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Tag Archives: Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

Art in 19th-century England

19 Thursday Nov 2015

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, Britain

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

Aesthete Movement, Anglo-Japanese style, Art for Art's Sake, Cabinet-making, Japonism, John Ruskin, Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, The Decorative Arts, The Gothic, William Morris

boreas-1903_jpg!HalfHD

Boreas by John Willam Waterhouse, 1903 (Photo credit: WikiArt.org )

Prelude

Britain’s Golden Age of illustration, the illustration of children’s literature in particular, was ushered in, at least in part, by Japonism. Other factors contributed to the flourishing of children’s literature adorned with exquisite illustrations, but the beauty of the Japanese prints that flooded Europe after the Sakoku period elevated the status of illustrators whose art was engraved and printed. Moreover, the illustration of children’s literature allowed and sometimes required substantial creativity on the part of illustrators. For instance, as discussed in a previous post, Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and its sequel, Through the Looking-Glass (1871), featured literary nonsense.

But there is more to tell. We will now introduce Britain’s following  movements or style:

  1. the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (1848)
  2. the Arts and Crafts Movement (1880-1910)
  3. the Anglo-Japanese style (c. 1850)
  4. the Aesthetic Movement (c. 1850)

I will also refer to the curvilinear and very popular and influential Art Nouveau. British illustrator Aubrey Beardsley (21 August 1872 – 16 March 1898; aged 25) is a representative of the style, but Art Nouveau is usually associated with Czech artist Alfons Mucha. It is a characteristic of art produced in the last decade of the 19th century and in the years preceding World War I.

The Anglo-Japanese Style

In Britain, Japonisme was applied to furniture making and was referred to as the Anglo-Japanese style. The Anglo-Japanese style was true to the idealism of the Pre-Raphaelites in that it rejected the depiction of “any thing [sic] or any person of a commonplace or conventional kind.” (See Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Wikipedia.)

For instance, the sideboard shown below, designed in the Anglo-Japanese style by Arthur William Godwin (26 May 1833 – 6 October 1886), cannot be considered  “conventional”. It may reflect Japanese furniture, but it is also consistent with the concept of art for art’s sake, l’art pour l’art, advocated by French poet Théophile Gautier (30 August 1811 – 23 October 1872) and shared by certain members of the Aesthetic Movement, such as James Abbott McNeil Whistler. Yet, as noted above, the Anglo-Japanese style is partly rooted in the creed of members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. It is innovative, Charles Baudelaire‘s “du nouveau,” newness.

Plonger au fond du gouffre, Enfer ou Ciel, qu’importe?
Au fond de l’Inconnu pour trouver du nouveau!

(See “Le Voyage” VIII, Les Fleurs du mal [The Flowers of Evil].)

Sideboard by Arthur Godwin (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Sideboard by Arthur William Godwin (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was founded in 1848 by British artists William Hunt (2 April 1827 – 7 September 1910), John Everett Millais (8 June 1829 – 13 August 1896) and Dante Gabriel Rossetti (12 May 1828 – 9 April 1882). As noted below (see 3), it would not allow any thing [sic] or person “of a commonplace or conventional kind.”

  1. The movement was called brotherhood, which could suggest equality and fraternity, but members of the brotherhood were brothers in that they rejected Sir Joshua Reynolds, (16 July 1723 -23 February 1792), renamed Sir ‘Sloshua’, the founder of the English Royal Academy of Arts.
  2. Pre-Raphaelites also wished to return to the art preceding the High Renaissance  paintings of Raphael (6 April or 28 March 1483 – 6 April 1520).
  3. Pre-Raphaelites would not allow “anything lax or scamped in the process of painting … and hence … any thing [sic] or person of a commonplace or conventional kind.”[1] (See Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Wikipedia.)
  4. But the group “continued to accept the concepts of history painting, mimesis, imitation of nature as central to the purpose of art.” (See Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Wikipedia.)
  5. The Pre-Raphaelites’ mentor was John Ruskin (8 February 1819 – 20 January 1900), the most prominent art critic of the Victorian era who advocated “truth to nature.”
  6. It would be joined by other artists.[2]
    (See Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Wikipedia.)
Echo and Narcissus by John William Waterhouse, 1903 (Photo credit: WikiArt)

Echo and Narcissus by John William Waterhouse, 1903 (Photo credit: WikiArt.org)

The Aesthetic Movement

  • roots in the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
  • roots in the Gothic (William Morris & Edward Burne-Jones)
  • roots in Japonism (Impressionism)

The Aesthetic Movement promoted the concept of art for art’s sake, l’art pour l’art. Consequently, there are affinities between the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the Aesthetic Movement. They may differ however in that the Pre-Raphaelites “continued to accept the concepts of history painting, mimesis, imitation of nature as central to the purpose of art.” This could explain why John Ruskin (8 February 1819 – 20 January 1900) praised the movement (see 5). He advocated “truth to nature”.

