Giovanna Garzoni, Botanical painter of exquisite still lives

Hedgehog. Oak leaves. Chestnuts. And a snail! From Giovanna Garzoni (1600-1670, of course, because it's her day. @69quietgirl

At a time when other women artists of the 16th and 17th centuries, such as Artemisia Gentileschi, are being reappraised, it’s appropriate to pay new attention to Garzoni’s quieter but nonetheless compelling art, which embodies a powerful sense of curiosity about the giddying variety of the natural world and distills it into images of great sophistication and immense charm.

A snail moving right along beside a pile of grapes and pears, by Giovanna Garzoni in 1651

Three pomegranates. Two shells. One stag beetle. Brought together & painted by Giovanna Garzoni

Flowers emerge exuberantly from a dusky vase that reflects the Garzoni's window

Today's artist without a (known) birthday: Giovanna Garzoni, painter of portraits but best known for her still lifes. Here by herself, c. 1660, w/ a portrait -- perhaps of herself in youth?

She was born into an artistic family in Ascoli Piceno in the Marche and worked in a number of cities in the Italian peninsula cities, always attracting distinguished patronage. Visits to Rome enabled her to connect with the antiquarian and collector Cassiano dal Pozzo and the circle around the scientific Accademia dei Lincei, which was founded in 1603 and valued empirical, observational research (it was named after the lynx, a creature renowned for its sharp vision). She was encouraged to dedicate herself to botanical painting and although her reputation chiefly now rests on the still lives created in this context, her output was very varied, including portraits, miniatures, depictions of sacred and mythic themes, calligraphy and copies of Old Masters. From 1625 Garzoni was in Venice and five years later she found employment in Naples, serving at the court of the Spanish Duke of Alcalá. Turning north again, from 1632 to 1637 she worked in Turin, in the employ of the Duke of Savoy.  The style of still-life painting she perfected, working in gouache on vellum, was characterized by brilliant colors; the forms of blooms and fruit were usually built up meticulously with minute dots of paint and it was through such a precise technique that she was able to convey an unerring sensitivity to nuances of texture and form. She must have worked slowly and the fruit and flowers matured under her gaze; leaves wither, figs split open, cherries and peaches are at their most splendid, and strawberries and artichokes have to be eaten soon. Her paintings are carefully composed, often with a strong decorative sensibility, and feature a fascinating combination of native flora and fauna along with exotic additions that allude to the wealth and horticultural skills of her Medici patrons. She never married. Toward the end of her life, she settled in Rome, where she died at the age of 70 (February 1670).

June, the month of harvest in the medieval calendar

 

June is near and time to get out the scythes and harvest the hay.

#medievalcalendar

BL Lansdowne 383; the 'Shaftesbury Psalter'; 12th century; England; f.5v 

@BLMedieval

June is the time for sheep shearing and the harvesting of hay is assigned to July. 

Bodleian Library MS. Auct. D. 2. 6; c. 1140; England; f.4r   @BDLSS

Lyubov Sergeyevna Popova

 A sad day in May:  

Died on May 25 in 1924: Lyubov Sergeyevna Popova

Normally I don't note artists' deaths but Popova was one of the most talented artists who died during the chaos created by the Russian Revolution. Given how little encouragement she was given by the new regime and how harsh life was, it's a miracle that we have any of her work. May 25, 1924. Lyubov Sergeyevna Popova was a Russian avant-garde artist (Cubist, Suprematist and Constructivist), painter and designer. She was also a rarity in the highly masculine world of Soviet art. In 1918 Popova married the art historian Boris von Eding, and gave birth to a son. Von Eding died the following year of typhoid fever. Popova was also seriously ill but recovered. In this image: Air+Man+Space, 1912. 

First, a brief biography: Liubov Popova was born in 1889. Her father was a textile merchant and performing arts patron, and her mother belonged to a prominent, cultured family. She studied at private art studios in Moscow beginning in 1907, making lifelong friendships with future members of the Constructivist group.

Popova traveled extensively during the pre-World War I period, absorbing past and present art: Mikhail Vrubel’s religious Symbolism from the 1880s at the Church of St. Cyril, Kiev (1909); early Renaissance painting during lengthy trips throughout Italy (1910 and 1914); medieval icon painting in Novgorod, Pskov, and other ancient Russian cities (1910-12); the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg (1911); and Sergei Shchukin’s collection of modern French masters (1912); She and Nadezha Udaltsova lived together in Paris (1912-13), studying at La Palette under Cubists Jean Metzinger and Henri Le Fauconnier, where additionally, she first saw Futurist art and was particularly inspired by Boccioni. In 1916 she explored Islamic architecture in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.

