End of the Season by William Merritt Chase

by 19th century ArtAmerican ArtArtStudent ActivitiesWorksheets
William Merritt Chase, American painter, 1849-1916
End of the Season, c. 1885, Pastel on Paper, 35 x 45 cm, Mount Holyoke College Art Museum, South Hadley https://www.wga.hu/support/viewer_m/z.html

The familiar rhythm of the cricket’s chirps / Create the soundtrack for each day, / Echoing Summer’s end / And that Autumn’s on her way.     /     The stifling heat of the summer sun / Is now tempered by the clouds. / Those fluffy, cotton August clouds, / That soft breezes push about.     /     Shadows falling everywhere / As the sun plays peek-a-boo. / Losing her strength with each new day, / A sure sign that summer is through…     /    But there’s also a haunting sadness sometimes. / That I feel when those dark shadows fall. / And that my greatest adventures in life / Are just memories, now aroused by those sweet cricket calls. The end of summer, carefree days, is fast approaching… the beginning of the new School year is right in the corner…  and I think of Patricia A. Fleming’s Poem for Kids The Summer’s End and the End of the Season by William Merritt Chase. I feel melancholic… just like the lady in the painting! https://www.momjunction.com/articles/poems-about-summer-for-kids_00720909/

I like how perceptively William Merritt Chase’s ideas on how Idle Hours should be depicted is described in the article William Merritt Chase and modern leisure, and presented in ANTIQUES, back on August 29, 2016. Furthermore, an introduction to his life is more than essential to understand his style… That aura of pleasure suffuses Chase’s work and belies the effort he put into creating innovative paintings of modern life. He worked hard to make his art look easy. Born to a middle-­class family in Indiana, Chase cobbled together the support of local businessmen to finance his art education in Munich. From 1872 to 1878 he studied at the Royal Academy there, mastering the dark, gestural brushwork of the Munich school and studying the work of the old masters. He sent his paintings back to New York for display, earning admiration even before he returned to the United States in 1878. He immediately took rooms in New York’s most prestigious studio space, the Tenth Street Studio Building, where he established himself at the center of the city’s art world and created an eclectic, European-­inspired studio space that announced his reputation as a well-traveled bohemian and an imaginative, creative artist. Soon thereafter, he began to explore modern subjects of relaxation in an innovative style. https://www.themagazineantiques.com/article/idle-hours-william-merritt-chase-and-modern-leisure/

Spending my summers in a Greek sea-front small village, being a teacher who treasures my last days of summer bliss, I feel very close to the End of the Season, by William Merritt Chase in Mount Holyoke College Art Museum. It is one of his early paintings depicting a scene at the beach at the end of the summer season. A woman in fashionable summer greyish attire sits comfortably, leaning over the empty table, at the right side of the composition. She is looking at the distant fishermen whose boat rests on the strand… and the fresh, choppy sea… There are more tables in the composition, the chairs tipped up against them… empty now of holiday visitors. No wonder the title is End of the Season.  http://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=MH%201976.9

William Merritt Chase probably painted the End of the Season during a summer visit to Holland as a tribute, according to a critic, to a “Continental watering-place, with  chairs and tables upset by the seashore, and a single lonely figure.” This is one of the artist’s earlier pastel paintings, a medium much admired for its dry powdery finish and brilliant colors. Pastel painting was a declaration of modernism in the period, admired by the avant-­garde for the way in which its sketch-­like character called attention to the artist’s hand. Chase, the cofounder in 1883 of the Society of Painters in Pastel, was a master of it. https://www.themagazineantiques.com/article/idle-hours-william-merritt-chase-and-modern-leisure/

For a Student Activity, please… Check Here!

Off the harbor by Ioannis Altamouras

by 19th century ArtGreek ArtStudent ActivitiesWorksheets
Ioannis Altamouras, 1852-1878
Off the harbor, 1874, oil on paper mounted on cardboard, 23.3 x 30.5 cm, Bank of Greece
https://museum.bankofgreece.gr/topoianaforas/modern_greek_art/501_Altamouras_en.html

Emily, / A ship is floating in the harbour now, / A wind is hovering o’er the mountain’s brow; / There is a path on the sea’s azure floor, / No keel has ever plough’d that path before; / The halcyons brood around the foamless isles; The treacherous Ocean has forsworn its wiles; / The merry mariners are bold and free: / Say, my heart’s sister, wilt thou sail with me? / Our bark is as an albatross, whose nest / Is a far Eden of the purple East; / And we between her wings will sit, while Night, / And Day, and Storm, and Calm, pursue their flight, / Our ministers, along the boundless Sea, / Treading each other’s heels, unheededly… wrote for Epipsychidion, Percy Bysshe Shelley back in 1821. Off the harbor by Ioannis Altamouras is a small painting that reminds me of Shelley’s description… A ship is floating in the harbour now… https://www.poetrysoup.com/famous/poem/epipsychidion_(excerpt)_5166

