(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
2
According to a great historian, Dr S R Gardiner, much of the best literature of the early nineteenth century was inspired by the ‘better side’ of the French Revolution, ‘its preference of the natural to the artificial, and of humble to the exalted’. This same preference is clearly visible in the art of George Morland (1763-1804).
Morland, who was born in London on June 26, 1763, was the son and the grandson of artists. His father, Henry Robert Morland (1730-97), discovered his son’s talent at an early age, and proceeded to force it with unparalleled avarice and tyranny, so that his unfortunate son had no life at all outside the garret in which he was kept earning money for the needy household. George Morland began drawing when he was three, at the age of ten he was exhibiting in the Royal Academy; but while his hand and his eyes were trained to accomplish remarkable feats of painting, the rest of his education was absolutely neglected, so that he grew up empty-headed, with a great longing to escape the paternal tyranny and be able to enjoy himself.
Inevitably, when he did at last break away from his father, he plunged into dissipation, and divided his time between drinking and painting. In 1786 he married and pulled himself together for a time, but he was so fond of his liberty that he refused an offer from Romney of £300 a year for three years to be his assistant, and preferred to ramble about the country painting rustic scenes and spending too much time and money in alehouses.
For a little while, before his health was ruined by drink, he was in easy circumstances, for his paintings of domestic scenes and farm life were exceedingly popular, and he was better known to the people than any of his august contemporaries. All his principal works were engraved, and these colored prints after Morland’s pictures found their way into many humble homes. It is probable that his well known painting at the National Gallery, ‘The Interior of a Stable’, was painted about 1791, which would nearly coincide with the period of Morland’s greatest prosperity. The stable is said to be that of the White Lion Inn at Paddington, where Morland once had as many as eight horses, but partly owing to his drinking habits and partly owing to his unbusinesslike methods his prosperity soon dwindled.
Nothwithstanding his dissipation—and a day rarely passed in which he was not drunk—he was not idle, for Morland was the author of four thousand pictures and of a still greater number of drawings. But his intemperance and his dependence on dealers gradually improverished his art, and the man who had a genuine love and understanding of countrylife, and ought to have been one of the world’s greatest rustic painters, sank into ‘pot boiling’, painting what the dealers wanted instead of what he wanted to do himself. His terms were four guineas a day—and his drink! Morland had got into the state when he ‘didn’t care,’ though in his sober moments he must have seen the irony and impropriety of a man of his character painting Hogarthian moralities like ‘The Fruits of Early Industry,’ ‘The Effects of Extravagance and Idleness,’ and so forth. Indeed, these in his own day were Morland’s most popular works, and though some of them show the degeneration of his drawing, and his carelessness in their ‘wooly’ rendering of form, even to the end a little painting more carefully handled and jewel-like in color will now and again show what a great painter he might have been. His last miserable years, 1800-4, were spent in debtor’s prison, yet even here, with a brandy bottle always handy, he was still industrious, and for one dealer alone during this period he painted one hundred and ninety two pictures. At the early age of forty one George Morland died, completely wrecked, the victim of his own want of education and of roguish employers.
The Rise Of Landscape Painting (continued)
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Saturday, February 09, 2008
Coffee Update
Kenneth Davids reviews Colombian coffee lots for its magic mix and match of balance and completeness + other viewpoints @ http://www.coffeereview.com/article.cfm?ID=141
Useful link:
www.juanvaldez.com
Useful link:
www.juanvaldez.com
Fire Obsidian
The experts (using analytical instruments) believe fire obsidian colors are due to the result of light reflecting off thin layers within the material that contain nanometric magnetite crystals + the combination of layer thickness/difference in refractive index causes optical interference giving rise to the spectacular colors.
Useful link:
http://authors.library.caltech.edu/9084
Useful link:
http://authors.library.caltech.edu/9084
Global Economy
According to Warren Buffett, the head of the Berkshire Hathaway Inc, the U.S. dollar will continue to slide because of the huge current account deficit (trade deficit) + force feeding a couple billion a day to the rest of the world is inconsistent with a stable dollar + if the U.S. current account deficit keeps running at current levels, the dollar is certain to be worth less in 5 or 10 years from now against other major currencies such as the Euro and the Canadian dollar + many of the banks who marketed complex investments (the people that brewed this toxic Kool-Aid found themselves drinking a lot of it in the end) which have now crashed are bearing much of the fallout + the ripple effect is dramatic (once somebody says the emperor has no clothes, people start looking at the individuals around them to see whether they've got some of the same/as I've said in the past, it's only when the tide goes out that you find who has been swimming naked/well, the tide has gone out and it has not been a pretty sight) + as for a recession, the United States will do very well over time, despite setbacks such as wars and market bubbles, the country goes forward.
