Artwork of the day

March Morning, John Atkinson Grimshaw, 19th century, oil on canvas, Private Collection

This painting from the Victorian painter Grimshaw -known for his night and landscape paintings- is unusually similar to this March morning in Athens.

Picture from: http://www.bridgemanart.com

Artwork of the day

Bastille Day at Lorient 1892, Henry Moret, 1892, oil on canvas, Galerie L'Ergastere, Paris, France

   Picture from http://www.bridgemanart.com

Artwork of the day

Rue Transnonain, Honoré Daumier, 1834, lithograph

It should be obvious by now that I'm a big fan of 19th century French Realism. Daumier is particularly dear to me as his art is meant to be both humorous and real, a critique to the social, political and economic situation of 19th century France and serving eventually as a visual history of Daumier's times. In this case it is a tragic event that Daumier depicts and immortalizes in his art. Rue Transonain was created in 1834 and shows the aftermath of a real event in this Parisian route. In April 1834 during a social unrest, governmental troops entered a building and killed all its inhabitants. The lithograph depicts one single room and lives to the imagination of the viewer the scenery in the rest of the building. Death is present everywhere in the scene. The man in the foreground that wears his night robe was probably dragged out of his bed and killed. A baby lies beneath him, an old man right next to him. With this work Daumier criticizes the violence of the army, but also the ill decisions of a monarchy that had little concern for the poor citizens of the country.

June painting

Midsummer, James Guthrie, 1892,  oil on canvas, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburg, Scotland


 

Artwork of the day

The Peasants of Flagey, Gustave Courbet, 1850-55, oil on canvas, Musée des Beaux-Arts et d'Archéologie, Besançon

The final Courbet painting in this context  is the Peasants of Flagey returning from the fair. The picture is less crowded than the burial at Ornans and certainly more crowded than the Stonebreakers. Here, a group of peasants returns from a fair, as the title of the painting suggests. The fair was a business event of rural life, so the people involved return to their home after having sold their products and perhaps bought other things themselves. The thin oxen in front of the peasants might symbolize poverty, or may be the result of an economic deal .However the most important thing about this painting is that this is a representation of the third class in rural France. After the exhausted workers and the indifferent bourgeoisie, Courbet depicts the peasants, those people who have been lucky enough to own some estates and be able to make a living out of them. This painting therefore completes a trilogy that aims at representing the whole of rural life from a social, critical and even political point of view.

Artwork of the day

The Burial at Ornans, Gustave Courbet, 1849-1850, oil on canvas, Musée d'Orsay, Paris

The second of the three works by Courbet to examine the French rural life, the Burial at Ornans deals not with the deprived poor but with the rural bourgeoisie. The occasion is a burial, perhaps, a real event from the social life at Ornans. The people represented, are “the public face” of the town, mixed with members of Courbet’s own family. However if one’s looks closer, understands that very few among the crowd actually mourn for the dead. Many look out of the picture, others talk with each other. This is clearly then a social event, where the bourgeoisie of Ornans gathered to show off. It is how the sarcastic eye of the artist saw all these people, and the burial at Ornans is the way he chose to criticize them. This painting is a visual contrast to the miserable situation of the Stonebreakers. These people are quite wealthy even if their status is much lower than this of the urban bourgeoisie that claimed power in Paris and the other big urban centers of France. 

References

Clark, T.J. 1969. “A Bourgeois dance of death: Max Buchon on Courbet-I” The Burlington magazine. pp 208-213

Rubin, Henry James. 1997. Courbet. France: Phaidon

Artwork of the day

The Stonebreakers, Gustave Courbet,1849, oil on canvas

One of the paintings representing people from the artist's hometown, Ornans, the Stonebreakers is one of Courbet's most celebrated works, although it does not survive today as it was destroyed in the bombing of Dresden in 1945. The artist chose to depict his two protagonists in a three-quarter view, hiding thus their faces. What the viewer needs to know though is clear at one glance. The picture shows two people: an old man and a boy, in the process of breaking stones at the end of a provincial road. Courbet described these two figures in a letter to his  friend Champfleury as “pitiable”. The old man is for Courbet “an old machine”, “sunburned” and dressed with rags. The boy is fifteen years old according to Courbet and he is already “suffering from scurvy”. These two persons belong to the lowest part of the French rural society of the 19^th century, who have most probably lost their farms from poverty. They are in this state and have no hope of ever getting out of it. The old man represents the end of the existence of the French proletariat, the boy, the beginning. 

This painting along with the Burial at Ornans and The Peasants of Flagey are thought to form a coherent whole of French rural life and as large scale paintings their theme (neither historical nor heroic) scandalized the French Salon of 1850.

