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| BIRTH:
1832 DORÉ |
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Died on 06 January 1616: Hans
von Aachen (or Ach), German Mannerist
painter artist born in 1552. — German painter, born in Cologne (in spite of his name, which derives from his father's birthplace) and active in the Netherlands, Italy (1574-87), and most notably Prague, where he settled in 1596 as court painter to the emperor Rudolf II. On Rudolf's death (1612) he worked for the emperor Matthias. His paintings, featuring elegant, elongated figures, are — like those of his colleague Bartholomeus Spranger — leading examples of the sophisticated Mannerist art then in vogue at the courts of Northern Europe, and he was particularly good with playfully erotic nudes (The Triumph of Truth, 1598). Engravings after his work gave his style wide infiuence and he ranks as one of the most important German artists of his time. — LINKS — Bacchus, Ceres and Cupid (163x113cm) — Joking Couple (25x20cm) _ At the end of the 16th century the court of Emperor Rudolph II in Prague was one of the most important art and cultural centre of Europe. The Emperor gathered together important artists: painters, sculptors, goldsmiths, who developed a characteristic style as important as that of the Fontainebleau school flowered at the same period in France. One component of the Rudolphean style was the painting of the Flemish Spranger, another the German Hans von Aachen and the third the Swiss Joseph Heintz. Aachen studied in Italy, he spent there 14 years and was known as a portraitist. He went to Munich and worked for the Bavarian Prince. He moved to Prague in 1592 and became court painter at the court of Rudolph II. In addition to mythological subjects he painted realistic genre pictures with two-three figures. |
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Born on 06 January 1832: Louis
Christophe Paul Gustave Doré, French
Romantic painter, printmaker, etcher, lithographer, and book illustrator,
who died in Paris on 23 January 1883. — Doré was born in Strasbourg. He first made his mark by his illustrations to Rabelais (1854) and to The Wandering Jew and Balzac's Contes Drolatiques (1865) [English translation: Droll Stories]. These are followed by illustrated editions of Dante's Inferno (1861), the Contes of Perrault and Don Quixote (1863), the Purgatorio and Paradiso of Dante (1868), the Bible (1865-66), Paradise Lost (1866), Tennyson's Idylls of the King (1867-68), La Fontaine's Fables (1867). He also executed much in color. — Doré was the most popular and successful French book illustrator of the mid 19th century. Doré became very widely known for his illustrations to such books as Dante's Inferno (1861), Don Quixote (1862), and the Bible (1866), and he helped to give European currency to the illustrated book of large . He was so prolific that at one time he employed more than forty blockcutters. His work is characterized by a rather naïve but highly spirited love of the grotesque and represents a commercialization of the Romantic taste for the bizarre. Drawings of London done in 1869-71 were more sober studies of the poorer quarters of the city and captured the attention of van Gogh. In the 1870s he also took up painting (doing some large and ambitions religious works) and sculpture (the monument to the dramatist and novelist Alexandre Dumas in the Place Malesherbes in Paris, erected in 1883, is his work). — LINKS — 33 Prints at FAMSF — Andromeda — Don Quixote and the Windmill — Don Quixote in his Library — Elaine — The Enigma — The Raven (1884 book with wood engravings 47x37x2cm) — The Raven _ painting based on The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe. — Viviane and Merlin in a Forest (170x122cm) —Jacob Wrestling with the Angel (1855) — Alpine Scene (1865) — Ithuriel and Zephon Hunt Satan from Milton's Paradise Lost — Canto 3 of Paradise from Dante's Divine Comedy — Portrait of François Rabelais, opposite title page in the book Oeuvres de Rabelais (1873 wood engraving 24x19cm) |
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Died on 06 January 1974: David
Alfaro Siqueiros, Mexican Social
Realist muralist, painter, born on 29 December 1896, whose art reflects
his Marxist political ideology. — LINKS — Self-Portrait — Siqueiros por Siqueiros (1930, 99x79cm) — Campesinos (1913 100x189cm) _ Campesinos embodies the innovating techniques proposed in the teaching methods of the National Academy of Fine Arts at the beginning of the 20th century. As part of painters' artistic training, Alfredo Ramos Martínez established the first Open-Air School of Painting which allowed students, albeit somewhat belatedly, to more freely explore Impressionist and post-Impressionist innovations in form, theme and technique. The works painted there moved visibly away from the teachings of the master, José María Velasco. Free, rapid brush strokes and a luminous palette characterized the students' work. Campesinos is one of David Alfaro Siqueiros' earliest known works as a student at the Academy. — Muerte y funerales de Caín (1947, 76x93cm) _ In Muerte y funerales