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of Willendorf 30,000-25,000 BC Prehistoric
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Naturshistorisches Museum
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of Willendorf 30,000-25,000 BC Prehistoric
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Belvedere
Palace
The Kiss 1907-1908 Klimt, Symbolism, Austria The Family 1917(c) Schiele, Symbolism, Austria Judith and Holofernes 1900(c) Klimt, Symbolism, Austria |
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Viennese Architecture
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St.
Stephen’s Cathedral 14th
Century, Gothic, Austrian
Schönbrunn Palace 1696-1713, Rococco, Fischer von Erlach Karlskirche 1716-1737, Rococco, Fischer von Erlach
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The newly constructed museum building in the Vienna Ringstrabe was ceremoniously opened in 1891. For the first time, most of the imperial Habsburg collections were housed under one roof, the monumental building itself being conceived as a memorial to Habsburg patronage. The architects Gottfried Semper (1803-1879) and Karl von Hasenauer (1833-1894) designed the building in the style of the Italian Renaissance, establishing in the spirit of Historicism a link with an epoch of especial significance for the arts and sciences.
The collections of the Kunsthistorische Museum are amongst the most important and spectacular in the world. The 16th century Kunst- und Wunderkammer (art and treasure chambers) of Archduke Ferdinand and of Emperor Rudolph II, together with the baroque collections of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm form the nucleus of the Museums magnificent collections, in which the taste and artistic preferences of these and other connoisseurs of the Imperial Familiy are still discernible today, thus conveying a sense of the Imperial glory of the art-loving Habsburg dynasty. The Museums collections range from Ancient Egyptian and Greek and Roman Antiquities to the Collections of Medieval Art to the splendid Renaissance and Baroque Collections. In all, the museum is divided into eight different collections, some of which are housed in the Hofburg and in Schönbrunn Palace.
~Taken from Kunsthistorisches Museumweb site~
Kunsthistorisches Museum |
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Italian Renaissance St. Sebastian 1455-1460 Mantegna Baptism of Christ 1500(c) Perugino Madonna of the Meadow 1505 Raphael Three Philosophers 1508-1509 Giorgione Violante 1515-1518(c) Titian Gypsy Madonna 1510(c) Titian Susanna and the Elders 1555-1556 Tintoretto Judith and Holofernes 1583-1585 Veronese
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Northern Renaissance The Court Jester Gonella 1440-1445(c) Jean Fouquet French Cardinal Niccolo Albergati 1435(c) Van Eyck Flemish Portrait of Maximillian I 1519 Albrecht Durer German Judith and Holofernes 1530(c) Lucas Cranach Germany Children’s Games 1560 Pieter Breugel Flemish Carnival and Lent 1559 Pieter Breugel Flemish The Tower of Babel 1563(c) Pieter Breugel Flemish The Gloomy Day 1564 Pieter Breugel Flemish Hunters in the Snow 1565 Pieter Breugel Flemish Peasant Wedding 1568-1569 Pieter Breugel Flanders The Return of the Herd 1565 Pieter Breugel Flemish Peasant Dance 1568-1569(c) Pieter Breugel Flemish Jane Seymour 1536 Hans Holbein Germany |
Italian Mannerism
Abduction of Ganymede 1530 (c) Coreggio Jupiter and Io 1530 (c) Coreggio Self-Portrait in a Convex 1523-1524 (c) Parmigianino The Conversion of St. Paul 1527-1528 (c) Parmiagianino Bow-Carving Amor 1533-1534 Parmigianino Fire 1566 Archimboldo |
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Collection of Sculpture and the Decorative Arts Salt Cellar of Francis I 1540-1543 Cellini Italian Mannerism STOLEN Two-Figured Raptus Group 1580(c) Giambologna Mannerism Mercury 1585(c) Giambologna Mannerism Baroque
Helene
Fourment in a Fur 1635-1640
