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ART “4” “2”-DAY  29 December
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DEATHS: 1975 CORNELL — 1633 VAN WIERINGEN —  1616 GOLTZIUS —  1743 RIGAUD —  1825 DAVID
BIRTH: 1695 PATER
^ Died on 29 December 1972: Joseph Cornell, US artist born in 1903.
— Cornell had no formal training in art and his most characteristic works are his highly distinctive ‘boxes’. These are simple boxes, usually glass-fronted, in which he arranged surprising collections of photographs or Victorian bric-à-brac in a way that has been said to combine the formal austerity of Constructivism with the lively fantasy of Surrealism. Like Kurt Schwitters he could create poetry from the commonplace. Unlike Schwitters, however, he was fascinated not by refuse, garbage, and the discarded, but by fragments of once beautiful and precious objects, relying on the Surrealist technique of irrational juxtaposition and on the evocation of nostalgia for his appeal (he befriended several members of the Surrealist movement who settled in the USA during the Second World War). Cornell also painted and made Surrealist films.
LINKS
Untitled (Sitting Angel) (1965) — Untitled (How To Make a Rainbow) (1972) — Untitled (Hotel du Nord) (1972) —Untitled (Bébé Marie) (construction, 1942, 59x31x13cm)
^ Died on 29 December 1633: Cornelis Claeszoon van Wieringen, Dutch painter specialized in seascapes, born in 1580 he first was a sailor.
LINKS
The Explosion of the Spanish Flagship during the Battle of Gibraltar (1621)
Capture of Damiate (1625) _ Wieringen was probably the pupil of Hendrick Corneliszoon Vroom (the founder of European marine painting); he ranks as his best and closest follower. Wieringen's multicolored paintings are more ornamental, his waves and whitecaps more schematic than Vroom's, and his skies (apart from those in his graphics) are little more than decorative backdrops.
      The Capture of Damiate was commissioned by Haarlem's St Hadrian Civic Guard, and it was originally mounted as an overmantel in the company's headquarters (a few years afterwards officers of the company commissioned Frans Hals to paint their group portrait). The painting represent a pseudo-historical event. According to tradition late twelfth-century crusaders en route to the Holy Land tried to capture Damiate, a port city at the mouth of the Nile which had its harbour protected by a heavy chain stretched across it from two moles. The chain was cut, according to the legend, when a ship from Haarlem ingeniously fitted with a specially designed saw-toothed prow and keel sailed across it. After this feat and a fierce battle the port fell to the crusaders.
      The tale exemplified the audacity and courage of early Haarlemmers, and by association, redounded to the glory of citizens of the city. By the sixteenth century the fable had acquired a mythic dimension for Haarlem's patriots. The appetite for it was satisfied by later printmakers and painters. Vroom and other artists also made drawings to stain glass windows of the subject, and Wieringen designed a huge tapestry depicting the legendary event for Haarlem's Town Hall which is still mounted there.
Landscape with hermits (40x56cm) _ Wieringen is well-known as a marine painter. This is the only known landscape painting of this painter. He did make some drawings and etchings of landscapes.
^ Died on 29 December 1616: Hendrik Goltzius (or Goltz, Goltius), Dutch artist born in February 1558.
— Goltzius was a Dutch graphic artist and painter of German descent, the outstanding line engraver of his time. He was the leader of a group of Mannerist artists who worked in Haarlem, where he founded some kind of 'academy' with Cornelis van Haarlem and Karel van Mander. In 1590-91 he visited Rome and on his return to Haarlem he abandoned his Mannerist style for a more classical one. Goltzius's right hand was crippled, but in spite of this handicap he was renowned for his technical virtuosity and his skill in imitating the work of other great engravers such as Dürer and Lucas van Leyden.
      In his early career much of his work was reproductive, but he also produced many original compositions, including a splendid series of Roman Heroes (1586). His miniature portrait drawings were also outstanding, and the landscape drawings he made after 1600 mark him as a forerunner of the great 17th century landscape artists. His paintings are less interesting than his drawings and much less advanced stylistically.
LINKS
Funeral procession of William of Orange (1584) — Lot and his Daughters (1616) — Monkey on a chain, seated (1597) — The Giant Hercules (1589) — Portrait of Sculptor Giambologna (1591, 37x30cm) — Spring (1597) — Autumn (1597) — Job in Distress (1616)
Venus between Ceres and Bacchus (1590, 40x29cm) _ After training as a glass painter in his father's studio, Goltzius learned engraving from printer Dirck Volckertsz. Coornhert. From 1582 he began publishing prints and eighteen or so years later started painting. Following a journey to Italy (1590/91) he moderated his mannerist distortions and turned to portraying grand, idealised scenes, as in this masterly drawing.
