1.
Henri Matisse
–
Henri-Émile-Benoît Matisse was a French artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is primarily as a painter. Although he was labelled a Fauve, by the 1920s he was increasingly hailed as an upholder of the classical tradition in French painting. His mastery of the language of colour and drawing, displayed in a body of work spanning over a half-century. Matisse was born in Le Cateau-Cambrésis, in the Nord department in northern France and he grew up in Bohain-en-Vermandois, Picardie, France. In 1887 he went to Paris to study law, working as an administrator in Le Cateau-Cambrésis after gaining his qualification. He first started to paint in 1889, after his mother brought him art supplies during a period of following an attack of appendicitis. He discovered a kind of paradise as he described it. In 1891 he returned to Paris to study art at the Académie Julian and became a student of William-Adolphe Bouguereau, initially he painted still lifes and landscapes in a traditional style, at which he achieved reasonable proficiency. Chardin was one of the painters Matisse most admired, as an art student he made copies of four of Chardins paintings in the Louvre, in 1896 and 1897, Matisse visited the Australian painter John Peter Russell on the island Belle Île off the coast of Brittany. Russell introduced him to Impressionism and to the work of van Gogh and he later said Russell was my teacher, and Russell explained colour theory to me. In 1896 Matisse exhibited five paintings in the salon of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, with the model Caroline Joblau, he had a daughter, Marguerite, born in 1894. In 1898 he married Amélie Noellie Parayre, the two raised Marguerite together and had two sons, Jean and Pierre, Marguerite and Amélie often served as models for Matisse. In 1898, on the advice of Camille Pissarro, he went to London to study the paintings of J. M. W. Turner and then went on a trip to Corsica. Upon his return to Paris in February 1899, he worked beside Albert Marquet and met André Derain, Jean Puy, Matisse immersed himself in the work of others and went into debt from buying work from painters he admired. The work he hung and displayed in his home included a plaster bust by Rodin, a painting by Gauguin, a drawing by van Gogh, in Cézannes sense of pictorial structure and colour, Matisse found his main inspiration. Many of Matisses paintings from 1898 to 1901 make use of a Divisionist technique he adopted after reading Paul Signacs essay and his paintings of 1902–03, a period of material hardship for the artist, are comparatively somber and reveal a preoccupation with form. Having made his first attempt at sculpture, a copy after Antoine-Louis Barye, in 1899, he devoted much of his energy to working in clay, fauvism as a style began around 1900 and continued beyond 1910
Henri Matisse
–
Henri Matisse, 1913, by
Alvin Langdon Coburn
Henri Matisse
–
Henri and Amélie Matisse, 1898
Henri Matisse
–
Woman Reading, 1894, Museum of Modern Art, Paris
Henri Matisse
–
Blue Pot and Lemon (1897),
Hermitage Museum,
St. Petersburg, Russia
2.
Oil painting
–
Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. Commonly used drying oils include linseed oil, poppy seed oil, walnut oil, the choice of oil imparts a range of properties to the oil paint, such as the amount of yellowing or drying time. Certain differences, depending on the oil, are visible in the sheen of the paints. An artist might use different oils in the same painting depending on specific pigments and effects desired. The paints themselves also develop a particular consistency depending on the medium, the oil may be boiled with a resin, such as pine resin or frankincense, to create a varnish prized for its body and gloss. Its practice may have migrated westward during the Middle Ages, Oil paint eventually became the principal medium used for creating artworks as its advantages became widely known. In recent years, water miscible oil paint has come to prominence and, to some extent, water-soluble paints contain an emulsifier that allows them to be thinned with water rather than paint thinner, and allows very fast drying times when compared with traditional oils. Traditional oil painting techniques often begin with the artist sketching the subject onto the canvas with charcoal or thinned paint, Oil paint is usually mixed with linseed oil, artist grade mineral spirits, or other solvents to make the paint thinner, faster or slower-drying. A basic rule of oil paint application is fat over lean and this means that each additional layer of paint should contain more oil than the layer below to allow proper drying. If each additional layer contains less oil, the painting will crack. This rule does not ensure permanence, it is the quality and type of oil leads to a strong. There are many media that can be used with the oil, including cold wax, resins. These aspects of the paint are closely related to the capacity of oil paint. Traditionally, paint was transferred to the surface using paintbrushes. Oil paint remains wet longer than other types of artists materials, enabling the artist to change the color. At times, the painter might even remove a layer of paint. This can be done with a rag and some turpentine for a time while the paint is wet, Oil paint dries by oxidation, not evaporation, and is usually dry to the touch within a span of two weeks. It is generally dry enough to be varnished in six months to a year, art conservators do not consider an oil painting completely dry until it is 60 to 80 years old
Oil painting
–
Mona Lisa,
Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1503–06
Oil painting
–
Self-portrait, at work,
Anders Zorn, 1897
Oil painting
–
Self-portrait of
Rembrandt, 1630. An example of oil painting on copper.
Oil painting
–
Flax seed is the source of linseed oil.
3.
Museum of Modern Art
–
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is identified as one of the largest and most influential museums of modern art in the world. The MoMA Library includes approximately 300,000 books and exhibition catalogs, over 1,000 periodical titles, the archives holds primary source material related to the history of modern and contemporary art. The idea for The Museum of Modern Art was developed in 1929 primarily by Abby Aldrich Rockefeller and they became known variously as the Ladies, the daring ladies and the adamantine ladies. They rented modest quarters for the new museum in the Heckscher Building at 730 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, and it opened to the public on November 7,1929, nine days after the Wall Street Crash. Abby had invited A. Conger Goodyear, the president of the board of trustees of the Albright Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York. At the time, it was Americas premier museum devoted exclusively to art. One of Abbys early recruits for the staff was the noted Japanese-American photographer Soichi Sunami. Goodyear enlisted Paul J. Sachs and Frank Crowninshield to join him as founding trustees, Sachs, the associate director and curator of prints and drawings at the Fogg Museum at Harvard University, was referred to in those days as a collector of curators. Goodyear asked him to recommend a director and Sachs suggested Alfred H. Barr, under Barrs guidance, the museums holdings quickly expanded from an initial gift of eight prints and one drawing. Its first successful exhibition was in November 1929, displaying paintings by Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne. Abbys husband was opposed to the museum and refused to release funds for the venture. Nevertheless, he donated the land for the current site of the museum, plus other gifts over time. During that time it initiated many more exhibitions of noted artists, the museum also gained international prominence with the hugely successful and now famous Picasso retrospective of 1939–40, held in conjunction with the Art Institute of Chicago. In its range of presented works, it represented a significant reinterpretation of Picasso for future art scholars, Boy Leading a Horse was briefly contested over ownership with the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. In 1941, MoMA hosted the exhibition, Indian Art of the United States. His brother, David Rockefeller, also joined the board of trustees in 1948. David subsequently employed the noted architect Philip Johnson to redesign the garden and name it in honor of his mother
Museum of Modern Art
–
Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
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The entrance to The Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
–
Stairs in the Museum of Modern Art
4.
