LESSON #2 / Oct. 24, 2011
PRE-RAPHAELITE BROTHERHOOD
VICTORIAN PAINTING
Victorian England was in the midst of an Industrial Revolution when
a group that was often nicknamed the “not-so-secret-seven”
formed as reaction to the academic painting of the period. With the
exception of Brown they were generally young men and women in the early years
of their career. They were disillusioned with the academic painting of the time
that generally harkened back to a “golden age” in a neo-classical manner. Two
examples of the elite painters of the Royal Academy were Albert Moore and Lord
Leighton.
Dreamers 1882 by Albert
Moore
Moore had a fascination with colour harmonies. His work was
about an imaginary Antique lifestyle. Like the people who continue to wear
shorts downtown in October they are not exactly accepting the realty of the
season. Victorian life had a dark side, things that were not all that pretty
and artists often went towards escapism. Moore was a dreamer painting people
dreaming. Themes of sleeping and dreaming recurred in Moore work.
Flaming June 1895 by Lord
Leighton 1830-1896
He liked to paint a Neo-classical dream-world. Leighton made
hundreds of sketches and studies before painting his canvases. This was
finished just before his death.
The Fairy Feller’s Masterstroke 1841-1893
1858-1864 by Richard
Dadd (1817-1886)
Dadd thought he was was processed by devils while still a
student and killed his father. He spent the rest of his life in Bedlam. Today
there is a museum there in his honor.
Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836-1912)
He portrayed beautiful elegant people in classical settings. He
was a Dutch expatriate who lived in England. He painted daily life in ancient
Rome and Egypt. His ability to render architectural detail has never been
matched. In his time he was a very popular and wealthy painter. Without the
authenticity of these elaborate classical reconstructions, the sensual, often
erotic figures that languished in Alma-Tadema's paintings may not have been
widely accepted. After his death his popularity was soon forgotten and
considered "Victorians in togas".
Sir Edwin Henry Landseer (1802-1873)
He was a favorite of the Queen and was most famous for his
sculpture of the lions at Trafalgar Square at the foot of Nelson’s column. He
also painted the wildlife of Scotland like “Monarch
of the Glen” Landseer humanized domestic animals endowing them with
sentimental images. An engraving of one of his paintings that I once owned
showed a terrier male dog coming home after a night out with the boys. His mate
who was home looking after the puppies greets him with a snarl. The artist also
painted hunting scenes that graphically showed game animals torn apart by
hunting dogs. Queen Victoria commissioned Royal Portraits including Prince
Albert and their pets, from him and he was offered the presidency of the Royal
Academy but declined. At the time he suffered from severe depression. Landseer
was the drawing master for the Queen. He was commissioned to create a pair of
lions for the foot of Nelsons' column at Trafalgar square, London. (These same
lions can be seen in Halifax at the Dingle Tower.) The live animals he ordered
to model for him died in transit from Africa and he was forced to work from a
dead lion. This led to his eviction because his landlady had no understanding
of him having smelly old dead lions hanging around. He took a mental break-down
after that and was put in a mental hospital .
James McNeil Abbot Whistler (1834-1903)
An American expatriate painter and etcher born in Lowell, Mass.
After the U.S. civil war he fled to London, England. He studied map making at
West Point Academy. His knowlege of engraving and etching would later highlight
his artistic career. He was highly influenced by the Japanese masters.
William Etty (1787-1849) He was a member of the RA who studied under Lawrence
and dedicated himself to a life-long study of the nude.
Lady Elizabeth Butler (1846-1933)
She was awarded with a purchase from the Queen Victoria of her
painting of the Crimean War, “Calling
the roll”. She also painted a large battle scene of a charge by the
Scots Grays at the Battle of Waterloo titled, “Scotland Forever”.
“PLEASE
RING BELL” The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (Oct. 24, 2011)
In 1848 the brotherhood formed and had seven members. Among them
were Dante Gabriel Rossetti
(1828-1882), Edward
Burne-Jones, Ford
Madox Brown (b.1821), Millais,
John Ruskin (b.
