Art Blog: November 2023

01 Work, The Art of War, Hans Thoma's War, with footnotes

Hans Thoma

The War, c. 1907

Oil on canvas

72.0 x 64.0 cm

Staedel Museum

War has left behind a blazing inferno. The silhouette of the allegorical figure rises darkly against the flaming red fire the dragon is spewing from his helmet. The rigorous profile view gives the man a look of unwavering determination, so that the dramatic sense of movement makes the events seem inevitable. The Städel acquired the painting during the Second World War. A work dealing with the same subject is also to be found in the Thoma Chapel at the Kunsthalle in Karlsruhe, built from 1905 to 1908. Hans Thoma was the director there for twenty years. More on this painting

Hans Thoma (2 October 1839 – 7 November 1924) was a German painter.

Hans Thoma was born on 2 October 1839 in Bernau in the Black Forest, Germany. He was the son of a miller and was trained in the basics of painting by a painter of clock faces. He entered the Karlsruhe Academy in 1859, where he studied under Johann Wilhelm Schirmer and Ludwig des Coudres – the latter of which had a major influence on his career. Thoma also studied under Hans Gude, but rebelled against Gude's realism. He subsequently studied and worked, with but indifferent success, in Düsseldorf, Paris, Italy, Munich and Frankfurt, until his reputation became firmly established as the result of an exhibition of some thirty of his paintings in Munich. He died in Karlsruhe in 1924 at the age of 85. More on Hans Thoma

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01 Work, The Art of War, Maximilian Pirner's The End of All Things, with footnotes

Maximilian Pirner

The End of All Things - Finis, c. 1887

Oil on canvas

height 100 cm, width 130 cm

National Gallery Prague

Maximilian Pirner's "The End of All Things" is a haunting and thought-provoking work of art that expertly combines technical skill with emotional depth. It is a testament to the power of art to explore the human condition and to challenge our perceptions of the world around us. More on this painting

Maximilian Pirner (13 February 1853 in Sušice – 2 April 1924 in Prague) was a Czech painter. He was a member of the Vienna Secession, and associated with the Mánes Union of Fine Arts.

He was enrolled from 1872 to 1874 at the Academy of Fine Arts, Prague and from 1875 to 1879 at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, where he studied with his countryman, Josef Matyáš Trenkwald. He remained in Vienna until 1887, although he was not an active participant in the local artistic community. At that time, he became a teacher at the Academy in Prague and was named a Professor there in 1896.

Pirner's usual themes were classical mythology. Pirner completed a number of sketches of female figures, many of them nudes. He also did stained glass windows and medals.

Described by one critic as having achieved "mastery of the sinuous line". Pirner also had his detractors. One contemporary critic, while acknowledging Pirner's talent, considered him an "over-sophisticated mystic. More on Maximilian Pirner

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01 Work, The Art of War, Charles Meynier's Allegory of war, with footnotes

Circle Charles Meynier

Allegory of war

Two oil on canvas

54 x 145,5 cm 52 x 145 cm

Private collection

Sale for €20,625 EUR in June 2022

This door top comes from Madame Mère's Palazzo Rinuccini in Rome.

Charles Meynier (1763 or 1768, Paris – 1832, Paris) was a French painter of historical subjects in the late 18th and early 19th century. He was a contemporary of Antoine-Jean Gros und Jacques-Louis David. Already at a young age he was trained by Pierre-Philippe Choffard. As a student of François-André Vincent, Meynier won the second prize in the 1789 prix de Rome competition; Girodet won. He became a member of the Académie de France à Rome. In 1793 he went back to Paris.