New York City
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The City of New York, often called New York City or simply New York, is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2015 population of 8,550,405 distributed over an area of about 302.6 square miles. Located at the tip of the state of New York. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy and has described as the cultural and financial capital of the world. Situated on one of the worlds largest natural harbors, New York City consists of five boroughs, the five boroughs – Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, The Bronx, and Staten Island – were consolidated into a single city in 1898. In 2013, the MSA produced a gross metropolitan product of nearly US$1.39 trillion, in 2012, the CSA generated a GMP of over US$1.55 trillion. NYCs MSA and CSA GDP are higher than all but 11 and 12 countries, New York City traces its origin to its 1624 founding in Lower Manhattan as a trading post by colonists of the Dutch Republic and was named New Amsterdam in 1626. The city and its surroundings came under English control in 1664 and were renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, New York served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790. It has been the countrys largest city since 1790, the Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to the Americas by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is a symbol of the United States and its democracy. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. Several sources have ranked New York the most photographed city in the world, the names of many of the citys bridges, tapered skyscrapers, and parks are known around the world. Manhattans real estate market is among the most expensive in the world, Manhattans Chinatown incorporates the highest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere, with multiple signature Chinatowns developing across the city. Providing continuous 24/7 service, the New York City Subway is one of the most extensive metro systems worldwide, with 472 stations in operation. Over 120 colleges and universities are located in New York City, including Columbia University, New York University, and Rockefeller University, during the Wisconsinan glaciation, the New York City region was situated at the edge of a large ice sheet over 1,000 feet in depth. The ice sheet scraped away large amounts of soil, leaving the bedrock that serves as the foundation for much of New York City today. Later on, movement of the ice sheet would contribute to the separation of what are now Long Island and Staten Island. The first documented visit by a European was in 1524 by Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine explorer in the service of the French crown and he claimed the area for France and named it Nouvelle Angoulême. Heavy ice kept him from further exploration, and he returned to Spain in August and he proceeded to sail up what the Dutch would name the North River, named first by Hudson as the Mauritius after Maurice, Prince of Orange
New York City
–
Clockwise, from top:
Midtown Manhattan,
Times Square, the
Unisphere in
Queens, the
Brooklyn Bridge,
Lower Manhattan with
One World Trade Center,
Central Park, the
headquarters of the United Nations, and the
Statue of Liberty
New York City
–
New Amsterdam, centered in the eventual
Lower Manhattan, in 1664, the year
England took control and renamed it "New York".
New York City
–
The
Battle of Long Island, the largest battle of the
American Revolution, took place in
Brooklyn in 1776.
New York City
–
Broadway follows the Native American Wickquasgeck Trail through Manhattan.
5.
William Blake
–
William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a figure in the history of the poetry. His so-called prophetic works were said by 20th century critic Northrop Frye to form what is in proportion to its merits the least read body of poetry in the English language. His visual artistry led 21st-century critic Jonathan Jones to proclaim him far, in 2002, Blake was placed at number 38 in the BBCs poll of the 100 Greatest Britons. Although he lived in London his entire life, he produced a diverse and symbolically rich œuvre and his paintings and poetry have been characterised as part of the Romantic movement and as Pre-Romantic. Reverent of the Bible but hostile to the Church of England, Blake was influenced by the ideals and ambitions of the French, despite these known influences, the singularity of Blakes work makes him difficult to classify. William Blake was born on 28 November 1757 at 28 Broad Street in Soho and he was the third of seven children, two of whom died in infancy. Blakes father, James, was a hosier and he attended school only long enough to learn reading and writing, leaving at the age of ten, and was otherwise educated at home by his mother Catherine Blake. Even though the Blakes were English Dissenters, William was baptised on 11 December at St Jamess Church, Piccadilly, the Bible was an early and profound influence on Blake, and remained a source of inspiration throughout his life. Blake started engraving copies of drawings of Greek antiquities purchased for him by his father, within these drawings Blake found his first exposure to classical forms through the work of Raphael, Michelangelo, Maarten van Heemskerck and Albrecht Dürer. The number of prints and bound books that James and Catherine were able to purchase for young William suggests that the Blakes enjoyed, at least for a time, a comfortable wealth. When William was ten years old, his parents knew enough of his headstrong temperament that he was not sent to school and he read avidly on subjects of his own choosing. During this period, Blake made explorations into poetry, his work displays knowledge of Ben Jonson, Edmund Spenser. On 4 August 1772, Blake was apprenticed to engraver James Basire of Great Queen Street, at the sum of £52.10, at the end of the term, aged 21, he became a professional engraver. This aside, Basires style of line-engraving was of a kind held at the time to be old-fashioned compared to the flashier stipple or mezzotint styles. It has been speculated that Blakes instruction in this form may have been detrimental to his acquiring of work or recognition in later life. After two years, Basire sent his apprentice to copy images from the Gothic churches in London and his experiences in Westminster Abbey helped form his artistic style and ideas. The Abbey of his day was decorated with suits of armour, painted funeral effigies, ackroyd notes that. the most immediate would have been of faded brightness and colour
William Blake
–
Blake in a portrait by
Thomas Phillips (1807)
William Blake
–
28 Broad Street (now Broadwick Street) in an illustration of 1912. Blake was born here and lived here until he was 25. The house was demolished in 1965.
William Blake
–
The archetype of the Creator is a familiar image in Blake's work. Here, the
demiurgic figure
Urizen prays before the world he has forged. The
Song of Los is the third in a series of
illuminated books painted by Blake and his wife, collectively known as the
Continental Prophecies.
William Blake
–
Oberon, Titania and Puck with Fairies Dancing (1786)
6.