      What strikes us is the emphasis on the physical and psychological interaction between Venus and Bacchus, depicted close to one another, whilst Ceres holds herself apart. This offered Goltzius an opportunity of portraying the female body from both front and back - in those days a very popular pose and representing the "nec plus ultra" of grace. The fact that Venus, Ceres and Bacchus look so lifelike is because Goltzius began at this time to use live models. The representation of Bacchus, the god of wine, in the company of Venus, the goddess of love and Ceres, the goddess of the harvest, is a reference to the old Greek saying: "Without Ceres and Bacchus, Venus freezes". This proverb, taken from Eunuchus, a comedy by Roman author Terence that was frequently staged in Goltzius' time, had become a popular maxim. As frequently happened in the 16th century, this classical theme took on a profane interpretation, which can be paraphrased as "Eating and drinking is part of the game of love".
      This composition is an extraordinary combination of different drawing techniques. The god's and goddess's naked bodies are contoured with strong brown ink brush strokes and sharp black chalk lines. These are then colored in with ink and body-colour in grey, white, brown and pink tints, next to zones of stumped black and red chalk. The result is an attractive "pictorial tapestry", full of light and colour nuances. The sketchy nature of certain items like the baldachino and the putti to the upper left relates to the purpose of the drawing. This is a composition sketch anticipating Goltzius' only known grisaille, dated 1599 and now conserved in London, done in grey and white oils on paper on top of a black chalk underdrawing. As with many of Goltzius' compositions, a print of this work was also published by the famous engraver Jan Saenredam.
Without Ceres and Bacchus, Venus would Freeze (1602) _ The Goltzius drawings that his contemporaries admired above all were his highly finished pen and inks drawings that simulate the swelling and tapering lines of engravings - they were called 'penwerken' (pen works). There are several dazzling examples of these virtuoso performances depicting Without Ceres and Bacchus, Venus would Freeze. They illustrate the popular adage that without food (Ceres, the Roman god of agriculture) and wine (Bacchus), love (Venus) is left cold. Venus's need for the assistance of food and drink for invigoration was one of Goltzius's favorite themes, he represented the subject in various ways and media at least ten times. His most stunning illustration of the proverb is now at Philadelphia. Drawn with elaborate pen lines in ink that give the effect of an engraving, half-nude Venus is seen close-up accompanied by an adoring young satyr bearing fruit and a smiling old one with his hands full of luscious grapes, obvious representatives of Ceres and Bacchus. Handsome Cupid who turns sympathetically to us, holds a large flaming torch that warms as well as illuminates the figures. Unlike most of Goltzius's penworks which are done on paper or parchment, this one is on canvas with a grey-blue oil ground that is an integral part of the scene's nocturnal effect. Unique is the conspicuous addition of flesh tones in brush and oils that are literally and figuratively warmed by the vivid red, orange, and yellow flames of Cupid's torch, also done in oil paint. The mixed media makes the work hard to classify. Is it a pen work or a painting?
Cadmus Slays the Dragon (189x248cm) _ Based on a copper engraving by Francesco Primaticcio (1504–70) it is an allegorical painting featuring motifs from Ovid’s Metamorphoses (Book III, 26–94). Cadmus has been driven out of his native land and is in search of a new place to settle down. The god Apollo has replied in an oracle, promising him that he will meet a heifer and that he should follow it. Wherever the heifer lies down is where Cadmus is to build his new home and found a city (Euboea). When the heifer lies down, Cadmus sends his servants to fetch water at a nearby spring. But the servants are attacked and killed by a terrible dragon with three rows of teeth and three tongues in its mouth.
      Cadmus sets off to fight the dragon, dressed in a lion’s skin, which protects him from the monster’s poison. He wounds the dragon in the side with his spear and thrusts his lance into its gaping jaws, pinning it to a large oak tree. The artist has improved on the story somewhat, supplying the dragon with three gigantic heads. The painting captures the moment when Cadmus thrusts his lance into the monster’s mouth and pins it to the tree.