He made designs for the bas-reliefs and statues on the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel and the Paris Bourse. From 1816 onward, he was a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts. In 1819 Meynier was appointed teacher at the École des Beaux-Arts. Like his wife he died of cholera. More on Charles Meynier

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02 Works, The Art of War, Hercules and Minerva Fighting Mars by Peter Paul Rubens and Victor Wolfvoet the Younger, with footnotes

Wolfoet, Victor II (1612-1652)

Allegory of War, c. 1630s - 1640s

Oil on canvas

67x89 cm

Hermitage Museum

Minerva, protector of peace, assisted by Hercules, does not hesitate to throw herself against Mars, the god of war ready to massacre a woman with her child, under the gaze of Jupiter on his eagle. In the freedom of treatment and the science of movement we find the genius of an erudite and inventive artist for whom mythological allusions had no secrets' Catherine Loisel

Victor Wolfvoet (II) or Victor Wolfvoet the Younger (1612 – 1652), was a Flemish art dealer and painter of history and allegorical paintings. His artistic output was heavily influenced by Peter Paul Ruben

Wolfvoet the Younger was born in Antwerp as the son of Victor Wolfvoet the Elder, a painter and art dealer. His father was probably his teacher. He became a member of the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke around 1644-5. Some sources refer to Wolfvoet as a pupil of Rubens.

He married in 1636. His 1652 will, which he made not long before his death, states that he was the widower of Elisabeth Mertens. Victor Wolfvoet died in Antwerp on 23 October 1652 leaving one daughter, Livina Wolfvoet.

The artist's estate comprised a substantial collection of artworks of seven hundred items. The inventory of his estate lists twenty sketches by Rubens, including several designs for the ceilings of the Carolus Borromeus Church in Antwerp and six bozzetti for the Triumph of the Eucharist tapestry series. There are also sketches by other artists, many unattributed sketches and framed grisailles, and a number of sketches after Rubens. Some of the sketches were likely in Wolfvoet's own hand, like his copies after Rubens' Abraham and Melchizedek and Manna from Heaven both now in the Mauritshuis, The Hague. The large collection of works has been regarded as evidence that the artist may also have been active as an art dealer. More on Victor Wolfvoet (II)

Peter Paul Rubens

Hercules and Minerva Fighting Mars, ca. 1632-35

Gouache and brush and brown ink over preliminary drawing in black chalk, on light brown paper

370 x 537 mm

Département des Arts Graphiques du Musée du Louvre, Paris

'In 1630 Rubens offered King Charles I of England the painting representing 'War and Peace' or 'Minerva fighting against Mars'. This work in some way celebrated the diplomatic negotiations in which the artist had participated to avoid a war between Spain, England and France in previous years.

Sir Peter Paul Rubens (28 June 1577 – 30 May 1640) was a Flemish Baroque painter. A proponent of an extravagant Baroque style that emphasized movement, colour, and sensuality, Rubens is well known for his Counter-Reformation altarpieces, portraits, landscapes, and history paintings of mythological and allegorical subjects.

In addition to running a large studio in Antwerp that produced paintings popular with nobility and art collectors throughout Europe, Rubens was a classically educated humanist scholar and diplomat who was knighted by both Philip IV of Spain and Charles I of England. More Sir Peter Paul Rubens

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01 Work, The Art of War, Pieter Breughel I's The Fall of the Angels, with footnotes

Follower of Pieter Breughel I

The Fall of the Angels

Oil on panel

48.4 x 63.8 cm

Private collection

Sold for EUR 37,000 in May 2012

The present composition partly derives from the painting by Pieter Breughel I in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts, Brussels (inv. no. 584).

Emerging from distant depths in a halo of light, monsters are thrown to earth as from a breaking wave. Angels combat them, led by St Michael, thin as a rake in his golden armour, striking with his sword at the dragon with the seven crowned heads on which he has his foothold.

In Bruegel’s rendering, the violence is expressed not in the bitter nature of the battle – indeed St Michael and his sparse troops do not appear particularly threatened by the demons – but by the intensity of the fall – infernal and endless – of this crawling, hideous multitude that invades the entire surface of the picture, in a remarkable unity of action which increases its impact. By borrowing minutiously observed elements from the plant, animal, mineral and human worlds and combining them to form hybrid, deformed beings, Bruegel invents creatures that are the most repulsive, but also the most curious and fantastic imaginable. More on this painting

Jan Brueghel (also Bruegel or Breughel) the Elder (1568 – 13 January 1625) was a Flemish painter and draughtsman. He was the son of the eminent Flemish Renaissance painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder. A close friend and frequent collaborator with Peter Paul Rubens, the two artists were the leading Flemish painters in the first three decades of the 17th century.