1819 an art critic and writer who promoted and supported the movement) They
were young poets and painters at the time. At the time nobody knew what “PRB”
meant and some critics thought it meant “Please ring bell”. They put it after
their name as others might put “RA” or “RCA”.
Their objective was to improve the bad taste and cultural
sterility of the times. The study of nature and the revival of sound
craftsmanship. Many of the artists became involved with the British Arts &
Crafts Movement founded by William
Morris (1834-1896). Burne-Jones
became one of the great designers of the movement. He designed
stain glass windows, books, trays, fabrics and furniture. The Morris chair was
a product of the movement. Morris founded a colony of craft studios where hand
made products were designed. A similar movement came about in the United
States.
The PRB later added it others to it's numbers but also had a
split with some issues. There was a more realistic faction that included Hunt, Millais and Brown. On the other hand
we had Edward Burne-Jones, Rossetti,
Morris, Siddal, using medieval art subjects.
The Brotherhood was an organized revolt against the Royal
Academy. Victorian art was involved with classical subjects (that gave an
excuse to paint nudes) Fairy Painting (you didn't have to be one to paint one)
and what was called History Painting. Many of the Brotherhood later became
members of the Academy. In their youth they were against what they called dark
pretentious history paintings. Robert
Harris who
spent his childhood in Charlottetown, could be called a history painter. Other
painters who were shown in RA shows could have subjects that could be called
'trivial anecdotes. Painters like Landseer were doing cute little animal
paintings. The PRB members called these 'monkeyana' or over- sentimental-
rubbish. They wanted to paint “true to nature' as expounded in “Modern Painters” by John Ruskin. The PRB
wanted to return to the purity of art before the high Renaissance movement.
They removed much of the dark browns (bitumen) and earth colours from their
pallets and tried to use only brilliant colours.
Thomas Woolner (1825-1892)
Was encouraged to be part of the PRB in 1848. He also was a poet
and sculptor in marble and bronze. He immigrated to Australia and inspired
Brown to paint, “The Last
of England”.
Ford Madox Brown (1821-1893)
Brown also painted some socially aware paintings such as “Take Your Son, Sir!” (1857) which
was not likely to bring him any sales. This painting was about illegitimacy and
the exploitation of the poor. There is nothing else more direct in the era he
painted it. What Brown considered his masterwork was “Work” painted between
1852 and 1865.
Although Brown who was much older than the other PRB members
never really joined the group he had been Rossetti's
teacher and mentor and was closely involved with the movement. Brown's style of
painting was derived from French
Romanticism. His early work was dark and dramatic.
“Work” is
a form of modern history painting. A natural-looking representation of a
Victorian street. Brilliant colour and detail abound. The heroes of the
painting are the guys digging up drain pipes while passers-by of both rich and
poor are seen as supporting cast. Two blokes to the right are the Christian
socialist and pioneer of working class education, Rev. F.D. Maurice and Thomas
Carlyle. The painting is far more a socialist statement than anything produced
after the 1917 USSR revolution. This was painted in Manchester a major
working-class city.
Brown painted “An
English Autumn Afternoon” in 1852. Ruskin asked Brown, “What made
you take such an ugly subject?”, Brown just replied, “Because it lay out the
back window.” It showed the outskirts of London from a hill-top view. Mr. Brown
was not a painter of romantic legions and fairy stories, he painted the world as
he saw it.
William Holman Hunt (1827-1910)
He had worked his way through the R.A. College and as a student
he met Millais. The dedication of the artist to his work as an artist shows in
the painting, “The
Scapegoat” 1854. He travelled to the Holy Land to paint four times.
A photo shows him in Palestine, on the shores of the Dead Sea painting on site
in a war zone with a shotgun across his lap while painting. He armed himself
against bandits and had travelled to the Holy Land to get “...things true and life-like”.
Hunt painted on the Day of Atonement. Like others of the Brotherhood he had to
paint from life. Religious art was his true calling. He tended to multiply
naturalistic detail giving equal emphasis to all. Sometimes his painting
followed a Victorian soap-opera format, such as in “Awaking Conscience”. He is a little less
moralistic in “Hireling
Shepherd” In 1905 he published a book on the brotherhood titled “Pre-Raphaelism and the PRB”. One
of his most famous religious works was “the
Light of the World” painted in 1854. It was inspired from the “Book of Revelation”. Hunt
was often misunderstood in his own time. “The Light” toured the world and was
reproduced in great numbers, even a 3D version exists. I have seen it copied as
a stain glass window.
