Fanny Fluery (French, 1848-1920) Woman Reading (n.d.) 24 1/4 X 17 1/8 in. Oil on canvas. Private collection.

With art historians earnestly looking for prominent female artists, it is surprising that so little is written about Fanny Fleury (French, 1848-1920). With the exception of Rosa Bonheur (French, 1822-1899), Fleury was perhaps the most successful female exhibitor in the history of the Paris Salon, having works accepted consistently from 1869 to 1882, and in many afterwards. She also exhibited at the Salons of Saint-Etienne and Dijon, and received an honorable mention at the Exposition Universelle of 1889.

Fanny Fluery (French, 1848-1920) Les Enfents de Jean-Marie (n.d.) Oil on canvas. Unknown Collection. Lithograph reproduction of original.

Fleury’s academic credentials are impeccable. She studied with Jean-Jacques Henner (French, 1829-1905) and was later accepted to the École des Beaux-Arts as a student of Carolus-Duran (French, 1837-1917), where she was a classmate of John Singer Sargent (American, 1856-1925). (Speaking of her work at the 1884 Salon, one critic said Fleury had “equalled her masters,” Henner and Duran.)  Highly regarded by her peers, Fluery was elected an Officer of the Academie and an associate of the Société des artistes français.

Fanny Fluery (French, 1848-1920) Portrait of an Unknown Woman (n.d.) 32 X 25 3/4 in. Oil on canvas. Private Collection.

Yet, for all her accomplishments in well-documented institutions and events, there is surprisingly little information currently available about the life and work of Fleury. (This is another instance where I am writing about an artists in hopes that it encourages others to contact me with additional information.)

Fleury was born outside Paris in either 1843 or 1848–most sources agree on the latter. It is possible–I stress “possible” for lack of form documentation, yet a great deal of circumstancial evidence–she is the daughter of Joseph Nicolas Robert-Fleury (French, 1797-1890), a successful history painter and on-time director of the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and Rome; and, his son, the painter Tony Robert-Fleury (French, 1837-1912), who was also successful painter and who replaced Bougeureau as the Director of the  Société des artistes français (If anyone can shed additional light, it would be greatly appreciated.) When she married, Fanny Fluery became Fanny Laurent Fleury; but, never included “Laurent” in her signature. So, whether or not there is an actual genetic connection between the three Fluerys, they must have come into contact with one another through the Acadamie.

It has been difficult to piece together a continuum of Fleury’s production with the few works and accounts left to us. It appears that for a time–presumably early in her career–she created a number of still lives.

Fanny Fluery (French, 1848-1920) Still Life with Flowers (n.d.) 20 1/2 X 17 1/2 in. Oil on canvas. Private Collection

Under Carolus-Duran, Fleury distinguished herself as a portraitist. Her large-scale work Bebe dort (1884) exhibited in the Salon of 1884 along with Madame X by her classmate John Singer Sargent. Both pieces belie the the influence Corolus-Duran, who often combined monumental human figures in contemporary settings.

Fanny Fluery (French, 1848-1920) Bebe dort (1884) 83 X 57 in. Oil on canvas. Anthony's Fine Art, Salt Lake City, UT

In Bebe dort (1884), a mother–perhaps a self-portrait of the artist–cradles her child, sitting together next to a cradle. Behind the figures, on the wall Fluery places a print of a business being ransacked by a mob. No one would imagine that scene actually being hung in a child’s room. It is a clever use of a picture-within-a-picture, used often by Netherlandish painters in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, to create greater or multiple meanings within a work. The juxtaposition of the two scenes contrasts security and comfort of home with a threatening world.

Fanny Fluery (French, 1848-1920) Bebe dort (1884) 83 X 57 in. Oil on canvas. Anthony's Fine Art, Salt Lake City, UT DETAIL

At some point, Fleury set aside society portraits and dedicated herself to Breton scenes. In 1892, The American Magazine wrote:

Realism has likewise tempted another artists of great talent, Mme. Fanny Fleury. It is to the desolate lands of Lower Brittany that Mmde. Fleury goes for her subjects. She has painted som admirable marine scenes, but excels in depicting types of peasantry . . . every summer she goes to the seacoast, and in some retired cornes, unfrequentd by the tourist, prepares her picture for the next Salon. (The American Magazine, Vol. 34. New York: Frank Leslie Publishing House, 1892; p, 430.)

Fanny Fleury (French, 1848-1920) Pour la Chapelle (n.d.) Oil on canvas. Private Collection. Black and white, photograph from Paris-Salon by Louis Enau

The quality of her work combined with her credentials certainly raise questions about the current dearth of readily-available information on Fleury’s life and the location of her works. All signs point to a productive career. From contemporary records, we know that her works were regularly purchased from Salon galleries, and that her works were found in various French and American museum collections–none of which currently list those works in their public inventories.

Whatever the reason for Fanny Fleury’s undeserved, forgotten status, she will only gain prominence as her works are rediscovered.

Arnold Friberg (American, December 21, 1913 – July 1, 2010)

Many obituaries have been written since his death four days ago. Rather than repeat the long lists of accomplishments printed in numerous obituaries (NY Times, for example), I’d like to share a personal experience I had with Arnold Friberg five years ago, when he was 91.

My wife and I were invited to have dinner with Arnold and his wife, Heidi, at their home. Heidi cooked. Afterwards, we sat, talked about art, and walked through Arnold’s studio. For a man of any age–let alone 91–Arnold was full of energy. He hopped out of his seat to punctuate a passionate thought about Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres (French, 1780-1867), whom he felt had been unfairly treated by historical memory. (How appropriate it was when Susan Siegfried’s bookIngres: Painting Reimagined was delivered to my house the same day Friberg died.)

Arnold Friberg (American, December 21, 1913 – July 1, 2010) The Liahona. Oil on canvas.

As we toured his studio, Friberg lifted an original oil painting he had done for a Christmas edition of the Saturday Evening Post. “Unlike my colleagues,” he said “I painted a perfect reindeer.”

“I would look for the perfect antlers on one reindeer, the perfect eyes from another, nose from another; and, then, I combined them. Other artists don’t do that.”

Perhaps knowingly, perhaps not, Friberg’s self-described “perfectionism” was, in practice, akin to the Ideal reached for by Ingres. Friberg was tirelessly detailed. His work often featured elaborate script applied by hand without the use of stencils. Even at his advanced age, Friberg could be found working in his studio, touching and re-touching works, which, in his mind, could always be improved.

We spent several hours looking through his catalogue of works. Any artist would be satisfied to have so many memorable and widely-reproduced works. Yet, Friberg had an air of anxious energy. “I’m happiest when working,” he told me.

Wherever he is now, I’m sure that Arnold Friberg will not sit back and enjoy what will surely be a growing reputation. He is probably sorting through cherubs, looking for which one has the best wings, eyes, lips, etc.

Cover for the First Annual Spring Salon Critical Catalogue. (We based the design on the official catalogue for 1874 Salon for the Société des Artistes Français, also known as the Paris Salon.)

For a full PDF catalogue, click below:

• Full Catalogue LARGE size (30 mb)–featuring higher quality images of each work.
• Full Catalogue, REDUCED size (2 mb)–Due to the reduction, some images my not appear in true color.

I thought it would be fun to create a nineteenth-century-style critical catalogue for the event, in the tradition of the catalogues that used to be made for the Paris Salons. So, I teamed up with a good friend and thoughtful writer, Philipp Malzl, to write on selected works from the contest. Neither of us have worked as critics before. But, we don’t know about any models for the kind of art criticism we would like to see.

Each review is brief–some are a sentence, others three paragraphs. Our intent was to create something readable and entertaining for a large audience–artists and non-artists–and not for an elite audience. At the same time, we wanted to educate by tying contemporary art into a larger tradition that is often ignored or not understood by many contemporary artists and critics who only know art as far back as the beginning of the twentieth century.

I haven’t sent it out to many people yet. This is what I would consider a “preliminary draft.” I wold be very interested in knowing what you think about it.

I don’t know if anyone else is doing anything like this right now, especially for contemporary art in the classical tradition. If this catalogue is truly insightful, I hope it is the first of many.

Fernando Álvarez de Sotomayor y Zaragoza (Spanish, 1875-1960) Retrato del padre Villalba (Portrait of Father Villalba) 86 X 100 cm. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.

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Recently, I received an email from a BeardedRoman reader asking me for list of books on my nightstand. I thought I would post my answer here. And, I would love to know what is on your nightstand too.

