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Micheline's Blog

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Tag Archives: calligraphy

Odalisques & Arabesques

27 Saturday Aug 2016

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, History Painting, Middle East, Orientalism

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Arabesques, calligraphy, Claude Debussy, Exoticism, Jacques-Louis David, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Madame Récamier, Odalisque, Orientalism, Stephen Malinowski

Ingres-the-turkish-bathj_pg_

The Turkish Bath, 1862, oil on canvas, diam. 108 cm, Louvre. A summation of the theme of female voluptuousness attractive to Ingres throughout his life, rendered in the circular format of earlier masters. (Caption credit: Wikipedia; Photo credit: Google images)

1024px-Jean_Auguste_Dominique_Ingres,_La_Grande_Odalisque,_1814

Grande Odalisque, 1814, oil on canvas, 91 x 162 cm, Louvre. The subject’s elongated proportions, reminiscent of 16th-century Mannerist painters, reflect Ingres’s search for the pure form of his model. (Photo and caption credit: Wikipedia)

Orientalisme

We have seen a few examples of Islamic art and Orientalisme. The paintings featured above are by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (29 August 1780 – 14 January 1867) and constitute examples of orientalisme and exoticism, paintings associated with the Orient, the Near East. Several Europeans had gone to the Crusades centuries earlier. Their destination was Jerusalem, the Holy Land. But 19th-century orientalisme is associated with Napoléon‘s military campaigns. Napoléon took his Armée d’Orient to Egypt and Syria. (See French Campaign in Egypt and Syria, Wikipedia.) Egyptology was born at that time. Deciphering the Rosetta Stone, found in 1799, was one of its first and chief achievements.

We looked at the art of Jean-Léon Gérôme who had travelled to Egypt and returned with a large supply of ‘images,’ sketches. He depicted scenes from ordinary activities, genre painting. Ingres, however, had not travelled to the orient, the Near East. His style was the same as Gérôme: academicism. Moreover, both artists specialized in historical painting. Several artists travelled to the Near East, but no Orientaliste ever entered a harem, un sérail, where women were guarded by castrated servants called eunuchs. Yet, Orientalists did paint the interior of harems and Turkish baths, favourite scenes.

“Some of the most popular Orientalist genre scenes—and the ones most influential in shaping Western aesthetics—depict harems. Probably denied entrance to authentic seraglios, male artists relied largely on hearsay and imagination, populating opulently decorated interiors with luxuriant odalisques, or female slaves or concubines (many with Western features), reclining in the nude or in Oriental dress. Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780–1867) never traveled to the East, but used the harem setting to conjure an erotic ideal in his voluptuous odalisques.”[1] (Orientalisme at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.)

Ingres’ Grande Odalisque shows an elongated female body. Painting elongated figures is a characteristic of 16th-century mannerism. However, Ingres’ odalisque is somewhat reminiscent of the curvy linear arabesque motifs of Islamic art. Yet, it isn’t busy. La Grande Odalisque has been an inspiration to several artists, one of whom is Matisse. It otherwise ressembles Jacques-Louis David‘s (30 August 1748 – 29 December 1825) depiction of Madame Récamier, an unfinished but celebrated portrait. For information on this painting, see Madame Récamier, Louvre. You may also visit the Wikipedia site on Juliette Récamier.

1024px-Jean_Auguste_Dominique_Ingres,_La_Grande_Odalisque,_1814

David_Juliette-recamier-rmn

Madame Récamier by Jacques-Louis David, 1800 (Photo cedit: Wikipedia)


Juliette Récamier
 (4 December 1777 – 11 May 1849) was a salonnière who had married Jacques-Rose Récamier (1751 – 1830), a wealthy older man and banker, on 24 April 1793. The marriage was never consummated and rumour has it that he was her father. In 1805, Jacques-Rose sustained financial losses. (See Juliette Récamier, Wikipedia.) He and Juliette had a salon where they entertained distinguished guests, but she retired at l’Abbaye-aux-Bois. The salons survived the French Revolution. Juliette had befriended François-René de Chateaubriand  (4 September 1768 –4  July 1848), the author of Le Génie du Christianisme (1802), a literary monument that incorporated Atala and René, exotic novellas based on Chateaubriand’s stay in North America. He was an aristocrat and therefore fled France during part of the French Revolution. When Chateaubriand started to live as a recluse, Juliette Récamier was the only person he visited. He visited her every day. In David’s painting, she is leaning on a sofa now called a récamier, after her. By clicking on Madame Récamier, one can read what the Louvre has to say about this very famous painting.

