Monday Morning Museum: Filippo Lippi

Self Portrait, circa 1441-1447, by Filippo Lippi

Filippo Lippi – 1406 Florence to Sunday 8 October 1469 Spoleto

Italian Early Renaissance Painter

Portrait of a Woman With a Man at a Casement, circa 1440

"This is the earliest surviving double portrait in Italy, the first to show the sitters in a domestic setting, and the first with a view onto a landscape. The woman, dressed luxuriously ala francese, her sleeve embroidered with letters spelling "faithful" (lealta), is observed by a man—her betrothed or lucky possessor?—appearing at a window, his hands on an identifying coat of arms. The two figures may be Lorenzo di Ranieri Scolari and Angiola di Bernardo Sapiti, who were married about 1439. Lippi’s task was complicated by the Italian preference for the profile view." – Metropolitan Museum of Art

Last Monday’s Artist – Peter Paul Rubens
Next Monday’s Art – Abstract Expressionism: Action Painting

“Monday Morning Museum” logo created by Adrean Darce Brent

Monday Morning Museum: Peter Paul Rubens

Self-Portrait, 1623 by Peter Paul Rubens

Peter Paul Rubens – Friday 28 June 1577 Siegen, Germany to Saturday 30 May 1640 Antwerp, Belgium

Flemish Baroque Era Painter

Rubens, His Wife Helena Fourment (1614-1673), and One of Their Children, Mid-1630s

"This magnificent portrait of Rubens, his second wife, Helena Fourment, and one of their five children has usually been dated on stylistic grounds to the late 1630s. The child's blue sash, heavy shoes, and plain collar resemble adult male attire and suggest that he is either Frans Rubens, born in 1633, or, more likely, Peter Paul, born March 1, 1637.

Rubens married Helena Fourment on December 6, 1630, when he was fifty-three and she was sixteen. Helena became the model and the inspiration for many paintings by Rubens dating from the 1630s, particularly those dealing with themes of ideal beauty or love. The present composition was considerably revised during execution to shift the emphasis from Rubens, as the dominant half of a courtly couple, to Helena, as ideal wife and mother. The parrot, long a symbol of the Virgin Mary, suggests ideal motherhood, while the fountain, caryatid, and garden setting imply fertility and recall Rubens's own garden in Antwerp, where he frequently escorted Helena." – Metropolitan Museum of Art

Last Monday’s Artist – Jean-Antoine Houdon
Next Monday’s Artist – Filippo Lippi

“Monday Morning Museum” logo created by Adrean Darce Brent

Winter Solstice 2012 - End of the World!

"Winter Solstice 2012 (World Ends)" graphic created by Adrean Darce Brent

"Winter Solstice 2012" card created by Adrean Darce Brent

Monday Morning Museum: Jean-Antoine Houdon

Jean-Antoine Houdon

Jean-Antoine Houdon – Friday 20 March 1741 Versailles, France to Tuesday 15 July 1828 Paris, France

French Neoclassical Sculptor

Sabine Houdon, 1788

"Houdon's canonical portraits of the French philosophes (as well as of America's founding fathers) have contributed to his popularity in America. No less beloved are his depictions of children, of which the most beautiful may be the head of his own daughter Sabine. The delicate naturalistic folds of flesh at the intersection of Sabine's chest and arms are carved with a melting softness that perfectly captures the limpid fragility of infant skin. Her alert, unsentimentaliized features present a personality whose distinction transcends the category of children's portraits." – Metropolitan Museum of Art

Last Monday’s Artist – Charles Demuth
Next Monday’s Artist – Peter Paul Rubens

“Monday Morning Museum” logo created by Adrean Darce Brent

Monday Morning Museum: Charles Demuth

Self-Portrait, 1907 by Charles Demuth

Charles Demuth – Thursday 8 November 1883 Lancaster, Pennsylvania to Wednesday 23 October 1935 Lancaster, Pennsylvania

American Precisionist Painter

I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold, 1928

"This painting pays homage to a poem by William Carlos Williams. Like Marsden Hartley's "Portrait of a German Officer" and Arthur Dove's "Ralph Dusenberry," this portrait consists not of a physical likeness of the artist's friend but of an accumulation of images associated with him — the poet's initials and the names "Bill" and "Carlos" that together form a portrait.

