Jean-Baptiste Greuze

Portrait of Claude-Henri Watalet, 1763

Tomorrow is the birthday of French artist Jean-Baptiste Greuze, born in 1725, in the east central region of France. His style of portraiture has at times a strong British influence, yet other times he is distinctly French, and other times the influence of Venetian color is highly evident. Greuze would later become eclipsed by other French giants such as David and Ingres, but what he may have lacked in consistency of style he made up for in emotion and mood, when he did get it right. His greatest strength was his draftsmanship, as his drawings that survived prove he could draw, and draw incredibly well. He had a unique cross-hatching style that is deceptively complex to imitate, and he often imbued those portraits with more character and personality than many of his very best paintings.

The above portrait of Claude-Henri Watalet, respected engraver, painter, writer, art lover and expert on gardens, reveals a man highly esteemed by Greuze. The way those pearl-colored highlights are painstakingly brushed on that jacket and pants seems to defy belief. Watalet is holding calipers close to himself while studying a bronze statuette of the Venus De' Medici, and his left hand firmly planted on the book at his desk. Greuze has him lit from above, leaving the background in shadow that softens gradually towards the left of the painting. This is a flattering tribute to someone who had great respect for the arts.

The Guitarist, 1757

This is an amazing portrait. I love this painting. Puzzling how most of Greuze's portraits are quite ordinary and suddenly something like this comes along...a guitarist tuning his guitar. Note how his body forms a dynamic S-shape, with that blue cape underlining and strengthening his posture, adding a form of visual musicality itself. The striped pant is reminiscent of Italian painting and the harlequin clown character of the 16th century. His expression looking at us is equally intriguing as he listens for the right note...yet this would have worked just as well if he was looking off in another direction. It is rare to see such personality in a portrait that makes us curious about who the guitarist is.

Study of a girl, ca.1777

Observe Greuze's very confident line work here. He makes quick work of a thoughtful portrait with only one color, lit from top right...again, that intricate cross-hatching is something not everyone would use to define a shadow area, especially a young female, yet Greuze handles it with seemingly little effort. I can only wonder how fast it took him to draw this...possibly under twenty five minutes.

Student with a Lesson book, 1757

This seems almost spun from a Dicken's novel, and yet look at the presence and depth Greuze has given this young girl, lost in thought. That brushwork on the face seems to mimic that cross-hatching of his drawings. Note the contrast of her soft red hair with the well-worn school jacket. Even the pages show frequent reading of that little book. Greuze demonstrates a respect for children as young adults in the truest sense of the word, in a time where the Industrial Revolution over the following hundred years and its horrors would reveal, enslaving young kids with little pay for very long hours, regardless of their education.

Greuze was a pioneer at a time when art in France began to really blossom, and he is definitely worth studying, especially his drawings. When his powers of portraiture were properly focused, he rivalled his successors easily.

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...

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...

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...

beside the easel

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