Ioannis Altamouras, 1852-1878
Self Portrait, 19th century, oil on canvas, unidentified location
https://el.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CE%99%CF%89%CE%AC%CE%BD%CE%BD%CE%B7%CF%82_%CE%91%CE%BB%CF%84%CE%B1%CE%BC%CE%BF%CF%8D%CF%81%CE%B1%CF%82#/media/%CE%91%CF%81%CF%87%CE%B5%CE%AF%CE%BF:Ioannis_Altamouras_-_self_portrait.jpg

Ioannis Altmouras, an accomplished representative of the Seascape painting genre, is one of my favourite modern Greek painters. Born in Italy, his parents were both artists, Ioannis Altamouras was of Greek/Italian descent. He was the son of Saverio Altamura, an Italian Painter, and Professor at the Naples School of Fine Arts, and Eleni Boukouri from the island of Spetses, who, daringly dressed as a young man, studied Art in Italy, at times, under the tutelage of her future husband Saverio. Between 1857 and 1859 his parents separated, and Eleni took her two older children and returned to Greece, where she raised them teaching Art to prominent members of the Athenian society, including the Greek Queen, Olga. Eleni was Altamouras’s first Art Teacher, who, in 1871-72, coached by Nikephoros Lytras, studied at the School of Fine Arts in Athens. Between 1873 and 1876 Ioannis Altamouras was in Denmark, on a scholarship from King George I, where he continued his studies at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts at Copenhagen, close to the great painter of the time, Carl Frederick Sorensen. During the summer of 1876, Altamouras’s revolutionary spirit took him to the fishing village of Skagen, where 40 Danish painters had created the well-known “Skagen Colony”. It was at Skagen where the ideas of Impressionism in his art, took roots, as he spent time outdoors observing, the Skagen open horizon and the interplay of different colors in natural light. Sick with tuberculosis, Altamouras returns to Greece and tragically young, he died, six years later, in 1878. https://www.nationalgallery.gr/en/painting-permanent-exhibition/painter/altamouras-ioannis.html

Off the harbor by Ioannis Altamouras is a small painting in the Art Collection of the Bank of Greece, rarely seen by the public but nicely documented as it was exhibited in the 2018 Exhibition at the Benaki Museum, titled Frames of Reference from the Bank of Greece Collection. I like how it is described… A dull, rainy, and humid seascape is revealed in front of us. Small boats are scattered here and there, schematically defined, somewhat vaguely against the background. A little to the fore, we see a few boats painted in dark colours and contrasting the overall blue-white landscape. Their cross-like shape makes them a point of reference for the entire composition. Sea and sky appear united, in the absence of a clear separating line for the horizon. https://museum.bankofgreece.gr/topoianaforas/modern_greek_art/501_Altamouras_en.html

For a PowerPoint Student Activity on Altamouras’s Seascapes, please… Check HERE!

The Byzantine Icon of Panagia Nicopoiou

by ArtByzantiumStudent ActivitiesWorksheets
Icon of Panagia Nikopoiou, Komnenian period (1081-1185), Wood, 58×55 cm, St. Mark’s Basilica, Venice, Italy https://www.pallasweb.com/deesis/nicopeia-icon-san-marco-loot-from-constantinople-1204-crusade

I like how Chrysa A. Maltezou starts her article “Βενετία κι Βυζαντινή Παράδοση – Η Εικόνα της Παναγίας Νικοποιού” (Venice and the Byzantine Legacy – The Byzantine Icon of Panagia Nikopoiou). Please allow me to paraphrase… It was May of 1797, the army of Napoleon Bonaparte was at Venice’s doorstep, the end of the Venetian Republic was fast approaching and the citizens of La Serenissima were desperate… Their hopes rested on divine intervention and like the Byzantines, a centuries-old memory, the Comnenian Icon of Panagia Nikopoiou, Venice’s Palladium, was placed on public veneration at San Marco’s Basilica…It is only interesting to contemplate how the Venetians, hoping for salvation and victory remembered their ties to the long-lost Empire of Byzantium and its Legacy! https://ejournals.epublishing.ekt.gr/index.php/bz/article/view/3570/3430

Tradition links the Icon of Panagia Nikopoiou to Constantinople and the fateful days of the Fourth Crusade, when according to Giovanni Battista Ramusio (1485-1557) the Icon of Nikopoiou (Bringer of Victory) abandoned by Alexios Mourtzouflos on the battlefield, was captured by the Crusaders… The barons and the Venetians battered the walls and towers day and night without with various machines, and redoubled the War, conducting many great skirmishes from one area to another; it was in one of these that they valorously acquired the banner of the Tyrant but with much greater joy a panel on which was painted the image of Our Lady, which the Greek Emperors had continuously carried in their exploits since all their hopes for the health and salvation of the Empire rested in it.  The Venetians held this image dear above all other riches and jewels that they took, and today it is venerated with great reverence and devotion here in the church of San Marco, and it is one that is carried in procession during times of War and plaque, and to pray for rain and good weather… https://www.pallasweb.com/deesis/nicopeia-icon-san-marco-loot-from-constantinople-1204-crusade