I regularly get book recommendations from readers, and I love it.  Through their suggestions and my own research projects, over the years I have built a large library. (At last count, I have nearly 1,500 books.) I have books piled by bed and all around my house. No, I have not read all of them–some were only bought for a single, useful chapter. Other I have read multiple times.

The books I have listed below are literally the ones that have been by my bed. I have my finger in every one of them and have been bouncing between them all for weeks. They don’t necessarily relate to any current work I am doing–that’s another pile. These are what I am reading for fun. As I made the list, I was surprised at how many were directly related to art history. (No wonder I am boring at parties.) But, as you can see from the list, my second love is poetry.

Books on my nightstand. (Or, more accurately, the ones piled around my bed.)

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After naming the book and the author, I have written a very brief personal impression of each book.

1. Titian: The Last Days by Mark Hudson. There are few straight biographies of Titian. Most that I have read are a scholarly studies of the artist’s works combined with political and social commentary that would not be anything like reading the biography of, say, Benjamin Franklin. I’ve learned something about time an place from Hudson’s book; but, overall I have struggled to get through it. Hudson seems to be as interested in talking about himself as he is about Titian.
2. French Art in Nineteenth-Century Britain by Edward Morris. This is a great study of the relationship between the French and British at a time when the great international arms race was the arts. France was winning and the British couldn’t help but admire the art it.
3. Hopes and Fears for Art by William Morris. Morris was the philosophical and moral leader of the Arts & Crafts movement that was a reaction against industrialization. This is an impassioned lecture he gave in defense of his movement.
4. Master of Shadows by Mark Lamster. This biography of Rubens is one of the best books I have read on any subject in a long time. Weaving together Rubens with the political and artistic dramas of his time, it is clear that the artist was as much a diplomat as a painter. I fell in love with Rubens again; both his art and his humanity.
5. A Theory of Craft: Function and Aesthetic Expression by Kenneth R. Trapp. Lately, I’ve been obsessed with the role of craftsmanship versus concept in art. Does the way somethings is made matter; or, is it the final product that counts?
6. The End of the Salon: Art and the State in the Early Third Republic by Patricia Mainardi. A very good discussion on how one of the most important institutions in the history of art fizzled out.
7. The Craftsman’s Handbook (Il Libro dell’Arte) by Cennino d’Andrea Cennini, trans. by Daniel V. Thompson, Jr. Perhaps one of the most widely-read handbooks for artists, this book is a lot of fun to read. Cennini wasn’t always accurate; but, he does give an important insight into the practical considerations of making art in 15th-century Florence.
8. The Materials of the Artist and their Use in Painting by Mac Doerner. So much of art history is about social and political history. I am anxious to learn more about the objects and how they were and art made.
9. Consider the Lobster and Other Essays by David Foster Wallace. A recommendation from a friend, I cried while reading his essay on Dostoevsky.
10. Velázquez by Aureliano de Beruete (Foreword by Léon Bonnat). Bonnat wrote the foreword just after being made Director of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. His first sentence: “I was brought up in the worship of Velázquez.”
11. Patterns of Intention: On the Historical Explanation of Pictures by Michael Baxandall. Baxandall shatters me with almost every sentence. He has changed the way I’ve thought about paintings. Example: ” . . . to say  we ‘explain a picture as covered by a description’ can conveniently be seen as another way of saying that we explain, first, thoughts we have had about the picture, and only secondarily the picture.”
12. Emulation: David, Drouais, and Girodet in the Art of Revolutionary France by Thomas Crow. An amazing recreation of the events and journals of three of the most influential painters of the nineteenth-century. Very thoughtful.
13. A Face to the World: on Self-Portraits by Laura Cumming. I wish I had written this book! Cumming writes about why artists make self-portraits and why we love looking at them.
14. Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson. I have been reading his essay “The Poet” over and over again. It’s like scripture: each reading gets more meaningful.
15. Seeing through Paintings by Andrea Kirsh and Rustin S. Levenson. A chemical analysis by two scientists on how art is made.
16. The Infinity of Lists by Umberto Eco. Ever want to know how many demons have ever been named in Western literature? The basic premise of the book is that there is a history of list making in Western literature. From the Bible and Homer to Joyce, the lists say something about our culture. It’s a surprising and entertaining read.
17. Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy by Michael Baxandall. My favorite quote: “Art was too important for artists.”
18. Seven Days in the Art World by Sarah Thornton. This is an mind-blowing, anthropological travelogue of the people who make, buy, and sell modern and contemporary art. Thornton is able to sit down with people and get candid reactions that made we alternatively laugh and want to reach through the page and strangle her interviewees.
19. The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure and Human Evolution by Denis Dutton. A discussion on why humans like art.
20. Tiepolo Pink by Robert Calasso. Late in his career, Tiepolo did a series of 36 bizarre etchings that are rarely seen or discussed. This is a book about them.
21. The Sight of Death: An Experiment in Art Writing by T. J. Clark. For several months, Clark works at the Getty Museum and sees the same paintings by Poussin day after day. This is his journal on impressions he had looking at them. It is amazing! The things he sees, the ideas he has, and the way he looks at these paintings have changed me. I want to be more like Clark. He is as much a poet as  art historian.
22. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste by Pierre Bourdieu. While it is a few decades old, Distinction’s basic premise is: your education and birth are the predominant indicators of why you like the music, food, and art you do.
23. Painters and Public Life in Eighteenth-Century Paris by Thomas E. Crow. Great study on how artists joined the age of mass media.
24. Ingres: Painting Reimagined by Susan L. Siegfried. I just got this, and haven’t read much. But, it promises to be a new and controversial look at Ingres. Siegfried’s goals are to examine in depth Ingres’ history and genre paintings, which are largely ignored or dismissively categorized.
25. Ballistics: Poems by Billy Collins. I have all of Collins’ books of poetry.
26. Los Versos del Capitan (Captain’s Verses) by Pablo Neruda. I lived in Chile. Reading Neruda lets me slip back there, if only for a little while.
27. Death in the Afternoon by Earnest Hemingway. This is a non-fiction book about bullfighting. As a result of studying Spanish painting, I have to know more about it. Bullfights (corridas) and bullfighters (toreros) are just part of the culture. I went to a bull fight last year at Las Ventas in Madrid. Since then, I’ve been trying to understand what happened and how I feel about it.
28. Blizzard of One by Mark Strand. I have not even cracked it open yet.

William-Adolphe Bouguereau (November 30, 1825 – August 19, 1905) Pietà (1876) 230 × 148 cm (90 1/2 × 58 1/4 in). For sale at Christie's Auction House, NY.

A friend sent me this link today. There are other masterworks at the auction. It is worth a visit.

I begin with A Scene from Pompeii (1868), a previously unpublished and little-known work by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (Dutch and British, 1836-1912).

Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (Dutch & British, 1836-1912) A Scene from Pompeii (1868) Oil on canvas. 130 X 360 cm. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.

This morning, I spoke with Vern Swanson, a mentor of mine and author of Alma-Tadema’s catalogue raisonné. Dr. Swanson did not include an illustration of the painting in his book–the most definitive on the subject–because A Scene from Pompeii was unavailable until recently. As one of Alma-Tadema’s most ambitious early paintings, it has been in storage at the Museo Nacional del Prado for nearly 100 years. This year A Scene from Pompeii was hung for the first time in the Prado’s new, permanent wing dedicated nineteenth-century painting and sculpture.

Alma-Tadema’s works, famous for Olympian themes that idealized a bygone empire, may seem more at place in France or Great Britain than in Spain. At the Prado, A Scene from Pompeii makes strange bedfellows with a generation of nineteenth-century Spanish artists who sometimes trained in France, but nonetheless venerated classical realists like Diego Velázquez and José de Ribera.

Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (Dutch & British, 1836-1912) A Scene from Pompeii (1868) Oil on canvas. 130 X 360 cm. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid. Detail.

This painting is one of only a handful of foreign nineteenth-century works in the Prado’s collection. It was donated to the short-lived, Spanish Museo de Arte Moderno in 1887 by Ernesto Gambart, then Spanish Consul to Nice (France). When the Museo de Arte Moderno was absorbed into the Prado a few years later, nearly all of the its collections, including this work by Alma-Tadema, were placed in storage where they have been ever since. Only now, under the  leadership of Javier Barón, Director of Nineteenth-Century Painting at the Prado, are these works being fully restored and finally displayed.

