style. In his last years he seems to have found the inexorable laws of architecture a consoling antithesis to the transitory human state.
      Bernini's greatest late work is the simple Altieri Chapel in San Francesco a Ripa (1674) in Rome. The relatively deep space above the altar reveals a statue representing the death of the Blessed Ludovica Albertoni. Bernini consciously separated architecture, sculpture, and painting for different roles, reversing the process that culminated in the Cornaro Chapel. In that sense, the Altieri Chapel is more traditional, a variation on his church interiors of the preceding years. Instead of filling the arched opening, the sculpted figure of Ludovica lies at the bottom of a large volume of space, and is illuminated by a heavenly light that plays on the drapery gathered over her recumbent figure. Her hands weakly clutching her breast make explicit her painful death.
      Bernini died at the age of 81, after having served eight popes, and when he died he was widely considered not only Europe's greatest artist but also one of its greatest men. He was the last of Italy's remarkable series of universal geniuses, and the Baroque style he helped create was the last Italian style to become an international standard. His death marked the end of Italy's artistic hegemony in Europe. The style he evolved was carried on for two more generations in various parts of Europe by the architects Mattia de' Rossi and Carlo Fontana in Rome, J.B. Fischer von Erlach in Austria, and the brothers Cosmas and Egid Quirin Asam in Bavaria, among others.
^
— Bernini worked initially as a painter. There is no doubt that this was only a sideline which he did mainly in his youth and even then almost as a dilettante. Despite this, his paintings are done with a sure and brilliant hand, free from any trace of pedantry. He studied in Rome under his own father, Pietro, and soon proved one of the most precocious child prodigies in the history of art. (Since sculpture cannot be adequately represented on a flat surface, this site specializes in paintings. But, when holograms become practical on the internet...)
— LINKS
— Self-Portrait as a Young Man (1623) _ This self-portrait was painted when the artist was about twenty-five years old, when he sculpted the David, and Apollo and Daphne. This particular painting is of paramount importance to any attempt to reconstruct the young Bernini's oeuvre of paintings. The nervous rapidity of the brushstrokes and quick flash of his eyes reveal his desire to capture expression in an instant. He did this systematically in his sculpted portraits.
— David with the Head of Goliath (1625, 75x65cm) _ The painting has been identified as a youthful self-portrait of Bernini, dating to 1625 and connected to the painted self portrait listed above. The iconographic choice of self-portrayal in the guise of David is interesting: self-identification with the biblical hero is both a recurring motif in Bernini's art and a theme in the poetry and image-making of his great patron, Pope Urban VIII. The painting technique is dashing and fast, with strongly visible brushstrokes and luminous touches. The treatment of physiognomy seems idealized when compared to the drawing with analogous iconography listed next.
— Self-Portrait as a Mature Man (1635) _ This self-portrait of Bernini with a fiery expression was part of a double portrait with Costanza Bonarelli. In Bernini's will it is mentioned as already split into two separate portraits.
— Portrait of a young man (formerly Self-Portrait) (1618, 57x42cm) _ Fewer than twenty paintings by Bernini have been securely attributed to him. The small number of paintings by Bernini is something of a hindrance to definitive statements on attribution of this work. Some scholars have proposed a number of artists as the likely author of this work, ranging from other Italian painters to possibly a Spaniard from the circle of Velasquez. The loose brushstroke and lack of detail outside the face indicate that it may be a highly detailed sketch rather than a fully worked, finished painting, which adds to the difficulty of attributing the work. These same qualities have also contributed to the notion that it is a self-portrait. The attribution to Bernini was made in the 1970s, and is supported by some scholars and challenged by others.
— Portrait of a Boy (1638) _ The portrait of a youth with impressive features is an unusual interpretation of childhood. It belongs to the works in which the brushwork becomes increasingly spontaneous and seems to model the forms like a chisel sculpting marble.
— Saint Andrew and Saint Thomas (1627, 59x76cm) _ One of the few paintings of Bernini. He despised painting, he regarded it as deception and lie in contrast with sculpture which is the truth. He painted only five self-portraits and a few pictures representing saints.
— Pope Urban VIII (1632, 67x50cm) _ The unfinished picture, formerly attributed to Sacchi, depicts the pope with an immediacy and expressive force that is manifested in the rapid brushstrokes. The composition, datable to 1632, is directly related to Bernini's drawing for the engraved portrait of the pope on the frontispiece of Urban VIII's Poemata (engraved by C. Mellan 1631). The inventories of the Barberini collection indicate the presence of other portraits that Bernini painted of the pope. A slightly later example, of strong expressive force and originally in the Barberini collection, recently reappeared in a private collection. Another similar portrait, now lost, was once in the Palazzo Colonna at Marino. Other portraits of the pope, with various attributions, bear similarities to this autograph canvas.

