The Victorian Age

(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:

Among a number of scholarly artists who were influenced by the example of Leighton, one of the most distinguished was his eventual successor in the presidency of the Royal Academy, Sir Edward John Poynter (1836-1919). This artist was born in Paris and was the son of an architect, Ambrose Poynter, who was himself a skilful painter in water colors and had been an intimate friend of R.P.Bonington. E.J.Poynter studied art first in the Academy schools and afterwards in Paris, where one of his most intimate friends and fellow-students was the illustrator George du Maurier, author of Trilby. Poynter first exhibited at the Academy in 1861, and during the earlier part of his life he designed a number of decorative works, among them being mosaics for the Houses of Parliament and for St Paul’s Cathedral. He also, like Leighton, executed illustrations—some of which appeared in Once-a-Week—and painted portraits as well as landscapes; but though his activities were many and various, he was best known by his paintings of Greek, Roman, and Egyptian subjects. His first great popular success, and probably the most moving picture he ever conceived, was painted in 1865; ‘Faithful unto Death,’ now in the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, shows a Roman soldier standing unmoved at his post while Pompeii is being destroyed by earthquake and volcanic eruptions, and in this picture the artist not only shows exactitude in archeological detail, but also expresses a nobility of purpose which every human being can understand and admire. In 1867 he painted ‘Israel in Egypt,’ but in later years he seldom approached the high seriousness of these early pictures and though he maintained his popularity with scholarly and agreeable renderings of classical scenes, like ‘A Visit to Æsculapius’ in the Tate Gallery, the subjects of these pictures tended to become lighter and sometimes trivial.

In addition to his work as a painter Sir E J Poynter was overwhelmed by official duties. He was elected A.R.A in 1869 and two years later he was appointed the first Slade Professor at University College, London, a post which he held till 1975, when he became Director of the Royal College of Art at South Kensington, over which he presided for seven years. Meanwhile he had in 1876 been elected R.A and henceforward his influence in the Academy council steadily increased. In 1894 he was appointed Director of the National Gallery, London, and he held this post till 1905, although in 1896 he had been appointed President of the Royal Academy, in succession to Millais. He was knighted in 1896 and made a baronet in 1902.

The wealth of Victorian England not only fostered native art, but naturally drew to these shores a number of foreign artists. Among them was one of the most famous of our modern classical painters, Sir Lawrence Alma -Tadema. This artist was born in Holland in 1836, and after studying art in Antwerp gave his attention to historical painting. He began with early French and Egyptian subjects, but commenced his series of Greek subjects about 1865. In 1869 he sent his painting ‘The Pyrrhic Dance’ to the Academy in London, where it was so well received that the painter decided to settle in England and became naturalized in 1873.

In the hands of Alma-Tadema the classical picture became historical in detail but playful and fanciful in subject. The Victorian anecdote reappeared in a Greek or Roman dress, as in his picture ‘A Silent Greeting’ at the Tate Gallery, in which a Roman warrior places a bunch of roses in the lap of a sleeping lady. ‘Love in Idleness’ is a characteristic example of his art and shows the wonderfully painted marble accessories which he was so fond of introducing into his pictures. Though full himself of antiquarian knowledge, and often called upon by Irving and other theatrical producers to assist in giving verisimilitude to the costumes and scenery for historical plays, Alma-Tadema never wearied the public with his learning, and his pictures were in the nature of agreeable dreams which made no serious demands upon the intellect or high emotions of the spectator. In the course of a long and successful career Alma-Tadema was elected A.R.A in 1876, R.A in 1879, knighted in 1899, and received the Order of Merit in 1905. He died while staying at Wiesbaden in 1912.