Brueghel worked in many genres including history paintings, flower still lifes, allegorical and mythological scenes, landscapes and seascapes, hunting pieces, village scenes, battle scenes and scenes of hellfire and the underworld. Brueghel represented the type of the pictor doctus, the erudite painter whose works are informed by the religious motifs and aspirations of the Catholic Counter-Reformation as well as the scientific revolution with its interest in accurate description and classification.

The artist was nicknamed "Velvet" Brueghel, "Flower" Brueghel, and "Paradise" Brueghel. The first is believed to have been given him because of his mastery in the rendering of fabrics.[7] The second nickname is a reference to his fame as a painter of (although not a specialist in) flower pieces and the last one to his invention of the genre of the paradise landscape. His brother Pieter Brueghel the Younger was traditionally nicknamed "de helse Brueghel" or "Hell Brueghel" because it was believed he was the author of a number of paintings with fantastic depictions of fire and grotesque imagery. These paintings have now been reattributed to Jan Brueghel the Elder. More on Jan Brueghel

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01 Work, The Art of War, Louis Masreliez's An Allegory of War, with footnotes

Louis Masreliez (1748 – 19 March 1810)

An Allegory of War

Oil on canvas

36 1/8 x 52 1/8 in. (92.5 x 132 cm.)

Private collection

Sold for USD 62,500 in Apr 2021

The present Allegory of War depicts a furious Minerva, Roman goddess of War, dismounting her horse-drawn chariot, shield in one hand, thunderbolt in the other, charging toward a distant battle. Above her flies the winged, bearded, bare-chested Boreas, ancient god of the cold North Wind, accompanied by winged zephyrs, who blow snowflakes from their mouths onto the ground below.

The historic Battle of Narva (an Estonian city on the border with Russia) was an early victory for Swedish troops in the Great Northern War (1700-1721), in which they fended off an attack by Russian military forces that outnumbered the Swedish army four-to-one. The Swedish military repelled the Russian offensive in part by advancing under cover of the terrible weather conditions: the Swedes struck at the exact moment a deep-freeze hit the region, the winds shifted, and a violent snowstorm blew directly at the Russian forces, blinding them with its intensity. The Russians, suffering devastating losses, soon capitulated. More on this painting

Louis Masreliez (1748 – 19 March 1810), born Adrien Louis Masreliez, was a French born, Swedish painter and interior designer.

Masreliez was born in Paris and came to Sweden at the age of 5 in 1753. He was the son of French ornamental sculptor Adrien Masreliez (1717–1806) and the elder brother of sculptor Jean Baptiste Masreliez (1753–1801).

He began his education at the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts (Ritakademien) at the age of 10. Since the academy did not teach painting, he studied in Stockholm at the workshop of ornament painter Lorens Gottman (1708–1779).

In 1769 he was given a study grant which he used to travel to Paris, Bologna and Rome to study. In Rome he spent time with several of the French, Italian and German artists who would shape the Neoclassicism decorative style. In 1783, Louis Masreliez was called back to Sweden after his twelve-year absence. Following his returned to Sweden, he became a member (ledamot) of the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts. The following year he was made a professor of art history. He became rector of the Academy in 1802 and director in 1805.

His work is represented in the Swedish Nationalmuseum, the Gothenburg Museum of Art, and the Royal Palace. More on Louis Masreliez

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01 Work The Art of War, Armand-Charles Caraffe's Metellus besieges a city, with footnotes

Armand-Charles Caraffe (1762–1822)

Metellus besieges a city, c. before 1805

Oil on canvas

height: 53.5 cm (21 in); width: 80 cm (31.4 in)

Hermitage Museum

Tamburlaine is a poor shepherd who rises to power to live out his blood-soaked fantasy of conquering the world. His extravagant savagery shows what horror can result when unlimited political libido is let loose upon the world...

