Searching centuries of History, Art, Nature, & Everyday Life for Unique Perspectives, Uncommon Grace, & Unexpected Insights.
Friday, January 31, 2014
Illuminated Manuscripts - Creatures
After eating his victim, this crocodile will cry crocodile tears. Museum Meermanno, MMW, 10 B 25, Folio 12v
Off to Russia - Vasily Tropinin 1776-1857
Vasily Tropinin (Russian artist, 1776-1857) Portrait of AI Tropinina, the Artist's Wife. 1809.
Vasily Tropinin (Russian artist, 1776-1857) Ukranian Woman in a Landscape
Vasily Tropinin (Russian artist, 1776-1857) Portrait of an Elderly Woman in a Cape Town. 1820s
Vasily Tropinin (Russian artist, 1776-1857) Portrait of the Artist's Sister Vatopinin
Vasily Tropinin (Russian artist, 1776-1857) Portrait of Leviskaya Volkonskaya
Vasily Tropinin (Russian artist, 1776-1857) Girl with Plums Chelyabinsk
Vasily Tropinin (Russian artist, 1776-1857) Portrait of Countess Zubova NA. 1834.
Vasily Tropinin (Russian artist, 1776-1857) Portrait of LK Makovsky
Vasily Tropinin (Russian artist, 1776-1857) Girl with a Candle
Vasily Tropinin (Russian artist, 1776-1857) Portrait of Mrs Botsigetti
Vasily Tropinin (Russian artist, 1776-1857) Portrait of the Writer Kozhina IN. 1836.
Vasily Tropinin (Russian artist, 1776-1857) Woman in the Window (Wife of a Treasurer). 1841.
Vasily Tropinin (Russian artist, 1776-1857) Portrait of Ea Sisalinoy
Vasily Tropinin (Russian artist, 1776-1857) Girl with a Pot of Roses. 1850.
Off to Russia - Philip Andreyevich Maliavin 1869-1940


Russian painter Philip Andreyevich Maliavin (1869-1940) studied religious icon painting at the St Panteleimon monastery, Agios-Oros, Greece, from 1885 to 1891. He then left the cloistered life of the monestary to enroll at the Academy of Arts in St Petersburg, where he stayed until 1899, taking lessons from Il’ya Repin.

His early paintings of women were calm, simple depictions, such as the portraits which open this posting. About the time of his marriage, he began to portray colorful, animated Russian peasant women. At the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris, he was awarded a gold medal for his picture "Laughter" a celebration of peasant women.

Many believe that Maliavin’s best period was 1905 to 1907, in the midst of Russia’s revolution crisis. In 1906, he created “The Whirlwind,” said to be his greatest painting.








Thursday, January 30, 2014
German artist Lovis Corinth (1858-1925) paints his family

Lovis Corinth (1858-1925) is often labeled as a German Impressionist or Expressionist; but he never considered himself either.

Corinth began his academic artistic training in 1876, when he enrolled at the Academy of Königsberg. Corinth attended the Munich Academy in 1880, which rivaled Paris as the avant-garde art center in Europe at the time. There he was influenced by Courbet & the Barbizon school as interpreted by Munich artists, Wilhelm Leibl & Otto Trubner.

During a 3-month stay in Antwerp in 1884, he was influenced by the vitality in the painting of Peter Paul Rubens. Later that year, Corinth moved to Paris to study at the Académie Julian, under William-Adolphe Bouguereau. Corinth was in Paris, when the Impressionists worked & exhibited there, but he claimed to have been entirely unaware of their work.

Disappointed by his lack of acceptance within the Parisian art world, Corinth returned to Germany in 1887. Soon after, he became involved in the Secession movement, an artists’ association formed by the painter Max Liebermann as a protest against the academic art schools in Berlin & Munich. In 1891, Corinth returned to Munich; but in 1892, he abandoned the Munich Academy to join the very first Secession movement. In 1894, he joined the Free Association; and in 1899, he exhibited in an Berline Secession exhibition.

In 1900, he moved to Berlin, where he had a one-man exhibition at the famous gallery owned by Paul Cassirer.

After settling in Berlin in 1901, Corinth’s mature work was rendered with loose brush work & strong colors which have often been described as Expressionist. Despite similarities, Corinth actively opposed the rise of Expressionism by excluding its artists from Secession exhibitions. He later grew to accept Expressionism’s merits, however, & embraced its intensely emotional approach in his own work.

In 1902, at the age of 43, he opened a School of Painting for Women & married his 1st student, Charlotte Berend, who was 20 years his junior. Charlotte was his youthful muse, spiritual partner, & mother of his two children. Family life became a major theme in his art during this time.

In 1911, he suffered a stroke partially paralyzing his left side. With the help of his wife, a year later he was back to work with his right hand. His brushwork became more vigorous; & his work done after 1911, is often considered his best.

From 1915-1925, he served as President of the Berlin Secession. In 1925, he traveled to Holland to look at the works of his favorite Dutch masters; & while there, he caught pneumonia, & died in Zanvoort.

It may be fortunate, that Corinth did not live to see Hitler's rise to power in 1933. Corinth's early works were left undisturbed; but those works executed after his stroke were politically labeled "Degenerate."

















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