de Caín David Alfaro Siqueiros reveals his interest in landscape and moves away from political themes. Siquieros' experiments during that year in landscape painting led him to use an abstract vocabulary and, as in this case, include unexpected elements in the scene. The dead chicken that we see is lying between the ordered ranks of workers and soldiers and a small group on the other side of the divided land. The symbolism is purely personal in nature and may allude to the Cold War. — Explosión en la ciudad (1945, 76x61cm) _ The original of this painting is dated 1935, and is one of the most pre-dated works of the 20th century. The aerial bombing and the testimony of photo-journalism on the Spanish Civil War which ended in 1936 was for many artists a visual education from those who like David Alfaro Siqueiros had seen and lived it. A photograph by the Mayo brothers preserved in the General Archives of the Nation bears witness to the date of 1945 for the painting when it was reproduced in the journal MAS in 1947. In pre-dating Explosión en la ciudad, the artist attempted to alter history and impose a particular reading on the work. — Bahía de Acapulco (1957, 76x94cm) _ David Alfaro Siqueiros is not known for his landscapes. However, a cursory examination of his easelwork allows us to conclude that almost 25% of it is landscape painting. The aerial space and the projects of modernization and development in the 1950's such as that of the Port of Acapulco impressed the painter. Proof of this is found in the considerable number of aerial views he painted not only of the Bay of Acapulco, but more specifically of Puerto Marqués, the place where the modernizers of the time, members of President Alemán's administration, built their holiday villas. — Barrancas (1947, 77x100cm) _ David Alfaro Siqueiros moves away from the picturesque landscape style and his new mode of vision reveals an approach based on aerial photography and a photographic camera approach to the surface. He plays with the optics of planes, dimensions and the textures obtained through the use of new painting materials, including resins, lacquer and acrylics. In this way he produces an earthy effect, a vortex effect which by the end of the decade will lead him to abandon the earth as a point of reference for perspective, and create a new one from space. Siqueiros manages to paint masses in such a way as to give them a sculptural appearance, imbuing them with great force and loading them with excessive weight. — Echo of a Scream (1937, 122x91cm) _ David Alfaro Siqueiros’s political activities often overshadowed his artistic endeavors, although the two went hand in hand: he organized his first protest in 1911 at the Academia de San Carlos, a traditional art academy where he was a student. An ardent Communist, Siqueiros organized artist and labor unions and helped draft a manifesto that called for the creation of monumental public art rooted in indigenous Mexican artistic traditions and at the service of the Mexican Revolution, which became the basis for the Mexican mural movement. He consistently espoused the cause of revolutionary technique and content that would radicalize the viewer. Several times in the mid-1930s, Siqueiros traveled to the United States to lecture and work on private commissions. During a trip to New York in 1936, he established the Siqueiros Experimental Workshop, which he hoped would initiate a new period of mural painting that relied on modern technology. Here, he demonstrated his ideas for the use of photomontage and other unorthodox techniques and encouraged the use of new synthetic and industrial materials, such as Duco, a transparent automobile paint. He first used Duco in his murals because it dries rapidly and is extremely durable. He soon began to use it in works on canvas as well because of the range of visual effects he could achieve. Siqueiros supported the activities of his short-lived workshop through the sale of easel paintings he made there. In these works he felt that he had for the first time successfully coordinated new formal means and political content. Echo of a Scream is one of these works. Based on a news photo of a wailing child abandoned in the ruins of a bombed Manchurian railroad station, the painting presents a desolate landscape rendered in somber grays and browns. The face of the child, contorted in a scream of sorrow and rage, is repeated in the center of the picture on a much larger scale. The disembodied head looms over the scene, amplifying the child’s heartrending agony. Siqueiros’s use of a photograph as his source and the repetition of imagery reflects the influence of his friendship with Soviet film director Sergey Eisenstein, who had introduced Siqueiros to the concept of using multiple perspectives in order to dramatize ideological meanings in his work. Siqueiros insisted that his easel paintings were subordinate to his murals. He felt easel painting was bourgeois and intellectual, while he aspired to make art that appealed to the ordinary worker. In fact, his paintings contributed significantly to his international reputation. Siqueiros’s work