800px-Turquoise_epigraphic_ornament_MBA_Lyon_A1969-333

Arabesque motif (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Arabesques

Orientalisme also includes Arabesques in music.

Arabesques, Turkish music, are composed in the Phrygian mode. This form of music was used by Claude Debussy and other composers. It was orientalisme, “in the manner of,” rather than Turkish music. I have inserted two pieces by Debussy.

There are several orientaliste painters. You will find names: Eugène Delacroix, Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps, Jean-Léon Gérôme, William Holman Hunt, etc. at Orientalisme, the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MMA), in New York. Our black bashi-basouk, an irregular soldier, or mercenary (a hired soldier), is housed at the MMA, in New York.

Let me conclude by recommending you read Orientalisme and Madame Récamier.  At this point, my continuing to write about this topic would be repetitious and not as and complete and concise as the documents I have referred to. I will note, however, that interest in the Orient takes us back to Marco Polo and the above-mentioned Crusades. Moreover, Islamic art includes elegant calligraphy, Islamic calligraphy, and illuminated manuscripts.

Love to every one. ♥

RELATED ARTICLES

  • Chateaubriand’s Atala (24 April 2014)
  • On Madame de Staël (12 March 2014)
  • The Nineteenth Century in France (5 March 2014)
  • Salons and Cafés survive “la terreur” (19 February 2014)

Sources and Resources

  • Souvenirs et correspondance tirées des papiers de Madame Récamier is a Gutenberg publication [EBook #25403]
  • Various items at Internet Archive
  • Orientalisme at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
  • Madame Récamier at the Louvre
  • The Zykes-Picot Agreement

____________________

[1] Meagher, Jennifer. “Orientalism in Nineteenth-Century Art.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/euor/hd_euor.htm (October 2004)

—000—

Claude Debussy
Arabesque Nos 1 & 2
Stephen Malinowski (piano and animation)

Ingres-the-turkish-bathj_pg_

mainimage-new

Calligraphy (Christie’s)

 

© Micheline Walker
27 August 2016
WordPress

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Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry

21 Friday Dec 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, Illuminated Manuscripts

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

Books of Hours, calligraphy, Canonical Hours, Illuminated Manuscripts, illuminations, Jean I de France, Limbourg brothers, Months of the Year, Nijmegen, Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry

519PX-~1—  Les Très Riches Heures de Jean de France, Duc de Berry: January

Jean de France and the Limbourg brothers

Jean Ier de France, Duc de Berry (Jean de Berry; 30 November 1340 – 15 March 1416) was an avid collector of psalters, breviaries (brief books of liturgical rites), missals, Books of Hours, books honouring saints (hagiography), Bibles, and other objets d’art.

However, if the Duc de Berry’s name still lingers in our memory, it is because he commissioned Books of Hours from the Limbourg brothers or Gebroeders van Limburg: Herman, Pol and Johan (fl. 1385 – 1416), the most famous of which is Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry. The Limbourg brothers also contributed miniatures to a

  • Bible moralisée (1402-1404: 184 miniatures and 124 margins) as well as miniatures, to
  • the Belles Heures du Duc de Berry (1405-1409: 172 miniatures), now located in the Cloisters at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
  • Les Très Belles Heures de Notre-Dame (1410: 3 miniatures);
  • the Petites Heures du Duc de Berry (1412: 1 miniature);     
  • Valerius Maximus, De dictis factisque mirabilius (1, the frontispiece), located in the Vatican.
Nigmegen

Nigmegen

Les Très Riches Heures (1412 – 1416)

We will concentrate on the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, commissioned by Jean Ier de France in 1410 and currently housed at the Musée Condé, in Chantilly, France. All three Limbourg brothers, Herman, Pol (Paul) and Johan (Jean), born in Nijmegen, now in Gelderland, in the Netherlands, worked on Jean de France’s famous Très Riches Heures, but all three died in 1416, aged 28 to 31, probably of the plague, which, in all likelihood, also took the life of their patron, the Duc de Berry.

