The Red School House by Winslow Homer

by 19th century ArtAmerican ArtArtEducationStudent ActivitiesWorksheets
Winslow Homer, American Artist, 1836 – 1910
The Red School House, 1873, oil on canvas, 55.5 x 39.5 cm, NGA, Washington DC, USA https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.66419.html

On the 5th of October, we celebrate World Teachers’ Day, 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 by remembering Homer’s words (Iliad 9.437-443)…  The old man and horse-trainer Peleus… sent me (Phoinix) for this reason: to teach you (Achilles) all these things, / how to be a speaker of words and a doer of deeds, and by looking deeper into a Painting… The Red School House by Winslow Homer. https://en.unesco.org/commemorations/worldteachersday

Winslow Homer is one of the finest 19th-century American Artists. His career started as a graphic reporter during the American Civil War with paintings like Home, Sweet Home, and Sharpshooter on Picket Duty, of 1863, or Prisoners from the Front, of 1866 defining his early career. The late 1860s and the 1870s were, however, the artist’s finest years of artistic experimentation and prolific and varied output. Living and working in New York, but traveling to Paris, in late 1867, for the exhibition of two of his Civil War Paintings at the Exposition Universelle, Homer came face to face with the French avant-garde, and although there is little likelihood of influence, the artist shared their subject interests, their fascination with serial imagery, and their desire to incorporate into their works outdoor light, flat and simple forms (reinforced by their appreciation of Japanese design principles), and free brushwork. https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/homr/hd_homr.htm

Winslow Homer, American Artist, 1836 – 1910
The Red School House (details teacher), 1873, oil on canvas, 55.5 x 39.5 cm, NGA, Washington DC, USA https://twitter.com/ngadc/status/1468980569300258821/photo/1 and https://twitter.com/ngadc/status/1468980569300258821/photo/2

The Red School House is one of several paintings Winslow Homer created from 1871 to 1874. They all shared the same theme… scenes of school life, with three consistent elements: a small red schoolhouse, its young female teacher, and a luminous mountain setting. The NGA experts believe that Homer working after the American Civil War was expressing a popular wave of nostalgia in late 19th-century America for small country schools and the simpler lifestyle and the country’s sense of optimism for future generations. https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.66419.html

Winslow Homer, American Artist, 1836 – 1910
The Red School House (detail students), 1873, oil on canvas, 55.5 x 39.5 cm, NGA, Washington DC, USA https://twitter.com/ngadc/status/1468980569300258821/photo/3

Although titled The Red School House the painting is in fact a portrait, NGA experts explain, in which the schoolhouse and its attendant figures are secondary and very abbreviated parts. The name of the person depicted is not known, but her high cheek bones and down-turned mouth are similar to the features of the person in such other works as The School Girl, c. 1871, who represents a school teacher, and Young Girl at the Window of 1875 (fi&- 4)5 who wears a black fichu at her neck. More information on The Red School House can be found in the NGA publication American Paintings of the Nineteenth Century, Part I, pages 305-309, which is available as a free PDF at… https://www.nga.gov/content/dam/ngaweb/research/publications/pdfs/american-paintings-19th-century-part-1.pdf

For a Student Activity on the Little Red School House, please… Check HERE!

Winslow Homer, American Artist, 1836 – 1910
The School Girl, 1871, oil on canvas, 47.6×39.7 cm, Worcester Art Museum, MA, USA https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Winslow_Homer_-_The_School_Mistress_%28c.1870%29.jpg
Young Girl at Window, 1875, watercolor, the New Britain Museum of American Art, CT, USA https://www.globalgallery.com/detail/373299/homer-young-girl-at-window

The Parthenon by Frederic Edwin Church

by 19th century ArtAmerican ArtArtPowerpoints
Frederic Edwin Church, American Artist, 1826–1900
Study for “The Parthenon”, 1869-70, Oil on Paper mounted on canvas, 33 x 50.8 cm, MFA, Boston, USA
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/69/Frederic_Edwin_Church_-_Study_for_%22The_Parthenon%22_-_2008.48_-_Museum_of_Fine_Arts.jpg

The Parthenon by Frederic Edwin Church in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston is one of my favorite paintings of all time. I look at it and think of the artist, who wrote to his friend William O. Osborn on the 14th of April 1869… The Parthenon is certainly the culmination of the genius of man in architecture. Every column, every ornament, every molding, asserts the superiority which is claimed for even the shattered remains of the once proud temple over all other building by man… I have made architectural drawings of the Parthenon and fancied before I came to Athens that I had a good idea of its merits. But, I knew it not. Daily I study its stones and feel its inexpressible charm of beauty growing upon my senses. I am glad – and shall try and secure as much material as possible. I think a great picture could be made of the ruins. They are very picturesque as well as imposing, and the colour is superb… American Paradise: The World of the Hudson River School by Avery, Kevin J., Oswaldo Rodriguez Roque, John K. Howat, Doreen Bolger Burke, and Catherine Hoover Voorsanger, 1987, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, pp. 263-265 https://www.metmuseum.org/art/metpublications/American_Paradise_The_World_of_the_Hudson_River_School

And the colour Church employs for his MFA Study for “The Parthenon” is indeed superb! More so than the finished painting of the Parthenon in the Metropolitan Museum, Church’s MFA Study captures the unique Athenian light… its shocking ability to change into all the colours of ‘Iris’ in the course of a day… its vibrant, warm, and eloquent qualities… its ability to touch the Pentelic marble and give it meaning, significance, and a pulsating inner world… In April 1869 Frederic Edwin Church outdid himself… creating a superb representation of a superb architectural creation.

