Phillips was very interested in Japanese prints. The work shown above is a woodcut.
Many new Canadians first settled in Winnipeg. My husband’s grandmother, the wife of a British aristocrat, was sent to Winnipeg. Her husband claimed their son was conceived by a “lover.” I suspect he wanted a younger wife. Fortunately, her son received a good education and always looked after his disconsolate mother.
You may remember that Winnipeg had been the Earl of Selkirk‘s Red River Colony. After Rupert’s Land was purchased by a fledging confederation (c. 1867). Louis Riel negotiated Manitoba’s entry into Confederation. He was hanged in 1885 for the execution of Orangeman Thomas Scott. Orangemen prevented French-speaking and Catholic Canadians from settling in the land the legendary voyageurs had opened up. They were educated in English-language schools. The matter was not solved until the Official Languages Act of 1969, and not altogether.
Moreover, the newly confederated Canada sent Amerindians to reservations. Many Canadians have Amerindian ancestry, prairie Métis, primarily, but also the people of Quebec and other provinces. Many settlers to New France married Amerindian women because France was not sending women to its colony.
The Great Plains
I lived in Regina in the late 1970s, but my work was not related to my professional qualifications. I was offered a position as translator in Winnipeg, but decided to accept a teaching position at St. Francis Xavier University, in Nova Scotia. I loved Nova Scotia, but regret my decision to teach at StFX. Everything went wrong. The life of a translator would have suited me and I loved the prairies. One could see forever.
So here I am. Probably a descendant of an Amerindian who lived in the 1600s and the former wife of a British aristocrat. My past has been leaping at me from behind. Do you think this is a temporary disorder, or am I about to write a book?
On a Summer day, when she was thirteen, she heard a voice calling to her. It was noon and she was in her father’s garden. She saw a flash of light and Michael the Archangel appeared to her.
He told her to be good and to go to church. He then spoke of the great misery that had befallen the kingdom of France and announced that she would rescue Charles VII, the heir to the throne of France, and lead him to Reims where he would be crowned.“Sir, I am but a humble girl. I would not know how to ride a horse and lead soldiers into battle.”
“God will help you,” replied the angel.
The child was overwhelmed and covered in tears.
Illustrations
the applied arts
Sir John Tenniel
Japonisme
Louis-Maurice Boutet de Monvel was a man of his times. His Vieilles chansons de France pour les petits enfants, published in 1883, and his Jeanne d’Arc, published in 1896, are products of an important turning-point in the history of European art: the acceptability of the applied arts. Successfully illustrated children’s literature could make it easier for artists to earn a living while remaining artists. Such had been and was the case in Britain. Sir John Tenniel was a cartoonist for Punch when he was asked to illustrate Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and its sequel, Through the Looking-Glass (1872).[1]
If brilliantly illustrated, children’s literature could help ensure a better lifestyle for Sir John Tenniel, it could also benefit Boutet de Monvel without his having to choose a completely different profession. The required attributes were both the quality of the written text and that of its illustrations. Illustrated by John Tenniel, Lewis Carroll‘s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass were a perfect marriage of word and art. Therefore, although he lived across the English channel, Tenniel was a precursor.
Japonisme, again
However, Louis-Maurice’s art was influenced by Japonisme, as was Walter Crane‘s (15 August 1845 – 14 March 1915). Louis-Maurice Boutet de Monvel’s illustrations are characterized by his use of flat colours. This was a feature of the Japanese prints that flooded Europe in the second half of the 19th century.
For example, in the images shown above, Louis-Maurice’s black is a flat black. But Louis-Maurice also expressed dimensionality by juxtaposing a light and darker shade of the same colours. Joan’s hair is an example of this technique. However, simplicity is the chief characteristic of Louis-Maurice Boutet de Monvel’s art, including battle scenes where several human beings are depicted standing, riding a horse, or lying dead.