Nelson A. Rockefeller
–
Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller was an American businessman and politician. He served as the 41st Vice President of the United States under President Gerald Ford from 1974 to 1977 and he also served in the administrations of Presidents Franklin Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, and Dwight Eisenhower. A member of the wealthy Rockefeller family, he was also an art collector. Rockefeller, a Republican, was considered politically liberal and progressive. He successfully altered the political platform of the Republican Party just before the 1960 Republican Convention in what is termed the Treaty of Fifth Avenue, in his time, liberals in the Republican Party were called Rockefeller Republicans. After unsuccessfully seeking the Republican presidential nomination in 1960,1964, Rockefeller did not join the 1976 Republican national ticket with Ford, marking his retirement from politics. Ford later selected then-Senator Bob Dole from Kansas for his new running mate but ultimately lost the election to Democrat Jimmy Carter and his running mate, Rockefeller remains, as of 2017, the last Vice President who declined to seek re-election. As a businessman he was president and later chairman of Rockefeller Center, Inc. Rockefeller assembled a significant art collection and promoted public access to the arts. He served as trustee, treasurer, and president of the Museum of Modern Art, Rockefeller was born in 1908 in Bar Harbor, Maine. He was the son of financier and philanthropist John Davison Rockefeller Jr. and philanthropist. He had a sister, Abby, and four brothers, John III, Laurance, Winthrop and their father John Jr. was the only son of Standard Oil co-founder John Davison Rockefeller Sr. and schoolteacher Laura Celestia Cettie Spelman. Their mother Abby was a daughter of Senator Nelson Wilmarth Aldrich, Rockefeller received his elementary, middle and high school education at the Lincoln School, an experimental school administered by Teachers College of Columbia University. In 1930 he graduated cum laude with an A. B. in economics from Dartmouth College, where he was a member of Casque and Gauntlet, Phi Beta Kappa, and the Zeta chapter of the Psi Upsilon. Following his graduation, he worked in a number of family-related businesses, including Chase National Bank, Rockefeller Center, Inc. From 1932 to 1979 he served as a trustee of the Museum of Modern Art, where he served as treasurer, 1935–39. He and his four brothers established the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, a philanthropy, in 1940, where he served as trustee, 1940–75 and 1977–79, Rockefeller was a patient of famous psychic Edgar Cayce. Rockefeller served as a member of the Westchester County Board of Health and his service with Creole Petroleum led to his deep, lifelong interest in Latin America. He became fluent in the Spanish language, Rockefeller was charged with overseeing a program of U. S
Nelson A. Rockefeller
–
Nelson Rockefeller
Nelson A. Rockefeller
–
Nelson Rockefeller, Under Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, makes a presentation on a proposed public/private health reinsurance program, 1954.
Nelson A. Rockefeller
–
Vice President Nelson Rockefeller (on right) with Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, January 3, 1975.
Nelson A. Rockefeller
–
Gov. Rockefeller meets with President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968
7.
Hermitage Museum
–
The State Hermitage Museum is a museum of art and culture in Saint Petersburg, Russia. One of the largest and oldest museums in the world, it was founded in 1754 by Catherine the Great and has open to the public since 1852. Its collections, of only a small part is on permanent display. The collections occupy a complex of six historic buildings along Palace Embankment, including the Winter Palace. Apart from them, the Menshikov Palace, Museum of Porcelain, Storage Facility at Staraya Derevnya, the museum has several exhibition centers abroad. The Hermitage is a state property. Since July 1992, the director of the museum has been Mikhail Piotrovsky, of the six buildings in the main museum complex, five, namely the Winter Palace, Small Hermitage, Old Hermitage, New Hermitage and Hermitage Theatre, are open to the public. The entrance ticket for foreign tourists more than the fee paid by citizens of Russia. However, entrance is free of charge the first Thursday of every month for all visitors, the museum is closed on Mondays. The entrance for visitors is located in the Winter Palace. A hermitage is the dwelling of a hermit or recluse, the word derives from Old French hermit, ermit hermit, recluse, from Late Latin eremita, from Greek eremites, literally people who live alone, which is in turn derived from ἐρημός, desert. Originally, the building housing the collection was the Small Hermitage. Today, the Hermitage Museum encompasses many buildings on the Palace Embankment, apart from the Small Hermitage, the museum now also includes the Old Hermitage, the New Hermitage, the Hermitage Theatre, and the Winter Palace, the former main residence of the Russian tsars. In recent years, the Hermitage has expanded to the General Staff Building on the Palace Square facing the Winter Palace, the Western European Art collection includes European paintings, sculpture, and applied art from the 13th to the 20th centuries. It is displayed, in about 120 rooms, on the first, drawings and prints are displayed in temporary exhibitions. Since 1940, the Egyptian collection, dating back to 1852 and it serves as a passage to the exhibition of Classical Antiquities. A modest collection of the culture of Ancient Mesopotamia, including a number of Assyrian reliefs from Babylon, Dur-Sharrukin, the collection of Classical Antiquities occupies most of the ground floor of the Old and New Hermitage buildings. Its floor is made of a marble mosaic imitating ancient tradition, while the stucco walls
Hermitage Museum
–
Winter Palace
Hermitage Museum
–
The Hermitage Museum complex. From left to right: Hermitage Theatre – Old Hermitage – Small Hermitage – Winter Palace (the "New Hermitage" is situated behind the Old Hermitage).
Hermitage Museum
–
Egyptian Hall
Hermitage Museum
–
The Pavilion Hall
8.
St. Petersburg
–
Saint Petersburg is Russias second-largest city after Moscow, with five million inhabitants in 2012, and an important Russian port on the Baltic Sea. It is politically incorporated as a federal subject, situated on the Neva River, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea, it was founded by Tsar Peter the Great on May 271703. In 1914, the name was changed from Saint Petersburg to Petrograd, in 1924 to Leningrad, between 1713 and 1728 and 1732–1918, Saint Petersburg was the capital of imperial Russia. In 1918, the government bodies moved to Moscow. Saint Petersburg is one of the cities of Russia, as well as its cultural capital. The Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments constitute a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Saint Petersburg is home to The Hermitage, one of the largest art museums in the world. A large number of consulates, international corporations, banks. Swedish colonists built Nyenskans, a fortress, at the mouth of the Neva River in 1611, in a then called Ingermanland. A small town called Nyen grew up around it, Peter the Great was interested in seafaring and maritime affairs, and he intended to have Russia gain a seaport in order to be able to trade with other maritime nations. He needed a better seaport than Arkhangelsk, which was on the White Sea to the north, on May 1703121703, during the Great Northern War, Peter the Great captured Nyenskans, and soon replaced the fortress. On May 271703, closer to the estuary 5 km inland from the gulf), on Zayachy Island, he laid down the Peter and Paul Fortress, which became the first brick and stone building of the new city. The city was built by conscripted peasants from all over Russia, tens of thousands of serfs died building the city. Later, the city became the centre of the Saint Petersburg Governorate, Peter moved the capital from Moscow to Saint Petersburg in 1712,9 years before the Treaty of Nystad of 1721 ended the war, he referred to Saint Petersburg as the capital as early as 1704. During its first few years, the city developed around Trinity Square on the bank of the Neva, near the Peter. However, Saint Petersburg soon started to be built out according to a plan, by 1716 the Swiss Italian Domenico Trezzini had elaborated a project whereby the city centre would be located on Vasilyevsky Island and shaped by a rectangular grid of canals. The project was not completed, but is evident in the layout of the streets, in 1716, Peter the Great appointed French Jean-Baptiste Alexandre Le Blond as the chief architect of Saint Petersburg. In 1724 the Academy of Sciences, University and Academic Gymnasium were established in Saint Petersburg by Peter the Great, in 1725, Peter died at the age of fifty-two. His endeavours to modernize Russia had met opposition from the Russian nobility—resulting in several attempts on his life
St. Petersburg
–
Top left to bottom right:
Peter and Paul Fortress on
Zayachy Island,
Smolny Cathedral,
Moyka river with the
General Staff Building,
Trinity Cathedral,
Bronze Horseman on
Senate Square, and the
Winter Palace.
