1.
Renoir (film)
–
Renoir is a 2012 French drama film based on the last years of Renoir at Cagnes-sur-Mer during World War I. The film was directed by Gilles Bourdos and competed in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival, the film is set in the south of France during World War I and stars Michel Bouquet, Christa Theret, Thomas Doret and Vincent Rottiers. In January 2014, the film received four nominations at the 39th César Awards, andrée was the link between two famous and widely acclaimed artists, a father and son. While the father is at the end his brilliant career, the son is searching for himself. Director Gilles Bourdos used the services of an art forger, Guy Ribes. The film-critics aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported 69% of critics gave the film a review based on 65 reviews. Metacritic, which assigns a score out of 100, rated the film 64 based on 23 reviews
2.
Limoges
–
Limoges is a city and commune, the capital of the Haute-Vienne department and the administrative capital of the Limousin in west-central France. Limoges is known for its medieval and Renaissance enamels on copper, for its 19th-century porcelain and for its oak barrels which are used for Cognac, some are even exported to wineries in California. Scarce remains of settlements have been found in the area of Limoges. The city proper was founded as Augustoritum by the Romans, around 10 BC, the foundation was part of the reorganization of the province by the emperor Augustus, hence the new name. The Roman city included an amphitheatre measuring 136 x 115 metres, a theatre, according to tradition, a temple consecrated to Venus, Diana, Minerva and Jupiter was located near the modern cathedral. The city was on the typical Roman square plan, with two main crossing in the centre. It had a Senate and a currency of its own, a sign of its importance in the imperial age, Limoges was evangelized by Saint Martial, who came to the city around 250 with two companions, Alpinianus and Austriclinienus. However, in the late 3rd century it was increasingly abandoned, the population was concentrated instead in a more easily fortifiable site, the modern Puy Saint-Étienne, which is the centre of the modern Limoges. Starting from the 11th century, thanks to the presence of the Abbey of St. Martial and its large library, Limoges became a flourishing artistic centre. It was home to an important school of music composition. In the 13th century, at the peak of its splendour, the town proper, with a new line of walls encompassing the Vienne River, inhabited mainly by clerks and workers. It has a bridge on the Vienne river named after Saint-Étienne, built by the bishops, sacked in 1370, it never recovered entirely. The castle, with 12 meter-high walls, including the abbey and controlled by the abbot, traces of the walls can still be seen in the city centre. Outside the lines of walls were the popular quarters, in 1370, Limoges was occupied by Edward, the Black Prince, who massacred some 300 residents, perhaps a sixth of the normal population, with another 60 members of the garrison of 140 dead as well. The city and castle were united in 1792 to form the city of Limoges. During the French Revolution several religious edifices, considered symbols of the Ancien Régime, were destroyed by the population, some years later the porcelain industry started to develop, favoured by the presence of kaolinite which was discovered near Limoges in 1768. Factories in Limoges and St Junien still produce luxury leather shoes, gloves, in the 19th century Limoges saw strong construction activity, which included the destruction and rebuilding of much of the city centre. The unsafe conditions of the population is highlighted by the outbreak of several riots, including that of July–November 1830
3.
Cagnes-sur-Mer
–
It is also home to the only horse hippodrome in the French Riviera, which draws people from all over for its horse races. It is the largest extension to the city of Nice and lies to the west-southwest of it and it was the retreat and final address of the painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir, who moved there in 1907 in an attempt to improve his arthritis, and remained until his death in 1919. In the late 1920s, Cagnes-sur-Mer became a residence for many American renowned literary and art figures, such as Kay Boyle, George Antheil and Harry, parisian artist, poet, and philosopher Georges Charaire had a home In Cagnes for many years. Creating his lithographs in the studio of Paul Gaugin, and also as a co-founder of the Theatre du Tertre in Montmartre, he had a great influence on French art. He helped his friend Eugène Ionesco with his first plays at the Theatre du Tertre, Charaire kept his second home in Cagnes sur Mer until his death in 2001. nt Belarusian-French artist Chaim Soutine created powerful, fanciful landscapes of southern France. A friend of Amedeo Modigliani, Soutine left colourful landscapes from Cagnes from 1924 on, fauvist painter Francisco Iturrino also resided in the town where he died. The town may have been an inspiration for Neo-impressionist Henri-Edmond Cross and it is also known for its horse racing venue, the Hippodrome de la Côte dAzur, and a four-kilometre pebble beach. The Gare de Cagnes-sur-Mer railway station offers services in the directions of Nice. The commune is twinned with, Passau Communes of the Alpes-Maritimes department INSEE Official website Official tourism website The Weather in Cagnes Sur Mer
4.