A Scene from Pompeii (1868) dates to a happy and prolific period in Alma-Tadema’s life. Five years earlier, he married his first wife, Marie-Pauline Gressin, in Antwerp. Their honeymoon was spent in Florence, Rome, Naples and Pompeii. For the next several years, he absorbed and transmuted his personal experience with the classical tradition into a series of paintings that quoted Greco-Roman architecture and artworks, such as a bronze reproduction of Aphrodite by the Greek sculptor Praxiteles (4th-century BC), in this work.

Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (Dutch & British, 1836-1912) A Scene from Pompeii (1868) Oil on canvas. 130 X 360 cm. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid. Detail.

Alma-Tadema is often remembered for his British works created after the death of his wife in 1869. These exquisitely detailed scenes sometimes feature dozens of figures painted in jewel-like colors.  However, before 1869, his works regularly exhibited the same restricted, earth-tone palette of A Scene of Pompeii. While this painting shares the trademark precision Alma-Tadema’s larger oeuvre, its composition is unusual. I am not an expert on Alma-Tadema; but, I am surprised by the Baroque proportions of the figures which, unlike other works by Alma-Tadema, fill the canvas to near capacity.

It is always a pleasure to find new works by an artist as well-known and respected as Sir Alma-Tadema. I am sure that the Prado will have more insightful and important things to say about the painting as the new nineteenth-century wing becomes more public.

John Singer Sargent (American, 1856-1925 ) Crucifix (1879) Oil on canvas. Private Collection.

When John Singer Sargent travelled to Spain in 1879 his approach to painting fundamentally and irrevocably changed. There his understanding of painting was forever infused by the restrained palette, virtuosic brushwork and reverence for nature learned principally from Diego Velázquez (Spanish, 1599-1660).

Sargent travelled to Spain at a time when France, the center of the international art world, had rediscovered Spanish masters. King Louis-Philippe’s Galerie Espagnole (1835-1853) and the marriage of Emperor Napoleon III to Eugenie Contador, a Grandée of Spain (1853), brought a newfound appreciation to the Spanish Golden Age and its artists that excited a generation of artists working in Paris.

Édouard Manet, Léon Bonnat, Jean-Léon Gêrome, Thomas Eakins, Julian Alden Weir, William Merritt Chase, and many others travelled to Madrid to copy works found almost exclusively in the Prado Museum. Chief among the artists copied by foreigners was Diego Velázquez, considered a new, viable alternative to French classical models that dominated Academic painting.

Sargent was a student at the prestigious and exclusive École des Beaux-Arts, when his instructors Carolus-Duran (French, 1837-1917) and Léon Bonnat (French, 1833-1922) suggested that his development as an artist would improve dramatically from a visit to Spain. Sargent visited the Prado Museum multiple times from October to November in 1879. The official Registry of Copiers records Sargent copying The Crucifixion (c. 1632), Las Meninas (c. 1656), and Las Hilanderas (c. 1644) by Velázquez.

Diego Velázquez (Spanish, 1599-1660) The Forge of Vulcan (1630) Oil on canvas. 230 by 290 cm. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.

As court painter to Philip IV of Spain, Velázquez was employed by the most powerful country on earth. However, unlike many other Baroque painters of his time, whose grandiose works were showcases of extravagant colors, exotic creatures, and obscure subjects,Velázquez’s work features everyday people in everyday settings. Even his few religious and mythological works are notable for not idealizing their subjects.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fd/Nicolas_Poussin_052.jpg

The French discovery of Velázquez came at a time when artists were breaking from a long-standing tradition of Classicism, which shunned Realism in favor of idealized subjects and painterly technique that obscured the artist’s hand. In Paris, Sargent’s education was considered the best in the world. It emphasized compositional formulas based on the Greco-Roman tradition as interpreted by French masters such as Nicolás Poussin (French, 1594-1665) and, later, Jacques-Louis David (French, 1748-1825). Their approach to art required rigorous draftsmanship that often resulted in statuesque, figures in classical landscapes or architecture. This interpretation of classicism was the official style in Europe for nearly 300 years. The rigidity of Academic painting limited the kinds of subjects artists could produce for competition and patronage.

José de Ribera (Spanish, 1591-1652) El sueño de Jacob (1639) Oil on canvas. 179 by 233 cm. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.

When Louis-Philippe opened his Galerie Espagnole in 1835, works by Velázquez, José de Ribera (Spanish, 1591-1652) and Francisco Zurburán (Spanish, 1598-1664) were introduced to the French public for the first time. Working at the same time as the founding fathers of French art, these Spanish artists offered an alternate classicism that emphasized nature.

The study of Velázquez’s work changed a generation of French artists’ approach. Unlike many Academic painter, Velázquez was unafraid to leave distinguishable brushstrokes on his canvases. Thick strokes of paint are clearly visible, demonstrating both his virtuosic skills–capable of reproducing an astonishing array of textures–and making the painting more of a three-dimensional work. His palette is limited, almost exclusively earth tones. When Velázquez did use color, it was muted, rather than garish; and, therefore, subjects appear more lifelike. Whether painting mythological figures, royal portraits, or multi-layered religious narratives, Velázquez captures the natural surroundings and features of his subjects without idealizing them. As a result, he exalts and dignifies the truth while simultaneously making them more approachable.

Diego Velázquez (Spanish, 1599-1660) Martínez Montañés ejecutando el busto de Felipe IV (c. 1635) Oil on canvas. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

In Crucifixion, Sargent paints one of Velázquez’s most repeated subjects: the crucified Christ. It is important to note that, rather than the actual cricified Christ, both Velázquez and Sargent painted wooden crucifixes. Velázquez was influenced and mentored by the Spanish sculptor Juan Martínez Montañés (1568-1649).

Juan Martínez Montañés (Spanish, 1568-1645( Cristo de la Clemencia o de los Cálices (c. 1604) Seville, Spain

Known as the Michelangelo of wood, Montañés created hundreds of religious sculptures that are still in use in religious festivals. The crucifix in Velázquez’s La venerable madre Jerónima de la Fuente (c. 1620) and Sargent’s Crucifixion are both based on Montañés models.

Diego Velázquez (Spanish, 1599-1660) La venerable madre Jerónima de la Fuente (c. 1620) Oil on canvas. 160 by 110 cm. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.

In his Crucifixion, Sargent captures a private moment of meditation on Christ’s sacrifice. The crucifix hangs on a chapel wall while light streams from an upper window.

John Singer Sargent (American, 1856-1925 ) Crucifix (1879) Oil on canvas. Private Collection. Detail.

Using a wooden crucifix, rather than a realistic Christ, emphasizes the religious experience of the viewer, rather than Christ’s experience on the cross. This is a meditation on what reflecting on the crucifixion means to the viewer well after the event has taken place. Sargent capitalizes on this reflection by using Velázquez’s technique of broad visible brushstrokes. This allows the mind of the viewers to fill in the details and, therefore, participate in the subject in a way that incites the imagination like no detailed rendition could. Sargent also adopts Velázquez’s use of ochres. The nearly monochrome palette draws greater attention to Sargent’s remarkable brushwork, which like Velázquez, is unabashedly visible, at times broadly defining Christ figure and at others using miniscule strokes.

These hallmarks of Velázquez’s technique were studied and absorbed by Sargent. He transmuted them into his own French education and used the two to become the world’s most sought-after portraitist and, arguably, the greatest American painter of the nineteenth century.

Henry Scott Tuke, R.A. (British, 1858-1929) Lord Ronald Gower (1897) Oil on canvas 24 by 20 in. National Portrait Gallery, London.

The youngest son of the powerful Duke of Sutherland, Lord Ronald Gower (British, 1845-1916) was educated at Eton and Cambridge.  He distinguished himself as a popular politician, serving in the British Parliament from 1867-1874. Following his political career,  Gower became an unlikely, critically-acclaimed sculptor and an historical writer. In the words of his mother, the Duchess of Sutherland, Gower  had  “a certain unpractical side of his character.”

Gower’s first serious attempt at sculpting was, ironically, for his mother’s grave in 1868.  He collaborated with Matthew Noble (British, 1818-1876) who was hired for a memorial befitting the Duchess. Noble was the son of a stonemason who studied sculpture in London. Chronically ill from childhood, Noble nonetheless exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy’s annual exhibition until he died at the age of 58. Though Gower mentions Noble as a major influence in his artistic development, the ex-politician was largely self-taught.

