Happy Birthday to Dorothea Lange

 

Happy Birthday to Dorothea Lange

May 26, 1895. Dorothea Lange (May 26, 1895 - October 11, 1965) was an American documentary photographer and photojournalist, best known for her Depression-era work for the Farm Security Administration (FSA). Lange's photographs humanized the consequences of the Great Depression and influenced the development of documentary photography. In this image: Dorothea Lange (1895-1965), Couple Seated on Porch, Gunlock, Utah, 1953, Gelatin silver print, Brigham Young University Museum of Art, purchased with funds donated by Jack and Mary Lois Wheatley. ©Dorothea Lange Collection, Oakland Museum of California, City of Oakland. Gift of Paul S. Taylor

"The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.” – Dorothea Lange

Beyond the Dust Bowl:  https://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/08/25/beyond-the-dustbowl-with-dorothea-lange/

Born in New Jersey and a survivor of polio, she walked with a limp, always finding empathy, even when she ran an upscale portrait studio in San Francisco in the 1920s (not long after her arrival on the West Coast). 

In the 1930s, her interest in social issues became evident, as seen in photos of bread lines and labor demonstrations in The City.

Soon after, she worked with University of California social scientist Paul Taylor, an expert in farm labor (whom she married), and together they famously documented migrants for the Farm Security Administration.

Equally evocative images emerged during World War II; Lange’s pictures of Japanese-Americans under internment are touching, particularly “One Nation Indivisible,” an interestingly cropped shot of Asian fifth graders reciting the pledge of allegiance at Raphael Weill Elementary School in San Francisco.

https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-6-things-dorothea-lange

Albrecht Dürer, Polymath star of the Northern European Renaissance

 

Among the masterpieces of European draftsmanship, this iconic self-portrait study evokes the awakening artistic consciousness of the twenty-two-year-old German Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer. Probably produced with the aid of a mirror, the head and the hand were preparatory for his painted Self-Portrait of 1493 (Musée du Louvre, Paris), considered one of the earliest independent self-portraits in Western painting. Durer’s exploration of self-portraiture in several drawings and paintings is characterized by an arresting directness that was highly unusual at the time. The artist’s calligraphic precision and expressiveness of line is also found in the study of a pillow at the bottom of the sheet, a subject that he continued to explore on the reverse.

Perfection of humanity as we were at moment before the Fall. As represented with infinite care in 1504 by Albrecht Dürer of Nuremberg. He was born May 21, 1471.

In 1513 his mother, to whom he was deeply attached, sickened and died a painful death, and Dürer produced three of his most densely detailed and symbolically fraught images, the engravings titled “Knight, Death and the Devil,” “St. Jerome in His Study” and “Melancolia I.”

Saint Jerome in his study, 1514. What atmosphere -- quiet, warm, sunny, & all done in b/w lines. Transcendent. Epitome of the engraver's art by the great Albrecht Dürer

Just a complete dandy in his 1498 self portrait. I mean, the cap! The braided strap! And the gloves!! Not to mention the long curly locks.

Albrecht Dürer does the face-of-Christ look in self-portrait. 1500

A supremely gifted and versatile German artist of the Renaissance period, Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) was born in the Franconian city of Nuremberg, one of the strongest artistic and commercial centers in Europe during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. He was a brilliant painter, draftsman, and writer, though his first and probably greatest artistic impact was in the medium of printmaking.

More than any other northern European artist, Dürer was engaged by the artistic practices and theoretical interests of Italy. He visited the country twice, from 1494 to 1495 and again from 1505 to 1507, absorbing firsthand some of the great works of the Italian Renaissance, as well as the classical heritage and theoretical writings of the region.

Dürer’s talent, ambition, and sharp, wide-ranging intellect earned him the attention and friendship of some of the most prominent figures in German society. He became official court artist to Holy Roman Emperors Maximilian I and his successor Charles V, for whom Dürer designed and helped execute a range of artistic projects. In Nuremberg, a vibrant center of humanism and one of the first to officially embrace the principles of the Reformation, Dürer had access to some of Europe’s outstanding theologians and scholars, including Erasmus (19.73.120), Philipp Melanchthon, and Willibald Pirkheimer, each captured by the artist in shrewd portraits. For Nuremberg’s town hall, the artist painted two panels of the Four Apostles (1526; Alte Pinakothek, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Munich), bearing texts in Martin Luther’s translation that pay tribute to the city’s adoption of Lutheranism. Hundreds of surviving drawings, letters, and diary entries document Dürer’s travels through Italy and the Netherlands (1520–21), attesting to his insistently scientific perspective and demanding artistic judgment.