For Frederic Edwin Church traveling to Greece was part of a three-continent Grand Tour that included England, France, Egypt, Lebanon, Jerusalem, Syria, Turkey, Austria, Switzerland, and finally Rome in Italy. The trip started late in 1867, it included the whole year of 1868 and ended in 1869. In April 1869 Church sailed to Athens, where he spent several weeks. Impressed by the Parthenon, he wrote to his sculptor friend Erastus Dow Palmer… I recently visited Greece – Athens – I was delighted – the Parthenon is a wonderful work of the human intellect – but it must be seen – no photograph can convey even a faint impression of its majesty and beauty – fragments of sculpture are strewn all about – and let me say that I think Athens is the place for a sculptor… The Greeks had noble conceptions. They gave a large-godlike air to all they did and the fragments and bits are full of merit. I spend over two weeks there with immense pleasure and profit – and when I returned – Rome with its gross architecture looked cheap and vulgar. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/metpublications/American_Paradise_The_World_of_the_Hudson_River_School

Back in the United States, in January 1870, Church wrote once more to his friend William O. Osborn… I shall commence a large picture of the Parthenon soon, probably. This picture is now part of the Metropolitan Museum Collection. My favorite Picture of the Parthenon is, however, housed in the Boston MFA. It is one, of the finest in my humble opinion, of ten carefully recorded Studies the artist did before embarking on his final representation of the Parthenon.

Celebrating UN International Day of Democracy, allow me to quote UN Secretary-General António Guterres saying… Let us commit to safeguarding the principles of equality, participation and solidarity, so that we can better weather the storm of future crises… and enjoy the eternal symbol of Democracy… The Parthenon as painted by the great American representative of the Hudson River School of Painting, Frederic Edwin Church.

For a PowerPoint on Frederic Edwin Church’s 1869 trip to Athens, please… Check HERE!

Frederic Edwin Church, American Artist, 1826–1900
The Parthenon, 1871, Oil on Canvas, 113 x 184.5 cm, The MET, NY, USA https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/10482

Boating by Édouard Manet

by 19th century ArtArtImpressionismPowerpoints
Édouard Manet, French Painter, 1832-1883
Boating, 1874, oil on canvas, 97.2 x 130.2 cm, the MET, NY, USA
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436947

Boating by Édouard Manet was exhibited in the Salon of 1879, and the art critic J. K. Huysmans wrote… The bright blue water continues to exasperate a number of people… Manet has never, thank heavens, known those prejudices stupidly maintained in the academies. He paints, by abbreviations, nature as it is and as he sees it. The woman, dressed in blue, seated in a boat cut off by the frame as in certain Japanese prints, is well-placed, in broad daylight, and her figure energetically stands out against the oarsman dressed in white, against the vivid blue of the water. These are, indeed, pictures the likes of which, alas, we shall rarely find in this tedious Salon. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/metpublications/Masterpieces_of_European_Painting_1800_1920_in_the_Metropolitan_Museum_of_Art  pages 104-105

Édouard Manet, the scion of a wealthy French family, was a Parisian good-looking, charming, and cosmopolitan artist of great talent… He believed, according to the National Gallery of Art experts, that art should be about modern life and embraced the role of social commentator. He admired the old masters… but his artistic inspiration came from the ‘modern’ city of Paris, dramatically transformed at the time of Napoleon III, by the vision of Baron Georges Haussmann. His goal was to document the world around him: the grand boulevards, fashionable cafés, busy racetracks, and people and activities in his own neighborhood, and wherever else fashionable Parisians were expected to be. https://www.nga.gov/content/dam/ngaweb/Education/learning-resources/an-eye-for-art/AnEyeforArt-EdouardManet.pdf

In the summer of 1894, Édouard Manet was at Gennevilliers, opposite Argenteuil, on the river Seine where the Manet family had a country estate. He was in good company! His friend Claude Monet lived nearby, at Argenteuil. The two artists accompanied, at times, by Pierre-Auguste Renoir painted together and continued their conversations which were for Manet precious… Nothing could have been more interesting than our discussions… he once said. The summer of 1874 was also pivotal as the time when Manet’s friendship with the younger Impressionist Claude Monet took deep roots. http://www.worldsbestpaintings.net/artistsandpaintings/painting/172/

Édouard Manet, French Painter, 1832-1883
Boating (Detail), 1874, oil on canvas, 97.2 x 130.2 cm, the MET, NY, USA
https://blog.artsper.com/en/a-closer-look/understanding-impressionism/
Édouard Manet, French Painter, 1832-1883
Boating (Detail-Woman), 1874, oil on canvas, 97.2 x 130.2 cm, the MET, NY, USA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89douard_Manet#/media/File:Edouard_Manet_Boating.jpg

At Argenteuil Manet painted Boating along with more paintings on similar subject matter like Monet in his Studio Boat, The Monet Family in their Garden, Banks of the Seine at Argenteuil,  and more. Boating depicts one of the most popular leisure activities of the French bourgeoisie… sailing on the Seine! There has been a lot of speculation as to who the people in the painting are. It has been suggested that the depicted “sailor” is Rodolphe Leeenhoff, Manet’s brother-in-law. No consensus has been reached, however, as to who the female in the painting is. According to the Metropolitan Museum experts, she might be Alice Lecouvé, the model for the 1875 painting The Laundry in the Barnes Foundation. https://www.edouard-manet.net/boating/ and https://www.metmuseum.org/art/metpublications/Masterpieces_of_European_Painting_1800_1920_in_the_Metropolitan_Museum_of_Art  pages 104-105

Shown in the Salon of 1879, Boating was deemed “the last word in painting” by Mary Cassatt, who recommended the acquisition to the New York collectors Louisine and H.O. Havemeyer. Louisine bequeathed it to The Met upon her death in 1929. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436947

For a PowerPoint on Boating by Édouard Manet and the Summer of 1874, please… Check HERE!