Tamburlaine the Great is a play in two parts by Christopher Marlowe. It is loosely based on the life of the Central Asian emperor Timur (Tamerlane/Timur the Lame, d. 1405). Written in 1587 or 1588, the play is a milestone in Elizabethan public drama; it marks a turning away from the clumsy language and loose plotting of the earlier Tudor dramatists, and a new interest in fresh and vivid language, memorable action, and intellectual complexity. Along with Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy, it may be considered the first popular success of London's public stage.

Marlowe, generally considered the best of that group of writers known as the University Wits, influenced playwrights well into the Jacobean period, and echoes of the bombast and ambition of Tamburlaine's language can be found in English plays all the way to the Puritan closing of the theatres in 1642. While Tamburlaine is considered inferior to the great tragedies of the late-Elizabethan and early-Jacobean period, its significance in creating a stock of themes and, especially, in demonstrating the potential of blank verse in drama, is still acknowledged.

Whereas the real Timur was of Turkic-Mongolian ancestry and belonged to the nobility, for dramatic purposes Marlowe depicts him as a Scythian shepherd who rises to the rank of emperor. More on Tamburlaine the Great

Armand-Charles Caraffe (1762–1822) was a French historical painter and etcher, who spent part of his career at the Russian Imperial court.

Caraffe was born in Paris in 1762. He was a pupil of Lagrenée and David. He visited Rome, and then travelled in Turkey, but returned to France at the outbreak of the Revolution becoming so active a member of the Jacobin Club that he was imprisoned from 1794 to 1797. In 1799 he exhibited a picture of Hope supporting Misfortune to the Grave, which was much praised, and in the following year one of Love, abandoned by Youth and the Graces, consoling himself on the bosom of Friendship. In 1802 he left France for an appointment at the Court of St. Petersburg, where he remained until 1812, and painted The Oath of the Horatii for Prince Yusupov. He eventually returned to Paris, where he died on 18 August 1822. More on Armand-Charles Caraffe

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01 Work, The Art of War, Maynard Dixon's Shapes of Fear, with footnotes

Maynard Dixon

Shapes of Fear, c. 1930-1932

Oil on canvas

40 x 50 1⁄8 in. (101.5 x 127.3 cm.)

Smithsonian American Art Museum

The abstract idea of fear is concretized here, in the way the four shapes representing four humans stand huddled together, their faces missing but their feet visible under their long cloaks. The cloaks appear like shrouds hiding faces paralyzed by fear. Out of the four shapes only one is facing the viewer, with a mere hole of a face where the face is supposed to be. The rest of the four may not be having any faces here or may not have had any at any time. Fear makes one so much faceless in the face of danger.

The feet are apparent and visible because in a “fight or flight ” situation, feet are essential, even when the faces are lost. More on this painting

Born in Fresno, California, Maynard Dixon was largely self-taught as an artist. His first sketches were of the Western landscape. In 1893 he attended the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art in San Francisco, but withdrew after only three months. That same year his first illustrations for the Overland Monthly appeared, beginning a long association with that periodical.

For the next fifty years Dixon traveled and lived throughout the American West. His illustrations of the people, landscape, and lifestyle of this region won him an enduring place in the history of Western artists. In 1920 Dixon married the noted documentary photographer Dorothea Lange. Her unique vision was certainly an important influence on the development of his own realistic approach. Aside from his magazine illustrations, Dixon worked prolifically in other media, illustrating novels, painting murals in several cities, and even writing poetry. More on Maynard Dixon

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01 Work, The Art of War, George Frederick Watts' The doctor's punishment, Villa Medicea di Careggi, with footnotes

George Frederic Watts

Detail of the doctor's punishment

Fresco

Villa Medicea di Careggi

The Fresco captures a detail of George Frederic Watts' fresco, "Punishment of the Doctor, " located in the historic Villa Medicea di Careggi in Florence, Italy. The painting depicts a gripping scene that portrays the retribution faced by a doctor who failed to save the life of Lorenzo de Medici. In this intense composition, we witness an epic struggle between two figures - one representing the physician and the other embodying vengeance. The artist skillfully conveys their conflict through dynamic poses and expressive gestures, evoking a sense of tension and confrontation. The Florentine setting adds an extra layer of significance to this artwork as it symbolizes both historical context and cultural identity. It serves as a reminder of Florence's rich artistic heritage and its connection to renowned Italian masters such as Watts himself. As we delve into this image, we are drawn into the battle unfolding before us – a clash between duty and consequence, failure and punishment. Through his masterful brushwork, Watts invites us to contemplate themes of accountability, justice, and human fallibility. This photograph by Raffaello Bencini beautifully captures every intricate detail with remarkable clarity. As we gaze upon this striking piece from Fine Art Finder's collection, we are transported back in time to witness this dramatic moment frozen forever on canvas. More on this Fresco

