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ART “4” “2”-DAY 01 February
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DEATHS: 1924 PRENDERGAST — 1944 MONDRIAN — 1931 BROUWER

BIRTH: 1801 COLE

^ Died on 01 February 1924: Maurice Brazil Prendergast, Canadian US Impressionist painter born in 1859.
— Post -impressionist painter, monotypist and watercolorist. Member of The Eight, but not a teacher as were Henri, Sloan and Luks. Most recognized for vivid, colorful, complex depictions of urban scenes of Venice, Boston with representation of subject on a flat plane. 1868 family moved to Boston; 1873 left school, initially clerk in dry goods firm, then commercial art apprentice; 1873-1877 classes at Free Evening Drawing School at Starr King School; 1879 designer of showcards for J.P. Marshall; 1886 with brother Charles (artist and framemaker) worked passage on cattle boat to travel to England and Wales; 1891 studied in Paris at Academy Colarossi; 1892 at Académie Julian; friends with Canadian artist James Wilson Morrice who introduced him to Sickert, Beardsley and Charles Conder; contact with other artists, summer painting trips and sketching in public places of much more importance than his formal study; influenced by Whistler, post-impressionists and Nabis; 1894-1895 returned to Boston; 1895 illustrated Sir James M. Barrie's "My Lady Nicotine" and Sir Thomas Hall's "Shadow of a Crime" for Joseph Knight Company (Boston Publisher); two watercolors at 52nd Annual Exhibit of Boston Arts Club; 1895-1898 produced majority of his 151 known monotypes; 1898 third trip to Europe, produced watercolors of Venice; 1899 returned to Boston; 1900 exhibited 30 watercolors and monotypes jointly with Herman Dudley Murphy at Art Institute of Chicago; 60 watercolors and monotypes at Macbeth Gallery, New York; met Luks and Glackens, increased friendship with Glackens and his family; 1901 met Henri through Glackens; 1901-1902 began to work more extensively in larger format with oils; exhibited watercolors and monotypes at Detroit Institute of Art and Cincinnati Museum Association; Bronze Medal for Watercolor at Pan American Exposition, Buffalo; 1902 marked hearing loss (became deaf by 1905); 1904 began frequent trips to New York
— LINKS
— The Holiday (1907) — Rocky Coast Scene (1913) — After the Review (1895) — Boat Landing at Dinard (also called... (1909) — Promenade at Nantasket (1902) — In the Park (1894)

^ Died on 01 February 1944: Piet[er Cornelis] Mondrian (or Mondriaan), Dutch Neo-Plasticist painter born on 07 March 1872.
— Piet Mondrian, pintor holandés.
— Piet Mondrian carried abstraction to its furthest limits. Through radical simplification of composition and color, he sought to expose the basic principles that underlie all appearances. Born in Amersfoort, the Netherlands, and originally named Pieter Cornelis Mondriaan, he embarked on an artistic career over his family's objections, studying at the Amsterdam Academy of Fine Arts. His early works, through 1907, were calm landscapes painted in delicate grays, mauves, and dark greens. In 1908, under the influence of the Dutch painter Jan Toorop, he began to experiment with brighter colors; this represented the beginning of his attempts to transcend nature. Moving to Paris in 1911, Mondrian adopted a cubist-influenced style, producing analytical series such as Trees (1912-1913) and Scaffoldings (1912-1914). He moved progressively from seminaturalism through increased abstraction, arriving finally at a style in which he limited himself to small vertical and horizontal brushstrokes. In 1917 Mondrian and the Dutch painter Theo van Doesburg founded De Stijl magazine, in which Mondrian developed his theories of a new art form he called neoplasticism. He maintained that art should not concern itself with reproducing images of real objects, but should express only the universal absolutes that underlie reality. He rejected all sensuous qualities of texture, surface, and color, reducing his palette to flat primary colors. His belief that a canvas—a plane surface—should contain only planar elements led to his abolition of all curved lines in favor of straight lines and right angles. His masterly application of these theories led to such works as Composition with Red, Yellow, and Blue (1942, 39x35cm), in which the painting, composed solely of a few black lines and well-balanced blocks of color, creates a monumental effect out of all proportion to its carefully limited means. When Mondrian moved to New York City in 1940, his style became freer and more rhythmic, and he abandoned severe black lines in favor of lively chain-link patterns of bright colors, particularly notable in his last complete masterwork, Broadway Boogie-Woogie (1943, 127x127cm). Mondrian was one of the most influential 20th-century artists. His theories of abstraction and simplification not only altered the course of painting but also exerted a profound influence on architecture, industrial design, and the graphic arts. Mondrian died in New York.
— LINKS
— Self Portrait (1918) — River View with Boat (1908) — Little Girl (1901) — Composition A (1920)