St. Petersburg
–
The
Bronze Horseman, monument to Peter the Great
St. Petersburg
–
Palace Square backed by the General Staff arch and building, as the main square of the Russian Empire it was the setting of many events of historic significance
St. Petersburg
–
Map of Saint Petersburg, 1903
9.
Music (Matisse)
–
Music is a painting made by Henri Matisse in 1910. The painting was commissioned by Sergei Shchukin, who hung it with Dance on the staircase of his Moscow mansion, Matisse made the painting without any preparatory sketches, and thus the painting bears many traces of modifications. One can virtually trace the steps Matisse took to find the intended effect, like in Dance, the aim was to show mans attainment of a state of completeness by immersion in creativity. The painting is now in the collection of the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia
Music (Matisse)
–
Music
10.
Sergei Shchukin
–
Sergei Ivanovich Shchukin was a Russian businessman who became an art collector, mainly of French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art. Shchukin and Sons Trading Company became one of the largest manufacturing, there were several art collectors in the Shchukin family. Another brother, Ivan, also collected art, Shchukin made his first art purchases following a trip to Paris in 1897, when he bought his first Monet. He later bought numerous works to a total of 258 paintings decorating the walls of his home in Moscow. Shchukin was particularly notable for his association with Matisse, who decorated his mansion and created one of his iconic paintings, La Danse. La Danse is commonly recognized as a key point of career, henri Matisse created one of his major works La Danse for Shchukin as part of a two painting commission, the other important painting being Music,1910. An earlier version of La Danse is in the collection of The Museum of Modern Art in New York City, in 1909, Shchukin opened his home on Sundays for public viewings, introducing French avant-garde painting to the Moscovites. After the 1917 Revolution, the government appropriated his collection while Shchukin escaped to Paris and his mansion in Moscow became the State Museum of New Western Art, the section II being the mansion and collection of the other famous Russian patron Ivan Morozov. Eventually, the two sections were merged and exhibited in the former Ivan Morozov mansion at Prechistenka,21, in 1948 the State Museum of New Western Art was closed down by a decree signed by Stalin due to its allegedly bourgeois, cosmopolitan and wrongly oriented artworks. The two collections were divided between the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts and the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. Shchukin died on 10 January 1936 in Paris, irina Antonova, Director of the Pushkin Museum, once remarked about Shchukin, He started to collect unpopular art, which was snubbed by the Louvre and other museums. Perhaps he heard foreshocks that would change the world, such a collector could appear only in a country that awaited a revolution. He collected art that prefigured the global cataclysms, in the autumn of 2016, the exhibibition Icônes de lart moderne. La collection Chtchoukine, opened at Fondation Louis Vuitton, shchukins portrait by Matisse, from the Metropolitan Museum The Morozov-Shchukin collections
Sergei Shchukin
–
Shchukin (1915) by Dmitry Melnikov
Sergei Shchukin
–
Henri Matisse,
The Dance (second version), 1910, 260 x 391 cm, The
Hermitage, (Matisse's second version of the painting).
11.
October Revolution
–
It took place with an armed insurrection in Petrograd on 25 October 1917. During this time, urban workers began to organize into councils wherein revolutionaries criticized the provisional government and this immediately initiated the establishment of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, the worlds first self-proclaimed socialist state. The revolution was led by the Bolsheviks, who used their influence in the Petrograd Soviet to organize the armed forces, Bolshevik Red Guards forces under the Military Revolutionary Committee began the takeover of government buildings on 24 October 1917. The following day, the Winter Palace, was captured, the long-awaited Constituent Assembly elections were held on 12 November 1917. The Bolsheviks only won 175 seats in the 715-seat legislative body, coming in second behind the Socialist Revolutionary party, the Constituent Assembly was to first meet on 28 November 1917, but its convocation was delayed until 5 January 1918 by the Bolsheviks. On its first and only day in session, the body rejected Soviet decrees on peace and land, as the revolution was not universally recognized, there followed the struggles of the Russian Civil War and the creation of the Soviet Union in 1922. At first, the event was referred to as the October coup or the Uprising of 25th, in Russian, however, переворот has a similar meaning to revolution and also means upheaval or overturn, so coup is not necessarily the correct translation. With time, the term October Revolution came into use and it is also known as the November Revolution having occurred in November according to the Gregorian Calendar. The Great October Socialist Revolution was the name for the October Revolution in the Soviet Union after the 10th anniversary of the Revolution in 1927. The February Revolution had toppled Tsar Nicolas II of Russia, however, the provisional government was weak and riven by internal dissension. It continued to wage World War I, which became increasingly unpopular, a nationwide crisis developed in Russia, affecting social, economic, and political relations. Disorder in industry and transport had intensified, and difficulties in obtaining provisions had increased, gross industrial production in 1917 had decreased by over 36% from what it had been in 1914. In the autumn, as much as 50% of all enterprises were closed down in the Urals, the Donbas, at the same time, the cost of living increased sharply. Real wages fell about 50% from what they had been in 1913, russias national debt in October 1917 had risen to 50 billion rubles. Of this, debts to foreign governments constituted more than 11 billion rubles, the country faced the threat of financial bankruptcy. In these months alone, more than a million took part in strikes. Workers established control over production and distribution in many factories and plants in a social revolution, by October 1917, there had been over 4,000 peasant uprisings against landowners. When the Provisional Government sent punitive detachments, it only enraged the peasants
October Revolution
–
Red Guards at Vulkan factory in 1917
October Revolution
–
Bolshevik (1920), by
Boris Kustodiev
October Revolution
–
A scene from the July Days. The army has just opened fire on street protesters.
October Revolution
–
Cruiser
Aurora
12.