Bal du moulin de la Galette
–
Bal du moulin de la Galette is an 1876 painting by French artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir. It is housed at the Musée dOrsay in Paris and is one of Impressionisms most celebrated masterpieces, the painting depicts a typical Sunday afternoon at Moulin de la Galette in the district of Montmartre in Paris. In the late 19th century, working class Parisians would dress up and spend time there dancing, drinking, like other works of Renoirs early maturity, Bal du moulin de la Galette is a typically Impressionist snapshot of real life. It shows a richness of form, a fluidity of brush stroke, from 1879 to 1894 the painting was in the collection of the French painter Gustave Caillebotte, when he died it became the property of the French Republic as payment for death duties. From 1896 to 1929 the painting hung in the Musée du Luxembourg in Paris, from 1929 it hung in the Musée du Louvre until it was transferred to the Musée dOrsay in 1986. Renoir painted a version of the picture with the same title. The painting is now believed to be in a collection in Switzerland. Apart from their size, the two paintings are identical, although the smaller is painted in a more fluid manner than the dOrsay version. One is presumably a copy of the original, but it is not known which is the original, for many years it was owned by John Hay Whitney. On May 17,1990, his widow sold the painting for US$78 million at Sothebys in New York City to Ryoei Saito, the honorary chairman of Daishowa Paper Manufacturing Company, Japan. At the time of sale, it was one of the top two most expensive ever sold, together with van Goghs Portrait of Dr. Gachet. Saito caused international outrage when he suggested in 1991 that he intended to both paintings with him when he died. Although not known for certain, the painting is believed to be in the hands of a Swiss collector, as of January 2013 the Bal du moulin de la Galette is sixth on the list of most expensive paintings ever sold. In the first place, Renoir needed to set up a studio near the mill, a suitable studio was found at an abandoned cottage in the rue Cortot with a garden described by Rivière as a beautiful abandoned park. Several of Renoirs major works were painted in this garden at this time, the gardens and its buildings have been preserved as the Musée de Montmartre. Rivière identified several of the personalities in the painting and it is her sister Estelle who poses as the girl wearing a blue and pink striped dress. These two girls came to Le Moulin every Sunday with their family, with two younger sisters barely taller than the tables, and their mother and father, properly chaperoned by their mother. Beside her is a group consisting of Pierre-Franc Lamy and Norbert Goeneutte, fellow painters, behind her, amongst the dancers, are to be found Henri Gervex, Eugène Pierre Lestringuez and Paul Lhote
5.
Luncheon of the Boating Party
–
Luncheon of the Boating Party is a painting by French impressionist Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Included in the Seventh Impressionist Exhibition in 1882, it was identified as the best painting in the show by three critics and it was purchased from the artist by the dealer-patron Paul Durand-Ruel and bought in 1923 from his son by Duncan Phillips. It is now in The Phillips Collection in Washington, D. C and it shows a richness of form, a fluidity of brush stroke, and a flickering light. The painter and art patron, Gustave Caillebotte, is seated in the lower right, Renoirs future wife, Aline Charigot, is in the foreground playing with a small dog, an affenpinscher. On the table is fruit and wine, in this painting Renoir has captured a great deal of light. The main focus of light is coming from the opening in the balcony. The singlets of both men in the foreground and the all work together to reflect this light and send it through the whole composition. As he often did in his paintings, Renoir included several of his friends in Luncheon of the Boating Party, identification of the sitters was made in 1912 by Julius Meier-Graefe. Among them are the following, The seamstress Aline Charigot, who is holding a affenpinscher dog, Renoir married her in 1890, and they had three sons. Charles Ephrussi—wealthy amateur art historian, collector, and editor of the Gazette des Beaux-Arts—appears wearing a top hat in the background. The younger man to whom Ephrussi appears to be speaking, more casually attired in a coat and cap, may be Jules Laforgue, his personal secretary and also a poet. Actress Ellen Andrée drinks from a glass in the center of the composition, seated across from her is Baron Raoul Barbier, former mayor of colonial Saigon. Alphonsine is the woman leaning on the railing, Alphonse. Also wearing boaters are figures appearing to be Renoirs close friends Eugène Pierre Lestringez, a bureaucrat, Renoir depicts them flirting with the actress Jeanne Samary in the upper righthand corner of the painting. An art patron, painter, and important figure in the impressionist circle, Caillebotte was also an avid boatman, at the Seventh Impressionist Exhibition in 1882, the painting generally received praise from critics. It is fresh and free without being too bawdy, wrote Paul de Charry in Le Pays and it is one of the most beautiful pieces that this insurrectionist art by Independent artists has produced. Alternatively, Le Figaro published Albert Wolffs comment on March 2,1882, If he had learned to draw, the painting was featured prominently in Jean-Pierre Jeunets film Le Fabuleux destin dAmélie Poulain — released in English as Amélie. A homage to this appears in the final panel of On the False Earths
6.
Impressionism
–
Impressionism originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s. The Impressionists faced harsh opposition from the art community in France. The development of Impressionism in the arts was soon followed by analogous styles in other media that became known as impressionist music. Radicals in their time, early Impressionists violated the rules of academic painting and they constructed their pictures from freely brushed colours that took precedence over lines and contours, following the example of painters such as Eugène Delacroix and J. M. W. Turner. They also painted scenes of modern life, and often painted outdoors. Previously, still lifes and portraits as well as landscapes were painted in a studio. The Impressionists found that they could capture the momentary and transient effects of sunlight by painting en plein air, the Impressionists, however, developed new techniques specific to the style. The public, at first hostile, gradually came to believe that the Impressionists had captured a fresh and original vision, even if the art critics and art establishment disapproved of the new style. In the middle of the 19th century—a time of change, as Emperor Napoleon III rebuilt Paris, the Académie was the preserver of traditional French painting standards of content and style. Historical subjects, religious themes, and portraits were valued, landscape, the Académie preferred carefully finished images that looked realistic when examined closely. Paintings in this style were made up of brush strokes carefully blended to hide the artists hand in the work. Colour was restrained and often toned down further by the application of a golden varnish, the Académie had an annual, juried art show, the Salon de Paris, and artists whose work was displayed in the show won prizes, garnered commissions, and enhanced their prestige. The standards of the juries represented the values of the Académie, represented by the works of artists as Jean-Léon Gérôme. In the early 1860s, four young painters—Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley and they discovered that they shared an interest in painting landscape and contemporary life rather than historical or mythological scenes. A favourite meeting place for the artists was the Café Guerbois on Avenue de Clichy in Paris, where the discussions were led by Édouard Manet. They were soon joined by Camille Pissarro, Paul Cézanne, during the 1860s, the Salon jury routinely rejected about half of the works submitted by Monet and his friends in favour of works by artists faithful to the approved style. In 1863, the Salon jury rejected Manets The Luncheon on the Grass primarily because it depicted a woman with two clothed men at a picnic. While the Salon jury routinely accepted nudes in historical and allegorical paintings, the jurys severely worded rejection of Manets painting appalled his admirers, and the unusually large number of rejected works that year perturbed many French artists
7.