Williams' poem "The Great Figure" describes the experience of seeing a red fire engine with the number 5 painted on it racing through the city streets. While Demuth's painting is not an illustration of Williams's poem, we can certainly sense its "rain/and lights" and the "gong clangs/siren howls/and wheels rumbling." The bold 5 both rapidly recedes and races forward in space, and the round forms of the number, the lights, the street lamp, and the arcs at the lower left and upper right are played against the straight lines of the fire engine, the buildings, and the rays of light, infusing the picture with a rushing energy that perfectly expresses the spirit of the poem." – Metropolitan Museum of Art

Last Monday’s Artist – Georges de la Tour
Next Monday’s Artist – Jean-Antoine Houdon

“Monday Morning Museum” logo created by Adrean Darce Brent

Monday Morning Museum: Georges de la Tour

Georges de la Tour – Tuesday 13 March 1593 Vic-sur-Seille to Friday 30 January 1652 Lunéville

French Baroque Era Painter

The Fortune Teller, probably 1630s

"While an old gypsy crone tells his fortune, a naive youth is robbed by her accomplices, a subject popular among Caravaggesque painters throughout Europe in the 17th century. La Tour's painting can be interpreted as a genre or theatrical scene, or as an allusion to the parable of the prodigal son. It has been variously dated from about 1620 to as late as 1639. The inscription includes the name of the town where La Tour lived, Lunéville in Lorraine." – Metropolitan Museum of Art

Last Monday’s Artist – Henri Fantin-Latour
Next Monday’s Artist – Charles Demuth

“Monday Morning Museum” logo created by Adrean Darce Brent

Monday Morning Museum: Henri Fantin-Latour

Self Portrait, 1867 by Henri Fantin-Latour

Henri Fantin-Latour (Ignace Henri Jean Théodore Fantin-Latour) – Thursday 14 January 1836 Grenoble, France to Thursday 25 August 1904 Buré, France

French Realist Painter

Summer Flowers, 1880

"By the time Fantin painted this work, he had established a steady demand in Britain for his exquisite paintings of informal flower arrangements, set in modest vases and seen against a neutral ground. The flowers in this picture were picked from his garden at Buré in Normandy." – Metropolitan Museum of Art

Last Monday’s Artist – Robert Henri
Next Monday’s Artist – Georges de la Tour

“Monday Morning Museum” logo created by Adrean Darce Brent

Monday Morning Museum: Robert Henri

Robert Henri, 1900 by Gertrude Käsebier

Robert Henri (Robert Henry Cozad) – Sunday 25 June 1865 Cincinnati, Ohio to Friday 12 July 1929 New York City, New York

American Ashcan School Painter

Mary Fanton Roberts, 1917

Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 32 x 26 in. (81.3 x 66 cm)
Classification: Paintings
- Metropolitan Museum of Art

Last Monday’s Artist – Henri-Edmond Cross
Next Monday’s Artist – Henri Fantin-Latour

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Monday Morning Museum: Henri-Edmond Cross

Self-Portrait with Cigarette, 1880 by Henri-Edmond Cross

Henri-Edmond Cross (Henri-Edmond-Joseph Delacroix) – Tuesday 20 May 1856 Douai, Nord, France to Monday 16 May 1910 Saint-Clair, Var, France

French Pointillist Painter

Landscape with Stars, circa 1905-1908

"This poetic depiction of a star-streaked sky combines the long broken brushstrokes of Cross's late works with a murky landscape of pen and ink, reminiscent in its impressionistic forms of Japanese painting." – Metropolitan Museum of Art

Last Monday’s Artist – George Brassaï
Next Monday’s Artist –

“Monday Morning Museum” logo created by Adrean Darce Brent

Monday Morning Museum: George Brassaï

George Brassaï, 1973 by Imogen Cunningham

George Brassaï [Gyula (Jules) Halász] – Saturday 9 September 1899 Brassó, Transylvania to Sunday 8 July 1984 Beaulieu-sur-Mer, France

Hungarian-born French Photographer

Couple D'amoureux Dans un Petit Café, Quartier Italie, circa 1932

"In this photograph, Brassaï's compositional skill is evident in the way he has framed his subjects, each lover's gaze reflected in a mirror. Such artifice and formal elegance, rather than the harsh realities of photographic realism, were of supreme importance to him. Indeed, this and many of his photographs were staged, leading to a complicity between photographer and subject that adds to the picture's sophistication and playfulness." – Metropolitan Museum of Art

Last Monday’s Artist – Caspar David Friedrich
Next Monday’s Artist – Henri-Edmond Cross

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Monday Morning Museum: Caspar David Friedrich

Portrait of Caspar David Friedrich, circa 1810-1820 by Gerhard von Kugelgen

Caspar David Friedrich – Monday 5 September 1774 Greifswald to Thursday 7 May 1840 Dresden

German Romantic Painter

Two Men Contemplating the Moon, circa 1825-1830

"The two men contemplating the sinking moon have been identified as Friedrich himself, on the right, and his talented young colleague August Heinrich (1794-1822). The mood of pious contemplation relates to fascination with the moon as expressed in contemporary poetry, literature, philosophy, and music. Both figures are seen from the back so that the viewer can participate in their communion with nature, which the Romantics saw as a manifestation of the Sublime.