Moscow
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Moscow is the capital and most populous city of Russia, with 13.2 million residents within the city limits and 17.8 million within the urban area. Moscow has the status of a Russian federal city, Moscow is a major political, economic, cultural, and scientific center of Russia and Eastern Europe, as well as the largest city entirely on the European continent. Moscow is the northernmost and coldest megacity and metropolis on Earth and it is home to the Ostankino Tower, the tallest free standing structure in Europe, the Federation Tower, the tallest skyscraper in Europe, and the Moscow International Business Center. Moscow is situated on the Moskva River in the Central Federal District of European Russia, the city is well known for its architecture, particularly its historic buildings such as Saint Basils Cathedral with its brightly colored domes. Moscow is the seat of power of the Government of Russia, being the site of the Moscow Kremlin, the Moscow Kremlin and Red Square are also one of several World Heritage Sites in the city. Both chambers of the Russian parliament also sit in the city and it is recognized as one of the citys landmarks due to the rich architecture of its 200 stations. In old Russian the word also meant a church administrative district. The demonym for a Moscow resident is москвич for male or москвичка for female, the name of the city is thought to be derived from the name of the Moskva River. There have been proposed several theories of the origin of the name of the river and its cognates include Russian, музга, muzga pool, puddle, Lithuanian, mazgoti and Latvian, mazgāt to wash, Sanskrit, majjati to drown, Latin, mergō to dip, immerse. There exist as well similar place names in Poland like Mozgawa, the original Old Russian form of the name is reconstructed as *Москы, *Mosky, hence it was one of a few Slavic ū-stem nouns. From the latter forms came the modern Russian name Москва, Moskva, in a similar manner the Latin name Moscovia has been formed, later it became a colloquial name for Russia used in Western Europe in the 16th–17th centuries. From it as well came English Muscovy, various other theories, having little or no scientific ground, are now largely rejected by contemporary linguists. The surface similarity of the name Russia with Rosh, an obscure biblical tribe or country, the oldest evidence of humans on the territory of Moscow dates from the Neolithic. Within the modern bounds of the city other late evidence was discovered, on the territory of the Kremlin, Sparrow Hills, Setun River and Kuntsevskiy forest park, etc. The earliest East Slavic tribes recorded as having expanded to the upper Volga in the 9th to 10th centuries are the Vyatichi and Krivichi, the Moskva River was incorporated as part of Rostov-Suzdal into the Kievan Rus in the 11th century. By AD1100, a settlement had appeared on the mouth of the Neglinnaya River. The first known reference to Moscow dates from 1147 as a place of Yuri Dolgoruky. At the time it was a town on the western border of Vladimir-Suzdal Principality
Moscow
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Left to right, top to bottom:
Moscow State University,
Spasskaya Clocktower,
Cathedral of Christ the Saviour;
Bolshoi Theatre,
Moscow International Business Center;
Red Square
Moscow
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Tatar raid upon Moscow
Moscow
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Map of Moscow, 1784
Moscow
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Red Square, painting by
Fedor Alekseev, 1801
13.
Primitive art
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Tribal art is the visual arts and material culture of indigenous peoples. The term primitive is criticized as being Eurocentric and pejorative, Tribal art is often ceremonial or religious in nature. Typically originating in rural areas, tribal art refers to the subject, in the 19th century, non-western art was not seen by mainstream Western art professional as being as art at all. The art world perception of tribal arts is becoming less paternalistic, major exhibitions of tribal arts in the late 19th through mid-20th centuries exposed the Western art world to non-Western art. Major exhibitions included the Museum of Modern Arts 1935 Africa Negro Art and 1941 Indian Art of the United States, exposure to tribal arts provide inspiration to many modern artists, notably Expressionists, Cubists, and Surrealists, notably Surrealist Max Ernst. The Anthropology of Art, A Reader, edmund Snow Carpenter, The Tribal Terror of Self-Awareness. In Paul Hockings, Principles of Visual Anthropology,1975, pages 451–461, denis Dutton, Tribal Art and Artefact. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism,51, 13–21, Winter 1993, denis Dutton, Mythologies of Tribal Art. Herbert E. Roese, African Wood Carvings - the sculptural art of West Africa,2011, Cardiff ISBN 978-0-9560294-2-3 Ralph T. Coe, the responsive eye, Ralph T. Coe and the collecting of American Indian art. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Tribal Art Magazine Paleobree — Tribal Art Information Service Art Tribal Newsletter Tribal art forgeries Oceanic Art Society
Primitive art
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A Punu tribe mask. Gabon West Africa
Primitive art
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Artwork in the
Museum of Indian Terracotta, New Delhi, India.
Primitive art
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Congolese Nkisi Nkondi, a female power figure, with nails, collection BNK, Royal Tribal Art
14.
Fauvism
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While Fauvism as a style began around 1900 and continued beyond 1910, the movement as such lasted only a few years, 1904–1908, and had three exhibitions. The leaders of the movement were Henri Matisse and André Derain, the paintings of the Fauves were characterized by seemingly wild brush work and strident colors, while their subject matter had a high degree of simplification and abstraction. Fauvism can be classified as a development of Van Goghs Post-Impressionism fused with the pointillism of Seurat and other Neo-Impressionist painters. Other key influences were Paul Cézanne and Paul Gauguin, whose employment of areas of saturated color—notably in paintings from Tahiti—strongly influenced Derains work at Collioure in 1905, in 1888 Gauguin had said to Paul Sérusier, How do you see these trees. So, put in yellow, this shadow, rather blue, paint it with pure ultramarine, Fauvism can also be seen as a mode of Expressionism. Moreaus broad-mindedness, originality and affirmation of the potency of pure color was inspirational for his students. Matisse said of him, He did not set us on the right roads and this source of empathy was taken away with Moreaus death in 1898, but the artists discovered other catalysts for their development. In 1896, Matisse, then an art student, visited the artist John Peter Russell on the island of Belle Île off the coast of Brittany. The next year he returned as Russells student and abandoned his earth-colored palette for bright Impressionist colors, later stating, Russell was my teacher, Russell had been a close friend of Vincent van Gogh and gave Matisse a Van Gogh drawing. In parallel with the discovery of contemporary avant-garde art came an appreciation of pre-Renaissance French art. Another aesthetic influence was African sculpture, of which Vlaminck, Derain, many of the Fauve characteristics first cohered in Matisses painting, Luxe, Calme et Volupté, which he painted in the summer of 1904, whilst in Saint-Tropez with Paul Signac and Henri-Edmond Cross. The artists shared their first exhibition at the 1905 Salon dAutomne, Henri Rousseau was not a Fauve, but his large jungle scene The Hungry Lion Throws Itself on the Antelope was exhibited near Matisses work and may have had an influence on the pejorative used. Vauxcelles comment was printed on 17 October 1905 in Gil Blas, a daily newspaper, the pictures gained considerable condemnation—A pot of paint has been flung in the face of the public, wrote the critic Camille Mauclair —but also some favorable attention. Matisses Neo-Impressionist landscape, Luxe, Calme et Volupté, had already exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants in the spring of 1905. Art history History of painting Neo-Fauvism Visual arts Western painting Gerdts, the Color of Modernism, The American Fauves. Spivey, Virginia, Fauvism, Smarthistory at Khan Academy Whitfield, Fauve Painting from the Permanent Collection at the National Gallery of Art Fauvism, The Wild Beasts of Early Twentieth Century Art Rewald, Sabine. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art Gelett Burgess, The Wild Men of Paris, Matisse, Picasso and Les Fauves,1910
Fauvism
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Henri Matisse, Portrait of Madame Matisse (The
Green Stripe), 1906,
Statens Museum for Kunst,
Copenhagen, Denmark
Fauvism
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Press clipping, Les Fauves: Exhibition at the
Salon d'Automne, in L'Illustration, 4 November 1905
Fauvism
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Henri Matisse.
