Hanging Fragment with Bird and Basket

by ArtByzantiumEarly Christian ArtStudent ActivitiesWorksheets
Hanging Fragment with Bird and Basket, 4th century, Wool, linen; tapestry weave, H. 64 cm, W. 50 cm, the MET, NY, USA
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/443639?&pkgids=684&exhibitionId=%7bD6F10BA8-6A28-45C2-AD23-4AFE0D41B5EC%7d&oid=443639&ft=*&fe=1

Once more, inspiration comes from the Exhibition The Good Life: Collecting Late Antique Art at The Met (May 24, 20221-May 7, 2023) that showcases the Museum’s important and rare collection of third- to eighth-century art from Egypt and reevaluates it through the lens of late antique ideas about abundance, virtue, and shared classical taste. Writers and craftspeople translated these ideas into a concept celebrated as “the good life.” A Hanging Fragment with Bird and Basket helped me explore the idea of The Good Life… how it is connected to social status, wealth, and living well in Late antiquity, and how it reflects the extraordinary values and lifestyle of the upper classes in the world of the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2021/good-life-collecting-late-antique-art and https://www.teachercurator.com/uncategorized/portrait-medallion-of-gennadios/

Searching for information on Early Christian Textiles, I came across two short books  I would like to share… and acting more like a Curator rather than a Teacher, I present you Textiles of Late Antiquity, a 1995 Metropolitan Museum of Art Publication, and Woven Interiors: Furnishing Early Medieval Egypt, an Exhibition Catalogue of 2020, organized by the George Washington University Museum, The Textile Museum, and Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection.  https://www.metmuseum.org/art/metpublications/Textiles_of_Late_Antiquity and https://museum.gwu.edu/woven-interiors-furnishing-early-medieval-egypt

I like how the 2020 Exhibition, Woven Interiors: Furnishing Early Medieval Egypt, introduces the role intricate textiles played… during the early medieval era, when the eastern Mediterranean’s palaces, villas, and sacred spaces were richly decorated with hangings, curtains, and other luxury fabrics. These beautiful and rare examples of artworks dating from the 4th to the 10th centuries, demonstrate for us today, how textiles defined spaces and moved ornamental motifs between cultures, over time, and across media. They show us, as well, how the large-format hangings, covers, and other, smaller in size, fabrics were often the most valuable possessions of any household at the time. They served, according to the experts, critical physical and social functions alongside more permanent architectural forms. In addition to revealing textiles’ importance and use, the Exhibition Woven Interiors also documented continuities and changes in weaving and aesthetics. In so few words, I was hooked to learn more… https://museum.gwu.edu/woven-interiors-furnishing-early-medieval-egypt

Hanging Fragment with Bird and Basket in the Metropolitan Museum Collection of Textiles is a precious piece of artistic handicraft that immediately caught my attention. The rich coulours, subtle gradients of reds for the background, blues and beiges for the bird, and warm greens for the decorative bands, create a composition, however, fragmented it is, that immediately draws the viewer’s attention to the blue bird maybe a sparrow, picking at a basket of grapes. The skillful weaver not only created a masterful colour palette but using thin parallel lines managed to enliven the small bird who seems to quiver and quake with enthusiasm in front of its basket of treats …in a style typical of the figural naturalism of the late Greco-Roman period. According to the Museum experts, the textile under focus was …originally part of a series of decorated bands composing a wall hanging or curtain, …probably used in a domestic setting. The MET textile, thought to have been woven at Herakleia in Anatolia, shows evidence of the importation of exceptional fabrics into Egypt.

For a Student Activity inspired by the Hanging Fragment with Bird and Basket in the MET, please… Click HERE!

“Κάλλος” and the Kore from Chios

by Ancient Greek ArtArtExhibitionsStudent ActivitiesWorksheets
The “Kore from Chios,” c. 510 BC, Marble from the island of Paros, H. 0.545 m, Acropolis Museum, Athens Greece
https://www.theacropolismuseum.gr/en/statue-kore-kore-chios

Kallos, according to the Museum of Cycladic Art experts, is an ideal developed in ancient Greek thinking and was expressed through the verses of the epic (8th century BC) and lyric (7th – 6th century BC) poets, initially as outward beauty. From the sixth century BC onwards, the concept was crystallized gradually through the texts of the philosophers, who referred to Kallos as a combination of physical appearance and virtues of the soul. It is on this dimension of Kallos that the exhibition of the Museum of Cycladic Art concentrates, enhancing the contribution of ancient Greece to defining the notion of beauty that prevails to this day. “Κάλλος” The Ultimate Beauty is a must-see Exhibition in the Museum of Cycladic Art in Athens running from 29/09/2021 until 16/01/2022. “Κάλλος” and the Kore from Chios is my new BLOG POST inspired by this wonderful Exhibition… focusing on a unique exhibit from the Acropolis Museum in Athens. https://cycladic.gr/en/page/kallos-i-ipertati-omorfia and https://www.theacropolismuseum.gr/en/statue-kore-kore-chios

The “Kore from Chios,” c. 510 BC, Marble from the island of Paros, H. 0.545 m, Acropolis Museum, Athens Greece
https://www.theacropolismuseum.gr/en/statue-kore-kore-chios