      A number of candidates have been proposed over the years as the artist behind this colossal work — painters such as Reinhold Timm (d. 1639) from Denmark and Jacob Rappost (d. before 1621) from Holstein have been named. Most recently, the Dutch painter Hendrick Goltzius (1558–1617) has been proposed. Hendrick Goltzius was born in Mühlbrecht and died in Haarlem. Goltzius produced paintings and drawings, engravings and etchings, and was one of the leading figures in the Mannerism movement. He was primarily known for his technically brilliant copper engravings featuring biblical and mythological subjects, which were based on his own models and those of other artists. A journey to Italy in 1590–91 led to a change in style, and in about 1600 he turned away from engraving and toward painting. His style was now more naturalistic and classical.
Cadmus’ Servants are Attacked by the Dragon (55x90cm) _ B&W photo of a painting based on a copper engraving by Robert de Bardous (1615), which was based on a drawing by Hendrick Goltzius. In around 1580, Hendrick Goltzius made a number of drawings dealing with the Cadmus legend. Three of these drawings are now in the possession of the Hamburger Kunsthalle. In c. 1615 these drawings formed the basis for works by the copper engraver Robert de Bardous. Goltzius himself made a copper engraving of Cadmus’ struggle with the dragon, which was based on a painting by Cornelis Corneliszoon van Haarlem (1562–1638). The large Goltzius painting [above], based on an engraving by Francesco Primaticcio (1504–1570), does not bear any close resemblance to Goltzius’ own drawings, but is nevertheless attributed to him on the basis of a study of painting techniques employed.
^ Born on 29 December 1695: Jean-Baptiste Joseph Pater, French artist who died on 25 July 1736.
— French painter, the only pupil of Watteau (a fellow native of Valenciennes), with whom he had a somewhat touchy relationship. An unlikely legend has it that Watteau dismissed him from his studio (1713) because he was disturbed by the threat offered by his progress to his own pre-eminence; whatever the reason for their differences, they were reconciled soon before Watteau's death. Like Watteau's other imitator, Lancret, Pater repeated the master's type of 'fêtes galantes' in a fairly stereotyped fashion. He showed more originality in scenes of military life and groups of bathers (in which he gave freer rein to the suggestiveness often seen in his fêtes galantes).
LINKS
The Offer of Flowers (Springtime) (41 x 55cm)
The Chinese Hunt (1736, 55x46cm) — Fête Champêtre (65x82cm) — another Fête Champêtre (15x20cm)
Concert Champêtre _ Pater followed Watteau closely in the genre called fête galante, transposing his atmosphere to a more silvery one.
^ Died on 29 December 1743: Hyacinthe Rigaud (Rigau y Ros), French artist born on 18 July 1659.
— French portrait painter, the friend and rival of Largillière. He was born in Perpignan and after working in Montpellier he settled in Paris in 1681. His reputation was established in 1688 with a portrait (now lost) of Monsieur, Louis XIV's brother, and he became the outstanding court painter of the latter part of Louis's reign, retaining his popularity after the king's death. He was less interested in showing individual character than in depicting the rank and condition of the sitter by nobility of attitude and expressiveness of gesture. These qualities are seen most memorably in his celebrated state portrait of Louis XIV (1701), one of the classic images of royal majesty. Louis so admired this portrait that, although he had intended it as a present to Philip V of Spain, he kept it himself. Rigaud's unofficial portraits are much more informal and show a debt to Rembrandt (The Artist's Mother, 1695), several of whose works he owned. The output from Rigaud's studio was vast.
LINKS
Philippe de Couraillon (1702, 162x150cm) _ Philippe de Couraillon, Marquis de Dangeau, is represented in the costume of the Grand Maitre des Ordres.
Louis XIV (1694, 277x194cm) _ At the end of Louis XIV's reign the outstanding painter was Hyacinthe Rigaud. Although his activity continued well into the next century, the ethical quality of his figures and the aesthetic quality of his style are part of the spirit of the Louis XIV period. Guided by Le Brun, Rigaud created in painting, as Coysevox had done in sculpture, the portrait of the 'man of quality', whose value he conveyed by the nobility of the attitude, expressiveness of the gesture, and movement of the draperies — in short, by the passion of which he showed his generous temperament to be capable. The aim was less to depict and individual and a character, as Philippe de Champaigne had done in the preceding period, than to affirm the social rank and 'condition' of the sitter, who might be the King, a minister, a financier, or a soldier, but who was always of the Court. Rigaud thus started the Court portrait, which was to have a considerable importance in Europe during the next century.
