Thursday, February 12, 2015

Women by Croatian artist Vlaho Bukovac 1855-1922


Vlaho Bukovac (Italian - Biagio Faggioni) (Croatian painter, 1855-1922) Baroness Rukavina 1898

The Croatian artist Vlaho Bukovac's (1855-1922) real name was Vlaho Fagioni. His father was Italian & mother was from Dubrovnik, Croatia. He began to exhibit his talent for drawing in his early childhood, but because of his family's poverty he could not continue his education in Croatia.  His uncle Frano had  emigrated to America, & invited young Vlaho to join him in New York in 1867. 


Vlaho Bukovac (Italian - Biagio Faggioni) (Croatian painter, 1855-1922) My Nest - The Artist's Family

In 1871, he returned to Dubrovnik & embarked as an apprentice on a merchant ship that sailed on regular line Istanbul-Odessa-Liverpool. His apprenticeship ended abruptly, when he fell through a tap-door on board ship & suffered severe concussion. Convalescing at home he painted the walls of his parents house with fanciful scenes of gardens & animals. These faithfully-restored murals can still be seen at the Bukovac House in Cavtat, Croatia.


 Vlaho Bukovac (Italian - Biagio Faggioni) (Croatian painter, 1855-1922) Young Artist -Portrait of the Artist's Daughter

He left home once again to study in Paris at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts under Alexandre Cabanel in 1877, & exhibited in the Paris Salon from 1878.  He remained in Paris for the next 13 years, except for 2 periods of portraiture in England, in 1886 & 1888. Throughout his career he experimented with a variety of painting styles including the pointillist technique.  On his return to Zagreb in 1893, he founded the Society of Croatian Artists. In 1903, he became a professor at the Prague Academy of Fine Arts.


Vlaho Bukovac (Italian - Biagio Faggioni) (Croatian painter, 1855-1922) Lady Reading



Vlaho Bukovac (Italian - Biagio Faggioni) (Croatian painter, 1855-1922)


Vlaho Bukovac (Italian - Biagio Faggioni) (Croatian painter, 1855-1922) Daydreams 1905

Tuesday, February 10, 2015

The sexual revolution in 18C England & her colonies


An article appeared in The Guardian about a little known sexual revolution in 18C England. It was written by Faramerz Dabhoiwala about his book, The Origins of Sex: A History of the First Sexual Revolution.

Here are a few snippets. "Since the dawn of history, every civilisation had punished sexual immorality. The law codes of the Anglo-Saxon kings of England treated women as chattels, but they also forbade married men to fornicate with their slaves, and ordered that adulteresses be publicly disgraced, lose their goods and have their ears and noses cut off. Such severity reflected the Christian church's view of sex as a dangerously polluting force, as well as the patriarchal commonplace that women were more lustful than men and liable to lead them astray...

" When the Massachusetts settler James Britton fell ill in the winter of 1644, he became gripped by a "fearful horror of conscience" that this was God's punishment on him for his past sins. So he publicly confessed that once, after a night of heavy drinking, he had tried (but failed) to have sex with a young bride, Mary Latham. Though she now lived far away, in Plymouth colony, the magistrates there were alerted. She was found, arrested and brought back, across the icy landscape, to stand trial in Boston. When, despite her denial that they had actually had sex, she was convicted of adultery, she broke down, confessed it was true, "proved very penitent, and had deep apprehension of the foulness of her sin … and was willing to die in satisfaction to justice". On 21 March, a fortnight after her sentence, she was taken to the public scaffold. Britton was executed alongside her; he, too, "died very penitently". In the shadow of the gallows, Latham addressed the assembled crowds, exhorting other young women to be warned by her example, and again proclaiming her abhorrence and penitence for her terrible crime against God and society. Then she was hanged. She was 18 years old.

"That is the world we have left behind. Over the following century and a half it was transformed by a great revolution that laid the ground for the sexual culture of the 19th and 20th centuries, and of our own day. The most obvious change was a surge in pre- and extramarital sex. We can measure this, crudely but unmistakably, in the numbers of children conceived out of wedlock. During the 17th century this figure had been extremely low: in 1650 only about 1% of all births in England were illegitimate. But by 1800, almost 40% of brides came to the altar pregnant, and about a quarter of all first-born children were illegitimate. It was to be a permanent change in behaviour."

The article, actually a review of  Dabhoiwala's book, then goes on to explore the reasons for this sexual revolution. You can find the article here.

Detail from The Bed, etching, engraving and drypoint by Rembrandt (1646) at the British Museum


Friday, February 6, 2015

1500s-1700s Women depicted as Peace in prints



 Marcantonio (Italian printmaker, c 1470-1482-1527-1534) Peace



 Heinrich Aldegrever (German printmaker, c 1501-2-1555-61) Virtues & Vices - Peace



