Heavy snow and visitors to the Shiba Jingu Palace - Ichiryusai Hiroshige

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Inspired by: Ichiryusai Hiroshige - Heavy snow and visitors to the Shiba Jingu Palace – 1858

Hiroshige was one of the last great ukiyo-e artists. He was a member of the Utagawa school, which was one of the four major schools and stood at the forefront of this 19th century movement. Since Japanese artists often took on the name of their school, for part of his life he was known as Utagawa Hiroshiga.

During Hiroshige’s time, the print industry was booming. Tourism was also on the rise, and these prints became the equivalent of travel postcards for the Japanese. This print was published 1858, the year of Hiroshige’s death. It is part of One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, an illustrated guidebook to the city now called Tokyo.

Ukyo-e first appeared in the West after Japan began trading with the Dutch in 1609. At that time the prints were only used to wrap parcels for shipping. They didn’t gain real attention until they appeared at the Paris world’s Fair of 1855. There, they caught the attention of the Impressionists, who went nuts over them. They were all over the walls in Monet’s home in Givernny. Van Gogh also covered his walls, and made several direct copies of Hiroshige's work.

Piero di Cosimo - Portraits da Sangallo

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Inspired by: Piero di Cosimo - Portraits da Sangallo 

Giuliano da Sangallo was an architect along with his father, uncles and his son. Giuliano commissioned these portraits soon after his father’s death. A death mask was probably used to recreate his father’s likeness. This diptych is an early example of a portrait in which the subject’s profession plays a key role. On the table in front of each subject lies the tools of their profession. Giuliano got a pen and dividers for architecture, but Francesco, who was not only an architect but more importantly a musician, got a piece of sheet music. Giuliano was a part of the Renaissance scene. He assisted in the design of St Peter’s Basilica. He was also called upon to help Michelangelo remove mold from the Sistine Chapel ceiling after the younger artist had applied too wet a plaster. Originally Piero di Lorenzo, Cosimo took the name of his master Cosimo Rosselli. He also took his daughter in marriage, and assisted him in his Sistine Chapel frescos. During his lifetime, Piero acquired a reputation for eccentricity. Reportedly, he was deathly afraid of thunderstorms, and so pyrophobic that the only food he cooked was hard-boiled eggs, which he prepared 50 at a time while boiling glue for his artworks. The great historian Vasari wrote, “Through his brutish ways he was rather held to be a madman. He could not stand babies crying, men coughing, bells ringing, or friars chanting,”  See original: https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/SK-C-1367

Édouard Manet - The Balcony

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Inspired by Édouard Manet - The Balcony

All the models are friends or relatives of Manet. Painter Berthe Morisot is the lady sitting on the left. Standing in the back is another painter Jean Baptiste Antoine Guillemet. On the right is the violinist Fanny Claus (no kidding). The fourth figure, partially obscured in the interior's background, is possibly Léon Leenhoff, Manet's son. Berthe Morisot was one of the three important female Impressionists. She was one of Manet’s favorite models. This was the first portrait Manet did of her. Then he painted her 11 more times. She would become the wife of his brother, Eugène.

There were many iterations of this painting. It was inspired by Majas on the Balcony by Francisco Goya. Which was very similar, and which Manet gave attribution. This painting was just a redo. and it took Manet a couple of shots at to get it right. In his first version there were two women on a balcony. The name of that painting is Portrait of Mademoiselle Claus (no kidding). In the first version Fanny is seated in the chair and Berthe is standing, back to painter. In this version he added two more characters and made Berthe sit and Fanny stand. Oh, and he threw in a dog with a bow in its hair beneath Morrisot’s chair. Then Surrealist René Magritte painted Perspective II: Manet's Balcony in 1950, a commentary on this work. In Magritte’s version there are four coffins (one "seated") in place of the four people. Magritte said "For me the setting of The Balcony offered a suitable place to put coffins. The 'mechanism' at work here might form the object of a learned explanation, which I am unable to provide.”

The painting was exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1869, and then kept by Manet until his death in 1883.

To see original: https://bit.ly/3rtj39s

Georges de La Tour – The Cheat with the Ace of Diamonds

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Inspired by Georges de La Tour - The Cheat with the Ace of Diamonds

The Cheat with the Ace of Diamonds - 1635

Musée du Louvre, Paris

De la Tour created two versions of this painting. One is in the Louvre and the other is in the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth Texas. The only difference being the clothes and especially the cheat card. In this painting that card is an ace of diamonds and in the other it is an ace of clubs. You can probably guess the name of the Kimbell version. Like so many paintings from the 17th century, this one is loaded with a moral message from the church. Many artists wished to remind their audiences that sinners were barred from Heaven. As far as sins go this painting includes the three biggies: gambling, drunkenness and lust. The choice of the cheat cards is no accident. The diamond evokes money and commerce of the flesh, while the club symbolizes ill fortune.