Woman with a Hat, 1905.
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Fauvism
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Henri Matisse,
Luxe, Calme et Volupté, 1904, oil on canvas, 98 x 118.5 cm,
Musée d'Orsay, Paris, France
15.
Hedonism
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Hedonism is a school of thought that argues that pleasure and happiness are the primary or most important intrinsic goods and the proper aim of human life. A hedonist strives to maximize net pleasure, but when finally gained of that pleasure, either through intrinsic or extrinsic goods, ethical hedonism is the idea that all people have the right to do everything in their power to achieve the greatest amount of pleasure possible to them. It is also the idea that every persons pleasure should far surpass their amount of pain, ethical hedonism is said to have been started by Aristippus of Cyrene, a student of Socrates. He held the idea that pleasure is the highest good, Hedonism is a sub philosophy of utilitarianism, which says to act in a way that maximizes utility. Hedonists equate pleasure with utility and believe that pleasure is the master of all humankind, the name derives from the Greek word for delight. An extremely strong aversion to hedonism is hedonophobia, in the original Old Babylonian version of the Epic of Gilgamesh, which was written soon after the invention of writing, Siduri gave the following advice Fill your belly. Dance and make music day and night These things alone are the concern of men, the following is a song attributed to the reign of one of the Pharoahs around the time of the 12th dynasty, and the text was used in the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties. The school was so called after Cyrene, the birthplace of Aristippus and it was one of the earliest Socratic schools. The Cyrenaics taught that the only good is pleasure, which meant not just the absence of pain. Of these, momentary pleasures, especially physical ones, are stronger than those of anticipation or memory and they did, however, recognize the value of social obligation, and that pleasure could be gained from altruism. Theodorus the Atheist was an exponent of hedonism who was a disciple of younger Aristippus. The school died out within a century, and was replaced by Epicureanism, the Cyrenaics were known for their skeptical theory of knowledge. They reduced logic to a doctrine concerning the criterion of truth. They thought that we can know with certainty our immediate sense-experiences and they also denied that we can have knowledge of what the experiences of other people are like. These sensations are motions which are subjective, and are painful, indifferent or pleasant, according as they are violent. Further they are individual, and can in no way be described as constituting absolute objective knowledge. Feeling, therefore, is the only criterion of knowledge. Our ways of being affected are alone knowable, thus the sole aim for everyone should be pleasure
Hedonism
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Aristippus of Cyrene
Hedonism
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Epicurus
Hedonism
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Michel Onfray, contemporary hedonist philosopher
16.
Igor Stravinsky
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Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky was a Russian-born composer, pianist, and conductor. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of the 20th century, Stravinskys compositional career was notable for its stylistic diversity. His Russian phase which continued with such as Renard, The Soldiers Tale. The works from this tended to make use of traditional musical forms, drawing on earlier styles. In the 1950s, Stravinsky adopted serial procedures, Stravinsky was born on 17 June 1882 in Oranienbaum, a suburb of Saint Petersburg, the Russian imperial capital, and was brought up in Saint Petersburg. It is believed that Stravinsky’s ancestry is traceable back to the 17th and 18th centuries, to the bearers of the Soulima, ivan Sulima, was a famous Ukrainian hetman 1628–1635. Stravinskys family branch most likely came from Stravinskas, polonized Lithuanian land owners and it is still unclear to when exactly the Soulima part of the surname was dropped. Stravinsky recalled his schooldays as being lonely, later saying that I never came across anyone who had any attraction for me. Stravinsky began piano lessons as a boy, studying music theory. In 1890, he saw a performance of Tchaikovskys ballet The Sleeping Beauty at the Mariinsky Theatre, despite his enthusiasm for music, his parents expected him to study law. Stravinsky enrolled at the University of Saint Petersburg in 1901, Stravinskys father died of cancer that year, by which time his son had already begun spending more time on his musical studies than on law. Thereafter, he concentrated on studying music, in 1905, he began to take twice-weekly private lessons from Rimsky-Korsakov, whom he came to regard as a second father. These lessons continued until Rimsky-Korsakovs death in 1908, in 1905 Stravinsky was betrothed to his cousin Katherine Gavrylivna Nosenko, whom he had known since early childhood. Diaghilev was sufficiently impressed by Fireworks to commission Stravinsky to carry out some orchestrations and then to compose a ballet score. The early period of Igor Stravinsky’s work would be incomplete without a research of his life while in Ukraine. From approximately 1890 till 1914 the composer was frequently visiting Ustyluh, town in Volyn Oblast and he spent most of his summers there and that’s where he met his cousin, Katherine Nosenko who he married in 1906. In 1907 Stravinsky designed and built his own house in Ustyluh where his own family stayed often during summer times until 1914 and his new Ukrainian home he called “My heavenly place”. In this house Igor Stravinsky worked on his seventeen early compositions, among which were orchestral fantasy Fireworks, ballets Firebird, Petrushka, currently, after its renovation this house is the only composers house-museum opened to the public
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky
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Igor Stravinsky, 1903
Igor Stravinsky
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A costume sketch by
Léon Bakst for
The Firebird
Igor Stravinsky
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Vaslav Nijinsky as Petrushka in 1910–11
17.