differed markedly from the heavy-handed Social Realism prescribed by specific political agendas; his emphasis on innovative process and materials reveals his independent approach to Marxist art. — Ethnography (1939) _ David Alfaro Siqueiros, "El Coronelazo", polemic painter, activist, indefatigable social fighter, dogmatic up to insanity -we just have to remember his celebrated phrase "there´s no other route than ours"-; was one of the three masterfuls of Mexican Muralism along with José Clemente Orozco and Diego Rivera. His Ethnographic work, is a good sample of the powerful talent that ran through the veins of Siqueiros; painted after his return to Mexico, after fighting beside the republicans in the Spanish Civil War, this piece of art presents the mysterious and powerful image of an indigenous with the face of an olmec mask. With a colour treatment almost monochromatic, he uses his accustomed dynamism on the trace of the clothing of the hieratic character; and with a background almost abstract, the prehispanic mask stands out when framed by the character´s hat and shirt. That mask, it is said, was known by David Alfaro Siqueiros inside the collection of William Spratling, who was an american expatriate residing in Taxco and dedicated to impel the silver industry, apart from being an excellent collectionist and prehispanic art merchant. Siqueiros had the first meeting with Spratling when he was fulfilling a sentence inside the Taxco Prison, in the State of Guerrero; during his imprisonment, the American became his financial support and a material provider to carry out his work inside jail. The olmec mask, found inside a cave in the State of Guerrero on the beginnings of the thirties, was the motive of this extraordinary work by Siquieros that, without a doubt, was the most polemic and controverted of the three masterfuls of that time. — Mujer con rebozo (1949, 97x120cm) — Cabeza de mujer (1939) — La Colina de los Muertos (1944, 95x69cm) |
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Died on 06 January 1541 or 1542: Bernaert
(or Barend) van Orley (or Brussel, or Orlich), Flemish artist
born in 1492, 1487, or 1488 [multiple personality?] — He was a painter of religious subjects and portraits and designer of tapestries and stained glass. He was the leading artist of his day in Brussels, becoming court painter to Margaret of Austria, regent of the Netherlands, in 1518 and to her successor Mary of Hungary in 1532. His work is characterized by the use of ill-digested Italianate motifs. There is no evidence that he visited Italy, and his knowledge presumably came from engravings and from Raphael's tapestry cartons, which were in Brussels c.1516-19; he has (very flatteringly) been called 'the Raphael of the Netherlands'. In 1520, when Dürer visited the Netherlands, Orley gave a banquet for him, and Dürer drew his portrait. His best-known work is the turbulent Job altarpiece (1521). As a portraitist his style was quieter and more thoughtful (Georg Zelle, 1519). None of van Orley's paintings bears a date later than 1530; after that time he was chiefly occupied with designing tapestries and stained-glass windows. — LINKS — Altarpiece of Sts Thomas and Matthias (1512, 140x180cm) _ A winged altarpiece was commissioned from the young Orley by the Guild of Stonemasons and Carpenters for the Église du Sablon in Brussels. The Guild had two patron saints, Thomas and Matthias and the altarpiece was dedicated to them. The altarpiece was later dismembered, the central panel being now in Vienna while the two wing panels in Brussels. — Altarpiece of Calvary (1534) _ The triptych was commissioned by Margaret of Austria for the church of Brou (Bourg-en-Bresse). _ The closed altarpiece represents the coat-of-arms of the Habsburgs of Austria (left), Portugal (right), Philip II (center), the Dukes of Burgundy (lower left) and the Bourbons (lower right). — Portrait of Charles V (1520, 72x52cm) _ The subject of this painting was the most famous ruler of the sixteenth century. The son of the Castilian King Philip of Burgundy and Mad Joanna, he ascended the Spanish throne in 1516. In 1519 he became Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire and for nearly forty years was the leading figure in European politics. The Habsburg lip is already visible in this youthful and somewhat idealized portrait. In his later years the Emperor was also painted several times by Titian, for whom he sat in Augsburg. Bernaert van Orley, the master of this portrait, was court painter to the two women regents, Margaret of Austria and her successor, Mary of Hungary. Orley made a portrait of him in 1515, too, but this painting is known only from copies. — Haneton Triptych (centre panel) (87x108cm) _ The center of the triptych offers Christ's entombment to our contemplation. The Virgin, St John, Mary Magdalene and the two Maries surround the corpse a few moments before its burial. Tears stream down their faces like translucent pearls and the brownish shadows underline their painful expressions. Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus appear in the rear, awkwardly linked to the group by the presence of the crown of thorns reminding us that it is they who took Christ down from the cross. Van Orley has removed the scene from its historical context, taking out any narrative element, other than a corner of the stone tomb visible to the bottom right, and focusing attention on the persons pressed one against another against the gilded background. This converts the entombment into an act of devotion, continuing the tradition of the Flemish Primitives. On the other hand, the fluid shapes, the monumental nature of the figures and certain attitudes point to the influence of Dürer and of Italian artists. Van Orley, who was also a well-known decorator and designer of tapestries and stained glass windows, repeats the same composition, with the addition of a landscape background and the tomb, in a tapestry conserved at the National Gallery of Art in Washington. Ancient literary sources tell us that the work was commissioned from Van Orley by Philippe Haneton around 1520, to be placed above the family tomb in the church of St Gudule in Brussels. The donor held high political office, having been appointed first secretary of the Grand Council by Charles V in 1518, and tasked with judging petitions for audiences with the emperor. He was also the treasurer of the Order of the Golden Fleece. He is shown on the left wing, surrounded by his seven sons. The donor's wife, Marguerite Numan, accompanied by her five daughters, is shown on the right wing, under the protection of Margaret of Antioch. When closed the triptych shows the Annunciation painted in grisaille. _ Haneton Triptych (wings) (87x48cm) _ Ancient literary sources tell us that the work was commissioned from Van Orley by Philippe Haneton around 1520, to be placed above the family tomb in the church of St Gudule in Brussels. The donor held high political office, having been appointed first secretary of the Grand Council by Charles V in 1518, and tasked with judging petitions for audiences with the emperor. He was also the treasurer of the Order of the Golden Fleece. He is shown on the left wing, surrounded by his seven sons. Behind him is the silhouette of his patron saint, the apostle Philip, recognisable by the attribute of his martyrdom, the cross on which he is supposed to have been crucified head-down. The donor's wife, Marguerite Numan, accompanied by her five daughters, is shown on the right wing, under the protection of Margaret of Antioch. This saint's attributes remind the viewer that she rebuffed the temptation of Satan, who had appeared in the form of a dragon, by brandishing the cross. — Holy Family (1522, 90x74cm) _ The infant running to his mother initiates a diagonal train of movement which leads through Mary to the kindly, ageing Joseph behind. The grouping of the main figures thus introduces both asymmetry and depth to the pictorial plane. With great artistic intelligence, Orley balances this on the left by means of the two angels parallel to the plane, one approaching with a wicker basket of flowers and one hovering overhead and bearing a golden crown. Christ serves to link together the various elements of the painting. His left hand reaches up to his mother's shoulder, his eyes are raised towards the crown with which he will one day make Mary Queen of Heaven, while his right arm gestures towards the apple in Joseph's hand — a symbol of the sin which Jesus has come to conquer. Orley can here be seen as a painter mediating between two stylistic eras. While lovingly executed details of material and texture remain the prominent focus of his interest, he also acknowledges the masters of the High Renaissance in his skilful balancing of depth and plane and in his delicate gradation of colour in the receding landscape. Orley is known both as a painter of large altarpieces and as a portraitist. — The Last Judgment (248x218cm center, 248x94cm side panels) _ The majestic arched composition, borrowed from Raphael, the scientific representation of the numerous, animated nude figures, and the dull, brownish but smooth coloring already point to the strongly Italianate tendency in the painting of Van Orley. — Portrait of Margareta van Oostenrijk - Wood Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels In his own day, van Orley was called the Raphael of the North, which speaks rather more for Raphael's fame than it does for northern judgment. His principal patrons were successive Regents of the Netherlands, Margaret of Austria and Mary of Hungary. Van Orley is at his best in portraits. — Virgin and Child (1515, 98x71cm) _ The style of this painting is close to that of Quentin Massys. — Triptych of Virtue of Patience (open) (1521, 176x184cm center, 174x80cm each wing) _ The triptych, which was very likely commissioned by Margaret of Austria, the governor of the Low Countries, depicts two biblical episodes illustrating the virtues of patience: the Book of Job and the parable of Lazarus the beggar and the rich man. Since the Middle Ages it had been common practice to draw a parallel between the resignation of Job and of Lazarus in the face of misfortune and the constancy of their faith in God. On