Femininity
–
Femininity is a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles generally associated with girls and women. Femininity is socially constructed, but made up of both socially-defined and biologically-created factors and this makes it distinct from the definition of the biological female sex, as both males and females can exhibit feminine traits. People who exhibit a combination of masculine and feminine characteristics are considered androgynous, and feminist philosophers have argued that gender ambiguity may blur gender classification. In some non-English speaking cultures, certain concepts or inanimate objects are considered feminine or masculine, tara Williams has suggested that modern notions of femininity in English speaking society began during the English medieval period at the time of the bubonic plague in the 1300s. Women in the Early Middle Ages were referred to simply within their traditional roles of maiden, wife, after the Black Death in England wiped out approximately half the population, traditional gender roles of wife and mother changed, and opportunities opened up for women in society. Prudence Allen has traced how the concept of woman changed during this period, the words femininity and womanhood are first recorded in Chaucer around 1380. Girls, second-wave feminists said, were then socialized with toys, games, television and school into conforming to feminine values, femininity is sometimes linked with sexual objectification and sexual appeal. Sexual passiveness, or sexual receptivity, is considered feminine while sexual assertiveness. Some queer theorists and other postmodernists, however, have rejected the sex /gender dichotomy as a dangerous simplification, an ongoing debate with regards to sex and psychology concerns the extent to which gender identity and gender-specific behavior is due to socialization versus inborn factors. According to Diane F. Halpern, both play a role, but the relative importance of each must still be investigated. The nature versus nurture question, for example, is debated and is continually revitalized by new research findings. Some hold that feminine identity is partly a given and partly a goal to be sought, in 1959, researchers such as John Money and Anke Erhardt proposed the prenatal hormone theory. This theory, however, has been criticized on theoretical and empirical grounds, Money also argued that gender identity is formed during a childs first three years. In Carl Jungs school of psychology, the anima and animus are the two primary anthropomorphic archetypes of the unconscious mind. The anima and animus are described by Jung as elements of his theory of the collective unconscious, a domain of the unconscious that transcends the personal psyche. In the unconscious of the male, it finds expression as a feminine inner personality, anima, equivalently, in the unconscious of the female, it is expressed as a masculine inner personality, animus. In Western cultures, the ideal of feminine appearance has traditionally included long, flowing hair, clear skin, a narrow waist, in other cultures, however, expectations are different. For example, in parts of the world, underarm hair is not considered unfeminine
8.
Sense
–
A sense is a physiological capacity of organisms that provides data for perception. The senses and their operation, classification, and theory are overlapping topics studied by a variety of fields, most notably neuroscience, cognitive psychology, the nervous system has a specific sensory system or organ, dedicated to each sense. Humans have a multitude of senses, sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch are the five traditionally recognized senses. However, what constitutes a sense is a matter of debate, leading to difficulties in defining what exactly a distinct sense is. Other animals also have receptors to sense the world around them, humans have a comparatively weak sense of smell and a stronger sense of sight relative to many other mammals while some animals may lack one or more of the traditional five senses. Some animals may also intake and interpret sensory stimuli in different ways. Some species of animals are able to sense the world in a way humans cannot, with some species able to sense electrical and magnetic fields. There is no agreement as to the number of senses because of differing definitions of what constitutes a sense. The senses are frequently divided into exteroceptive and interoceptive, Exteroceptive senses are senses that perceive the bodys own position, motion, external senses include the traditional five, sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste, as well as thermoception and possibly an additional weak magnetoception. Proprioceptive senses include nociception, equilibrioception, proprioception, interoceptive senses are senses that perceive sensations in internal organs. Non-human animals may possess senses that are absent in humans, such as electroreception and detection of polarized light, in Buddhist philosophy, Ayatana or sense-base includes the mind as a sense organ, in addition to the traditional five. This addition to the commonly acknowledged senses may arise from the psychological orientation involved in Buddhist thought, the mind considered by itself is seen as the principal gateway to a different spectrum of phenomena that differ from the physical sense data. This way of viewing the human sense system indicates the importance of internal sources of sensation and perception that complements our experience of the external world, there are two types of photoreceptors, rods and cones. Rods are very sensitive to light, but do not distinguish colors, cones distinguish colors, but are less sensitive to dim light. There is some disagreement as to whether this one, two or three senses. Neuroanatomists generally regard it as two senses, given that different receptors are responsible for the perception of color and brightness, the inability to see is called blindness. Blindness may result from damage to the eyeball, especially to the retina, damage to the nerve that connects each eye to the brain. Temporary or permanent blindness can be caused by poisons or medications, people with blindsight are usually not aware that they are reacting to visual sources, and instead just unconsciously adapt their behaviour to the stimulus
9.