For Ruskin “truth to nature” did not seem consistent with the allusive nature of McNeill’s Impressionism. John Ruskin therefore criticized American, but London-based artist James McNeill Whistler stating that Whistler was a “coxcomb” who “asked two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face.” (See James Abbott McNeil Whistler, Wikipedia.) Such was John Ruskin’s description of Whistler’s “Nocture in Black and Gold, the Falling Rocket”. Whistler sued and won, but he had to declare bankruptcy and lost the “White House” designed for him by Arthur William Godwin, the cabinet-maker who created the “sideboard” shown above.

Yet if the Pre-Raphaelites are to be linked to another 19th-century British art movement, it would be the art for art’s sake Aesthetic Movement which paralleled, albeit to a lesser extent, the decadence of French poets and artists of the second half of 19th-century. French poets were drinking absinthe, which contained an hallucinogen, thujone. For his part, Dante Gabriel Rossetti took chloral.

Although James McNeill Whistler introduced Dante Gabriel Rossetti to Japonism in 1860, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood is not related to Japonism. It remains however that if the Aesthetic movement could accommodate “Ruskinian Gothic,” not to mention the medievalism of such devotees as William Morris and Sir Edward Burne-Jones, one wonders why it would reject Ruskinian “truth to nature”.

The Gothic

  • William Morris
  • Edward Burne-Jones

Arthur William Godwin‘s “sideboard” is in the Anglo-Japanese style,  which, as is the case with all the movements listed above, is a forerunner of Aestheticism. As an architect-designer, Godwin, who designed the desk displayed above, also drew his inspiration from “Ruskinian Gothic”. Although exotic Japonism helped shape the art of 19th-century Britain, the stained-glass pieces of Sir Edward Burne-Jones (28 August 1833 – 17 June 1898) reached into the Medieval era, as did Arthur William Godwin’s gothic Northampton Guildhall. Morris and Burne-Jones met as students at Oxford and both were attracted to the Middle Ages, or Gothic, praised by John Ruskin (8 February 1819 – 20 January 1900) who was not only the most prominent art historian and critic of the Victorian era, but also a fine artist.

5439074743_7a7c500cd2_b

Northampton Guildhall, built 1861-64, displays Godwin’s  “Ruskinian Gothic” Style (Photo credit: Flicker)

John Ruskin: The Stones of Venice

John Ruskin is the author of the Stones of Venice, published in three volumes between 1851 and 1853. William Morris was so impressed by a chapter entitled “On the Nature of the Gothic”, that he had it printed separately by Kelmscott Press, the Arts and Crafts press, named after Kelmscott Manor, the Morris family’s country residence. (See Morris and the Kelmscott Press, the Victorian Web.) In 1861, William Morris founded a firm, the Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. (See Peter Paul Marschall and Charles Joseph Faulkner, Wikipedia.)

The Peacock room, The Princess from the land of porcelain by William McNeill Whistler (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Peacock room, The Princess from the Land of Porcelain by William McNeill Whistler (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 Japonism and the Aesthetic Movement

Whistler was one of the first to appreciate the true significance of the Japanese prints which had begun to appear in the West after Japan’s centuries of isolation ended in the 1850s, and to see that such works, whose subject matter was generally unknown or without much meaning even when it was ascertainable, forced people to think and to see entirely in terms of pictorial qualities, of line and pattern and color; to adapt them as demonstrations of the principle that Reality in painting is intrinsic, not a matter of copying anything outside itself.[3] 

Japonism, however, would characterize the art of American but London-based James McNeill Whistler and American impressionist William Merritt Chase (1 November 1849 – 25 October 1916). Their Japonism is one of subject matter mainly, but exotic subject matter depicted in the rather allusive manner of Impressionism. Both showed blue and white porcelain, fans, screens and ladies wearing kimonos that displayed an oriental motif. “The Blue Kimono,” featured below, is one of the finest paintings created by William Merritt Chase.