I believe his views are perceived as NFL(near flawless) in the business world + his business operating system is also unique (favors companies with relatively simple businesses, strong management, consistent earnings, good returns on equity, and little debt).
The gem and jewelry sector may have a lot to learn from Warren Buffet.
I believe his views are perceived as NFL(near flawless) in the business world + his business operating system is also unique (favors companies with relatively simple businesses, strong management, consistent earnings, good returns on equity, and little debt).
The gem and jewelry sector may have a lot to learn from Warren Buffet.
Behavioral Trading
Behavioral Trading: Methods for Measuring Investor Confidence and Expectations and Market Trends by Woody Dorsey is a fascinating book that examines various approaches people use toward making money in the market + the Triunity Theory, a new system for understanding behavioral finance + the application of philosophical knowledge and principles to practical situations + in my view the book is worth reading.
The Inevitable Manufacturing Shake-Up
Chaim Even Zohar writes about the state of the diamond mining + jewelry manufacturing industry + industry's banking debt/impact worldwide + other viewpoints @ http://www.idexonline.com/portal_FullEditorial.asp
Jewelers Of Renaissance
(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:
5. The Jewel Age
Henry VIII had delighted to embellish his ample person with many glittering jewels, still Henry himself was able to dominate his ornaments and carry them without effort. But by the time his daughter, Elizabeth, came to the throne the family characteristic, love of finery, had developed into a consuming passion. With the devotion of a martyr, Elizabeth labored under a mass of precious minerals whose dead weight must have banished all thought of bodily comfort. Courage was an outstanding trait in that gallant lady. She must have been a Spartan to bear that load of stones and metal added to her voluminous robes of heavy material. Her wardrobe at one time included two thousand dresses, each of them probably stiff with jewels fastened to the cloth wherever there was foothold, and about as pleasant to wear as a suit of armor. Many artists of the day were employed to paint, with meticulous detail, canvases depicting these gloriously bejeweled costumes, together with the miscellaneous array of crowns, necklaces, bracelets, brooches, rings and earrings which were their accessories. Somewhere out of the midst emerged a face and hands. These pictures are called ‘portraits’ of Queen Elizabeth.
The grave and reverend anthropologist divides the progress of mankind into periods distinguished as the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, etc. With some degree of propriety one might venture to name the rich period of the Renaissance the ‘Jewel Age’. So manifold were the jewels and so exuberantly did the goldsmith lavish skill, imagination and painstaking labor on their fashioning, that one’s response to the glittering output of the times is likely to be dulled by reason of its very quantity. Therefore we will confine our attention within limits.
If it can be said that any one form of jewelry outshone all others during the Renaissance, that jewel was the pendant. The multiplicity of forms, uses and significances that a pendant could embody, the infinite variety of materials that could be used, and the extravagant expenditure of the goldsmith’s ingenuity—all these things appealed both to the craftsman and his customer.
The peculiar advantage of the pendant is that the slightest motion, even taking a breath, will set it vibrating and sparkling. In times past a pendant, more often than not, represented something other than abstract ornament. It was illustrative. A design in its simpler form might represent merely a bird or a flower, but frequently it went further than that and pictured some scriptural incident or some pagan myth that required groups of people. The point is that the design expressed a definite mental concept, not an abstraction. Sometimes the idea was carried out simply by a flat picture in enamels surrounded by a frame of gold and gemstones; sometimes the figures were wrought in bold relief; but not infrequently they were tiny group statuettes all worked out in gold and gems with the utmost elaboration of ornament. In fact the intricacy of ornament was so profuse in Renaissance jewels that it seems more related to design for thread-lace than for metals and gems. Examples of favorite subjects were Noah’s Ark; St George and the Dragon; and Faith, Hope and Fortitude. The Annunciation was one of the most popular of scriptural subjects.
