06 Works, October 27h. is Sigrid Hjertén's day, her story, illustrated with footnotes #259

Sigrid Hjertén

The blue boat, c. 1934

Oil on canvas,

Private collection

Estimated for kr600,000 SEK - kr800,000 SEK in April 2012

Sigrid Hjertén

By the sea

Watercolor on paper

21 x 28.5 cm. 

Private collection

Estimate for 1,755 USD in Oct 2021

Sigrid Hjertén

Seated woman

Watercolor on paper

33 x 23.5 cm. 

Private collection

Sold for 75 000 SEK in May 2022

Sigrid Hjertén

Music group on summer meadow , c. 1927

Oil on canvas

92 x 73 cm

Private collection

Estimated for kr600,000 SEK - kr800,000 SEK in April 2012

Born to a middle-class family in Sundsvall, Sigrid Hjertén lost her mother at a very young age. She studied to be a drawing teacher at the Konstfack University College of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm, and in 1908 became a tapestry card designer for Giöbels, a decorative arts company. Encouraged by the young painter Isaac Grünewald, she joined the Matisse Academy in Paris, where she was able to enjoy the freedom that her situation as a young foreign artist gave her. Upon returning to Sweden in 1911, she married Grünewald. In 1912, her exhibition with the group De Atta (“the eight”) marked her official entry into the art world. She moved into a studio in Stockholm in 1913 with her husband, where caring for her young son restricted her to painting still lifes, figures, and outdoor views she saw from the window. Nevertheless, she tried her hand at a free form, between allegory and reality. Despite her involvement in numerous exhibitions throughout Europe between 1910 and 1920, most often with expressionist painters, she was lambasted by the critics who failed to understand her work on colour and stylised forms.

Sigrid Hjertén

Den gröna toquen

Oil on canvas

46 x 55.5 cm

Private collection

Sold for 180 000 SEK in May 2022

Sigrid Hjertén

Female act

Oil on canvas

55 x 45,5 cm

Private collection

Sold for 150 000 SEK in May 2022

In the 1920s the couple returned to Paris. As Hjertén’s paintings began to change and became more and more emotionally charged; some of them expressed the inner conflict she felt at being at once a wife, a mother, and an artist. Indeed, her husband’s career and raising her child left her with very little energy and time for her own work. Furthermore, Grünewald’s absence, due to organising his own exhibitions, left her very isolated. In 1932, the weakened painter returned to Sweden, where she made several stays at a psychiatric hospital. However, her pictorial production increased, as she reworked patterns from her previous paintings. She exhibited several times in the 1930s, and the Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm eventually held a retrospective exhibition of her work in 1936. The couple divorced in 1937, and Hjertén stopped painting a year later. After spending eleven years in a mental institution, she died from the consequences of a lobotomy. Hjertén is now considered one of the most innovative Swedish artists of the early 20th century. More on Sigrid Hjertén

Please visit my other blogs: Art Collector, Mythology, Marine Art, Portrait of a Lady, The Orientalist, Art of the Nude and The Canals of Venice, Middle East Artists, 365 Saints, 365 Days, and Biblical Icons, also visit my Boards on Pinterest

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07 Works, October 17th. is Childe Hassam's day, his story, illustrated with footnotes #258

Childe Hassam (American, 1859–1935)

The Water Garden, c. 1909

Oil on canvas

24 x 36 in. (61 x 91.4 cm)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

This landscape, with its strong rhythmic composition, flattened space, and tapestry-like application of paint, illustrates the modification of Hassam's style at the turn of the century when he absorbed Post-Impressionist developments. The painting is thought to have been executed on the property of a friend in East Hampton who had a beautiful lily pond surrounded by irises. More on this painting

Childe Hassam (American, 1859–1935)

Avenue of the Allies, Great Britain, c. 1918

Oil on canvas

36 x 28 3/8 in. (91.4 x 72.1 cm)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The only major American Impressionist to depict the home front during World War I, Hassam produced his Flag series, some thirty canvases representing Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue and adjacent streets decorated with patriotic emblems, from 1916 to 1919. For Liberty Loan drives, organized by the United States government to promote the sale of savings bonds, stretches of Fifth Avenue were draped with flags and red-and-white Liberty Loan banners. Here, Hassam looked north from Fifty-Third Street and compressed into a vibrant pattern three blocks of the avenue bearing flags of the Allies Great Britain, Brazil, and Belgium in addition to the Stars and Stripes. More on this painting

Childe Hassam, 1859 - 1935

Flags on 57th Street, Winter 1918

Oil on canvas

36 ¼ by 24 inches (92.1 by 61 cm)

Private collection

Sold for 12,328,500 USD in May 2021

“There was that Preparedness Day, and I looked up the avenue and saw these wonderful flags, waving, and I painted the series of Flag Pictures after that.” Childe Hassam.

the flag paintings—including Flags on 57th Street, Winter 1918—were critically and popularly acclaimed during Hassam’s lifetime, recognized as brilliant portrayals of a rapidly modernizing country and its entry into its first World War. More on this painting

Childe Hassam, 1859 - 1935

The Fourth of July, c. 1916

Oil on canvas

36 × 26 1/4 in. (91.4 × 66.7 cm)

New-York Historical Society

This painting by Childe Hassam depicts Fifth Avenue bedecked with dozens of American flags in celebration of Independence Day in 1916. The artist was a committed supporter of the Preparedness Movement, which advocated for a strengthened national defense after the outbreak of war in Europe in July 1914. Proponents of the cause staged parades in cities across the country for the next two years. Witnessing one such parade in May 1916, Hassam commented: “. . . I looked up the Avenue and saw those wonderful flags waving, and I painted a series of flag pictures after that.” More on this painting

Childe Hassam

Quai St. Michel, c. 1888

Oil on canvas

21 3/4 by 28 in., (55.3 by 71.1 cm)

