Jumat, 22 Juni 2012

19TH CENTURY ALPINE AND MOUNTAIN PAINTER OF AUSTRIA



Anton Hansch (born 24 March 1813 in Vienna; died 8 December 1876 in Salzburg) was an Austrian painter. He was a pupil of Josef Mössmer (1780-1845) at the Academy of Vienna, and afterwards traveled and studied in Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, and Italy. His works consist of landscapes remarkable for composition and careful detail.
(Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)


‘Weite Flusslandschaft im Abendlicht’
Source Nagel Auktionen at auction.de
From commons.wikimedia.org


‘Blick vom Gosausee auf den Dachstein’
Source dorotheum.com
From commons.wikimedia.org



‘Eiger Mönch Jungfrau’
Source dorotheum.com
From commons.wikimedia.org



'Österreichischer Bergsee mit Staffage’
From dobiaschofsky.com


The Grossvenediger
Current Loc Residenzgalerie
From WEB GALLERY OF ART at wga.hu


He came from an old Viennese family. From 1834 onwards, study tours, often with his friends, took him to the Alpine region. Before his first successes as a painter in 1836, Hansch coloured cheap prints. After 1848, the artist, who had meanwhile become a member of the Vienna Academy, changed to larger formats and attracted the attention of the imperial family with spectacular motifs, such as high-Alpine landscapes. The ensuing years were marked by success. In 1860, Hansch, who was influenced by Alexandre Calame, won the first prize for landscape painting at the Vienna Academy. This was followed by major exhibitions of his works. In 1873, the artist lost his entire fortune in the stock market crash and retired to Salzburg. His sudden death put an end to his plan to set up a school of landscape painting in Salzburg.
(WEB GALLERY OF ART at wga.hu)


Alpine panorama with a waterfall
From altekunst-vienna.com


Anton Hansch is the most important alpine and mountain painter of Austria in the second half of 19th Century. His paintings are usually idealizing and heroic. Study trips, often together with its friend Friedrich Gauermann, led him to the alpine region. In 1848 Hansch became a member of the Viennese academy and in 1861 the house of artists. In 1875 he moved to Salzburg, where he died one year after.
(altekunst-vienna.com)

19TH CENTURY ALPINE AND MOUNTAIN PAINTER OF AUSTRIA



Anton Hansch (born 24 March 1813 in Vienna; died 8 December 1876 in Salzburg) was an Austrian painter. He was a pupil of Josef Mössmer (1780-1845) at the Academy of Vienna, and afterwards traveled and studied in Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, and Italy. His works consist of landscapes remarkable for composition and careful detail.
(Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)


‘Weite Flusslandschaft im Abendlicht’
Source Nagel Auktionen at auction.de
From commons.wikimedia.org


‘Blick vom Gosausee auf den Dachstein’
Source dorotheum.com
From commons.wikimedia.org



‘Eiger Mönch Jungfrau’
Source dorotheum.com
From commons.wikimedia.org



'Österreichischer Bergsee mit Staffage’
From dobiaschofsky.com


The Grossvenediger
Current Loc Residenzgalerie
From WEB GALLERY OF ART at wga.hu


He came from an old Viennese family. From 1834 onwards, study tours, often with his friends, took him to the Alpine region. Before his first successes as a painter in 1836, Hansch coloured cheap prints. After 1848, the artist, who had meanwhile become a member of the Vienna Academy, changed to larger formats and attracted the attention of the imperial family with spectacular motifs, such as high-Alpine landscapes. The ensuing years were marked by success. In 1860, Hansch, who was influenced by Alexandre Calame, won the first prize for landscape painting at the Vienna Academy. This was followed by major exhibitions of his works. In 1873, the artist lost his entire fortune in the stock market crash and retired to Salzburg. His sudden death put an end to his plan to set up a school of landscape painting in Salzburg.
(WEB GALLERY OF ART at wga.hu)


Alpine panorama with a waterfall
From altekunst-vienna.com


Anton Hansch is the most important alpine and mountain painter of Austria in the second half of 19th Century. His paintings are usually idealizing and heroic. Study trips, often together with its friend Friedrich Gauermann, led him to the alpine region. In 1848 Hansch became a member of the Viennese academy and in 1861 the house of artists. In 1875 he moved to Salzburg, where he died one year after.
(altekunst-vienna.com)