Poppies on the Isles of Shoals

by 19th century ArtAmerican ArtArtImpressionismPowerpoints
Childe Hassam, American Artist,1859–1935
Poppies on the Isles of Shoals, 1891, 50.2×61 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, USA
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Childe_Hassam,_Poppies,_Isles_of_Shoals,_1891.jpg

At the Isles of Shoals, among the ledges of the largest island, Appledore lies the small garden which in the following pages I have endeavored to describe. Ever since I could remember anything, flowers have been like dear friends to me, comforters, inspirers, powers to uplift and to cheer. A lonely child, living on the lighthouse island ten miles away from the mainland, every blade of grass that sprang out of the ground, every humblest weed, was precious in my sight, and I began a little garden when not more than five years old. From this, year after year, the larger one, which has given so much pleasure to so many people, has grown. The first small bed at the lighthouse island contained only Marigolds, pot Marigolds, fire-colored blossoms which were the joy of my heart and the delight of my eyes. This scrap of the garden, literally not more than a yard square, with its barbaric splendors of color, I worshiped like any Parsee… writes Celia Thaxter, the lover of gardening, flowers, and the good friend of painter Childe Hassam. Poppies on the Isles of Shoals is one of his many paintings celebrating the flora of this unique group of nine small, rocky islands off the coast of New Hampshire, in the Atlantic. https://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/thaxter/garden/garden.html

Appledore (House) Hotel and landing, Isles of Shoals, NH, between 1901 and 1906, Detroit Publishing Co., publisher, Library of Congress, Washington DC, USA
https://www.historynet.com/childe-hassams-island-escape/

Imagine a summer day in the company of novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne, poets Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and artists Childe Hassam, and  William Morris Hunt. Now add conversations on art, and music, recitations of poetry, intellectual “arguments,” and gardening “lessons.” The result is… a summer day at Appledore House, a family-run Hotel on Appledore Island, off the coast of Maine, where every summer Childe Hassam and a group of musicians, writers, and artists mad an informal colony as guests of Celia Thaxter, poet extraordinaire, passionate gardener and Hotel proprietor. https://americanexperience.si.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Hassam.pdf

Childe Hassam painting on Appledore, from The Cruise of Mystery and Other Poems by Celia Thaxter, 1888, archival photograph. Boston Public Library, Rare Books Department https://www.christies.com/features/Lot-427-Childe-Hassam-The-East-Headland-Pool-Appledore-9072-6.aspx

For three decades (between 1886 and 1916), Childe Hassam was perfectly happy to spend his Summers at Appledore House painting, en plain air, Celia Thaxter’s Hotel garden, and the rugged landscape of the Isles of Shoals. His body of work at Appledore remains a pinnacle of American Art of the Impressionist movement. He was particularly fond of painting Babb’s Cove from the shaded piazza of Thaxter’s cottage. He routinely set up his easel there to paint the vista, which included the brilliant field of Iceland poppies cascading beyond the borders of her famous flower garden. As Thaxter wrote in 1894, “How beautiful they are, these grassy, rocky slopes shelving gradually to the sea, with here and there a mass of tall, blossoming grass softly swaying in the warm wind against the peaceful, pale blue water!” https://www.incollect.com/articles/american-impressionist-childe-hassam-and-the-isles-of-shoals and https://www.pem.org/exhibitions/american-impressionist-childe-hassam-and-the-isles-of-shoals

Childe Hassam, American Artist,1859–1935
Poppies on the Isles of Shoals (detail), 1891, 50.2×61 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, USA
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Childe_Hassam,_Poppies,_Isles_of_Shoals,_1891.jpg

The National Gallery Poppies on the Isles of Shoals painting of1891 is my favorite! The painting, as Franklin Kelly wrote, presents a broad vista moving from a dense foreground of flowers to a background of rocks, water, and sky. The poppies that spread beyond Celia Thaxter’s garden were the artist’s favorite subject. They cover the foreground with brilliant, warm hues of green and red in wavy brushstrokes. For the rest of the painting, the middle and background is painted in cooler tones of blue, purple, and white for the rocks and water, and pale blue for the sky. Hassam’s brushwork is equally varied, ranging from lush red and white strokes defining the flowers to long drags of pigment suggesting the multihued surfaces of the rocks. The artist’s painting is a tour de force of Impressionistic landscape painting en plein air. https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.103172.html

Childe Hassam, American Artist,1859–1935
Poppies on the Isles of Shoals (Detail of Signature), 1891, Oil on Canvas, 50.2×61 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, USA
https://www.lonequixote.com/blog/hassam-poppies-isles-of-shoals-details-1891-b

For anyone accustomed to academic landscape painting, seeing one of Hassam’s Isles of Shoals paintings was, as one reviewer wrote, “like taking off a pair of black spectacles that one has been compelled to wear out of doors, and letting the full glory of nature’s sunlight color pour in upon the retina.”  https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.103172.html

For a PowerPoint titled 15 Paintings by Childe Hassam depicting the Isles of Shoals, please… Check HERE!