Jewelers Of Renaissance (continued)
5. The Jewel Age
Henry VIII had delighted to embellish his ample person with many glittering jewels, still Henry himself was able to dominate his ornaments and carry them without effort. But by the time his daughter, Elizabeth, came to the throne the family characteristic, love of finery, had developed into a consuming passion. With the devotion of a martyr, Elizabeth labored under a mass of precious minerals whose dead weight must have banished all thought of bodily comfort. Courage was an outstanding trait in that gallant lady. She must have been a Spartan to bear that load of stones and metal added to her voluminous robes of heavy material. Her wardrobe at one time included two thousand dresses, each of them probably stiff with jewels fastened to the cloth wherever there was foothold, and about as pleasant to wear as a suit of armor. Many artists of the day were employed to paint, with meticulous detail, canvases depicting these gloriously bejeweled costumes, together with the miscellaneous array of crowns, necklaces, bracelets, brooches, rings and earrings which were their accessories. Somewhere out of the midst emerged a face and hands. These pictures are called ‘portraits’ of Queen Elizabeth.
The grave and reverend anthropologist divides the progress of mankind into periods distinguished as the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, etc. With some degree of propriety one might venture to name the rich period of the Renaissance the ‘Jewel Age’. So manifold were the jewels and so exuberantly did the goldsmith lavish skill, imagination and painstaking labor on their fashioning, that one’s response to the glittering output of the times is likely to be dulled by reason of its very quantity. Therefore we will confine our attention within limits.
If it can be said that any one form of jewelry outshone all others during the Renaissance, that jewel was the pendant. The multiplicity of forms, uses and significances that a pendant could embody, the infinite variety of materials that could be used, and the extravagant expenditure of the goldsmith’s ingenuity—all these things appealed both to the craftsman and his customer.
The peculiar advantage of the pendant is that the slightest motion, even taking a breath, will set it vibrating and sparkling. In times past a pendant, more often than not, represented something other than abstract ornament. It was illustrative. A design in its simpler form might represent merely a bird or a flower, but frequently it went further than that and pictured some scriptural incident or some pagan myth that required groups of people. The point is that the design expressed a definite mental concept, not an abstraction. Sometimes the idea was carried out simply by a flat picture in enamels surrounded by a frame of gold and gemstones; sometimes the figures were wrought in bold relief; but not infrequently they were tiny group statuettes all worked out in gold and gems with the utmost elaboration of ornament. In fact the intricacy of ornament was so profuse in Renaissance jewels that it seems more related to design for thread-lace than for metals and gems. Examples of favorite subjects were Noah’s Ark; St George and the Dragon; and Faith, Hope and Fortitude. The Annunciation was one of the most popular of scriptural subjects.
Jewelers Of Renaissance (continued)
The Rise Of Landscape Painting
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
The Art of Claude, George Morland, J.M.W.Turner, Girtin, David Cox, And De Wint
1
The greatest difference between the art of the nineteenth and that of the preceding centuries is the increasing importance attached to natural scenery. The Old Masters were not altogether inattentive to inanimate Nature, but it did not occur to them that scenery alone could be a sufficient subject for a picture. In the East, we shall see in a later chapter, Nature had always preoccupied the minds of the finest artists, and in China landscape was regarded as the highest branch of art; but in Europe men thought otherwise, and it was only slowly that landscape crept forward from the background and gradually occupied the whole of the picture.
The artist who is usually considered to have been the father of modern landscape painting was a Frenchman, or rather a Lorrainer, Claude Gellée (1600-82), born near Mirecourt on the Moselle, who at an early age went to Rome, where he remained practically for the rest of his life. Claude’s interest was entirely in Nature, and particularly in the illumination of Nature. He was the first artist who ‘set the sun in the heavens,’ and he devoted his whole attention to portraying the beauty of light; but though his aerial effects are unequalled to this day, and though his pictures were approved and collected in his own day by the King of Spain, Pople Urban VIII, and by many influential Cardinals, yet the appreciation of pure landscape was so limited then that Claude rarely dared to leave figures out of his pictures, and was obliged to choose subjects which were not simply landscapes but gave him an excuse for painting landscapes.
Nobody today pays very much attention to the little figures in Claude’s ‘Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca’ at the National Gallery. We are not disposed to ask which is Isaac and which Rebecca, or to try to discover what all these figures are doing, because to us the beauty of the landscape is an all sufficient reason for the picture’s existence. Our whole attention is given to the beautiful painting of the trees and the lovely view that lies between them, to the golden glow of the sky, to the flat surface of the water with its reflected light, and to the exquisite gradations of the tones by which the master has conveyed to us the atmosphere of the scene and the vastness of the distance he depicts.
Similarly, in his ‘Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba’, we are at once conscious that the glorious rendering of the sun in the sky and of its rays on the rippled surface of the sea constitute the principal interest of the picture; this was what primarily interested the painter, and his buildings, shipping, and people are only so many accessories with which he frames and presents to us his noble visions of light. But to Claude’s contemporaries these titles and the figures which justified them had far more importance than they have to us, and it was by professing to paint subjects which the taste of his day deemed elevating and ennobling that Claude was able to enjoy prosperity and paint the landscapes which are truly noble.