Senin, 11 Juni 2012

IL FURIOSO




TINTORETTO
Self-Portrait
Museum of Art, Philadelphia
From WEB GALLERY OF ART at wga.hu



TINTORETTO
Self-Portrait
Musée du Louvre, Paris
From WEB GALLERY OF ART at wga.hu


As a trading metropolis and a great power, Venice attracted the rich, powerful, and famous in great numbers. Princes both sacred and secular, scholars, musicians, and men of letters visited Tintoretto when they were in the city, or summoned him to them at short notice for sittings. Tintoretto accepted many commissions for private portraits, particularly in his youth, since they brought him into contact with people of importance, and enabled him to extend his social network. Official state portraits were of particular importance to Tintoretto. Such work consolidated personal contacts with powerful officers of state, men who might give profitable and prestigious commissions for the decoration of the Doge's Palace and the library of San Marco. He painted portraits also out of the need to earn a living. His extensive oeuvre as a portraitist betrays a considerable amount of routine work. As a portraitist, Tintoretto clearly shows the influence of the most important Venetian portraitist of the High Renaissance, Titian.
(WEB GALLERY OF ART AT wga.hu)
Tintoretto (Italian pronunciation: [tintoretto]; September 29, 1518 – May 31, 1594), real name Jacopo Comin, was a Venetian painter and a notable exponent of the Renaissance school. For his phenomenal energy in painting he was termed Il Furioso. His work is characterized by its muscular figures, dramatic gestures and bold use of perspective in the Mannerist style, while maintaining color and light typical of the Venetian School. In his youth, Tintoretto was also known as Jacopo Robusti as his father had defended the gates of Padua in a rather robust way against the imperial troops during the War of the League of Cambrai (1509–1516). His real name "Comin" has only recently been discovered by Miguel Falomir, the curator of the Museo del Prado, Madrid, and was made public on the occasion of the retrospective of Tintoretto at the Prado in 2007. Comin translates to the spice cumin in the local language.
Tintoretto was born in Venice, as the eldest of 21 children. His father, Giovanni, was a dyer, or tintore; hence the son got the nickname of Tintoretto, little dyer, or dyer's boy, which is anglicized as Tintoret. The family originated from Brescia, in Lombardy, then part of the Republic of Venice. Older studies gave the Tuscan town of Lucca as the origin of the family. In childhood Jacopo, a born painter, began daubing on the dyer's walls; his father, noticing his bent, took him to the studio of Titian to see how far he could be trained as an artist. This was supposedly towards 1533, when Titian was already (according to the ordinary accounts) fifty-six years of age. Tintoretto had only been ten days in the studio when Titian sent him home once and for all, the reason being that the great master observed some very spirited drawings, which he learned to be the production of Tintoretto; and it is inferred that he became at once jealous of so promising a scholar. This, however, is mere conjecture.
(Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)


Figure drawing and anatomy By Tintoretto
From towsonfigure.blogspot.com


Portrait of a Genoese Nobleman
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence
From WEB GALLERY OF ART AT wga.hu


The paintings of Jacopo Tintoretto come as a revelation. According to standard opinion Michelangelo, Titian, and Raphael were the supreme artists of the sixteenth century; yet often during the last four hundred years, viewers have gazed in awe and surprise at works by Tintoretto, and wondered if he might be the greatest painter of all. Thus John Ruskin during his first visit to Venice wrote: “I never was so utterly crushed to the earth before any human intellect as I was today before Tintoretto. Just be so good as to take my list of painters, and put him in the School of Art at the top, top, top of everything, with a great big black line to stop him off from everybody…. As for painting, I think I didn’t know what it meant till today.”
(Brush with Genius by Andrew Butterfield at nybooks.com)


Portrait of Jacopo Sansovino
From wikipaintings.org


Portrait of Procurator Nicolò Priuli
From wikipaintings.org


Sebastiano Venier
Kunsthistorisches Museum
Gemäldegalerie, Vienna
From pubhist.com


As well as religious works, Tintoretto painted mythological scenes and he was also a fine portraitist, particularly of old men (a self-portrait in old age is in the Louvre). Some of the weaker portraits that go under his name may be the product of his large workshop.
(WEB GALLERY OF ART AT wga.hu)

Portrait of a Man
Current Loc Budapest
Museum of Fine Arts
Source Web Gallery of Art
From commons.wikimedia.org