An original UNC-TV Documentary (27.55min) exploring the North Carolina Museum of Art exhibit of American impressionist painter Childe Hassam. The documentary focuses on Hassam’s work on Appledore Island over the course of thirty years… https://www.pbs.org/video/unc-tv-presents-childe-hassam-and-isles-shoals/

Portrait of Alexander Cassatt and Robert Cassatt

by 19th century ArtAmerican ArtArtImpressionismStudent ActivitiesWorksheets
Mary Stevenson Cassatt, American Artist, 1844 – 1926
Portrait of Alexander J. Cassatt and His Son, Robert Kelso Cassatt, 1884, Oil on Canvas, 100.3 × 81.3 cm, Philadelphia Museum of Art, USA https://philamuseum.org/collection/object/104479

The Portrait of Alexander Cassatt and Robert Cassatt by Alexander’s sister Mary Stevenson Cassatt is a perfect example of what an American artist could achieve in Paris… the Mecca of Modern Art, and Old World charm. Starting in 1865, at the end of the Civil War, traveling to Europe became an American institution! Americans were attracted by French culture and bohemian life. They attended social events, art exhibitions, and archaeological monuments. They studied art or collected antiquities, artworks of the Old Masters, or paintings by contemporary artists. This phenomenon is best described by Henry James who wrote…It sounds like a paradox, but it is the simple truth that when, today, we look for American art, we find it mainly in Paris. When we find it out of Paris, we at least find a great deal of Paris in it. https://www.studiointernational.com/index.php/americans-in-paris–1860-1900

Mary Stevenson Cassatt, American Artist, 1844 – 1926
Portrait of Alexander J. Cassatt and His Son, Robert Kelso Cassatt (Detail), 1884, Oil on
Canvas, 100.3 × 81.3 cm, Philadelphia Museum of Art, USA
https://www.gazette-drouot.com/en/article/mary-cassatt-the-franco-american/4732

How more affectionate can a father/son moment be! The great Alexander J. Cassatt is depicted sitting comfortably on a plush armchair reading his paper while his son Robert sits on the chair’s arm embracing him. Both portraits share similar characteristics… focused gazes, flushed cheeks, and black clothing. Mary Cassatt achieved to depict an intimate moment, the special bond between father and son, and the natural physical resemblance between them. Clad in black Alexander and Robert stand out, further emphasizing their tender rapport… Mary Cassatt’s famous double Portrait of Alexander Cassatt and Robert Cassatt was painted in December of 1884, during a surprise visit to Paris by her relatives. https://philamuseum.org/collection/object/104479

Mary Stevenson Cassatt, American Artist, 1844 – 1926
Portrait of Alexander J. Cassatt, 1880, Oil on Canvas, Pastel, 92.3×72 cm, Seattle Art Museum, USA https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mary_Cassatt_-_Portrait_of_Alexander_J._Cassatt_-_Seattle_Art_Museum.jpg

Alexander J. Cassatt was the first vice president of the Pennsylvania Railroad and one of the most powerful businessmen in the United States. He was also Cassatt’s beloved older brother, whom she painted on several occasions. Every time she did so, he is depicted casually posing in his sister’s house, a dear relative rather than a  famous public persona, absorbed in his thoughts, revealing both the kindness and formality that were attributed to him. In a letter home to the United States, Alexander’s wife wrote: “Mary has painted a very good portrait of Aleck for which he has been posing every morning for two hours for two weeks.” http://art.seattleartmuseum.org/objects/10259/portrait-of-alexander-j-cassatt;jsessionid=14B64D561385E3770309506FB79F6022

Mary Stevenson Cassatt, American Artist, 1844 – 1926
Portrait of Master Robert Kelso Cassatt, c. 1882, Oil on Canvas, 50x61cm, Private Collection https://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2017/american-art-n09689/lot.45.html

Images of Mary Cassatt’s friends and family constitute a pivotal, according to the Sotheby’s experts, a component of the artist’s prolific body of work. Robert Kelso Cassatt was Mary’s favourite nephew and one of her favorite models. Robert first bonded with his expatriate aunt during the summer of 1880, when he visited the artist and his grandparents at their rented villa in Marly, in the countryside outside of Paris. Robert was not the easiest of Mary’s models… he wouldn’t sit still… but Cassatt grew fond of him, hoping for a time that he would become an artist himself… https://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2017/american-art-n09689/lot.45.html

Happy Father’s Day

For a Student Activity on the Portrait of Alexander Cassatt and Robert Cassatt, please… Check HERE!