(c) Rubens Flemish Self-Portrait 1638-1640 Rubens Flemish Titus 1656-1657 Rembrandt Dutch Large
Self-Portrait 1652 Rembrandt Dutch Small
Self-Portrait 1657 Rembrandt Dutch The
Artist’s Studio 1665-1666 Vermeer Dutch Madonna
of the Rosary 1606
(c) Caravaggio Italian Infanta
Margarita Theresa 1659 Velasquez Spanish |
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Frans Hals
A Brilliant Portraitist! Frans Hals is regarded as one of the most brilliant portraitists of all time. Born to Flemish parents in Antwerp (we aren't sure if Hals was born in 1580 or 1585) his upbringing was actually conducted in Haarlem. His parents fled the Spanish conquest of Antwerp in 1585 and settled the family in Haarlem. We know that Hals spent 81 years of his life in Haarlem, where he learned the secrets of painting (probably in the studio of the minor artist Karel van Mander.) The early works of Hals are not well documented, and little is known of his apprenticeship. There is nothing in his early works to suggest that in 1611 Hals will shatter pictorial convention with his life-sized group portrait, The Banquet of the Officers of the St. George Militia Company which hangs in the Hals Museum in Haarlem. This group portrait is executed with the brilliant, flashing brushwork of an artist of full maturity and vision. The composition and the vigorous air of optimism shown in both the painting and the characterization in the portraits have come through time to represent the confidence, energy and browing power of the new Dutch Republic. These portraits are emblematic of a people looking around them and at the future and liking the prospect very much. How does Hals do it? Well, for one thing there is his ability to capture a fleeting moment. People in a Hals painting look as if they are in the midst of laughing or talking. The people Hals' portraits are caught as they take a sip of beer, in the midst of a difficult passage on the flute and in mid-sentence. This moment of fleeting time preserved gives Halsí work a tremendous vivacity and energy. Coupled with his extraordinary energetic and flashing brushwork (one feels that Hals has painted with lightening!) there is produced in the viewer a thrill of immediacy. The technique used in these works is a wet technique of oil painting known as alla prima, which is Italian for "at first." This refers to the fact that the paint is applied all in one layer, usually very quickly. There is no underpainting or overglazing in a true all prima work. Frans Hals was recognized in his life and commissioned to do many portraits. They give us a picture not only of an artist of vision, but of a certain place and time. They tell us much about the people of the new Dutch Republic. However, Hals lost favor as a portraitist at the end of his life, was destitute and supported by the state. Although there is little evidence that he was as hard-drinking as a contemporary claimed..."filled to the gills every evening", it is true that his second wife was in trouble with the authorities for public brawling! Hals had ten children. Five of his sons became painters, none exhibiting the talent of their father. Hals also had a number of students. His most brilliant pupil was Mary Leyster. Unfortunately, when Hals died so did his reputation. He wasnít recognized asan artist of worth again until the 19th century. Many Impressionists admired Hals, as did the Americans. The first saw in his work a similarity to their own, the second recognized in the faces of the portraits, themselves. ~Benita Goldman~ |
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Judith Leyster 1609-1660
Dutch Baroque
The very best
student of Frans Hals!
Judith
Leyster was one of the real rarities of Baroque Art...a woman! She was
trained under the great Dutch Baroque portraitist Frans Hals in Haarlem,
the Netherlands. Like her teacher, Judith was exceptionally good at catching
fleeting moments of time as expressed in the features of her subjects.
