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Trevi Fountain
Italian: Fontana di Trevi

The Trevi Fountain (Italian: Fontana di Trevi) is a fountain in the Trevi district in Rome, Italy, designed by Italian architect Nicola Salvi and completed by Pietro Bracci. Standing 26.3 metres (86 ft) high and 49.15 metres (161.3 ft) wide, it is the largest Baroque fountain in the city and one of the most famous fountains in the world. The fountain has appeared in several notable films, including Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita and the eponymous Three Coins in the Fountain.

Gérard de Nerval
by Nadar

Today is the birthday of Gérard de Nerval (Gérard Labrunie; Paris 22 May 1808 – 26 January 1855 Paris); writer, poet, essayist and translator.  A major figure of French romanticism who worked in many genres, he is best known for his poems and novellas, especially the collection Les Filles du feu (The Daughters of Fire), which includes the novella Sylvie and the poem El Desdichado.  He died by suicide during the night of 26 January 1855, by hanging himself from a sewer grating in the rue de la vieille-lanterne, a narrow lane in the fourth arrondissement of Paris.  He left a brief note to his aunt: “Do not wait up for me this evening, for the night will be black and white.”  The poet Charles Baudelaire observed that Nerval had “delivered his soul in the darkest street that he could find (délier son âme dans la rue la plus noire qu’il pût trouver).”

Corilla

Mazetto : Vous avez l’air contrarié.
Fabio : C’est que le bonheur me rend triste ; il me force à penser au malheur qui le suit toujours de près.

• Corilla dans Les Chimères – La Bohême galante – Petits châteaux de Bohême, Gérard de Nerval, éd. Gallimard, coll. Poésie / Gallimard, 2005, partie Second château, Petits châteaux de Bohême, p. 224

Il est sage d’aimer dans la belle saison de l’âge ; plus sage de n’aimer pas.

• Corilla dans Les Chimères – La Bohême galante – Petits châteaux de Bohême, Gérard de Nerval, éd. Gallimard, coll. Poésie / Gallimard, 2005, partie Second château, Petits châteaux de Bohême, p. 239

Emilie

Vallier : Eh bien ! C’est toute l’aventure du sergent prussien tué par Desroches.
Wilhelm : Desroches ! Est-ce du lieutenant Desroches que vous parlez ?

• Emilie dans Les Filles du feu, Gérard de Nerval, éd. Folio, coll. Classique/Folio, 2007, p. 295

Aurélia, 1853

Le rêve est une seconde vie.

• Aurélia, dans Œuvres, Gérard de Nerval, éd. Gallimard, coll. Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 1960, p. première phrase

Rien n’est indifférent, rien n’est impuissant dans l’univers ; un atome peut tout dissoudre, un atome peut tout sauver.

• Aurélia, dans Œuvres, Gérard de Nerval, éd. Gallimard, coll. Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 1960, p. 404

Les Faux Saulniers, 1868

Il est des gens qui crient très haut qu’ils n’ont jamais voulu se vendre ; c’est peut-être qu’on ne se serait jamais soucié de les acheter.

• Les Faux Saulniers, dans Œuvres, Gérard de Nerval, éd. Gallimard, coll. Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 1960, p. 443

Le carnet de Dolbreuse

La vertu, chez les uns, c’est peur de la justice ; chez beaucoup c’est faiblesse ; chez d’autres, c’est calcul.

• Le carnet de Dolbreuse, dans Œuvres, Gérard de Nerval, éd. Gallimard, coll. Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 1960, p. 430

Today is the birthday of Fritz von Uhde (Friedrich Hermann Carl Uhde; Wolkenburg, May 22, 1848 – February 25, 1911 Munich); painter of genre and religious subjects.  His style laying between Realism and Impressionism, he was once known as “Germany’s outstanding impressionist” and he became one of the first painters who introduced en plein air art in his country.

 Uhde in 1902

 Uhde, young

 Uhde, self-portrait, 1898

The Mealtime Prayer or Grace before the Meal (1885) by Fritz von Uhde

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  Let the little children come to me (1883)

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  Christ with a Farm Family (ca. 1887–88)

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  The Last Supper (1886)

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  Road to Emmaus (1891)

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  Sisters in the Sewing Room (1883)

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  Christus and Nicodemus (1896)

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  Road to Bethlehem; also known as The Difficult Journey (1890)

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  At the Window (1890)

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  Portrait of Therese Karl (1890)

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  Shepherdess at the Dachau Camp (1890)

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  Winter Landscape (1890)

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  The Ascension of Christ (1897)

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  Girls on the Veranda (1901)

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  In the Garden (1901)

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  The reading girl (1902).

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  Seated Angel on the Stairs (1910)

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  Holy Night (1911)

Today is the birthday of Hildegard Katarina Thorell (née Bergendal; Kroppa parish, Värmland County  22 May 1850 – 2 February 1930); painter.  Thorell mainly painted large portraits, for example “Modersglädje” (Maternal Joy) och “Damporträtt” (Female Portrait).

In 1872 she married the auditor Oskar Reinhold Thorell. She studied at the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm from 1876 to 1879, where she was the only married female student. She became an agré at the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts in 1883 and was apprenticed to Bertha Wegmann. Later she travelled to Paris, where she studied with Léon Bonnat and Jean-Léon Gérôme.

Gallery

“Lady in Mourning”

Mary Cassatt
Self-portrait by Mary Cassatt, c. 1878, gouache on paper, 23⅝ × 16 3/16 in., Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Today is the birthday of Mary Cassatt (Mary Stevenson Cassatt; Pennsylvania, May 22, 1844 – June 14, 1926 Château de Beaufresne, near Paris); American painter and printmaker.  She lived much of her adult life in France, where she first befriended Edgar Degas and later exhibited among the Impressionists.  Cassatt often created images of the social and private lives of women.  She was described by Gustave Geffroy in 1894 as one of “les trois grandes dames” of Impressionism alongside Marie Bracquemond and Berthe Morisot.

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  Portrait of Madame Sisley (1873)

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  The Reader (1877), Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art

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  In the Box (1879)

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  Lydia Leaning on Her Arms, Seated in Loge (1879)

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  Miss Mary Ellison (1880)

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  Lilacs in a Window (1879)

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• Young Woman in Green, Outdoors in the Sun (1914)

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  The Fitting, ca. 1890, drypoint and aquatint, Brooklyn Museum

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  Woman Standing, Holding a Fan, 1878–79, Amon Carter Museum of American Art