Although the landscape is imaginary, it is based on studies after nature that Friedrich had made in various regions at different times. Both men wear Old German dress, which had been adopted in 1815 by radical students as an expression of opposition to the ultraconservative policies then being enforced in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars. The staunchly patriotic Friedrich deliberately ignored the 1819 royal decree forbidding this practice and depicted figures in traditional costume until his death." – Metropolitan Museum of Art

Last Monday’s Artist – Egon Schiele
Next Monday’s Artist – George Brassaï

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Monday Morning Museum: Egon Schiele

Self Portrait, 1910 by Egon Schiele

Egon Schiele – Thursday 12 June 1890 Tulln an der Donau, Austria to Thursday 31 October 1918 Vienna, Austria

Austrian Expressionist Painter

Seated Woman, Back View, 1917

"This portrait of a seated woman viewed from behind is expressive even though her face is hidden. The model was likely Schiele's wife, Edith Harms, then twenty-four, whom he married in 1915 and who died of influenza only three days before he did. Only partially dressed but with her strawberry-blond hair carefully coiffed, the figure wears a bright blue striped jacket over a white striped shirt — the attire of a respectable lady. Her lower body, however, is clad in the garments in which Schiele usually depicted prostitutes — a white lace slip and dark stockings. The marked difference between the two parts of her costume seems to reflect the artist's own ambivalent feelings about his wife, who is variously shown in his art as a cold virgin or a passionate lover." – Metropolitan Museum of Art

Last Monday’s Artist – Carleton Emmons Watkins
Next Monday’s Artist – Caspar David Friedrich

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Monday Morning Museum: Carleton Emmons Watkins

Self-Portrait, 1883 by Carleton Emmons Watkins

Carleton Emmons Watkins – Wednesday 11 November 1829 Oneonta, New York to Friday 23 June 1916 Napa, California

American Photographer

Cape Horn, Columbia River, Oregon, 1867

"Watkins, the consummate photographer of the American West, combined a virtuoso mastery of the difficult wet plate negative process with a rigorous sense of pictorial structure. For large-format landscape work such as Watkins produced along the Columbia River in Oregon, the physical demands were great. Since there was as yet no practical means of enlarging, Watkins's glass negatives had to be as large as he wished the prints to be, and his camera large enough to accommodate them. Furthermore, the glass negatives had to be coated, exposed, and developed while the collodion remained tacky, requiring the photographer to transport a traveling darkroom as he explored the rugged virgin terrain of the American West. The crystalline clarity of Watkins's remarkable "mammoth" prints is unmatched in the work of any of his contemporaries and is approached by few artists working today." – Metropolitan Museum of Art

Last Monday’s Artist – Maurice Brazil Prendergast
Next Monday’s Artist – Egon Schiele

“Monday Morning Museum” logo created by Adrean Darce Brent

Monday Morning Museum: Maurice Brazil Prendergast

Maurice Brazil Prendergast, 1913 by Gertrude Käsebier

Maurice Brazil Prendergast – Sunday 10 October 1858 St. John’s, Newfoundland to Friday 1 February 1924 New York, New York

Canadian-born American Impressionist Painter

Low Tide, Beachmont, circa 1900-1905

Medium: Watercolor over pencil
Dimensions: 15 3/8 x 22 in. (39 x 55.9 cm)
Classification: Drawings
- Metropolitan Museum of Art

"A prolific painter who favored the watercolor medium during most of his career, Prendergast worked in Boston as a commercial artist before training at the Académie Julian and the Atelier Colarossi in Paris from 1891 to 1894. Upon his return to Boston, he exhibited watercolors of coastal scenes, which he had made both in Brittany and in Massachusetts. The seaside was to be a fertile source for Prendergast's art for the rest of his life. Drawn to the populated urban beaches north of Boston, such as Revere Beach and Beachmont, he found that their working-class promenaders dressed in finery allowed him to engage issues of class and fashion. In this he was an heir to French avant-garde painting of the spectacle of modern life." – Worcester Art Museum

Last Monday’s Artist – Washington Allston
Next Monday’s Artist – Carleton Emmons Watkins

“Monday Morning Museum” logo created by Adrean Darce Brent

Monday Morning Museum: Washington Allston

Self-Portrait, 1805 by Washington Allston

Washington Allston – Friday 5 November 1779 Georgetown, South Carolina to Sunday 9 July 1843 Cambridge, Massachusetts

American Romantic Painter

The Spanish Girl in Reverie, 1831

Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 30 x 25 in. (76.2 x 63.5 cm)
Classification: Paintings
- Metropolitan Museum of Art

Not sure if the following is in reference to Allston’s painting, but Holmes was alive at the time it was created, so the poem is presented here as a possible story for the Spanish Girl.