Photo credit: Wikipedia (all images)
(Please click on each picture to enlarge it.)

387PX-~2360PX-~1371PX-~2374PX-~1

Completing the Manuscript

The Limbourg brothers had nearly completed their assignment before their death, but not quite. Later in the fifteenth century, an anonymous artist worked on the manuscript. It would appear this anonymous artist was Barthélemy d’Eyck, or van Eyck (FR) (c. 1420 – after 1470), called the Master of the Shadows. If indeed Barthélemy d’Eyck, or van Eyck (FR), worked on the Très Riches Heures, he did so after 1444.[i] His extremely generous patron was René d’Anjou (16 January 1409 – 10 July 1480).

However, completion of the manuscript is attributed to Jean Colombe (b. Bourges c. 1430; d. c. 1493) who was commissioned to complete Jean de France’s book by Charles Ier, Duc de Savoie. He worked between 1485 and 1489. The Très Riches Heures was imitated by Flemish artists in the 16th century and then disappeared for three centuries until it was found by Spinola of Genoa and later bought, in 1856, by the Condé Museum in Chantilly, France, where it is held.[ii]

LES_TR~1371px-Les_Très_Riches_Heures_du_duc_de_Berry_juin369PX-~1366PX-~1

The Très Riches Heures: a Calendar

However, Jean de France, duc de Berry’s Très Riches Heures differs from other Books of Hours because of the prominence of its calendar, a lay calendar. Each month of the year is depicted on a full page and these depictions constitute a remarkable record of the monthly labour of men and women, from shearing lamb to cutting wood and the brothers depicted them in minute details and astonishing accuracy. In the background, of each monthly, page we can see one of Jean de France’s many castles and hôtels. For instance, the image inserted at the top of this post shows the Château de Vincennes. In the front, dogs are eating a boar. The Limburg brothers

were among the first illuminators to render specific landscape scenes (such as the environs and appearance of their patron’s castles) with great accuracy and sensitivity.[iii]

361PX-~1360PX-~1355PX-~1349PX-~1

The Limbourg Brothers: Biographical notes

The Limbourg brothers were born to artistic parents. Their grandfather had lived in Limburg, hence their name. But he had moved to Nigmegen. His son Arnold (1355-1360 – 1395-1399) was a wood-carver. Their mother, Mchtel Maelwael (Malouel) belonged to a family of heraldic painters. However, the most prominent artist in the brothers’ family was their uncle Jean Malouel, or Jan Maelwael in Dutch, who was court painter for Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. It should be noted that between 1032 and 1477, Burgundy was an enlarged Duchy of Burgundy, also called the Franco-Flemish lands.

As for the brothers themselves, Herman and Johan were sent to Paris to learn the craft of goldsmithing and upon the death of Philip the Bold, in 1604, they were hired by his brother, Jean de France. They worked in a style called International Gothic. As Jean de France, Duc de Berry’s artists, the Limbourg brothers were first assigned a long project, a Book of Hours entitled Belles Heures du Duc de Berry, containing 158 miniatures, currently housed in the Cloisters at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York.