Jeanne d’Arc, p. 26
Jeanne d’Arc, p. 30 (le couronnement de Charles VII)
Word and Art
As for the combination of word and art, Boutet de Monvel’s text is mostly in boxes placed inside the page. Word and art are therefore integrated. Moreover, the text is told by Louis-Maurice himself. He may have had a source, but no author is named. In this regard, the art of Boutet de Monvel resembles the art of Beatrix Potter, except that Louis-Maurice did not invent the story of Joan of Arc. It had been told. Alexandre Dumas had written a Jeanne d’Arc (Internet Archives).
The Technique: Watercolours in Zincotype
In the case of Jeanne d’Arc, Louis-Maurice made a series of watercolours that were reproduced in zincotype, “a new photo engraving process using etching in conjunction with coloured inks.” (See Louis-Maurice Boutet deMonvel, Wikipedia.) Great progress had been made since the invention of the printing press. In fact, Europe had entered its industrial revolution for more than a century, which meant that duplicating images had become quite inexpensive.
Nevertheless, etching remained a good starting-point. If colours were used, however, it was a time-consuming endeavour. Yet, colours were used. Later, Louis-Maurice’s son, Bernard Boutet de Monvel, perfected etching and “became the undisputed master of this technique.” (See Bernard Boutet de Monvel, Wikipedia.)
Artist and Illustrator
Louis-Maurice’s trajectory is somewhat unique. He was at first an artist who painted one-of-a-kind art works. After he married and his son Roger was born, he needed to supplement his income. He therefore turned to illustrating books for practical reasons only to realize he liked this kind of work. He had many customers. Nobel Prize laureate Anatole France was one of Louis-Maurice’s customers.
But Louis-Maurice also had projects of his own. The first was his Vieilles chansons de France pour les petits enfants (1883). French organist and composerCharles Marie Widor set the words to music. Louis-Maurice’s second project was Jeanne d’Arc (1896). His illustrations were so exquisite that the books he illustrated sold well, which enabled him to be both an illustrator and the creator of one-of-a-kind works of art.
A Lifestyle & a Social Life
Therefore, Boutet de Monvel is one of the artists who inaugurated a lifestyle for today’s artists. It is not uncommon for artists to produce both relatively inexpensive prints and rather expensive paintings. This is how several artists put bread on the table, so to speak. In the early 20th century, artists also hand coloured photographs or combined in some other way photography and painting.
Louis-Maurice’s illustrations also allowed him a rich social life. He befriended not only writers but also artists such as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, who made posters, and Edgard Degas, who was a printmaker and taught this technique to Mary Cassatt. Moreover, artist Édouard Detaille (1848 – 1912) introduced him to members of the newly-established Société des aquarellistes français (“the society of French watercolourists”). Louis-Maurice showed one work for approval and it was well received. Consequently, he was voted a member of the Société almost immediately. However, he had already been an ‘artist’ and had continued to produce original paintings.
(Please click on the images to enlarge them.)
Jeanne d’Arc, p. 11 (Joan identifies Charles VII)
Jeanne d’Arc, p. 32 (The people and Jeanne d’Arc)
p. 44
p. 45
Jeanne d’Arc identifies Charles VII
The people and Jeanne d’Arc
Jeanne d’Arc’s trial
Jeanne d’Arc sentenced to death
The Arts and Crafts Movement
Painters may become illustrators, but illustrators do not necessarily turn to painting. Nowadays, however, an illustrator is considered an artist, but someone had to lead the way. More than anyone else, William Morris was eclectic, and so were the artists associated with the Arts and Crafts movement. The comparison is unavoidable. The Arts and Craftsmovement validated the applied arts thereby broadening the realm of things artistic and it spread abroad to countries where circumstances paralleled the British experience.