Untrained and unmotivated by financial gain, Gower was derisively considered a “gentleman sculptor.” Despite all this, his work received international critical and popular praise. Gower’s sculptures were accepted to the Paris Salons of 1880 and 1881, the Paris International Exhibition of 1878, and numerous competitions at the Royal Academy, placed alongside sculptures by Alfred Leighton.

Lord Ronald Gower (British, 1845-1916) Marie Antoinette (1876) Bronze. Height: 46 in. Private National Gallery, London.

The first public sculpture by Lord Gower was Marie Antoinette (1876), completed two years after his retirement from politics. Eight years later, Gower published Marie Antoinette: An Historical Sketch (1885). Both the sculpture and the book were part of a larger late-nineteenth-century reexamination of Marie Antoinette’s reputation. Gower’s works joined a chorus of scholars who asserted that the Queen was a scapegoat of unrestrained revolutionary fervor.

During French Revolution of 1889, angry mobs gathered around Versailles and successfully captured King Luis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette. The King was quickly executed, while the Queen was kept under arrest, where she refused to eat or move. In the weeks that followed, révolutionnaires cast Marie Antoinette as the personification of Royal excess and frivolity. Her fate became a national debate. During a two-day show trail, filled with unsubstantiated accusations of gross immorality, Marie Antoinette refused to defend herself, saying “If I have not replied it is because Nature itself refuses to respond to such a charge laid against a mother.” Fearing rising sympathy for the deposed Queen, the Revolutionary Tribunal cut short her trial.  A mother of four and 37 years old, Marie Antoinette was publicly and summarily beheaded on  October 16, 1789 at 12:15 p.m. The incident was famously captured by Jacques-Louis David, a passionate supporter of the revolution–in his humiliating sketch of the Queen on the platform of the guillotine.

Jaques-Louis David (French, 1748-1825) Marie Antoinette one the Day of Execution (October 16, 1793) Pen and ink on paper. 150 by 100 mm. Musée du Louvre, Paris.

Lord Gower’s sculpture of Marie Antoinette (1876) preceded his biography by nine years, indicating the subject had preoccupied him for some time. Gower depicts the deposed Queen being led to the guillotine. With hands tied behind her back and hair shorn to elicit further humiliation, the deposed Queen walks forward, resolutely and unbowed.

The work is not a technical masterpiece. Anatomically it is more stylistic than correct. Like so many of the the artists featured on this blog, there are very few examples of Gower’s work available for public view and almost no images to speak of. However, Gower’s last work, Hamlet (1888) is perhaps his best and most memorable.

In 1883, the city of Stratford-Upon-Avon commissioned Lord Gower to create a memorial to the city’s most famous citizen: William Shakespeare. Gower worked for five years at his own expense. (In his memoirs, Gower claims it cost him an average of £500 per year, which he never charged the city.)

Lord Ronald Gower (British, 1845-1916) Hamlet (1888) Bronze. Life-size. Stratford-upon-Avon, United Kingdom. Photo via Wall Flower Gone Wild, Flickr.

Though he lived another 28 years, Lord Gower declared the monument his last work and never sculpted again.

Hugues Merle (French, 1823-1881) Romeo & Juliet (1879) Oil on canvas. 67 X 51 in. Anthony's Fine Art, Salt Lake City, UT, USA.

If you saw the above work and thought “Bougeureau,” you could be forgiven. Hugues Merle (French, 1823-1881) is in many ways a forgotten proto-Bougeureau. Merle and William-Adolphe Bougeureau (1825-1905) knew one another well and, for a time, were represented by the same gallery. Born two years apart, both graduated from the École de Beaux-Arts, were members of the French Academy and regulary exhibited at the annual Paris Salon. Their penchant for mythical, allegorical and literary scenes combined with mastery of the monumental human figure, made them competitors for the same pupils, positions, prizes and patrons. While Merle was only two years Bouguereau’s senior, he died nearly a quarter century earlier. A strong argument could be made–and I may tackle it some day–that had Merle lived to Bouguereau’s age, memory of his work would have not suffered such anonymity.

Two years ago, someone I know bought major work by Hugues Merle–Romeo & Juliette (1879). Since then, Merle has become a pet project that has taken me to France, England, Belgium and the United States in search of primary documents and published materials. There is disappointingly little available on public record.  By increasing awareness of his work, its my goal to encourage those who have information relating to Merle to raise their hands and help us all piece together the life and work of an artist to has a lot to offer.

Hugues Merle (French, 1823-1881) Susannah at Her Bath (Date Unknown) 51 1/4 X 35 1/2 in. Private Collection.

There is a precedent for this. Thirty years ago, Damien Bartoli (1947-2009) took up the cause of Bouguereau and worked to produce a catalogue raisonné for the artist. Sadly, Bartoli died last month; but, not before publishing dozens of articles and submitting his final manuscript of Bouguereau’s complete works. (It will be this by the Antique Collectors’ Club in London.) Over the same 30 years, Bougueraeu has experienced a revival. Although it would be hard to establish a causal relationship, since Bartoli picked up his pen Bouguereau has seen a dramatic increase in awareness, appreciation and prices for his work. I’m no Bartoli and Merle is not Bouguereau. But, as Bougeureau’s star continues to rise, I believe it is only a matter of time until Merle’s follows. The two were closely associated in life and deserve to be in death.

Hugues Merle was born in Saint–Marcellin in the region of Isère (i.e. Southeast France). Little is know about his family or upbringing. As a community, Isère was politlcally charge, known for strong Protestant roots and nearly uniform support for the Empire. Early in his career, Merle painting a number of pro-Empire works that may be a reflection of his origins.

Hugues Merle (French, 1823-1881) The Eagle's Flight (1857) Oil on canvas 51 X 35 1/2 in. Christies, NY 23 APR 2003

Merle was accepted as a student at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, the nation’s most prestigious school for aspiring artists. There he enrolled in the studio of Léon Cogniet (1784-1880). Cogniet had studied at the École under Pierre -Narcisse Guérin, at same time as Eugene Delacroix, Ary Scheffer and Theodore Géricault, with whom he maintained life-long friendships. While he distinguished himself by winning the Prix de Rome in 1817, Cogniet is largely remembered as a teacher. Of him, Baudelaire wrote:

If he does not aspire to the level of genius, his is one of those talents which defy criticism by their very completeness within their own moderation. M. Cogniet is as unacquainted with the reckless flights of fantasty as with the rigid systems of the absolutists. To fuse, to mix and combine, while exercising choice, have always been his role and aim; and he has perfectly fulfilled them.

(Charles Baudelarie. The Mirror of Art, rans. and ed. by Jonathan Mayne. New York: 1956, p. 21)

Cogniet students include some of the century’s most respected painters, including Alfred Dehodencq, Jean-Louis Ernest Messonier, Jules Joseph Lefebvre, Léon Bonnat, Raimundo de Madrazo, and Jean Paul Laurens. As a teacher, Cogniet advocated vigorous and rough sketching above meticulous, time-consuming preparation. This became what Albert Boime described as “the sauce Cogniet [that] became a popular epithet to describe the technique of his disciples.” (Art and the Academy, p. 104). This resulted in a fluid naturalism in Cogniet’s own work, which influenced Merle’s approach during the the 1840s and 1850s.

Hugues Merle (French, 1823-1881) The Good Sister (1862) Watercolor on paper. 8 X 5.75 Walter Art Museum, MD, USA.

Having seen nearly 200 of Merle’s works (I have no idea how many he painted yet), ranging from the early 1840s to his death in 1881, I would divide his ouvre into roughly three periods:

1. Multifigural History Painting (1840s and 1850s)
2. Genre Scenes (1850s and 1860s)
3. Monumental Romantic Figures (1860s t0 1881)

1. MULTI-FIGURAL HISTORY PAINTING (1840s and 1850s)

Hugues Merle (French, 1823-1881) Vendangeurs dauphinois dans les environs de Saint-Marcellin (1850) Oil on canvas 42 1/2 X 75 1/2 in. Piasa Auctions, Paris 14 DEC 2001

It is no surprise that works from early in Merle’s career have more in common with Cogniet’s work than his latter works. They  are politically-charged or mythological history paintings–the kind that students at the École were trained to produce. Like Cogniet, many of these works are romantic in coloring and stroke. The brushwork is loose and the palette is warm.

2. GENRE SCENES (1850s and 1860s)

Hugues Merle (French, 1823-1881) The Embroidery Lesson (Date Unknown) Oil on canvas 39 1/4 X 31 5/8 in.