Tintoretto scarcely ever travelled out of Venice. He loved all the arts and as a youth played the lute and various instruments, some of them of his own invention, and designed theatrical costumes and properties. He was also versed in mechanics and mechanical devices. While being a very agreeable companion, for the sake of his work he lived in a mostly retired fashion, and even when not painting was wont to remain in his working room surrounded by casts. Here he hardly admitted any, even intimate friends, and he kept his mode of work secret, with the exception of his assistants. He abounded in pleasant witty sayings, whether to great personages or to others, but he himself seldom smiled. Out of doors, his wife made him wear the robe of a Venetian citizen; if it rained she tried to induce him with an outer garment which he resisted. When he left the house, she would also wrap money up for him in a handkerchief, expecting a strict accounting on his return. Tintoretto's customary reply was that he had spent it on alms to the poor or to prisoners.
An agreement is extant showing a plan to finish two historical paintings, each containing twenty figures, seven being portraits in a two month period of time. The number of his portraits is enormous; their merit is unequaled, but the really fine ones cannot be surpassed. Sebastiano del Piombo remarked that Tintoretto could paint in two days as much as himself in two years; Annibale Carracci that Tintoretto was in many pictures equal to Titian, in others inferior to Tintoretto. This was the general opinion of the Venetians, who said that he had three pencils—one of gold, the second of silver and the third of iron.
(Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)


Portrait of a Lady
From starlightmasquerade.com


Seven Members of the Soranzo Family
Castello Sforzesco, Milan, Italy
From bjws.blogspot.com


Seven Members of the Soranzo Family
Castello Sforzesco, Milan, Italy
From starlightmasquerade.com


After the completion of the "Paradise" Tintoretto rested for a while, and he never undertook any other work of importance, though there is no reason to suppose that his energies were exhausted had his days been a little prolonged. He was seized with an attack in the stomach, complicated with fever, which prevented him from sleeping and almost from eating for a fortnight, and on the 31st of May 1594 he died. A contemporary record states his age to have been seventy-five years and fifteen days. If this is accurate, the 16th of May 1519 must have been the day of his birth; but we prefer the authority of the register of deaths in S. Marciliano, which states that Tintoretto died of fever, aged seventy-five years, eight months and fifteen days - thus bringing us to the 16th of September 1518 as the true date of his birth.
(1911encyclopedia.org)




IL FURIOSO




TINTORETTO
Self-Portrait
Museum of Art, Philadelphia
From WEB GALLERY OF ART at wga.hu



TINTORETTO
Self-Portrait
Musée du Louvre, Paris
From WEB GALLERY OF ART at wga.hu


As a trading metropolis and a great power, Venice attracted the rich, powerful, and famous in great numbers. Princes both sacred and secular, scholars, musicians, and men of letters visited Tintoretto when they were in the city, or summoned him to them at short notice for sittings. Tintoretto accepted many commissions for private portraits, particularly in his youth, since they brought him into contact with people of importance, and enabled him to extend his social network. Official state portraits were of particular importance to Tintoretto. Such work consolidated personal contacts with powerful officers of state, men who might give profitable and prestigious commissions for the decoration of the Doge's Palace and the library of San Marco. He painted portraits also out of the need to earn a living. His extensive oeuvre as a portraitist betrays a considerable amount of routine work. As a portraitist, Tintoretto clearly shows the influence of the most important Venetian portraitist of the High Renaissance, Titian.
(WEB GALLERY OF ART AT wga.hu)
Tintoretto (Italian pronunciation: [tintoretto]; September 29, 1518 – May 31, 1594), real name Jacopo Comin, was a Venetian painter and a notable exponent of the Renaissance school. For his phenomenal energy in painting he was termed Il Furioso. His work is characterized by its muscular figures, dramatic gestures and bold use of perspective in the Mannerist style, while maintaining color and light typical of the Venetian School. In his youth, Tintoretto was also known as Jacopo Robusti as his father had defended the gates of Padua in a rather robust way against the imperial troops during the War of the League of Cambrai (1509–1516). His real name "Comin" has only recently been discovered by Miguel Falomir, the curator of the Museo del Prado, Madrid, and was made public on the occasion of the retrospective of Tintoretto at the Prado in 2007. Comin translates to the spice cumin in the local language.
Tintoretto was born in Venice, as the eldest of 21 children. His father, Giovanni, was a dyer, or tintore; hence the son got the nickname of Tintoretto, little dyer, or dyer's boy, which is anglicized as Tintoret. The family originated from Brescia, in Lombardy, then part of the Republic of Venice. Older studies gave the Tuscan town of Lucca as the origin of the family. In childhood Jacopo, a born painter, began daubing on the dyer's walls; his father, noticing his bent, took him to the studio of Titian to see how far he could be trained as an artist. This was supposedly towards 1533, when Titian was already (according to the ordinary accounts) fifty-six years of age. Tintoretto had only been ten days in the studio when Titian sent him home once and for all, the reason being that the great master observed some very spirited drawings, which he learned to be the production of Tintoretto; and it is inferred that he became at once jealous of so promising a scholar. This, however, is mere conjecture.
(Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)