Since she was rediscovered in the ‘70s, Popova has benefited from much scholarly research and several excellent museum exhibitions and monographs. The exhibitions have included liubov popova at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1991, which traveled through 1992; Amazons of the Avant-Garde at the Guggenheim Museum, New York, which traveled from 1999-2001; Rodchenko and Popova: Defining Constructivism at Tate Modern, London, 2009, which traveled into 2010; and Women’s Power: Sisters of the Revolution, Russia 1907–1934 at the Groninger Museum, Netherlands, 2013.

In 1924, her young son died of scarlet fever during another virulent epidemic, and Liubov Popova died four days later, at age 35. She was vivacious, audacious, and passionately political, a meteor. After Lenin’s death in 1924 and Stalin’s subsequent rise to power, Popova’s colleagues either emigrated or adapted to the changed circumstances, producing the Socialist Realist art demanded by the regime. She was never faced with that choice.  Joyce Kozloff, Hyperallergic

Mary Cassatt. Artist du Jour

Boating party, 1893. Of course baby is along and nobody has a life jacket. Living dangerously, with Mary Cassatt, born OTD 1844.

Cassatt, the daughter of a wealthy Pennsylvania businessman, became a student at the Pennsylvania Academy in 1861 and by 1866, moved to Paris. Her teas were a mecca for younger women artists, she was generous with introductions and her professional commitment was an inspiration.

Unlike Alcott, whom Chadwick has paired her with in her discussion of 19^th century American women, Cassatt avoided the conflicts facing the woman artist by her wealth, class position, her strong personality and her refusal to marry. Other women were caught within an ideology of sexual difference which gave privileges to males and often forced women to choose between marriage and a career.

It was Degas who encouraged Cassatt to exhibit with the Impressionists after the Salon rejected her work. “At last I could work with complete independence without concerning myself with the eventual judgment of a jury. I already knew who were my true masters. I admired Maent, Courbet, and Degas. I hated conventional art. I began to live.” Degas was equally impressed by Cassatt's work, declaring “There is a woman who feels things like me.” Thereafter, Cassatt was the only American who was invited to show work with the group who exhibited under the name, Societté Anonyme. Cassatt regularly exhibited her work with the French Impressionists, contributing paintings in 1879, 1880, 1881, and to the last exhibition in 1886. (Mary Cassatt's contributions ...)

Little girl in a blue armchair (Wikiart)...http://mentalfloss.com/article/65011/15-things-you-should-know-about-little-girl-blue-armchair

"...Cassatt had completely absorbed from her Impressionist colleagues Caillebotte, Degas, and Renoir, as well as her study of Japanese prints, the modern idea that the background of a painting might be as significant as the foreground. She understood that establishing a tension between the two would capture the immediacy of vision, as well as mimic or falsify by turns, the focal shifts of human sight and perception. Thus the space and the objects in Portrait of a Little Girl that surround the figure seem to be in motion; the floor lifts up, and the chairs appear to have slid into various, almost accidental positions, not unlike that of the young girl. These changing elements affect our perception of the painting's psychological subtext: in contrast to [one] made clear by ... direct, outward gaze, that of Cassatt's "subject" is more complicated and elusive; the little girl's sideways glance, which avoids ours, makes her independent of us. She is in a world of her own, one that adults could fully understand only by recapturing their childhood personae."

- From "Mary Cassatt: Modern Woman", by Judith A. Barter

Further reading on Mary Cassatt

    * Mary Cassatt: Modern Woman, edited by Judith A. Barter. Catalog from the blockbuster show of 1998. 

https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/cast/hd_cast.htm

http://www.theartstory.org/artist-cassatt-mary.htm

Jacob Jordaens

 

Born on this day back in 1593: Jacob Jordaens

May 19, 1593. ANTWERP.- Jacob Jordaens was one of three Flemish Baroque painters, along with Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony van Dyck, to bring prestige to the Antwerp school of painting. Unlike those contemporaries he never traveled abroad to study Italian painting, and his career is marked by an indifference to their intellectual and courtly aspirations. In fact, except for a few short trips to locations in the Low Countries, he remained in Antwerp his entire life. As well as being a successful painter, he was a prominent designer of tapestries. In this image: Jacob Jordaens. The King Drinks. c.1640.