References

Rubin, Henry James. 1997. Courbet. France: Phaidon

Artwork of the day

Mary Cassatt, Woman in Black at the Opera, 1879, oil on canvas, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

In the 19^th century Parisian bourgeois society the public sphere was a forbidden area for a honourable woman on her own but as in all rules there was an exception. There was one public space that was actually available to both men and women: the opera. This painting by Mary Cassatt has been –for obvious reasons- central when discussing feminism and 19^th century French art. When compared with paintings from male artists, striking differences can be noted.  For example in Renoir’s famous La Loge some the female protagonist seems to invite with the position of her body, the clothes she is wearing and the abstract look the gaze of the viewer while at the same time she avoids direct eye contact with him/ her.

Auguste Renoir, La Loge, 1874, oil on canvas, Courtauld Institute Galleries, London

On the contrary, in Cassatt’s Woman in Black at the Opera, the woman is actually involved in looking turning her head away from the viewer. This is not only an apparent defiance of traditional roles from a female artist, but a defiance by at the same time a critical departure from the part of the Cassatt from the traditional representations expected from her as a woman, but as an artist as well. She enters the world of artistic creativity and defies the traditional role of art object assigned to her. A sign of Cassatt's realisation and deep understanding of these social conventions might be the man in the background who has turned his head away from the spectacle and concentrates on the protagonist of the painting, although she seems to have not noticed him.

Artwork of the day

The daughters of Edward Darley Boit, John Singer Sargent, 1882, oil on canvas, Museum of Fine Art, Boston

A painting I personally adore for the simplicity of its arrangement, the tenderness of its theme and the ability of the artist to show the viewers bits of character traits of the girls he represented. 

Sargent was a celebrated portraitist of the 19th century and his ability to portray both the outer and inner world of his sitters is compared only to the skill of Diego Velasquez. Indeed this painting has often been compared to Velasquez's famous painting Las Meninas. 

The 4 girls are presented posing in the interior of their house, a space they are obviously familiar with. But at the same time they show familiarity with the artist himself to the point that the painting looks like a snap shot. What is interesting is that the two eldest girls, in their early teens at the time, are almost hidden in the background. One avoids all eye contact and we can hardy see part of her face. On the contrary the youngest girls seem more eager to engage with the viewer / visitor, probably a sign of their childhood innocence. 

Natasha Wallace discusses the future of the 4 girls, explaining that the two eldest have suffered from emotional and mental problems for all their adult lives (http://jssgallery.org/paintings/Daughters_of_Edward_Darley_Boit.htm).
I have not been able yet to find more evidence about this, however if it is correct, then Sargent was not only able to show characterics of their age, but also to capture their distinct personalities.

Artwork of the day

The Starry Night, Van Gogh, 1889, oil on canvas, Museum of Modern Art, New York

A way to express himself, his feelings and emotions. This is how Vincent Van Gogh saw painting. Knowing his turbulent and often tragic life and death we can easily understand why he believed so. 

Created just one year before his death, The Starry Night is one of the artist's most famous works. The painting has been linked to one of the letters Van Gogh sent to his brother Theo:

"This morning I saw the country from my window a long time before sunrise, with nothing but the morning star, which looked very big." 

It is believed that this sentence inspired The Starry Night, which in the mind of the artist was also connected with death:

"Why, I ask myself, shouldn't the shining dots of the sky be as accessible as the black dots on the map of France? Just as we take the train to get to Tarascon or Rouen, we take death to reach a star."

At the same time, the painting displays Van Gogh's characteristic technique: thick, evident brush strokes, dominant colours.

The quotations and picture are taken from the website of the Museum of Modern Art,

http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=79802

Artwork of the day

Honore Daumier, Gargantua, 1831, lithograph

Honore Daumier expressed a severe criticism to the social situation of his time and the political rulers themselves. In the 1831 lithograph Gargantua, his target is the Bourbon king, Louis-Philippe. The picture is a direct attack to the ruler, who is represented more as an industrial machine, rather than an actual human being. Louis-Philippe is depicted as giant, seated in a throne. The city behind him is no other than the French capital, Paris. The king is in the process of devouring all the food that his servants bring to his open mouth, while at the same time, from “his posterior, honours and concessions fall to politicians gathered outside the Palais Bourbon in the form of toilet paper”. In front of the king, the artist chose to depict the poor of Paris. They look more like living skeletons, wearing rags looking in despair. Daumier spent six months in prison for this lithograph, but he continued the harsh criticism on the 19^th century French society.

Artwork of the day

Berthe Morisot, The Cradle, 1872

One of the most famous female artists of all time, Berthe Morisot is known as the impressionist who painted the 'domestic' life of the bourgeois women of 19th century Paris. Thus, her work features prominently in the writings of modern feminists like Griselda Pollock.
This painting, now in the Musee d'Orsay of Paris, reflects the life expected of a bourgeois woman and the roles she was expected to play: that of the dutiful wife and loving mother.