Another Frenchman, also a contemporary of Claude, Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665), must be regarded as a pioneer of landscape painting, though he was also a figure painter of great ability who upheld the classic style of the antique in his Biblical and pagan figure subjects. Poussin also worked chiefly at Rome, and, having no son, adopted his wife’s younger brother, Gaspar Dughet, who became known as Gaspar Poussin (1613-75), and under his brother-in-law’s tuition developed into an excellent landscape painter. Both the Poussins are well represented in the National Gallery, and they and Claude have had a considerable influence on English landscape art.
We have already seen how Richard Wilson endeavored to popularize landscape painting in England, and it will have been noted that so long as he also pretended to paint classical subjects, as in his ‘Niobe,’ he had a moderate measure of success; but when he painted pure landscape, as in ‘The Thames near Twickenham,’ the taste of his day could not follow him, and his finest work was ignored and went begging.
The Rise Of Landscape Painting (continued)
The Art of Claude, George Morland, J.M.W.Turner, Girtin, David Cox, And De Wint
1
The greatest difference between the art of the nineteenth and that of the preceding centuries is the increasing importance attached to natural scenery. The Old Masters were not altogether inattentive to inanimate Nature, but it did not occur to them that scenery alone could be a sufficient subject for a picture. In the East, we shall see in a later chapter, Nature had always preoccupied the minds of the finest artists, and in China landscape was regarded as the highest branch of art; but in Europe men thought otherwise, and it was only slowly that landscape crept forward from the background and gradually occupied the whole of the picture.
The artist who is usually considered to have been the father of modern landscape painting was a Frenchman, or rather a Lorrainer, Claude Gellée (1600-82), born near Mirecourt on the Moselle, who at an early age went to Rome, where he remained practically for the rest of his life. Claude’s interest was entirely in Nature, and particularly in the illumination of Nature. He was the first artist who ‘set the sun in the heavens,’ and he devoted his whole attention to portraying the beauty of light; but though his aerial effects are unequalled to this day, and though his pictures were approved and collected in his own day by the King of Spain, Pople Urban VIII, and by many influential Cardinals, yet the appreciation of pure landscape was so limited then that Claude rarely dared to leave figures out of his pictures, and was obliged to choose subjects which were not simply landscapes but gave him an excuse for painting landscapes.
Nobody today pays very much attention to the little figures in Claude’s ‘Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca’ at the National Gallery. We are not disposed to ask which is Isaac and which Rebecca, or to try to discover what all these figures are doing, because to us the beauty of the landscape is an all sufficient reason for the picture’s existence. Our whole attention is given to the beautiful painting of the trees and the lovely view that lies between them, to the golden glow of the sky, to the flat surface of the water with its reflected light, and to the exquisite gradations of the tones by which the master has conveyed to us the atmosphere of the scene and the vastness of the distance he depicts.
Similarly, in his ‘Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba’, we are at once conscious that the glorious rendering of the sun in the sky and of its rays on the rippled surface of the sea constitute the principal interest of the picture; this was what primarily interested the painter, and his buildings, shipping, and people are only so many accessories with which he frames and presents to us his noble visions of light. But to Claude’s contemporaries these titles and the figures which justified them had far more importance than they have to us, and it was by professing to paint subjects which the taste of his day deemed elevating and ennobling that Claude was able to enjoy prosperity and paint the landscapes which are truly noble.
Another Frenchman, also a contemporary of Claude, Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665), must be regarded as a pioneer of landscape painting, though he was also a figure painter of great ability who upheld the classic style of the antique in his Biblical and pagan figure subjects. Poussin also worked chiefly at Rome, and, having no son, adopted his wife’s younger brother, Gaspar Dughet, who became known as Gaspar Poussin (1613-75), and under his brother-in-law’s tuition developed into an excellent landscape painter. Both the Poussins are well represented in the National Gallery, and they and Claude have had a considerable influence on English landscape art.
We have already seen how Richard Wilson endeavored to popularize landscape painting in England, and it will have been noted that so long as he also pretended to paint classical subjects, as in his ‘Niobe,’ he had a moderate measure of success; but when he painted pure landscape, as in ‘The Thames near Twickenham,’ the taste of his day could not follow him, and his finest work was ignored and went begging.
The Rise Of Landscape Painting (continued)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)