Jacob Jordaens Self-Portrait with Parents, Brothers, and Sisters. c. 1615. Oil on canvas. The Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Russia. Web Gallery of Art

Abduction of Europa, Jacob Jordaens, 1615/16, Gemäldegalerie Berlin

Jacob Jordaens, As the Old Sang, So the Young Pipe. National Gallery of Canada

From the time of Peter Paul Rubens's death in 1640 until 1660, Jacob Jordaens was in greater demand than any other artist in northern Europe. He remained Antwerp's leading figure painter until his death. Unlike most of his contemporaries, Jordaens never went to Italy; he was born and lived his whole life in Antwerp, where he and his friend Rubens shared the same teacher.

In the 1620s Jordaens built a flourishing studio while also frequently assisting Rubens. His style is based on Rubens's exuberance, with stronger chiaroscuro and thicker impasto. Despite converting from Catholicism to Calvinism in mid-life, Jordaens received numerous commissions for Catholic churches. A masterful technician, Jordaens' prolific output includes altarpieces, portraits, genre, and mythological scenes. He also produced watercolors, tapestry designs, and engravings. His late works include large genre scenes of drinking parties. The Getty, http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/artists/355/jacob-jordaens-flemish-1593-1678/

Holy Family with Shepherds

The date of 1616 on the tall shepherd’s hat is the earliest known on any work by Jordaens. He never went to Italy but intensified the Caravaggesque qualities found in works by Rubens and other Antwerp artists such as Abraham Janssens. His handling of light and shadow and closely clustered figure groups convey a sense of intimacy that is distinctive of the young Jordaens. The Met.  http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436798
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Jordaens

Tamara Lempicka. Born on this day in 1898

May 16, 1898. Tamara Lempicka (born Maria Górska; 16 May 1898 - 18 March 1980), also known as Tamara de Lempicka, was a Polish painter active in the 1920s and 1930s, who spent her working life in France and the United States. She is best known for her polished Art-Deco portraits of aristocrats and the wealthy, and for her highly stylized paintings of nudes. In this image: A man stands beside the painting "M. Tadeusz Lempicki" during the exhibition of works of art made by Tamara de Lempicka which opened at the Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City.

Tamara de Lempicka was the lone traditional easel painter in the entirety of the Art Deco style. Her sources of inspiration ranged dramatically: she adored Italian Renaissance painting; she was characterized by critics as a sort of modern-day Ingres, although the comparisons were more often not intended to flatter; she absorbed the avant garde art of the era - particularly post-cubist abstraction but of a "softened" style. Perhaps most influential was Lempicka's desire to capitalize on her social connections to create a niche for her portraiture, which most often featured well-to-do, cosmopolitan types. The Art Deco style, lavish in a less visually complex way than its predecessor, Art Nouveau, was probably the ideal vehicle for her trendy style. Most notably, despite its decorative quality, her work provided her with an outlet for unconventional self-expression: truly a product of her era, the libertine golden age between the two world wars, Lempicka, a bisexual, made bold, liberated female sexuality the linchpin of her art.

In both her life and her art, Tamara de Lempicka offered a new image of the modern woman: part jazz-age femme fatale, libertine and social climber, and part canny self-promoter, self-styled experimental artist and astute cultural and historical prognosticator. In many ways, Lempicka's artistic output has been assessed as inseparable from her larger-than-life character and, more significantly, her gender. Her work, while arguably Cubist-inspired to an extent, exudes the lavishness of the decorative, just as do her sitters. Finding her niche - a comfortable place between traditional easel painting inspired by the likes of Michelangelo, Caravaggio, and Ingres and objects produced solely for decoration - Tamara de Lempicka's Art Deco style has been an inspiration to figures as diverse as the singer and designer Florence Welch and fashion designers Karl Lagerfeld and Louis Vuitton.

https://www.theartstory.org/artist-de-lempicka-tamara.htm

Her wild life:  https://theculturetrip.com/europe/poland/articles/art-deco-icon-the-alluring-mystique-of-tamara-de-lempicka/

 https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-tamara-de-lempickas-glamorous-portraits-transfix-contemporary-audiences

Claricia, 13th-century German illuminator who included a self-portrait in a South German psalter

 

Claricia or Clarica was a 13th-century German illuminator. She is noted for including a self-portrait in a South German psalter of c. 1200, now in The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. In the self-portrait, she depicts herself as swinging from the tail of a letter Q. Additionally, she inscribed her name over her head.