Peter Paul Rubens
–
Sir Peter Paul Rubens was a Flemish/Netherlandish draughtsman and painter. He is widely considered as the most notable artist of Flemish Baroque art school, the catalogue of his works by Michael Jaffé lists 1,403 pieces, excluding numerous copies made in his workshop. His commissioned works were mostly history paintings, which included religious and mythological subjects and he painted portraits, especially of friends, and self-portraits, and in later life painted several landscapes. Rubens designed tapestries and prints, as well as his own house and he also oversaw the ephemeral decorations of the royal entry into Antwerp by the Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand in 1635. His drawings are mostly extremely forceful but not overly detailed and he also made great use of oil sketches as preparatory studies. For altarpieces he painted on slate to reduce reflection problems. Rubens was born in the city of Siegen to Jan Rubens and he was named in honour of Saint-Peter and Paul, because he was born on their solemnety. His father, a Calvinist, and mother fled Antwerp for Cologne in 1568, after increased religious turmoil and persecution of Protestants during the rule of the Spanish Netherlands by the Duke of Alba. Jan Rubens became the adviser of Anna of Saxony, the second wife of William I of Orange. Following Jan Rubens imprisonment for the affair, Peter Paul Rubens was born in 1577, the family returned to Cologne the next year. In 1589, two years after his fathers death, Rubens moved with his mother Maria Pypelincks to Antwerp, religion figured prominently in much of his work and Rubens later became one of the leading voices of the Catholic Counter-Reformation style of painting. In Antwerp, Rubens received a Renaissance humanist education, studying Latin, by fourteen he began his artistic apprenticeship with Tobias Verhaeght. Subsequently, he studied under two of the leading painters of the time, the late Mannerist artists Adam van Noort. Much of his earliest training involved copying earlier works, such as woodcuts by Hans Holbein the Younger. Rubens completed his education in 1598, at time he entered the Guild of St. Luke as an independent master. In 1600 Rubens travelled to Italy and he stopped first in Venice, where he saw paintings by Titian, Veronese, and Tintoretto, before settling in Mantua at the court of Duke Vincenzo I Gonzaga. The colouring and compositions of Veronese and Tintoretto had an effect on Rubenss painting. With financial support from the Duke, Rubens travelled to Rome by way of Florence in 1601, there, he studied classical Greek and Roman art and copied works of the Italian masters
10.
Jean-Antoine Watteau
–
Jean-Antoine Watteau, better known as Antoine Watteau, was a French painter whose brief career spurred the revival of interest in colour and movement, as seen in the tradition of Correggio and Rubens. He revitalized the waning Baroque style, shifting it to the severe, more naturalistic. Watteau is credited with inventing the genre of fêtes galantes, scenes of bucolic and idyllic charm, some of his best known subjects were drawn from the world of Italian comedy and ballet. Watteau was born in October 1684 in the town of Valenciennes which had passed from the Spanish Netherlands to France. His father, Jean-Philippe Watteau, was a given to brawling. Showing an early interest in painting, Jean-Antoine may have been apprenticed to Jacques-Albert Gérin, jean-Antoines first artistic subjects were charlatans selling quack remedies on the streets of Valenciennes. Watteau left for Paris in 1702, by 1705 he was employed as an assistant by the painter Claude Gillot, whose work represented a reaction against the turgid official art of Louis XIVs reign. In Gillots studio Watteau became acquainted with the characters of the commedia dellarte, afterward he moved to the workshop of Claude Audran III, an interior decorator, under whose influence he began to make drawings admired for their consummate elegance. Audran was the curator of the Palais du Luxembourg, where Watteau was able to see the magnificent series of canvases painted by Peter Paul Rubens for Queen Marie de Medici. The Flemish painter would become one of his influences, together with the Venetian masters he would later study in the collection of his patron and friend. In 1709 Watteau tried to obtain the Prix de Rome and was rejected by the Academy. In 1712 he tried again and was considered so good that, rather than receiving the one-year stay in Rome for which he had applied, he was accepted as a full member of the Academy. He took five years to deliver the required reception piece, but it was one of his masterpieces, Watteau lacked aristocratic patrons, his buyers were bourgeois such as bankers and dealers. The subject of his painting, Pierrot, is an actor in a white satin costume who stands isolated from his four companions. Watteaus final masterpiece, the Shop-sign of Gersaint, exits the pastoral forest locale for an urban set of encounters. Painted at Watteaus own insistence, in eight days, working only in the mornings, in order to warm up his fingers, this sign for the shop in Paris of the paintings dealer Edme François Gersaint is effectively the final curtain of Watteaus theatre. It has been compared with Las Meninas as a meditation on art, the scene is an art gallery where the façade has magically vanished, and the gallery and street in the canvas are fused into one contiguous drama. Watteau alarmed his friends by a carelessness about his future and financial security, in fact he had been sickly and physically fragile since childhood
11.
Pierre Renoir
–
Pierre Renoir was a French stage and film actor. He was the son of the impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir and elder brother of the film director Jean Renoir and he is also noted for being the first actor to play Georges Simenons character Inspector Jules Maigret. Pierre Renoir was born on 21 March 1885 in Paris, on 18 rue Houdon, about a hundred meters from place Pigalle, Renoir was briefly the director of the Théâtre de lAthénée in Paris, taking over after the death of Louis Jouvet in 1951. Pierre Renoirs son was the cinematographer Claude Renoir, who is not to be confused with another brother, also called Claude Renoir, vals Mystery Les Enfants du paradis Special Mission The Captain Dr. Knock Judgement of God Pierre Renoir at the Internet Movie Database
12.