Like her teacher, too, was Judith's flashing virtuoso brushwork. In fact,
so much was Judith's work like that of her teacher, that in the course
of history, her works used to be sold as his. One painting is a case in
point. The Lute Player, which hangs today in the collection of the Rijksmuseum
in Amsterdam, was once thought to be by Frans Hals. One notices in the
work a light source that comes from the upper left of the picture plane
(Hals was famous for this!) as well as for the 3/4 portrait. It's more
than a mere bust, but not an entire figure. If one looks at the energy
and forcefulness of the brushwork as it dashes across the lute player's
face, we can see how people really believed that this was, indeed, a work
by Hals. Judith
Leyster spent most of her career in Haarlem, athough she worked briefly
in Amsterdam. In 1636 she married the painter Jan Miense Molenaer. Her
husband's two brothers were painters, also from the circle surrounding
Frans Hals. Throughout
her married life, Judith shared a studio with her husband, and used many
of the same models and props. It is likely that they collaborated on works,
as well. It thus makes it even more difficult to sdistinguish Judith's
work on a sylistic basis. One clue that helps the poor at historian is
that Judith often signed her work with a star. The pun is a play on her
last name.."Leyster" which means "Lode Star" in Dutch. Judith
painted portraits (as did her teacher Hals, almost exclusively) but she
also painted still-life and genre scenes. The term "genre" in art history
refers to paintings that show scenes of everyday life. The term also may
be used to describe any historical time period, but it is especially used
in reference to the Dutch painters of the 17th century. The
Dutch of the Baroque period were fond of domestic scenes, of kitchens
and pantries, of the tiled flooring in their entrance halls. They seemed
never to tire of paintings depicting the everyday surroundings of their
lives. Works that depicted such scenes found a ready market. One additional
meaning of the word "genre" should be mentioned: it may be used to refer
to particular branches of painting, such as; landscape, history, portrait
or religious painting. One may refer to the "landscape genre" and mean
to indicate the whole sweep of paintings that deal with that subject.
Art was a thriving business in Holland, and it wasn't just the rich doing
the buying. Tradesmen, merchants, shopkeepers and others delighted in
a prosperity that allowed them the largesse with which to buy art. In
Dutch Baroque painting there were specialists in tavern scenes, landscapes,
interiors, portraits and still-lifes. There were audiences for all these
subjects and more, including the works of Judith Leyster--that rarity
in the field of Baroque Art--a woman! |
JAN
VERMEER
1632-1675
Dutch Baroque Second
only to Rembrandt ! Jan
Vermeer is often referred to as "Jan Vermeer of Delft". Except for
one known visit to the Hague, he lived most of his life in the town
of his birth. Vermeer left us a visual record of that town in the
charming painting The Little Street of Delft which
hangs now in the collection of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Not
much is known of Vermeer's personal life other than few bare facts.
He had eleven children, a wife, and most likely earned his living
from the businesses he inherited from his father. The demands of
those businesses; an inn and a picture dealership, would account
Vermeer's very small output as an artist. He is known to have painted
only about thirty-five canvasses in his life. Of these, only three
are actually dated on the canvas. Well, that's hardly anything!
Why would the world acclaim an artist who produced so very little?
Vermeer was a relatively unknown artist in his own lifetime! It
is likely that a single collector purchased most of his work. He
had neither fame nor riches in his life. In fact, three years after
Vermeer's death, his wife declared bankruptcy. What is the deal
with Vermeer anyway? The
deal with Vermeer is LIGHT! Vermeer was a poet of light…as
it fell across objects and pearlized on the lip of a glass, in the
glistening eye of a woman about to turn her head, in the chandelier
with its ornate curves, hanging from the wooden beams of a ceiling
in a Dutch household. The light in a Vermeer painting is pure poetry
in paint. The light crystallizes, transforms, distills and articulates
the wrinkled maps across which it travels, the black and white tiled
floors, the clothing of the figures in the rooms and the Turkish
carpets that in characteristic Dutch fashion lay across tables rather
than floors. To
view a Vermeer is to see a painting once described as "crushed pearls
melted together." It is a painting of the very highest quality,
and a painting of freshness, spontaneity and precision unmatched,
all united by a unique quality of light. Vermeer's subjects usually
are interiors with a window at the upper left that illuminates the
room. The materials at hand; a map, a rug, tiles, a chair, a table,
a figure at the window, etc., are described in paint so brilliantly
and beautifully that there is produced in the viewer a quietness
that is analagous to LISTENING. The quality of immediate life captured
is so intense that if you look at the painting carefully, you feel
as if you might hear the people in them breathe. Vermeer's
estate was settled by his friend, the scientist Anthony van Leeuwenhoek,
who was famous for his work in optics. It is yet another clue as
to the unique vision of Vermeer. It is very likely that an interest
in optics brought the scientist and artist together. Most scholars
agree that Vermeer used the Camera Obscura.