John Everette Millais (1829-1896)
Millais discovered Lizzie and hired her as a model. He continued
to paint Shakespearean scenes. He painted “Ophelia”
with her in the tub in costume. These guys were not good at paying
the heating bills. A bad cold resulted but his model continued to work for him.
He painted another work that could be classed as a “Fairy” painting titled “Ferdin Lured by Ariel”
in 1849. There
was a number of artists in Victorian times who painted Fairy s. Richard Dadd
(1817-1886) who painted the famous “Fairy
Fellers' Master Stroke” comes to mind. Millais has the same
attention to detail. Unlike Dadd, Millais didn't chop his family up with an
axe.
Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal (1829-1862) also known as Lizzie
or 'Guggums'
She was considered the dream woman of the PRB and was discovered
by them in a Millany Shop. She had been a hat-maker. She was eighteen at the
time.
“...beautiful as the reflection of a golden mountain in a
crystal lake.” was what Ruskin said of her. She was tall, slender with a
stately neck and a mass of copper hair. She was the model for various Arthurian
legends and often speared more than once in a single painting. She was
encouraged in her own painting by Ruskin and worked in watercolour painting
medieval scenes. She also wrote verse and illustrated her books.
She married Dante
Gabriel Rossetti in 1860. She suffered what would be considered in
today’s' terms an abusive relationship. Dante was unfaithful and the damp
unheated studio had contributed to her deteriorating health. She died of an
overdose of laudanum. Said by some historians to be a suicide. Her husband
graved and went into a deep depression. He placed the manuscript of his
unpublished poems under her cheek in the coffin.
Dante Charles Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)
He was the second of four children. All of them achieving some recondition in the arts.
Dante dropped out of the Royal Academy school and he first became famous for
his poetry. It was only later he began to develop as a painter.
Rossetti married Elizabeth Siddal and with her at Chatham Place,
Black Friars. She died two years after the marriage. The bereavement over the
death of Lizzie led to insomnia in 1867. He eventually went to stay in a castle
in Ayrshire, Scotland where in long sleepless nights he returned to writing
poetry to clear his mind. He began to think of publishing his early work buried
with his wife. After exhuming the manuscript and publishing it, he received a
wide range of criticism which led to pronounced melancholia which remained
until his death.
Christina Rossetti
Dante's sister, Christina posed for the Annunciation in 1850.
She was the poet of the group..
Lucy Madox Rossetti (1843-1894)
She was the only daughter of Ford Madox Brown and married
William Rossetti in 1874. She carried on the traditions of the PRB. Lucy's
paintings centred on medieval style. She did not achieve the fame that the male
PRB artist did but the titles of some of her works in major collection are:
“Romeo and
Juliet In The Vault”
“The Fair
Geraldine”
“Margaret
Roper Receiving the Head of her Father”
“Saint Agnes
Eve”
“Lady of
Shalotte”
William Morris (1843-1896)
Morris wrote one of the first fantasy novels, “The Well at the End of the World” He
was a designer, typographer, poet, painter and socialist.
Jane Morris (Jane Burden)
She posed for her husband, William
Morris in the painting “Queen
Guinevere” (1858). She was a popular model for the PRB and posed in
Icelandic costume in an etching produced in 1873. After the death of Lizzie she
fell in love with Rossetti and became his mistress.
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, RA (1833-1898)
He was closely linked with the Arts and Crafts movement and
designed book plates, books of poetry, stained glass and other products for the
firm owned by William Morris. He worked with Rossetti on a ceiling fresco in
the Oxford University Library. In 1859 Ruskin paid his way to Italy where he
came under the influence of Botticelli. Burne-Jones creates a strange blend of
Medievalism and Classicism. He has a unique place in Victorian art. There is a
large collection of his work in Burningham, his native city.
