Today is the birthday of Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (Paris; July 16, 1796 – February 22, 1875 Paris); landscape and portrait painter. He is a pivotal figure in landscape painting and his vast output simultaneously references the Neo-Classical tradition and anticipates the plein-air innovations of Impressionism.

With his parents’ support, Corot followed the well-established pattern of French painters who went to Italy to study the masters of the Italian Renaissance and to draw the crumbling monuments of Roman antiquity.  It was not only Italian architecture and light which captured Corot’s attention. The late-blooming Corot was entranced with Italian females as well: “They still have the most beautiful women in the world that I have met….their eyes, their shoulders, their hands are spectacular. In that, they surpass our women, but on the other hand, they are not their equals in grace and kindness…Myself, as a painter I prefer the Italian woman, but I lean toward the French woman when it comes to emotion.”  In spite of his strong attraction to women, he wrote of his commitment to painting: “I have only one goal in life that I want to pursue faithfully: to make landscapes. This firm resolution keeps me from a serious attachment. That is to say, in marriage…but my independent nature and my great need for serious study make me take the matter lightly.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today is the birthday of Rembrandt (Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn; Leiden; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669 Amsterdam); painter and etcher.  Generally considered one of the greatest painters and printmakers in European art and the most important in Dutch history.  His contributions to art came in a period of great wealth and cultural achievement that historians call the Dutch Golden Age when Dutch Golden Age painting was prolific and innovative, and gave rise to important new genres in painting.In 1634, Rembrandt married Saskia van Uylenburgh.  They were married in the local church of St. Annaparochie without the presence of Rembrandt’s relatives.  Saskia died in 1642 probably from tuberculosis.  Rembrandt’s drawings of her on her sick and death bed are among his most moving works.  During Saskia’s illness, Geertje Dircx was hired as caretaker and nurse and also became Rembrandt’s lover.  She would later charge Rembrandt with breach of promise (a euphemism for seduction under [breached] promise to marry) and was awarded alimony.  Rembrandt worked to have her committed for twelve years to an asylum or poorhouse (called a “bridewell”) at Gouda, after learning she had pawned jewelry that had once belonged to Saskia and that he had given to her.

In the late 1640s Rembrandt began a relationship with the much younger Hendrickje Stoffels, who had initially been his maid.  In 1654 they had a daughter.  Hendrickje received a summons from the Reformed Church to answer the charge “that she had committed the acts of a whore with Rembrandt the painter”.  She admitted this and was banned from receiving communion.  Rembrandt was not summoned to appear for the Church council because he was not a member of the Reformed Church.  The two were considered legally wed under common law.

Rembrandt was buried as a poor man in an unknown grave in the Westerkerk.  It was in a numbered ‘kerkgraf’ (grave owned by the church) somewhere under a tombstone in the church.  After twenty years, his remains were taken away and destroyed, as was customary with the remains of poor people at that time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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  A young Rembrandt, c. 1628, when he was 22. Partly an exercise in chiaroscuro. Rijksmuseum

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  Self-portrait, c. 1629; Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg

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  Self-portrait, 1630, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm

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  Self-Portrait with Velvet Beret and Furred Mantle 1634

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  Self-portrait, 1640, at 34 years old. National Gallery, London

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  Self-Portrait, oil on canvas, 1652. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

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  Self-portrait, Vienna c. 1655, oil on walnut, cut down in size. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

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  Self-Portrait, 1660

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  Self-Portrait as Zeuxis, c. 1662. One of 2 painted self-portraits in which Rembrandt is turned to the left. Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne

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  Self-portrait, 1669.

