Dominus Venustas

‘I’m still learning’, said Michelangelo when...

Fri, 24 May 2013 14:25:15 +0100

‘I’m still learning’, said Michelangelo when he was 87 years old.

…enough said.

Monet and Camille Painted just before Monet’s big...

Thu, 23 May 2013 18:43:00 +0100

Monet and Camille

Painted just before Monet’s big breakthrough in the art world, a gorgeous portrait of his future wife Camille sitting peacefully on the Bank of the Seine. The inn where they stayed is reflected in the water, the village of Bennecourt on the opposite side of the river.

A glorious sunny day in France. It certainly takes one there. Sigh.

It seems to me that when I see nature I see it ready-made, completely written – but then, try to do it! - Monet

Words of wisdom from Cezanne There are two things in the...

Wed, 22 May 2013 19:25:24 +0100

Words of wisdom from Cezanne

There are two things in the painter, the eye and the mind; each of them should aid the other.

The laying of the first brush stroke indicates the start of a balancing process in the entire painting surface. Hence, the first brush stroke must be balanced by another stroke elsewhere in the canvas and the next should be balanced by another, and so on and so forth…

When I judge art, I take my painting and put it next to a God made object like a tree or flower. If it clashes, it is not art.

For an Impressionist to paint from nature is not to paint the subject, but to realize sensations.

The eye, the mind. Balance on the painting surface. Purity in nature. Realising sensations. Here was a man who has thought through every aspect of painting; the process, the result, the reason, the beauty of it all.

A Great Art Historian remembers Picasso Tonight I saw what it...

Tue, 21 May 2013 22:21:00 +0100

A Great Art Historian remembers Picasso

Tonight I saw what it was to be a Great Art Historian, not a good one, but a Great one. Sir John Richardson, in conversation with Gijs van Hensbergen, talked of his friend Pablo Picasso. He told anecdotes and spoke of his memories with such eloquence, he filled the room with magic… and laughter. He brought the great Painter to life.

He recalled how when Picasso was involved in a series of paintings he was completely inaccessible. When he was working on his Las Meninas series (he always yearned to return to Spain) Sir John was sitting downstairs beneath the studio with Jacqueline. He heard such banging and clanging and cursing like he had never heard before. Picasso was in a bad mood, he was working. He always included something unexpected or humorous in his paintings - in this one the renowned moustache of Velazquez was painted in. It amused him.

When he spoke of Picasso’s last portrait (above) he grew sad. And thinks it to be his most powerful self portrait. Honest and unforgiving. He died a few weeks later.

Picasso was passionate about the poor and passionate about poetry. He wanted his tombstone to read:

Picasso - Poet and sometimes Painter

I for one will be seeking out and reading Sir John Richardson’s extensive volumes (the final being currently written) on the wonderful and enigmatic Picasso. He was painted by Francis Bacon and he was painted by Lucian Freud. And tonight I saw very clearly why. An intelligent, eloquent and very sincere man who feels passionately for his subject - Art.

Oh and I even got to speak with him… *stars in my eyes*

Sir John Richardson and Picasso / Picasso self portrait / Las Meninas series

A Great Living British Artist Leon Kossoff. The British painter...

Mon, 20 May 2013 20:01:49 +0100

A Great Living British Artist

Leon Kossoff. The British painter we all know, whose work is filled with energy and enthusiasm for his subject. Drawings expressing the moment, the movement of life. Always trying, striving and succeeding to find the essence of what is before him. His work is sincere. And his passion is London. In his own words: ‘London is in my bloodstream’.

My studio is like a field, a field in a house. Muddy hillocks of paint-sodden newspapers cover the floor burying scraped-off images. Derelict boards stand in all the corners, remnants of recent activity… My dialogue with these discarded images left on the floor… Drawing is a springing to life in the presence of the friend in the studio to in the sunlit summer streets of London… painting is the deepening of this process.

Note to Londoners: Exhibition at Annely Juda Fine Art - London Landscapes. The show will tell you all you need to know about Leon.

