• Non so più cosa son, cosa faccio…
  Or di fuoco, ora sono di ghiaccio…
  Ogni donna cangiar di colore,
  Ogni donna mi fa palpitar.
  Solo ai nomi d’amor, di diletto
  Mi si turba, mi s’altera il petto,
  E a parlare mi sforza d’amore
  Un desio ch’io non posso spiegar!
  • Cherubino, Act I, sc. v

• Così fan tutte le belle!
  • All pretty women are like that.
  • Basilio, Act I, sc. vii
  • Così fan tutte was later used as the title of another opera by Mozart and Da Ponte.

• Non più andrai, farfallone amoroso,
  Notte e giorno d’intorno girando,
  Delle belle turbando il riposo,
  Narcisetto, Adoncino d’amor.
  • Figaro, Act I, sc. viii

• Ricerco un bene fuori di me,
  Non so chi ‘l tiene, non so cos’è.
  Sospiro e gemo senza voler,
  Palpito e tremo senza saper,
  Non trovo pace notte né dì:
  Ma pur mi piace languir così.
  • Cherubino, Act II, sc. iii

• Aprite un po’ quegli occhi
  Uomini incauti e sciocchi,
  Guardate queste femmine,
  Guardate cosa son.
  Queste chiamate Dee
  Dagli ingannati sensi,
  A cui tributa incensi
  La debole ragion,
  Son streghe che incantano
  Per farci penar,
  Sirene che cantano
  Per farci affogar.
  Civette che allettano
  Per trarci le piume,
  Comete che brillano
  Per toglierci il lume.
  • Figaro, Act IV, sc. viii

Today is the birthday of William Etty RA (York, England 10 March 1787 – 13 November 1849 York, England); artist best known for his history paintings containing nude figures. He was the first significant British painter of nudes and still lifes. Born in York, he left school at the age of 12 to become an apprentice printer in Hull. He completed his apprenticeship seven years later and moved to London, where in 1807 he joined the Royal Academy Schools. There he studied under Thomas Lawrence and trained by copying works by other artists. Etty earned respect at the Royal Academy of Arts for his ability to paint realistic flesh tones, but had little commercial or critical success in his first few years in London.

Etty’s Cleopatra’s Arrival in Cilicia, painted in 1821, featured numerous nudes and was exhibited to great acclaim. Its success prompted several further depictions of historical scenes with nudes. All but one of the works he exhibited at the Royal Academy in the 1820s contained at least one nude figure, and he acquired a reputation for indecency. Despite this, he was commercially successful and critically acclaimed, and in 1828 was elected a Royal Academician, at the time the highest honour available to an artist. Although he was one of the most respected artists in the country he continued to study at life classes throughout his life, a practice considered inappropriate by his fellow artists. In the 1830s Etty began to branch out into the more lucrative but less respected field of portraiture, and later became the first English painter to paint significant still lifes. He continued to paint both male and female nudes, which caused severe criticism and condemnation from some elements of the press.

An extremely shy man, Etty rarely socialised and never married. From 1824 until his death he lived with his niece Betsy (Elizabeth Etty). Even in London he retained a keen interest in his native York, and was instrumental in the establishment of the town’s first art school and the campaign to preserve York city walls. While he never formally converted from his Methodist faith, he was deeply attached to the Roman Catholic Church and was one of the few non-Catholics to attend the 1838 opening of Augustus Pugin’s chapel for St Mary’s College, Oscott, at that time England’s most important Roman Catholic building.

Etty was prolific and commercially successful throughout the 1840s, but the quality of his work deteriorated throughout this period. As his health progressively worsened he retired to York in 1848. He died in 1849, shortly after a major retrospective exhibition. In the immediate aftermath of his death his works became highly collectable and sold for large sums. Changing tastes meant his work later fell out of fashion, and imitators soon abandoned his style. By the end of the 19th century the value of all of his works had fallen below their original prices, and outside his native York he remained little known throughout the 20th century. Etty’s inclusion in Tate Britain’s landmark Exposed: The Victorian Nude exhibition in 2001–02, the high-profile restoration of his The Sirens and Ulysses in 2010 and a major retrospective of his work at the York Art Gallery in 2011–12 led to renewed interest in his work.

Gallery

Venus Reclining Holding A Full Moon

Lady Mary Templetown and Her Eldest Son, Thomas Lawrence, 1802

Mary, Lady Templeton, after Thomas Lawrence, William Etty, 1807–08

Incomplete first version

The finished Pandora

Etty abandoned the first of his 1824 Pandora paintings half-complete, and exhibited the second.

The Combat: Woman Pleading for the Vanquished (1825).

Monk Bar, York (1838)

Early oil study

A Family of the Forest

And today is the birthday of Nancy Cunard (Nancy Clara Cunard; 10 March 1896 – 17 March 1965); writer, heiress and political activist. She was born into the British upper class, and devoted much of her life to fighting racism and fascism. She became a muse to some of the 20th century’s most distinguished writers and artists, including Wyndham Lewis, Aldous Huxley, Tristan Tzara, Ezra Pound and Louis Aragon—who were among her lovers—as well as Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, Constantin Brâncuși, Langston Hughes, Man Ray and William Carlos Williams. MI5 documents reveal that she was involved with Indian socialist leader V. K. Krishna Menon.

Cunard moved to Paris in 1920. There, she became involved with literary Modernism, Surrealists and Dada. Much of her published poetry dates from this period. During her early years in Paris, she was close to Michael Arlen.

In 1920 she had a near-fatal hysterectomy, for reasons that are not entirely clear. She was however sadly unable to carry a pregnancy as a result of the hysterectomy.

A brief relationship with Aldous Huxley influenced several of his novels. She was the model for Myra Viveash in Antic Hay (1923) and for Lucy Tantamount in Point Counter Point (1928).

In Paris, Cunard spent much time with Eugene McCown, an American artist from the hard-drinking set whom she made her protégé. It has been suggested that she became dependent on alcohol at this time, and may have used other drugs.

In 1928, the year she founded her publishing company, Hours Press, she met Henry Crowder, with whom she lived until 1933.

In later years she suffered from mental illness, and her physical health deteriorated. When she died in the Hôpital Cochin, Paris, she weighed only 26 kg (57 pounds / 4 stone, 1lb).

Gallery

By cecil beaton

By John banting

By Ambrose McEvoy

Mac Tag