The Kore from Chios is one of the most impressive Kore excavated on the Acropolis of Athens back in the late 19th century, part of the Perserschutt, the numerous remains of statues vandalized by the Achaemenids during the terrible years of the second Persian invasion… Ten years after the Battle of Marathon (490 BC), the Persians returned to Greece and after their victory at the Battle of Thermopylae, in September of 480 BC, they entered Athens. The small number of Athenians who had barricaded themselves on the Acropolis, hoping that the Wooden Walls of the Delphic Oracle will protect them, were eventually defeated, and Xerxes ordered Athens to be torched. Those Persians who had come up first betook themselves to the gates, which they opened, and slew the suppliants; and when they had laid all the Athenians low, they plundered the temple and burnt the whole of the acropolis. (Herodotus VIII.53). Months later, after the victory at Salamis, and the Battle of Plataea in 479 BC, the Athenians returned to their city… they respectfully buried the mutilated sacred statues of the Archaic period on the Acropolis and proceeded with reorganizing their civic and private lives… waiting for the right time to rebuild their Acropolis. https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/special-topics-art-history/arches-at-risk-cultural-heritage-education-series/xa0148fd6a60f2ff6:ruins-reconstruction-and-renewal/a/destruction-memory-and-monuments-the-many-lives-of-the-parthenon

In 1886, excavating the Perserschutt deposits, archaeologists discovered the head of the Kore from Chios east of the Parthenon while its body was discovered in 1888 south of the Parthenon temple. The “Chiotissa” as it is affectionately called by the Greeks, is an Archaic period (c. 600-480 BC) Kore, whose artist was most probably from the Aegean island of Chios. Statues of a Kore, plural korai, refer to a type of freestanding effigy of a maiden. Kore is a draped female figure—carved from marble and originally painted—standing erect with feet together or sometimes with one foot, usually the left, slightly advanced. The arms are sometimes down at the sides, but in most cases, one is brought up closely across the front of the body or is extended, holding an offering; the other is lowered, often clasping a fold of drapery. In the earliest korai, the bodies are so blocklike that they hardly seem to represent feminine form… Later, the drapery became more fluid, with a greater variation in the folds gained by having one hand of the kore pull the drapery tightly across thighs and buttocks. The garments worn by the kore figures changed in style as well, displaying a pattern, either on borders or as single ornaments scattered over larger areas. https://www.britannica.com/art/kore-Greek-sculpture, https://www.theacropolismuseum.gr/en/statue-kore-kore-chios. You can also check BLOG POST Daughters of Eleutherna https://www.teachercurator.com/art/daughters-of-eleutherna/

Kallos. The Ultimate Beauty Exhibition, Museum of Cycladic Art – from 29/09/2021 until 16/01/2022 – Photo Credit: Paris Tavitian
https://cycladic.gr/en/page/kallos-i-ipertati-omorfia
The “Kore from Chios” (in colour), c. 510 BC, Marble from the island of Paros, H. 0.545 m, Acropolis Museum, Athens Greece
My life and fortunes are a monstrosity, partly because of Hera, partly because of my beauty. If only I could shed my beauty and assume an uglier aspect, the way you would wipe color off a statue… by Euripides, Helen, 260-263. (Translated by R.Kannicht, Heidelberg 1969) https://www.theacropolismuseum.gr/en/statue-kore-kore-chios

The Kore from Chios is small in size but impressive in… Κάλλος! Created by a fine Eastern Greek sculptor… maybe the grandson of  Archermos of Chios, the fine-looking “Chiotissa,” is depicted stepping slightly forward pulling her skirt to the side with her left arm, creating thus, a fan of fine radiating folds. She wears the Ionian style of dress… a fine, crinkly chiton over which a short himation is draped diagonally. The carving is richly detailed, the paint even more so. The chiton is blue, the himation edged with a red and blue design, the Stephane was decorated with a Maeander, the earrings and a necklace painted, and the hair colored as well. I look at her and remember Eleni, Euripides’s heroine… My life and fortunes are a monstrosity, partly because of Hera, partly because of my beauty. If only I could shed my beauty and assume an uglier aspect, the way you would wipe color off a statue…  http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/artifact?name=Athens%2C+Acropolis+675&object=Sculpture and https://www.greece-is.com/the-colors-of-antiquity/

For a Student Activity on the Kore from Chios, please… Check HERE!

The Labours of the Months: November

by ArtPowerpointsRenaissance
By an unknown Venetian artist…
The Labours of the Months: November, about 1580, oil on canvas, 13.6 x 10.6 cm, National Gallery, London
https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/italian-venetian-the-labours-of-the-months-january#painting-group-info

Waken, lords and ladies gay, / On the mountain dawns the day; / All the jolly chase is here / With hawk and horse and hunting-spear; / Hounds are in their couples yelling, / Hawks are whistling, horns are knelling, / Merrily merrily mingle they, / ‘Waken, lords and ladies gay.’     /     Waken, lords and ladies gay, / The mist has left the mountain gray, / Springlets in the dawn are steaming, / Diamonds on the brake are gleaming; / And foresters have busy been / To track the buck in thicket green; / Now we come to chant our lay / ‘Waken, lords and ladies gay.’ …sings Sir Walter Scott with his Hunting Song… a fitting introduction for the new BLOG POST The Labours of the Months: November. https://discoverpoetry.com/poems/hunting-poems/

Referred to as Labours of the Months… portrayed on the pages of an illuminated manuscript, sculpted areas of a church or on panel paintings… are decorative images that feature a seasonal agricultural or pastoral activity appropriate and different for every month of the year. Such artworks, popular during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, were created all over Western Europe, from countries of the colder North to Italy, France, and Spain of the warmer South. Depending on the area or the era these “pastoral” compositions were created, they vary in what is presented and how.