Icon of Panagia Nikopoiou (detail), Komnenian period (1081-1185), Wood, 58×55 cm, St. Mark’s Basilica, Venice, Italy https://www.pallasweb.com/deesis/nicopeia-icon-san-marco-loot-from-constantinople-1204-crusade

It has been debated, since 1821, whether the Icon of Panagia Nikopoiou, as Nikitas Choniatis mentions in his Χρονική Διήγησις with one brief sentence …ητηςθεομήτοροςεικών, ήνοιβασιλείςΡωμαίωνποιούνταισυστράτηγον, τοῖς ἐναντίοις ἑάλωκεν… is the same Icon Emperor Alexios Mourtzouflos abandoned on the Walls of Constantinople. Giovanni Battista Ramusio thinks so, and writes about it, establishing a tradition that still keeps strong… http://users.uoa.gr/~nektar/history/tributes/byzantine_historians/nicetas_choniates_historia.htm and https://ejournals.epublishing.ekt.gr/index.php/bz/article/view/3570/3430

The Icon itself, presenting Mary holding the Child before Her, is a wonderful work of Art… a fine example of Byzantine iconography. Stark and imposing, it has a compelling effect on me every time I visit San Marco to pay my respects. Conserved in the left transept of the great Basilica, in a chapel of the same name, the Icon of the Virgin was once covered with precious jewels, diamonds, and pearls, now exhibited in the Treasury, following theft and later recovery.

Icon of Panagia Nikopoiou (detail of the embellished frame), Komnenian period (1081-1185), Wood, 58×55 cm, St. Mark’s Basilica, Venice, Italy https://www.pallasweb.com/deesis/nicopeia-icon-san-marco-loot-from-constantinople-1204-crusade

Today, the Icon is enhanced by its Byzantine frame of gilded silver with gold enamels, pearls, and gemstones, of great beauty. The best-preserved part of the Icon is the face of the Virgin, oval in shape, with thick, arched eyebrows, a definite trait of beauty, large eyes, looking slightly to the left, a long nose, and small lips. It is not firmly established when and by whom this amazing Icon was painted. I can only say that it displays extreme delicacy and refinement in the painter’s technique. https://www.pallasweb.com/deesis/nicopeia-icon-san-marco-loot-from-constantinople-1204-crusade

For a Student Activity, please… Check HERE!

Icon of Panagia Nikopoiou in its Chapel, Komnenian period (1081-1185), Wood, 58×55 cm, St. Mark’s Basilica, Venice, Italy https://mundusest.wordpress.com/2019/06/19/%CE%B7-%CF%80%CE%B1%CE%BD%CE%B1%CE%B3%CE%AF%CE%B1-%CE%BD%CE%B9%CE%BA%CE%BF%CF%80%CE%BF%CE%B9%CF%8C%CF%82-%CF%84%CE%BF%CF%85-%CE%B1%CE%B3%CE%AF%CE%BF%CF%85-%CE%BC%CE%AC%CF%81%CE%BA%CE%BF%CF%85-%CE%BA/
Plan of St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice, Italy – marked in red (No. 13) is the location of the Icon of Panagia Nikopoiou https://www.pallasweb.com/deesis/nicopeia-icon-san-marco-loot-from-constantinople-1204-crusade

The Formidable Queen Tiye

by Ancient EgyptArtStudent ActivitiesWorksheets
Queen Tiye (probably), ca. 1353–1336 BC, New Kingdom, Amarna Period, Dynasty 18, Quartzite, 13.3×12.5×12.4 cm, the MET, NY, USA
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/544693?searchField=All&sortBy=Relevance&high=on&ao=on&showOnly=openAccess&ft=*&offset=0&rpp=80&pos=61

“The long-lost mummy of The Formidable Queen Tiye has been found. Wife of Amenhotep III, mother of Akhenaten, and grandmother of Tutankhamun (?), she has been lurking undetected, virtually under the noses of the Egyptologists, for more than 75 years until Professors Edward P Wente of the Oriental Institute and James R. Harris of the University of Michigan made their spectacular discovery.

The road to the discovery really began in 1898 when the French archaeologist V. Loret came upon three nameless bodies in a side chamber of Amenhotep II’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings. One of these was of a middle-aged woman. Despite the passage of thousands of years her well-preserved face still wore a striking, haughty look, and her head was covered with long, curly, brown hair, that lent a certain sensuality to her face. But there was no clue to the identity of the woman.