Private collection

At center we see a young woman in elegant attire examining volumes in one of a half-dozen or so portable book stalls, watched over by a matronly proprietress who absent-mindedly tends to her knitting. The background is enlivened by groups of passers-by, including those crossing a bridge, and what appears to be a pair of workers leaning over a parapet to watch the steam barges on the river below. Street and sidewalk glisten as if in the aftermath of a passing downpour and, indeed, the figures of father and child seem dressed for rain, while the elegant young lady appears to carry a furled umbrella. Beyond the bridge to the right appears a group of tall buildings, and what may be a low, metal-roofed street market with the added details of colorful banners and an advertising kiosk. More on this painting

Childe Hassam (American, 1859–1935)

Mrs. Hassam and Her Sister, c. 1889

Oil on canvas

9 13/16 x 6 1/8 in. (24.9 x 15.6 cm)

Terra Foundation for American Art

The artist’s wife, born Kathleen Maude Doane, and her sister Cora, Mrs. George H. Cotton, are the subjects of Childe Hassam’s image of leisure life in his Parisian studio-residence. Mrs. Hassam is absorbed in reading while her sister, her back to the viewer, plays an upright piano in a bare-floored space cluttered with chairs, paintings, and vases of flowers. To underscore the private informality of the scene, Hassam posed the women in semi-undress, clad in evening undergarments incongruously mixed, in Mrs. Hassam’s case, with long yellow evening gloves and the black shoes and stockings of daytime wear. The casual nature of this image, together with its somewhat tipped-up perspective and broken brushstrokes, document Hassam’s gradual absorption in the late 1880s of the strategies of impressionism, which championed the painting of modern subjects with a rapid, evident technique to capture the transient effects of light and movement. The personal nature of this work may explain why it remained in the artist’s possession throughout his life. More on this painting

Childe Hassam  (1859–1935)

Lillie (Lillie Langtry), circa 1898

Watercolor and gouache on paperboard

24 1/4 x 19 3/4 in. (61.7 x 50.2 cm)

Smithsonian American Art Museum

Emilie Charlotte, Lady de Bathe (née Le Breton, formerly Langtry; 13 October 1853 – 12 February 1929), known as Lillie (or Lily) Langtry and nicknamed "The Jersey Lily", was a British socialite, stage actress and producer.

Born on the island of Jersey, upon marrying she moved to London in 1876. Her looks and personality attracted interest, commentary, and invitations from artists and society hostesses, and she was celebrated as a young woman of great beauty and charm. During the aesthetic movement in England she was painted by aesthete artists, and in 1882 she became the poster-girl for Pears Soap, becoming the first celebrity to endorse a commercial product.

In 1881, Langtry became an actress and made her West End debut in the comedy She Stoops to Conquer, causing a sensation in London by becoming the first socialite to appear on stage. She would go on to star in many plays in both the United Kingdom and the United States. From the mid-1890s until 1919 Langtry lived at Regal Lodge at Newmarket in Suffolk, England, where she maintained a successful horse racing stable; the Lillie Langtry Stakes horse race is named after her.

One of the most glamorous British women of her era, Langtry was the subject of widespread public and media interest. Her acquaintances in London included Oscar Wilde, who encouraged Langtry to pursue acting. She was known for her relationships with royal figures and noblemen, including the future King Edward VII, Lord Shrewsbury, and Prince Louis of Battenberg. More on Lillie (Lillie Langtry). More on Lillie (Lillie Langtry)

Childe Hassam (1859–1935), was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts. Equally adept at capturing the excitement of modern cities and the charms of country retreats, Hassam became the foremost chronicler of New York City at the turn of the century. In our day, he is perhaps best known for his depictions of flag-draped Fifth Avenue during World War I. His finest works manifest his brilliant handling of color and light.

After establishing his reputation in Boston between 1882 and 1886, Hassam studied from 1886 to 1889 in Paris. There he was unusual among his American contemporaries in his attraction to French Impressionism, which was just beginning to find favor with American collectors. Hassam returned to the United States late in 1889 and took up lifelong residence in New York. His signature images include views of Boston, Paris, and New York, three urban centers whose places and pleasures he captured with affection and originality. 

While Hassam was unusual among the American Impressionists for his frequent depictions of burgeoning cities, he spent long periods in the countryside. There he found respite from urban pressures and inspiration for numerous important works of art. Hassam’s many portrayals of the old-fashioned gardens, rocky coast, and radiant sunlight of the Isles of Shoals, Maine. Among them is the 1901 view Coast Scene, Isles of Shoals, the first canvas by the artist to enter the collection of the Metropolitan Museum. Hassam’s images of Newport, Portsmouth, Old Lyme, Gloucester, and other New England locales also exemplify the late nineteenth-century appreciation of the picturesque region redolent of early American settlement and colonial growth. In 1919, Hassam and his wife purchased a colonial-period house in East Hampton, on the south fork of Long Island, New York, and made it their summer headquarters.

Hassam created more than 2,000 oils, watercolors, pastels, and illustrations, and—after 1912—more than 400 etchings and other prints. With these works he achieved critical acclaim and commercial success, riding the great wave of enthusiasm for American Impressionism to fame and fortune. More on Childe Hassam

Please visit my other blogs: Art Collector, Mythology, Marine Art, Portrait of a Lady, The Orientalist, Art of the Nude and The Canals of Venice, Middle East Artists, 365 Saints, 365 Days, and Biblical Icons, also visit my Boards on Pinterest

Images are copyright of their respective owners, assignees or others. Some Images may be subject to copyright

I don't own any of these images - credit is always given when due unless it is unknown to me. if I post your images without your permission, please tell me.

I do not sell art, art prints, framed posters or reproductions. Ads are shown only to compensate the hosting expenses.

If you enjoyed this post, please share with friends and family.

Thank you for visiting my blog and also for liking its posts and pages.