The Blue Kimono by William Meritt Chase, 1898 (Photo credit: WikiArt.org)

The Blue Kimono by William Merritt Chase, 1898 (Photo credit: WikiArt.org)

Cult of Beauty or Symphony in White no 2 (The Little White Girl) by James McNeill Whistler

Cult of Beauty or Symphony in White no 2 (The Little White Girl) by James McNeill Whistler (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Whistler and Chase: the Decorative Arts

  • rooms copied
  • studios copied

Ironically, it could be said of both Whistler and Chase that their Japonism was of a decorative nature. The rooms they showed became fashionable and so did the clothes worn by the ladies they portrayed. Whistler’s “Peacock Room” is not altogether consistent with the domestication of the arts advocated by the Arts and Crafts Movement, founded by William Morris. Whistler’s “Peacock Room” is a room, but it borders on art for art’s sake. It was designed in the Anglo-Japanese style and is housed in the Freer Gallery of Art, in Washington D.C..

The Teenth Street Studio by William Merrit Chase http://www.wikiart.org/en/william-merritt-chase/the-tenth-street-studio-1915

The Tenth Street Studio by William Merritt Chase (Photo credit: WikiArt.org)

Conclusion

  • the broadening of the arts
  • the versatility of artists

Anglo-Japanese Style was applied to cabinet-making. However, the 19th-century British art movement we tend to associate with interior design and the decorative arts is the Arts and Crafts Movement, founded by William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896). The Arts and Crafts Movement will be discussed in a separate post, but we have already witnessed a certain domestication of the art and a broadening of the field of art. Henceforth, it will include applied arts and such artists as William Morris and Sir Edward Burne-Jones will be extremely versatile. Whistler, who designed the luxurious “Peacock Room” and sued revered Ruskin, was an interior designer, a painter, and a printmaker.

RELATED ARTICLES

  • William Merritt Chase: Japonisme in America (6 July 2013)
  • James McNeil Whistler: a Subtler Art (24 April 2013)

Sources and Resources

  • The Victorian Web, Kelmscott Press
    http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/morris/kelmscott.html
  • John Ruskin
    The Stones of Venice is an Internet Archive Publication (Vol. I)
    The Stones of Venice is an Internet Archive Publication (Vol. II)
    The Stones of Venice is an Internet Archive Publication (Vol. III)

____________________

[1] Timothy Hilton, The Pre-Raphaelites (Oxford University Press, 1970), p. 46.

[2] They would be joined by painters James Collinson and Frederic George Stephens, Rossetti’s brother, poet and critic William Michael Rossetti, and sculptor Thomas Woolner,  Sir Edward Burne-Jones, and John William Waterhouse.

[3]  Alan Gowans, The Restless Art: a History of Painters and Painting 1760-1960 (Philadelphia and New York:  J. B. Lippincott Company, 1966), p. 237.

Nathan Milstein plays Jules Massenet’s Méditation from Thaïs

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© Micheline Walker
19 November 2015
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La Fontaine’s Fables Compiled & Walter Crane, 2nd Edition

02 Tuesday Sep 2014

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, Fables

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Arts and Crafts Movement, Franz Schubert, Jean de La Fontaine, Neptune's Horses, Posts on La Fontaine, Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Ständchen, Walter Crane

5_4crane-babys-own

The Baby’s Own Æsop, illustrated by Walter Crane  (London, New York: Routledge, 1887)
Photo credit: http://mythfolklore.net/aesopica/crane/
 
Crane_toybook
Crane’s interest in Japanese art is evident in this 1874 cover of a 
toy book, printed by Edmund Evans. 
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
 

Illustrator: Walter Crane

I have endeavoured to collect all my posts on Jean de La Fontaine (8 July 1621 – 13 April 1695), most of which are also discussions of Æsop‘s Fables. We have now discussed many fables by La Fontaine and Æsop. My list may therefore be incomplete.

The ‘Golden Age’ of British book illustration

The illustrations shown in this post are by Walter Crane (1845–1915) who illustrated Æsop‘s Fables adapted for children. Crane lived during the ‘Golden Age’ of British book illustration. His contemporaries were Randolph Caldecott, Kate Greenaway, Arthur Rackham, Sir John Tenniel (Alice in Wonderland), and other celebrated illustrators. (See The Golden Age of Illustration.)

Japonism of Toy Books

Crane was influenced by Japonisme: ukiyo-e prints. In England, Japonism was called the Anglo-Japanese Style. The Alphabet of Old Friends, shown above, one of Crane’s toy books, is an example of Japonism both from the point of view of subject matter (e.g. the heron or crane, the oranges) and style: flat colours, etc.

Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the Arts and Crafts Movement

The Healthy and Artistic Dress Union

However, Crane is usually associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (middle of 19th century) and the Arts and Crafts Movement (1860 and 1910), movements that incorporated the decorative arts and design. William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896), a leading member of both movements, designed wallpaper and tiles.  Interestingly, Walter Crane designed not only wallpaper, etc., but clothes for women, looser-fitting clothes. He was in fact a Vice President of the Healthy and Artistic Dress Union. This, I would not have suspected.