By an unknown Venetian artist…
The Labours of the Months: November (detail), about 1580, oil on canvas, 13.6 x 10.6 cm, National Gallery, London
https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/italian-venetian-the-labours-of-the-months-january#painting-group-info

The typical November Labour scene in a Northern European Calendar would be a composition depicting farmers gathering acorns for feeding their pigs. Not so in the Venetian November Labour panel in the Collection of the National Gallery in London… A young huntsman in a red cap and jacket, the Museum experts tell us, holds the leashes of his two hounds. He looks at his hawk, which perches on his hand. A hunting horn is tied from a cord at his waist… In other cycles of the labours of the months, the Museum experts continue, hawking and falconry are associated with courtly love and the months of April and May. For the London panel… hunting has been ascribed to November as a winter pursuit. https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/italian-venetian-the-labours-of-the-months-november

The National Gallery painting of November belongs to a group of 12 small painted panels that together decorated a set of painted Doors. These 12 paintings, very small in size, about 13.6 x 10.6 cm, were achieved in vivid, bright, luxurious colours, like ultramarine blue for the sky, strong vermilion and red lake for the clothing, with rich greens and yellows in the landscape. The restricted and repeated use of colour gives the group of little pictures a charming, decorative simplicity. All but one of the scenes show a man working outdoors on what appears to be the estate of a large villa, seen in several of the paintings, at the foot of the distant blue mountains. The small panel paintings in the National Gallery are rare and special. They document life in the Veneto area, with the peasant activities and duties to their land. They also depict a vivid landscape, romanticized even then, from bare and covered with snow, to rich and fertile, to autumnal, covered with fallen leaves. https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/italian-venetian-the-labours-of-the-months-january#painting-group-info

For a PowerPoint on The Labours of the Months at the National Gallery in London, please… Check HERE!

A Religious Scene in Thessaloniki

by 20th century ArtArtByzantiumStudent ActivitiesWorksheets
Walter S. George, ? – 1962
Watercolour Painting of the North Inner Aisle Mosaics in the Church of Saint Demetrios in Thessaloniki, 1907 (Mosaics date to the  century), Sheet No. 2, Watercolour on Paper, 35.56x 45.72 cm, Photographic Library of the Warburg Institute, London, UK
Konstantinos Males, Greek artist, 1879-1928
Religious Scene, oil on card laid on canvas, 67 x 47 cm, Private Collection
https://www.mutualart.com/Artwork/Religious-Scene/7FC6668E4C9D5951

I have to confess; I was not familiar with Konstantinos Maleas’s painting Religious Scene in Thessaloniki depicting the Enthroned Virgin with Child and attendant Angels. I do not own the 2000 Adam publications book on Maleas by Prof. A. Kottidis, where, apparently, on page 83, the painting Religious Scene was first presented (another embarrassing confession!). To my defense, I am familiar with a painting of the same religious scene (Mary, Child, and Angels) by Walter S. George, a British architect, who, in 1909, while still a student at the Royal Institute of British Architects, was commissioned by the British School at Athens to go to Thessaloniki and participate in a project to publish a corpus of its Byzantine Monuments including the mosaic composition of the Enthroned Mary. Is it a mere coincidence? https://www.politeianet.gr/books/9789605003616-kotidis-antonis-adam-konstantinos-maleas-1879-1928-110647

Walter S. George, ? – 1962
Watercolour Painting of the North Inner Aisle Mosaics in the Church of Saint Demetrios in Thessaloniki, 1907 (Mosaics date to the  century), Sheet No. 2, Watercolour on Paper, 35.56x 45.72 cm, Photographic Library of the Warburg Institute, London, UK

The years George was working in Thessaloniki, 1906/7-1909 were crucial for the city and the British interest in Byzantine Art. On the 1st of August 1907, the Ottoman authorities embarked on major renovations on Casimir Camii, originally the Byzantine Church of Hagios Demetrios, and in the course of repairs, an unexpected discovery occurred… unknown, magnificent mosaics, quite well preserved, on the wall of the North Inner Aisle of the almost dilapidated Church came to light, astonishing the world! George put himself to work, and on the 1st of September 1909, he delivered a set of eighteen sheets of coloured drawings to his patrons at the  Byzantine Research and Publication Fund in London. Sheet No.2 of the set, depicts the Mosaics over spandrel C of the inner aisle colonnade and, extending asymmetrically, over arches 3 and 4 (from left to right). The discovered mosaics, among them the Enthroned Virgin, were of high quality and well preserved, stirring the interest of Byzantinologists around the world who rushed to Thessaloniki to study and document them.

Carte Postale of the Church of Saint Demetrios before the fire of 1917 https://docplayer.gr/41759103-3-os-ai-5-os-ai-naodomia.html
Konstantinos Males, Greek artist, 1879-1928
Religious Scene, oil on card laid on canvas, 67 x 47 cm, Private Collection
https://www.mutualart.com/Artwork/Religious-Scene/7FC6668E4C9D5951

Konstantinos Maleas is one of my favourite early 20th century Greek artists. A Romios by birth, and a graduate of the Great School of the Nation in Constantinople, Maleas studied Architecture in Paris and eventually Painting, at the École des Arts Décoratifs, and under the tutelage of the Neo-Impressionist Henri Martin (1901-1908). After completing his studies in Paris, Maleas returned to Istanbul, traveled extensively in the Middle East and Egypt, published his exploits, got married, and in November 1913, settled in Thessaloniki as chief engineer of the city’s Municipality.