Please note that the content of this post primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online.

10 Works, September 27th. is Jean-Baptiste Nattier's day, his story, illustrated with footnotes #212

Jean-Baptiste Nattier (27 September 1678, Paris - 23 May 1726, Paris) was a French history painter.

His father was the portrait painter, Marc Nattier and his mother was the miniaturist, Marie Courtois. His brother, Jean-Marc Nattier, also became a painter. Both brothers received their first art lessons from their father.

Jean-Baptiste Nattier  (1678–1726)

Joseph and Potiphar’s wife, c. 1711

Oil on canvas

73,5x92 cm

Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg

Joseph was taken to Egypt by the Ishmaelite traders, he was purchased by Potiphar, an Egyptian officer. Potiphar was captain of the guard for Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. Joseph works hard for his master, Potʹi·phar. So when Joseph grows older, Potʹi·phar puts him in charge of his whole house. 

Joseph was a very handsome and well-built young man, and Potiphar’s wife soon began to look at him lustfully. “Come and sleep with me,” she demanded. Joseph refused. “Look,” he told her, “my master trusts me with everything in his entire household. No one here has more authority than I do. He has held back nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How could I do such a wicked thing? It would be a great sin against God.”

So when her husband comes home, she lies to him and says: ‘Joseph tried to lie down with me!’ Potʹi·phar believes his wife, and he is very angry with Joseph. So he has him thrown into prison. More on Joseph and Potiphar

Attributed to Jean Baptiste Nattier (French, 1678–1726)

Cimon and Pero

Oil on Canvas

95.5 x 74.5 cm. (37.6 x 29.3 in.)

Private collection

Roman Charity is the exemplary story of a woman, Pero, who secretly breastfeeds her father, Cimon, after he is incarcerated and sentenced to death by starvation. She is found out by a jailer, but her act of selflessness impresses officials and wins her father's release.

The story is recorded by the ancient Roman historian Valerius Maximus, and was presented as a great act of filial piety and Roman honour. A painting in the Temple of Pietas depicted the scene. Among Romans, the theme had mythological echoes in Juno's breastfeeding of the adult Hercules, an Etruscan myth. More on Roman Charity

From 1704 to 1709, he studied at the Académie de France à Rome and, in 1712, was received as a member of the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture upon presentation of his painting, Joseph sollicité par la femme de Putiphar (See above). 

Jean-Baptiste Nattier (1678-1726)

The Death of Adonis, c. 1718

Oil on shaped canvas made up to a rectangle

34 x 41in. (87.6 x 106cm.)

Private collection

Sold for USD 30,000 in Jun 2020

In Greek mythology, Adonis was the god of beauty and desire. Originally, he was a god worshipped in the area of Phoenicia (modern – day Lebanon), but was later adopted by the Greeks. According to the most popular belief, he was the son of Theias, king of Syria, and Myrrha (also known as Smyrna), Theias’ daughter.

Adonis was a great hunter and Artemis got jealous of his hunting skills. So Artemis sent a wild boar which eventually killed Adonis in one of his hunting expeditions. A different version of the myth has it that the boar was sent by Ares, as he was the lover of Aphrodite. Adonis bled to death in Aphrodite’s arms. Anemones sprang out of the tears of Aphrodite while she was mourning the death of her lover.  More on the Death of Adonis

Jean Baptiste Nattier

Boreas Abducting Oreithyia

Oil on canvas

100 x 90 cm

Private collection

Estimate for 26,000 - 35,000 EUR in November 2021

Failing to win the hand of the lovely Athenian princess Orethyia, one of the daughters of King Erechtheus, by gentle means, Boreas, the cold wind god of the North, decided to revert to his true nature of wildness and cold rage. The story is told by Ovid in the sixth book of the Metamorphoses, and Nattier admirably evokes the passion and fury of the tale. Boreas swoops down, concealed by dark and stormy clouds, and forcibly snatches up Oreithyia. Boreas carried her back to his northern realm, where she later bore him twin sons. More on Boreas Abducting Oreithyia

Jean-Baptiste Nattier  (1678–1726)

Romulus being taken up to Olympus by Mars

Oil on canvas

99 × 96.5 cm (38.9 × 37.9 in)

Museum of John Paul II Collection

The time came for Romulus to hand on the new Roman state to his successor; Mars therefore called a council of the gods, and proposed that the founder of Rome should be transformed into a god, which Jupiter approved.

With Romulus now the Roman god Quirinus, Hersilia, his queen, mourned his loss. Juno therefore instructed Iris to descend and invite Hersilia to join Romulus/Quirinus on Olympus.

Only Jean-Baptiste Nattier painted the apotheosis of the founder of Rome, in his Romulus being taken up to Olympus by Mars from about 1700. Mars is embracing Romulus, with the standard of Rome being borne at the lower left, and the divine chariot ready to take Romulus up to the upper right corner, where the rest of the gods await him. More on this painting

With this and training from his father and uncle he became an award-winning artist. He became well know for depicting his woman subjects in portraits as mythological goddesses. Examples of such can be seen in the Uffizi Gallery in his works, Henriette of France as Flora and, Marie Adelaide of France as Diana. Henriette (1727 – 1752) was the first daughter of King Louis XV and Queen Maria Leczinska of France and Marie Adelaide (1732 – 1800) their third. Both portraits show near perfect depictions of his subjects’ likeness, while still rendering a mythological ambience in the work. He also completed more straight-forward portraits of the Queen of France, Maria Leczinska (See below).

French School, 18th Century, Circle Jean Baptiste Nattier

Cleopatra

Oval canvas

87.5 x 77 cm

Private collection

Cleopatra VII Philopator (69 – August 12, 30 BC), was the last active pharaoh of Ptolemaic Egypt, briefly survived as pharaoh by her son Caesarion. After her reign, Egypt became a province of the recently established Roman Empire.