While all these artists enjoyed fame and fortune in their lifetime, other artists of equal or superior gifts were less appreciated by their contemporaries, though in several cases their fame is higher today than than of the popular favorites of their day. If we number Albert Moore (1841-93) among the Victorian classical painters, we must be careful to draw a distinction between his art and that of Leighton, Poynter, and Alma-Tadema. For, whereas these three artists emphasized the illustrative element in painting, Albert Moore laid more stress on its decorative element. Moore was not anecdotal, and for this reason his decorative compositions did not make so easy and obvious an appeal to his contemporaries; but he was filled with the Greek spirit of beauty, and his painting ‘Blossoms’ is now one of the most admired of the quasi-classical pictures in the Tate Gallery. Moore was born at York and was the son of an artist, but though he was trained in the Academy schools and began to exhibit at the Academy in the sixties, he was not well received there, and subsequently exhibited chiefly at the Grosvenor Gallery and the Old Water Color Society. He was never elected a member of the Academy, but associated with the Whistler and other independent artists. An admirable draughtsman and designer, Albert Moore was also gifted with a refined and delicate sense of color equalled by few of his contemporaries.

His brother Henry Moore (1831-95), an excellent marine painter, received more official recognition; he was elected A.R.A in 1886, R.A in 1893, and in 1885 his ‘Catspaws of the Land,’ in the Tate Gallery, was bought for the nation.

The Victorian Age (continued)

Travel Movie

(via budgettravel) Neil Mandt's movie LastStopForPaul.com highlights interesting experiences in different parts of the world + he has some useful advice for new filmmakers.

Useful links:
www.laststopforpaul.com
www.puredigitalinc.com
www.mysmallwonder.com
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119292

Vantage Point

Vantage Point is a thriller + the movie is about identities + how we become obssessively analytical, get misled and become autistic + a unique jigsaw puzzle + it's a great movie.

Useful links:
http://imdb.com/title/tt0443274
www.vantagepoint-movie.com

Random Thoughts

US investment genius Warren Buffett, nicknamed the 'Sage of Omaha', now the world's richest person with a hefty US$62 billion, lives in the same house he bought in 1958 for $31,500, married his long-term partner with a wedding ring from a discount store and likes to dine in his local steak house. He is a man of simple tastes and frugal habits.

I really admire him + he is my near-flawless role model.

Keith Haring

Keith Haring was an artist + social activist + I think museums and collectors were slow to grasp the significance of his achievements.

Useful links:
www.haring.com
www.haringkids.com

The Wealth Of Networks

The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom by Yochai Benkler is a book that provides insight to understanding online networks + the impact + the radical changes yet to come + it's a good read.

Useful link:
www.benkler.org

Round Brilliants

(via Diamond Cuts in Historic Jewelry:1381-1910) Herbert Tillander writes:

From the time the Brilliant Cut was introduced, round Brilliants have been fashioned, but never—at least until recently—in any quantity. The tedious process of manual bruting and the loss of weight and size made them economical. Perfect circular outlines were extremely rare, even though they appear in the illustrations of Jeffries, Caire and a great many others who have obviously symmetrized their line drawings. In fact, the only type of crystal that can be easily rounded is the extremely rare regular dodecaheron.

No historical analysis of the round Brilliant Cut has ever been published and very little documentation is available. One might expect to find some interesting highlights in Mawe’s Treatise on Diamond (first published in 1813), but this contains more contradictions than information on styles of fashioning.

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries circular brilliants were considered Fancy Cuts and classified with Drop Shapes, Marquises, Hearts and so on. The standard outlines then in fashion were so strongly dominant that contemporary authors concentrated almost exclusively on them. Jeffries, for instance, in his Treatise of 1750, stated that the square Brilliant (derived from octahedral rough) was the standard, and describes only one circular, one oval and one drop-shaped Brilliant. He gives no examples of stones with any other outline, not even a cushion shape.

As late as 1858 the French writer, Barbot, disapproved of the circular outline because he claimed that stones of this shape display less attractive brilliance: ‘Le brilliant est généralmement carré arrondi. Nous avons cependant vu de très beaux brilliants, taillés nouvellement, entièrement ronds, mais cette forme, quoique jouer le diamant, lui donne un miroirement moins préférable, á notre sens, que la gravité sevère de la forme carrée arrondie.’

Many of the small Brilliants used in minor Victorian jewels have survived whereas the larger and finer gems were, for the most part, recut into modern round brilliants and transferred to new settings. With diamonds weighing ½ ct or more the cost of labor was negligible. The London Cut was easily recognizable and much in demand, so the English cutters concentrated on refashioning the larger stones, reshaping the square and cushion-shaped gems and replacing the old fourfold symmetry with something closer to eightfold in an attempt to reduce the leakage of light through the pavilion facets.