The Flower Stall, Embankment Station, 1994 / Christ Church, Spitalfields / Arnold Circus, 2008-10 / Leon Kossoff, 1972

Fifteenth century Venice. Tensions between the East and West...

Sun, 19 May 2013 17:30:30 +0100

Fifteenth century Venice. Tensions between the East and West continued…

In September, 1479, Venetian painter Gentile Bellini, was sent to Constantinople to see and impress Sultan Mehmed II. It was the centre of the Ottoman Empire and he was an important cultural Ambassador.

The Venetian government did not send a politician. They did not send a Captain of a Fleet. They sent an Artist. Such was the esteemed position of artists in Venice at this time.

While there he drew and painted Turkish figures. Beautifully.

Gentile Bellini, Turkish Figures / Self-Portrait

Picasso… had a sense of humour! God is really only another...

Sat, 18 May 2013 21:06:45 +0100

Picasso… had a sense of humour!

God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant, and the cat. He has no real style. He just keeps on trying other things. - Picasso

A Painter of Luminosity With Piero light both surrounds and...

Fri, 17 May 2013 18:59:30 +0100

A Painter of Luminosity

With Piero light both surrounds and creates form.

… All light vibrates and natural light is fully rendered in painting only when free play is given to its vibrations, the dance of molecules. Piero’s light, however, does not move; it illuminates and creates its own world, a world other than ours, august, serene, over which time flows unavailing, for it is founded in eternity.

- Lionello Venturi

The first work signed by Piero, the Early Renaissance painter. With the inscription: PETRI DE BURGO SANCTI SEPULCRI OPUS

Such eloquence in paint. Gently… quietly, infused with life. It is a small panel hanging silently, unassumingly on a wall in the L’Accademia in Venice. Small in size but huge in impact.

Piero della Francesca, St Jerome and a Donor, 1451

…He conquered the New York Art World A work of art can be any...

Thu, 16 May 2013 21:14:26 +0100

…He conquered the New York Art World

A work of art can be any imaginable thing, and this is the beginning of modern painting. - GB, 1923

George Bellows’ artistic life was one of restless experimentation. From the dark and gritty underground of New York’s working class to the bright and eloquent leisurely days out of its upper class, his work was that of a social observer. Emotional force, exaggerated forms and themes of urban realism.

Manet was his artistic hero.

Try everything that can be done. Be deliberate. Be spontaneous. Be thoughtful and painstaking. Be abandoned and impulsive. Learn your own possibilities. - GB, 1920

Note to Londoners: George Bellows: Modern American Life at the Royal Academy is a wonderful show. A glimpse into the life and work of a great American artist. Look out for the beautifully composed boxer lithographs and the extraordinary light of the snow paintings.

Tony Eyton - Grand Old Man of Art Now this is a painter, in the...

Wed, 15 May 2013 15:45:20 +0100

Tony Eyton - Grand Old Man of Art

Now this is a painter, in the great British tradition, who has achieved much through the recent decades. His paintings are diverse in subject matter and consistent in their ability to capture the essence of the subject through colour and form. From the Camberwell School of Arts painters camp, and turning 90 in two days, he is still painting with astounding vigour and enthusiasm. Quite an achievement. There are very few left of his kind.

He paints models and still lifes in his studio. His garden outside his studio. He jumps on planes to the far reaches of the earth (Australia) to paint great wonders of the world - Ayers Rock or the glorious rich colours of India. He sits on the streets of London, in Spitalfields, an old and current haunt, drawing the people and places that surround him. In pastel, paint, watercolour or lead. He has travelled four continents. There is no stopping this painter. He is full of life, full of adventure and full of devotion to his art. It is inspiring.

“At art school, we were taught drawing, but nothing about drawing outside, though I’ve always drawn people in situations, and this was re-inforced when I went to Italy after art school and drew people in the streets there – it’s so much part of Renaissance painting, placing figures in spaces.” (Quote from Spitalfields Life)

Note to Londoners: If in or around Cork St his latest show at Browse and Darby is worth a look. More than worth it.

The Painter, the Sculptor and the Writer Paula Modersohn-Becker...