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  Self-portrait, dated 1669, the year he died, though he looks much older in other portraits. National Gallery, London

 

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  The Stoning of Saint Stephen, 1625, The first painting by Rembrandt, painted at the age of 19. It is currently kept in the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon.
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  Jeremiah Lamenting the Destruction of Jerusalem, c. 1630

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  The Philosopher in Meditation, 1632

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  Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp, 1632

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  Abraham and Isaac, 1634

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  The Blinding of Samson, 1636, which Rembrandt gave to Huyghens

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  Saskia in red hat, 1635

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  Susanna, 1636

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  Belshassar’s Feast, 1636-8

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  The Archangel leaving Tobias, 1637

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  The Landscape with Good Samaritan, 1638

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  Susanna and the Elders, 1647

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  The Mill, 1648

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  An Old Man in Red, 1652-1654

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  Aristotle with a Bust of Homer, 1653, Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York

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  Young Girl at the Window, 1654

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  Portrait of the later mayor Jan Six, a wealthy friend of Rembrandt, 1654

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  Bathsheba at Her Bath, modeled after Hendrickje, 1654

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  Woman Bathing in a Stream, 1655

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  Woman in a Doorway, 1657-1658

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• Ahasuerus and Haman at the Feast of Esther, 1660

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  Saint Bartholomew, 1661, J. Paul Getty Museum

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  The Syndics of the Drapers’ Guild, 1662

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  The Conspiracy of Claudius Civilis (cut-down), 1661–62

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  Jacob Blessing the Sons of Joseph, 1656

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  The Return of the Prodigal Son, detail, c. 1669

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  Self-portrait in a cap, with eyes wide open, etching and burin, 1630

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  Self-portrait, pen and brush and ink on paper, c. 1628-1629

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  Role-playing in Self-portrait as an oriental Potentate with a Kris, etching, 1634

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  The Hundred Guilder Print, c. 1647–1649,

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  Suzannah and the Elders, drawing, 1634

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  Self-portrait with Saskia, etching, 1636

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  Self-portrait leaning on a Sill, etching, 1639

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  The Three Crosses, etching by Rembrandt, 1653, State III of V

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  Christ and the woman taken in adultery, drawing

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  Virgin and Child with a Cat, 1654. Original copper etching plate above, example of the print below

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  An elephant 1637

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  Christ presented to the People, drypoint, 1655, State I of VIII

Today is the birthday of Gustav Klimt (Baumgarten, Austrian Empire; July 14, 1862 – February 6, 1918 Vienna); symbolist painter and one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Secession movement.  Klimt is noted for his paintings, murals, sketches, and other objets d’art.  His primary subject was the female body.  In addition to his figurative works, which include allegories and portraits, he painted landscapes.

In the early 1890s Klimt met Emilie Louise Flöge (a sibling of his sister-in-law) who was to be his companion until the end of his life. His painting, The Kiss (1907–08), is thought to be an image of them as lovers. He designed many costumes she created and modeled in his works.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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  Der Blinde (The Blind Man) 1896, Leopold Museum

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  Stiller Weiher (Egelsee bei Golling, Salzburg) (Tranquil Pond) 1899, Leopold Museum

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  Philosophie 1899–1907. Destroyed 1945

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  Medicine (detail) 1899–1907. Destroyed 1945

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  Jurisprudence 1899–1907. Destroyed 1945

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  Judith and the Head of Holofernes, 1901. Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna

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  Portrait of Hermine Gallia, 1904. National Gallery, London

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  The Three Ages of Woman, 1905, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Rome

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  Portrait of Fritza Riedler 1906

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  Danaë, 1907. Private Collection, Vienna

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  Hope II, 1907–08, Museum of Modern Art, New York City

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  Mäda Gertrude Primavesi, 1912, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City

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  Eugenia Primavesi (1913–14)

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  Avenue in Schloss Kammer Park, 1912, Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna

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  Girlfriends or Two Women Friends, 1916–17, (Galerie Welz, Salzburg, later destroyed)

 

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  Two Female Nudes Standing, ca. 1900, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

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  Girl Seated in a Chair, 1904, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

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  Frau bei der Selbstbefriedigung (Masturbation), 1916

 

 

And today is the birthday of Juliette Wytsman (née Trullemans; Brussels; 14 July 1866 – 8 March 1925 Ixelles); impressionist painter.  She was married to painter Rodolphe Wytsman.  Her paintings are in the collections of several museums in Belgium.