The magnificent Bronze Quadriga in San Marco

by 19th century ArtAmerican ArtArtStudent ActivitiesWorksheets
Charles Caryl Coleman, American Artist,1840-1928
The Bronze Horses of San Marco, 1876, Oil on Canvas, 102.2 × 82.6 cm, Minneapolis Institute of Art, USA
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Charles_Caryl_Coleman_-_The_Bronze_Horses_of_San_Marco,_Venice_-_79.13_-_Minneapolis_Institute_of_Arts.jpg

I read Brenda Riley-Seymore’s poem on The Horses… Don’t cry for the horses that life has set free. / A million white horses, forever to be. / Don’t cry for the horses now in God’s hands. / As they dance and prance to a heavenly band.     /     They were ours as a gift, but never to keep / As they close their eyes, forever to sleep. / Their spirits unbound, forever to fly. / A million white horses, against the blue sky.     /     Look up into Heaven. You will see them above. / The horse we lost, the horse we loved. / Manes and tails flying, they gallop through time. / They were never yours, they were never mine… and I think of  The magnificent Bronze Horses in San Marco… and imagine them… dance and prance to a heavenly band… https://www.horsesofhope.org/horses/tribute-to-first-horse

The Bronze Quadriga of San Marco, scholars’ opinions still range between the 5th century BC and the 4th century AD, Bronze, 96.67% copper, bronze, and mercury gilding, Museo Marciano, Basilica di San Marco, Venice, Italy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadriga#/media/File:Horses_of_Basilica_San_Marco_bright.jpg

The bright bronze quadriga came to Venice as part of the rich war plunder gathered by the Venetians, under doge Enrico Dandolo, after the conquest of Constantinople at the end of the 4th Crusade in 1204, together with other works of inestimable value, many of which are still housed in the Basilica’s Treasury. The Quadriga is magnificent, and the introduction by the experts of the Basilica di San Marco in Venice was enlightening. The Quadriga story is that of admiration, greed, plunder… and artistic inspiration… http://www.basilicasanmarco.it/basilica/scultura/la-decorazione-delle-facciate/quadriga-marciana/?lang=en

Charles Caryl Coleman is according to the Smithsonian experts, a decorative and genre painter who has been largely overlooked by the American art community since his death. He studied art in New York, and later, in Paris, under Thomas Couture. He served with the Union during the Civil War and established himself as an artist by exhibiting his work, regularly, at the Boston Athenaeum, the Brooklyn Art Academy, and the National Academy of Design. Early in 1867, he moved to Italy and rarely looked back. There, he joined a vibrant, international community of artists that included Vedder, Maitland Armstrong, William Graham, Thomas Hotchkiss, Frederic Leighton, Giovanni (Nino) Costa, and other artists in the circle of the Macchiaioli. In 1876, while in Italy, Colemanfinished his pivotal painting, titled The Bronze Horses of San Marco. https://www.aaa.si.edu/blog/2019/08/charles-caryl-coleman-rediscovered

Coleman’s painting of San Marco’s Bronze Quatriga is, I believe, one of the finest painted representations of Venice’s magnificent treasure. The artist depicted the bronze horses as they stood on the porch of the Basilica of San Marco, using foreshortening, and displaying an unusual diagonal perspective for his composition. Placing the bronze horses on the central/right side of the painting, he was able to add a refreshing view of the upper section of the Piazza’s monumental Clocktower in all its decorative glory. Cool tones of paint, restrained brushstrokes, and the artist’s love of the decorative, combined with fine art created a painting that greatly exemplifies Coleman’s qualities as a leading artist of the International Aesthetic Movement. https://collections.artsmia.org/art/2607/the-bronze-horses-of-san-marco-charles-caryl-coleman

For a Student Activity, please… Check HERE!

Irises by Vincent van Gogh

by 19th century ArtArtPost-ImpressionismPowerpoints
Vincent van Gogh, Dutch Artist, 1853 – 1890
Irises, 1889, Oil on Canvas, 74.3 × 94.3 cm, The J. Paul Getty Museum, CA, USA  https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/826/vincent-van-gogh-irises-dutch-1889/

Well. Then we had the irises, rising beautiful and cool on their tall stalks, like blown glass, like pastel water momentarily frozen in a splash, light blue, light mauve, and the darker ones, velvet and purple, black cat’s ears in the sun, indigo shadow, and the bleeding hearts, so female in shape it was a surprise they’d not long since been rooted out… writes Margaret Atwood describing Serena Joy Waterford’s Spring Garden in The Handmaid’s Tale. Well, how can we best describe the Getty painting of Irises by Vincent van Gogh? https://www.skyminds.net/the-handmaids-tale-chapter-25-analysis/

In May 1889, write the Getty experts, after episodes of self-mutilation and hospitalization, Vincent van Gogh chose to enter an asylum in Saint-Rémy, France. Within the first week, he began Irises, working from nature in the asylum’s garden. These deep violet-blue coloured Irises are popularly known as Iris Vulgaris or Iris Germnica, and they seem to grow, even unattended, in Southern France, like in the overgrown “deserted” garden of the Saint-Rémy Asylum. https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/103JNH and https://books.google.gr/books?id=LUZ-dHerY3sC&pg=PA21&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false, page 21

If you are wondering why van Gogh painted Irises… consider the following two reasons. Vincent van Gogh loved to paint flowers! They are colorful, and they allowed the artist to experiment with tints, and shades, intensity, and value. Like Eugène Delacroix, who he considered to be “the greatest colorist of all,” van Gogh used colour to offer contrasting effects and create depth by projecting specific parts of his paintings. The simplest explanation, however, is that Irises, magnificent in every aspect, were at the time available, in full bloom, in the Asylum garden… “begging” van Gogh to paint them! The artist considered the Getty Irises painting a mere study. His brother Theo, however, quickly recognized its quality and submitted it to the Salon des Indépendants in September 1889, writing Vincent of the exhibition: “[It] strikes the eye from afar. It is a beautiful study full of air and life.” Could these magnificent flowers provide the artist’s troubled psyche with feelings of hope? Did they help him ease the pain and temporarily appease his mental state? One can only hope! https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/stories/looking-for-contrast#2 and https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/103JNH  