Died on a 07 December:
1970 Ruben Lucius "Rube" Goldberg, 87, in New York City. US cartoonist who satirized the American preoccupation with technology. His name became synonymous with any simple process made outlandishly complicated, such as by the preposterous machines he drew.One of his hundreds of pictorial inventions was an automatic stamp licker activated by a dwarf robot who overturned a can of ants onto a page of postage stamps, gumside up. They were then licked up by an anteater who had been starved for three days. — LINKS — "Baseball and business can go hand in hand" for College Humor (1930, 13x44cm) — Pencil Sharpener — How to Keep Shop Windows Clean — Simplified Pencil Sharpener — Dodging Bill Collectors — Keep from Forgetting to Mail your Wife's Letter — Picture Snapping Machine — Safety Device for Walking on Icy Pavements — How to Keep the Boss from Knowing you are Late for Work — How to Tee up a Golf Ball Without Bending Over — Our Special Never-Miss Putter — Golf Inventions
1910 Ludwig Knaus, German artist born on 05 October 1829.
1874 Friedrich Otto Georgi, German artist born on 02 February 1819.
1830 Joseph Stannard, British artist born on 12 September 1797.

Born on a 07 December:
1927 Antonio Maria Blanco, US artist.
1926 Leon Kossoff, British artist. — LINKS
1881 Lilian Westcott Hale, US artist who died in 1963.
1769 Adèle Romany (or Romanée), French artist who died on 06 June 1846.

Two Van Goghs stolen in latest Dutch museum heist

By The Associated Press




AMSTERDAM - Thieves broke into the main hall of the Van Gogh Museum yesterday 07 Dec 2002 and stole two early paintings by the Dutch 19th-century Impressionist described as important works in the development of his art.

It was the second time in 10 years that the museum has been robbed, and the second museum heist - each worth millions of dollars - in less than a week in the Netherlands.

Museum director John Leighton said police and security guards responded quickly to the alarms before 8 A.M., just two hours before the museum was to open to the public. But the thieves had vanished.

"This is the worst thing that can happen to any museum," said Leighton. One of the stolen oil paintings was the "View of the Sea at Scheveningen," (35x51cm) a small beach scene outside The Hague of a boat setting off into a stormy sea.

Painted over two days in 1882, the thick paint contains grains of sand that were blown onto the canvas from beach as the artist worked. It was among the earliest important pieces in Vincent Van Gogh's 10-year career.
     Van Gogh painted this small view of the sea using thick gobs of color and a rough brushstroke. The raging, foaming sea, the dark, thundery sky, and the boat’s flag whipping in the wind all give a good impression of stormy weather. Van Gogh painted this picture on the spot, at Scheveningen, a beach resort near The Hague. He had to fight against the elements: the gusting wind and flying sand, which stuck to the wet paint. Most of this was later scraped off, but a few grains can still be found in some of the paint layers.

The second was "Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen," from 1884-85, a picture of the village church in the south of the Netherlands where Van Gogh's father had been the pastor. "The `Reform Church' was emotionally important. He probably meant it as a souvenir for his mother," Leighton said.
     This small canvas was painted at the beginning of 1884 for Van Gogh's mother, who had broken her thighbone in January, but it was also partly intended for his father, for the church in the picture is the one where his father had become pastor in 1882. X-rays show that initially there were no human figures in the painting except for a peasant with a spade. Later - probably not before the autumn of 1885 - the painter added the members of the congregation to the composition. He also added autumn leaves to the original bare, wintry trees, thereby making the canvas somewhat more colourful. It is not entirely clear why Van Gogh overpainted a part of the scene. The woman in the centre of the foreground, who is dressed in mourning, may provide a clue. The artist's father died in the spring of 1885, and Van Gogh may have intended these changes to connect the painting more closely with his dead father and thereby to update it, as it were, for his mother.

Van Gogh, who suffered chronic depression, died in 1890 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound when he was 37. The paintings "have no market value since they were not for sale, but comparable paintings sold for several million dollars," Leighton said. Neither was insured, since they belonged to the Dutch government.

The thieves apparently scrambled up a 5-meter ladder to the second story and in through a window. Investigators found the ladder leaning against the rear of the building and a rope, said police spokeswoman Elly Florax.

Florax said police arrived so quickly they thought at first the thieves might still be in the building.

It was the second high-profile heist in the Netherlands in a week. On Monday 02 December 2002, thieves raided a diamond exhibition at the Museon in The Hague, about 30 miles south of Amsterdam. Museum officials said millions of dollars worth of gems were taken.

The museum, first opened in 1973 near the century-old Rijksmuseum, has the world's largest collection of works by the Dutch painter, but also houses the work of other leading 19th century impressionists.

Police found a broken window on a roof one story above street level, and a 15-foot ladder leaning against the rear of the building. Forensics officers were seen carrying away bits of glass from the window and a blanket or large cloth that may have been used by the thieves.

The break-in was discovered before 8 a.m. Saturday, two hours before the museum was due to open to the public.



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