Jean Renoir
–
Jean Renoir was a French film director, screenwriter, actor, producer and author. As a film director and actor, he more than forty films from the silent era to the end of the 1960s. His films La Grande Illusion and The Rules of the Game are often cited by critics as among the greatest films ever made and he was ranked by the BFIs Sight & Sound poll of critics in 2002 as the fourth greatest director of all time. Among numerous honors accrued during his lifetime, he received a Lifetime Achievement Academy Award in 1975 for his contribution to the picture industry. Renoir was the son of the painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Renoir was born in the Montmartre district of Paris, France. He was the son of Aline Renoir and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. His elder brother was Pierre Renoir, a French stage and film actor, Renoir was also the uncle of Claude Renoir, the son of Pierre, a cinematographer who worked with Jean Renoir on several of his films. Renoir was largely raised by Gabrielle Renard, his nanny and his mothers cousin, shortly before his birth, she had come to live with the Renoir family. She introduced the boy to the Guignol puppet shows in Montmartre. He wrote in his 1974 memoirs My Life and My Films, She taught me to see the face behind the mask and she taught me to detest the cliché. Gabrielle was also fascinated by the new invention, and when Renoir was only a few years old she took him to see his first film. As a child, Renoir moved to the south of France with his family and he and the rest of the Renoir family were the subjects of many of his fathers paintings. His fathers financial success ensured that the young Renoir was educated at boarding schools, from which, as he later wrote. At the outbreak of World War I, Renoir was serving in the French cavalry, later, after receiving a bullet in his leg, he served as a reconnaissance pilot. After the war, Renoir followed his fathers suggestion and tried his hand at making ceramics and he was particularly inspired by Erich von Stroheims work. In 1924, Renoir directed Une Vie Sans Joie or Catherine and she was also his fathers last model. At this stage, his films did not produce a return, Renoir gradually sold paintings inherited from his father to finance them. During the 1930s Renoir enjoyed great success as a filmmaker, in 1931 he directed his first sound films, On purge bébé and La Chienne
13.
Courtauld Gallery
–
The Courtauld Gallery UK /ˈkɔərtoʊld/ is an art museum in Somerset House, on the Strand in central London. It houses the art collection of the Courtauld Institute of Art, in total, the collection contains some 530 paintings and over 26,000 drawings and prints. The Head of the Courtauld Gallery is Ernst Vegelin, the art collection at the Courtauld was begun by Samuel Courtauld, who in the same year presented an extensive collection of paintings, mainly French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works. He made further gifts later in the 1930s and a bequest in 1948, further bequests were added after the Second World War, most notably the collection of Old Master paintings assembled by Lord Lee, a founder of the Institute. This included Cranachs Adam and Eve and a sketch in oils by Peter Paul Rubens for what is arguably his masterpiece, Sir Robert Witt, also a founder of the Courtauld Institute, was an outstanding benefactor and bequeathed his important collection of Old Master and British drawings in 1952. His bequest included 20,000 prints and more than 3000 drawings and his son, Sir John Witt, later gave more English watercolours and drawings to the Gallery. M. W. Turner, Peter De Wint and others, in 1978 the Courtauld received the Princes Gate Collection of Old Master paintings and drawings formed by Count Antoine Seilern. The collection rivals the Samuel Courtauld Collection in importance and it includes paintings by Bernardo Daddi, Robert Campin, Bruegel, Quentin Matsys, Van Dyck and Tiepolo, but is strongest in the works of Rubens. The bequest also included a group of 19th- and 20th‑century works by Pissarro, Edgar Degas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, more recently the Lillian Browse and Alastair Hunter collections have given the Courtauld more late 19th- and 20th‑century paintings, drawings and sculptures. A collection of more than 50 British watercolours, including eight by Turner, was left to the Gallery by Dorothy Scharf in 2004, the Courtauld Gallery is open to the public. The Royal Academy occupied them from their completion in 1780 until it moved to the new National Gallery building in Trafalgar Square in 1837. Inscribed over the entrance to the Great Room, in which the annual Royal Academy summer exhibition was held, is the formidable inscription ΟΥΔΕΙΣ ΑΜΟΥΣΟΣ ΕΙΣΙΤΩ. Many of his purchases were made on trips to the continent, especially Italy, but he bought from dealers and auctions in England. The Courtauld Gallery website shows images and descriptions of 324 objects from the 1966 bequest, there are two further predella panels by Lorenzo Monaco, and many other small panels by lesser-known masters. Later Renaissance works include ones by Il Garofalo, Sassoferrato, there are a number of illuminated manuscript pages from the workshop of the Boucicaut Master. The sculptures include three fine 15th-century marble reliefs of the Virgin and Child, the most significant by Mino da Fiesole, there is a Limoges enamel book cover panel, a number of Renaissance Limoges items, and several small Gothic ivories. The Courtauld publishes an online collection, artandarchitecture. org. The site was developed with the support of the New Opportunities Fund, two other websites courtauldimages. com and courtauldprints. com sell high resolution digital files to scholars, publishers and broadcasters, and photographic prints to the general public
14.