At first sight, Walter Crane’s moral for the “Fox and the Grapes” seems rather negative, if one focuses on the word disappointment: “The grapes of disappointment are always sour.” However, this moral may serve to lessen cognitive dissonance, if the grapes are deemed sour. Since Æsop‘s Fables are for anyone to retell, morals may differ from author to author.

La Fontaine’s illustrators

Walter Crane was a fine artist. He is the creator of “Neptune’s Horses,” an artwork that is somewhat reminiscent of Hokusai‘s Great Wave off Kanagawa. “Neptune’s Horses” is featured at the very bottom of this post. However, although Crane illustrated Æsop‘s Fables, and, by extension, some of La Fontaine’s Æsopic fables, the most famous illustrators of La Fontaine’s Fables are Jean-Baptiste Oudry, François  Chauveau, Jean Ignace Isidore Gérard Grandville, Gustave Doré, and others, some of whom I have already mentioned and some I will mention in future posts.

The Video

YouTube has a lovely video featuring Walter Crane’s art.  However, it does not show his illustrations of fables.  It does not fully belong to this post.  The music is Franz Schubert‘s (31 January 1797 – 19 November 1828) Ständchen, D. 957.

FABLES by Jean de La Fontaine (& Æsop)
(listed in alphabetical order: Boy, Cat, Cock, Fox…
 
  • Æsop and La Fontaine online, and (8 September 2014)
  • Æsop’s “The Boy Bathing” (Perry Index 211) (5 September 2014)
  • The Cat‘s Only Trick, “Le Chat et le Renard” (IX.14) (The Cat and the Fox)
  • The Cat Metamorphosed into a Maid, by Jean de La Fontaine, “La Chatte métamorphosée en femme” (II.18)
  • “The Cock and the Pearl,” La Fontaine cont’d (I.20), “Le Coq et la Perle” (I.20)
  • La Fontaine’s “The Dog that dropped the Substance for the Shadow” (VI.17)
  • Dogs a long time ago “Le Chien qui lâche sa proie pour l’ombre” (VI.17)
  • The Fox & Crane, or Stork, “Le Renard et la Cigogne” (I.18)
  • “Les Grenouilles qui demandent un roi,” (The Frogs Who Desired a King) (III.4)
  • The Fox and the Goat, “Le Renard et le Bouc” (III.5)
  • La Fontaine’s “The Fox and the Grapes,” “Le Renard et les Raisins” (III.11)
  • The Fox with his Tail Cut Off, (see Another Motif: The Tail-Fisher) (V.5)
  • “Les Grenouilles qui demandent un roi,” (The Frogs Who Desired a King) (III.4)
  • The Hen with the Golden Eggs, “La Poule aux œufs d’or” (V.8)
  • The Man and the Snake, “L’Homme et la Couleuvre” (X.1)
  • The Miller, his Son and the Donkey: quite a Tale, “Le Meunier, son fils, et l’âne” (X.1)
  • You can’t please everyone: Æsop retold, “Le Meunier, son fils, et l’âne” (X.1)
  • The Mouse Metamorphosed into a Maid, by Jean de La Fontaine, “La Souris métamorphosée en fille” (II.18)
  • A Motif: Getting Stuck in a Hole, “La Belette entrée dans un grenier” (III.17) (The Weazel in the Granary)
  • Another Motif: The Tail-Fisher, “Le Renard ayant la queue coupée” (V.5)
  • The North Wind and the Sun, “Phébus et Borée” (VI.3)
  • The Oak Tree and the Reed “Le Chêne et le Roseau,” (I.22)
  • “Le Chêne et le Roseau” (The Oak and the Reed):  the Moral (I.22)
  • The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse, “Le Rat de ville et le Rat des champs” (I.9)
  • The Two Rats, the Fox and Egg: The Soul of Animals, “Les Deux Rats, le Renard, et l’Œuf” (IX.last fable)

11_600

The following list is mostly alphabetical (cha, che, coq, bel). It simply provides the title La Fontaine gave to his Fables. My post are written in English. Sometimes the fable is named in both French and English. They are listed as book (of XII [12]) and number (XII.14)