Vincent van Gogh, Dutch Artist, 1853 – 1890
Irises (detail), 1889, Oil on Canvas, 74.3 × 94.3 cm, The J. Paul Getty Museum, CA, USA  https://blogs.getty.edu/iris/five-ways-of-seeing-van-goghs-irises/

The Vincent van Gogh Getty Irises painting is unique. He carefully studied the flowers’ movements and shapes to create a variety of curved silhouettes bounded by wavy, twisting, and curling lines. It is only right to mark that the French art critic Octave Mirbeau, one of Van Gogh’s earliest supporters, wrote: “How well he has understood the exquisite nature of flowers!” https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/103JNH

For a PowerPoint on Irises by Vincent van Gogh, please… Click HERE!

It is interesting to Watch the Getty Museum Video presentation Van Gogh’s Irises: A Closer Look… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGgjAL9qVH4 and Read the results of this examination… https://www.getty.edu/news/a-rare-opportunity-to-study-van-goghs-irises/

A Rare Opportunity to Study Van Gogh’s Irises, The J. Paul Getty Museum, CA, USA  https://blogs.getty.edu/iris/rare-opportunity-to-study-van-goghs-irises/

Listen to a Getty Museum Podcast on Irises by Vincent van Gogh… https://dea3n992em6cn.cloudfront.net/museumcollection/000947-en-20120210-v1.mp3

Another interesting Video of an in-depth analysis of Irises by Vincent van Gogh… https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=10155040353870097

Vincent van Gogh, Dutch Artist, 1853 – 1890
Irises (detail), 1889, Oil on Canvas, 74.3 × 94.3 cm, The J. Paul Getty Museum, CA, USA  https://creativepro.com/free-high-resolution-art-the-getty-museum/

Woman in Monsieur Forest’s Garden

by 19th century ArtArtBasil and Elise Goulandris Foundation AthensPost-ImpressionismPowerpoints
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, French Artist, 1864 – 1901
Woman in Monsieur Forest’s Garden, 1891, Oil on Board, 60,7 × 55 cm, Basil and Elise Goulandris Foundation, Athens, Greece
https://goulandris.gr/el/collection/highlights

How vainly men themselves amaze / To win the palm, the oak, or bays, / And their uncessant labours see / Crown’d from some single herb or tree, / Whose short and narrow verged shade / Does prudently their toils upbraid; / While all flow’rs and all trees do close / To weave the garlands of repose …     /     Fair Quiet, have I found thee here, / And Innocence, thy sister dear! / Mistaken long, I sought you then / In busy companies of men; / Your sacred plants, if here below, / Only among the plants will grow. / Society is all but rude, / To this delicious solitude… writes Andrew Marvell (1621 – 1678) back in the 17th century… and I think that maybe… Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s Woman in Monsieur Forest’s Garden, sitting uptight with fingers intertwined, seeks in the wild garden of Père Forest… delicious solitude… a place of repose and restfulness… an escape from the more frenetic world of public life that lies beyond the boundaries of the garden. https://interestingliterature.com/2017/07/a-short-analysis-of-andrew-marvells-the-garden/ and https://poets.org/poem/garden

In Montmartre, in Paris, where Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec lived, at the bottom of rue Caulaincourt, not far from Place de Clichy, Père Forest, an enthusiastic Parisian archer, owned a half-wild, half-cultivated garden where he often welcomed friends to walk in the undergrowth. Among Père Forest’s friends was Toulouse-Lautrec, whose studio was nearby, and upon the arrival of spring, used to walk down to his friend’s garden, where he would receive his models, paint en plein air surrounded by a large group of onlookers, and share many drinks with old friends and acquaintances till the late hours of the afternoon. https://www.histoires-de-paris.fr/toulouse-lautrec-jardin-pere-forest/

From 1889 to 1891, Lautrec experimented with the plein-air approach of the Impressionists, producing a group of studies showing figures set against the foliage in the garden of Monsieur Forest, his neighbor in the Paris district of Montmartre. Lautrec referred to these self-imposed exercises in technique as “impositions,” for which friends, as well as models, posed. One such “imposition” is the Basil and Elise Goulandris’s Foundation painting titled Woman in Monsieur Forest’s Garden of 1891. https://vrallart.com/artworks/woman_in_the_garden_of_monsieur_forest/ and https://goulandris.gr/en/artwork/henri-de-toulouse-lautrec-woman-in-monsieur-forests-garden

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, French Artist, 1864 – 1901
Woman in Monsieur Forest’s Garden (detail), 1891, Oil on Board, 60,7 × 55 cm, Basil and Elise Goulandris Foundation, Athens, Greece
https://goulandris.gr/el/collection/highlights

The woman depicted in the Lautrec painting in Athens was named Honorine. She was most probably not a professional model or prostitute, and she was painted at least twice. In the Athens version, according to the Goulandris Foundation experts, the model appears in a three-quarter pose, looking the viewer straight in the eye, with her fingers intertwined, without wearing accessories. The painter opted for a minimalist palette with white, green, violet, and a warmer touch for the reddish-gold hair. The face is undoubtedly more treated: the thin brush strokes are small and precise; the features are subtly rendered, refuting the accusations that the painter constantly pursued caricature at that time. The gaze, reflecting a subtle worry, is not at all distant, but straight and gracious. https://goulandris.gr/en/artwork/henri-de-toulouse-lautrec-woman-in-monsieur-forests-garden