Tutankhamun’s tomb was discovered in 1922. In that tomb, in one of a series of miniature coffins, was a lock of Queen Tiye’s hair, deposited as an affectionate memento to accompany the young king on his journey into the beyond. The connection between these two discoveries was overlooked until very recently when Professors Wente and Harris began to prepare a book on the royal mummies of ancient Egypt. While grappling with the problem of the unidentified woman, the idea occurred to them that she might be Queen Tiye. How could they be sure? The lock of hair buried with Tut came to mind, and scientific tests comparing the lock and the mummy’s hair proved beyond doubt that the two belonged to the same person. Queen Tiye was found – and through a discovery of a refreshing degree of certainty. file:///C:/Users/aspil/OneDrive/Blog/Egypt/Queen%20Tiye%20Found.pdf

I love rereading the October 1976 article on the discovery of Tiye’s mummy in the Oriental Institute’s News & Notes (No. 30). Even more so today, as I prepare the presentation of one of my favourite sculptural portraits of Queen Tiye exhibited in New York, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. https://oi.uchicago.edu/sites/oi.uchicago.edu/files/uploads/shared/docs/nn30.pdf

Colossal statue of Amenhotep III and Tiye with three of their daughters from Medinet Habu in Western Thebes, 1360 BC, limestone, 7 x 4,4 m, Egyptian Museum in Cairo, Egypt
https://joyofmuseums.com/museums/africa-museums/egypt-museums/cairo-museums/egyptian-museum/statue-of-amenhotep-iii-and-tiye/

When I think of Queen Tiye, I think of Egypt’s golden age, a successful Pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty, Amenhotep III (1391–1353 or 1388–1351 BC), a sizeable and prosperous empire, great wealth from Nubia and the Levant, and a new era of monument building and artistic expression. I also think of a formidable lady whose influence on the Pharaoh grew stronger over the years. It is interesting how in official statues of the royal couple, she and Amenhotep are the same height, symbolizing a relationship of equals.https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/history-magazine/article/king-tut-grandparents-tiye-amenhotep-egypt-royal-couple

Queen Tiye (probably), ca. 1353–1336 BC, New Kingdom, Amarna Period, Dynasty 18, Quartzite, 13.3×12.5×12.4 cm, the MET, NY, USA
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/544693?searchField=All&sortBy=Relevance&high=on&ao=on&showOnly=openAccess&ft=*&offset=0&rpp=80&pos=61

The quartzite head of Queen Tiye in the Metropolitan Museum, in New York, dates from the time of Akhenaten’s reign and it seems to be a statue commemorating the Pharaoh’s (Akhenaten’s) royal family in the new “Amarna” style. The sensitive modeling of the face is typical of the workshop of the sculptor Thutmose at Tell el-Amarna and the existence of gypsum plaster casts excavated in Thutmose’s studio suggests that this portrait may have been part of a group statue depicting Akhenaten with his parents, Tiye, and Amenhotep III. The New York portrait shows an imperious, authoritative, and clever woman realistically rendered yet respectful to her maturity. Tiye’s life is an intriguing chapter in Egyptian history, and the MET’s portrait, scared and broken, intrigues me as well… https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/544693?searchField=All&sortBy=Relevance&high=on&ao=on&showOnly=openAccess&ft=*&offset=0&rpp=80&pos=61

For a Student Activity on The Formidable Queen Tiye Post, please… Click HERE!

Homer’s Summer Night

by 19th century ArtAmerican ArtArtStudent Activities
Winslow Homer, American Artist, 1836-1910
Summer Night, 1890, Oil on canvas, 76.7×102 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/03/winslow-homers-summer-night-examined-at-harvard-art-museums/

Harvard Art Museums’ Elizabeth and John Moors Cabot Director Martha Tedeschi, discussing in an interview Homer’s Summer Night said: One of the things that I think is so successful in this picture, and that I love about Homer in general, is that it evokes things that he could not have possibly painted into the picture, like sound. There are two young women dancing on a porch. That immediately implies that there’s probably music playing. And in fact, an early title of this picture was “Buffalo Gals” after the popular song. So with that title in mind, and looking at the women dancing, you could almost start humming that song to yourself and the lines “Buffalo gals won’t you come out tonight, and we’ll dance by the light of the moon.” There is also the silhouetted group of people to the right of the picture who appear mesmerized by the sound of the crashing waves and the light flickering across the surface of the water. Homer conjures the sound of relentless splashing and churning. You can feel the spray, you can feel that cool breeze coming across that moonlight sea… https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/03/winslow-homers-summer-night-examined-at-harvard-art-museums/m

This nocturnal scene by the sea transcends observed reality through a keen sense of poetry and mystery… this is how the Musée d’Orsay experts describe Homer’s Summer Night. The light and shade effects blur shapes, the experts continue while the ghostly silhouettes of two women dance on the shore. Although it may well have been influenced by Courbet’s Waves, the lyricism tinged with mysticism expressed by Homer helped develop a feeling for nature that is peculiarly American. https://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/works-in-focus/search/commentaire/commentaire_id/summer-night-2970.html

Winslow Homer, American Artist, 1836-1910
Summer Night (detail), 1890, Oil on canvas, 76.7×102 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France https://twitter.com/linshangon/status/1016569875190374400/photo/1

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

For a Student Activity, please… Check HERE!