It is my guess that once he had established his academic credibility, Merle had to make a transition into becoming a commercial success. In mid-nineteenth Paris, this meant appealing to the bourgeoisie. Rather than mythological or heroic scenes that appealed to aristocratic tastes or political agendas, the easy sell to the upwardly mobile French middle classes was domestic family life and narratives lionizing traditional French values. Merle painted pictures of mothers and daughters, family gatherings, country scenes and home interiors. According to one source, it during this period Bougeureau and Merle had the same picture dealer, and that dealer encouraged  Bougeureau to take up Merle’s successful theme of familial grieving.

Hugues Merle (French, 1823-1881) The Widow (Date Unknown) Oil on Canvas. Private Collection

In this era, Merle developed his own technical approach that distanced him from Cogniet. He replaced warm colors with a high-contrast, jewel-like palette. His paintings became sparsely populated and the remaining figures grew in proportion to fill the canvas. As the figures grew, they became more idealized with an emphasis on line over color.

3. MONUMENTAL ROMANTIC FIGURES (1860s t0 1881)

Merle’s critical successes in the  Salons of the 1860s led gave him international recognition. Like many others, Salon prizes resulted in a lucrative business of painting portraits Brits and Americans.  But, it was Merle’s work as an interpreter of major literary romantic figures that set him apart.

Hugues Merle (1823-1881) The Scarlet Letter (1861) Oil on canvas. 39 5/16 x 31 15/16 in. Walters Art Museum, MD, USA.

Upon seeing a photo of Merle’s interpretation of the Scarlett Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne is purported to have said: ”It is the most true representation of my work I have ever seen.” Merle painted a number of biblical and literary figures, especially romantic couples, including Tristan & Isolde, Benedick & Beatrice, and Romeo & Juliet. These figures were painted as large as life. They dominated the canvas. Merle removed all unnecessary narrative devices, relying on his audience’s familiarity with the subjects.

Hugues Merle (French, 1823-1881) Tristan and Isolde (1870) Oil on canvas. Private Collection.

In 1865, François-Victor Hugo (Victor Hugo’s son) had translated the complete works of Shakespeare into French. For the next fifteen years, the French poured over and re-interpreted the Bard’s narratives in ballets, operas, sculptures, and paintings. Merle’s Romeo & Juliette depicts the couple’s first meeting in Act I, Scene V. Here Romeo steals a “pilgrim’s kiss” from Juliet who coyly responds “You kiss by the book.”

The increased sophistication of Merle’s subjects was rising mastery of the human form. While his treatment of the clothed figure indicate his skill level, it is in nude that we are able to see an artist’s true mastery of the figure. Bougeureau’s female nudes leave us in awe of his skill and ensure his immortality. There are accounts of several painting of nude figures by Hugues Merle that have not surfaced in the art market. For me, this is a major omission in his ouvre and one that will continue to dog him if he is to regain stature.

Thank you.

Each note of encouragement and bewilderment at my absence has propelled me forward. I plan on spending the next couple of weeks responding with mountains of gratitude. (The surprising news is that, despite my absence, readership of BeardedRoman has increased by nearly 30 percent.)

It’s been a epic year for BeardedRoman; one that has prematurely peppered my chin with grey hairs. Four principal things that have kept me away:

Main Library. University Colllege London, London, UK

1. I started a doctorate at the University of London.

Anthony Alexander (Born March 2009)

2. My second son was born. (My wife did all the hard work.)

Pneumonia is not a recommended method for weight loss.

3. Pneumonia crippled me for almost three months. I’ve fully recovered and am running at full capacity.

Christmas at the Christensens 2009

4. We moved from London back to the United States–just in time for Christmas–and have been setting up a house, buying cars, getting back to work and experiencing a perpetual family reunion ever since.

Moving forward, I hope to not repeat my prolonged absence. If you’re still here, I’m grateful.

Jean Léon Gérôme (French, 1824-1904) Les Rameaux (Christ Entering Jerusalem) 82 by 64 cm. Bronze patinated with polychrome. Private colletion.

(Note: The following was written for the private collector who owns these two bronzes. I enjoyed my research so much, that I thought I would share it here, with his permission.)

At a time when Paris was the center of the art world Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904) was one of France’s most decorated artists. Principally remembered as a painter, his greatest contribution may well be his work as a sculptor. The works La Fuite en Egypte and Les Rameaux were both made in 1897, near the end of Gérôme’s career and at the height of his ability.

Born on France’s east coast, Gérôme received the reluctant permission of his father, an accomplished goldsmith, to study at the country’s most prestigious art academy, the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. There he excelled under the direction of Paul Delaroche (1797-1856) and Charles Gleyre (1806-1874). Gleyre’s studio, which placed emphasis on the revival of Greek forms in art, had a lasting affect on his student’s interest in classical subjects and models. Gérôme’s own work would span Classicism, Orientalism and Realism; traces of all three can be found in his later works.

When Gleyre was appointed Director of the French Academie in Rome in 1844, Gérôme followed. There he completed his academic education through close study of Old Master and Greco-Roman works. (Gérôme traveled throughout his career to Greece, Egypt and the Holy Land.) As a result of his studies, his works bore the technical virtuosity of an academic artist combined with personal first-hand knowledge of monuments, foreign landscapes and exotic peoples. La Fuite en Egypte and Les Rameaux directly reflect his study of bedouin costume and animals observed during a visit to the Holy Land.

Jean Léon Gérôme (French, 1824-1904) La Fuit en Egypte (Flight into Egypt) 78 by 63 cm. Bronze patinated with polychrome. Private collection.

Returning to France in 1847, Gérôme enjoyed his first of many successes at the highly competitive Salon de la Société des Artistes Français. That year, the eminent French critic Theophile Gautier wrote: “Let us mark with white this lucky year, unto us a painter is born. He is called Gérôme. I tell you his name today, and tomorrow it will be celebrated.” Works by Gérôme were accepted nearly every year from 1847 to 1903. There they inspired popular novels and music. By the end of his life, Gérôme had been made a member of the Institute de France (1865), a knight in the Légion d’honneur (1867), and awarded the Order of the Red Eagle by King Wilhelm I of Prussia.

Such success merited prominent commissions from the state, as a well as a bevy of patrons, including the Empress Eugenie, who became a close friend. Today, his paintings and sculptures are found in many world’s finest museums including the Musée d’Orsay (Paris), National Gallery of Art (London), National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.), Hermitage (St. Petersburg), Art Institute of Chicago, and Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York).

Géróme’s high profile had academic currency. He was hired as one of three studio teachers at the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts. There Gérôme fathered a dynasty of academic painters in France and America, among them Thomas Eakins (1844-1916), Frederick Arthur Bridgman (1847-1928), Mary Cassatt (1844-1926), Pascal Dagnan Bourveret (1852-1929), William M. Paxton (1869-1941) and Julian A. Weir (1852-1919). A lifelong tutor to many, he maintained a close relationship with his students beyond their studies.

In 1889, Gérôme travelled to Florence and Padua with two students: Edouard Detaille (1848-1912) and François Flameng (1856-1923) There he studied the equestrian works of Italian Renaissance masters, including Donatello and Verrocchio. The trip was a book end to the studies he began as a young artist and had first seen the works. He later wrote to a friend about the journey:

I went to Florence . . . I had stayed there as a youth and had not returned since. What a deception! What an eye-opener! I saw crumble–I won’t say all–but almost all my youthful heroes.

Rather than arrogance, here Gérôme displayed a genuine sense of disappointment and the honest assessment that then–in his late sixties–he may have moved beyond youthful lessons and on a level with the masters. It is possible this insight led Gérôme to  look beyond standard models.

Late-nineteenth-century archeologists discovered color residues on Roman and Greek works, proving that the austere white marble we see today was, in fact, covered in bright blues, reds, greens and precious metals. Gérôme learned of the use of polychrome and incorporated them in his own works, including Les Rameaux and La Fuite en Egypte, which both bear the subtle but unmistakable use of polychrome unique to Gérôme.

The sculptures were produced during the last decade of his life, when Gérôme dramatically increased the amount of time and resources spent on his sculptures. In 1890, Gérôme hired Emile Décorchement to work as a full-time sculpting assistant. He also teamed up with the foundry of Siot-Decauville.

Established in the 1890’s, Siot-Decauville’s innovative ability to scale down large bronze models made their foundry especially attractive to Gérôme, who prided himself on fidelity to reality. The remarkable precision visible in Les Rameaux and La Fuite en Egypte were accomplished by Gérôme working with models twice the size of the finished bronzes. In this way, he was able to add details-the animals’ fur, the wilting leaves of Christ’s palm branch, and the gauzy folds of Mary’s bedouin clothing–with larger tools that would have been ineffective in smaller-scale versions.