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  Spiraea

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  The vegetable garden

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  The flower garden

John Clare
by William Hilton, oil on canvas, 1820

Today is the birthday of John Clare (Helpston, Soke of Peterborough 13 July 1793 – 20 May 1864 Northampton General Lunatic Asylum); poet, the son of a farm labourer, who came to be known for his celebratory representations of the English countryside and his lamentation of its disruption.

• I hid my love when young till I
  Couldn’t bear the buzzing of a fly;
  I hid my love to my despite
  Till I could not bear to look at light:
  I dare not gaze upon her face
  But left her memory in each place;
  Where eer I saw a wild flower lie
  I kissed and bade my love good bye.
  • “Secret Love”
• I hid my love in field and town
  Till een the breeze would knock me down,
  The bees seemed singing ballads oer,
  The fly’s bass turned a lion’s roar;
  And even silence found a tongue,
  To haunt me all the summer long;
  The riddle nature could not prove
  Was nothing else but secret love.
  • “Secret Love”

Today is the birthday of Mordecai Ardon (Hebrew: מרדכי ארדון‎, July 13, 1896 – June 18, 1992) painter. Ardon was seen as the father of the regional approach in Israeli art.

Gallery

Today is the birthday of Eugène Boudin (Eugène Louis Boudin; Honfleur 12 July 1824 – 8 August 1898 Deauville); painter and one of the first French landscape painters to paint outdoors.  Boudin was a marine painter, rendering of all that goes upon the sea and along its shores.  His pastels, garnered the eulogy of Baudelaire.  Corot called him the “king of the skies”.

Today is the birthday of James Abbott McNeill Whistler (Lowell, Massuchusetts July 11, 1834 – July 17, 1903 London); artist, active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the United Kingdom.  He was averse to sentimentality and moral allusion in painting, and was a leading proponent of the credo “art for art’s sake”.  His famous signature for his paintings was in the shape of a stylized butterfly possessing a long stinger for a tail.  Finding a parallel between painting and music, Whistler entitled many of his paintings “arrangements”, “harmonies”, and “nocturnes”, emphasizing the primacy of tonal harmony.  His most famous painting is “Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1” (1871), commonly known as Whistler’s Mother, the revered and oft-parodied portrait of motherhood.  Whistler influenced the art world and the broader culture of his time with his artistic theories and his friendships with leading artists and writers.

Whistler’s lover and model for The White Girl, Joanna Hiffernan, also posed for Gustave Courbet.  Historians speculate that Courbet’s erotic painting of her as L’Origine du monde led to the breakup of the friendship between Whistler and Courbet.  During the 1870s and much of the 1880s, he lived with his model-mistress Maud Franklin.  Her ability to endure his long, repetitive sittings helped Whistler develop his portrait skills.  He not only made several excellent portraits of her but she was also a helpful stand-in for other sitters.

In 1888, Whistler married Beatrice Godwin, (who was called ‘Beatrix’ or ‘Trixie’ by Whistler).  She was the widow of the architect E. W. Godwin, who had designed Whistler’s White House.  Beatrix was the daughter of the sculptor John Birnie Philip and his wife Frances Black.  Beatrix and her sisters Rosalind Birnie Philip and Ethel Whibley posed for many of Whistler’s paintings and drawings; with Ethel Whibley being the model for Mother of pearl and silver: The Andalusian (1888–1900).  The first five years of their marriage were very happy but her later life was a time of misery for the couple, because of her illness and eventual death from cancer.  Near the end, she lay comatose much of the time, completely subdued by morphine, given for pain relief.  Her death was a strong blow Whistler never quite overcame.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today is the birthday of Boris Grigoriev (Rybinsk 11 July 1886 – 7 February 1939 Cagnes-sur-Mer, France); painter and graphic artist.