Teaching with the Kritios Boy

by Ancient Greek ArtArtEducationPowerpointsStudent ActivitiesWorksheets
Kritios Boy, 480  BC, Marble from the island of Paros, Height: 116.7 m, Acropolis Museum, Athens, Greece https://www.theacropolismuseum.gr/en/youth-statue-kritios-boy

Teaching with the Kritios Boy is a set of student activities and worksheets inspired by an awe-inspiring work of art created by a remarkable artist, a daring creator, and an amazing innovator! According to the Acropolis Museum experts, The statue’s torso was found in 1865-1866 southeast of the Parthenon, while the head in 1888 near the south walls of the Acropolis. It is one of the most important works of ancient Greek art and the most characteristic of the so-called “Severe Style”. Archaeologists have dubbed it the “Kritios Boy”, after the name of the sculptor believed to have created it. The “Kritios Boy” is depicted standing in the nude. He supports his weight on his left leg, while the right one remains loose, bent at the knee, in the characteristic posture of the “Severe Style”. His expression is solemn and his eyes, which were originally crafted from another material, have not survived. His hair follows the shape of his scalp and is tightly gathered around a ring with a few scattered strands falling on his temples and the nape of his neck. Traces of red dye are preserved on his hair. The attribution of this statue to the sculptor Kritios is based on the similarities it presents with the statue of Harmodios from the bronze group of the Tyrannicides, a work of Kritios in collaboration with Nesiotes. This group, known to us today through marble copies of the Roman period, was erected in the Ancient Agora of Athens. Who does this statue portrays, however, is not known. Some scholars believe he represents a young athlete, the winner of an event in the celebration of the Greater Panathenaia. Others claim he depicts a hero, most likely Theseus. Moreover, they link the dedication of the statue on the Acropolis with the activities of 476/5 BC, when Kimon transferred Theseus bones from the island of Skyros to Athens. https://www.theacropolismuseum.gr/en/youth-statue-kritios-boy

Kritios Boy – face detail, 480  BC, Marble from the island of Paros, Height: 116.7 m, Acropolis Museum, Athens, Greece http://ancientrome.ru/art/artworken/img.htm?id=5960

Teaching with the Kritios Boy References, PowerPoint, and Activities…

For a List of ONLINE References on the Kritios Boy TeacherCurator put together, please… Click HERE!

For my PowerPoint on the Kritios Boy, please… Click HERE!

I always feel confident discussing an artist with my students when I prepare my Steps to Success Lesson Plan Outline…

For Student Activities (3 Activities), please… Click HERE!

Marble statue of a kouros (youth), ca. 590–580 BC, Marble from the island of Naxos, (194.6 × 480 BC51.6 × 63.2 cm, the MET, NY, USA https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/253370
Aristodikos Kouros, 510-500 BC, Marble from the island of Paros, Height: 1.9 m, National Archaeological Museum, Athens, Greece http://nam.culture.gr/portal/page/portal/deam/virtual_exhibitions/EAMS/EAMG3938
Kritios Boy, 480  BC, Marble from the island of Paros, Height: 116.7 m, Acropolis Museum, Athens, Greece https://www.theacropolismuseum.gr/en/youth-statue-kritios-boy  

I hope, Teaching with the Kritios Boy, will prove easy and helpful. Do you think it justifies my BLOG name Teacher Curator?

Marble statue of a kouros (face), ca. 590–580 BC, Marble from the island of Naxos, (194.6 × 480 BC51.6 × 63.2 cm, the MET, NY, USA
https://gr.pinterest.com/pin/682436149758725905/
Aristodikos Kouros (face), 510-500 BC, Marble from the island of Paros, Height: 1.9 m, National Archaeological Museum, Athens, Greece https://arthistorykmg.omeka.net/items/show/106
Kritios Boy (face), 480  BC, Marble from the island of Paros, Height: 116.7 m, Acropolis Museum, Athens, Greece http://ancientrome.ru/art/artworken/img.htm?id=5960

Salvador Dali or Pavlos Samios

by 20th century ArtArtBasil and Elise Goulandris Foundation AthensStudent Activities
Salvador Dali, 1904 – 1989
Figure at the Window, 1925, Oil on papier-mâché, 105 x 74,5 cm, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia https://en.opisanie-kartin.com/description-of-the-painting-by-salvador-dali-woman-at-the-window/
Pavlos Samios, 1948 – 2021
Awaiting, 1983, Acrylic on canvas, 130 × 88 cm, Basil & Elise Goulandris Foundation, Athens https://goulandris.gr/en/artwork/samios-pavlos-awaiting
https://www.iefimerida.gr/politismos/paylos-samios-kafeneia-pethane

“She opened her curtains, and looked out towards the bit of road that lay in view, with fields beyond outside the entrance-gates. On the road there was a man with a bundle on his back and a woman carrying her baby; in the field she could see figures moving – perhaps the shepherd with his dog. Far off in the bending sky was the pearly light; and she felt the largeness of the world and the manifold wakings of men to labor and endurance. She was a part of that involuntary, palpitating life, and could neither look out on it from her luxurious shelter as a mere spectator, nor hide her eyes in selfish complaining…” wrote George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans, 1819-1880) in Middlemarch. I believe her quotation can be a wonderful introduction for my new BLOG POST, Salvador Dali or Pavlos Samios, inspired by Awaiting, a beautiful painting by Pavlos Samios in the Basil & Elise Goulandris Foundation in Athens. https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/window

Mid-July 2021 and with COVID still ON, I am constantly in front of my open windows or balcony doors searching for signs of a summer break… eager to be freed. Two paintings, by Salvador Dali and Pavlos Samios, inspire me to dream, hope, and be …merry!