Figure drawing and anatomy By Tintoretto
From towsonfigure.blogspot.com


Portrait of a Genoese Nobleman
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence
From WEB GALLERY OF ART AT wga.hu


The paintings of Jacopo Tintoretto come as a revelation. According to standard opinion Michelangelo, Titian, and Raphael were the supreme artists of the sixteenth century; yet often during the last four hundred years, viewers have gazed in awe and surprise at works by Tintoretto, and wondered if he might be the greatest painter of all. Thus John Ruskin during his first visit to Venice wrote: “I never was so utterly crushed to the earth before any human intellect as I was today before Tintoretto. Just be so good as to take my list of painters, and put him in the School of Art at the top, top, top of everything, with a great big black line to stop him off from everybody…. As for painting, I think I didn’t know what it meant till today.”
(Brush with Genius by Andrew Butterfield at nybooks.com)


Portrait of Jacopo Sansovino
From wikipaintings.org


Portrait of Procurator Nicolò Priuli
From wikipaintings.org


Sebastiano Venier
Kunsthistorisches Museum
Gemäldegalerie, Vienna
From pubhist.com


As well as religious works, Tintoretto painted mythological scenes and he was also a fine portraitist, particularly of old men (a self-portrait in old age is in the Louvre). Some of the weaker portraits that go under his name may be the product of his large workshop.
(WEB GALLERY OF ART AT wga.hu)

Portrait of a Man
Current Loc Budapest
Museum of Fine Arts
Source Web Gallery of Art
From commons.wikimedia.org


Tintoretto scarcely ever travelled out of Venice. He loved all the arts and as a youth played the lute and various instruments, some of them of his own invention, and designed theatrical costumes and properties. He was also versed in mechanics and mechanical devices. While being a very agreeable companion, for the sake of his work he lived in a mostly retired fashion, and even when not painting was wont to remain in his working room surrounded by casts. Here he hardly admitted any, even intimate friends, and he kept his mode of work secret, with the exception of his assistants. He abounded in pleasant witty sayings, whether to great personages or to others, but he himself seldom smiled. Out of doors, his wife made him wear the robe of a Venetian citizen; if it rained she tried to induce him with an outer garment which he resisted. When he left the house, she would also wrap money up for him in a handkerchief, expecting a strict accounting on his return. Tintoretto's customary reply was that he had spent it on alms to the poor or to prisoners.
An agreement is extant showing a plan to finish two historical paintings, each containing twenty figures, seven being portraits in a two month period of time. The number of his portraits is enormous; their merit is unequaled, but the really fine ones cannot be surpassed. Sebastiano del Piombo remarked that Tintoretto could paint in two days as much as himself in two years; Annibale Carracci that Tintoretto was in many pictures equal to Titian, in others inferior to Tintoretto. This was the general opinion of the Venetians, who said that he had three pencils—one of gold, the second of silver and the third of iron.
(Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)


Portrait of a Lady
From starlightmasquerade.com


Seven Members of the Soranzo Family
Castello Sforzesco, Milan, Italy
From bjws.blogspot.com


Seven Members of the Soranzo Family
Castello Sforzesco, Milan, Italy
From starlightmasquerade.com


After the completion of the "Paradise" Tintoretto rested for a while, and he never undertook any other work of importance, though there is no reason to suppose that his energies were exhausted had his days been a little prolonged. He was seized with an attack in the stomach, complicated with fever, which prevented him from sleeping and almost from eating for a fortnight, and on the 31st of May 1594 he died. A contemporary record states his age to have been seventy-five years and fifteen days. If this is accurate, the 16th of May 1519 must have been the day of his birth; but we prefer the authority of the register of deaths in S. Marciliano, which states that Tintoretto died of fever, aged seventy-five years, eight months and fifteen days - thus bringing us to the 16th of September 1518 as the true date of his birth.
(1911encyclopedia.org)