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, French Artist, 1864 – 1901
Woman with Gloves (Honorine Platzer), 1891, oil on cardboard, 54×40 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France
https://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/node/89835  

Toulouse-Lautrec painted Honorine Platzer three times as he clearly had some affection for her. In the Musée d’Orsay painting Woman with Gloves, the artist captured his model almost in spite of herself, her gaze focused elsewhere… ignoring the painter. Honorine was a slim, elegant woman with beautiful strawberry-blond hair and a gentle yet strong character. Both paintings show how close Toulouse-Lautrec approach to portraiture was to the Impressionists, who frequently painted outside using colours splashed with sunlight. But whereas the Impressionists searched out the passing moment, the ephemeral nature of the effects of light, and did not linger over the features in this type of portrait, Lautrec, in contrast, would disregard the changing elements to capture the inner personality of his models. https://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/node/89835

For a PowerPoint on Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s Portraits of Women in the Garden of Père Forest, please… Check HERE!

Byzantine-Style Mosaic Necklace with Christ and Twelve Apostles

by 19th century ArtArtByzantiumExhibitionsJewelryPost-ByzantineStudent ActivitiesVenetian Art
Unidentified Artist from Murano, Venice? 
Byzantine-Style Mosaic Necklace with Christ and Twelve Apostles, the 1870s-1910s, gold with glass and shell inlay, Smithsonian American Art Museum, USA
https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/byzantine-style-mosaic-necklace-christ-and-twelve-apostles-30961

Sargent, Whistler, and Venetian Glass: American Artists and the Magic of Murano(October 8, 2021 – May 8, 2022, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC, USA) brings to life the Venetian glass revival of the late nineteenth century and the artistic experimentation the city inspired for visiting artists. It is the first comprehensive examination of American tourism, artmaking, and art collecting in Venice, revealing the glass furnaces and their new creative boom as a vibrant facet of the city’s allure… write the Smithsonian American Art Museum experts, and I was “hooked” to virtually explore this amazing Exhibition. I was particularly intrigued by the reference to the Magic of Murano, and the age-old Venetian industry of glassmaking. Exploring the artworks exhibited, I came upon a Byzantine-Style Mosaic Necklace with Christ and Twelve Apostles in the Smithsonian Collection, and I was determined to learn more about it! Well, I learned more… and less… https://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/sargent-whistler-glass and https://s3.amazonaws.com/assets.saam.media/files/documents/2021-09/SWAVG%20checklist_FINAL.pdf

Exhibition Sargent, Whistler, and Venetian Glass: American Artists and the Magic of Murano Installation Photography, Courtesy Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2021, Photo Credit: Albert Ting https://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/sargent-whistler-glass

Back in 1929, the Byzantine-Style Necklace was part of an impressive donation to the Smithsonian’s “National Gallery of Art” (now SAAM), by the art collector John Gellatly. Originally, it was thought to be a piece of 6th century Byzantine Jewelry, but contemporary conservators believe it’s more likely a nineteenth-century imitation or forgery.  

The necklace consists of 15 medallions presenting Christ in the middle (the biggest in size), the Twelve Apostles (receding, slightly, in size, six on either side of Christ), and medallions with Constantine’s Cross (the smallest two of the fifteen), at the two ends of the necklace. The necklace medallions are connected with gold chains of hollow wire! The rims of each medallion are decorated with hundreds of small gold balls, applied in a technique called granulation… a technique invented in the ancient world… declined in popularity after the first century BC, and was revived by the Castellani jewelry firm in the mid-19th century. Could the use of granulation make scholars begin to question the necklace’s Byzantine attribution?

Unidentified Artist from Murano, Venice? 
Byzantine-Style Mosaic Necklace with Christ and Twelve Apostles (detail), the 1870s-1910s, gold with glass and shell inlay, Smithsonian American Art Museum, USA
https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/byzantine-style-mosaic-necklace-christ-and-twelve-apostles-30961

Apparently, the conservator’s examination brought up more questions than answers, and as the Pietre Dure technique was popular in Florence, they jokingly question if the Smithsonian necklace was created by an itinerant nineteenth-century Florentine Pietre Dure stone craftsperson who moved to Venice to restore the San Marco mosaics and was commissioned by a wealthy patron to make a Byzantine-style necklace… One can only wonder!

Unidentified Artist from Murano, Venice? 
Byzantine-Style Mosaic Necklace with Christ and Twelve Apostles (Detail), the 1870s-1910s, gold with glass and shell inlay, Smithsonian American Art Museum, USA
https://americanart.si.edu/blog/byzantine-art-mystery

Information on my presentation of the Necklace comes from the December 8, 2021article The Mystery Around a Byzantine-style Necklace – When SAAM’s “Art Doctors” Become Art Detectives by Ariel O’Connor and Sarah Montonchaikul… https://americanart.si.edu/blog/byzantine-art-mystery

For a Student Activity, please… Check HERE!