Died on 01 February 1944: Pieter Cornelis Mondriaan “Piet Mondrian”, Dutch Neo~Plasticist painter born on 07 March 1872.
Mondrian carried abstraction to its furthest limits. Through radical simplification of composition and color, he sought to expose the basic principles that underlie all appearances. [click on image for full self-portrait >]

Born in Amersfoort, the Netherlands, Mondrian embarked on an artistic career over his family's objections, studying at the Amsterdam Academy of Fine Arts. His early works, through 1907, were calm landscapes painted in delicate grays, mauves, and dark greens. In 1908, under the influence of the Dutch painter Jan Toorop, he began to experiment with brighter colors; this represented the beginning of his attempts to transcend nature. Moving to Paris in 1911, Mondrian adopted a cubist-influenced style, producing analytical series such as Trees (1912-1913) and Scaffoldings (1912-1914). He moved progressively from seminaturalism through increased abstraction, arriving finally at a style in which he limited himself to small vertical and horizontal brushstrokes.
In 1917 Mondrian and the Dutch painter Theo van Doesburg founded De Stijl magazine, in which Mondrian developed his theories of a new art form he called neoplasticism. He maintained that art should not concern itself with reproducing images of real objects, but should express only the universal absolutes that underlie reality. He rejected all sensuous qualities of texture, surface, and color, reducing his palette to flat primary colors. His belief that a canvas—a plane surface—should contain only planar elements led to his abolition of all curved lines in favor of straight lines and right angles. His masterly application of these theories led to such works as Composition with Red, Yellow, and Blue (1942, 39x35cm), in which the painting, composed solely of a few black lines and well-balanced blocks of color, creates a monumental effect out of all proportion to its carefully limited means. [< image]
Composition with Red, Yellow, and Blue.

^ Born on 01 February 1801: Thomas Cole, English US Hudson River School painter, specialized in Landscapes, who died on 11 February 1848.
— Cole would be one of the founders of Romantic landscape painting in the New World. He is born into an Anglo-American family in England. The family would return to the United States in 1818. Until then young Thomas had received training in drawing and wood engraving. In the USA, he entered the Philadelphia Academy of Art in 1823. Later he settled in the Catskills on the Hudson and became a cofounder of the so-called Hudson River School, which established Romantic landscape painting in America. Direct, spontaneous landscapes painted in the wilderness of the Catskill Mountains brought rapid recognition and attracted New York buyers: The Clove, Catskills (1827).
In 1829 and 1841-1842 Cole traveled to Europe, he visited England, Switzerland and Italy, studying in particular the landscapes of European masters. On his return, having also absorbed philosophical and literary ideas, Cole introduced a new type of painting to America: the symbolic, moral landscape, as represented by the series on the themes of The Course of Empire (1832; New York, Historical Society) and The Voyage of Life (1839/40; Utica, Munson William Proctor Institute): The Course of Empire: The Savage State (1836), The Voyage of Life: Childhood (1842). These are fantastic, symbolic scenes full of unusual effects of grandiose space and theatrical contrasts of light. Not satisfied with great American nature any longer, Cole increases fantastic and mystical character by introducing Biblical and antique subjects. His late pictures do not attain the fine quality of his earlier atmospheric landscapes, they are rough and primitive, but are supposed to stun spectators with extremely pretentious surrealism.
— LINKS
— Prometheus Bound (1847) — Peace at Sunset (Evening in the..., 1827) — View near the Village of Catskill (1827, 62x89cm) — The Parody, or Mother Cole and... (1784) — The Voyage of Life: Childhood (1842) — The Voyage of Life: Youth (1842) — The Voyage of Life: Manhood (1842) — The Voyage of Life: Old Age (1842) — Expulsion from the Garden of Eden (1828) — Niagara Falls (1830) — The Consummation from the series: The Course of the Empire (1836) — The Connecticut River near Northampton (1846).