Maleas’s Thessaloniki of 1913 was no more the city Walter S. George documented in 1907/9. During the course of the First Balkan War, advancing without hindrance, the Greek Army found itself outside Thessaloniki, exactly on the eve of the Hagios Demetrios’s feast day. Late in the evening of the 26th of October, 1912, Hassan Tashin Pasha, Commander of the Turkish Eighth Army Corps, signed the protocol authorizing the surrender of the city to Constantine, Heir Presumptive, and Commander-in-Chief of the Greek Army at the time. After almost half a millennium of Ottoman rule, Thessaloniki became a Greek city once again. The Church of Hagios Demetrios and its beautiful mosaics were a Byzantine monument, residents and sightseers felt drawn to visit, pay their respects, photograph… and rarely, like Konstantino Malea document in painting! His beautiful Religious Scene is yet another testament of how important these newly discovered mosaics were among specialists like Walter S. George and art aficionados like Konstantinos Maleas. https://www.mutualart.com/Artwork/Religious-Scene/7FC6668E4C9D5951

Then, disaster stroke on the 5th of August 1917… a  great fire swept through the thriving city of Thessaloniki destroying two-thirds of the city’s center, including the magnificent Church of Hagios Demetrios and leaving more than 70,000 homeless. The beautiful Mosaics of the Church’s North Inner Aisle discovered in 1907 were gone forever! Few photographs and even fewer paintings, created with care and sensitivity by artists like Walter S. George and Konstantinos Maleas are all that remains. …..

For a Student Activity on Maleas’s A Religious Scene in Thessaloniki, please… Check HERE!

Angels in the Palatine Chapel by John Singer Sargent

by 19th century ArtAmerican ArtByzantiumStudent ActivitiesWorksheets
John Singer Sargent, American artist, 1856–1925
Angels, Mosaic, Palatine Chapel, Palermo, 1897 or 1901, watercolor gouache, and graphite on off-white wove paper, 25×35.5 cm, the MET, NY, USA https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/df/Angels%2C_Mosaic%2C_Palatine_Chapel%2C_Palermo_MET_50.130.83f.jpg

John Singer Sargent’s watercolours of Sicilian Monuments reveal an extraordinary sensitivity to the unique beauty of Norman churches and their Byzantine mosaic decoration. The artist’s paintings communicate the character of these churches far better, I humbly believe, than modern photography. They create a visual experience I find difficult to describe… yet, seen, these watercolours of shimmering Sicilian mosaics, together or individually, manage to transport me to places of pure magic! The watercolour of Angels in the Palatine Chapel by John Singer Sargent is undoubtedly my favourite!

John Singer Sargent, American artist, 1856–1925
Self-Portrait, 1892, oil on canvas, 53.3×43.2 cm, National Academy of Design, USA
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/John_Singer_Sargent_-_Self-portrait_%281892%29.jpg

During the early months of 1897, Sargent was in Sicily exploring its monuments and preparing for the Boston Library Murals, a project that will keep him busy for twenty-nine years! Cappella Palatina, with amazing Byzantine mosaics, one of the finest works of art of its kind in Italy, was for Sargent an obvious shrine to investigate. https://www.bpl.org/blogs/post/the-origins-of-a-masterwork/

Cappella Palatina, 1132-1143, mosaic decoration, Palermo, Italy
https://gr.pinterest.com/pin/303500462386852490/
Cappella Palatina, 1132-1143, mosaic decoration, Palermo, Italy
https://britishmuseum.tumblr.com/post/143430825197/architecture-in-norman-sicily-the-palatine-chapel

Today’s presentation focuses on the mosaic decoration of the sanctuary’s dome, which, in a typical Byzantine manner, presents the bust of the Pantokrator and a chorus of eight, majestically dressed, guardian Angels. Sargent chose to depict the Cappella’s Dome as seen from the nave of the chapel and off to one side, choosing to concentrate his attention more so on the Angels than Christ, whose head is rather obscure. He also pays meticulous attention to three of the Archangels, Raphael, Michael, and Gabriel, their ornate costumes and the inscriptions, in Greek, that identify them. It is interesting how Sargent is acting in this case as a researcher, attentive to specific elements and to issues of style that he could apply to his… Boston Library commission. It has been, on several occasions mentioned, how the Cappella Palatina mosaics in Palermo influenced Sargent’s rendering of the Frieze of Angels, at the south end of the Special Collections Hall at the Boston Public Library, installed in 1903. American Drawings and Watercolors in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, John Singer Sargent, by Stephanie L. Herdrich and H. Barbara Weinberg with and an essay by Marjorie Shelley, The Metropolitan Museu of Art, New York, 2000, Page 293 and https://www.jstor.org/stable/3047256?read-now=1&refreqid=excelsior%3A8d742d266060fbf70ed292204c17b202&seq=3#page_scan_tab_contents

John Singer Sargent, American artist, 1856–1925
Dogma of the Redemption; Trinity and Crucifix, Frieze of Angels, ca. 1895–1903, mural – oil on canvas, Boston Public Library, USA
https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search/commonwealth:sq87dv73s

John Singer Sargent is the par excellence representative American artist of the Gilded Age. His life represents its very characteristics! He was born in Florence, Italy, to expatriate American parents…  He had a nomadic childhood, spending winters in Florence, Rome, or Nice and summers in the Alps or other cooler locations. Early in his life, he realized what he wanted to do in life was to become an artist, and supported by his mother, Mary Newbold Sargent, who was herself an accomplished amateur watercolorist he accomplished it. Sargent and his mother carried sketchbooks throughout their extensive travels across Europe, and he developed a quick eye and fast reflexes for recording his impressions of the landscape. Eighteen years old, under the tutelage of the painter Carolus-Duran, who encouraged him to paint directly onto the canvas, without any preparatory drawing, and to study the Old Masters, John Singer Sargent developed his skills, exhibited both landscapes and portraits to much acclaim, and developed a reputation as a fine society portraitist on both sides of the Atlantic. What a life… Brooklyn Museum – Teaching Resource: Special Exhibition – John Singer Sargent Watercolors – April 5–July 28, 2013, p. 2

Sargent wanted more… He grew restless at the height of his career, and sought escape from the constraints of the studio and the demands of his patrons for society portraits. What he did was to travel to remote spots, choose his own subjects, and paint without distraction inspirational watercolours… of landscapes, genre scenes, friends, and family. After 1900 Sargent spent his summers traveling throughout Europe, painting both oil paintings and watercolors. What a life… Brooklyn Museum – Teaching Resource: Special Exhibition – John Singer Sargent Watercolors – April 5–July 28, 2013, p. 2

For a Student Activity, please… Check HERE!