Small circular diamonds were needed to complement these large circular stones, and here the less strict Amsterdam cutters came into their own. They paid their workmen low wages and were soon able to flood the market with not very well made, but far cheaper, stones. By the middle of the nineteenth century the English master cutters were no longer able to compete with the large cutting centers on the Continent, but by then the circular Brilliant was well established in Europe and few decades later was introduced by Morse into the United States.

The Victorian Age

(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:

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Victorian painting was essentially a story-telling art, but the stories were not limited to one country or to one century. The classical revival, the delight in pictures representing the life of ancient Greece and Rome, which marked, as we have seen, the art of France during the Revolutionary Period, did not show itself in England till nearly half a century later. The man who introduced this style of picture into England was Frederick Leighton, who, though born at Scarborough in 1830, spent the greater part of his early life abroad. Leighton was the son of a physician and spent his boyhood in Italy. When he was only ten years old he studied drawing at Rome, and afterwards lived in Florence where he was taught by several Italian artists. When he was eighteen he visited Brussels, and in the following year he continued his art studies in Paris, where he attended a life-school and copied pictures by Titian and Correggio in Louvre. In 1850 he went to Germany, visiting Dresden and Berlin, but staying longest at Frankfurt, where he worked for two years under a painter named Steinle, and was to some extent influenced by the painters Cornelius and Overbeck, who were mentioned in the last chapter. From Germany, he returned to Paris, where he had a studio in the Rue Pigalle. At this time he was much enamored of the earliest Italian artists, and his first oil painting, executed at Frankfurt, represented ‘Giotto found by Cimabue among the Sheep.’ It was from Paris that Leighton sent to the Academy of 1855 his picture of ‘Cimabue’s Madonna carried in Procession through the Streets of Florence.’ This picture, with its precise drawing, elaborate design, and fresh, clear color, created a tremendous sensation in London, and when it was bought by Queen Victoria the reputation of the painter was immediately made. It was not till five years later, however, that Leighton left Paris and settled in London.

Leighton was now thirty years old, and he was an accomplished, much-traveled man of the world. He had charming, courtly manners, and his prestige in the arts was equalled by his social success. He executed a number of illustrations for the Brothers Dalziel, but he had no lack of other patrons, and received numerous commissions for decorative paintings and subject pictures. He gave himself largely to the illustration of Greek history and legend, two of his most famous pictures in this style being ‘Daphnephoria’ and ‘The Return of Perspective,’ now in the Leeds Art Gallery. He was generally considered to have recaptured the spirit of Greek art better than any artist since Raphael, and ‘The Bath of Psyche’ is a famous example of the almost waxen perfection of his figures, and of his manner of idealizing the nude.

The graceful sense of form noticeable in his paintings was also displayed in Leighton’s works of sculpture, of which the best known are ‘The Sluggard’ and ‘Athlete with Python,’ both in the Tate Gallery. From the moment he set foot in England, Leighton’s career was a series of unbroken successes. He was elected A.R.A in 1864, R.A in 1868, and ten years later, after the death of Sir Francis Grant in 1878, he was elected President of the Royal Academy and received a knighthood. He was created a baronet in 1886, and on January 1, 1896, a few months before his death, he was made Baron Leighton of Stretton, being the first British painter elevated to the peerage.

Leighton never married. He built himself a handsome house, with an Arab Hall, from his own design, at No.2 Holland Park Road, and his home, now known as Leighton House, is preserved as a memorial of his art.

Looking backward, we may surmise that the wide popularity enjoyed by Leighton and his followers was not altogether unrelated to the revival of interest in antiquity and archeology which, beginning in the reign of Queen Victoria, has continued undiminished to this day. At a time when the mind of the public was roused by reports in the newspapers of the discoveries made by excavators in Greece, Egypt, and elsewhere, it not surprising that visitors to the Academy should have made favorites of those pictures which sought to portray life as it was in Greece or Egypt in the olden days.

The Victorian Age (continued)