Haute-Vienne
–
Haute-Vienne is a French department named after the river Vienne. It is one of the 12 departments that constitute the French region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine. The neighbouring departments are, Creuse, Corrèze, Dordogne, Charente, Vienne, the chief and largest city in the department is Limoges, the other towns in the department each having fewer than twenty thousand inhabitants. Haute-Vienne is part of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region and it is bordered by six departments, Creuse lies to the east, Corrèze to the south, Dordogne to the southwest, Charente to the west, Vienne to the northwest and Indre to the north. The department has two rivers which cross it from east to west, the Vienne, on which the two main cities, Limoges and Saint-Junien, are situated, and the Gartempe, a tributary of the Creuse. To the southeast of the department lies the Massif Central, the source of the Charente is in the department, in the commune of Chéronnac, near Rochechouart. Artefacts from the Bronze Age include axe heads found at Châlus, with the coming of the Romans, trade was opened up and gold and tin were mined. Agriculture developed and grapes were grown, amphorae for storing wine were found at Saint-Gence, during the reign of Augustus, the city of Augustoritum was founded at a strategic ford across the Vienne. The Romans built roads from here to Brittany, Lyon and the Mediterranean, the city declined in the 3rd Century when barbarian invasions of the region took place. The domination of the Visigoths was short-lived and Clovis I seized control of Limousin after the battle of Vouillé in 507, by 674, the region was attached to the duchy of Aquitaine, and the Viscount of Limoges was created. There followed a period with various powers vying for control. In 1199, Richard Cœur de Lion was mortally wounded during the siege of the Château de Châlus-Chabrol, the region was much involved in the Hundred Years War and at the Treaty of Brétigny in 1360, France granted England a large area of territory comprising much of Limousin. Limoges city rebelled and gave its allegiance to the French crown, after a revolt by the peasants, Henri IV brought peace and prosperity to the region of Limousin. He visited Limoges in 1607 and was greeted enthusiastically, the Counter-Reformation led to the creation of numerous convents and religious orders, especially in Limoges. In 1761, Anne Robert Jacques Turgot was appointed intendent of Limoges and he negotiated a reduction in taxes payable by the region and developed fairer methods of collecting taxes, as well as improving the road system and encouraging agricultural development. Around 1765, kaolin was discovered near Saint-Yrieix-la-Perche in the south of the department, at first it was given the number 81, but in the nineteenth century, the number was changed to the 87th department, when further land to the east and northeast was added. It takes its name from the reaches of the Vienne which flows through it. In 1998, the southwest part of the department, together with the part of the region of Périgord was designated as the Parc Naturel Régional Périgord-Limousin
15.
Paris
–
Paris is the capital and most populous city of France. It has an area of 105 square kilometres and a population of 2,229,621 in 2013 within its administrative limits, the agglomeration has grown well beyond the citys administrative limits. By the 17th century, Paris was one of Europes major centres of finance, commerce, fashion, science, and the arts, and it retains that position still today. The aire urbaine de Paris, a measure of area, spans most of the Île-de-France region and has a population of 12,405,426. It is therefore the second largest metropolitan area in the European Union after London, the Metropole of Grand Paris was created in 2016, combining the commune and its nearest suburbs into a single area for economic and environmental co-operation. Grand Paris covers 814 square kilometres and has a population of 7 million persons, the Paris Region had a GDP of €624 billion in 2012, accounting for 30.0 percent of the GDP of France and ranking it as one of the wealthiest regions in Europe. The city is also a rail, highway, and air-transport hub served by two international airports, Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly. Opened in 1900, the subway system, the Paris Métro. It is the second busiest metro system in Europe after Moscow Metro, notably, Paris Gare du Nord is the busiest railway station in the world outside of Japan, with 262 millions passengers in 2015. In 2015, Paris received 22.2 million visitors, making it one of the top tourist destinations. The association football club Paris Saint-Germain and the rugby union club Stade Français are based in Paris, the 80, 000-seat Stade de France, built for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, is located just north of Paris in the neighbouring commune of Saint-Denis. Paris hosts the annual French Open Grand Slam tennis tournament on the red clay of Roland Garros, Paris hosted the 1900 and 1924 Summer Olympics and is bidding to host the 2024 Summer Olympics. The name Paris is derived from its inhabitants, the Celtic Parisii tribe. Thus, though written the same, the name is not related to the Paris of Greek mythology. In the 1860s, the boulevards and streets of Paris were illuminated by 56,000 gas lamps, since the late 19th century, Paris has also been known as Panam in French slang. Inhabitants are known in English as Parisians and in French as Parisiens and they are also pejoratively called Parigots. The Parisii, a sub-tribe of the Celtic Senones, inhabited the Paris area from around the middle of the 3rd century BC. One of the areas major north-south trade routes crossed the Seine on the île de la Cité, this place of land and water trade routes gradually became a town
16.
Charles Gounod
–
Charles-François Gounod was a French composer, best known for his Ave Maria, based on a work by Bach, as well as his opera Faust. Another opera by Gounod occasionally still performed is Roméo et Juliette, although he is known for his Grand Operas, the soprano aria Que ferons-nous avec le ragoût de citrouille. From his first opera Livre de recettes dun enfant is still performed in concert as an encore, Gounod died at Saint-Cloud in 1893, after a final revision of his twelve operas. His funeral took place ten days later at the Church of the Madeleine, with Camille Saint-Saëns playing the organ and Gabriel Fauré conducting. Ironically because of its obscurity today, an arrangement of Que ferons-nous avec le ragoût de citrouille. was performed by Saint-Saens at the funeral, due to its simple and it was later published as a posthumous Op.60. He was buried at the Cimetière dAuteuil in Paris, Gounod was born in Paris, the son of a pianist mother and an artist father. His mother was his first piano teacher, Gounod first showed his musical talents under her tutelage. He then entered the Paris Conservatoire, where he studied under Fromental Halévy, in 1839 he won the Prix de Rome for his cantata Fernand. In so doing he was following his father, François-Louis Gounod had won the second Prix de Rome in painting in 1783. During his stay of four years in Italy, Gounod studied the music of Palestrina and other sacred works of the sixteenth century, around 1846-47 he gave serious consideration to joining the priesthood, but he changed his mind before actually taking holy orders, and went back to composition. During that period he was attached to the Church of Foreign Missions in Paris, in 1854 Gounod completed a Messe Solennelle, also known as the St. Cecilia Mass. This work was first performed in its entirety in the church of St. Eustache in Paris on Saint Cecilias Day,22 November 1855, during 1855 Gounod wrote two symphonies. His Symphony No.1 in D major was the inspiration for the Symphony in C composed later that year by Georges Bizet, fanny Mendelssohn, sister of Felix Mendelssohn, introduced the keyboard music of Johann Sebastian Bach to Gounod, who came to revere him. For him The Well-Tempered Clavier was the law to pianoforte study. the unquestioned textbook of musical composition and it inspired Gounod to devise a melody and superimpose it on the C major Prelude from the collections first book. To this melody in 1859, Gounod fitted the words of the Ave Maria, Gounod wrote his first opera, Sapho, in 1851 at the urging of his friend, the singer Pauline Viardot, it was a commercial failure. He had no theatrical success until Faust, derived from Goethe. The romantic and melodious Roméo et Juliette, premiered in 1867, is revived now, mireille, first performed in 1864, has been admired by connoisseurs rather than by the general public. The other Gounod operas have fallen into oblivion, from 1870 to 1874 Gounod lived in England, at 17 Morden Road, Blackheath
17.