In the late-nineteenth-century, table-top bronzes were an popular feature of tasteful interior decor. This pair of  Les Rameaux and La Fuite en Egypte were cast in the same year as Gérôme’s painting, La Fuite en Egypte, was submitted to the Salon. According to his standard studio practice, Gérôme’s sculptures, sometimes in unfinished stages, were the inspiration for paintings and vice versa. In this case, it is unknown which work was first.

Jean Léon Gérôme (French, 1824-1904) Les Rameaux (Christ Entering Jerusalem) 82 by 64 cm. Bronze patinated with polychrome. Private colletion.

Les Rameaux captures the moment Christ enters Jerusalem (Matthew 21:1-11, Mark 11:7-10; Luke 19:28-44; John 12:12-19), on what is traditionally known as Palm Sunday, hence the branch in Christ’s left hand:

5 Tell ye the daughter of Sion, Behold, thy King cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass.

6 And the disciples went, and did as Jesus commanded them,

7 And brought the ass, and the colt, and put on them their clothes, and they set him thereon.

8 And a very great multitude spread their garments in the way; others cut down branches from the trees, and strawed them in the way.

9 And the multitudes that went before, and that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna to the Son of David: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest.

10 And when he was come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, Who is this?

11 And the multitude said, This is Jesus the prophet of Nazareth of Galilee.

Palm Sunday marks the beginning of Holy Week, which ends with Christ’s resurrection on Easter Sunday. Gérôme indicates the journey ahead by placing Christ on a slight incline. As he enters the gate, Christ raises his hand in a sign of blessing, often attributed to Christianity, yet believed to be derived from a bircas kohanim (Jewish priestly blessing).

The juxtaposition of Les Rameaux with La Fuite en Egypte brings attention to details otherwise imperceptible. Christ sits on a femial donkey and Mary on a mael. Christ is on an incline, Mary on unvaried, steady ground.

Jean Léon Gérôme (French, 1824-1904) La Fuit en Egypte (Flight into Egypt) 78 by 63 cm. Bronze patinated with polychrome. Private collection.

La Fuite en Egypte depicts a pensive Mary, uprooted from her home and traveling to Egypt with family in tow. According to St. Matthew:

And when they were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him.

Despite the tumult inherent in the narratives, Gérôme shows Mary and Christ unfazed by their circumstances. These are not the contorted, pained figures of works often used for public ritual. They are works of private reflection.

When Gérôme created Les Rameaux and La Fuite en Egypte, he was 73. His last seven years were a flurry of activity. On the morning of January 10, 1904, Gérôme was found dead in his studio before a self-portrait of Rembrandt and his own painting Truth. He left a studio full of partially finished and un-cast plasters. Les Rameaux and La Fuite en Egypte were among his last finished works.

According to Ackerman there are at least three sizes of each statue known to have been cast. These were the first and largest versions and, therefore, their production, from start to finish, would have been overseen by Gérôme himself. In addition to their authenticity, Ackerman believed that they were created as a pair and not separate works.  These two bronzes have been in the same family for three generations and are believed to have been purchased directly from Siot-Decauville. If true, these represent a rare combination. There is no similar pair known to exist in any public or private collection.

Sir John Everett Millais (Brittish, 1829-1896) For the Squire (1882) Oil on canvas. The Fine Art Society, London. (Detail). See the end of this post for more on the painting.

It’s been over for a week, but I feel compelled to post pictures from my visit to the Grosvenor House Art & Antiques Fair. Before it ended, I was able to spend several hours with dealers and buyers one of the longest-running and grandest art fairs in Europe. 

Despite the gloom and doom supposedly hovering over the art world, there was a great deal of optimism from both dealers and collectors at the Fair. I came on the next to last day, and nearly everyone of the dealers of nineteenth-century or traditional art I talked with had sold a large number of his or her inventory. This was not the case with contemporary art dealers I met. Though not scientific, to me it indicates the slow and steady, if not always sexy, appeal of working with established genres.

Bust. Cahn Basel St. Moritz, Antiquities dealers.

While there were world-class  ceramics, furniture, modern art , works of silver and ancient relics, I was principally focused on nineteenth-century academic works. The photos from my visit, therefore, are a terribly unbalanced representation what was on view. Sorry.

Another thing to keep in mind: As in past review of fairs, I have taken photos of these images in person, at the fair and the results are sometimes surprisingly and sometimes less than ideal. 

Thédore Géricault (French, 1791-1824) Two Galloping Horses. Pen and brown ink and brown wash, over an extensive underdrawing in black chalk. 35.3 by 48.4 cm. Stephen Ongpin Fine Art.

The first work that caught my eye was a remarkable sketch (above) by  Géricault. Known for his obsession with horses–entire coffee-table books having been dedicated to them–its still startling to see one in person, and how much he can conjure with so few few lines.

Sir Edward John Poynter (France, 1836- Great Britain, 1919) Lesbia and her Sparrow (1907) Oil on canvas. 50.8 by 38.1 cm. Richard Green, London.

Someone once told me a joke: “Question: What do you call the crumbs that fall from Richard Green’s table? Answer: Cake.”

The implication was that Richard Green Galleries is remarkably consistent in getting the best of the best. Most dealers and collectors would be satisfied to have the slightest portion of what this London dealer offers.

Previous to arriving several people had suggested that if I saw one work at Grosvenor, it should be the Green’s Lesbia and her Sparrow (above). A cult following of British Olympic painters (e.g. Leighton, Tadema, Godward, and Poynter) has come fruition in the pas three decades. Poynter is one of the group’s finest, and this is one of his gems. 

Lesbia was the great love of the Roman poet Gaius Valerius Catullus (c.84-52 BC) and the subject of 25 of his surviving poems. Poynter chose one in particular as the subject for this painting: 

Sparrow, my girl’s darling

Whom she plays with, whom she cuddles,

Whom she likes to tempt with finger-

Tip and teases to nip harder

When my own bright-eyed desire

Fancies some endearing fun

And a small solace for her pain,

I suppose, so heavy passion then rests:

Would I could play with you as she does

And lighten the spirit’s gloomy cares!

(cited in My Mistress’s Sparrow is Dead, ed. Jeffery Eugenides, Harper Perennial, London, 2009, p. x).

Poynter began his career working in stained glass and cabinetry. This probably contributed to his heightened use of color and remarkable ability to imitate various materials, a skilled often needed wood graining.

Sir Alfred Munnings (British, 1878-1959) A portrait of Frederick Henry Prince (1859-1953), Master of the Pau Foxhounds (1924) 96.5 by 114.3 cm. Richard Green Galleries, London.

Sir Alfred Munnings described Frederick Henry Prince (above) as “one of the most amazing characters I had ever met . . . a grown up boy.” This painting was commissioned by Prince, showing him at one of his favorite activities and the kind of scene Munnings had made his name producing: sporting pictures. If you are not familiar with Munnings’ work, you can be forgiven. Due to the way his paintings are sold–at sporting auctions and not nineteenth-century art auctions–outside of Great Britain, Munnings has not received the recognition his skill merits.

Everything in this painting is world class: the figures, the composition, observation of nature, and the economy of materials (note in particular the tails of the dogs; some only consisting of a single stroke.). Munnings is a genius.

Gijsbrecht Leytens (Antwerp, 1586-1656) Winter landscape with people strolling on the banks o a frozen river where children play. Oil on panel. 72 by 105 cm. Private collection, for sale by De Jonckheere Fine Art.

Leytens is one of those great Flemish painters following in the wake of the Brueghel dynasty. There were so many wrote compositions mass-produced in enromous artist studios. Works that are able to transcend the typical formulae to create something original and compelling. The light and darks Winter landscape . . . (Above, and pitifully captured by my camera) made this work visible from far away. Upon close inspection it has all the charm of cabinet paintings from the period that were often meant to be viewed with a magnifying glass.  

George Smith (British, 1829-1901) The Will Found. Oil on canvas. 29 by 44 in.

Behold the power of narrative painting. A family has lost the recently-deceased patriarch’s will, and a scoundrel–seen exiting stage right–trying to take advantage of the resulting ambiguity. After searching through numerous documents–in the foreground and on the table–the will is held high and the rightful, and obviously deserving, inheritors are vindicated. Mustached evil is chased out the door by the family dog, the embodiment of fidelity.