The Rite of Spring
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The Rite of Spring is a ballet and orchestral concert work by the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky. It was written for the 1913 Paris season of Sergei Diaghilevs Ballets Russes company, when first performed, at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées on 29 May 1913, the avant-garde nature of the music and choreography caused a sensation and a near-riot in the audience. Stravinsky was a young, virtually unknown composer when Diaghilev recruited him to create works for the Ballets Russes, the Rite was the third such project, after the acclaimed Firebird and Petrushka. Massines was the forerunner of many productions directed by the worlds leading ballet-masters. In the 1980s, Nijinskys original choreography, long believed lost, was reconstructed by the Joffrey Ballet in Los Angeles, Stravinskys score contains many novel features for its time, including experiments in tonality, metre, rhythm, stress and dissonance. Analysts have noted in the score a significant grounding in Russian folk music, the music has influenced many of the 20th-centurys leading composers and is one of the most recorded works in the classical repertoire. Fyodors association with many of the figures in Russian music, including Rimsky-Korsakov, Borodin and Mussorgsky. In 1901 Stravinsky began to study law at St Petersburg University, while taking lessons in harmony. Having impressed Rimsky-Korsakov with some of his compositional efforts, Stravinsky worked under the guidance of the older composer. In 1909 Feu dartifice was performed at a concert in St Petersburg, among those in the audience was the impresario Sergei Diaghilev, who at that time was planning to introduce Russian music and art to western audiences. Like Stravinsky, Diaghilev had initially studied law, but had gravitated via journalism into the theatrical world, in 1907 he began his theatrical career by presenting five concerts in Paris, in the following year he introduced Mussorgskys opera Boris Godunov. In 1909, still in Paris, he launched the Ballets Russes, initially with Borodins Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor, to present these works Diaghilev recruited the choreographer Michel Fokine, the designer Léon Bakst and the dancer Vaslav Nijinsky. Diaghilevs intention, however, was to new works in a distinctively 20th-century style. Having heard Feu dartifice he approached Stravinsky, initially with a request for help in orchestrating music by Chopin to create the ballet Les Sylphides. Stravinsky worked on the opening Nocturne and the closing Valse Brillante, his reward was a bigger commission, to write the music for a new ballet. Stravinsky worked through the winter of 1909–10, in association with Fokine who was choreographing The Firebird. During this period Stravinsky made the acquaintance of Nijinsky who, although not dancing in the ballet, was an observer of its development. Stravinsky was uncomplimentary when recording his first impressions of the dancer, observing that he seemed immature, on the other hand, Stravinsky found Diaghilev an inspiration, the very essence of a great personality
The Rite of Spring
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Part of
Nicholas Roerich 's designs for
Diaghilev 's 1913 production of Le Sacre du printemps
The Rite of Spring
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Stravinsky, sketched by
Picasso
The Rite of Spring
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Sergei Diaghilev, director of the
Ballets Russes from 1909 to 1929, as painted by
Léon Bakst
The Rite of Spring
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Clarens, in Switzerland (modern photograph), where most of The Rite of Spring was composed
18.
Hermitage Amsterdam
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Hermitage Amsterdam is a branch museum of the Hermitage Museum of Saint Petersburg, Russia, located on the banks of the Amstel river in Amsterdam. The museum is located in the former Amstelhof, a classical style building from 1681, the dependency displayed small exhibitions in the adjacent Neerlandia Building from 24 February 2004 until the main museum opened on 19 June 2009. It is currently the largest satellite of the Hermitage Museum, with an area of 12,846 m2. The exhibition area covers 2,172 m2 and is contained within two large halls and smaller exhibition rooms. The remaining space holds lecture halls, offices and staff accommodations, the structure opened in 1682 as a retirement home for elderly women under the name Diaconie Oude Vrouwen Huys on the east bank of the river Amstel. Beginning in 1817, the facility housed both men and women, and was renamed Diaconie Oude Vrouwen- en Mannenhuis. The building was first named Amstelhof in 1953, in the 1990s, operators of the facility determined that it was inadequate to meet the modern needs of its residents and sought to build a new structure elsewhere. They offered the structure to the city of Amsterdam, who, in turn. The last inhabitants left the Amstelhof in 2007, on 20 June 2009, the museum was opened by Dutch Queen Beatrix and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. The museum was open to the public the following day, during the more than 300 years that residents were housed in the Amstelhof, several renovations took place on the building interior and wings were added to provide needed space. Thus, little of the interior remained when work for the museum began. While some areas were restored to their appearance, many existing walls were removed. The total cost of the renovations was €40 million, the temporary museum in the Neerlandia Building on the Nieuwe Keizersgracht closed in 2008 to become the Hermitage for Children. It opened along with the museum on 20 June 2009. The museum houses two permanent presentations, one describes Netherlands–Russia relations and the details the history of the Amstelhof building. Temporary exhibitions usually are scheduled for six-months, the Immortal Alexander the Great The Myth, The Truth, His Journey, His Legacy,18 September 2010 –18 March 2011. Alexander the Great appeals to the more than any ruler of the ancient age. Beginning in his youth he inspired those around him, during his campaigns in the East, Alexander searched for the origins of Dionysus, whom the ancient Greeks believed came from the exotic East, possibly India
Hermitage Amsterdam
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Entrance of the museum
Hermitage Amsterdam
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A 1693 etching of the
Amstelhof, showing the building out of proportions
Hermitage Amsterdam
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Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and
Queen Beatrix at the official opening of Hermitage Amsterdam on 20 June 2009
19.
List of works by Henri Matisse
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This is an incomplete list of works by the French modern artist Henri Matisse. He is admired for his use of color and his fluid, brilliant and he was a Master draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter. Matisse is regarded, with Pablo Picasso, as the greatest artist of the 20th century, although he was initially labeled as a Fauve, by the 1920s, he was increasingly hailed as an upholder of the classical tradition in French painting. His mastery of the language of color and drawing, displayed in a body of work spanning over a half-century. Many of Matisses sculptures were modeled in clay and later cast in bronze, because of that, many of these works exist in multiple copies and are in the collections of multiple museums. Henri Matisse, The Early Years in Nice 1916–1930, Henri Matisse, Masterworks from the Museum of Modern Art. New York City, Museum of Modern Art, antonioz, Michael, Berggruen, Olivier, Böhringer, Hannes, Labrusse, Rémi, et al. Henri Matisse, Drawing With Scissors, Masterpieces from the Late Years Edited by Olivier Berggruen and Max Hollein, translated from the German edition of 2003 by Paul Aston
List of works by Henri Matisse
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Self-Portrait in a Striped T-shirt 1906,
Statens Museum for Kunst,
Copenhagen,
Denmark.
List of works by Henri Matisse
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Woman Reading
List of works by Henri Matisse
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Gustave Moreau's Studio
List of works by Henri Matisse
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The Maid
20.