  • “Le Chat et le Renard” (IX.14) The Cat’s Only Trick (The Cat and the Fox)
  • “La Chatte métamorphosée en femme” (II.18) The Cat Metamorphosed into a Maid, by Jean de La Fontaine
  • “Le Chêne et le Roseau” (I.22) The Oak Tree and the Reed
  • “Le Chêne et le Roseau” (The Oak and the Reed):  the Moral (I.22)
  • La Fontaine’s “The Dog that dropped the Substance for the Shadow” Le Chien qui lâche sa proie pour l’ombre (VI.17)
  • Le Chien qui lâche sa proie pour l’ombre (VI.17) Dogs a long time ago
  • “Le Coq et la Perle” “The Cock and Pearl,” La Fontaine cont’d (I.20)
  • “La Belette entrée dans un grenier” (III.17) A Motif: Getting Stuck in a Hole (“The Weazel in the Granary”)
  • “Les Deux Rats, le Renard et l’Œuf” (IX.last fable) The Two Rats, the Fox and Egg: The Soul of Animals
  • “L’Enfant et le Maître d’école” (I.19) Aesop’s “The Boy Bathing”
  • “Les Grenouilles qui demandent un roi” (III.4) “Les Grenouilles qui demandent un roi,” (The Frogs Who Desired a King)
  • “L’Homme et la Couleuvre” (X.1) The Man and the Snake
  • “Le Meunier, son fils, et l’âne” (III.1) The Miller, his Son and the Donkey: quite a Tale
  • “Le Meunier, son fils, et l’âne” (III.1) You can’t please everyone: Æsop retold
  • “Phébus et Borée” (VI.3) The North Wind and the Sun
  • “La Poule aux œufs d’or” (V.8) The Hen with the Golden Eggs
  • “Le Rat de ville et le Rat des champs” (I.9) The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse
  • “Le Renard ayant la queue coupée” (V.5) Another Motif: The Tail-Fisher (“The Fox with his Tail Cut Off”)
  • “Le Renard et le Bouc”(III.5) The Fox and the Goat
  • “Le Renard et la Cigogne” (I.18) The Fox & Crane, or Stork
  • “Le Renard et les Raisins” (III.11) The Fox and the Grapes
  • “La Souris métamorphosée en fille” (IV.7) The Mouse Metamorphosed into a Maid, by Jean de La Fontaine
9_600606px-Can't_please_everyone2

Franz Schubert: Ständchen, D. 957

  
Crane© Micheline Walker
September 24, 2013 
WordPress
 
Neptune’s Horses, Walter Crane, ill., 1892
Photo credit: Google Images
(Please click on the image to enlarge it.)

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La Fontaine’s Fables Compiled & Walter Crane

25 Wednesday Sep 2013

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, Fables

≈ 39 Comments

Tags

Arts and Crafts Movement, Franz Schubert, Jean de La Fontaine, Neptune's Horses, Posts on La Fontaine, Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Ständchen, Walter Crane

5_4crane-babys-own

The Baby’s Own Æsop, illustrated by Walter Crane  (London, New York: Routledge, 1887)
Photo credit: http://mythfolklore.net/aesopica/crane/
 
Crane_toybook
Crane’s interest in Japanese art is evident in this 1874 cover of a 
toy book, printed by Edmund Evans. 
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
 

Illustrator: Walter Crane

I have endeavoured to collect all my posts on Jean de La Fontaine (8 July 1621 – 13 April 1695), most of which are also discussions of Æsop‘s Fables.  We have now discussed many fables by La Fontaine and Æsop. My list may therefore be incomplete.

The ‘Golden Age’ of British book illustration

The illustrations shown in this post are by Walter Crane (1845–1915) who illustrated Æsop‘s Fables adapted for children. Crane lived during the ‘Golden Age’ of British book illustration. His contemporaries were Randolph Caldecott, Kate Greenaway, Arthur Rackham, Sir John Tenniel (Alice in Wonderland), and other celebrated illustrators.

Japonism of Toy Books

Crane was influenced by Japonisme: ukiyo-e prints. In England, Japonism was called the Anglo-Japanese Style. The Alphabet of Old Friends, shown above, one of Crane’s toy books, is an example of Japonism both from the point of view of subject matter (e.g. the heron or crane, the oranges) and style: flat colours, etc.

Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the Arts and Crafts Movement

The Healthy and Artistic Dress Union

However, Crane is usually associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (middle of 19th century onward) and the Arts and Crafts Movement (1860 and 1910), movements that incorporated the decorative arts and design.  William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896), a leading member of both movements, designed wallpaper and tiles.  Interestingly, Walter Crane designed not only wallpaper, etc., but clothes for women, looser-fitting clothes.  He was in fact a Vice President of the Healthy and Artistic Dress Union.  This, I would not have suspected.

At first sight, Walter Crane’s moral for the “Fox and the Grapes” seems rather negative, if one focusses on the word disappointment: “The grapes of disappointment are always sour.”  However, this moral may serve to lessen cognitive dissonance, if the grapes are deemed sour.  Since Æsop‘s Fables are for anyone to retell, morals may differ from author to author.