The Laughing Boy by Robert Henri

by 20th century ArtArtBaroqueStudent ActivitiesWorksheets
Robert Henri, American Artist, 1865–1929
The Dutch Joe (Jopie van Slouten), 1910, oil on canvas, 60.96 × 50.8 cm, Milwaukee Art Museum, WI, USA http://collection.mam.org/details.php?id=13533
Frans Hals, Dutch Artist, 1582/83-1666
Laughing Child, circa 1620-1625, oil on wood, Diameter: 27.94 cm, LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art), CA, USA https://useum.org/artwork/Laughing-boy-Frans-Hals-1625
The Laughing Boy (Jopie van Slouten), 1910, oil on canvas, 61 × 50.8 × 2.5 cm, Birmingham Museum of Art, AL, USA
https://www.artsbma.org/collection/the-laughing-boy-jopie-van-slouten/

Published on October 14, 2018at the Historians of Netherlandish Art Reviews, I read: Frans Hals was rediscovered as a modern idol two hundred years after his death. He was admired, even adored by late 19th-century artists such as Édouard Manet, Max Liebermann… Vincent van Gogh…  and American artist Robert Henri, I would like to add. They were all impressed by his loose touch and rough painting style, which came across as ‘Impressionist’… Comparing paintings by Frans Hals to work by the artists whom he inspired gives insight into how modern Frans Hals was in their eye and why they used to say that ‘Frans Hals, c’est un moderne’. The Laughing Boy by Robert Henri is a painting that shows how Frans Hals influenced an American artist of the Ashcan School as well… https://hnanews.org/frans-hals-and-the-moderns/

Robert Henri Photo Portrait, circa 1897, Black and white photographic print, 19 x 9 cm, Smithsonian Archives of American Art, Washington DC, USA
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Robert_Henri_1897.jpg

About 1900, a group of Realist artists set themselves apart from and challenged the American Impressionists and academics. They came to be known as the Ashcan School and Robert Henri was a leading figure among them. The Ashcan School artists selectively documented an unsettling, transitional time in American culture that was marked by confidence and doubt, excitement, and trepidation. Ignoring or registering only gently harsh new realities such as the problems of immigration and urban poverty, they shone a positive light on their era. Along with the American Impressionists, the Ashcan artists defined the avant-garde in the United States until the 1913 Armory Show introduced to the American public the works of true modernists Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, and others. https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/ashc/hd_ashc.htm

Robert Henry Cozad (1865-1929 ) was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, to Theresa Gatewood Cozad and John Jackson Cozad, a gambler and real estate developer. The family, in a true “Wild West” story of land dispute and fatal pistol shooting, fled from Cincinnati to Denver, Colorado where young Robert changed his name to Robert Earl Henri, and in 1883, the family moved to New York City, and then, to Atlantic City in New Jersey. In 1886, a twenty-one years old Robert Henri enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, one of the finest Art Schools in the US at the time, where he studied under Thomas Anshutz. Later, in Paris, Henri studied at the Académie Julian and the École des Beaux-Arts. From 1888 to 1891, when he returned back to Philadelphia, Robert stayed and traveled in Europe where he came to admire greatly the work of Francois Millet, and embrace Impressionism. Back in the United States, Robert Henri gradually became a fine Art teacher and an acclaimed artist, a leading member of the Ashcan School, an organizer, and a contributor artist of a landmark show entitled “The Eight” in N York. Robert Henri was an avid traveler, an influential Art teacher, and a great mentor to women artists in the United States. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Henri

The Laughing Boy (Jopie van Slouten), 1910, oil on canvas, 61 × 50.8 × 2.5 cm, Birmingham Museum of Art, AL, USA
https://www.artsbma.org/collection/the-laughing-boy-jopie-van-slouten/
Robert Henri, American Artist, 1865–1929
The Dutch Joe (Jopie van Slouten), 1910, oil on canvas, 60.96 × 50.8 cm, Milwaukee Art Museum, WI, USA http://collection.mam.org/details.php?id=13533

During the summers of 1907 and 1910, Henri worked in the Netherlands, where he became captivated with the work of Frans Hals (1580-1666), the Dutch painter known for using lively brushwork to create animated portraits. Hals, according to the Birmingham Museum of Art in the US, made a number of pictures of laughing children, which Henri sought to emulate in his own paintings of Dutch youths. Henri described the subject of this canvas, Jopie van Slouten, as “a great, real human character to paint.” Robert Henri painted a second portrait of the Dutch boy, known as Dutch Joe, and exhibited it in the Milwaukee Art Museum. For his second portrait of young Jopie van Slouten, Henri said: “Jopie thought it was a great joke to pose, and I thought him a great, real character. I consider it one of my successes in an effort to record a boy as he was.” http://collection.mam.org/details.php?id=13533 and https://www.artsbma.org/collection/the-laughing-boy-jopie-van-slouten/

Frans Hals, Dutch Artist, 1582/83-1666
Laughing Child, circa 1620-1625, oil on wood, Diameter: 27.94 cm, LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art), CA, USA https://useum.org/artwork/Laughing-boy-Frans-Hals-1625

For a Student Activity, please… Check HERE!