Sabtu, 09 Juni 2012

ARTISTIC JACK-OF-ALL-TRADES




Sir Frank William Brangwyn
From augustastylianougallery.com


Sir Frank William Brangwyn
From voiceseducation.org


A Cook Shop, Naples
From tennants.co.uk


Charity
From arthermitage.org


Sir Frank William Brangwyn was a Welsh artist, painter, water colorist, virtuoso engraver and illustrator, and progressive designer. He was born in Bruges, Belgium, where in 1865 his father William Curtis Brangwyn had received a commission to decorate the Basilica of the Holy Blood. In 1875 the family moved back to England. Frank Brangwyn received some artistic training, first at his father's studio, and later from the famous artist and architect William Morris, but he was largely an autodidact without a formal artistic education. When, at the age of seventeen, one of his paintings was accepted at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, he was strengthened in his conviction to become an artist.
(artexpertswebsite.com)


An Ostrich Farm, South Africa
From artexpertswebsite.com


A Police Station, South Africa
From victorianweb.org


In early 1891 Brangwyn, with his friend the painter William Hunt, was commissioned by the dealer T. J. Larkin to travel to South Africa to produce work for an exhibition at The Japanese Gallery at 28 New Bond Street. Larkin's intention was that the two painters should spend a year travelling in South Africa before returning but, as it turned out, and to Larkin's chagrin, their £1500 of expenses lasted but five months. The pair departed from newly built Tilbury Dock in March 1891 on the Union Castle Line mailship Dunnottar Castle, which occasion the present painting recalls. The greater part of the 55 paintings exhibited at The Japanese Gallery were painted on 12 1/4 X 16 1/4 inch fielded panels which Brangwyn carried in a specially constructed box in order to permit him to move on while the paint was still wet on the most recent pictures. The above picture was the largest by far to be shown in the exhibition although a small number of pictures of Cape Town on canvas exist that were painted on a larger scale than the standard panels. Eight years later Dunaottar Castle carried the young Winston Churchill representing the Morning Post and Sir Redvers Bullers and his Headquarters Staff to South Africa on the outbreak of the Boer War. Brangwyn first exhibited at The Fine Art Society in 1908, the first of eight lifetime exhibitions.
(victorianweb.org)


On the Coast, Tangier
From all-art.org


The Slave Market
From charliequins.com


The Slave Market is a representative example of his easel pictures, painted with characteristic vigour and displaying a remarkable facility for utilising the glare. The brilliant colour and the drama of human passions inseparably associated with the hideous trade carried on in the little town in East Africa. It is indeed the dramatic element in things we see that appeal most to Mr Brangwyn. Sometimes as here, it is actual drama of human life but he finds it as unerringly in a stormy sky, a maze of scaffold, an immemorial bridge, a broken hulk. Daemonic energy is implicit in all things and it impels this master craftsmen to his greatest achievements.
(charliequins.com)


Sea battle
From michaelmay.us


Initially he painted traditional subjects about the sea and life on the seas. His canvas, Funeral At Sea (1890) won a medal of the 3rd class at the 1891 Paris Salon. The limited palette in this painting is typical of his Newlyn period (although he was not officially a Newlyn artist). By the late 19th century Orientalism had become a favoured theme for many painters. Soon Brangwyn was attracted by the light and the bright colours of these southern countries. He travelled to Istanbul and the Black Sea, by working as a deck hand for his passage. He made many paintings and drawings, particularly of Spain, Morocco, Egypt, Turkey. This resulted in a marked lightening of his palette, a change which did not initially find critical favor. He continued his travels to different parts of Africa and also to South Africa. In 1895 the Parisian art dealer Siegfried Bing commissioned Brangwyn to decorate the exterior of his Galerie L'Art Nouveau, and encouraged Brangwyn into new avenues: murals, tapestry and carpet designs, posters and designs for stained glass to be produced by Louis Comfort Tiffany. For his austere but decorative designs he was recognized by continental and US critics as a prominent artist, while British critics were puzzled as how to evaluate him. Brangwyn is best known for the British Empire Panels (1925 - 1932), 16 very large works covering 3,000 sq ft (280 m2) originally intended for the Royal Gallery at the House of Lords at Westminster, but refused because the were "too colourful and lively" for the location. They are now housed in the Brangwyn Hall, Swansea.
(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)