The artist also cast a bold light on his own image through a number of striking self-portraits—drawn, painted, and printed. They reveal an increasingly successful and self-assured master, eager to assert his creative genius and inherent nobility, while still marked by a clear-eyed, often foreboding outlook. They provide us with the cumulative portrait of an extraordinary Northern European artist whose epitaph proclaimed: “Whatever was mortal in Albrecht Dürer lies beneath this mound.”

World Bee Day

 

Bees in their hives making honey #WorldBeeDay @BLMedieval BL Sloane 4016; Herbal; c.1440 CE; Italy, N. (Lombardy); f.57v

Bees gathering nectar and a bee-keeper gathering wax for the candle #WorldBeeDay BL Add 30337; Monte Cassino Exultet Roll; c.1075 CE; Italy, S. (Monte Cassino); f.10

For #WorldBeeDay pity these bees whose well kept hives are being attacked by this pair of naughty and very destructive honey-mad bears! (1Le Livre nommé Fleur de vertu, BnF ms. Français 1877, f. 21v)

Duccio. Founder of the Sienese School & one of the greatest Italian painters of the Middle Ages

 

The Maestà, Duccio's incredible altarpiece, commissioned by the city of Siena in 1308 for their cathedral, where it was installed in 1311.

The back of the Maestà

Ruccelai Madonna. 1285

Adoring? Or holding up the throne? One of the attending angels from Duccio's Ruccelai Madonna.

Duccio, in full Duccio di Buoninsegna, (born 13th century, Siena, Republic of Siena—died c. 1319, Siena?), one of the greatest Italian painters of the Middle Ages and the founder of the Sienese school. In Duccio’s art the formality of the Italo-Byzantine tradition, strengthened by a clearer understanding of its evolution from classical roots, is fused with the new spirituality of the Gothic style. Greatest of all his works is the Maestà (1311), the altarpiece of the Siena cathedral.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Duccio

Although much is still unconfirmed about Duccio and his life, there is more documentation of him and his life than of other Italian painters of his time. It is known that he was born and died in the city of Siena, and was also mostly active in the surrounding region of Tuscany. Other details of his early life and family are as uncertain, as much else in his history. 

One avenue to reconstructing Duccio's biography are the traces of him in archives that list when he ran up debts or incurred fines. Some records say he was married with 7 children. The relative abundance of archival mentions has led historians to believe that he had difficulties managing his life and his money. 

Another route to filling in Duccio's biography are by analyzing the works that can be attributed to him with certainty. Information can be obtained by analyzing his style, the date and location of the works, and more. Due to gaps where Duccio's name goes unmentioned in the Sienese records for years at a time, scholars speculate he may have traveled to Paris, Assisi and Rome. 

Nevertheless, his artistic talents were enough to overshadow his lack of organization as a citizen, and he became famous in his own lifetime. In the 14th century Duccio became one of the most favored and radical painters in Siena. 

Where Duccio studied, and with whom, is still a matter of great debate, but by analyzing his style and technique art historians have been able to limit the field. Many believe that he studied under Cimabue, while others think that maybe he had actually traveled to Constantinople himself and learned directly from a Byzantine master. 

Little is known of his painting career prior to his 1278 when at the age of 23, he is recorded as having painted twelve account book cases. Although Duccio was active from 1268 to about 1311 only approximately 13 of his works survive today. 

Of Duccio's surviving works, only two can be definitively dated. Both were major public commissions: the "Rucellai Madonna" (Galleria degli Uffizi), commissioned in April 1285 by the Compagnia del Laudesi di Maria Vergine for a chapel in Santa Maria Novella in Florence; and the Maestà commissioned for the high altar of Siena Cathedral in 1308, which Duccio completed by June 1311. 