Moreover, not only did Louis-Maurice meet the writers whose work he illustrated, but he was also invited to participate in the Exhibition of Viennese Secession of 1899, the Jugendstil that supported the applied artsand avant-gardisme. (See Art Nouveau, Wikipedia.) Gustav Klimt is the best-known representative of the Vienna Jugendstil.
We associate Alphonse Mucha with Art Nouveau. His art was curvilinear, but Art Nouveau also incorporated innovative art and total art. It was a synthesis: Gesamtkunstwerk, a feature associated with the last years of the 19th century.
The Poppy Tile by Walter Crane (Photo credit: Google Images)
The Industrial Age and Socialism
In our discussion of art in Britain during the 19th century, I mentioned that William Morris and Walter Crane were socialist activists. The Industrial Revolution (beginning in the middle of the 18th century) led to an abuse of workers. Workers were often very young, they worked 60 hours a week over 6 days, the noise produced by machines was deafening, repeated movements, crippling, not to mention other detrimental consequences.
William Morris was born to a wealthy family and Morris & Co. was a successful business venture. By and large, employees of Morris & Co. (now Liberty of London and Sanderson [the designs]) were craftsmen, as was William Morris himself. The Kelmscott Chaucer, printed at the Kelmscott Press, named after Morris’ Kelmscott Manor, which he rented, was a modern illuminated manuscript. Morris was a calligrapher and painter as was his friend Sir Edward Burne-Jones. When the Kelmscott Chaucer was published, in 1896, it was as a joint effort and the first two copies were presented to William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones.
However, the work differed from a craft in that it was printed, which made it accessible to several individuals. The books produced by the Kelmscott Press are ancestors to books produced by the current Folio Society. In particular, the paper will not age into a brittle and yellow paper. It is acid-free paper or nearly so. It is the paper used by waltercolour artists and printmakers. An artwork will not otherwise survive.
Such were the books printed by the Kelmscott Press, established in 1881. Liberty of London has to use mechanization or it could not offer fabrics, etc. in bulk. But times have changed. The forty-hour week is no longer a rarity and workers use headphones to deafen the sound. However, the abuse has not ended and the working environments where abuse occurs are not restricted to factories.
Neptune’s Horses by Walter Crane (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Walter Crane
the arts domesticated
Arts & Crafts exhibition in the US
To keep this post brief, I will focus on Walter Crane’s activities as a member of the Socialistmovement (socialism) to which he was introduced underWilliam Morris‘ influence. As an artist, both he and Morris tried to “bring art into the daily life of all classes.” (See Walter Crane, Wikipedia.) The products of today’s Liberty of London can be described as carriage trade). For instance, the lovely tote bags it sells are not available to the poorer classes, poverty still exists, but it is art domesticated. There is truth however to the saying that no one is sufficiently rich to buy a product that will not last or to overindulge in the trendy.
Crane was not an anarchist, but when domestic and other art designed by members of the Arts and Crafts movement were exhibited in the United States, Walter Crane attended a social in Boston and said that the “Chicago four,” who had been executed, were wrongfully convicted. No sooner did he voice his opinion that he was shipped back to London. Workers were agitating in the hope of bringing the work week down from 60 hours to 48 hours.
On 4 May 1886, during a demonstration, in favour of the 48-hour week, someone threw a dynamite bomb at the police. People then start to shoot. Seven (7) police officers and four (4) civilians died and many more were wounded. The Demonstration took pace at Haymarket Square in Chicago. (See Haymarket Affair, Wikipedia). The Chicago four were the four men who were hanged. Although none had thrown the bomb, one or more of the seven men who who were convicted had built it. One of the convicted men was sentenced to life imprisonment, but seven men were condemned to death. Among the seven, four were hanged, the death sentence of two workers was commuted to life imprisonment, and one committed suicide. Prisoners were pardoned in 1893 by governor John Peter Altgeld. Because of the Haymarket Affair, May 1st became the International Workers’ Day.