The Torn Shirt
From cv.vic.gov.au


The Torn Shirt is a study for a figure in Brangwyn’s large scale oil panel, Modern Commerce, 1900-06, at the Royal Exchange Building, London. The male figure, squared up for transfer, has been faithfully transcribed in the lower right part of Modern Commerce. In the muscular figure, Brangwyn has created a virile, heroic form that has its antecedents in the Italian High Renaissance. The figure, drawn from life, is built up with rich contours, parallel and cross hatching lines, and the use of white highlights. Brangwyn’s focus is on the sheer physicality of his subject; his face pointedly turned away, underlines his machine-like working power.
(cv.vic.gov.au)
Brangwyn was an artistic jack-of-all-trades. As well as paintings and drawings, he produced designs for stained glass, furniture, ceramics, table glassware, buildings and interiors, was a lithographer and woodcutter and was an illustrator of books. In 1952 Clifford Musgrave estimated that Brangwyn had produced over 12,000 works. Brangwyn's mural commissions would cover over 22,000 sq ft (2,000 m2) of canvas, he painted over 1,000 oils, over 660 mixed media works (watercolours, gouache), over 500 etchings, about 400 wood engravings and woodcuts, 280 lithographs, 40 architectural and interior designs, 230 designs for furniture, and 20 stained glass panels and windows. In 1936 Brangwyn presented Bruges with over 400 works, now in the Arents House Museum. In return the King of Belgium made Brangwyn Grand Officer of the Order of Leopold II, and Bruges made him Citoyen d'Honneur de Bruges (only the third time the award had been given). (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) By the 1930s Brangwyn's art went out of fashion and he retired to his home at The Jointure in Ditchling. His biographer has argued that he suffered from "an increasing pessimism and hypochondria" and "was saddened and angered by developments in modern art; he was aware that his work was now ignored by many critics or regarded as old-fashioned." Brangwyn was knighted in 1941 and in 1952. The Royal Academy held a retrospective of 470 of his works. Frank Brangwyn died at his home on 11th June 1956.
(voiceseducation.org)


ARTISTIC JACK-OF-ALL-TRADES




Sir Frank William Brangwyn
From augustastylianougallery.com


Sir Frank William Brangwyn
From voiceseducation.org


A Cook Shop, Naples
From tennants.co.uk


Charity
From arthermitage.org


Sir Frank William Brangwyn was a Welsh artist, painter, water colorist, virtuoso engraver and illustrator, and progressive designer. He was born in Bruges, Belgium, where in 1865 his father William Curtis Brangwyn had received a commission to decorate the Basilica of the Holy Blood. In 1875 the family moved back to England. Frank Brangwyn received some artistic training, first at his father's studio, and later from the famous artist and architect William Morris, but he was largely an autodidact without a formal artistic education. When, at the age of seventeen, one of his paintings was accepted at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, he was strengthened in his conviction to become an artist.
(artexpertswebsite.com)


An Ostrich Farm, South Africa
From artexpertswebsite.com


A Police Station, South Africa
From victorianweb.org


In early 1891 Brangwyn, with his friend the painter William Hunt, was commissioned by the dealer T. J. Larkin to travel to South Africa to produce work for an exhibition at The Japanese Gallery at 28 New Bond Street. Larkin's intention was that the two painters should spend a year travelling in South Africa before returning but, as it turned out, and to Larkin's chagrin, their £1500 of expenses lasted but five months. The pair departed from newly built Tilbury Dock in March 1891 on the Union Castle Line mailship Dunnottar Castle, which occasion the present painting recalls. The greater part of the 55 paintings exhibited at The Japanese Gallery were painted on 12 1/4 X 16 1/4 inch fielded panels which Brangwyn carried in a specially constructed box in order to permit him to move on while the paint was still wet on the most recent pictures. The above picture was the largest by far to be shown in the exhibition although a small number of pictures of Cape Town on canvas exist that were painted on a larger scale than the standard panels. Eight years later Dunaottar Castle carried the young Winston Churchill representing the Morning Post and Sir Redvers Bullers and his Headquarters Staff to South Africa on the outbreak of the Boer War. Brangwyn first exhibited at The Fine Art Society in 1908, the first of eight lifetime exhibitions.
(victorianweb.org)