Though I haven’t found it yet, it is highly likely that George Smith produced The Will Found to be a print. Prints and contracts with printers were often more lucrative for painters than the sale of the original work. Such was the case with Holbien in the eighteenth century.

James Webb (British, 1825-1895) Sunset over Dordrecht Harbour. Oil on canvas. 28 3/4 by 49 in.

There is disappointingly little written about James Webb, who regularly exhibited at the Royal Academy. The preponderance of his output was in watercolor, not oils. Yet, he shows an astounding facility and painterliness in this work.

James Webb (British, 1825-1895) Sunset over Dordrecht Harbour. Oil on canvas. 28 3/4 by 49 in. (Detail)

Look at this beautiful passage of clouds! 

Frederick Lord Leighton (English, 1830-1896) The Sluggard (c. 1885) Bronze. 52.5 cm. Robert Bowman Galleries, London.

Robert Bowman is one of the world’s great dealers and experts of nineteenth-century sculpture. For several years he maintained both contemporary and nineteenth-century galleries. However, a few years ago, he downsized by closing his nineteenth-century gallery and showing those works almost exclusively at fairs like Maastricht and Grosvenor.

This year Bowman had several works by artists like Leighton and Rodin that can be seen in larger scale versions in museums around the world. Seeing The Sluggard (above), at this small size gave me a completely different eperience than the larger-than-life version I am used to seeing at the Royal Academy in London. While I find the larger version imposing and dynamic, this appears more delicate bring out a kind of beauty I hadn’t seen in the other. Also, the patina of this smaller work is beautifully rendered.

Camille Claudel (French, 1864-1943) L'Abandon (c. 1905) Bronze. Robert Bowman Galleries, London.

Claudel’s piece L’Abandon (above) was given a place of prestige at Bowman’s booth; and, it deserves all the attention it gets. According to Bowman:

This 1905 rare bronze . . . is the earliest edition ever seen on the open market. This is the second of an edition limited to 18, the first cast having been kept by the owners of the foundry.

Claudel, was 18 years old when she met and began a 15-year affair with August Rodin, aged 42. Understandably, Rodin had an enormous influence on her work. Bowman relates that the statue borrows from and reverses the gender roles of Eternal Spring (1881) by Rodin and is based ” on the eponymous 5th century Hindu legend in which the heroine, Sakoutala, loses the affection of her beloved prince only to regain it once more.”

Edward Hodges Baily (English, 1788-1867) Psyche (c. 1850) White marble. Robert Brown Galleries, London. (Detail)

Baily is the sculptor of the iconic statue of Lord Nelson, standing atop the column in Trafalgar Square in London, perhaps the most seen statue in the country. The monument to Nelson was completed in 1843, and Psyche (above) statue was finished the same decade.

Psyche, unlike the statue of Lord Nelson, is meant to be seen at an intimate range. The delicate butterfly is held in beautifully articulated fingers that include minute details of fingernails and lines in the palm.  

Edward Hodges Baily (English, 1788-1867) Psyche (c. 1850) White marble. Robert Brown Galleries, London.

The statue is the epitome of idealistic beauty and looking at it, even briefly, can drop your blood pressure by several points.

Anonymous (Flemish) St. Martin dividing his cloak for a beggar (c. 1380) Wood with some original polychrome. 81 by 43 by 26 cm. Joanna Booth, London.

Directly across from the Bowman Galleries stall was the that of Joanna Booth, a dealer in mediaeval and archaic works of art. St. Martin dividing his cloak for a beggar (above) is a remarkably fully-realized piece. This single angle of the work does not adequately capture the full effect it has in person. The beggar with a wooden leg, the bold gesture of the Saint cutting the cloth, and the interesting choice to make one so much larger than the other, the author’s mastery in depicting varied textures. . . here it looks almost like a cartoon caricature; but, in person, it takes on a majestic air that is humbling.

Tomoléon Lobrichon (French, 1831-1914) The Toyshop Window. Oil on canvas. 44.5 by 33.5 in. Walker Galleries, North Yorkshire.

For me, going to museums is exhausting, but I rarely get weighed down at fairs like Grosvenor. This is due in part to the kind of paintings, like The Toyshop Window (above) rarely, if ever, shown at museums. Museum are after a kind of gravitas in their paintings. Unfortunately, this makes a whole category of paintings, full of charm and humor, absent from public exhibitions. Like eating heavy foods all the time, I get museum indigestion. Sometimes, I want dessert or, at least, a sorbet, to cleanse my palate.

Sir John Everett Millais (Brittish, 1829-1896) For the Squire (1882) Oil on canvas. The Fine Art Society, London.

I wanted to begin and end this post with my favorite work from the exhibition: For the Squire (above) by John Everett Millais. Millais’s works rarely appear in the private market; and, when they do, it is not often in the form of a fully-realized canvas. It is the kind of work that will never be featured in a show due to the lack of drama. It has all the so-called sentimentality that turns many off to the period. 

For me there is a purity of spirit, an innocence in this work that is communicated in a way that only painting can. The narrative–the delivering of a letter–is the lightest of pretexts for painting this little girl. Unlike the style that characterized his early Pre-Raphaelite works, this painting is not consumed with details. (The background, fabric, and hair are more suggested than copied.) Done when he was 53, it seems the product of a mellowed Millais.

–

There are many, many more works not included in this post that I have uploaded to my Flickr account. (In some cases, a work is followed by a photo of its label. That’s my way of remembering what I’ve seen and where I’ve seen it.)

William Dyce (Scotland, 1806-1864) Pegwell Bay, Kent - a Recollection of October 5th 1858 (1859-1860) Oil on canvas 63 by 89 cm. Tate Britain, London. (Currently on loan to the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.)

Artists and art historians in the classical tradition like to point out the close relationship that art and science enjoyed from the Renaissance. Mathematical perspective, anatomical study of human and animal figures, geology, and meteorology all played serious roles in the fine arts.

This week the exhibition“Endless Forms: Charles Darwin, Natural Science and the Visual Arts” opens at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, England. It features a number of contemporary reactions in the fine arts to the publication of Darwin’s Origin of the Species (1859). One of its most stunning works is by the Pre-Raphaelite painter William Dyce (Scotland, 1806-1864).

Dyce was an ardent Anglican who had painted several religious works. In 1858 he traveled to Southeastern England. There it had become fashionable for professionals and amateurs alike to dig ancient urchins, plants, and brachiopods from the chalk cliffs of Kent. At the time, there was no widely accepted scientific or religious theory to explain the fossils. It was not until one year later that Dawin published his own ideas and ignited a firestorm.

During the firestorm, from 1859 to 1860, Dyce painted Pegwell Bay, Kent – a Recollection of October 5th 1858. The title is a double entendre, referring both to his own memory of the scene and the collective rediscovery of relics from the dinosaur age. At first glance it looks like a typical, nineteenth-century landscape filled with well-bred people. Therein lies one of its great strengths: the commentary that behind something seemingly so ordinary there is a much greater issue at stake.

The painting itself has all the hallmarks of the best Pre-Raphaelite works: brilliant coloring, meticulous detail, careful observation, and poignancy of theme. For me, it is one of the great paintings of the 1850s, and one of the least known.

Carlos de Haes (Brussels, 1826-Madrid, 1898) La canal de Mancorbo en los Picos de Europa (1876) Oil on canvas. 168 x 123 cm. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.

While not forgotten in Spain,  Carlos de Haes’ work has been little recognized elsewhere. As a teacher and award-winning artists, Haes is perhaps Spain’s greatest  landscape painter.

Photograph of Carlos de Haes (Brussels, 1826-1898) c. 1870.

Carlos de Haes (Brussels, 1826-Madrid, 1898) was born in Belguim to Spanish parents. Due to financial troubles, the family was forced to return to Spain in 1835. There, Haes studied with Luis de la Cruz, a Court Painter to King Ferndinand VII and a member of the Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando.

In 1850, at the age of 24, Haes traveled back to Brussels to study Flemish landscapes. There he competed and regularly placed in Belgium’s annual Salons. Six years later, Haes returned to Spain.

Carlos de Haes (Brussels, 1826-Madrid, 1898) Tejares de la montaña del Príncipe Pío (c. 1872) Oil on canvas. 39.2 x 61 cm. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.

His international experience carried a great deal of currency in Spanish painting circles, and immediately set him apart from his peers who rarely studied beyond Spain and Italy. His dedication to landscape also changed the Spanish Academy’s attitude towards landscape painting.