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  Vsevolod Meyerhold, 1916

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  An old man from Olonets

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  Portrait of Anna Grilikhes, 1917

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  Sergei Rachmaninoff

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  Peasants in the Field, 1920

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  Sunflowers, 1917-1919

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  Village, 1918

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  Feodor Chaliapin, 1918

Today is the birthday of Camille Pissarro (Charlotte Amalie, Saint Thomas, Danish West Indies (now US Virgin Islands) 10 July 1830 – 13 November 1903 Paris); Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painter.  His importance resides in his contributions to both Impressionism and Post-Impressionism.  Pissarro studied from forerunners, including Gustave Courbet and Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot and later studied and worked alongside Georges Seurat and Paul Signac when he took on the Neo-Impressionist style at the age of 54.  Pissarro is the only artist to have shown his work at all eight Paris Impressionist exhibitions, from 1874 to 1886.

In 1871 he married his mother’s maid, Julie Vellay, a vineyard grower’s daughter, with whom he would later have seven children.  They lived outside of Paris in Pontoise and later in Louveciennes, both of which places inspired many of his paintings including scenes of village life, along with rivers, woods, and people at work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• Boulevard Montmartre cityscape series
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  Boulevard Montmartre à Paris, 1897, Hermitage Museum

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  Boulevard Montmartre: Mardi Gras, 1897, Hammer Museum

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  Boulevard Montmartre, morning, cloudy weather, 1897, National Gallery of Victoria

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  The Boulevard Montmartre on a Winter Morning, 1897, Metropolitan Museum of Art

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  Le Boulevard de Montmartre, Matinée de Printemps, street view from hotel window, 1897

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  Boulevard Montmartre la nuit, 1898

 

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  Allée dans une forêt (“Road in a Forest”), 1859

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  Le chemin, (“The Way”) c. 1864

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  Châtaignier à Louveciennes, 1870, Musée d’Orsay, Paris

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  The Woods at Marly, 1871, Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum

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  The Road to Versailles, Louveciennes: Morning Frost, 1871, Dallas Museum of Art

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  Old Chelsea Bridge, London 1871, Smith College Museum of Arts

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  Still Life: Apples and Pears in a Round Basket, 1872, The Henry and Rose Pearlman Collection, on long-term loan to the Princeton University Art Museum

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  portrait of Paul Cézanne, National Gallery

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  Un Carrefour à l’Hermitage, Pontoise, 1876, Musée Malraux

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  Toits rouges, coin d’un village, hiver, Côte de Saint-Denis, Pontoise, 1877, Musée d’Orsay, Paris

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  The Côte des Bœufs at L’Hermitage, 1877, National Gallery

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  The garden of Pontoise, 1877

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  Washerwoman, Study, 1880, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

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  Conversation, c. 1881, National Museum of Western Art

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  The Harvest, 1882, Bridgestone Museum of Art, Tokyo

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  Le jardin de Maubuisson, Pontoise, 1882

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  The Church at Eragny, 1884, Walters Art Museum

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  Bergère rentrant des moutons (Shepherdess Bringing in Sheep) 1886, University of Oklahoma

   

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  Place du Théâtre Français: Fog Effect, 1897, Dallas Museum of Art

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  Haying at Eragny, 1889, private collection

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  Rouen, Rue de l’Épicerie, 1898, private collection

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  La Place du Théâtre Français, 1898, Los Angeles County Museum of Art

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  View of Rouen, 1898, Honolulu Museum of Art

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  Morning, Winter Sunshine, Frost, the Pont-Neuf, the Seine, the Louvre, Soleil D’hiver Gella Blanc, c. 1901, Honolulu Museum of Art

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  Le Jardin de Mirbeau aux Damps, Octave Mirbeau’s garden in Damps, 1891

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  Place du Havre, Paris, 1893, Art Institute of Chicago

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  Ship entering the Harbor at Le Havre, 1903, Dallas Museum of Art

Today is the birthday of Marcel Proust (Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust; Auteuil; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922 Paris); novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental novel À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time; earlier interpreted as Remembrance of Things Past), published in seven parts between 1913 and 1927.

Autrefois on rêvait de posséder le cœur de la femme dont on était amoureux; plus tard sentir qu’on possède le cœur d’une femme peut suffire à vous en rendre amoureux.