Cleopatra was a member of the Ptolemaic dynasty, a family of Macedonian Greek origin that ruled Egypt after Alexander the Great's death. The Ptolemies spoke Greek throughout their dynasty, and refused to speak Egyptian, which is the reason that Greek as well as Egyptian languages were used on official court documents such as the Rosetta Stone. By contrast, Cleopatra did learn to speak Egyptian and represented herself as the reincarnation of the Egyptian goddess Isis.

Cleopatra originally ruled jointly with her father Ptolemy XII Auletes, and later with her brothers Ptolemy XIII and Ptolemy XIV, whom she married as per Egyptian custom, but eventually she became sole ruler. As pharaoh, she consummated a liaison with Julius Caesar that solidified her grip on the throne.

After Caesar's assassination in 44 BC, she aligned with Mark Antony in opposition to Caesar's legal heir Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus (later known as Augustus). With Antony, she bore the twins Cleopatra Selene II and Alexander Helio. Antony committed suicide after losing the Battle of Actium to Octavian's forces, and Cleopatra followed suit. According to tradition, she killed herself by means of an asp bite on August 12, 30 BC. More on Cleopatra

Nattier rose to prominence after executing engravings of Peter Paul Rebuns’, Marie de Medicis Cycle, and also in painting portraits of  Peter the Great, The Russian Tsar (1672 – 1725) (See below) and his wife the Empress Catherine (1684 – 1727) in Amsterdam (Encyclopedia Britannica). He was also commissioned by Peter the Great to paint historical works such as, Battle of Pultawa and The Battle of Lesnaya.

Attributed to Jean-Marc Nattier  (1685–1766)

Portrait of Peter I (1672–1725)

Oil on canvas Edit this at Wikidata

Height: 142.5 cm (56.1 in); Width: 110 cm (43.3 in)

Hermitage Museum  

Peter the Great , Peter I, ruled the Tsardom of Russia and later the Russian Empire from 7 May 1682 until his death in 1725, jointly ruling before 1696 with his elder half-brother, Ivan V.

Through a number of successful wars, he expanded the Tsardom into a much larger empire that became a major European power, that also laid the groundwork for the Imperial Russian Navy after capturing ports at Azov and the Baltic Sea. More on Peter I.

Jean Marc Nattier

The Battle of the Forest/ Battle of Lesnaya, 1717 

Pushkin Museum

The Battle of Lesnaya was one of the major battles of the Great Northern War. It took place between a Russian army commanded by Peter I of Russia, and a Swedish army commanded by Adam Ludwig Lewenhaupt and Berndt Otto Stackelberg.. The Swedes were escorting a supply column of more than 4,500 wagons for their main army in Ukraine. More on The Battle of Lesnaya 

Jean-Baptiste Nattier (1678-1726)

Portrait of Marie Rose Larlan de Rochefort, Marquise de Nétumières, c. 1748

Oil on canvas

39 ½ x 31 ½ in. (100.2 x 80.6 cm.)

Private collection

Nattier’s portrait of the Marquise de Nétumières was painted when the sitter was about 30 years old, and many of its delights are particular to the artist’s sumptuous yet modest portrayal of her. Despite the agitated excitement of the little black hound barking on her lap, her expression conveys a calm and direct openness and intelligence, and an inviting warmth of personality that accounts for much of the painting’s appeal. The beautiful, nuanced rendering of fabrics, subtle palette of various dark blues – including ‘Nattier Blue’, the color that still carries the artist’s name – and chocolate browns, and the gently rendered fall of natural light all contribute to its allure. The warm sfumato that envelops the marquise heightens the creaminess of her complexion, creating soft atmospheric effects that emphasize her refined beauty and function as a metaphor for the sweet charm of the sitter’s character that her contemporaries often cited. More on this painting

He painted many portraits, another of which is in the Uffizi Gallery; Marie Zephirine of France (See below), a granddaughter of King Louis XV, who died at only five years old. Nattier was an official portraitist for the King’s daughters and their children.

Jean-Baptiste Nattier (1678-1726)

Portrait of Princess Marie Zéphyrine of France (1750-1755), c. 1751

Oil on canvas

Height: 70.0 cm; Width: 82.0 cm

Uffizi Gallery

Marie Zéphyrine of France was a Daughter of France, the daughter of Louis, Dauphin of France, and Maria Josepha of Saxony.

Marie Zéphyrine died at Versailles due to an attack of convulsions, in the early hours of the morning of 2 September, having been baptised just days before by the Abbot of Chabannes. She was not officially mourned; a Daughter of France could only be mourned if she was over the age of 7. She was buried at the Royal Basilica of Saint Denis outside the capital of Paris. More on Marie Zéphyrine

He became involved the sexual scandals surrounding Benjamin Deschauffour, who was convicted for operating a pederastic network and executed. Nattier was imprisoned in the Bastille and his membership in the Académie was rescinded. Rather than suffer the fate of Deschauffour (whose corpse was publicly burned in the Place de Grève), he committed suicide by cutting his throat with an oyster knife.

His professional belongings at the Acadėmie were returned to his family. More on Jean-Baptiste Nattier

Please visit my other blogs: Art Collector, Mythology, Marine Art, Portrait of a Lady, The Orientalist, Art of the Nude and The Canals of Venice, Middle East Artists, 365 Saints, 365 Days, and Biblical Icons, also visit my Boards on Pinterest

Images are copyright of their respective owners, assignees or others. Some Images may be subject to copyright

I don't own any of these images - credit is always given when due unless it is unknown to me. if I post your images without your permission, please tell me.

I do not sell art, art prints, framed posters or reproductions. Ads are shown only to compensate the hosting expenses.

If you enjoyed this post, please share with friends and family.

Thank you for visiting my blog and also for liking its posts and pages.

Please note that the content of this post primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online.