La Fontaine’s illustrators

Walter Crane was a fine artist. He is the creator of “Neptune’s Horses,” an artwork that is somewhat reminiscent of Hokusai‘s Great Wave off Kanagawa. “Neptune’s Horses” is featured at the very bottom of this post. However, although Crane illustrated Æsop‘s Fables, and, by extension, some of La Fontaine’s Æsopic fables, the most famous illustrators of La Fontaine’s Fables are Jean-Baptiste Oudry, François Chauveau, Jean Ignace Isidore Gérard Grandville, Gustave Doré, and others, some of whom I have already mentioned and some I will mention in future posts.

The Video

YouTube has a lovely video featuring Walter Crane’s art. However, it does not show his illustrations of fables. It does not fully belong to this post. The music is Franz Schubert‘s (31 January 1797 – 19 November 1828) Ständchen, D. 957.

FABLES by Jean de La Fontaine 
(I like the fable entitled “The Man and the Snake” [X.1])
 
  • The Cat’s Only Trick, “Le Chat et le Renard” (IX.14) (The Cat and the Fox)
  • The Cat Metamorphosed into a Maid, by Jean de La Fontaine, “La Chatte métamorphosée en femme” (II.18)
  • “The Cock and the Pearl,” La Fontaine cont’d (I.20), “Le Coq et la Perle” (I.20)
  • La Fontaine’s “The Fox and the Grapes,” “Le Renard et les Raisins” (III.11)
  • The Fox & Crane, or Stork, “Le Renard et la Cigogne” (I.18)
  • The Fox with his Tail Cut Off, (see Another Motif: The Tail-Fisher) (V.5)
  • The Frogs Who Desired a King , “Les Grenouilles qui demandent un roi” (III.4)
  • The Hen with the Golden Eggs, “La Poule aux œufs d’or” (V.8)
  • The Man and the Snake, “L’Homme et la Couleuvre” (X.1)
  • The Miller, his Son and the Donkey: quite a Tale, “Le Meunier, son fils, et l’âne” (X.1)
  • A Motif: Getting Stuck in a Hole, “La Belette entrée dans un grenier” (III.17) (The Weazel in the Granary)
  • Another Motif: The Tail-Fisher, “Le Renard ayant la queue coupée” (V.5)
  • The Mouse Metamorphosed into a Maid, by Jean de La Fontaine, “La Souris métamorphosée en fille” (II.18)
  • The North Wind and the Sun, “Phébus et Borée” (VI.3)
  • The Oak Tree and the Reed “Le Chêne et le Roseau,” (I.22)
  • (The Oak and the Reed):  the Moral “Le Chêne et le Roseau” (I.22)
  • The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse, “Le Rat de ville et le Rat des champs” (I.9)
  • La Fontaine’s “The Two Doves,” “Les Deux Pigeons” (IX.2)
  • The Two Rats, the Fox and Egg: The Soul of Animals, “Les Deux Rats, le Renard, et l’Œuf” (IX. last fable)
  • You can’t please everyone: Æsop retold, “Le Meunier, son fils, et l’âne” (X.1)

11_600

  • “La Belette entrée dans un grenier” (III.17) A Motif: Getting Stuck in a Hole (“The Weazel in the Granary”)
  • “Le Chat et le Renard” (IX.14)  The Cat’s Only Trick (“The Cat and the Fox”)
  • “La Chatte métamorphosée en femme” (II.18) The Cat Metamorphosed into a Maid, by Jean de La Fontaine
  • “Le Chêne et le Roseau” (I.22) The Oak Tree and the Reed
  • “Le Chêne et le Roseau” (The Oak and the Reed):  the Moral (I.22)
  • “Le Coq et la Perle” “The Cock and Pearl,” La Fontaine cont,d
  • “Les Deux Pigeons” The Two Doves (IX.2)
  • “Les Deux Rats, le Renard et l’Œuf” (IX.last fable) The Two Rats, the Fox and Egg: The Soul of Animals
  • “Les Grenouilles qui demandent un roi” (III.4) “Les Grenouilles qui demandent un roi,” (The Frogs Who Desired a King)
  • “L’Homme et la Couleuvre” (X.1) The Man and the Snake
  • “Le Meunier, son fils, et l’âne” (III.1) The Miller, his Son and the Donkey: quite a Tale
  • “Le Meunier, son fils, et l’âne” (III.1) You can’t please everyone: Æsop retold
  • “Phébus et Borée” (VI.3) The North Wind and the Sun
  • “La Poule aux œufs d’or” (V.8) The Hen with the Golden Eggs
  • “Le Rat de ville et le Rat des champs” (I.9) The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse
  • “Le Renard ayant la queue coupée” (V.5) Another Motif: The Tail-Fisher (“The Fox with his Tail Cut Off”)
  • “Le Renard et la Cigogne” (I.18) The Fox & Crane, or Stork
  • “Le Renard et les Raisins” (III.11) The Fox and the Grapes
  • “La Souris métamorphosée en fille” (IV.7) The Mouse Metamorphosed into a Maid, by Jean de La Fontaine
9_600606px-Can't_please_everyone2

Franz Schubert: Ständchen, D. 957

  
Crane© Micheline Walker
24 September 2013 
WordPress
 
Neptune’s Horses, 1892
Photo credit: Google Images
(Please click on the image to enlarge it.)