Note: This lesson is not yet complete due to problems transcribing it.
I will add to it when my computer is restored. KDM
Lesson # 3
The undressed art
(The Nude) throughout art history the nude has
been a universal study from the goddess figures carved in the stone-age to
modern times. The human form has always
been a timeless focus in art and the central point in ancient Greek painting
and sculpture. Classical Greek ideas of beauty
carried a popular notion that the male body was the ideal human form. Greek art was the not entirely indifferent to
feminine beauty. The sculptured form of
“Venus of Milo” (often seen these days reproduced with a clock in her belly)
contains the classical beauty of the ideal nude. (5th century B.C.) Sculpture has
endured in many ways beyond painting.
Early Greek sculpture inspired artists in the Renaissance even though
much was lost to Christian attitudes towards pagan art forms and the representation
of deities were often in ruin. The
looting of Greek art had started with the Romans and much that was looted was
destroyed in Christian times until the Renaissance.
15th Century
It was Greek sculpture that influenced Michelangelo when he painted nudes
on the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican. He
was also influenced by the rebirth of science and the study of anatomy that was
still an underground science at that time blocked by the laws of the Church of
Rome. The most famous nudes ever painted
the two male figures on the Sistine ceiling by Michelangelo. They were classical in inspiration from the
late Hellenistic marble fragment of about 50 BC which the artist studied in the
papal collection.
“Birth of Venus” (1478) by Sandre Botticelli
(1444-1510) Florentine school. He was
sponsored by Lorenzo the Magnificent of the Medici family. He showed a revival of Gothic tenancies. He created a type of grace and beauty of face
and figure so personal to him that it is instantly recognizable to anyone
having the least acquaintance with Renaissance art. He was trained by Fra Filippo Lippi.
16th
Century Mannerism
followed the rebirth with major debates about the role of the nude in art. Michelangelo didn’t live to see his
masterpieces with fig leaves painted on them by order of another pope. Mannerism emerges after the Counter
Reformation. Attitudes are in constant
shift about the piety of the human form.
One of the characteristics of this art is the unease and tension that
seems to be present in the art.
Venus Anadyomene 1520 the Baroque style brought new
attitudes to the representation of the naked body in the 6th
Century. They did not see the nude as an
emblem of pleasure purely; sometimes it was used to convey pain and
vulnerability usually but not always in a religious context.
Mannerism provided an alternative to classical
perfection. It presented an erotic
element to the nude. Bronzino’s “Venus” has some extreme erotic ideas
expressed. This made such works ideal
for the courts of the mid-16th century.
17th Century
Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) He painted Queen Marie
de Medicis the second Medici Queen of France.
She was shown arriving and being welcome by the people of France. A detail shows the mermaids guiding her ship
to the dock.
He also painted “The Hermit and the Sleeping Angelica”
Canto VIII (translation)
In pious strains, with hyporcritic air, He now began to
soothe the weeping fair:
While as he spoke, his roving fingers press’d,
Her alabaster neck and heaving breast:
Till, bolder grown, his clasp’d her in his arms:
But here, resentment kindling all her charms,
Back with her hand the feeble wretch she threw,
While every feature glowed with rosy hue.
Then from his scrip he takes, of sovereign use,
A little vial filled with magic juice:
In those bright eyes, where love was won’t to frame
His sharpest darts and raise his purest flame,
A drop he sprinkles that had power to steep
Her heavy eye-lids in the dew of sleep…
~John Hoole 1799~
Art of this time is
gradually shifting from classical and purely religious painting to art that is
patronized by a rising merchant class.
18th Century
Rubens introduces the
fleshy nudes of classical proportions and pagan times are once again in
fashion. Fragonard and Boucher work
towards a more decadent subject matter that reflects the erotic and the
decadence of court life that was to end in revolution.
Louise O”Murphy 1752 by Francois
Boucher (1703-1770) the model was the daughter of an Irish shoemaker. She had traveled with King James II to France
and settled in Ruen. Her three sisters
became courtesans; with them she first met Casanova. He arranged for Boucher to paint this oil of
her nude. She came to the notice of
Louis XV. Louise became the Bing’s
mistress and bore him two sons. She is
15 years old in the painting. The artist
stressed bright warm colours and erotic subject matter. His style and that of Fragonard was called
Rococo.