10 Works, September 21st. is Kurt Jackson day, his story, illustrated with footnotes #207

Kurt Jackson (born 21 September 1961)

Punching through, c. 2022

RNLI Cornwall 

Mixed media on canvas.

91 x 91cm.

Jackson foundation

For sales at £24,000 in September 2023

RNLI Cornwall features over 75 paintings varying in scale from postcard sized pieces to large canvasses measured in metres that capture the familiar sight of the blue and orange of the charity’s lifeboats nestled into Cornish harbours and coastlines, and lifeguards at the centre of Cornish beaches scenes. features over 75 paintings varying in scale from postcard sized pieces to large canvasses measured in metres that capture the familiar sight of the blue and orange of the charity’s lifeboats nestled into Cornish harbours and coastlines, and lifeguards at the centre of Cornish beaches scenes. More on the RNLI Cornwall 

Kurt Jackson (born 21 September 1961) 

Dark river, Fowey lifeboat, c. 2022

Mixed media on museum board.

22 x 22cm.

Jackson foundation

For sale at £3,500 in September 2023

Kurt Jackson (born 21 September 1961) 

Newlyn Lifeboat in the fishing fleet, c. 2020

Mixed media on museum board.

22 x 22cm.

Private collection

Descending from one of Cornwall’s first lifeboat stations, in nearby Penzance, the Penlee Lifeboat Station in Newlyn has a rich and proud heritage of saving lives at sea.

Today, two lifeboats are based in port – The Ivan Ellen is an All-Weather Severn Class and The Mollie & Ivor Dent is an Inshore B-Class Atlantic 85. More on Penlee Lifeboat Station

Kurt Jackson (born 21 September 1961) is a British painter whose large canvases reflect a concern with natural history, ecology and environmental issues.

Kurt Jackson (born 21 September 1961) 

Sun and Rain, Strong Winds, Drilling Carnsew Mine, c. 1998–1999

Acrylic on paper

H 58 x W 77.5 cm

University of Exeter

Carnsew Quarry, based on the edge of the Carnmenellis Granite intrusion, produces a silver grey granite in a full range of sizes. Colas Ltd has shipped aggregates and armour stone from this quarry via the nearby Port of Falmouth and Carnsew Granite has been used in several rock armour projects along the south coast. More on the Carnsew Mine

Kurt Jackson (born 21 September 1961) 

Washing in the Sunshine, c. 2018

From Clay Country Series

Mixed media on paper

H 57 x W 61 cm

Worcester City Art Gallery & Museum (Museums Worcestershire)

Kurt Jackson's Clay Country is a body of work centred around Cornwall’s industrial clay mines. Jackson captures the essence of this hidden part of the Cornish landscape, where for centuries clay mining has shaped the culture, heritage and landscape. For Clay Country, Jackson worked in situ at the Littlejohns clay works, an enormous pit that covers over 500 acres with a circumference of around 15 miles. He observed workers in the pit using massive machines to extract and transport china clay, set in an extraordinary man-made landscape. More on Kurt Jackson's Clay Country

Born in Blandford, Dorset, the son of two painters, he developed an early interest in natural history and landscape. He studied zoology at St Peter's College, Oxford, but spent most of his time attending classes at The Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art or painting in the countryside around Oxford. In 1984 he and his wife Caroline Jackson moved to Cornwall; currently (2014), he lives and works near St Just, Penwith.

Kurt Jackson (born 21 September 1961) 

Caroline & Zinzi in front of Nornour, St Martins, Scilly, c. 1999

Mixed media

18 x 18cm

Private collection

Sold for £1,250 in Jun 2023

The Eastern Isles are a group of twelve small uninhabited islands within the Isles of Scilly Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, part of the Scilly Heritage Coast and a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) first designated in 1971 for its flora and fauna. They have a long period of occupation from the Bronze Age with cairns and entrance graves through to Iron Age field systems and a Roman shrine on Nornour. Before the 19th century, the islands were known by their Cornish name, which had also become the name of the largest island in the group after the submergence of the connecting lands. More on The Eastern Isles

He has been Artist in Residence on the Greenpeace ship Esperanza, at the Eden Project and at Glastonbury Festival since 1999. He has an Honorary Doctorate (DLitt) from Exeter University and is an Honorary Fellow of St Peter's College, Oxford University. He is an ambassador for Survival International and frequently works with Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, WaterAid, Oxfam, Surfers Against Sewage and Cornwall Wildlife Trust.[citation needed] He is an academician of the Royal West of England Academy.

Kurt Jackson (born 21 September 1961) 

Above Gwenver lifeguards’ hut, hottest day of the year, c.  2022

Mixed media on museum board.

60 x 60cm.

Private collection

Gwenver's name is derived from Gwynevere of Authurian legend. Situated at the base of a grassy cliff the beach is just about secluded and in-accessible enough to not get really crowded.

The beach itself is sandy and around 150 metres long. At high tide the beach slopes steeply into the sea and can be dangerous, at low tide Gwenver joins up with Sennen beach

On a clear day the Scilly Isles can be easily made out from the beach as can the nearby Brisons rocks 1 mile off the coast of Cape Cornwall. More on Gwenver

Kurt Jackson (born 21 September 1961) 

Catch the Light

Oil & mixed media on canvas

H 152.4 x W 152.4 cm

University of Exeter

Jackson's work is a contemporary manifestation of this tradition, exceptional in its all-around scope, its variety, richness, quality and, on occasions, sheer scale. His oeuvre as a whole is an immense, consistent achievement. More on Jackson's work

Kurt Jackson (born 21 September 1961) 

There is Only Me and a Crow on this Beach, Below Tangy, Evening, Distant Jura and Ireland, c. 2012-2022

Mixed media on museum board

H:60cm W:60cm

Private collection

For sale at £9,600 in September 2023

Jura is an island in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland, adjacent to and northeast of Islay. Jura is more sparsely populated than Islay, and is one of the least densely populated islands of Scotland: in a list of the islands of Scotland ranked by size, Jura comes eighth, whereas by population it comes 31st. The island is mountainous, bare and largely infertile, covered by extensive areas of blanket bog. More on Jura

Kurt Jackson (born 21 September 1961) 

Sennen Cove, late afternoon, 1989

Watercolour

10.75 x 11.75 in.

