You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘Favorite Artists’ category.
Jacqueline Mary du Pré OBE (26 January 1945 – 19 October 1987) was an English cellist, acknowledged as one of the greatest exponents of the instrument. She is particularly associated with Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E Minor; her interpretation of this work has been described as “definitive” and “legendary”.[1] Her career was cut short by multiple sclerosis, which forced her to cease performing at the age of 28, and led to her premature death. Following her death, a book about her family life was written by her sister Hilary du Pré and her brother Piers. This book formed the basis for the movie Hilary and Jackie, which aroused fierce controversy. Source: WIKI
Synopsis
Carol Easton, who knew Jacqueline du Pré well, draws on this friendship to create a moving and insightful portrait of a singularly complex person. Jacqueline du Pré (the subject of the recent film Hilary and Jackie) was the music world’s “golden girl,” with what appeared to many to be a fairytale career and storybook marriage to Daniel Barenboim. But away from her cello, du Pré was achingly human. As a child, she was isolated by her phenomenal talent. As an adult, she was confined to the rarefied, insular concert world. And during the last fifteen years of her life, she lived in the inexorably shrinking world of the invalid, as multiple sclerosis took its toll. The Baltimore Sun said, Carol Easton tells this extraordinary story “with feeling befitting du Pré’s own.”
Publishers Weekly
In this sensitive biography an American woman who “passed time” with British musician Jacqueline du Pre (1945-1987) during the last years of her life helps explain why so many people fell in love with her persona as well as her incomparable artistry on the cello. Reminiscences of teachers, schoolmates, associates and friends quoted here show the shy, gawky, undereducated girl, the daughter of anti-Semitic parents who herself converted to Judaism and at age 21 married Jewish pianist-conductor Daniel Barenboim. We also see the invalid, the longtime sufferer of multiple sclerosis, the grown woman who giggled a lot, loved to tell and hear dirty jokes (the cruder the better) and who was impatient with hypocrisy, pretension and prejudice. A tragic story told with warmth and understanding. Photos. (May)
Winslow Homer (February 24, 1836 – September 29, 1910)
Winslow Homer was a noted American artist during the 1800′s. He is remembered for his landscapes, many featuring scenes of the sea, boats, and coastlines.
Homer did not receive formal art training. He began his art career as an apprentice for a commercial lithographer. In the late 1850′s he began doing work for Harper’s Weekly. His early work for Harper’s was primarily to create line art drawings from photographs. At the time pictures were printed by “stamping” them from a large wood block.
To do this, photographs had to first be converted to line art drawings by an artist. In this role, there was little room for artistic interpretation . . . the task was simply to as accurately as possible capture the details of a photograph in a drawing. As such, this work was often published without attribution to Homer. There are several examples of illustrations published which were photographs by Mathew Brady, and then converted to line art by Winslow Homer. As time progressed, Harper’s began to expand Homer’s role, and he was sent to events to directly create drawings. A notable example was that Homer attended Abraham Lincoln’s inauguration, and created several drawings which were published by Harper’s. Much of this early work could be described as accurate drawings and illustrations. He was simply capturing the image in front of him as carefully as possible.
Harper’s often did not cite Winslow Homer as the artist for pictures that they published. He was sometimes referred to as their “Special Artist”. However, this designation was also used for other artists as well. As such, it can be difficult to know which Harper’s illustrations were done by Homer, particularly in his early years with the paper.
Some illustrations in Harper’s include his signature in the corner of the illustration, some were attributed to him by name in the caption, and others are believed to be his because of the distinct style of the drawing.
As the war continued, Homer’s work evolved, and you can see his distinct drawing style emerge. He began to draw pictures which were much more artistic in nature, and less like the work of a lithographer. He drew pictures which were high contrast, bold, and with less attention to detail.
After the war, Homer began a career as a painter. He painted several pictures based on drawings he had done during the war, including the Sharpshooter and Prisoners from the front.
Homer went to France in 1867 and began painting landscapes, as he continued to do drawings for Harper’s. By 1875 he stopped his work as a commercial lithographer, and focused on his painting. His 1872 painting Snap the Whip was very well received, and was displayed at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia.