the inside of the triptych, the story of Job begins on the left wing. Whilst in heaven Satan proposes to God to test the faith of this wealthy man, the faithful servant of Good, the first calamities rain down. Job's entire flocks are led off by the Sabeans. On the central panel, the unleashed forces of evil bring down the palace, killing Job's sons and daughters. The painter accentuates the dramatic character of the scene by numerous foreshortenings and obliques, which have the effect of pushing the picture towards the spectator. In the background countryside scene, we see Job himself sacrificing to God; to the right, naked and covered with sores, he is being cursed by his wife. On the right inner wing, Job has recovered his earlier wealth and descends the steps of his palace towards his former friends who implore his intercession. Van Orley creates his masterpiece by marrying the Flemish tradition with the new directions of Italian art and his own inventiveness. The result is a veritable profession of faith in the Renaissance, underlined by the artist's motto, "Elx syne tyt" (each in his time) inscribed on the pillar to the left of the central panel. _ Triptych of Virtue of Patience (closed) (1521, 174x80cm each wing) _ The triptych, which was very likely commissioned by Margaret of Austria, the governor of the Low Countries, depicts two biblical episodes illustrating the virtues of patience: the Book of Job and the parable of Lazarus the beggar and the rich man. Since the Middle Ages it had been common practice to draw a parallel between the resignation of Job and of Lazarus in the face of misfortune and the constancy of their faith in God. When closed, the triptych depicts the parable of Lazarus. At the bottom of the wings, divided into three symmetrical registers, Lazarus is dying at the rich man's gate, whilst the latter suffers eternal torment. The Italianate pose, and the monumentality and beauty of the nude are inspired by Raphael. In the centre, the rich man's feast, followed by his agony, take place in a sumptuous mansion. His wife, bringing him communion, and the physician, examining his urine, are looking after him whilst, in hell, two demons are torturing him, presenting him with a chalice writhing with serpents and a bowl filled with an infernal liquid. At the top, Lazarus' soul rises up to heaven in the form of a child, first held up by two angels in a transparent bubble, then in the bosom of Abraham. Van Orley creates his masterpiece by marrying the Flemish tradition with the new directions of Italian art and his own inventiveness. The result is a veritable profession of faith in the Renaissance, underlined by the artist's motto, "Elx syne tyt" (each in his time) inscribed on the pillar to the left of the central panel. — Joris van Zelle (1519, 39x32cm) _ Thanks to the attractive Latin inscription around the edge of the tapestry ornamenting the back of the painting, we know the name and profession of the person portrayed. It is Joris van Zelle, born in 1491 at Leuven where he studied medicine. As early as 1522 he was appointed physician of the city of Brussels, practising at St John's Hospital until 1561. He was a neighbour and probably a friend of Bernard van Orley. Both lived at the Place Saint-Géry, the first at the corner of the Rue de la Digue, the second opposite the church entrance, and both belonged to the De Corenbloem rhetoric chamber. Van Zelle died in 1567 and was buried in the Church of St Gudule, next to his wife, Barbara Spapen. The archives describe him as a 'medicus celeberrimus". The portrait renders homage as much to the humanist as to the bibliophile, surrounded by books that are remarkable for their precious bindings. The 32 works from his library, which are conserved to this day in Augsburg, most of them medical treatises, are elegantly and expensively bound. Wearing a felt hat and a fur-lined coat, the young 28-year old practitioner is taking notes, with his ink-well and quill-case hanging behind him. The significance of the joined hands and the ANVTEFQS monogram decorating the tapestry remain unclarified until this day. Do they allude to the understanding between the artist and his model? This has been suggested, but the mystery remains. Psychological depth is not the primary quality of this portrait. We remain surprised by the physician's slightly lifeless face. The artist carefully and realistically renders the strong-boned nose and firmly-drawn mouth, but fails to capture the feelings, intelligence or erudition of his subject. On the other hand, Van Orley renders almost palpable the warm, limited space surrounding the physician and reflects so well the humanist atmosphere that one feels that one has been admitted into Dr Van Zelle's wainscoted cabinet, as his painter friend probably was. The lively interaction of warm and delicately-shaded reds, greens and browns, the careful painting of the materials, with the viewer immediately able to sense the differences in texture, and the tight framing, all strengthen the sense of intimacy between the sitter and the viewer. |
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