19th Century
Naked Maja by Francisco Goya
(1746-1828) over 348,907 people lost their lives to the Inquisition from its
institution until the coronation of Charles IV.
“Condesa de Chinchon” was
painted in a dressed version as well.
She has a delicate and slightly disturbing humanity. She is in this way timeless. It was thought by some that she was painted
in the “dressed” version to satisfy the inquisition.
William Etty (1787-1849) an academic painter that dedicated himself to
painting the nude which he was quoted as saying was…Gods most glorious work”
Etty was very much opposed by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood who thought his
paintings were “rather obvious carnality.”
Thomas Eakins (1844-1915)
He studied art in
Philadelphia and anatomy at Jefferson Medical College before going to Paris for
3 years. One of his most famous
paintings is “Max Schmitt in his Single
Skull”. He taught life drawing at
PAFA. Models in those schools wore cloth
sacks over their heads.
Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825)
He was highly inspired
by the art in Italy and was the inventor of Neo-classical art…His work,
“Socrates and Coligny” hung in the Salon with Vigee-Lebrun’s “Queen
Marie-Antoinette and her Children” Some years later David would be one of the
signers of that same Queen’s death warrant.
“Odalisque” by Jean Auguste
Dominique Ingres (1780-1867) He was a student of David and the
neo-classical movement. He claimed to be
opposed to Romanticism and Realism. Yet
there are a number of his subjects and topics that touch on the Romantic. Artists banded together in groups advocating
a particular idea. Paris was the centre
of new artistic ideas like the neo-classical movement that was for a short
while the official art of France. It was
also adapted as the official art of the United States of America. Romanticism also had a movement in music and literature. Many of Ingres’ subjects were very exotic and
Romantic. Art criticism appeared in
journals and newspapers. There was a
growing literacy and a wide readership.
Ingres shows the classicism in his painting. He looks at reality with discipline,
strictness and detachment. Ingres lived
in Italy for long periods of time. He
was influenced by Raphael rather than by Michelangelo. He did not follow the political implications
of the Neo-classicists, which aligned itself with Napoleon. He was opposed to the Romantic painters like
Gericault and Delacroix. He did not
become a court painter for the Republic as did David. David was exiled after the fall of the
Emperor. Ingres remained out of the
politics and opposed the Romantic Movement.
He does paint very romantic subjects, much of it Turkish harems and
mythological subjects. Ingres was also a
talented violinist and his music helped pay his way in the worlds. Though skillful in every detail some
distortions come through in his anatomy.
There is few who can paint flesh in such a sensual way.
“Olympia” (1863) by Edovard Manet who painted a reclining nude, her cat and
servant. This painting used Victorine
Marret as a model and caused a sensation and scandized outcry. Napolian III placed armed guards to protect
the painting from being vandalized in 1865.
Cezanne admired the painting and Gauguin made a copy of it. Manet was inspired to make a copy of it. Manet’s influences surly came from Goya’s
“Maja” The artist greatly admired Goya and went through a period which has been
called his “Spainish period” His ‘Olympia’
carefully filtered out the sensual appeal of the relaxed Maja. He set the scene in contrast of light and
dark. The painting of the same model,
Victorine, was rejected by the salon in 1863.
It was titled “Le Dejeuner sur
L’herbe” or “Lunchian on the Grass”
Olympia was shown in the Salon des Refuses.
In both paintings the artist, though basing his composition on a
classical pastoral subject, managed to shock the art public to the point of
riot.
20th century
Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920)
He devoted almost all
his attention to the human figure.
Painting female nudes and portraits.
Under the influence of primitive sculpture he elongated his forms.
"Pegleg" was an old friend from Spring Park Road. I learned about cache from him. He would hide food I gave him and then call the others to join him once he tucked away something for himself. This is a custom also shared by bluejays which are close cousins to crows. oil 20"x16"
"Crow In Winter" 20"x16" oil on canvas.
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