Skip to main content

Hubert Robert

Hubert Robert - The Old Bridge
The Old Bridge, ca. 1775


Born in Paris on this day in 1733, Robert was not only one of the active vedutisti, or highly realistic scene painter but also a set designer for plays and landscape garden designer. Having studied in Rome for 11 years—part of that under the studio of Giovanni Paolo Panini—Hubert made numerous sketches and capricci which lead to paintings with a distinct flavour for dramatic light, antiquity and architecture that puts him in a category that few others can match. And living during the tumultuous French Revolution where he narrowly escaped death himself makes his life all the more interesting as a person; someone should make a film of his life.


In the above example, Robert uses strong chiaroscuro for this bridge in two point perspective. The fact that he shows every dilapidated stone to illustrate its age and character contrasts with a youthful sky and bright blue river underneath it...Robert seems to make a statement on the age of man-made creations that cannot stand up to the test of time. Nature is truly eternal, ageless, no matter how many centuries or millennia pass. What makes the work even more charming are the people doing laundry underneath the warm reflected light of the arch and hanging up their sheets on a laundry line. The figure on the lower right looks up, and directly above him is a cow on the bridge itself, while at the other end a long sheet hangs from the balcony, creating a triangular focal point to keep our eyes around the bridge. Symbolically, the bridge may represent the old-fashioned mentality of the time and unwillingness for progress or change. It may also show an understanding or balance between society and nature. At any rate, the feelings of quaintness and simplicity are so eloquently depicted here, an era now lost in time. (Compare that to our present modern world.)




Architectural Capriccio with Figures, ca.1750


Here we see some very loose brushwork, with thick glossy highlights with interesting greys and yellows not normally associated with a palette for architecture. Hubert creates a deep sense of presence and solidity. This time the figures are intellectuals, possibly artists or architects, comfortable in admiring the ancient ruins of Rome. Robert's brilliant knack for repoussoir frames this composition with dark trees to the right and rocks on the left, partially obscuring the figures themselves. Blue and yellow (yellow-orange) placed side-by-side is a motif throughout the painting, with green as a background colour. Again, Hubert reminds us of the impermanence of accomplishments, yet here he implies that the greatness of antiquity is immortal and needs to be consciously rediscovered in order to be appreciated.


Hubert Robert - Projet d'aménagement de la Grande Galerie du Louvre (1796)
Projet d'aménagement de la Grande Galerie du Louvre, 1796


Finally, a painting for painters about painting and museums. Artists copying Old Masters in the Louvre and becoming a work of art themselves. Hubert's use of one-point perspective here is breathtaking. Art is immortal.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Orazio Riminaldi

Samson defeats Philistines, 1625 A painter from Pisa, Orazio Riminaldi was a Baroque tenebrist born in 1586 on September 5th. Riminaldi was unfortunately one of many painters who died young, in his case from the plague in 1630, but it is what he accomplished in those brief years that merits attention. Riminaldi's expressive faces and body language, along with superb skin tones and dramatic skies, take his art to a deeper level than some his contemporaries, who were perhaps more cautious in their techniques. Look at the fury of the scene above. It is quite rare in painting to see a pile of bodies with a warrior like Samson no less, stepping on top of one while grabbing the hair of another. And yet Riminaldi manages to make it look majestic and noble. The anatomy of the figures shows foreshortening combined with Caravaggio's chiaroscuro in a tight yet carefully arranged composition. By making it vertical, in a triangular design, it heightens the sense of drama while requi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Bouguereau

Nymphs and Satyr, 1873 If there is one artist today that hardly needs an introduction, it would be William-Adolphe Bouguereau , supreme giant of 19th century Academic art. Born on November 30, 1825 in La Rochelle on the southwest of France, his talent would define the era he lived in only to fall into obscurity for decades after his death in 1905 until as recent as the early 1980's, shockingly. Today he has the distinction of being lionized by the Art Renewal Center as one of the greatest artists of all time while at the other end of the spectrum vilified by modernists as artificially perfect and sentimental. In fact it is quite rare to see such polarization over an artist of a calibre like Bouguereau, whose bravura is difficult to equal yet at the same time thematically his work admittedly tends toward women and children, a subject matter that sold well and he had endless patience for. Over the vast array of his oeuvre, some 820 paintings, I have tried to fi...
3 comments
Read more

Carl Holsøe, Master of Rooms

The Artist's Wife sitting at a Window in a sunlit Room, ca.1900 Carl Vilhelm Holsøe was born on the 12 of March, 1863 in northeast Denmark. Holsøe studied in Copenhagen and under the Danish Master Peder Krøyer . Unlike many painters who worked outdoors and favored the majestic landscapes of their environment, Holsøe chose the psychological mood of the domestic interior and the way light spills into rooms. Although Holsøe is often compared to his contemporary and friend, Vilhelm Hammershøi , Holsøe is more authentic and less vacant emotionally. His use of sunlight captures the mindfulness of the moment in a way that is reminiscent of Dutch Masters, utilizing the power of quiet and reading as emotionally satisfying and tranquil. In the painting above, his wife sits in a kitchen chair looking out the window. On the table are cups of tea and a teapot that Holsøe gently lights the rims. The drapes are of a texture so thick it almost seems like pastel. Look at the greenish reflect...
Post a Comment
Read more