Feminist studies in the field of literature and medieval art such as Whitney Chadwick and Dorothy Miner uncovered Claricia's work in one of her manuscripts. "Claricia’s hand is just one of several in this manuscript, leading Dorothy Miner to conclude on the basis of her dress – uncovered head, braided hair, and a close-fitting tunic under a long-waisted dress with long tapering points hanging from the sleeves – that she was probably a lay student at the convent."

There is controversy regarding Claricia's occupation. Scholars such as Miner believe that Claricia was a lay woman - possibly a high-born lady - active in a convent scriptorium in Augsburg. Some, however, rejected that she was employed as a convent assistant, noting that the language of the psalm was derogatory.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claricia

Thomas Gainsborough. 18th century English portrait and landscape painter.

 

Historical hottie du jour: Gainsborough Dupont. Took art lessons from his uncle Thomas Gainsborough, whose birthday is today.

May 14, 1727. Thomas Gainsborough FRSA (14 May 1727 (baptized) - 2 August 1788) was an English portrait and landscape painter, draughtsman, and printmaker. He surpassed his rival Sir Joshua Reynolds to become the dominant British portraitist of the second half of the 18th century. 

In this image: Thomas Gainsborough (1727 - 1788), Holywells Park, um 1748 - 1750. Öl auf Leinwand, 50,8 x 66 cm. Ipswich Museum and Gallery © Ipswich Museum and Gallery.

To the casual museum goer, Georgian portraiture conjures stiff, self-satisfied images of frilly costumes and gravity-defying hairdos. The art of Thomas Gainsborough (1727-88), however, like that of his contemporary Joshua Reynolds, was more than smooth finishes and frippery.  (WSJ) 

Among the portraits Thomas Gainsborough painted while living in Bath is a small likeness of a young boy in shirt and waistcoat, clutching a handful of paintbrushes and glancing anxiously out of the feigned oval in which he’s framed. The boy – dubbed ‘the Pitminster Boy’, for the small Somerset village he came from – was one of Gainsborough’s studio assistants, a local lad who used to carry the artist’s materials and pass him brushes when he went into the countryside to paint landscapes. The portrait is hastily done, but the expressiveness Gainsborough captures in the boy’s face – the hesitation around the selection of a brush – indicates the remarkable attention he paid to the way people around him looked.  (Apollo Magazine) 

 He was the most versatile English painter of the 18th century. Some of his early portraits show the sitters grouped in a landscape (Mr. and Mrs. Andrews, c. 1750). As he became famous and his sitters fashionable, he adopted a more formal manner that owed something to Anthony Van Dyck (The Blue Boy, c. 1770). His landscapes are of idyllic scenes. During his last years he also painted seascapes and idealized full-size pictures of rustics and country children.  BBC History:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/gainsborough_thomas.shtml .......Ten things to know about The Blue Boy: http://mentalfloss.com/article/67427/15-things-you-might-not-know-about-blue-boy.,....   About Gainsborough  http://www.gainsborough.org/about/about-thomas-gainsborough/

Gainsborough painted some of the most ambitious and memorable portraits, 'fancy pictures' and landscapes in British art – just look at his flamboyant portrait of the celebrated actor Mrs Siddons and the masterly Watering Place, inspired by a much-admired landscape of the same name by Peter Paul Rubens. 

Yet it is the beautifully observed images of the artist’s family – particularly his children – that seem to appeal most to us now. Gainsborough painted these portraits for himself, unhindered by the demands of a patron or sitter, which may explain why some are unfinished. And unlike other portraits, here Gainsborough knew intimately the people he was painting, their characters, moods, gestures and expressions.

Surviving letters confirm that Gainsborough doted on his children. When they left Bath in 1764 to attend Blacklands School in Chelsea, he really missed them, writing frequently while they were away. This fatherly affection shines through these portraits.

The National Gallery is extremely lucky to have two of the five double portraits of Mary and Margaret.  https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/gainsboroughs-daughters