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Un peu, beaucoup, passionnément…

10 Tuesday Jul 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, Fashion

≈ 13 Comments

Tags

Arts and Crafts Movement, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Edward Burne-Jones, Georges Barbier, Morris, Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Wikipedia, William Morris

En effeuillant la marguerite

A new day has dawned that has a purer taste.  I am therefore featuring another George Barbier illustration for its youthfulness.  I am also featuring textile designs by William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896), a British designer, writer, printer: the Kelmscott Chaucer, a close friend of Sir Edward Burne-Jones: a man of many talents.

Un peu, beaucoup, passionnément…

In Barbier’s illustration, the Lady wonders whether he loves her un peu, beaucoup or passionnément…

When I was very young, long before I was interested in men, I would pick the petals off daisies.  The last petal told me an imaginary truth.  It’s a lovely memory, but it was another age.  An age when you waited for the gentleman to phone you.  An age when you were afraid he would turn his back on you if you showed your true feelings.

I am glad times have changed.  A woman should be able to phone a man and suggest a date.  But I miss picking at a daisy and I would like to wear that dress, but not to walk in the countryside.  I would wear it to walk in a beautifully manicured garden with little paths.

According to Wikipedia, William Morris was a “libertarian socialist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the English Arts and Crafts Movement. He founded a design firm in partnership with the artist Edward Burne-Jones, and the poet and artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti.”  I have featured works by William Morris in other posts.

As for George Barbier (1882-1932), he was a French illustrator.  The work shown above is entitled “N’en dites rien,” (Do not say a word about it).  It was featured in an exclusive fashion magazine called: La Gazette du Bon Ton, in 1913.  “Bon ton” means good taste.

George Barbier is featured with permission from Art Resource, NY.  As for the samples of textile designed by Mr Morris, Wikipedia was my source.

© Micheline Walker
9 July 2012
WordPress
 
 

 

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The Barbizon’s School: “plein air”

17 Tuesday Apr 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

art, Barbizon, Barbizon School, Carl Larsson, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Jean-François Millet, Pre-Raphaelite, Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

Les Glaneuses (Gleaners), by Jean-François Millet (1857, Musée d’Orsay)

You probably remember that after studying in Norway, Carl Larsson spent two years with the plein air French group of artists who called their outdoors group the Barbizon School.

So what is the Barbizon School? 

  • First, Barbizon is or was a village near idyllic Fontainebleau.
  • As for the artists constituting the Barbizon School, who are named below, they were active from approximately 1830 to 1870.
  • The group has affinities with the predominantly English Arts and Crafts movement. 
  • However, unlike the works of Arts and Crafts movement artists, décor is not a main interest of this group.  They are painting the outdoors.  But Millet made a painting of William Morris.  These artists did not work in isolation. 
  • One coud say that the Barbizon School is also associated with the Pre-Raphaelites, or the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.  In both cases, we are dealing with representational artists, but the Barbizon artists were plein air artists, at least to begin with, and their reality was not as idealistic as that of the Pre-Raphaelites. 

However, the group has its antecedents in the works of John Constable (11 June 1776 – 31 March 1837) and it has its common denominator: realism, ranging from an idealized and ethereal rendering of reality to a rugged depiction of that same reality. Moreover, as mentioned above, in its early stage, the group was a plein air group. Their reality was nature in its diversity.  So, initially, authorities were shocked by content of certain works.  Corot, maybe, but cows!

 
For instance, the school incorporates Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot‘s (1796 – 1875)
fairylike portrayal of nature.
 
  
 
Souvenir de Mortefontaine (1864).
(please click on the picture to enlarge it)
 

In fact, when first introduced to the Barbizon school, France’s Director of Fine Arts quickly pronounced that

[t]his is the painting of men who don’t change their linen, who want to intrude themselves upon gentlemen; this art offends and disgusts me. [i]

 

Indeed, Constant Troyon, who is also a member of the group, choses a subject that is elemental.  We are looking at cows.  There is nothing ethereal about cows.  Yet, Troyon’s painting is beautiful.  