Louis XIV (1701, 279x190cm) _ This famous portrait is regarded as the very epitome of the absolutist ruler portrait. Yet it represents more than just power, pomp and circumstance. The sumptuous red and gold drapery is not only a motif of dignity, but also creates a framework that echoes the drapes of the ornate, ermine-lined robe. The blue velvet brocade ornamented with the golden fleurs-de-lys of the house of Bourbon is repeated in the upholstery of the chair, the cushion and the cloth draped over the table below it: the king quite clearly “sets the tone”.
      A monumental marble column on a high plinth is draped in such a way that it does not detract from the height of the figure. Louis is presented in an elegantly angled pose, situated well above the standpoint of the spectator to whom he seems to turn his attention graciously, but without reducing the stability of his stance.
      Rigaud's consummate mastery of portraiture is particularly evident in the way he depicts the king's facial expression: his distanced unapproachability are not founded in Neoclassicist idealization, but in the candor of an ageing, impenetrable physiognomy. The lips are closed decisively and with a hint of irony, the eyes have a harsh, dark sheen, while the narrow nose suggests intolerance. This is a ruler who is neither good nor evil, but beyond all moral categories.
Count Sinzendorf (1712, 166x132cm) _ Several artists, whose careers and styles form a transitional period between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, enjoyed enormous success under the patronage of Louis XIV. By far the best of them was Hyacinthe Rigaud. There is a strident quality of many of his best portraits which suggest a familiarity with Spanish painters like Zurbarán. Rigaud rigidly provided the court with exactly what it wanted - a splendid, opulent and yet tasteful glorification of its new-found power and wealth.
Portrait of a Scholar

^ Died on 29 December 1825: Jacques~Louis David, French painter born on 30 August 1748.
Born to a family of masons and building contractors David studied under Joseph-Marie Vien, to whom he had been recommended by François Boucher, a relative by marriage. After receiving the Prix de Rome in 1774 on his fourth attempt, he spent five years at the French Academy in Italy. Immersion in the art of the ancients and the old masters had a reformative impact on his style, and he abandoned the colorism of his early rococo manner for a more monumental and somber approach. With The Grief of Andromache of 1783, he was elected to the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, and his Serment des Horaces of 1784 became a manifesto for the new classicism.
      David played a major role in the French Revolution, serving on the Committee for Public Instruction, organizing political pageants, and working on such revolutionary images as The Death of Marat . After the fall of Robespierre, he was arrested and imprisoned for a short time. David rose to power again, however, through his support of Napoleon, for whom he painted numerous portraits and grand commemorative pictures such as Le Sacre de Napoléon et Joséphine (1806). With the Bourbon Restoration, David was forced into exile in Brussels, where he maintained a studio and attempted in his late portraits and mythologies a reconciliation.
— Jacques-Louis David, French painter. He was a supporter of the French Revolution and one of the leading figures of Neoclassicism. He was a distant relative of Boucher, who perhaps helped his early artistic progress as a pupil under Vien (1765). He won the Prix de Rome in 1774 and traveled with his master to Rome where he spent six years. It was during this period (1775-81), that he abandoned the grand manner of his early work, with its Baroque use of lighting and composition for a stark, highly finished and morally didactic style. This was influenced by the ideas then current in Rome and by artists such as Hamilton who were already experimenting with a Neoclassical idiom. In 1784 the change of style was confirmed by the Oath of the Horatii, probably the most famous and certainly the most severe of a series of works which extolled the antique virtues of stoicism, masculinity and patriotism. During the French Revolution, David played an active role both artistically he reorganized the Académie and produced numerous and spectacular propaganda exercises - and politically, as an avid supporter of Robespierre, who voted for the execution of the king. He also attempted to catalogue the new heroes of the age, abortively in the Oath of the Tennis Court, and successfully in his pieta-like portrayal of the Death of Marat (1793). He eventually lost out in the confused politics of the 1790s, was imprisoned under the moderate Directory and saved by the intervention of his estranged wife, symbolized in his Intervention of the Sabine Women (1799), a work which strained his Classicism in the search for Greek purity. In 1799 Napoléon gained power, and David gained a new hero. He recorded the general and later the Emperor in numerous propaganda pieces (e.g. Napoléon at Mont St Bernard, 1800; The Crowning of Joséphine) in which his sobriety was loosened by Napoléon's demand for grandeur. In professional terms, he failed to survive the fall of his master, and in 1815 retired in exile to Brussels, where he continued to work in a highly finished Classical vein, but resorted to myth for his subject-matter (e.g. The Disarming of Mars). Throughout his career he produced portraiture which not only catalogued the changing political spectrum, but also his own artistic developments (e.g. Antoine Lavoisier and his Wife, 1788). He was also a great teacher, numbering among his pupils Gros, Ingres, Gérard and Girodet, although few of them actually followed the severity of his style."