Between October 13, 2018, to February 24, 2019, in Haarlem, in the Netherlands, a very interesting exhibition took place titled Frans Hals and the Moderns. This exhibition showed the enormous impact of Frans Hals on modern painters. It was for the first time, that portraits of the famous 17th-century Dutch artist were presented alongside modern artistic reactions to his work… like the Laughing Boy by the American Robert Henri. https://www.franshalsmuseum.nl/nl/event/frans-hals-en-de-modernen/

View of the 2018 Exhibition in Harlem titled: Frans Hals and the Moderns
https://www.franshalsmuseum.nl/en/event/frans-hals-and-the-moderns/

Villa Arianna at Stabiae

by Roman ArtStudent ActivitiesWorksheets
Villa Arianna Terrace, 1st century AD, Stabiae, Italy
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Terrazza_B_di_Villa_Arianna#/media/File:Arianna_terrazza_B.JPG

During the Archaic period (8th century BC) Stabiae already played an important strategic and commercial role. The city reached its highest population density between its destruction by Sulla (89 B.C.) and the eruption of Mount Vesuvius (79 A.D.). During this period, on the northernmost edge of the Varano hill, many villae were built taking advantage of the panoramic views. They were mainly residential villas, with beautifully decorated large apartments, thermal baths, porticoes and nymphaea. At present, only some of these villas, not entirely excavated yet, can be visited: …Villa Arianna at Stabiae, the most ancient, named after a large mythological fresco on the far wall of the triclinium is one of them…  writes Archaeologist Silvia Martina Bertesago. All I can say is… let’s explore it! http://pompeiisites.org/en/stabiae/

Excavations in Villa Arianna started in 1757 and were conducted by the Swiss engineer Karl Weber, until 1762. At the time, the archaeological site of the Villa was seen more like a treasure hunt exploration site. The Weber team dug underground tunnels, explored the excavated areas, and whatever was discovered and considered of value, like furnishings and frescoes, were detached and taken to the Bourbon Museum at the Royal Palace of Portici. A lot, deemed unworthy or ruined, were left behind and much was ruined by the methods employed by the “archaeologists” of the time. Today, parts of the Villa nearest the sea have collapsed down the cliff and perished forever, extended areas of the site are still buried awaiting excavations, but thanks to a Bourbon-period map showing where tunnels dug and thereafter re-buried, archaeologists resumed excavations in 1950, and proceed with proper scientific research.

Villa Arianna Plan, Stabiae (after Kockel 1985 with corrections by Allroggen-Bedel A. and De Vos M.) https://www.pompeiiinpictures.com/pompeiiinpictures/VF/Villa_102%20Stabiae%20Villa%20Arianna%20plan.htm
 

On the western hills of Varano, and overlooking the Bay of Naples, Villa Arianna, is impressive, to say the least. It is estimated that it covered an area of over 11,000 sq.m., whereas its excavated parts cover only 2,500 sq.m. The villa has an unconventional layout, due in part to its continuous development but also to the sloping nature of the site. As much of the building is still buried, the original floor-plan is quite difficult to interpret. Certainly, the main range of rooms was at the front of the highest of a series of terraces; some of these rooms featured views both of the sea on one side and of the mountains on the other. There was also a long tunnel (B) leading from the stables and farm court under the residential quarters to the shore. https://sites.google.com/site/ad79eruption/stabiae/villa-arianna

Villa Arianna – Entrance to the Archaeological Site – View of Mt Vesuvius, 1st century AD, Stabiae, Italy https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vista_dall%27ingresso_2.jpg

The oldest section of the Villa dates back to the late Republican period (2nd century BC), and develops around its Atrium (24) and the surrounding rooms. The Thermal Baths (6),  the grand Triclinium (3), the summer Triclinium (A), and the surrounding rooms date from the middle of the 1st century AD. The large Palestra, located at the west end of the Villa was added to the complex shortly before the eruption, probably between 60 and 70 AD.

Villa Arianna Atrium (No. 24 on the Villa Plan), 3rd Pompeian Style Frescoes, 1st century AD, Stabiae, Italy
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Atrio_24_di_Villa_Arianna#/media/File:Impluvium.jpg

Villa Arianna was lavishly decorated with frescoes and portable furnishings, an undisputed testimony of the expensive lifestyle the owners enjoyed, and evidence of their refined taste and style. One such high-quality fresco, drawing inspiration from the myth of Dionysus and Ariadne, gave the Villa its modern name.

A presentation of the amazing Frescoes discovered in Villa Arianna will be part of another BLOG POST… Villa Arianna, Part 2

For a Student Activity on Villa Arianna at Stabiae, please… Check HERE!

The Colosso del’Appennino by Giambologna

by ArtPowerpointsRenaissance
Giambologna, 1529-1608
Colosso del’Appennino, 1570s, Rock, lava, brick, etc., H. 10 m, Garden of the Villa Medici, Park of Pratolino, Italy
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Demidoff_01.jpg

Introducing his book Ambitious Form: Giambologna, Ammanati, and Danti in Florence, Michal W. Cole refers to an October 1580 letter by the Urbinate Ambassador to Florence, Simone Fortuna, addressed to his employer, Francesco Maria II della Rovere, on a meeting he had had with Giambologna, the star artist of Grand Duke Francesco de’ Medici’s Florentine court. The Flemish sculptor, the ambassador wrote, was “the best person you could ever meet, not greedy in the least, as his absolute pennilessness shows. Everything he does is in the pursuit of glory, and he has ambition in the extreme to match Michelangelo. In the judgment of many, he has already done this, and they say that if he lives much longer he will overtake him. the Duke, too, is of this opinion.” This is a wonderful quotation to start my new BLOG POST, The Colosso del’Appenino by Giambologna. https://books.google.gr/books?id=gOo9DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA1&lpg=PA1&dq=Ambassador+Simone+Fortuna&source=bl&ots=HJTneuvYgR&sig=ACfU3U1NuLNaBnQxPDDmLEuHkFbr52HrEQ&hl=el&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjrgr6k7tXyAhWqgf0HHWlDBq0Q6AF6BAgUEAM#v=onepage&q=Ambassador%20Simone%20Fortuna&f=false