Le Mur Rose
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Le Mur Rose, is a painting by Henri Matisse from 1898. It was bought in Paris at the sale of La Peau de lOurs on 2 March 1914 by Jewish entrepreneur Harry Fuld, telefon und Telegraphenwerke AG, which made telephones. After Fuld died on a trip to Switzerland in 1932, his art collection passed to his son, Harry Fuld. After the ascent of the Nazi party to power, Fuld fled to safety in Switzerland in 1937, but the collection never left Germany and, after confiscation by the SS, it somehow became the property of SS officer Kurt Gerstein. At the end of World War II, on 22 April 1945 and he received a sympathetic reception and was transferred to a residence in a hotel in Rottweil, there writing out the Gerstein Report. He was later transferred to the notorious Cherche-Midi military prison where he was treated as a war criminal. On July 25,1945 while awaiting trial he was found hanged dead in his cell, continuing the investigation into Gersteins war crimes, French police recovered Le Mur Rose from a cache of stored art near Gersteins home in Tübingen, Germany. Harry Fuld, Jr. died in Switzerland in 1963, in February 2010 the painting was acquired from the heirs, the Magen David Adom UK, for the Jewish Museum Frankfurt, Germany, with the financial help of various German foundations and private donors. Paysage, le mur rose at the Pompidou Centre site French Culture Ministry page about the painting and digital image
Le Mur Rose
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Henri Matisse, Le Mur Rose, 1898
21.
Woman with a Hat
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Woman with a Hat is a painting by Henri Matisse. An oil on canvas, it depicts Matisses wife, Amelie and it was painted in 1905 and exhibited at the Salon dAutomne during the fall of the same year, along with works by André Derain, Maurice de Vlaminck and several other artists known as Fauves. Critic Louis Vauxcelles, in comparing the paintings of Matisse and his associates with a Renaissance-type sculpture that shared the room with them and his comment was printed on 17 October 1905 in Gil Blas, a daily newspaper, and passed into popular usage. Woman with a Hat was at the center of the controversy led to the term Fauvism. It was also a painting that marked a shift in the work of Matisse from the Divisionist brushstrokes of his earlier work to a more expressive style. Its loose brushwork and unfinished quality shocking viewers as much as its vivid, although the Fauve works on display were condemned by many—A pot of paint has been flung in the face of the public, declared the critic Camille Mauclair—they also gained some favorable attention. Sarah Stein, the wife of Gertrude and Leos elder brother Michael, claimed to have been the purchaser of this painting. One can see it in photographs of Sarah and Michaels home on Rue Madame and it was a centerpiece in Sarahs home in Palo Alto, California for many years. During the 1950s, in San Francisco, it was bought by the Haas family, in 1990 Elise S. Haas bequeathed thirty-seven paintings, sculptures and works on paper to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, among them Femme au chapeau. Femme au Chapeau by Jean Metzinger Salon dAutomne Fauvism
Woman with a Hat
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Woman with a Hat
22.
Le bonheur de vivre
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Le bonheur de vivre is a painting by Henri Matisse. Along with Picassos Les Demoiselles dAvignon, Le bonheur de vivre is regarded as one of the pillars of early modernism, the monumental canvas was first exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants of 1906, where its cadmium colors and spatial distortions caused a public expression of protest and outrage. In the central background of the piece is a group of figures that is similar to the group depicted in his painting The Dance, in the picture, there are several nude bodies of women and men in a landscape drenched with vivid color. Le bonheur de vivre features a large amount of cadmium sulfide-based yellow, portions of the painting containing cadmium sulfide are turning white or brown, degrading the work. University of Delaware Prof. Robert L, “It is a very disheartening phenomenon, considering the painting’s position in history, ” says Opila, professor of materials science at UD. Also, the presence of chloride in the paint appears to be acting as a catalyst for the deterioration, Opila and his research team theorize that the binder, an oil similar to linseed oil, may be turning brown. Barnes Foundation, Le Bonheur de vivre Photo-oxidative degradation of yellow pigments in Matisse’s Le Bonheur de Vivre, a comparison of XANES, XPS, Raman, and FTIR methodologies. Cadmium yellow degradation mechanisms in Henri Matisse’s Le Bonheur de vivre compared to the Munch Museum’s The Scream using chemical speciation as a function of depth, Jennifer L. Mass, et al
Le bonheur de vivre
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Le bonheur de vivre
23.
The Young Sailor II
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The Young Sailor II is a painting by Henri Matisse from 1906. In the second version of The Young Sailor, Matisse expresses sharper edges, painted in vivid pink, blue, and green, the expression of the sailor is playful and primitive. The sailor’s stylized face is a mask, a collection of angles, an icon of Fauve portraiture, The Young Sailor II shows greater simplicity and more distortion than the first version of the painting. Contrary to the first version, the second uses more vivid colors which are blended and distorted. The figure drawing is more succinct, and made up of fewer lines, the young man has a soft body- his legs lazily straddle widely, his head hangs at a small angle. He has a curve for a nose, and youthful lips. The whole figure is so logically condensed that it’s hypnotizing, recently established research indicates the model for Young Sailor II was an eighteen-year-old fisherman named Germain Augustin Barthélémy Montargès. Overall, between the flat, bold color planes and the figure of the boy, Young Sailor II seems to be a more childlike expression of the first portrait. Many elements of the painting are not articulated totally, but implied, the sailor’s footwear is a good example. His booties or shoes are not very visible, it’s not clear if he is wearing boots for work or leisure, but the decorative elements are there, simplified as they are. The sailor’s hands are also a summation of figurative hands, painted as large gloves of color, fingers are dashes, his palm is shown on his left hand in one deep v-shape. There is a major contrast between the still, mask-like quality of the face and the wild, frenetic brushstrokes of his clothing. Whereas the sailors eyebrows, nose, and lips all are painted in concrete, heavy lines, his pants and sweater are composed of moving, wild painted curves and turns. The folds of the jumper alone mimic the rushing, lapping waves of the sea from where the boy probably just returned, the sailor was painted in Collioure, during Matisse’s fauve summer. He had been painting great self-portraits when he convinced an eighteen-year old fisherman to pose for him, when he returned to Paris, Matisse had both a drawing and a painting of the young man to show. The work Matisse brought back seemed to have created in a whirlwind. The first version of the painting is figurative, the second – one of the greatest works in the Metropolitan Museum of Art- is more abstract. Alfred H. Barr Jr. saw in the face an expression of “almond-eyed charm verging on prettiness. ”His theatrical
The Young Sailor II
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The Young Sailor II
24.
The Dessert: Harmony in Red (The Red Room)
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The Dessert, Harmony in Red is a painting by French artist Henri Matisse, from 1909. It is considered by critics to be Matisses masterpiece. This Fauvist painting follows the set by Impressionism with the overall lack of a central focal point. The painting was ordered as Harmony in Blue, but Matisse was dissatisfied with the result and it is in the permanent collection of the Hermitage Museum. All About Henri Matisse- Gallery Henry MyStudios- Matisse, The Dessert, A Harmony in Red
The Dessert: Harmony in Red (The Red Room)
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The Dessert: Harmony in Red (The Red Room)
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