 
The Ford, by Constant Troyon
(please click on the picture to enlarge it)
  
 

 

The leaders of the Barbizon School were Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, Théodore Rousseau, Jean-François Millet, and Charles-François Daubigny; other members included Jules Dupré, Constant Troyon, Charles Jacque, Narcisse Virgilio Diaz, Pierre Emmanuel Damoye, Charles Olivier de Penne, Henri Harpignies,  (1812–1880), Albert Charpin, Félix Ziem, François-Louis Français, Emile van Marcke, and Alexandre Defaux.

 

This post is no more than a general introduction to a movement and it lists the names of artists connected with the movement.  For the time being, that suffices.

Yet, I will let one of my former teachers formulate a conclusion.  Alan Gowans writes that members of the Barbizon School “continued to behave in the same docile way as those painters who were merely concerned with making the world more Beautiful.” [ii]

 
Les Glaneuses, etching, after 1857
(click on the picture to enlarge it)
To which I would add that neither a movement nor an objective, in our case realism, define an artist’s works.  Reality is subjective.  There are affinities between the Arts and Crafts Movement, the Pre-Raphaelites, the Barbizon school and Carl Larsson.  However, although they enjoy rubbing elbows and share similar goals, artists differ from one another. 
 
      
 
17 Mendelssohn Lieder ohne Worte, Op.38 – No. 5. Agitato in A minor ‘Appassionata’

_________________________

[i] Alan Gowans, The Restless Art, A History of Painting 1760-1960 (Philadelphia and New York: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1966), p. 159.

[ii] Alan Gowans, op. cit., p. 162.                      

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The Columbine Tile: William Morris

16 Wednesday Nov 2011

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, England

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Arts and Crafts Movement, Columbine Tile, illustrations, John Ruskin, Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Sir Edward Burne-Jones, William Morris

columbine.2

The Columbine Tile by William Morris
(Photo credit: artpassionsnet)

 

Yesterday, I decorated an appreciation post by inserting a picture of one tile, William Morris‘s Columbine Tile.

So let me now honour its creator: William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896).  I found a picture of this tile on a website you can access by clicking on William Morris.  Moreover, the tile is on the market.

William Morris is remembered mainly as a textile designer.  I became acquainted with his work when I visited the Metropolitan Music of Art, in New York.  But my interest grew when I realized that he was the illustrator of the 1896 Kelmscott Press edition of the Works of Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343 – 25 October 1400).

Morris’s illustrations are reminiscent of illuminated medieval books, books enhanced by enluminures or illuminations are now prized chiefly because of their fine calligraphy and their enluminures.  As I noted a few days ago, we remember John Amos Comenius because he published the first illustrated textbook.

However, let us return to William Morris to tell that he was also a writer.  Among other works, he wrote News from Nowhere (1890), a book considered as utopian.  He was also a predecessor to J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis and J. K. Rowling, in that he published a fantasy novel entitled The Well at the World’s End (1896).

In the world of fine arts, Morris is associated with two Movements:

  • the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and
  • the Arts and Crafts Movement.

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

Pre-Raphaelites championed the art of Michelangelo and, particularly, the paintings of Raphael, or Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (6 April or 28 March 1483 – 6 April 1529), not to mention Leonardo da Vinci.  So here we are once again at the Renaissance court of Urbino, the court where Castiglione observed courtly behaviour.  Il Libro del Cortegiano (The Book of the Courtier), published in Venice in 1528, is a description of courtly life as Castiglione knew it from his long stay at the court of Urbino. The Louvre houses Raphael’s portrait of Castiglione.

The Arts and Crafts Movement

As for the Arts and Crafts Movement, William Morris founded the Movement.  He had been inspired by the writings of John Ruskin (1819–1900), the foremost art critic of his time.  Members of the Movement were traditionalists and advocates of fine design and decoration, values often belittled by artists whose works require a neutral background in order to be best shown.  Beauty is everywhere, including in the manner one sets food on a plate.

Design for Trellis wallpaper by William Morris, 1862

Design for Trellis wallpaper by William Morris, 1862 (Photo Credit: Wikipedia)

William Morris is also associated with Sir Edward Burne-Jones (28 August 1833 – 17 June 1898), a friend and a business partner.  Sir Edward Burne-Jones’s paintings can be mistaken for medieval works.

The tile I have shown is a classic on the art of gradation.  The design is dark at the very bottom, which sits it, so to speak, and then, as we near the top, the blues mutate progressively to lighter and nuanced shades of blue.

imagesE9RJ8PC1

© Micheline Walker
16 November 2011
WordPress

45.403816 -71.938314

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