Private collection

Sold for £850 GBP in September 2013

Sennen Cove is a small coastal village in the parish of Sennen in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. According to the Penwith District Council, the population of this settlement was estimated at 180 persons in 2000. The South West Coast Path passes through Sennen Cove. More on Sennen Cove

The majority of Jackson's work reflects his commitment to the environment and the natural world within Cornwall, although he also works elsewhere in Britain and mainland Europe; recent projects include bodies of work on the Thames, the Avon, the Forth, Ardnamurchan and the Glastonbury Festival series. His paintings frequently carry small commentaries on the scene depicted and show a fascination particularly with the detail of plants and animals within an overall ecology and evoke a calm, spiritual and warm relationship with the landscape, even of apparently bleak scenes. His work has been described as "uplifting" and "transporting". To quote Robert Macfarlane "the bristling of landscape is Kurt Jackson's subject as an artist, and his brilliance as an artist lies in the success with which he represents his subject. More on Kurt Jackson

Please visit my other blogs: Art Collector, Mythology, Marine Art, Portrait of a Lady, The Orientalist, Art of the Nude and The Canals of Venice, Middle East Artists, 365 Saints, 365 Days, and Biblical Icons, also visit my Boards on Pinterest

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15 Works, May 2nd. is artist Charles Gleyre's day, his story, illustrated with footnotes #121

Gleyre, Charles 1806–1874.

Pentheus, Hunted by the Maenads, c. 1865

Oil on canvas

121.7 × 200.7cm.

Öffentliche Kunstsammlung, Basel

The Bacchae; also known as The Bacchantes is an ancient Greek tragedy.

The tragedy is based on the Greek myth of King Pentheus of Thebes and his mother Agave, and their punishment by the god Dionysus. The god Dionysus appears at the beginning of the play and proclaims that he has arrived in Thebes to avenge the slander, which has been repeated by his aunts, that he is not the son of Zeus. In response, he intends to introduce Dionysian rites into the city, and he intends to demonstrate to the king, Pentheus, and to Thebes that he was indeed born a god. At the end of the play, Pentheus is torn apart by the women of Thebes and his mother Agave bears his head on a pike to her father Cadmus. More on this painting

Marc Gabriel Charles Gleyre (2 May 1806 – 5 May 1874), was a Swiss artist who was a resident in France from an early age. He took over the studio of Paul Delaroche in 1843 and taught a number of younger artists who became prominent, including Henry-Lionel Brioux, George du Maurier, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Louis-Frederic Schützenberger, Alfred Sisley, Auguste Toulmouche, and James Abbott McNeill Whistler.

Charles Gleyre

ULYSSES AND NAUSICAA

Oil on canvas

61 by 83.5cm., 24 by 33in 

Private collection

Nausicaa is a character in Homer's Odyssey. She is the daughter of King Alcinous and Queen Arete of Phaeacia. 

In Book Six of the Odyssey, Odysseus is shipwrecked on the coast of the island of Phaeacia. Nausicaä and her handmaidens go to the seashore to wash clothes. Awakened by their games, Odysseus emerges from the forest and begs Nausicaä for aid.

During his stay, Odysseus recounts his adventures to Alcinous and his court. This recounting forms a substantial portion of the Odyssey. He is then generously provided Odysseus with the ships that finally bring him home to Ithaca. More on Odysseus and Nausicaa

Gleyre was born in Chevilly, near Lausanne. His parents died when he was eight or nine years old, and he was brought up by an uncle in Lyon, France, who sent him to the city's industrial school. He began his formal artistic education in Lyon under Bonnefond, before moving to Paris, where he enrolled at the École des Beaux-Arts under Hersent. He also attended the Academie Suisse and studied watercolour technique in the studio of Richard Parkes Bonington. He then went to Italy, where he became acquainted with Horace Vernet and Louis Léopold Robert.

Charles Gleyre

Hercules and Omphale. c. 1862

Oil on canvas
I have no further description, at this time

Hercules and Omphale. Wishing to expiate the murder of one of his friends, Hercules consulted the oracle of Apollo, who advised him to enter the service of Omphale, Queen of Lydia. Although Hercules was the son of Zeus and was famed for his invincible strength, he submitted to the tasks the queen devised for him to expiate his crime. Omphale fell in love with Hercules for his strength and physical beauty, and the couple married. This tale, found in both Greek and Roman mythology, is told with a number of variations. It proved a great source of inspiration for French and Italian Mannerist painters, as well as the Venetian artists who influenced Lemoyne. François Boucher also painted a version of the same love scene. More on Hercules and Omphale

It was through Vernet's recommendation that he was chosen by the American traveller John Lowell Jr. to accompany him on his journeys round the eastern Mediterranean, recording the scenes and ethnographic subjects they met with. They left Italy in spring 1834 and visited Greece, Turkey and Egypt, where they remained together until November 1835, when Lowell left for India. Gleyre continued his travels around Egypt and Syria, not returning to France until 1838. He returned to Lyons in shattered health, having been attacked with ophthalmia, or inflammation of the eye, in Cairo, and struck down by fever in Lebanon.