According to Wikipedia, “[f]or a long time he [Crane] provided the weekly cartoons for the Socialist organs Justice, The Commonweal and The Clarion. Many of these were collected as Cartoons for the Cause. He devoted much time and energy to the work of the Art Workers Guild, of which he was master in 1888 and 1889 and to the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society, which he helped to found in 1888.”
However, Walter Crane is best known for his illustrations and, in particular, for his illustrated edition of Edmund Spenser‘s Faerie Queene (1894-96). But he was a socialist activist. William Morris was a card-carrying member, as may have been Walter Crane.
Britomart viewing Artegal
Holiness defeats Error
Florimell saved by Proteus
Conclusion
William Morris and Walter Crane were both associated with at least two of the art movements of 19th-century English. Crane started out with the Pre-Raphaelites as did William Morris. Both were members of the Arts and Crafts Movement, and both were socialist activists. As for the movements, all culminated in the aesthetic movement and art produced as the 19th century drew to a close often displays the curvilinear Art Nouveau style. The borders of Walter Crane’s illustrations for Spenser’s Faerie Queene are an example of Art Nouveau. So are the borders of the Kelmscott Chaucer (see Sources and Resources).
Morris was the giant, the businessman, the coordinator, and immensely eclectic. In Walter Crane, we have the most prolific illustrator of his times. But both realized the industrial revolution had brought misery to workers and, therefore, to the lower classes. Awareness of this misery is associated mostly with William Morris and Walter Crane, but the Arts and Crafts Movement was nevertheless a statement.
Flora’s Feast by Water Crane, 1889 (Photo credit: Google Images)
Most art lovers associate Edgar Degas with dancers and Toulouse-Lautrec (24 November 1864 – 9 September 1901) with le Moulin Rouge and can-can, Aristide Bruant‘s Mirliton and Le Chat noir, the main cabarets of a somewhat “decadent” fin de siècle, the end of the 19th century in France. These images have left an indelible imprint on the memory of art lovers.
However, from time to time, I enjoy looking at many artworks executed by the same artist in order to see whether or not I will find an aspect of his or her legacy I had not noticed or paid attention to earlier. For instance, although I knew that Japonisme had an immense impact on the art of Toulouse-Lautrec, I did not know to what extent he had been influenced by Edgar Degas (19 July 1834 – 27 September 1917). Nor had I seen the horses!
Toulouse-Lautrec had art teachers. The first one was René Princeteau, an animal artist or peintre animalier, and an acquaintance of Henri’s father. His other teachers were Léon Bonnat and Fernand Cormon, “academicists.” But when he rented a studio in Montmartre and became Montmartre’s chronicler, he produced artwork that differed substantially from the work of his teachers. He made posters showing the Moulin Rouge, Aristide Bruant and the various entertainers of Montmartre. Bruant was a colourful singer and composer and the cabaret he owned, the Mirliton, became a showroom for Toulouse-Lautrec. Toulouse-Lautrec also illustrated Bruant’s songs and other songs.
Degas’ Influence
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec enjoyed painting people, including nudes, but like Degas, he did not embellish his models. He painted people not necessarily as they were, but as he saw them, which excluded idealization and rule-governed art.
“Lines were no longer bound to what was anatomically correct; colours were intense and in their juxtapositions generated a pulsating rhythm; laws of perspective were violated in order to place figures in an active, unstable relationship with their surroundings.”[i]
“The Woman with a Tub” brings to mind Degas’ various depictions of bathers. One cannot say that Toulouse-Lautrec’s portrayal of a woman pouring water into her tiny tub is flattering. But it is fine genre painting, i.e. depictions of people going about their daily activities. Toulouse-Lautrec’s portrayal of “Madame Palmyre with her Dog,” is a true-to-life ‘snapshot.’ As for “Woman at her Toilette,” it has long been a celebrated painting. But no one is posing.