Porcelain
–
Porcelain /ˈpɔːrsəlᵻn, ˈpɔːrslᵻn/ is a ceramic material made by heating materials, generally including kaolin, in a kiln to temperatures between 1,200 and 1,400 °C. Porcelain was first developed in China around 2,000 years ago, then spread to other East Asian countries, and finally Europe. It combines well with both glazes and paint, and can be modelled very well, allowing a range of decorative treatments in tablewares, vessels. It also has uses in technology and industry. The European name, porcelain in English, come from the old Italian porcellana because of its resemblance to the translucent surface of the shell, Porcelain is also referred to as china or fine china in some English-speaking countries, as it was first seen in imports from China. Porcelain has been described as being completely vitrified, hard, impermeable, white or artificially coloured, translucent, however, the term porcelain lacks a universal definition and has been applied in a very unsystematic fashion to substances of diverse kinds which have only certain surface-qualities in common. Terms such as porcellaneous or near-porcelain may be used in such cases, a high proportion of modern porcelain is made of the variant bone china. Kaolin is the material from which porcelain is made, even though clay minerals might account for only a small proportion of the whole. The word paste is an old term for both the unfired and fired material, a more common terminology these days for the unfired material is body, for example, when buying materials a potter might order an amount of porcelain body from a vendor. The composition of porcelain is highly variable, but the mineral kaolinite is often a raw material. Other raw materials can include feldspar, ball clay, glass, bone ash, steatite, quartz, petuntse, the clays used are often described as being long or short, depending on their plasticity. Long clays are cohesive and have high plasticity, short clays are cohesive and have lower plasticity. Clays used for porcelain are generally of lower plasticity and are shorter than many other pottery clays and they wet very quickly, meaning that small changes in the content of water can produce large changes in workability. Thus, the range of content within which these clays can be worked is very narrow. The following section provides information on the methods used to form, decorate, finish, glaze. Many types of glaze, such as the iron-containing glaze used on the wares of Longquan, were designed specifically for their striking effects on porcelain. Porcelain wares may be decorated under the glaze using pigments that include cobalt and copper or over the glaze using coloured enamels. Like many earlier wares, modern porcelains are often biscuit-fired at around 1,000 °C, coated with glaze, another early method is once-fired where the glaze is applied to the unfired body and the two fired together in a single operation
18.
Louvre
–
The Louvre or the Louvre Museum is the worlds largest museum and a historic monument in Paris, France. A central landmark of the city, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the citys 1st arrondissement, approximately 38,000 objects from prehistory to the 21st century are exhibited over an area of 72,735 square metres. The Louvre is the second most visited museum after the Palace Museum in China. The museum is housed in the Louvre Palace, originally built as a fortress in the late 12th century under Philip II, remnants of the fortress are visible in the basement of the museum. Due to the expansion of the city, the fortress eventually lost its defensive function and. The building was extended many times to form the present Louvre Palace, in 1692, the building was occupied by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres and the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, which in 1699 held the first of a series of salons. The Académie remained at the Louvre for 100 years, during the French Revolution, the National Assembly decreed that the Louvre should be used as a museum to display the nations masterpieces. The museum opened on 10 August 1793 with an exhibition of 537 paintings, because of structural problems with the building, the museum was closed in 1796 until 1801. The collection was increased under Napoleon and the museum renamed Musée Napoléon, the collection was further increased during the reigns of Louis XVIII and Charles X, and during the Second French Empire the museum gained 20,000 pieces. Holdings have grown steadily through donations and bequests since the Third Republic, whether this was the first building on that spot is not known, it is possible that Philip modified an existing tower. According to the authoritative Grand Larousse encyclopédique, the name derives from an association with wolf hunting den, in the 7th century, St. Fare, an abbess in Meaux, left part of her Villa called Luvra situated in the region of Paris to a monastery. This territory probably did not correspond exactly to the modern site, the Louvre Palace was altered frequently throughout the Middle Ages. In the 14th century, Charles V converted the building into a residence and in 1546, Francis acquired what would become the nucleus of the Louvres holdings, his acquisitions including Leonardo da Vincis Mona Lisa. After Louis XIV chose Versailles as his residence in 1682, constructions slowed, however, on 14 October 1750, Louis XV agreed and sanctioned a display of 96 pieces from the royal collection, mounted in the Galerie royale de peinture of the Luxembourg Palace. Under Louis XVI, the museum idea became policy. The comte dAngiviller broadened the collection and in 1776 proposed conversion of the Grande Galerie of the Louvre – which contained maps – into the French Museum, many proposals were offered for the Louvres renovation into a museum, however, none was agreed on. Hence the museum remained incomplete until the French Revolution, during the French Revolution the Louvre was transformed into a public museum. In May 1791, the Assembly declared that the Louvre would be a place for bringing together monuments of all the sciences, on 10 August 1792, Louis XVI was imprisoned and the royal collection in the Louvre became national property
19.