Charles Gleyre

Diana leaving the Bath, 19th century

 Oil on canvas

I have no further description, at this time

Charles Gleyre (Chevilly, 1806 - Paris, 1874)

Etude d’un Nubien (Study of a Nubian), between 1835 and 1837

Graphite and oil on paper

28.2 x 22.1 cm

Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts de Lausanne

Charles Gleyre had been in Rome for five years when, in spring 1834, he had the opportunity to live the dream that obsessed all Romantics: to travel to the Orient, to discover the monuments of Ancient Egypt and meet its famously ‘exotic’ people. His Italian career had ground to a halt and he was living precariously, so he leapt at the chance of working as a draughtsman and documentarian for John Lowell Jr., an industrialist from Boston. Their journey took them from Italy to Greece and on to Asia Minor, then finally to Egypt and Sudan. The artist produced over 150 drawings and watercolours, among them many measured archaeological drawings. More on this painting

On his recovery he proceeded to Paris, and, establishing a modest studio in the rue de Université, began carefully to work out the ideas which had been slowly shaping themselves in his mind. Mention is made of two decorative panels Diana leaving the Bath (See above), and a Young Nubian (See above) as almost the first fruits of his genius; but these did not attract public attention until much later, and the painting by which he practically opened his artistic career was the Apocalyptic Vision of St John, sent to the Salon of 1840. This was followed in 1843 by Evening, which received a medal of the second class, and afterwards became widely popular under the title Lost Illusions. It depicts a poet seated on the bank of a river, with his head drooping and a wearied posture, letting his lyre slip from a careless hand, and gazing sadly at a bright company of maidens whose song is slowly dying from his ear as their boat is borne slowly from his sight.

Marc-Charles-Gabriel Gleyre  (1806–1874)

La Danse des bacchantes/ The Dance of the Bacchantes, c. 1849

Oil on canvas

Height: 147 cm (57.8 in); Width: 243 cm (95.6 in)

Vaud Museum of Fine Arts 

The Dance of the Bacchantes, the last painting by Gleyre exhibited publicly in Paris (at the Salon of 1849), came as a surprise to enthusiasts of bacchanals, which had been a traditional subject since the days of Titian and Poussin. Bacchus, Silenus and the satyrs are all absent, and the painting is therefore neither mythological nor fabulous, but rather historical and religious. Gleyre paints a mysterious, wild and exclusively female ritual, captured in very precise draughtsmanship and a smooth technique producing what one critic calls the strange effect of a “choreography, which is both noble and unbridled, frenzied and rhythmic”. More on this painting

Marc-Charles-Gabriel Gleyre  (1806–1874)

The Departure of the Apostles to Preach the Gospel, c.1845

Oil on canvas

Girodet de Montargis museum

The subject is his invention. We do not find in the Texts any mention of a gathering of the twelve apostles on Golgotha ​​(Matthias having replaced Judas). Raised in a Protestant culture, the artist intends to express here the importance of the apostolic mission.

Marc-Charles-Gabriel Gleyre  (1806–1874)

Le Retour De L'enfant Prodigue, c. 1873

Oil on canvas

Height: 197 cm (77.5 in); Width: 146 cm (57.4 in)

Vaud Museum of Fine Arts

The Parable of the Prodigal Son is one of the parables of Jesus Christ, which he shares it with his disciples, the Pharisees and others.

 

In the story, a father has two sons. The younger son asks for his inheritance and after wasting his fortune, becomes destitute. He returns home with the intention of begging his father to be made one of his hired servants, expecting his relationship with his father is likely severed. The father welcomes him back and celebrates his return. The older son refuses to participate. The father reminds the older son that one day he will inherit everything. But, they should still celebrate the return of the younger son because he was lost and is now found. More on the prodigal son

In spite of the success of these first ventures, Gleyre retired from public competition, and spent the rest of his life in quiet devotion to his artistic ideals, neither seeking the easy applause of the crowd, nor turning his art into a means of aggrandizement and wealth. After 1845, when he exhibited the Separation of the Apostles (See above), he contributed nothing to the Salon except the Dance of the Bacchantes in 1849 (See above). Yet he worked steadily and was productive. He had an "infinite capacity of taking pains", and when asked by what method he attained to such marvelous perfection of workmanship, he would reply, "En y pensant toujours". Many years often intervened between the first conception of a piece and its embodiment, and years not infrequently between the first and the final stage of the embodiment itself. A landscape was apparently finished; even his fellow artists would consider it done; Gleyre alone was conscious that he had not "found his sky".

Marc-Charles-Gabriel Gleyre  (1806–1874)

Dipinto Les Brigands romains/ The Roman Brigands, c. 1831

Oil on canvas

Marc-Charles-Gabriel Gleyre  (1806–1874)

Le coucher de Sappho/ The Sunset of Sapho, c. 1867

Oil on canvas

Height: 108 cm (42.5 in); Width: 72 cm (28.3 in)

Vaud Museum of Fine Arts  

Sappho (c. 630 – c. 570 BC) was an archaic Greek poet from the island of Lesbos. Sappho's poetry was lyric poetry, and she is best known for her poems about love. 

Little is known of Sappho's life. She was from a wealthy family from Lesbos. Ancient sources say that she had three brothers; the names of two of them are mentioned in the Brothers Poem discovered in 2014. She was exiled to Sicily around 600 BC, and may have continued to work until around 570.

Sappho's poetry was well-known and greatly admired through much of antiquity, and she was among the nine lyric poets deemed major by scholars of Hellenistic Alexandria. Today, Sappho's poetry is still considered extraordinary, and her works have continued to influence other writers up until the modern day. Outside of academic circles, she is perhaps best known as a symbol of same-sex desire, particularly between women.  More on Sappho

In the second half of the 19th century, painters found in the representation of everyday life in the Greco-Roman period a way of reconciliation between the neoclassical and romantic heritages. The Neo-Greeks, young people like Jean-Léon Gérôme or Jean-Louis Hamon, through Gleyre's workshop, turn away from heroic deeds in favor of sentimental and anecdotal scenes, treated in large formats. The imagination of this new generation is nourished by the excavations carried out in Pompeii and in Greece, where the exhumation of modest objects provides the necessary accessories for a more intimate evocation of the past. More on this painting

Gleyre became influential as a teacher, taking over the studio of studio of Paul Delaroche – then the leading private teaching atelier in Paris – in 1843. His students included Jean-Léon Gérôme, Jean-Louis Hamon, Auguste Toulmouche, Whistler and several of the Impressionists: Monet, Renoir, Sisley, and Bazille. He did not charge his students a fee, although he expected them to contribute towards the rent and the payment of models. They were also given a say in the running of the school.