Then come the horses. Both Edgar Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec painted horses. In this regard, Toulouse-Lautrec’s first art teacher had prepared the artist for depicting animals, horses mainly. Besides, Toulouse-Lautrec was an aristocrat. Aristocrats ride horses and go to the races. In Paris, the racecourse would be Longchamp, in the Bois de Boulogne. You will find, below, a painting of le comte Alphonse de Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri’s father, driving horses. There are horses in Toulouse-Lautrec’s “bestiary.” The “Jockey” was painted two years before Toulouse-Lautrec died. And there are dogs. But the only cat I found is the one you will see if you click on May Belfort, Jardin de Paris, 1883. Lautrec was an extremely prolific artist, so there may be more.
As for the Coffee Pot (1884), it is a somewhat unexpected subject matter for Toulouse-Lautrec, but it is a reassuring and familiar object. Life unfolds a day at a time.
(Please click on the image to enlarge it.)
RELATED ARTICLE
The North Sea, 1883 (watercolour)
Green and Silver: The Bright Sea, Dieppe, 1883-85 (gouache and watercolour)
Blue and White Covered Urn (no date)
Photo credit: Wikipaintings.orgThe Athenæum
I do not know the name of the lady who sat for Whistler’s Head of a Young Woman (1890). This portrait was painted at the height of Whistler’s career, two years after his marriage to Beatrix Birnie Philip, when the couple resided in Paris.
Interestingly, Whistler was not altogether wrong when he claimed he was born in Saint Petersburg. He was in fact born in Lowell, Massachusetts, but he moved to Russia in 1843, a year after his father, George Washington Whistler, a prominent engineer, was hired to build a railroad connecting Saint Petersburg and Moscow. He was 9 years old when he joined his father in Russia. Those were formative years. It could be said that Whistler was an “expat,” and one of the first American artists to settle in Europe, mingle with soul mates and enjoy both a bohemian lifestyle and the pleasures of a café society.
—ooo—
At the age of eleven, young James enrolled in Saint Petersburg‘s Imperial Academy of Fine Arts, where it was soon noticed that he was a gifted artist. While his father was working in Russia, Whistler also visited England accompanied by his mother. He met Francis Haden, a surgeon by profession, but also an artist. Francis Haden married Whistler’s sister and would become the very distinguished Sir Francis Seymour Haden. After his trip to England, James informed his father of his wish to pursue a career as an artist, writing “I hope, dear father, you will not object to my choice” (See James Abbot McNeill Whistler, Wikipedia). However, James was about to lose his father to cholera. George Washington Whistler died in Russia.
After James’ father passed away, the Whistler family was forced to return to the United States. But they left Lowell, Massachusetts to settle in Pomfret, Connecticut, James’ mother’s hometown. Whistler was therefore brought up in a more frugal manner than would otherwise have been the case.
Yet, despite his father’s untimely death, James would become an artist. A career as a minister was Mrs Whistler’s first choice for her son. However, James had no inclination for life as a member of the clergy, nor, for that matter, could he enter the military successfully. He did attend West Point, failed an exam, misbehaved, and was dismissed by no less than Colonel Robert E. Lee. He then worked as draftsman “mapping the entire U.S. coast for military and maritime purposes[,]” but drawing “sea serpents, mermaids, and whales on the margins of the maps, at which point he was transferred to the etching division of the U. S. Coast Survey.” (See James McNeill Whistler, Wikipedia.)
Whistler lasted two months as an etcher, but his training in this medium would be invaluable in the career he would embark upon after a stay with a wealthy friend, Tom Winans. Winans, who lived in Baltimore, provided Whistler with a studio, pocket-money and, in 1855, with the funds that would allow Whistler to leave for Paris to perfect his skills as an artist. Whistler never returned to the United States. He is buried in Chiswick, near London.