Giusto Utens or Justus Utens, died 1609
Villa di Pratolino, 1599-1602, one of the 14 surviving Lunette Paintings of Medici Villas, Gallery at Petraia Villa Medici, Italy
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pratolino_utens.jpg

Villa di Pratolino, on the Florentine hills heading into the Mugello valley, was meant to be a dream Villa with a fairy-tale Garden, designed as a gift to Bianca Cappello, mistress, wife by 1579, of Francesco I de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. Every artist involved in the process was a master. Bernardo Buontalenti, court architect, and engineer completed the construction of the Villa in 1581, and Giambologna, designed the Colosso del’Appennino, a monumental statue of a brooding, bearded man, personifying the Apennine Mountains or a great river god kneeling on a garden pond, respectful to the glory of the Medici.

Giambologna, 1529-1608
Colosso del’Appennino (details), 1570s, Rock, lava, brick, etc., H. 10 m, Garden of the Villa Medici, Park of Pratolino, Italy
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Appennino_by_Giambologna#/media/File:Parco_di_pratolino,_appennino_del_giambologna_06_(2).JPG
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Appennino_by_Giambologna#/media/File:Parco_di_pratolino,_appennino_del_giambologna_10_(2).JPG

This epic colossal statue, half-man, half mountain, erected in the late 1570s, was originally placed within the niche of a local rock area that made it appear as if it was emerging from the surrounding landscape. Today, standing 10 m. tall, The Colosso del’Appennino by Giambologna still hides a wonderful secret, grottoes, passageways, and rooms with different functions that made this colossus come to life. The Colosso’s left hand, for example, holds spewed water from an underground stream, and it is rumored that space in his head was made for a fireplace which, when lit, would blow smoke out of his nostrils. Back in the 1570s, the statue was not standing alone. It was surrounded by other bronze statues, many of which have now gone lost or stolen. The Colosso, however, withstood centuries in the same spot, managing to maintain its figurative composition in all that time. A fitting testimony to Giambologna’s genius! https://www.boredpanda.com/appennino-sculpture-colossus-giambologna-florence-italy/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic and https://mymodernmet.com/giambologna-colosso-dell-appennino/

Giambologna, 1529-1608
Colosso del’Appennino (Entrance-Interior View and Decoration), 1570s, Rock, lava, brick, etc., H. 10 m, Garden of the Villa Medici, Park of Pratolino, Italy
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Appennino_by_Giambologna#/media/File:Parco_di_pratolino,_appennino_del_giambologna,_drago_del_foggini_01.JPG
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Appennino_by_Giambologna#/media/File:Parco_di_pratolino,_appennino_del_giambologna,_grotta_superiore_04.JPG
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Appennino_by_Giambologna#/media/File:Parco_di_pratolino,_appennino_del_giambologna,_grotta_superiore_02.JPG

Unfortunately, the Villa and the largest part of this amazing garden were destroyed in 1819 to make an easy to maintain “English garden”. Few parts survived including the Colosso del’Appennino, Cupid’s Grotto, a chapel, and a series of crayfish pools. In 1872 Villa di Pratolino and its gardens were sold to the Russian Prince Paolo II Demidoff, who renovated the Gardens, restored the buildings within the property, and enlarged one of the remaining outer structures into a villa that then took his name. In 1981, the Florence Province Council bought the property to turn it into a public park, known today as Villa Demidoff and Park of Pratolino. https://www.discovertuscany.com/mugello/pratolino-park.html

More on Giambologna, the great artist of the 16th century… http://www.travelingintuscany.com/art/giambologna.htm

On Bianca Cappello, and her extraordinary life… please go to my Teacher Curator Post: https://www.teachercurator.com/art/what-a-life-you-had-bianca-cappello/

For a PowerPoint on Giambologna’s work, please check HERE!

Happy Birthday Miss Jones by Norman Rockwell

by 20th century ArtAmerican ArtStudent ActivitiesWorksheets
Norman Rockwell, 1894-1978
Happy Birthday Miss Jones, Saturday Evening Post cover March 17, 1956, The original oil on canvas painting is part of the collection of filmmaker George Lucas.
https://prints.nrm.org/detail/261035/rockwell-happy-birthday-miss-jones-school-teacher-1956

On the 5th of October, we celebrate World Teachers’ Day, by acknowledging the critical role teachers play in achieving inclusive, quality education for all… and recognizing that during the pandemic …teachers have shown, as they have done so often, great leadership and innovation in ensuring that #LearningNeverStops, that no learner is left behind. Around the world, they have worked individually and collectively to find solutions and create new learning environments for their students to allow education to continue… I would like to celebrate World Teachers’ Day with a Poem, The School Where I Studied, by Yehuda Amichai, and a Painting, Happy Birthday Miss Jones by Norman Rockwell. https://en.unesco.org/commemorations/worldteachersday

I passed by the school where I studied as a boy / and said in my heart: here I learned certain things / and didn’t learn others. All my life I have loved in vain / the things I didn’t learn. I am filled with knowledge, / I know all about the flowering of the tree of knowledge, / the shape of its leaves, the function of its root system, its pests and parasites. / I’m an expert on the botany of good and evil, / I’m still studying it, I’ll go on studying till the day die. / I stood near the school building and looked in. This is the room / where we sat and learned. The windows of a classroom always open / to the future, but in our innocence we thought it was only landscape / we were seeing from the window. / The schoolyard was narrow, paved with large stones. / I remember the brief tumult of the two of us / near the rickety steps, the tumult / that was the beginning of a first great love. / Now it outlives us, as if in a museum, / like everything else in Jerusalem.https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/40662/the-school-where-i-studied