Charles Gleyre (Chevilly, 1806 - Paris, 1874)

Femme turque (Dudo Narikos)/ Turkish woman (Dudo Narikos), c. 1840

Oil on canvas

41 x 33 cm

Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts de Lausanne

On his return to Paris in 1838 after a lengthy journey in the Mediterranean in the pay of the American John Lowell Jr., Charles Gleyre decided to build his clientele by working in the fashionable Orientalist genre. 

Femme turque is typical of the work Gleyre intended to produce based on his Oriental material. It is a version in oils of a watercolour painted six years earlier in Smyrna, where Gleyre and Lowell had spent part of autumn 1834. More on this painting

Charles Gleyre

Turkish and Arab horsemen

Oil on canvas

Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts de Lausanne

Though he lived in almost complete retirement from public life, he took a keen interest in politics, and was a voracious reader of political journals. For a time, under Louis Philippe, his studio had been the rendezvous of a sort of liberal club. To the last—amid all the disasters that befell his country—he was hopeful of the future, "la raison finira bien par avoir raison". It was while on a visit to the Retrospective Exhibition, opened on behalf of the exiles from Alsace and Lorraine, that he died suddenly on 5 May 1874. He had never married.

Charles Gleyre (Chevilly, 1806 - Paris, 1874)

The Deluge/ The Flood, 1856

Oil and pastel on canvas

99.5 x 197 cm

Cantonal Museum of Fine Arts of Lausanne

Gleyre innovates for this representation of the Flood, a biblical myth which tells the origin of the new humanity. The artist offers a large panoramic landscape, immersed in semi-darkness punctuated by rocks with strange shapes, illuminated in the background by the intense light of a dawn. Here is manifested an attraction for desert expanses, constant in Gleyre since his trip to the East in the 1830s.

The painting shows the new face of the Earth after the waters receded. In the distance, the ark is stopped at the top of Mount Ararat; to open its doors, it awaits the return of the dove which hovers in the foreground. On the right, the body of the serpent wrapped around a trunk symbolizes victory over evil. The center of the composition is occupied by two superb angels, immobilized in flight, and as if stunned to see life resurface in the fresh olive branches springing from a stump. More on this painting

Marc-Charles-Gabriel Gleyre  (1806–1874)

Evening or Lost Illusions, c. 1843

Oil on canvas

Height: 39.5 cm (15.5 in); Width: 67.5 cm (26.5 in)

The Winterthur Museum of Art

Lost Illusions depicts a vision Gleyre experienced one evening while on the banks of the Nile. It represents a despondent scene and uses softened tones. In the scene, an aging poet watches as a mysterious "bark" drifts away with his youthful illusions. The illusions are represented by maidens playing instruments and a cupid scattering flowers. More on this painting

Charles Gleyre (Chevilly, 1806 - Paris, 1874)

Les Romains passant sous le joug/ Romans Passing under the Yoke or La bataille du Léman/ The Battle of Léman, c. 1858

Oil on canvas, 230.5 x 181.4 cm

Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts de Lausanne

Les Romains passant sous le joug refers to the defeat in 107 BC of the Consul Lucius Cassius and his Roman legion by the Helvetians under their chief Divico. The Celts fighting against the invader replace Davel, the solitary hero, and thus a high deed of classical Antiquity, recounted by Julius Caesar in The Gallic Wars, replaces a revolt in modern Swiss history. The work was to become an icon for Switzerland as the young country sought after 1848 to generate unity through myths promoting a sense of national identity. More on this painting

He left unfinished the Earthly Paradise, a picture, which Taine described as "a dream of innocence, of happiness and of beauty—Adam and Eve standing in the sublime and joyous landscape of a paradise enclosed in mountains", a worthy counterpart to the Evening (See above). His other works include Deluge  (See above), which represents two angels speeding above the desolate earth from which the destroying waters have just begun to retire, leaving visible behind them the ruin they have wrought; the Battle of the Lemanus, a piece of elaborate design, crowded but not encumbered with figures, and giving fine expression to the movements of the various bands of combatants and fugitives; the Prodigal Son, in which the artist has ventured to add to the parable the new element of mother's love, greeting the repentant youth with a welcome that shows that the mother's heart thinks less of the repentance than of the return; Ruth and Boaz; Ulysses and Nausicaa; Hercules at the Feet of Omphale; the Young Athenian, or, as it is popularly called, Sappho; Minerva and the Nymphs; Venus and Adonis; Daphnis and Chloë; and Love and the Parcae. He also left a considerable number of drawings and watercolours, and a number of portraits, among which is the sad face of Heinrich Heine, engraved in the Revue des deux mondes for April 1852. In Clement's catalogue of his works there are 683 entries, including sketches and studies. More on Charles Gleyre

Please visit my other blogs: Art Collector, Mythology, Marine Art, Portrait of a Lady, The Orientalist, Art of the Nude and The Canals of Venice, Middle East Artists, 365 Saints and 365 Days, also visit my Boards on Pinterest

Images are copyright of their respective owners, assignees or others. Some Images may be subject to copyright

I don't own any of these images - credit is always given when due unless it is unknown to me. if I post your images without your permission, please tell me.

I do not sell art, art prints, framed posters or reproductions. Ads are shown only to compensate the hosting expenses.

If you enjoyed this post, please share with friends and family.

Thank you for visiting my blog and also for liking its posts and pages.

Please note that the content of this post primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online.