De la tour was a very successful painter in the 1600’s, but quickly fell out of favor after his death. His star would not rise again until this painting appeared in a 1934 exhibition at the Louvre. It was the first time his work had been exhibited in almost 300 years. This sparked a growing craze for the artist and his work started popping up everywhere. Despite this new stardom, Pierre Landry, a Paris art dealer, spent 15 years trying to get the Louvre to buy this painting. They finally completed the acquisition in 1972. Maybe he was just asking for too much money.

To see original: bit.ly/3Cx2aiB

Grant Wood – American Gothic

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Inspired by Grant Wood – American Gothic – 1930

Wood's inspiration came from what is now known as the American Gothic House, and his decision to paint the house along with "the kind of people I fancied should live in that house." When asked what, American Gothic was about, Wood often said that it was really about architecture. The house seemed to him typically American. He found the house in Eldon, Iowa and made several sketches. In the painting the pitch fork and the shirt connect us to the lines of the building behind. The pattern on the woman’s dress relates to the shades in the window. The elongated faces of the models go with the elongated windows.

The figures were modeled by Wood's sister, Nan Wood Graham, and his dentist, Dr. Byron McKeeby. Wood’s first choice for a female model was his mother, Hattie. However, he was concerned that posing at length would be too much for her. So, in her stead his sister Nan sat in. Nan, was embarrassed at being depicted as the wife of someone twice her age - and began telling people that the painting was of a man and his daughter. 

The painting came to be seen in the Great Depression as a depiction of steadfast American pioneer spirit. Wood was quoted as saying, "All the good ideas I've ever had came to me while I was milking a cow."  Wood entered his painting in a competition at the Art Institute of Chicago. It received the bronze medal and a $300 cash prize.  As the painting gained attention it was reproduced in newspapers. Iowans were furious at their depiction.  One farm-wife threatened to bite Wood's ear off.  To that Wood said, He didn't paint a caricature of Iowans but rather “a depiction of Americans”.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec - At the Moulin Rouge: The Dance

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Inspired by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec - At the Moulin Rouge: The Dance

A penciled inscription, in the artist's hand, on the back of this famous painting reads: "The instruction of the new ones by Valentine the Boneless." A nickname given a nimble dancer who instructed the Moulin Rouge rookies in the can-can. Many of the inhabitants of the scene are well-known members of Lautrec's demimonde of prostitutes and artists. At the far right the Irish poet William Butler Yeats leans on the bar. The owner of the Moulin Rouge liked the painting so much he hung it over the bar.

Lautrec was born with serious congenital health condition which could be attributed to aristocratic inbreeding. Even his parents, the Comte and Comtesse, were first cousins. At the age of thirteen, Henri fractured both his femurs. Neither of the breaks healed properly, because of a brittle bone genetic disorder called pycnodysostosis (try and pronounce that!) which is frequently called Toulouse-Lautrec syndrome today. The injuries permanently halted the growth of his legs causing him to develop a full adult torso, while his legs remained child sized.

Lautrec popularized the cocktail. He was known for getting drunk off “earthquake cocktails”, which were a strong mixture of absinthe and cognac. He even hollowed out his cane, so that he could fill it with liquor. One of his drinking buddies was van Gogh, who he painted sipping a glass of absinthe. One evening they were so drunk that Lautrec offered to duel on Van Gogh's behalf, following a dispute with an equally drunken Belgian who had disrespected his Netherlandish friend. The vagaries of this lifestyle caught up with him, and he succumbed to the effects of alcoholism at the age of 36. https://bit.ly/3rgIT1c

Georges de La Tour - The Cheat

The Cheat - 1650
Musée du Louvre

Also known as The Cheat with the Ace of Diamonds. Two versions of the painting circa 1630 and 1635. The version I have placed Santa in is from the Louvre. The other version is in the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth Texas. The Texas version is called The Cheat with the Ace of clubs because in the second version he changed the suit of the cheat card from a diamond to a club. This painting is a direct reference to The Cardsharps by Caravaggio (see blog post Dec 7). De La Tour was one of about 50 artists who showed there admiration for Caravaggio by copying this work of art.
In 1934, the Cheat was featured in the memorable exhibition of the Painters of Reality that brought French 17th-century painting back to glory and marked the revival of Georges de La Tour. This sparked a growing craze for the artist and the corpus of his works broadened.

To see the original: http://bit.ly/2gzgcbJ