— Jacques-Louis David was born into a prosperous middle-class family in Paris. In 1757 his mother left him to be raised by his uncles after his father was killed. He was never a good student in school- in his own words, "I was always hiding behind the instructors chair, drawing for the duration of the class".
      When David was 16 he began studying art at the Académie Royale under the rococo painter J. M. Vien. After many unsuccessful attempts, he finally won the Prix de Rome in 1774, and on the ensuing trip to Italy he was strongly influenced by classical art and by the classically inspired work of the 17th-century painter Nicolas Poussin. David quickly evolved his own individual neoclassical style, drawing subject matter from ancient sources and basing form and gesture on Roman sculpture. His famous Oath of the Horatii was consciously intended as a proclamation of the new neoclassical style in which dramatic lighting, ideal forms, and gestural clarity are emphasized. Presenting a lofty moralistic (and by implication patriotic) theme, the work became the principal model for noble and heroic historical painting of the next two decades. It also launched his popularity and awarded him the right to take on his own students.
      After 1789, David adopted a realistic rather than neoclassical painting style in order to record scenes of the French Revolution (1789-1799). David was very active in the Revolution, being elected a deputy to the National Convention on 17 September 1792. He took his place with the extremists known as the Montagnards — along with Marat, Danton, and Robespierre.
      During this time he had produced deeds both positive and negative: On the positive side he proposed the establishment of an inventory of all national treasures- making him one of the founders of France's museums. In fact, he played an active role in the organization of the future Louvre, Paris.
      On the negative side, his radicalism during the Revolution bred within him a certain madness. He was appointed to the Comité de Salut Public in 1793 — which gave him the power to sign nearly 300 arrested individuals to be guillotined. After the end of the Revolution, imprisoned because of his actions during the Reign of Terror, he wrote a letter to a friend stating, "I believed, in accepting the post of legislator — an honorable post, but one very difficult to fulfill — that an upright heart would suffice, but I was lacking in the second quality, by which I mean insight." A delegation of his students demanded his release, and he was freed on 28 December 1794.
      Near the end of 1797 David met Napoléon Bonaparte. From 1799 to 1815 he was Napoléon's official painter, chronicling the reign of Napoléon I in huge works such as The Coronation of Napoléon and Joséphine. Following Napoléon's downfall in 1815, David was exiled to Brussels, where he returned to mythological subjects drawn from the Greek and Roman past. He stayed there until his death.
      David, throughout his career, was also a prolific portraitist. Smaller in scale and more intimately human than his larger works, his portraits, such as the famous Madame Récamier, show great technical mastery and understanding of character. Many modern critics consider them his best work, especially because they are free from the moralizing messages and sometimes stilted technique of his neoclassical works.
LINKS

Laure-Emilie-Felicité David, La Baronne Meunier (1812)
La Bonne Aventure (1824) — Napoléon in His Study


Died on a 29 December:
1928 Eilif Hjalmar Emanuel Peterssen, Norwegian artist born on 04 September 1852.
1908 Herman Gustaf Sillen, Swedish artist born on 20 May 1857.
1881 Ludwig Hermann van Hoom, German artist born in April 1812. [Hoom, sweet Hoom?]
1661 Frans de Hulst, Flemish artist born in 1610.

Born on a 29 December:
1868 Ludwig Ferdinand Graf, German artist who died in 1932.
1859 Elizabeth Adela (Amstrong, Stanhope, Alexander) Forbes, British artist who died on 22 March 1912. — LINKS
1841 Alexander Carlovich Beggrow, Russian artist who died in 1914.
1838 Raffaello Sernesi, Italian artist who died on 11 August 1866.
1834 Auguste Louis Veillon, Swiss artist who died on 05 January 1890.
1759 Julius-César Ibbetson, British painter who died on 13 October 1817. — LINKSGoing to Market (1785) — Returning from Market (1785)

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