In the 1880′s he moved to Prout’s Neck, Maine and began painting scenes of the sea and coast. It is interesting to note the contrast in the subject matter of his work. His early work captured the horror of the Civil War, and towards the end of his life, his work captured the peace and serenity of the Maine Coast. Winslow Homer died on September 29, 1910.
Rodin, Auguste (1840-1917). The French artist Auguste Rodin had a profound influence on 20th-century sculpture. His works are distinguished by their stunning strength and realism. Rodin refused to ignore the negative aspects of humanity, and his works confront distress and moral weakness as well as passion and beauty.
Francois-Auguste-Rene Rodin was born on Nov. 12, 1840, in Paris. At the age of 14 he entered the Petite Ecole, a school of decorative arts in Paris. He applied three times to study at the renowned Ecole des Beaux-Arts but was rejected each time. In 1858 he began to do decorative stonework in order to make his living. Four years later the death of his sister Marie so traumatized Rodin that he entered a sacred order.
The father superior of the order recognized Rodin’s talents and encouraged him to pursue his art. In 1864 Rodin met a seamstress named Rose Beuret. She became his life companion and was the model for many of his works. That year Rodin submitted his Man with a Broken Nose to the Paris Salon. It was rejected but later accepted under the title Portrait of a Roman. Rodin traveled in 1875 to Italy, where the works of Michelangelo made a strong impression on him. The trip inspired his sculpture The Age of Bronze, which was exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1877. It caused a scandal because the critics could not believe that Rodin had not used a casting of a live model in creating so realistic a work.
The controversy brought Rodin more fame than praise might have. In 1880 he was commissioned to create a bronze door for the future Museum of Decorative Arts. Although the work was unfinished at the time of his death, it provided the basis for some of Rodin’s most influential and powerful work. In 1884 he was commissioned to create a monument that became The Burghers of Calais. His statues St. John the Baptist Preaching, Eve, The Age of Bronze, and The Thinker are world famous. Rodin died on Nov. 17, 1917, and was buried at Meudon.
When Rodin was 76 years old he gave the French government the entire collection of his own works and other art objects he had acquired. They occupy the Hotel Biron in Paris as the Musee Rodin and are still placed as Rodin set them.
Auguste Rodin (1840-1917)
‘Honoré De Balzac’ (1799-1850)
1891-2
Bronze on a marble base
Height 41.5 cm
Inscribed ‘A. Rodin’ on the front of the left shoulder and ‘Alexis Rudier/Fondeur, Paris’ on the back of the right shoulder
Museum no. A.42-1914
Given by the artist
The bust is one of the first studies for a monument commemorating Balzac, commissioned in 1891 by the Society of Writers under the presidency of Emile Zola.
Balzac had then been dead for over 40 years. Rodin attempted to overcome this difficulty by researching the writer’s life and visiting the region around Tours where he had lived in order to study the local facial types. But another, and more reliable, source for this bust was probably a portrait of Balzac of about 1822, attributed to Achille Devéria. The spirited and free handling of the clay, retained in the bronze, together with the erect head and direct gaze of the sitter, convey the confidence and determination associated with youth.
Later – and controversially – Rodin decided to represent Balzac as an older man, over life size, enveloped in a long, loose robe. He may have included the earlier bust in the 1914 Grosvenor House exhibition as a reference to that final version.
L’Éternelle Idole (The Eternal Idol)
Throughout Rodin’s career, the couple was a constant source of inspiration, enabling him to express all nuances of tenderness, passion and sensuality. Along with The Kiss, Fugit Amor, Eternal Spring, Paolo and Francesca, The Eternal Idol is one of the most famous groups inspired by this theme.
Rodin chose to portray in this group the domination of woman over man who kneels before her in an attitude of adoration, and seems to pay an almost religious homage to an indifferent divinity. It should be noted out that the first title for this work was The Host, clearly indicating this notion of devotion. The composition of the group accentuates its psychological aspect; the deliberate vertical line formed by the woman’s arms and head contrasts with the diagonal of the man’s body and increases the impression of his dependence and respect.