Lorenzo di Piero de' Medici, known as Lorenzo the Magnificent (January 1449 – 8 April 1492), was an Italian statesman, banker, de facto ruler of the Florentine Republic, and the most powerful and enthusiastic patron of Renaissance culture in Italy. He was a magnate, diplomat, politician and patron of scholars, artists, and poets. As a patron, he is best known for his sponsorship of artists such as Botticelli and Michelangelo. He held the balance of power within the Italic League, an alliance of states that stabilized political conditions on the Italian peninsula for decades, and his life coincided with the mature phase of the Italian Renaissance and the Golden Age of Florence. More on Lorenzo di Piero de' Medici

George Frederic Watts

The doctor's punishment

Fresco

Villa Medicea di Careggi

The large fresco by George Frederic Watts , who lived in Holland's guest villa in the mid-nineteenth century, dominates and immediately captures our attention : in 1845 he created this work depicting the Killing of the doctor of Lorenzo the Magnificent in the well of the villa , according to the episode, of an almost legendary nature, which made the courtyard of the residence famous. More on this Fresco

George Frederic Watts was born in Marylebone, London, the delicate son of a poor piano-maker. He showed promise very early, learning sculpture from the age of 10 with William Behnes and enrolling as a student at the Royal Academy at the age of 18. He came to the public eye with a drawing entitled Caractacus, which was entered for a competition to design murals for the new Houses of Parliament at Westminster in 1843. Watts won a first prize in the competition, which was intended to promote narrative paintings on patriotic subjects, appropriate to the nation's legislature. In the end Watts made little contribution to the Westminster decorations, but from it he conceived his vision of a building covered with murals representing the spiritual and social evolution of humanity.

Visiting Italy in the mid-1840s, Watts was inspired by Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel and Giotto's Scrovegni Chapel, but back in Britain he was unable to obtain a building in which to carry out his plan. In consequence most of his major works are conventional oil paintings, some of which were intended as studies for the House of Life. More on George Frederic Watts

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01 Work, The Art of War, Delacroix, Ferdinand Victor Eugene (1798-1863) French Young Woman Taken Away By A Tiger Or Indian Bitten By A Tiger, with footnotes

Delacroix, Ferdinand Victor Eugene (1798-1863) / French

Young Woman Taken Away By A Tiger Or Indian Bitten By A Tiger, c. 1856

Oil on canvas

0.51 x 0.61m

Stuttgart. Staatsgalerie

Parallel to these complex compositions, where the hunters on horseback lead the choreography, Delacroix worked on many scenes with two figures, in which

a great cat is shown tearing its prey—human or animal—to pieces. Lion Devouring a Rabbit, Lion Devouring an Arab, and Young Woman Attacked by a Tiger (also known as Indian Woman Bitten by a Tiger) occupy cavernous landscapes filled

with disturbing clumps of spiny plants (agaves or bulrushes). The preliminary drawings for the tiger painting demonstrate the decisive role of the formal interplay of two tangled, undulating bodies, those of the feline and the young woman, perhaps inspired by the dryads (salabhanjika) of ancient Buddhist art. The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix (26 April 1798 – 13 August 1863) was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school.