The 17th of March 1956, Saturday Evening Post Magazine Cover Page with Norman Rockwell’s painting Happy Birthday Miss Jones
https://picclick.com/Saturday-Evening-Post-Magazine-March-17-1956-Norman-284335404003.html

On the 17th of March 1956, The Saturday Evening Post published Happy Birthday Miss Jones, one of my favourite Norman Rockwell paintings. The artist had a long-standing collaboration with The Saturday Evening Post, which he considered to be the greatest show window in America. The collaboration started in 1916 when the 22-year-old Rockwell painted his first cover for the magazine and continued over the next 47 years. By 1963, when the collaboration with the Post ended, 322 Rockwell paintings had appeared on the cover of the magazine. https://www.nrm.org/about/about-2/about-norman-rockwell/

Photo half-length portrait of Norman Rockwell, facing left, arms folded, 1921, Library of Congress, USA
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rockwell-Norman-LOC.jpg

I would like to draw your attention to page 82 of Picturing America, and how masterfully the controversy over Rockwell the artist, or Rockwell the illustrator, is addressed… Rockwell had been born into a world in which painters crossed easily from the commercial world to that of the gallery, as Winslow Homer had done. By the 1940s, however, a division had emerged between the fine arts and the work for hire that Rockwell produced. The detailed, homespun images he employed to reach a mass audience were not appealing to an art community that now lionized intellectual and abstract works. But Rockwell knew his strengths did not lie in that direction: “Boys batting flies on vacant lots,” he explained in 1936, “little girls playing jacks on the front steps; old men plodding home at twilight, umbrella in hand — all these things arouse feeling in me.” https://picturingamerica.neh.gov/downloads/pdfs/Resource_Guide/English/English_PA_TeachersGuide.pdf

In 1956 his feelings motivated him to pay tribute to his own 8th Grade teacher who had encouraged him to draw. Using a real Elementary School classroom in his hometown, Stockbridge, as his reference, and local models, Rockwell painted Happy Birthday Miss Jones to popular praise. The composition is highly organized, the colour tones are warm (even the greys), and the light is soft. This is a familiar scene we have all experienced, a moment we cherish, and a Norman Rockwell painting we love!

The original oil on canvas painting is part of the collection of filmmaker George Lucas and was on display at the Smithsonian’s Museum of American Art in 2010. A pencil on joined paper study of the painting, also owned by Lucas, was also on display alongside the original painting. http://www.best-norman-rockwell-art.com/1956-happy-birthday-miss-jones.html#ixzz73lTatp76

It’s worth watching! …a Video on Rockwell’s painting of Miss Jones created by the Saturday Evening Post, on May 22, 2019… https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2019/05/rockwell-video-minute-happy-birthday-miss-jones/

For a Student Activity, please … Check HERE!

The Labours of the Months: October

by ArtPowerpointsRenaissance
By an unknown Venetian artist…
The Labours of the Months: October, about 1580, oil on canvas, 13.6 x 10.6 cm, National Gallery, London
https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/italian-venetian-the-labours-of-the-months-january#painting-group-info

The young man in the new BLOG POST The Labours of the Months: October, seems startled… he gestures to something in front of him, and turns to look over his shoulder as if talking to someone outside the picture. He is sitting on a rock but appears to be about to start ploughing. “Make sure the lines are straight” his foreman calls “use the simple wood and metal plough I gave you, push it hard on the ground, move it to either side to make an open shallow furrow. Our patrone hasn’t decided yet what we will plant, but whatever it is, it will look nice in February…” https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/italian-venetian-the-labours-of-the-months-october and https://www.teachercurator.com/art/the-labours-of-the-months-february/

This small painting is one of 12 small pictures that together show the ‘Labours of the Months’ – the activities that take place each month throughout the farming year. They were meant to decorate the recessed panels of a pair of doors, and seem to have been planned in pairs with the figures facing each other. This set of painted Doors combine simplicity in execution and extravagance in visual effect! The paintings, very small in size, about 13.6 x 10.6 cm, were achieved in vivid, bright, luxurious colours, like ultramarine blue for the sky, strong vermilion and red lake for the clothing, with rich greens and yellows in the landscape. The restricted and repeated use of colour gives the group of little pictures a charming, decorative simplicity. All but one of the scenes show a man working outdoors on what appears to be the estate of a large villa, seen in several of the paintings, at the foot of the distant blue mountains. The small panel paintings in the National Gallery are rare and special. They document life in the Veneto area, with the peasant activities and duties to their land. They also depict a vivid landscape, romanticized even then, from bare and covered with snow, to rich and fertile, to autumnal, covered with fallen leaves. https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/italian-venetian-the-labours-of-the-months-january#painting-group-info

By an unknown Venetian artist…
The Labours of the Months: October (detail), about 1580, oil on canvas, 13.6 x 10.6 cm, National Gallery, London
https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/italian-venetian-the-labours-of-the-months-january#painting-group-info

The Labours of the Months had a role in highlighting authority and privilege, hard work and occasionally, small, everyday pleasures. They are often perceived as a link between the work of man, the seasons of the year and God’s ordering of the Universe. As a theme, it recurred in the sculptural decoration of cathedrals and churches across Europe, in illuminated manuscripts like the popular Books of Hours, palace frescoes and rarely, panel painting. The Trentino Fresco Panels at Torre Aquila for example, present trained and obedient peasants busy with their seasonal activities, but dominated by the local aristocracy who seem to only care for their idler activities. (I presented the eleven surviving Torre Aquila frescoes in 2020. Please Check https://www.teachercurator.com/?s=torre%20aquila&cat=plus-5-results)

For a PowerPoint on The Labours of the Months at the National Gallery in London, please… Check HERE!