Edouard Cortes (1882 - 1969), of French and Spanish ancestry, was born in Lagny-sur-Marne, a few miles east of Paris. His paintings express the romance, energy and charm of old Paris through his masterful application of bold brush strokes and intriguing colours. His works display the profound knowledge he held of perspective and composition. The viewer's eye is most often caught by fascinating details - the play of lights on wet pavement, shadows on streets and glowing windows and street lamps.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Claude Monet - The Seine at Bougival [1869]
Monet's subject is the foot of the bridge at Bougival connecting the left bank of the Seine to the Île de Croissy. In the late 1800s the site's scenic location and lush greenery made it a popular area for cafés and inns frequented by throngs of weekend visitors during the summer. Monet moved to Bougival in 1869 with Camille Doncieux, his future wife, and their son, Jean, who are depicted crossing the bridge.
This canvas is considered one of the outstanding achievements of Monet's early career, when he first became interested in plein air or out-of-doors painting. In choosing his subject, Monet decided not to paint the typical scene at Bougival, with its streets swarming with vacationers. Rather, he focused on the structure of the composition and the reflective and unifying quality of the light. Already evident are the key components of the Impressionist style: bold patches of colour, form as a function of colour, the development of two-dimensional space, and the exploration of light as it simultaneously reveals and disintegrates form. Monet's immediate response to nature is captured in an image which conveys fluttering leaves, flickering shadows on the bridge and the glistening surface of the Seine. The scene shimmers with movement.
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Jean Béraud - In The Studio
Jean Béraud (Saint Petersburg, January 12, 1849 – Paris, October 4, 1935) was a French Impressionist painter and commercial artist noted for his paintings of Parisian life. Towards the end of the 19th century, Béraud dedicated less time to his own painting but worked on numerous exhibition committees, including the Salon de la Société Nationale. Béraud never married and had no children. He died in Paris on October 4, 1935, and is buried in Montparnasse Cemetery beside his mother.
Joseph-Francois Ducq - Interior of an Artist's Studio with Couple Examining Engravings
Joseph-Francois Ducq - Interior of an Artist's Studio with Couple Examining Engravings, originally uploaded by Gandalf's Gallery.
Joseph-François Ducq was a Belgian painter. Ducq was born in Ledegem in 1762. After finishing his studies in Bruges he left to Paris with Joseph-Benoît Suvée. In 1792 Ducq returned to Bruges during the revolution. He stayed in Rome from 1807 to 1813 and became there the official painter at the court of Eugène de Beauharnais, the viceroy of Italy. He died in Bruges in 1829. Only a few of Ducq's paintings have survived and a few hundread of his studies.
Friday, January 7, 2011
Seymour Joseph Guy - Story of Golden Locks [c.1870]
Guy (American, 1824 – 1910) made a career of painting popular sentimental narratives with preadolescent girls as the protagonists. In this canvas, a girl reads the titular story to two little boys, presumably her brothers. Her menacing shadow on the attic bedroom's wall and the boys' wide eyes suggest that she is recounting the story's most frightening moment. Fairy tales were appreciated for their moral content at this time, and Goldilocks and the Three Bears was valued as warning children not to wander off on their own. Later interpreters of the tale, including the psychologist Bruno Bettelheim, have read in it a girl's fraught search for identity as she makes the transition from girlhood to womanhood. Guy's girl presents this very paradox - she creates a foreboding mood as she exudes calm and purity, which foretells her future success as a mother. Her doll is tucked into the box on the chair, which implies that she is ready to put away childhood games and assume an adult role.
[Oil on canvas, 86.4 x 71.1 cm]
[Oil on canvas, 86.4 x 71.1 cm]
Seymour Joseph Guy - Making A Train [1867]
In the same attic room that Guy (American, 1824 – 1910) portrayed in Story of Golden Locks, a girl turns her bedtime preparations into a flight of fancy as she imagines herself in the womanly splendour of a long gown. The narrative reflects the new belief that play and leisure were good for children, rather than wicked, and confirms feminine stereotypes at a time when womanhood seemed to be under attack by militant feminists. Reformers of the day, who worried about dirty and delinquent street children, may have appreciated the depiction of a clean, healthy, white girl in a modest home. The red, white, and blue triad, in the quilt and in the girl's dress, chemise, and headband, signals the subject's national implications. The commingling of sexual allure and girlish innocence was prevalent in Guy's era, as seen in photographs by Lewis Carroll and Julia Margaret Cameron.
[Oil on canvas, 46 x 61.3 cm]
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Alfred Morgan - An Omnibus Ride to Piccadilly (Mr Gladstone Travelling with Ordinary Passengers) [1885]
Alfred Morgan - An Omnibus Ride to Piccadilly (Mr Gladstone Travelling with Ordinary Passengers) [1885], originally uploaded by Gandalf's Gallery.
Alfred Morgan was an English painter. He exhibited from 1862 to 1904, at the Royal Academy from 1864 until 1904, British Institution, Suffolk Street, Grosvenor Gallery and elsewhere. His son Alfred Kedington Morgan was a painter.
William Ewart Gladstone (Liverpool, December 29, 1809 – Hawarden, May 19, 1898) was a British Liberal statesman. In a career lasting over sixty years, he served as Prime Minister four times. The Gladstone bag, a light travelling bag, was named after him.
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