Illustration Of A Picture: “A Spanish Girl in Reverie”
by Oliver Wendell Holmes

She twirled the string of golden beads,
That round her neck was hung, - -
My grandsire's gift; the good old man
Loved girls when he was young;
And, bending lightly o'er the cord,
And turning half away,
With something like a youthful sigh,
Thus spoke the maiden gray: -

"Well, one may trail her silken robe,
And bind her locks with pearls,
And one may wreathe the woodland rose
Among her floating curls;
And one may tread the dewy grass,
And one the marble floor,
Nor half-hid bosom heave the less,
Nor broidered corset more!

"Some years ago, a dark-eyed girl
Was sitting in the shade, -
There's something brings her to my mind
In that young dreaming maid, -
And in her hand she held a flower,
A flower, whose speaking hue
Said, in the language of the heart,
'Believe the giver true.'

"And, as she looked upon its leaves,
The maiden made a vow
To wear it when the bridal wreath
Was woven for her brow;
She watched the flower, as, day by day,
The leaflets curled and died;
But he who gave it never came
To claim her for his bride.

"Oh, many a summer's morning glow
Has lent the rose its ray,
And many a winter's drifting snow
Has swept its bloom away;
But she has kept that faithless pledge
To this, her winter hour,
And keeps it still, herself alone,
And wasted like the flower."

Her pale lip quivered, and the light
Gleamed in her moistening eyes; -
I asked her how she liked the tints
In those Castilian skies?
"She thought them misty, - 't was perhaps
Because she stood too near;"
She turned away, and as she turned
I saw her wipe a tear.

Last Monday’s Artist – Francis Frith
Next Monday’s Artist – Maurice Brazil Prendergast

“Monday Morning Museum” logo created by Adrean Darce Brent

Monday Morning Museum: Francis Frith

Self-Portrait in Middle Eastern Costume,1857 by Francis Frith

Francis Frith – Thursday 31 October 1822 Chesterfield, Derbyshire, England to Friday 25 February 1898 Cannes, France

English Photographer

The Rameseum of El-Kurneh, Thebes, 1857

Medium: Albumen silver print from glass negative
Dimensions: Image: 37.9 x 47.7 cm (14 15/16 x 18 3/4 in.)
Classification: Photographs
- Metropolitan Museum of Art

"Throughout the 1850s and 1860s photographs of historical and topographical sights were highly desirable and Frith was one of the most successful commercial photographers to cater to this demand. His pioneering photographic expeditions to the Near East proved very popular. The detail afforded by wet collodian negatives, as used for this image, produced prints that British publishers readily marketed. This photograph captures the monumentality of Egyptian landscape and architecture as well as the dramatic play of light on sand and stone." – Victoria and Albert Museum

Last Monday’s Artist – Jan Van De Cappelle
Next Monday’s Artist – Washington Allston

“Monday Morning Museum” logo created by Adrean Darce Brent

Autumn Arrives!

Red, yellow, orange.
Glorious Autumn colors,
Falling gently down.

- Adrean Darce Brent
Saturday 22 September 2012

"Autumnal Equinox 2012" graphic created by Adrean Darce Brent

Happy Hobbit Second Breakfast Day!

Breakfast With Bilbo Baggins

Appetizer: Buttered-scones with raspberry jam and tea

Main course: Salad and chicken and beer OR pork-pie and red wine

Dessert: Seed-cake and coffee OR apple-tart with cheese and coffee

Invitation from the website hobbitsecondbreakfast.com

Monday Morning Museum: Jan Van De Cappelle

Jan van de Cappelle – January 1626 Amsterdam to December 1679 Amsterdam

Dutch Baroque Era Painter

A State Yacht and Other Craft in Calm Water, circa 1660

"One of the most celebrated painters of seascapes, Van de Cappelle was a native of Amsterdam whose investments in property and his father's dyeworks gave him a substantial income. His extensive collection of Dutch, Flemish, and German art included nine paintings and more than one thousand drawings by Simon de Vlieger, the Dutch marine artist who most influenced Van de Cappelle's own work. The Museum's picture is a mature example in good condition, although the paint has become a bit thin with age." – Metropolitan Museum of Art

Last Monday’s Artist – Florine Stettheimer
Next Monday’s Artist – Francis Frith

“Monday Morning Museum” logo created by Adrean Darce Brent