On the Coast, Tangier
From all-art.org


The Slave Market
From charliequins.com


The Slave Market is a representative example of his easel pictures, painted with characteristic vigour and displaying a remarkable facility for utilising the glare. The brilliant colour and the drama of human passions inseparably associated with the hideous trade carried on in the little town in East Africa. It is indeed the dramatic element in things we see that appeal most to Mr Brangwyn. Sometimes as here, it is actual drama of human life but he finds it as unerringly in a stormy sky, a maze of scaffold, an immemorial bridge, a broken hulk. Daemonic energy is implicit in all things and it impels this master craftsmen to his greatest achievements.
(charliequins.com)


Sea battle
From michaelmay.us


Initially he painted traditional subjects about the sea and life on the seas. His canvas, Funeral At Sea (1890) won a medal of the 3rd class at the 1891 Paris Salon. The limited palette in this painting is typical of his Newlyn period (although he was not officially a Newlyn artist). By the late 19th century Orientalism had become a favoured theme for many painters. Soon Brangwyn was attracted by the light and the bright colours of these southern countries. He travelled to Istanbul and the Black Sea, by working as a deck hand for his passage. He made many paintings and drawings, particularly of Spain, Morocco, Egypt, Turkey. This resulted in a marked lightening of his palette, a change which did not initially find critical favor. He continued his travels to different parts of Africa and also to South Africa. In 1895 the Parisian art dealer Siegfried Bing commissioned Brangwyn to decorate the exterior of his Galerie L'Art Nouveau, and encouraged Brangwyn into new avenues: murals, tapestry and carpet designs, posters and designs for stained glass to be produced by Louis Comfort Tiffany. For his austere but decorative designs he was recognized by continental and US critics as a prominent artist, while British critics were puzzled as how to evaluate him. Brangwyn is best known for the British Empire Panels (1925 - 1932), 16 very large works covering 3,000 sq ft (280 m2) originally intended for the Royal Gallery at the House of Lords at Westminster, but refused because the were "too colourful and lively" for the location. They are now housed in the Brangwyn Hall, Swansea.
(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)


The Torn Shirt
From cv.vic.gov.au


The Torn Shirt is a study for a figure in Brangwyn’s large scale oil panel, Modern Commerce, 1900-06, at the Royal Exchange Building, London. The male figure, squared up for transfer, has been faithfully transcribed in the lower right part of Modern Commerce. In the muscular figure, Brangwyn has created a virile, heroic form that has its antecedents in the Italian High Renaissance. The figure, drawn from life, is built up with rich contours, parallel and cross hatching lines, and the use of white highlights. Brangwyn’s focus is on the sheer physicality of his subject; his face pointedly turned away, underlines his machine-like working power.
(cv.vic.gov.au)
Brangwyn was an artistic jack-of-all-trades. As well as paintings and drawings, he produced designs for stained glass, furniture, ceramics, table glassware, buildings and interiors, was a lithographer and woodcutter and was an illustrator of books. In 1952 Clifford Musgrave estimated that Brangwyn had produced over 12,000 works. Brangwyn's mural commissions would cover over 22,000 sq ft (2,000 m2) of canvas, he painted over 1,000 oils, over 660 mixed media works (watercolours, gouache), over 500 etchings, about 400 wood engravings and woodcuts, 280 lithographs, 40 architectural and interior designs, 230 designs for furniture, and 20 stained glass panels and windows. In 1936 Brangwyn presented Bruges with over 400 works, now in the Arents House Museum. In return the King of Belgium made Brangwyn Grand Officer of the Order of Leopold II, and Bruges made him Citoyen d'Honneur de Bruges (only the third time the award had been given). (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) By the 1930s Brangwyn's art went out of fashion and he retired to his home at The Jointure in Ditchling. His biographer has argued that he suffered from "an increasing pessimism and hypochondria" and "was saddened and angered by developments in modern art; he was aware that his work was now ignored by many critics or regarded as old-fashioned." Brangwyn was knighted in 1941 and in 1952. The Royal Academy held a retrospective of 470 of his works. Frank Brangwyn died at his home on 11th June 1956.
(voiceseducation.org)


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