Tue, 14 May 2013 16:07:00 +0100

The Painter, the Sculptor and the Writer

Paula Modersohn-Becker and Clara Rilke-Westhoff had a strong friendship. A painter and a sculptor. In their early twenties they both left Germany to conquer the art world of Paris. They remained devoted friends through their lives and shared a creative bond in their passion of art. They had a mutual love for Cezanne’s work. They were modern women and modern artists. And married creative men. Paula to painter Otto Modersohn and Clara to writer Rainer Rilke.

Letter to her mother, 26 November 1905, Paula:

Mornings I’m painting Clara Rilke in a white dress, her head and part of her hand and a red rose. She looks very beautiful and I hope I can capture something of her… I’m happy to be getting together with Clara frequently like this. In spite of everything she is still dearest to me. For two or three weeks she lived very close to Rodin [her mentor], and is still very much under the influence of his personality and his great, simple maxims…

Clara Rilke-Westhoff reminiscences:

Paula painted me while my little daughter sat on the floor and played… One winter afternoon we were both sitting by the stove in her little atelier. Paula threw one piece of peat on the other through a little squeaking door in the kiln, as one tear after another rolled down her cheek while she explained to me how very important it was for her to be out ‘in the world’ again, to go back to Paris again.

‘When I think of it, the world’ - she said.

So, Clara was married to the great poet and writer Rainer Maria Rilke. He was also a great friend of Paula, whom he had always loved… unrequitedly. A year after Paula’s death he wrote the beautiful, eloquent and very moving Requiem for a Friend over two haunted nights.

Extract ‘Requiem for a Friend’:

…For this is wrong, if anything is wrong: not to enlarge the freedom of a love with all the inner freedom one can summon. We need, in love, to practice only this: letting each other go. For holding on comes easily; we do not need to learn it.

Images: Painting of Clara by Paula / Painting of Rainer Maria Rilke by Paula / Paula and Clara

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. Otherwise known as M. One of...

Mon, 13 May 2013 18:28:14 +0100

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. Otherwise known as M.

One of his great works, is this. Restorers say he worked out the composition on the canvas. A more intuitive approach. Caravaggio, the great Italian Baroque painter, knew exactly what he was doing. He was telling a story with great emotional power through gesture and facial expression. No words were needed here.

This is the moment… the dramatic moment when Jesus Christ revealed his identity to two of his disciples. Beardless, they had not recognised him.

‘… he took bread, and blessed it, and brake and gave to them. And their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight’ (Luke 24: 30-31).

Caravaggio, Supper at Emmaus, 1601 (National Gallery London)

Go see it. Experience it.

The Best Picture in Italy? When asked who his favourite Old...

Fri, 10 May 2013 13:40:52 +0100

The Best Picture in Italy?

When asked who his favourite Old Master painter was, young British sculptor, John Wallbank immediately replied ‘Titian’. No hestitation. No competition. ‘He invented painterly painting. I admire the sketchiness and the pentimenti. He was not afraid to make mistakes and alterations.’

The Assumption of the Virgin panel for the high altar of the FrariChurch was Titian’s major breakthrough in Venice. His first major commission with which he could leave his mark and impress the ‘big cheeses’. This he did. The new heroic scale and dramatic gestures of the figures were new to painting and successfully established his popularity among patrons.

Titian stands alone. Few could then or can now compare to his majestic paintings full of colour and full of confidence. One after another. They just kept coming.

Upon seeing it, he young Oscar Wilde claimed the Assumption to be ‘certainly the best picture in Italy’.

The man who challenged reality And so it was that Rene Magritte...

Thu, 09 May 2013 20:30:22 +0100

The man who challenged reality

And so it was that Rene Magritte stepped forth into the (art) world. Through his paintings he strove to challenge one’s perception of reality. Through ambiguity and with wit. What you see is not what you expect. This Belgian had his own version of surrealist art. Day is night, night is day. A floating apple before the face of a man in a bowler hat. Illusions and dreams… and mystery.

Magritte on creating juxtapositions:

It is a union that suggests the essential mystery of the world. Art for me is not an end in itself, but a means of evoking that mystery.