^ Died on 01 February 1638: Adriaen Brouwer (or Brauwer, Broeuer, Brower), Flemish genre painter born in 1605.
— Brouwer influenced artists in both Flanders and Holland. He went to study under Frans Hals in Haarlem about 1621, gained a high reputation in Holland, and returned to the South Netherlands in 1631. There he was arrested and imprisoned by the Spaniards as a spy until September 1633. He then settled in Antwerp. Except for a handful of landscapes, apparently from his last years, all of Brouwer's pictures are of subjects drawn from common life — showing peasants smoking, drinking, or brawling in taverns; quack surgeons operating on grimacing patients; and so on. Most of the pictures are small and painted on panel. The coarseness of his subjects contrasts with the delicacy of his style, which in its mature stage shows an unusual mastery of tonal values.
— LINKS
— The Bitter Draught (1635) _ Between about 1625 and 1631 Brouwer stayed in Holland. The vivid brushwork which animates his little paintings and the portrait-like character of some of his genre pieces suggest that he had contact with Frans Hals. Returning to Antwerp he became one of the finest valeur painters of all times. His power of expression is also increased. The physiognomy and emotion in the Bitter Draught are not matched before Daumier.
— The Card Players (25x39cm) _ Adriaen Brouwer was one of the most original talents in Flemish art. Brouwer's version of the popular theme, The Card Players, is a genre piece in a small format, with marvelous, velvety coloring.
— Peasants Fighting (1634, 33x49cm) _ Dutch realism was a matter not merely of imitative techniques but also of everyday themes: people and objects, houses and streets that might be found in the Republic. Comic paintings seem especially deliberate in their concern with thematic as well as pictorial realism. Like comedies, comic images in theory should depict people as they are, or even worse as they are. Painters fulfilled this requirement in paintings of down-to-earth, lowly themes, of peasants and burghers guzzling, drinking, laughing, dancing, and groping. In theme, these paintings recall comic texts and plays that linger on similar scenes and motifs rather than presenting a tight narrative. A painting of boors fighting by Adriaen Brouwer may seem uncommonly lifelike, with its violent action, gruff faces, poorly dressed peasants or urban dissolutes, and disheveled tavern interior.
— Seated Drinkers (25x21cm) _ Born in Oudenaerde in Belgium, Adriaen Brouwer studied painting in Amsterdam, then Haarlem, where he came into contact with members of local rhetorical chambers, before settling in Antwerp. Admitted as a free master to the painters' guild in 1632, he also became a member of the rhetorical chamber associated with it. He was popular with his Antwerp colleagues who repurchased his freedom - perhaps by acquiring certain of his paintings when he was imprisoned for debt. Adriaen Brouwer specialized in depicting characters on the edge of society spending their time in licentious activities such as card-playing or alcohol and tobacco abuse. This debauched behavior was looked down on by the members of bourgeois society who saw in it the confirmation of their own moral superiority. During his brief career Brouwer produced only a few dozen works, but revolutionized genre painting with his original synthesis between village scenes with a Bruegelian inspiration and Haarlem genre painting. His great pictorial mastery aroused the admiration of his peers, and painters and collectors like Rubens and Rembrandt owned several of his pictures. Under the influence of early biographers, who attempted to draw parallels between the author's work and his life, experts have sought to see in the background of the Seated Drinkers the wall of Antwerp citadel, then a jail, where the painter was imprisoned. This is, however, unlikely: the artist represented this type of rudimentary landscape several times over, with no link between the subject matter and his time behind bars. On the other hand, the finesse of this finely tempered little masterpiece has been rightly recognized from the outset. Here Brouwer has reached his full maturity. A few delicate red and yellow highlights are enough to enliven a composition largely dominated by subtly gradated browns and grays. If one needed to make a comparison between the painter's life and his work, it would be between the artist's untiring interest for theater life and the very convincing way in which he succeeds in translating the psychological interplay of the figures.

Died on a 01 February:
1946 René François Xavier Prinet, French artist born on 31 December 1861.
1920 Andrew Carrick Gow, British artist born is 1848. — LINKS
1917 Gustav Schönleber, German artist born on 03 December 1851.
1905 Oswald Achenbach, German artist born on 02 February 1827. [Many more people have an aching back than an Achenbach] .— LINKS
after 1708 Jacob Koninck (or Koningh) I, Dutch artist born in 1616. — brother of Philips Koninck [1619-1688] and cousin of Salomon Koninck [1609-1656].
1598 Scipione “il Gaetano” Polzone (or Pulzone, Pultoni), Italian artist born in 1545 give or take 5 years.

Born on a 01 February:
1861 Jacques Émile Blanche, French artist who died in 1942. — LINKS
1849 Albert-Marie-Charles Lebourg, French painter who died on 07 January 1928. — LINKS — Swiss Lake Landscape
1845 José Echena, Spanish artist who died in 1909.

Happened on a 01 February:
2003 Reproduction of Moon Landscape, by 14-year-old Holocaust victim Petr Ginz, carried by Israeli Astronaut Ilan Ramon, perishes with space shuttle and its crew of seven. — MORE

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