Pavlos Samios, 1948 – 2021
Awaiting, 1983, Acrylic on canvas, 130 × 88 cm, Basil & Elise Goulandris Foundation, Athens https://goulandris.gr/en/artwork/samios-pavlos-awaiting
https://www.iefimerida.gr/politismos/paylos-samios-kafeneia-pethane

Pavlos Samios is an artist I particularly like. His painting Awaiting in the Basil & Elise Goulandris Foundation in Athens is a favourite of mine. I also like what I read in his notes: In the early 1980s, the idea of ​​Surrealism and the Metaphysical School greatly influenced me. In Paris, he continues there is little sun and the sea is far away, and yet, I dream of an unforgettable summer and I create a number of very nostalgic paintings. Fantastic buildings in the sand… The feeling of a desirable girl in a special place, on an untouched island. https://goulandris.gr/el/artwork/samios-pavlos-awaiting

On the 25th of November 2019, I “published” my first BLOG POST ON the amazing Art Collection of the Basil & Elise Goulandris Foundation in Athens I am constantly surprised how much this new addition to the Athenian Art Gallery circuit will enthuse me… https://www.teachercurator.com/category/basil-and-elise-goulandris-foundation-athens/

Salvador Dali, 1904 – 1989
Figure at the Window, 1925, Oil on papier-mâché, 105 x 74,5 cm, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia https://en.opisanie-kartin.com/description-of-the-painting-by-salvador-dali-woman-at-the-window/

When I first saw Samios’s Awaiting, I immediately thought of Salvador Dali and his1925 portrait of his sister Anna Maria in Figure at the Window, exhibited at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid. A wonderful painting that “travels” you to magical places. I particularly like how the Spanish Museo experts describe the painting as a masterpiece of Dali’s series of portraits of Anna Maria and how Rafael Santos Torroella stated that the painting is a marvel for the skill with which it combines the occupied spaces and the empty spaces, giving them equal compositional importance to such an extent that the fact that he has simply eliminated one of the window casements (the left one) escapes the viewer, who does not even notice the anomaly, despite the fact that this is precisely where so much of the enigmatic beauty radiating from the painting, with its pure serenity, resides. https://www.museoreinasofia.es/en/collection/artwork/figura-finestra-figure-window

For a Student Activity on Salvador Dali or Pavlos Samios, please… Check HERE!

A Meissen Figurine of La Chocolatière

by 19th century ArtArtStudent ActivitiesWorksheets
A Meissen Figure of La Chocolatière, circa 1870, porcelain, 36 cm, Private Collection https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/13951/lot/103/

I hate milk chocolate, don’t want clouds / of cream diluting the dark night sky, / don’t want pralines or raisins, rubble / in this smooth plateau. I like my / black, my beer from Germany, wine / from Burgundy, the darker, the better. / I like my heroes complicated and brooding, / James Dean in oiled leather, leaning / on a motorcycle. You know the color. / Oh, chocolate! From the spice bazaars / of Africa, hulled in mills, beaten, / pressed in bars. The cold slab of a cave’s / interior, when all the stars / have gone to sleep. / Chocolate strolls up to the microphone / and plays jazz at midnight, the low slow / notes of a bass clarinet. Chocolate saunters / down the runway, slouches in quaint / boutiques; its style is je ne sais quoi. / Chocolate stays up late and gambles, / likes roulette. Always bets / on the noir. Barbara Crooker, the author of More, wrote Ode to Chocolate and my mind travels back in time when Chocolate was… all the rage… and A Meissen Figurine of La Chocolatière the latest in the Art of Porcelain! https://www.tweetspeakpoetry.com/2014/02/12/8-chocolate-poems-love-chocolate/

Jean-Baptiste Charpentier the Elder, 1728-1806
The family of the Duke of Penthièvre called la tasse de chocolat, 1768, oil on canvas, 176×256 cm, Palace of Versailles, France https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:La_famille_du_Duc_de_Penthi%C3%A8vre_dit_la_tasse_de_chocolat.jpg

Three hundred years ago drinking Hot Chocolate was the latest fab in fashionable cities like Paris, London or Bath… At home, or in trendy chocolate houses the elite of Europe would gather and indulge on the silkiest smooth, most aromatic, succulent chocolate from Latin America… Chocolatières could make, and money could buy! Recipes varied by adding vanilla or cinnamon, nutmeg, milk and sugar so as every chocolate drinker’s palette be satisfied. And that was not enough… The grandest porcelain factories in Europe competed to produce the finest, most stylish, and expansive tableware this delicate, mouthwatering drink demanded! Chocolate pots had shorter spouts and lower handles than coffee pots and often had hinged finials to allow the molinet (a wooden ridged stick to roll and mix grated chocolate)  to be inserted. Two handled chocolate cups with their matching covers and saucers were distinctively different in style to tea or coffee cups and increasingly elegant designs were manufactured by leading porcelain factories such as Meissen in Dresden, Sevres in France or Worcester in England. https://museumofbatharchitecture.org.uk/hot-chocolate-in-the-18th-century/