The Camera Obscura may be though of as the precursor to our modern cameras. The term comes from the Latin for "dark chamber". That's exactly what the first camera obscuras were. They were small, darkened rooms or boxes with a small hole or lens at one end. The light from the scene outside the chamber entered the small hole or lens and was projected inverted on to a flat plane placed on the wall opposite the opening. The artist could trace this image on a sheet of paper, or outline the forms on a canvas. The use of the camera obscura goes back, in tradition at least, to the ancient Greeks.
In the 16th century, the device was vastly improved. A much smaller box replaced the chamber, and lenses of quality that were recently developed were used for the first time. A mirror righted the image so that when it was projected, the artist saw the actual scene, not an upside-down image. The Italian physician Giambattista della Porta wrote a treatise on the subject in 1558 which did much to popularize the device. Amateurs and artists alike used the camera obscura in the 18th century.
Well, back to Vermeer. Vermeer may have used a version of the camera obscura that projected the image on to a plane of crushed glass. This seems even more likely the case when we look closely at an actual painting. In the highlights or very brightest parts of the painting that indicate areas in the actual scene where light is reflected, there are small, rounded daubs of light paint…almost like droplets of water. These "pearls" of light are characteristic of Vermeer's work. Now, imagine that you are looking at the scene reflected in a plane of crushed glass. Imagine how the highlights would look. They would be changed by the glass to emphasize the reflected surfaces. The highlights are more glistening, more pronounced.
The camera obscura also allowed the painter to describe space more convincingly, even proto-photographically (if there is such a term, and if there isn't….indulge me!) There are spatial distortions in Vermeer's paintings that really will not be seen until the invention of photography!
Okay, we've described he quality of light, and the influence of the camera obscura on the depiciton of space and foreshortening. Finally, the last proto-photographic element in Vermeer's work is thais: some of the areas in Vermeer's paintings are out of focus! Now that may not seem earthshaking to you, but if we look at the history of artistic depiction of the visible world, we will see that out-of-focus has not been a part of the artist's vocabulary of tricks up until this time. Vermeer's painting of passages in soft-focus or out-of-focus gives the viewer a sense of intimacy that other Dutch Baroque paintings cannot. You and I are used to seeing photographs that are out of focus, but in the 17th century, Vermeer was on e of the very first to exploit this proto-photographic visual phenomenon for artistic purposes.
A brilliant writer of the 19th century, Eugene Fromentin said this about the Dutch painters of the 17th century: "The object is to imitate what is, to make what is imitated loved, to express clearly one's simple, strong, deep feelings. The style then, will have the simplicity and clarity of the principle. Its law is to be sincere, its obligation to be truthful." Fromentin also said, "..at times, a warmer sensibility turns them into philosophers, nay, even poets."
Vermeer is truly one of the philosopher-poets of painting. He falls into a group of 17th century Dutch Baroque painters we call "genre" painters, yet rises above them all. It is thorugh the brilliance of his painting, his attention to detail, and most importantly, through his remarkable use of light that Vermeer distinguishes himself as greater than any of his contemporaries in the field of genre painting, and second only to Rembrandt in the Dutch Baroque period.
Vermeer's career had three distinct phases. His early work, an ouvre containing only two paintings was distinguished by larger canvasses and religious themes. The second phase of his career containing his mature work is distinguished by smaller canvasses of contemporary Dutch interior scenes, his only landscape painting, and the image on the reverse of the painting reproduced here; The Artist's Studio. The last phase of Vermeer's career exhibits a brilliant falling-off of the brilliant quality of his mature work.
There aren't any drawings by Jan Vermeer. One suspects that his working methods did not require the use of preparatory drawings. No Vermeer sketchbooks of any sort have ever surfaced.
Vermeer's interiors usually contain one or two people, often engaged in activities that absorb their thought. A woman reads a letter, a maid pours milk from a pitcher, or a woman makes lace. Vermeer paints them all into poems of light.~Benita