Duccio's known works are on wood panel, painted in egg tempera and embellished with gold leaf. Different from his contemporaries and artists before him, Duccio was a master of tempera and managed to conquer the medium with delicacy and precision. There is no clear evidence that Duccio painted frescoes. 

Duccio’s style was similar to Byzantine art in some ways, with its gold backgrounds and familiar religious scenes, however it was also different and more experimental. Duccio began to break down the sharp lines of Byzantine art, and soften the figures. He used modeling (playing with light and dark colors) to reveal the figures underneath the heavy drapery; hands, faces, and feet became more rounded and three-dimensional. Duccio’s paintings are inviting and warm with color. His pieces consisted of many delicate details and were sometimes inlaid with jewels or ornamental fabrics. Duccio was also noted for his complex organization of space. He organized his characters specifically and purposefully. In his Rucellai Madonna (c. 1285) the viewer can see all of these qualities at play.

This is a part of the Wikipedia article used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 3.0 Unported License (CC-BY-SA). The full text of the article is here →

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duccio

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

Thomas Gainsborough, Baptized on this day in 1727

 

Blue Boy

Mrs Siddons

Mr and Mrs William Hallett

The Duchess of Beaufort

Baptized on May 14, 1727, Gainsborough became the most famous English landscape and portrait painter of the 18th century - surpassing his rival, Sir Joshua Reynolds. His fame came through his innovations and techniques  in both landscape and portraiture. Gainsborough’s work reflected the love of elegance, luxury and leisure of the 18th century aristocrats who could pay for his full sized  paintings to grace their drawing rooms But his most influential works were ones of idealized pastoral life in the rural countryside. 

Wooded Landsape

He was born in the spring of 1727 and christened on May 14. Perhaps due to his mother's penchant for painting flowers and encouraging her son's talent with a pencil, Gainsborough assembled a rather impressive portfolio at a young age. By 10, he had drawn some local village landscapes, and added caricatures and other facial studies.

His father was sufficiently impressed with his work to allow him to go to London, England, where he studied at an academy in St. Martin's Lane under the renowned William Hogarth and other masters known for etching, historical painting and portraiture.

During this time he fell in love with Margaret Burr, the illegitimate daughter of the Duke of Beaufort, and her dowry allowed him to set up a studio in Ipswich by the time he was 20. At first, he was not successful so he moved his wife and two daughters to Ipswich, He developed his painting style by studying the works of Van Dyke. 

But by 1774, he had become so successful that it was foolish not to be in London. He was one of the founding members of the Royal Academy, and not long after moving his family to the capital, he was summoned to the palace and began portraits of King George III and other nobles. Although the king was obliged to name his rival, Joshua Reynolds, as the official court painter, Gainsborough remained the favorite of the royal family.

"The art historian Michael Rosenthal described Gainsborough as "one of the most technically proficient and, at the same time, most experimental artists of his time". He was noted for the speed with which he applied paint, and he worked more from observations of nature (and of human nature) than from application of formal academic rules. The poetic sensibility of his paintings caused Constable to say, "On looking at them, we find tears in our eyes and know not what brings them."  Rosenthal, Michael. "Gainsborough, Thomas". Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press. Web.

He died on August 2, 1788 of cancer. 

http://www.theartstory.org/artist-gainsborough-thomas.htm

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

https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/artists/thomas-gainsborough

http://www.thomas-gainsborough.org

The modern Landsape: https://www.hamburger-kunsthalle.de/en/exhibitions/thomas-gainsborough

It's Friday. TGIF

 It's Friday!

#FridayFeeling

BL Add MS 24199,f. 18r

@BLMedieval. https://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Add_MS_24199

The Pigfish. The people say that this fish is born as a knight and puts on its piggish appearance secretly among the waves of the sea"

"There the dogfish is seen, opening wide its jaws"

"There is no creature on dry land whose likeness, from the navel upwards, may not be observed among the #fish of the ocean off #Britain"
"There is no creature on dry land whose likeness, from the navel upwards, may not be observed among the #fish of the ocean off #Britain" - Gervase of Tilbury, Otia Imperialia (c.1200) - Gervase of Tilbury, Otia Imperialia (c.1200)