Camille Pissarro Flower Arrangements

by 19th century ArtArtEducationImpressionismPowerpoints
Camille Pissarro, French Artist, 1830–1903
Pink Peonies, 1873, Oil  on Canvas, 73 x 60 cm, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK
https://www.wikiart.org/en/camille-pissarro/pink-peonies-1873

The flower that smiles to-day / To-morrow dies; / All that we wish to stay / Tempts and then flies. / What is this world’s delight? / Lightning that mocks the night, / Brief even as bright.    /    Virtue, how frail it is! / Friendship how rare! / Love, how it sells poor bliss / For proud despair! / But we, though soon they fall, / Survive their joy, and all / Which ours we call.    /    Whilst skies are blue and bright, / Whilst flowers are gay, / Whilst eyes that change ere night / Make glad the day; / Whilst yet the calm hours creep, / Dream thou—and from thy sleep / Then wake to weep. Everything is ephemeral and transitory for Percy Shelley like bouquets of flowers… like Camille Pissarro Flower Arrangements! Could this be the reason why the artist painted so few Still Life Paintings of Flowers? Was he afraid of all hopes, desires, and delights the world has to offer are short-lived and doomed to fade away? https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45133/mutability-the-flower-that-smiles-to-day and https://interestingliterature.com/2017/07/10-of-the-best-poems-about-flowers/

Camille Pissarro was the only painter to exhibit in all eight Impressionist exhibitions organized between 1874 and 1886. He became a pivotal artist and mentor within the movement, and he is best known for his landscapes and his images of the day-to-day life of French peasants. https://www.theartstory.org/artist/pissarro-camille/life-and-legacy/#biography_header

Camille Pissarro, French Artist, 1830–1903
Self-Portrait with Hat, 1903, Oil on Canvas, 41×33 cm, Tate Britain, UK
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Camille_Pissarro_-_Self-portrait2_-_Tate_Britain.jpg

Jacob Abraham Camille Pissarro was born and raised in St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands, then the Danish West Indies. His parents were merchants of modest means, but in 1842, young Pissarro was sent away to a boarding school in Passy near Paris, France, where he was introduced to the arts and encouraged to draw directly from nature and to use direct observation in his drawings, empirically rendering each object in its truest form. Pissarro returned to St. Thomas to immerse himself in the family business; however, he got quickly tired of mercantile pursuits and upon meeting the Danish painter Fritz Melbye, in the early 1850s, he abandoned the family business, following his Dutch friend to Caracas, Venezuela, and committing himself to becoming a painter. https://www.theartstory.org/artist/pissarro-camille/life-and-legacy/#biography_header

Camille Pissarro, French Artist, 1830–1903
Tropical Landscape with Farmhouses and Palm Trees, 1856, Oil on Cardboard, 24.8×32.7 cm, National Art Gallery, Caracas, Venezuela
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Camille_Pissarro_-_Paisaje_tropical.jpg

By 1855, Pissarro had returned to Paris, where he was exposed to the artwork of Eugène Delacroix, and Realist landscapists like Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Gustave Courbet, and Jean-François Millet. Largely if not entirely self-taught at the time, Pissarro started taking classes at the Academie Suisse in 1859 where he met Cézanne, one of his closest lifelong friends. In 1861, Pissarro registered as a copyist at the Musée du Louvre, and around this same time, he met Julie Vellay, the daughter of a vineyard owner in the Burgundy region. He got married in London in 1871 and became the caring father of eight children. https://www.theartstory.org/artist/pissarro-camille/life-and-legacy/#biography_header

Pissarro began submitting to the Salon in the late 1860s with landscape paintings reflecting his profound knowledge of and exposure to the compositional techniques of the eighteenth-century French masters. However, spending time and painting en plein air in Louveciennes, an area much favoured by the Impressionists, Pissarro’s style gradually changed. He focused on light effects and atmospheric conditions created by the change of the seasons developing a pure, mature Impressionist style. As he grew older, he worked hard to keep his art avant-garde and relevant by testing new theoretical concepts like the Pointillist technique. https://www.theartstory.org/artist/pissarro-camille/life-and-legacy/#biography_header

Camille Pissarro, French Artist, 1830–1903
Medley of Still Life Paintings of Flowers

In 2005, at The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Exhibition “Pioneering Modern Painting: Cézanne and Pissarro, 1865–1885” placed Camille Pissarro, the artist pretty much behind every art movement of the 19th century, in the same league as Paul Cézanne, the artist whose art will define the 20th century. Pissarro’s landscapes are indisputably important… but, I like to focus on Pissarro’s few Still Life paintings… discover his modernist approach, notice his ability to manipulate colour for a “truer” visual image, and relish at his direct, unadorned approach to his subject matter.

Paul Cézanne (left) and Camille Pissarro (right) at Auvers-sur-Oise, Private Collection, by an Anonymous Photographer https://newcriterion.com/issues/2005/9/cezanne-pissarro-a-crucial-friendship and http://art-cezanne.com/photography_cezanne/1874%20Paul-Cezanne%20&%20Camille%20Pissarro%20in%20%20Auver.jpg

To end this short presentation I will quote Paul Cézanne, who three years after Pissarro’s death, identified himself in a retrospective exhibition, as “Paul Cézanne, pupil of Pissarro.” https://www.theartstory.org/artist/pissarro-camille/life-and-legacy/#biography_header and https://www.haberarts.com/cezannep.htm

When I teach Impressionism… I like to stress how important Pissarro’s Still Life paintings of Flowers are! I use Visual Learning Strategy Questions to help my students reflect upon their significance, and experience a process of enduring understanding!

For a PowerPoint of Camille Pissarro’s paintings of Flowers, please… Check HERE!