• In his younger days a man dreams of possessing the heart of the woman whom he loves; later, the feeling that he possesses the heart of a woman may be enough to make him fall in love with her.

Le temps dont nous disposons chaque jour est élastique; les passions que nous ressentons le dilatent, celles que nous inspirons le rétrécissent et l’habitude le remplit.

• The time which we have at our disposal every day is elastic; the passions that we feel expand it, those that we inspire contract it; and habit fills up what remains

[Le bonheur] est, dans l’amour, un état anormal.

• In love, happiness is an abnormal state.

Comme tous les gens qui ne sont pas amoureux, il s’imaginait qu’on choisit la personne qu’on aime après mille délibérations et d’après des qualités et convenances diverses.

• Like everybody who is not in love, he imagined that one chose the person whom one loved after endless deliberations and on the strength of various qualities and advantages.

L’amour, c’est l’espace et le temps rendus sensibles au coeur.

• Love is space and time made tender to the heart.

L’adultère introduit l’esprit dans la lettre que bien souvent le mariage eût laissée morte.

• Adultery breathes new life into marriages which have been left for dead.

Une femme est d’une plus grande utilité pour notre vie si elle y est, au lieu d’un élément de bonheur, un instrument de chagrin, et il n’y en a pas une seule dont la possession soit aussi précieuse que celle des vérités qu’elle nous découvre en nous faisant souffrir.

• A woman is of greater service to our life if she is in it, instead of being an element of happiness, an instrument of sorrow, and there is not a woman in the world the possession of whom is as precious as that of the truths which she reveals to us by causing us to suffer.

 

Today is the birthday of William Turner Dannat (Hempstead, New York; July 9, 1853 – March 12, 1929 Monte Carlo); artist.

Though at one time his name was mentioned alongside other great American painters such as Sargent and Whistler, Dannat’s popularity was more in Europe than his homeland. As he approached middle age, the financially secure artist began to devote more and more of his time to other interests: fencing, boxing and later automobile racing. For nearly twenty years, Dannat ceased painting and when he resumed around 1913, his art had adopted a more surrealistic style with illusionary landscapes and bizarre themes. During his hiatus from painting, Dannat spent much of his time touring Europe studying the techniques of the great masters while remaining active in artistic circles in Paris where he served at one time as the president of the Society of American Painters.

Gallery

 

Today is the birthday of Artemisia Gentileschi (Rome; July 8, 1593 – c. 1656); Baroque painter, one of the most accomplished painters in the generation following that of Caravaggio.  In an era when women painters were not easily accepted by the artistic community or patrons, she was the first woman to become a member of the Accademia di Arte del Disegno in Florence.  She painted many pictures of strong and suffering women from myth and the Bible – victims, suicides, warriors.  Her best-known work is Judith Slaying Holofernes, which “shows the decapitation of Holofernes.

 

 

 

 

 

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  Annunciation

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  Bathsheba

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  Clio: the Muse of History

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  David and Bathsheba

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  Esther before Ahasuerus

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  Lucretia

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  St Cecilia Playing a Lute

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  Samson und Delilah

   

Today is the birthday of Käthe Kollwitz (Käthe Schmidt KollwitzKönigsberg, Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia) 8 July 1867 – 22 April 1945 Moritzburg, Saxony); artist, who worked with drawing, etching, lithography, woodcuts, painting, printmaking, and sculpture.  Her most famous art cycles, including The Weavers and The Peasant War, depict the effects of poverty, hunger, and war on the working class.  Despite the realism of her early works, her art is now more closely associated with Expressionism.  Kollwitz was the first woman elected to the Prussian Academy of Arts.

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  Misery, 1897. Musée d’art moderne et contemporain of Strasbourg

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  Bust of a Working Woman in a Blue Shawl, 1903. Brooklyn Museum

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  The Young Couple, 1904. Brooklyn Museum

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  Working Woman (with Earring), 1910. Brooklyn Museum

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  Praying woman, before 1918. Musée d’art moderne et contemporain of Strasbourg