As a painter and muralist, Delacroix's use of expressive brushstrokes and his study of the optical effects of colour profoundly shaped the work of the Impressionists, while his passion for the exotic inspired the artists of the Symbolist movement. A fine lithographer, Delacroix illustrated various works of William Shakespeare, the Scottish author Walter Scott and the German author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

Delacroix took for his inspiration the art of Rubens and painters of the Venetian Renaissance, with an attendant emphasis on colour and movement rather than clarity of outline and carefully modelled form. Dramatic and romantic content characterized the central themes of his maturity, and led him not to the classical models of Greek and Roman art, but to travel in North Africa, in search of the exotic. Friend and spiritual heir to Théodore Géricault, Delacroix was also inspired by Lord Byron, with whom he shared a strong identification with the "forces of the sublime", of nature in often violent action.

However, Delacroix was given to neither sentimentality nor bombast, and his Romanticism was that of an individualist. In the words of Baudelaire, "Delacroix was passionately in love with passion, but coldly determined to express passion as clearly as possible." More on Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix

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01 Work, The Art of War, Pompeo Girolamo Batoni's Allegory of Peace and War, with footnotes

Pompeo Girolamo Batoni

Allegory of Peace and War, c. 1776

Oil on canvas

136 × 99 cm (53 1/2 × 39 in.)

The Art Institute of Chicago

Pompeo Batoni’s grand portraits and numerous religious and historical commissions established him as the leading Roman painter of his day. He painted Peace and War on his own initiative, without a commission, attracting critical praise for the work’s graceful invention. It combines elements of Rococo softness and eroticism with the newly fashionable Neoclassical style. War, represented by the god Mars, is restrained by a personification of peace, who bears an olive branch. More on this painting

The allegorical painting of Italian 18th-century artist Pompeo Batoni reflects a much-needed understanding of the relationship between peace and war for a contemporary audience. Batoni depicts symbolic representations of Peace as feminine, soft, and graceful; and War as masculine, strong, and fierce. It is the nature of their communication that is the most interesting.

War is shown in full armor as if ready for battle. His armor depicts a dragon, ram, and lion, which are sometimes associated with the Chimera, a mythological creature that is an omen for misfortune. War’s sword is unsheathed and his shield is fully equipped. Darkness engulfs the figures, making this a scene fringed with a sense of coming devastation. More on this painting

Pompeo Girolamo Batoni, Batoni also spelled Battoni (born Jan. 25, 1708, Lucca, Tuscany [Italy]—died Feb. 4, 1787, Rome), Italian painter, who in his own time was ranked with Anton Raphael Mengs as a painter of historical subjects. Probably his portraits are now better known, as he invented the type of “grand tourist” portrait, very popular among the English, which shows the sitter at his ease among the ruins of antiquity. Batoni first gained fame as a painter of florid and elaborate mythological allegories. From the 1750s until his death, however, he was the preeminent portraitist in Rome. His smoothly finished ceremonial portraits of important personages combined elements of the Rococo, Bolognese classicism, and emergent Neoclassicism. More on Pompeo Batoni

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01 Work, The Art of War, Sir Peter Paul Rubens' Allegory of war, with footnotes

Sir Peter Paul Rubens

Allegory of war, c. 1628

Oil on oak panel

36 × 50 cm

LIECHTENSTEIN. The Princely Collections

"Allegory of War" shows a woman sitting on the ground at the edge of a battle among the dead and seemingly despairing of war.

"Rubens occasionally negotiated peace talks and in the Thirty Years' War, like many other artists of the pre-modern epochs, commented triumphantly on ongoing negotiations in painting and exaggerated peace agreements achieved. Practical political conditions and the reality of the war, however, could dampen optimism: in the 1630s, Rubens demonstrated in his works the devastating effects of the war and the pessimism of those years." Dr. Eva-Bettina Krems from the University of Münster

Sir Peter Paul Rubens (28 June 1577 – 30 May 1640) was a Flemish Baroque painter. A proponent of an extravagant Baroque style that emphasized movement, colour, and sensuality, Rubens is well known for his Counter-Reformation altarpieces, portraits, landscapes, and history paintings of mythological and allegorical subjects.

In addition to running a large studio in Antwerp that produced paintings popular with nobility and art collectors throughout Europe, Rubens was a classically educated humanist scholar and diplomat who was knighted by both Philip IV of Spain and Charles I of England. More Sir Peter Paul Rubens

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