Despite having been accepted as a major genre in other European countries, during the first half of the nineteenth century, Spain had not widely  participated in Romantic and Sublime landscape painting. Instead, landscapes were considered a second-rate genre, a necessary part of an artist’s education insofar as it related to the composition of history painting.

Carlos de Haes (Brussels, 1826-Madrid, 1898) La vereda (1871) Oil on canva. 93.7 x 60.4 cm. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.

Haes’ work Cercanías del moasterio de Piedra (1858) was the first landscape painting to win a First Place medal at the Exposicion Nacional, Spain’s equivalent of the Paris Salon. The award represented a giant leap forward in the estimation of landscape painting as a stand-alone discipline. Shortly afterwards, Haes was made a member of the Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, the nation’s most prestigious art school. His appointment in 1860 to the Academia de San Fernandoand and subsequent teaching there effectively caught Spain up with other schools of landscape painting in Europe. As a teacher, Haes fathered a dynasty of Spanish landscape artists that continues today. Among Haes’s more prominent students are Martín Rico y Ortega (1833-1908), Jaime Morera (1854-1927).

Carlos de Haes (Brussels, 1826-Madrid, 1898) La Torre de Douarnenez (c. 1880) Oil on canvas. 39 by 59 cm. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.

It could be argued that Haes’ one of most important contributions to Spanish painting was with non-landscape painters. Through him, history painters, whose work enjoyed the widest attention at the Exposiciones Nacionales, developed a new appreciation and approach to landscapes, arguably bringing it on par with their figural work. Artists like Francisco Pradilla, José Casado del Alisal, Placenscia Maestro, were required to take Haes’ course at the Academia de San Fernando considered a serious part of their large history paintings, sometimes producing numerous studies devoid of figures.

In particular, Haes brought to Spain an increased emphasis on three aspects of landscape painting: luminosity, porportion and direct observation from nature.

Carlos de Haes (Brussels, 1826-1898) Picos de Europa (c. 1875) Oil on panel. 37 x 59 cm. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.

Traditionally, Spanish artists favored the use of sandy-colored grounds for use in painting. This created a unifying effect in their works, but resulted in the overall dampening of light. While Haes continued to use sand-colored and reddish grounds in his works, he would incorporate large patches of lead white and subdue the quantity of sandy grounds.

Carlos de Haes (Brussels, 1826-Madrid, 1898) Cercanías de Villerville, Normandy (c. 1877) Oil on canvas. 26.2 x 39 cm. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.

Very few of Haes’ works exceed 150 by 200 centimeters. This was at a time when history paintings, often exceeding 6 by 10 meters, were competing for top prizes at Exposiciones Nacionales. Haes’ landscapes, though bold in composition and epic in subject matter, maintained comparatively modest proportions. This set a precedent in landscape painting throughout Spain, which more or less continued throughout the first half of the nineteenth century, even when history paintings became more ambitious in size.

Carlos de Haes (Brussels, 1826-Madrid, 1898) Un bardo naufragado (c. 1883) Oil on canvas. 59 by 101 cm. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.

Finally and perhaps most importantly, Haes was a proponent of direct observation from nature and led several expeditions. This resulted to an almost nationalistic fervor for Spanish landscape painting, that featured Iberian natural wonders.

Carlos de Haes (Brussels, 1826-Madrid, 1898) Desfiladero, Jaraba de Aragón (c. 1872) Oil on canvas. 39 by 60 cm. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.

Photograph of Jaraba de Aragón, Spain (2005) by Juan Devis (www.panoramio.com/photo/1599391)

Today, Carlos de Haes’ work can be found in nearly every major Spanish museum. However, the largest body and greatest works from his ouvre are held in the Prado Museum and not currently on display. A new wing of the Prado, dedicated to Spanish nineteenth-century art, is planned to open in 2012.

(Click here for a list of works and biography of Carlos de Haes by the Prado Museum.)

Carlos de Haes (Brussels, 1826-Madrid, 1898) Playa de Villerville, Normandy (c. 1880) Oil on canvas. 22 by 40 cm. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.

Bibliography:

• Carlos de Haes (1826-1898) en el Museo del Prado, cat. exp., Madrid, Museo del Prado, 2002.
• Cid Priego, Carlos, Aportaciones para una monografía del pintor Carlos de Haes, Lérida, Instituto de Estudios Ilerdenses, 1956.

Book Cover of "Figures du Corps" Philippe Comar, ed.

Occasionally, I come across a book that was made with me in mind. Figures du Corps: Une Leçon d’Anatomie à l’École des Beaux-Arts is the catalogue of the exhibition by the same name held from October 21, 2008 to January 4, 2009 at the l’École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. (Painfully, I first learned about the exhibition after seeing this book in a bookshop window in London, which is either a testament to my own ignorance of events like this or a sign that marketing efforts had limited reach.)

The catalogue is an ode to the bewildering and wonderful arsenal of contraptions, tools, plaster casts, photographs, and any other useful aid created to assist artists in the study of human and animal figures.

Skulls of humans and various animals from the Galerie Huguier. École des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 2008.

Resembling part medical research facility and part life-science museum, the Ecole des Beaux-Arts gathered human and animal anatomical examples–ideal, real and atypical–for use in training. 

For artists at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, academic training meant mastering the human figure. As described in a previous post, this training took place over a series of graduated steps, beginning with isolating parts of the human figure, to studying idealized forms in Greco-Roman statues, and, finally, working with live models.

The catalogue includes several examples of classical forms that have been worked over to reveal underlying skeletal and muscular structure. It is evidence of a startling lack of superficiality in their approach to their craft and art. There are numerous accounts of dissections of both humans and animals, and visits from surgeons to discuss recent medical discoveries.

Fourteen hands, and seven human feet (Nineteenth Century) Éecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris

Looking at examples of plaster casts from the book, I was surprised at how many of them were obviously taken from human subjects and not from statues. The catalogue is unclear as to when many of these casts were made and used. Regardless, it is fascinating to see that they went to great lengths to articulate hands and feet in a wide range of challenging positions that were not always quoted from classical forms.

Mannequin d'atelier articulé, fin du XCIII siècle. Signed, "Guillois." École des Beaux-Arts, Paris.

One of the greatest costs in training was the hiring of live models. As a result, contraptions of all kinds–mannequins, photographs, stereoscope images–were made to substitute, or perhaps more accurately, supplement, models. 

Hermann Heid (Darmstadt, 1834-Vienna, 1891) Étude comparée de la forme d'un avant-bras en pronation et de son squelette (1880) 14 by 10.3; 13.8 by 10.3. École des Beaux-Arts, Paris.

One man at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paul Richer (Chartes, 1849-Paris, 1933) was particularly skilled both as a creator of artist aides and as a sculptor himself. 

Paul Richer (Chartes, 1849-Paris, 1933) The Runner, phénakistiscope (1895) 70 by 45 by 15 cm. École des Beaux-Arts, Paris.

Paul Richer (Chartes, 1849-Paris, 1933) Tres in una (1910) 185 by 124 by 60 cm. École des Beaux-Arts, Paris

His work Tres in Una, above, is a terrific example of the late-nineteenth, early-twentieth century combinations realist and classical approaches to art. There is disappointingly little written about Richer in the catalogue, yet he is clearly one of a rare breed, simultaneaously gifted at educational innovation and a talented artist in his own right. For one, I would love to learn more about him, and hope to.

Bust of Decartes, with incorporated skull (1913) Plaster, in three parts. 44 by 27 by 28 cm. École des Beaux-Arts, Paris.

A great deal of the catalogue is dedicated to the anatomical models of animals, especially horses Just as in England, where George Stubbs (British , 1724-1806) led a generation of artists at the Royal Academy to explore and correctly understand the anatomy of horses, the French Academy invested a great deal in equine models.

Collection of various horse anotomical constructions and skulls. Galerie Huguier, École des Beaux-Arts, Paris.

One stunning example of an artist using the models is a study of horse legs, below, by  Théodore Géricault (Rouen, 1971-Paris, 1824). 

Théodore Géricault (Rouen, 1971-Paris, 1824) Étude de membres postérieur et antérieur de cheval, écorchés. (1815) Pen, brown crayon and watercolor. 43.5 by 26.8 cm.

This catalogue makes it possible to comprehend the lengths to which artists would go to learn their craft. For me, it is both an inspiration and a reminder of how much we can learn from them.

François Sallé (France, 1839-1899) The anatomy class at the Ecole des Beaux Arts (1888) Oil on canvas. 218 by 299 cm. Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sidney.