A Brit who loved Italy Winifred Knights was a British painter....

Wed, 08 May 2013 20:02:12 +0100

A Brit who loved Italy

Winifred Knights was a British painter. After her studies at the Slade School of Fine Art in London she took a five year sojourn in Italy which proved inspiring and productive. Influenced by the Italian Primitives and Quattrocento painters, her art shows an integrity of composition and exploration of simplified form.

Although she pursued primarily religious themes, these landscapes of Italy and England, her two great loves, show a clarity and beauty all their own. Evocative and sensitive.

Cliffs at Beer, Devon, 1922 / Italian landscape near Lago, c.1920-23

To draw, you must close your eyes and sing. - Pablo Picasso

Tue, 07 May 2013 18:27:27 +0100

To draw, you must close your eyes and sing.

- Pablo Picasso

The Aussie who painted the Queen Australian Painter, Sir William...

Mon, 06 May 2013 12:13:00 +0100

The Aussie who painted the Queen

Australian Painter, Sir William Dargie holds the record for the most Archibald Prize wins.Eight in total. He was digging a trench in Tobruk, Libya when he was informed he won his first one. He was favoured by the Queen who requested he paint her portrait famously known as the Wattle Painting. She posed for him at Buckingham Palace.

It was a clear winter afternoon in London on4 November 1954, where portrait artist William Dargie waited nervously in a first-floor room at Buckingham Palace. Described by a newspaper of the time as ‘a chunky Australian in a smart blue suit’.

He didn’t have long to wait. Quite without warning, the doors opened and the newly-crowned Queen Elizabeth II swept in, looking ‘magnificent in her wattle gown and scintillating tiara’. She wore her hair loosely pinned back under the tiara, which had been given to her by her grandmother Queen Mary, complemented by a diamond necklace she had received as a wedding present from the Nizam of Hyderabad. Having already assembled his materials, Dargie pulled himself together, shook hands then waited for the Queen to pose as she wished.

As a young Melbourne lad Dargie met the established artists Arthur Streeton and Tom Roberts who inspired and encouraged him. He went on to lead a long and prestigious career, mostly as a portrait painter, but also served his country as an official war artist in the Second World War. We are proud of you mate.

The Yellow Couch, 1952 / The Wattle Painting, Queen Elizabeth II, 1954 / William Dargie / Hampstead Heath, 1956 / Official War Artist

Courbet in Exile After the Paris Commune and the scandal of the...

Sun, 05 May 2013 12:40:00 +0100

Courbet in Exile

After the Paris Commune and the scandal of the fall of the Vendome Column, Courbet was sentenced to crippling fines, impossible to pay. He chose exile over prison. He never saw Paris again. He lived the final years of his life in Switzerland. Here he painted some extraordinarily beautiful and evocative views of Lake Geneva.

In exile, in the year of his death, a man full of memories and melancholy, he wrote to James A McNeill Whistler: (February 14, 1877)

My dear Whistler,

It is quite a while since we last saw each other. It is a pity, for our ideas have changed. Where is the time, my friend, when we were happy and with no other cares but those of art. Do you remember Trouville and Jo who clowned around to amuse us? In the evening she used to sing Irish songs so beautifully, she had a feeling and talent for art. I also remember our stealthy move from the Casino to the Hotel de la Mer, where we went bathing on a frozen beach, and the salad bowls full of shrimp with fresh butter, not to mention the cutlet at lunch, which allowed us to paint the sky, the sea, and the fish all the way to the horizon. And our payment consisted of dreams and sky.

….

Yours sincerely, please answer me.

G. Courbet

The Devastation of Florence, 1966 In the early hours of 4th...

Sat, 04 May 2013 12:14:00 +0100

The Devastation of Florence, 1966

In the early hours of 4th November 1966, the river Arno in Florence overflowed to create the worst flood in the city since 1557. People were killed and hundreds of thousands of artworks were damaged or destroyed. The level of destruction witnessed that day was phenomenal and heart breaking.