Charles Gleyre
–
Marc Gabriel Charles Gleyre, was a Swiss artist, resident in France from an early age. Gleyre was born in Chevilly, near Lausanne and his parents died when he was eight or nine years old, and he was brought up by an uncle in Lyon, France, who sent him to the citys industrial school. He began his artistic education in Lyon under Bonnefond, before moving to Paris. He also attended the Academie Suisse and studied watercolour technique in the studio of Richard Parkes Bonington and he then went to Italy, where he became acquainted with Horace Vernet and Louis Léopold Robert. They left Italy in spring 1834 and visited Greece, Turkey and Egypt, where they remained together until November 1835, Gleyre continued his travels around Egypt and Syria, not returning to France until 1838. He returned to Lyons in shattered health, having been attacked with ophthalmia, or inflammation of the eye, in Cairo, after 1845, when he exhibited the Separation of the Apostles, he contributed nothing to the Salon except the Dance of the Bacchantes in 1849. Yet he worked steadily and was productive and he had an infinite capacity of taking pains, and when asked by what method he attained to such marvelous perfection of workmanship, he would reply, En y pensant toujours. Many years often intervened between the first conception of a piece and its embodiment, and years not infrequently between the first and the stage of the embodiment itself. A landscape was finished, even his fellow artists would consider it done. Gleyre became influential as a teacher, taking over the studio of studio of Paul Delaroche – then the leading private teaching atelier in Paris – in 1843. His students included Jean-Léon Gérôme, Jean-Louis Hamon, Auguste Toulmouche, Whistler and several of the Impressionists, Monet, Renoir, Sisley and he did not charge his students a fee, although he expected them to contribute towards the rent and the payment of models. They were also given a say in the running of the school, though he lived in almost complete retirement from public life, he took a keen interest in politics, and was a voracious reader of political journals. For a time, under Louis Philippe, his studio had been the rendezvous of a sort of liberal club, to the last — amid all the disasters that befell his country — he was hopeful of the future, la raison finira bien par avoir raison. It was while on a visit to the Retrospective Exhibition, opened on behalf of the exiles from Alsace and Lorraine, that he died suddenly on 5 May 1874. He also left a number of drawings and watercolours. In Clements catalogue of his works there are 683 entries, including sketches and studies and this article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Gleyre, Marc Charles Gabriel. Fritz Berthoud in Bibliothèque universelle de Geneve, Albert de Montet, Dict
20.
Alfred Sisley
–
Alfred Sisley was an Impressionist landscape painter who was born and spent most of his life in France, but retained British citizenship. He was the most consistent of the Impressionists in his dedication to painting en plein air. He deviated into figure painting only rarely and, unlike Renoir and Pissarro, among his important works are a series of paintings of the River Thames, mostly around Hampton Court, executed in 1874, and landscapes depicting places in or near Moret-sur-Loing. Over the years Sisleys power of expression and colour intensity increased, Sisley was born in Paris to affluent British parents. His father, William Sisley, was in the silk business, in 1857 at the age of 18, Sisley was sent to London to study for a career in business, but he abandoned it after four years and returned to Paris in 1861. Together they would paint landscapes en plein air rather than in the studio and this approach, innovative at the time, resulted in paintings more colourful and more broadly painted than the public was accustomed to seeing. Consequently, Sisley and his friends initially had few opportunities to exhibit or sell their work and their works were usually rejected by the jury of the most important art exhibition in France, the annual Salon. During the 1860s, though, Sisley was in a financial position than some of his fellow artists. In 1866, Sisley began a relationship with Eugénie Lesouezec, a Breton living in Paris, the couple had two children, son Pierre and daughter Jeanne. At the time, Sisley lived not far from Avenue de Clichy and the Café Guerbois, in 1868, his paintings were accepted at the Salon, but the exhibition did not bring him financial or critical success, nor did subsequent exhibitions. In 1870 the Franco-Prussian War began, and as a result Sisleys fathers business failed, for the remainder of his life he would live in poverty, as his paintings did not rise significantly in monetary value until after his death. Occasionally, however, Sisley would be backed by patrons, the first of these occurred in 1874 after the first independent Impressionist exhibition. Here, as art historian Anne Poulet has said, the landscapes with their constantly changing atmosphere were perfectly attuned to his talents. Unlike Monet, he never sought the drama of the ocean or the brilliantly colored scenery of the Côte dAzur. In 1881 Sisley made a brief voyage to Britain. In 1897 Sisley and his partner visited Britain again, and were married in Cardiff Register Office on 5 August. They stayed at Penarth, where Sisley painted at least six oils of the sea, in mid-August they moved to the Osborne Hotel at Langland Bay on the Gower Peninsula, where he produced at least eleven oil paintings in and around Langland Bay and Rotherslade Bay. They returned to France in October and this was Sisleys last voyage to his ancestral homeland
.jpg)
Clickable image of the Luncheon of the Boating Party (1881) by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.). Place your mouse cursor over a person in the painting to see their name; click to link to an article about them..jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
"Renoir, Firmin Auguste". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911.
"