Jean-Étienne Liotard, 1702-1789
The Chocolate Girl, 1744, pastel on parchment, 82.5×52.5 cm, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden, Germany https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jean-Etienne_Liotard_-_The_Chocolate_Girl_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg

The Meissen Figurine of La Chocolatière is a wonderful Rococo-inspired example of the European Chocolate fashion of the 19th century. The figurine copied Jean-Étienne Liotard’s pastel painting of The Chocolate Girl exhibited today in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden. Described by the Bonhams porcelain experts… the maidservant stands wearing a lace-trimmed bonnet, her dress decorated with colourful floral sprigs, holding a rectangular tray out before her, set on a square rocky base… This is a beautiful figurine to remind us of the small pleasures in life and help us celebrate World Chocolate Day! https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/13951/lot/103/

For a Student Activity, please… Check HERE!

François Boucher, 1703-1770
Le Déjeuner, 1739, oil on canvas, 81.5 x 61.5 cm, Louvre Museum, Paris, France https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fran%C3%A7ois_Boucher_002.jpg

House of Julia Felix

by ArtRoman ArtStudent ActivitiesWorksheets
Fourth Pompeian style Wall from the Tablinum (Room j in the provided plan) of the House of Julia Felix, 62-79 AD, Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli
https://www.museoarcheologiconapoli.it/en/room-and-sections-of-the-exhibition/frescoes/

Julia Felix, daughter of Spurius was very lucky indeed! After the earthquake of 62 AD her sumptuous Villa in Pompeii, today known as the House of Julia Felix, unscathed and extending over an area corresponding to two insulae, could easily be divided into parts and rented out to ease the difficulties caused by the shortage of accommodation in the city. Her first step was to open her private bath to the public. She then, offered private apartments and shops… she even advertised on the façade of her house… “elegant bathing facilities, shops with annexed apartments upstairs and independent apartments on the first floor are offered for rent to respectable people”. She was apparently, a smart businesswoman offering, as she further advertised, a long-term lease, of a period of five years “from August 1st next to August 1st of the sixth year.”

House of Julia Felix, 62-79 AD, Pompeii, (Reg II, Ins 4, 3-12) http://pompeiisites.org/en/archaeological-site/praedia-of-giulia-felice/

The house was easily divided into three parts. The baths, with access from Via dell’Abbondanza, were provided with all the required facilities and an open swimming pool. Julia Felix kept her own accommodations looking out onto a magnificent garden with a water channel surrounded on all sides by original marble-embellished quadrangular columns. Lastly, there were the shops, some of which opened onto Via dell’Abbondanza and some onto the side-street leading to the Large Palestra where the ground-floor rented lodgings were situated as well. http://www.pompeii.org.uk/m.php/museum-house-of-julia-felix-pompeii-en-92-m.htm

House of Julia Felix Plan, 62-79 AD, Pompeii, (Reg II, Ins 4, 3-12)
https://www.sutori.com/story/house-of-julia-felix–8TY7jnp2vyUnkDcmdrirvjk2

The Julia Felix’s Villa was one of the first Pompeiian buildings to be excavated or rather “hunted” for treasure, back in 1755 under the direction of R.J de Alcubierre, a military engineer in the Spanish Army, and his assistant Karl Jakob Weber (1712 – 1764) a Swiss architect and engineer who was in charge of the first organized excavations at Herculaneum, Pompeii, and Stabiae, under the patronage of Charles III of Naples. Weber joined the excavations in 1749, was against the R.J de Alcubierre method of “treasure hunting” and fervently argued against it. The detailed drawings of his excavations assisted the European intelligentsia became aware of the importance of what was recovered in Campagna at the time. It is essential to stress that Weber drew plans of the excavated buildings and labeled where objects or paintings had been originally discovered and later removed from. His architectural plans and notes prove priceless for reconstructing today the details of buildings, like the House of Julia Felix, where a taberna, luxurious baths, and richly decorated formal garden dining rooms were revealed since the very first excavations of 1754/55. https://sites.google.com/site/ad79eruption/dramatis-personae/since-the-re-discovery

Still life with Eggs and Game, 50-79 AD, a wall painting from the House of Julia Felix, Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Still_life_with_eggs,_birds_and_bronze_dishes,_Pompeii.jpg

My favourite House of Julia Felix Frescoes are the small Still Life Scenes of the 4th Pompeian style, which date to 62-79 AD, and were discovered in the House Tablinum (Room j in the provided plan) on July 13th, 1755. This beautiful fresco composition was removed from the original wall and inserted in a wooden frame, is now exhibited in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli. https://www.museoarcheologiconapoli.it/en/room-and-sections-of-the-exhibition/frescoes/

The four small paintings at the top of the composition form a frieze depicting… starting on the left… a display of Bread exhibited on built shelves and a presentation of various kinds of fresh fish. The next two scenes show a set of silver vessels with a spoon and a platter containing some eggs in addition to hanging quail, and a napkin and exhibited on the final scene, two shelves with a bag of coins and the instrumentum scriptorium (an inkwell, a stylus, and a papyrus).