Symphony in Grey and Green: The Ocean, 1866-1872 (oil)
Nocturne: The Thames at Battersea, 1878 (lithograph)
Nocturne in Black and Gold: the Falling Rocket, c. 1875 (oil, bottom of post)
Tonalism
When Whistler arrived in France, realism was all the rage. He became a disciple of Gustave Courbet and befriended Henri Fantin-Latour. However, he was also influenced by the art for art’s sake movement, associated with writer Théophile Gauthier. In the early 1860s, after he had settled in London, he visited Courbet and painted seascapes with him. He also visited Brittany (1861) and the coast near Biarritz (1862).
But although his paintings reflect his exposure to realism and, to a certain extent, the Barbizon School (1830 through 1870), Whistler developed a rather personal style called tonalism. Tonalism is also associated with George Inness and, to a certain extent, with the Russian mood landscapes of Aleksey Savrasov[ii] and Isaac Levitan.[iii] It is perhaps best described as a “veiled” form of realism, a subtler art, except that Whistler’s use of colour reflects musical keys. Whistler built a close relationship between his colours or tones, as though they were painted in a key, usually in one of the more plaintive minor keys. Many of his paintings are called “Nocturnes,” à la Chopin, Symphonies, Harmonies and Notes. Whistler’s paintings therefore herald Impressionism as do Édouard Manet’s. However, printmakers practice a certain linearity, a technique not altogether compatible with imprecise Impressionism. Whistler produced several etchings and lithographs.
According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, Whistler is known for his “his paintings of nocturnal London, for his striking and stylistically advanced full-length portraits, and for his brilliant etchings and lithographs.” He is also known for his “congenial themes on the River Thames, and the etchings that he did of such subjects garnered praise from the poet and critic Charles Baudelaire when they were exhibited in Paris.”[iv]
However, when he showed Nocturne in Black and Gold: the Falling Rocket (shown at the bottom of this post), Whistler did not garner praise from eminent British critic John Ruskin. On 2 July 1877, in his Fors Clavigera, John Ruskin wrote:
“For Mr. Whistler’s own sake, no less than for the protection of the purchaser, Sir Coutts Lindsay [founder of the Grosvenor Gallery] ought not to have admitted works into the gallery in which the ill-educated conceit of the artist so nearly approached the aspect of willful imposture. I have seen, and heard, much of Cockney impudence before now; but never expected to hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face.” (quoted in James McNeill Whistler, Wikipedia)
Modernism was happening across the English Channel. Yet, the jury returned a verdict in favour of James McNeill Whistler.
On Tuesday, September 4th, Quebecers go to the Election Polls. The campaign has been brief. Last night, September 1st, I heard that Pauline Marois could well be the next Premier. I then looked at my Twitter page. A leading journalist, Don Macpherson, was asking whether or not people would remain in Quebec if one of the Indépendantistes candidates won. Most of the people who replied were planning to leave.
Félix Edouard Vallotton (December 28, 1865 – December 29, 1925) “was a Swiss painter and printmaker associated with Les Nabis. He was an important figure in the development of the modern woodcut.” (Wikipedia) After graduating for the Collège Cantonal in Lausanne, Félix moved to Paris to study at the famous Académie Julian. As stated in Wikipedia, his contribution to the development of the modern woodcut sets him apart. Vallotton is associated mainly with late nineteenth-century symbolism, a French, Russian and Belgian movement. The symbolists were influenced by oriental art and, in particular, Japonisme.
Symbolism is a post-impressionist movement and is characterized by its spirituality. In this regard, it is part of a larger movement that encompasses literature and other schools: Les Nabis is one. In literature, such poets as Stéphane Mallarmé sought to reach “l’absolu.” Mallarmé did so by writing in so hermetic a language that some of his poetry is not accessible to most readers. If any art ever attained an infinite, it is music, a language above language.
Vallotton’s art is not altogether symbolist. However, his nude figures are characteristics of symbolism and they are also to be found in Ferdinand Hodner, another Swiss-born artist whose art I featured in my Ferdinand Hodner: July 15th, 2012.
