Monday Morning Museum: Roger Fenton

Self-Portrait by Roger Fenton

Roger Fenton – Sunday 28 March 1819 Bury, Lancashire, England to Sunday 8 August 1869 London, England

English Photographer

Moscow, Domes of Churches in the Kremlin, 1852

“Fenton photographed the cupolas of the Cathedral of the Assumption at eye level, from the lower bell arcade of the Ivan the Great Bell Tower, the city's highest building, looking west over Cathedral Square toward the churches of Terem Palace. The view shows, behind the cathedral, the modest Church of the Deposition of the Robe as it looked before a twentieth-century restoration would revive its original design. The Cathedral of the Assumption, built in 1475-79 by the Bolognese Ridolfo (Aristotele) Fioravanti for Grand Prince Ivan III, was the focal point of Russian religious life, where czars were crowned and patriarchs interred. Combining medieval Russian features with the harmonious geometry of the early Italian Renaissance, the church symbolized Moscow's ambition to be recognized as "the third Rome," replacing Constantinople, fallen to the Turks in 1453, as the center of Orthodox Christianity. Photographing from above and showing only portions of buildings and roofs, Fenton infused the composition with an exhilarating sense of airiness and light, the memorable image taking on the power of the architecture itself to proclaim the spiritual aspirations of a people.” – Metropolitan Museum of Art

Last Monday’s Artist – John Marin
Next Monday’s Artist – Florine Stettheimer

“Monday Morning Museum” logo created by Adrean Darce Brent

Monday Morning Museum: John Marin

John Marin, circa 1921-1922 by Alfred Stieglitz

John Marin – Friday 23 December 1870 Rutherford, New Jersey to Friday 2 October 1953 Addison, Maine

American Modernist Painter

Brooklyn Bridge, circa 1912

"Brooklyn Bridge," dating about 1912, is of the period of Marin's first truly personal expression. Brightly, wittily, it communicates his sense of the excitement of urban life. In conjunction with one of his Photo-Secession shows, he wrote in "Camera Work" about his New York watercolors: "Shall we consider the life of a great city as confined simply to the people and animals on its streets and in its buildings? Are the buildings themselves dead? . . . I see great forces at work: great movements; the large buildings and the small buildings; the warring of the great and the small; influences of one mass on another greater or smaller mass. Feelings are aroused which give me the desire to express the reaction of these 'pull forces,' those influences which play with one another; great masses pulling smaller masses, each subject in some degree to the other's power. . . . While these powers are at work pushing, pulling, sideways, downwards, upwards, I can hear the sound of their strife and there is great music being played. And so I try to express graphically what a great city is doing. Within the frames there must be a balance, a controlling of these warring, pushing, pulling forces." – Metropolitan Museum of Art

Last Monday’s Artist – Rembrandt Peale
Next Monday’s Artist – Roger Fenton

“Monday Morning Museum” logo created by Adrean Darce Brent

Monday Morning Museum: Rembrandt Peale

Self-Portrait, 1828 by Rembrandt Peale

Rembrandt Peale – Sunday 22 February 1778 Bucks County, Pennsylvania to Wednesday 3 October 1860 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

American Neoclassical Painter

Michael Angelo and Emma Clara Peale, circa 1826

“Peale's studies of French Neoclassical painting during a sojourn in Paris (1808–10) helped him to break free from the British eighteenth-century conventions that he had learned from his portraitist father, Charles Willson Peale. Peale's resplendent palette, along with his ability to render warm flesh tones, manipulate light, and emphasize textures suggests that while in France, he studied not only the works of modern painters, but also paintings by Rubens, Van Dyck, and other Baroque masters. Michael Angelo (1814–1833) and Emma Clara (1816–1839) were the youngest of the artist's nine children.” – Metropolitan Museum of Art

Last Monday’s Artist – James Abbott McNeill Whistler
Next Monday’s Artist – John Marin

“Monday Morning Museum” logo created by Adrean Darce Brent

Monday Morning Museum: James Abbott McNeill Whistler

Portrait of James Whistler with Hat, 1858 by James Abbott McNeill Whistler

James Abbott McNeill Whistler – Friday 11 July 1834 Lowell, Massachusetts to Friday 17 July 1903 London, England

American Tonalist Painter and Printmaker

Nocturne: The Thames at Battersea, 1878

“In this early lithograph, Whistler drew his design directly on the stone (rather than onto transfer paper), applying washes of ink to achieve striking atmospheric effects. Whistler printed this river subject in 1878, the year in which his libel case against the art critic John Ruskin (1819-1900)—involving Ruskin's attack on one of Whistler's painted "Nocturnes"—was heard. Although Whistler won the case, the court costs forced him to declare bankruptcy in the following year.” – Metropolitan Museum of Art

Last Monday’s Artist – Adolphe-William Bouguereau
Next Monday’s Artist – Rembrandt Peale

“Monday Morning Museum” logo created by Adrean Darce Brent

Monday Morning Museum: Adolphe-William Bouguereau

Self-Portrait, 1879 by Adolphe-William Bouguereau

Adolphe-William Bouguereau – Wednesday 30 November 1825 La Rochelle, France to Saturday 19 August 1905 La Rochelle, France

French Academic Painter

Breton Brother and Sister, 1871

“Bouguereau made his fortune by producing idyllic images of women and children for enthusiastic American collectors. As a critic of the time explained, "Whoever gets a picture by Bouguereau gets the full worth of his money, in finished painting, first-rate drawing, and a subject and treatment that no well-bred person can…fault."

This picture is one of several works that the artist based on sketches made while summering in Brittany in the late 1860s. It was completed in his studio in 1871; Catharine Lorillard Wolfe’s father, the real estate and hardware baron John David Wolfe (1792–1872), purchased the painting from the New York gallery M. Knoedler & Co. in November of that year, just six months before his death.” – Metropolitan Museum of Art

Last Monday’s Artist – Jules Bastien-Lepage
Next Monday’s Artist – James Abbott McNeill Whistler

“Monday Morning Museum” logo created by Adrean Darce Brent