Still Life with Glass Bowl of Fruit and Vases, 50-79 AD, a wall painting from the House of Julia Felix, Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pompejanischer_Maler_um_70_001.jpg

For More Information on the Pompeian Villa, please… Check https://sites.google.com/site/ad79eruption/pompeii/regio-ii/reg-ii-ins-4/house-of-julia-felix and https://www.pompeiiinpictures.com/pompeiiinpictures/R2/2%2004%2010.htm

For a short but nice Video on the Pompeian Villa, please… Check http://pompeiisites.org/en/archaeological-site/praedia-of-giulia-felice/

For a Student Activity on how to bake Roman Bread, please… Check HERE!

Still Life with Money pouch between gold heaps and writing utensils, 50-79 AD, a wall painting from the House of Julia Felix, Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pompei_-_House_of_Julia_Felix_-_MAN.jpg

Idle Hours by William Merritt Chase

by 19th century ArtAmerican ArtArtStudent ActivitiesWorksheets
William Merritt Chase, American painter, 1849-1916
Idle Hours, 1894, oil on canvas, 90.17×64.77 cm, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Texas

“The first lily of June opens its red mouth. / All over the sand road where we walk / multiflora rose climbs trees cascading / white or pink blossoms, simple, intense / the scene drifting like colored mist.    /    The arrowhead is spreading its creamy / clumps of flower and the blackberries / are blooming in the thickets. Season of / joy for the bee. The green will never / again be so green, so purely and lushly    /    new, grass lifting its wheaty seedheads / into the wind. Rich fresh wine / of June, we stagger into you smeared / with pollen, overcome as the turtle / laying her eggs in roadside sand.” More Than Enough is a lovely poem by Marge Piercy. Idle Hours by William Merritt Chase is a wonderful painting to make us dream of summer days… https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42466/more-than-enough

My God, I’d rather go to Europe than go to heaven… William Merritt Chase apparently said back in 1872 when a group of St. Louis businessmen offered him the financial support to study in Europe. He was a young, talented man from Indiana, and the Royal Academy in Munich, Germany, was his choice for Art studies. Less distracting… compared to Paris, he probably thought… but the more Academic Munich Art scene did not keep Chase from exploring the latest in European Art. The flashy brushwork and dramatic chiaroscuro espoused by Wilhelm Leibl, Gustave Courbet‘s German friend and stylistic alter ego was what he espoused in Munich along with the painterly realism of old masters such as Peter Paul Rubens and Frans Hals. https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/chas/hd_chas.htm

William Merritt Chase, American painter, 1849-1916
Self-Portrait, 1915-16, oil on canvas, 133.3×161.2 cm, Richmond Art Museum, Richmond, IN, USA

I intend to have the finest studio in New York… he told a friend… and in 1978, back in New York, he did… by renting a small studio in the prestigious Tenth Street Studio Building in Greenwich Village. That studio became the perfect setting for the elegant, debonair image he contrived for himself. He traveled back and forth to Europe, visited the latest art shows, meeting artists and collectors, exploring the modern look, experimenting with subjects of relaxation in an innovative style,  and set himself to become the finest members of the American artistic community.  https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/chas/hd_chas.htm

Archival  Photographs of the Shinnecock Summer School on Long Island
https://aaqeastend.com/contents/the-art-village/

In 1891 William Merritt Chase became the leading Art Teacher of the prestigious, but equally popular and fashionable, Shinnecock Summer School on Long Island. He was happy at Shinnecock as he was able to practice open-air painting for twelve consecutive summers in an elegant environment he enjoyed. He taught two days every week and then… I imagine him in his veranda… overlooking the ocean, among members of his family, content and overwhelmed by the changing effects of light, creating some of his finest, vivid landscapes.  

William Merritt Chase, American painter, 1849-1916
Idle Hours (detail), 1894, oil on canvas, 90.17×64.77 cm, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Texas
https://gallerythane.com/products/william-merritt-chase-fine-art-print-idle-hours

To celebrate the Summer Solstice of 2021, I chose to present the 1894 painting Idle Hours by William Merritt Chase exhibited today at Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Texas. The painting shows the artist’s wife in a red bonnet with two of her daughters and possibly his sister-in-law. The group enjoys a perfect day of sunshine and sea breeze while indulging in the idyllic pastime of reading outdoors. The Shinnecock dunes and beach, the yellowy, summer greens of the landscape and the flickering light, create a painting of summer bliss I particularly enjoy… and hope, you will enjoy as well… https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/idle-hours-william-merritt-chase/aAGRt5_rnKp-qw and https://www.wga.hu/html_m/c/chase/idlehour.html

For a Student Activity, please… Check HERE!