Jean de France was obviously very pleased with his Belles Heures du Duc de Berry. He showered the Limbourg brothers with gifts, the most substantial being a very large house for Paul in Bourges, France, where the three brothers resided. Johan seems to have combined a career as goldsmith and painter, at least temporarily, but he was definitely one of the three miniaturists who worked on the miniatures comprised in Jean de France’s Très Riches Heures, commissioned in 1410 or 1411. There have been attempts to attribute certain pages to a particular brother, but uncertainty lingers. I should think that Wikipedia’s list is probably mostly accurate.[iv]

A Wider Symbolism

You will notice that Les Très Riches Heures contains paintings above which there is a semicircle, the folio for each month shows the twelve Zodiac signs, the ecclesiastical lunar calendar as well as heraldic emblems and other relevant elements. Many Books of Hours are also characterized by the mille-fleurs motif borrowed from Oriental rugs brought to Europe by returning Crusaders. In Books of Hours, artists drew from elements preceding Christianity as well as Christian ones, not to mention personal elements. “Their range includes coats of arms, initials, monograms, mottoes, and personal emblems, which are used singly or in all combinations possible.”[v]

Artistic Elements

Painted in gouache on parchment (vellum), the Tr[è]s Riches Heures includes
416 pages, 131 of which have large miniatures, while many more are decorated
with border illustrations or large historiated initials, as well as 300 ornamented capital letters [also called “historiated” letters].”[vi]

As for the colors, fine pigments were used and blended by the brothers themselves into a form of gouache and, at times, they crushed lapis lazuli, a semi-precious stone into a “liant,” a binding agent. They also used gold leaf. It was a delicate process done step by step on a relatively small piece of vellum (vélin), the skin of a calf (veau).

Conclusion

The Limburg brothers and Jean de France died before the age of thirty. Yet, their legacy is an exceptional depiction of their life and times. I am certain Jean de France marvelled at the consummate artistry of the Limburg brothers. They worked at a moment in history when perspective had not yet entered their world, except simple linear perspective.[vii] Yet their folios show the degree of dimensionality that could be achieved in the Burgundian 15th century. Therefore, their art has its own finality and it is love for what it is.

I especially like the serenity of the folios constituting the twelve months of the Calendar. The Labours of the Months do not seem an imposition but the natural activity of simple human beings reaping food and comfort from a rich land and hoping in an age were an epidemic could be devastating. Their faces and gestures do not show fear. On the contrary, they show faith. They are working so that months will grow into seasons and seasons into years that will return until they enter peacefully into the timelessness of life eternal.

fleur3

  • To view the pages corresponding to each month of the year, click on Très Riches Heures.
  • N.B. Several illuminations painted for Berry’s Book of Hours inspired some of the backdrops to sets used by Laurence Olivier in his film of Shakespeare’s play Henry V which he made in 1944 on the eve of the Normandy invasion.
  • Also very informative is the WebMuseum, Paris or the Web Gallery of Art

Sources

  • “Book of hours”. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. 12 Dec. 2012 <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/73409/book-of-hours>.
  • “Book of Hours”  http://www.medievalbooksofhours.com/advancedtutorial/tutorial_advanced_boh.html
  • “Les Très Riches Heures de Jean de France, Duc de Berry”             http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/famous-paintings/tres-riches-heures-duc-de-berry.htm
  • “Les Enluminures” EN  http://www.lesenluminures.com/index.php

______________________________

[i] See the Barthélemy van Eyck entry in Wikipedia.  EN
[ii] See the “Très Riches Heures” entry in Wikipedia.
“Très Riches Heures” entry  in Wikipedia. 
[iii] “Limbourg brothers”. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. 13 Dec. 2012 <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1475265/Limbourg-brothers>.
[iv] See the “Très Riches Heures” entry in Wikipedia & Les Très Riches Heures
[v]  “Book of Hours”. http://www.medievalbooksofhours.com/advancedtutorial/tutorial_advanced_boh.html
[vi] “Très Riches Heures”.
http://www.visual-art-cork.com/famous-paintings/tres-riches-heures-duc-de-berry.htm
[vii] “High Point of Courtly International Gothic”. 
 
© Micheline Walker
21 December 2012
WordPress
Replaces post published on 17 November 2011.
The second video features the Ensemble Planeta.
 
 

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