Jacques de Gheyn II (Dutch artist, 1565-1629) Virtues and Vices - Peace



 Thomas Burford (British painter, c.1710-79) Peace 1749



 Robert Pyle (British painter, fl c 1760-68) Peace



 Philip Dawe (British printmaker, fl c. 1750-91) Peace 1770



 Anonymous British, Peace 1798



 John Evans (British publisher and printer, fl 1790s-1820s) Peace 1798



 John Fairburn (British printer, fl 1789-1840l) Peace 1798



P Stampa (British printer, fl 1798-1817) Peace 1798


Thursday, January 29, 2015

The somber, even angry, Women of the Depressed 1930s



1930 Herbert von Reyl-Hanisch (Austrian artist, 1898-1937) Portrait of the Mother



Felice Casorati (1883 –1963) Daphne a  Pavarolo 1934



1930 Cagnaccio di San Pietro, Portrait of Signora Vighi



1930 Josef Scharl (German painter, 1896-1954) Street Scene in Paris



1930 Manfred Hirzel (German artist, 1905-1932) Melitta



Karl Hubbuch (German artist, 1891–1979) Theater Loge c 1930



1931 Antonio Donghi (Italian Painter, 1897-1963) Portrait of a Woman in Hat



1931 Otto Dix (German Expressionist painter, 1891-1969) Woman with Red Hair



1932 Amedeo Bocchi (Italian artist, 1883–1932)



1932 Conrad Felixmüller, Bildnis Frau Sofie Isakowitz



1932 Conrad Felixmüller (German Expressionist painter, 1897-1977) A Russian Imigrant from Baku (Frau Ginda Krettingen)



1932 Max Beckmann (German Expressionist Painter, 1884-1950) Quappi in Pink



1933 Karl Hubbuch (German artist, 1891–1979) Afternoon Tea



1935 Antonio Berni (Argentine artist, 1905-1981) Woman in Red Sweater



1935 Doris Clare Zinkeisen (British artist, 1898-1991) Self-Portrait



1935 Marcello Dudovich (Italian artist, 1878-1962] Ritratto di signora



1935 Werner Schramm (German artist, 1898-1970) Portrait of a Lady on the Pont des Arts



1937 Rita Angus, Self-portrait



1938 Diego Rivera, Portrait of Lupe Marín



1939 Paul Citroen (German-born Dutch artist, 1896-1983) Portray of Corry Mohlenfeldt


Sunday, January 25, 2015

Family by German artist Otto Dix 1891-1969



1921 Otto Dix (artist German, 1891-1969) Foundry Worker Franz Dix 1862-1942 and Louise Seamstress Amann Dix 1864-1953 - The Artist's Parents 

Otto Dix what famous for his unique & amp; grotesque style. After volunteering to serve in WWI in 1914, Dix Became anti-war. He did not like the way veterans were Treated upon Their return. In 1924 Dix joined with other artists who had fought in the WWI to put on a traveling Exhibition of Paintings called No More War!  In 1933 Adolf Hitler came to power in Nazi Germany. Hitler & amp; his Nazi government disliked Dix's anti-military paintings arranging for him to be dismissed from his position as art tutor at the Dresden Academy. Dix's dismissal letter said that his work "threatened to sap the will of the German people to defend Themselves." In 1939, Dix what Arrested & amp; charged with involvement in a plot on Hitler's life. Hey what Eventually released & amp; the charges were dropped. In the WWII, Dix what conscripted into the Volkssturm, the German Home Guard. And at the end of the war in 1945 Dix what forced to join the German Army, where he captured what & amp; put into a prisoner-of-war camp. Released in 1946, Dix returned to Dresden, a city indeed had been destroyed by heavy bombing Virtually. Although Hitler's Nazi regime destroyed many of Otto Dix's works, many can be seen resting in museum Throughout the world.

Otto Dix (German Expressionist painter, 1891-1969) The Artist's Wife



1920 Otto Dix (German artist, 1891-1969) Working Class Boy



 1921  Otto Dix (German artist, 1891-1969)  Woman Doctor Hans Koch. "Doctor" was removed When She Became Mrs. Dix.



1921 Otto Dix (artist German, 1891-1969) Two Children



1923 Otto Dix (German artist, 1891-1969) Portrait of Mrs. Martha Dix (Portrait of Mrs. Martha Dix)



1923 Otto Dix (German artist, 1891-1969) Mother with Child



Otto Dix (German artist, 1891-1969) Mother and Child



Otto Dix (German artist, 1891-1969) Baby with Umbilical Cord



1924 Otto Dix (artist German, 1891-1969) Foundry Worker Franz Dix 1862-1942 and Louise Seamstress Amann Dix 1864-1953 - The Artist's Parents



1924 Otto Dix (German artist, 1891-1969) The Artist's Daughter Nelly amongst Flowers



1925 Otto Dix (artist German, 1891-1969) Artist's Daughter Nelly



1925 Otto Dix (German artist, 1891-1969) The Lawyer Dr Fritz Glasser Family Portrait



1926 Otto Dix (artist German, 1891-1969) Portrait of the Journalist Sylvia von Hardent



1927 Otto Dix (artist German, 1891-1969) Newborn Baby on Hands



1927 Otto Dix (artist German, 1891-1969) The Artist's Family



1928 Otto Dix (artist German, 1891-1969) Child with Doll



Otto Dix (German artist, 1891-1969) Mother and Child



1928 Otto Dix (German artist, 1891-1969) Portrait of a Young Girl - Erni




Otto Dix (German artist, 1891-1969) Stroll



1928-29 Otto Dix (artist German, 1891-1969) The Artist's Son Ursus with Spintop



Otto Dix (German artist, 1891-1969) Sunday Stroll



1929 Otto Dix (German artist, 1891-1969) Children at Play



1930 Otto Dix (artist German, 1891-1969) Pregnant Woman



1930 Otto Dix (German artist, 1891-1969) Self Portrait with My Son



1931 Otto Dix (German artist, 1891-1969) The Artist's Son Ursus Sitting



1935 Otto Dix (artist German, 1891-1969) Mother and Eva



1940 Otto Dix (German artist, 1891-1969) The Artist's Daughter Nelly as Flora



1942 Otto Dix (artist German, 1891-1969) Mother with Child Irmgard Bahle



1968 Otto Dix (artist German, 1891-1969) Self Portrait with Marcella



 1923 Otto Dix (German artist, 1891-1969) Self Portrait