Extract Things I Didn’t Know by Robert Hughes:

By dawn the water in the Santa Croce district of Florence was more than six meters above the pavement. And of course it wasn’t placid water either. It had come roaring into the ancient maze of alleys, narrow streets and cockeyed piazzas like a fire hose into a beehive. It created eddies and whirlpools, some of enormous force. It carried all sorts of debris before it. Cars were lifted up and dumped on other cars; they crashed through shop windows, demolished doorways, and knocked statues over. The water cascaded into elevator shafts and down basement stairs, and filled the cellars where Florentine householders had installed their tanks of heating-oil. These at once ruptured and released thick scum of oil to float on the turbulent surface. Whole sectors of the ancient city were impassable. And the rain continued to pelt down in sheets.

On site eyewitness account by Robert Hughes reporting for the BBC:

Florence was a scary and unfamiliar sight. It was as dark as the pit. It had no electricity, no streetlights, and (eeriest of all) few pedestrians; here and there, in a window, you could catch the glow of an oil lamp or a householder’s flashlight moving about, but that was all. The streets, mostly narrow to begin with, had been reduced to the merest gullies by the piles of mud and debris on either side, everything from plastic bottles to the twisted remains of Fiats or carts.

The floodwaters, racing in two opposite streams around the cathedral, had met in great boils and eddies between the cathedral facade and the front of the medieval Baptistery… The priest in charge of the cathedral Monsignor Poli described what he had seen. A ten foot wave of oily water had swept into Piazza del Duomo at about 7.30am. It mounted against Ghiberti’s ‘Doors of Paradise’ which Poli saw bending about nine inches inward under the water pressure. From his vantage point up on the Duomo’s facade, he could see the doors trembling as the current buffeted them and floating pews from the cathedral bashed into them. ‘Then suddenly, the ‘Doors of Paradise’ burst inward. It was so sudden. One moment my doors were there, and the next there was a big hole, and this terrible noise, like a scream. It was the bronze tearing apart. But I realised the doors were still upright and attached to the jambs when I saw the top panels falling out. It happened so slowly. They just fell out and dropped into the water’.

Inside the church of Santa Croce, the water rose to sixteen feet. The water came level to the top of Michelangelo’s sarcophagus. When we got there the water had drained away, but the church was still a sea of mud and rubble, the altar shattered, the tombs by Donatello and Desiderio da Settignano defaced, a continuous ring of high-watermark oil just below the Giotto frescoes in the Bardi and Peruzzi chapels - a black desolation lit by camera flashes.

Even writing this reduces me to tears. The thought of such devastation to such a magnificent city with all its glittering jewels of art masterpieces, the terrible stress on the citizens, the sheer scale of damage and destruction, is horrific.

But the Florentines did rally. The world had watched in disbelief and with great empathy. And so with great courage and in solidarity, concerned individuals and organisations around Italy and from all over the world, came in droves to help in the aftermath. They are now called the Mud Angels (Angeli del fango). Quite a story.

An amiable disageement An arrangement between friends resulted...

Fri, 03 May 2013 23:15:15 +0100

An amiable disageement

An arrangement between friends resulted in a portrait by the British Victorian artist Daniel Maclise of the great Charles Dickens. He sent a cheque to the artist, who in turn sent it back. But Dickens would not be denied.

Note to Charles Dickens

My dear Dickens, How could you think of sending me a cheque for what was to me a matter of gratification? I am almost inclined to be offended with you. May I not be permitted to give some proof of the value I attach to your friendship? I return the cheque, and regret that you should have thought it necessary to send it to yours faithfully, Daniel Maclise.

Note to Daniel Maclise

Do not be offended. I quite appreciate the feeling which induced you to return what I sent you; notwithstanding, I must ask you to take it back again. If I could have contemplated for an instant the selfish engrossment of so much of your time and extraordinary powers, I should have had no need (knowing you, I knew that well) to resort to the little device I played off.

I will take anything else from you at any time that you will give me, any scrap from your hand; but I entreat you not to disturb this matter. I am willing to be your debtor for anything else in the whole wide range of your art, as you shall very readily find whenever you put me to the proof.