Homage to Manet

A Studio at Batignolles (also called Homage to Manet), 1870

Les Batignolles was the district where Édouard Manet and many of the future Impressionists lived. Henri Fantin-Latour, a quiet observer of this period, has gathered around Manet, presented as the leader of the school, a number of young artists with innovative ideas: from left to right, we can recognise Otto Schölderer, a German painter who had come to France to get to know Gustave Courbet‘s followers, a sharp-faced Manet, sitting at his easel; Auguste Renoir, wearing a hat; Zacharie Astruc, a sculptor and journalist; Émile Zola, the spokesman of the new style of painting; Edmond Maître, a civil servant at the Town Hall; Frédéric Bazille, who was killed a few months later during the 1870 war, at the age of twenty-six; and lastly, Claude Monet.

Their attitudes are sober, their suits dark and their faces almost grave: Fantin-Latour wanted these young artists, who were greatly decried at the time, to be seen as serious, respectable figures. Only two accessories remind the spectator of the aesthetic choices of the new school: the statuette of Minerva bears witness to the respect due to the antique tradition; the Japanese style stoneware jar evokes the admiration of this entire generation of artists for Japanese art.

In this group portrait exhibited at the Salon of 1870, each man seems to be posing for posterity. The painting confirms the links between Fantin-Latour and the avant-garde of the time and Manet in particular. It echoes Zola’s opinion of Manet: “Around the painter so disparaged by the public has grown up a common front of painters and writers who claim him as a master”. In his diary, Edmond de Goncourt sneered at Manet, calling him “the man who bestows glory on bar room geniuses”.

Jun 18

Monument to Balzac

Photograph by Edward Steichen, 1911

Monument to Balzac is a sculpture by Auguste Rodin in memory of the French novelist Honoré de Balzac. According to Rodin, the sculpture aims to portray the writer’s persona rather than a physical likeness. The work was commissioned in 1891 by the Société des Gens de Lettres, a full-size plaster model was displayed in 1898 at a Salon in Champ de Mars. After coming under criticism the model was rejected by the société and Rodin moved it to his home in Meudon. On July 2, 1939 (22 years after the sculptor’s death) the model was cast in bronze for the first time and placed on the Boulevard du Montparnasse at the intersection with Boulevard Raspail.

The Société des Gens de Lettres (Paris, France) considered four different artists for the sculptural work before it was given to Rodin. The first was French neoclassical artist Henri Chapu, however, Chapu died in 1891 before the work could be finalized. Marquet de Vasselot was the next artist considered for the sculpture and provided a bust of the writer for the Societé. At the same time artists Millet and Coutan also applied for the commission.

Rodin was not initially considered for the work because at that point in time, around 1885, his career had not become as prominent. After the death of Chapu, the recently elected president of the Societé, Émile Zola strongly supported Rodin for the job and, so, the artist submitted a proposal to have a completed three-meter statue of the French novelist within an eighteen-month period which was approved.

The commission was in response to the elevated importance of Honoré de Balzac after his death. Balzac was one of the founders of the Societé as well as the second president of the organization. Upon his death in 1850 interest in creating a statue to commemorate the writer quickly developed under the leadership of Alexandre Dumas, père.

In 1894, the Societé threatened to step in legally with the commission, turn the job over to artist Alexandre Falguière and take away Rodin’s payment. Yet Rodin continued to ask for extensions on time making over fifty studies and continuously distanced himself from a true physical portrayal, tending towards a more psychological representation. The artist became infatuated with capturing the essence of the author’s strength. In a message to writer Charles Chincholle in May, 1898, Rodin explained his artistic pursuit:

“The only thing I realize today is that the neck is too strong. I thought I had to enlarge it because according to me, modern sculpture must exaggerate the forms form the moral point of view. Through the exaggerated neck I wanted to represent strength I realize that the execution exceeded the idea.”

Finally in 1898, Rodin presented a plaster study of the Balzac statue in the Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts. The sculpture was not received well by the critics; Rodin took the negativity as a personal attack. Many disliked the grotesque stature of the figure while others criticized the work to be very similar to that of the Italian impressionist Medardo Rosso. As well, reports surfaced before the unveiling of the sculpture regarding anticipated dismay over the final outcome of the artwork. The Société des Gens de Lettres decided to disregard the commission to Rodin and not accept the sculpture.

Regardless of rejection from his commissionaires, contemporaries such as Paul Cézanne, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Claude Monet supported Rodin in his point of view. A backlash against the rejection along with a petition signed by supporters in the artistic community proceeded, yet in the end, Rodin decidedly declined any bids for the work and placed the plaster artwork in his home at Meudon.

Mar 27

Mine, In a Way

“The sunflower is mine, in a way.”

Vincent Van Gogh

Offering to Flora, Juan van der Hamne, 1627

The Sunflower. Engraving from Erasmus Francisci’s Ost- und West-Indischer wie auch Sinesischer Lust- und Stats-Garten in drey Haupt-Theile unterschieden.., 1668

Peacocks, Melchior d’ Hondecoeter, 1683

Small butterfly and sunflower, Ohara Koson, no date

Studio of Sir Kenelm Digby, Anthony van Dyck, c. 1630

Selbstporträt mit Sonnenblume (Self Portrait With a Sunflower), Anthony van Dyck, after 1633

Marquise Athenais de Montespan or Montespan en déshabillée, school of Pierre Mignard, c. 1670

Portrait of Elizabeth Claypole, Jacob Huysmans, 1680

Misses Wilson, James Sant, 1875

Bouquet of Sunflowers, Claude Monet, 1881

Tournesols, Claude Monet, 1881

Clytie, Evelyn De Morgan, 1887

Vase of Sunflowers, Henri Matisse, 1898

The Four Seasons (Summer), Alphons Mucha, 1898

Brita,a Cat and a Sandwich, Carl Larsson, 1898

Hide and Seek, Carl Larsson, c. 1900

Eighteen Years Old!, Carl Larsson, 1902

Farm Garden with Sunflowers, Gustave Klimt, 1905

Sonnenblume (Girasol), Gustav Klimt, 1907

Sunflowers, Piet Mondrian, 1907

Dying Sunflower, Piet Mondrian, c. 1908

Sonnenblume, Egon Schiele, 1909

Welke Sonnenblume, Egon Schiele, 1912

Welke Sonnenblumen, Egon Schiele, 1914

Sonnenblumen, Egon Schiele, 1916

Versunkene Landschaft, Paul Klee, 1918

Mature Sunflowers, Emil Nolde, 1932

Sunflowers, Sir Jacob Epstein, c. 1936

A Sunflower from Maggie, Georgia O’Keeffe, 1937

Girasoles (Sunflowers) Diego Rivera, 1943

Sunflowers at Choisel, Georges Braque, 1946

Composition with Sunflowers, Friedensreich Hundertwasser, 1949

Die Sonnenblumen und die (The Sunflowers and The City), Friedensreich Hundertwasser, 1949

Le Tournesol, Fernand Léger, 1953

Cover for International Textiles, René Gruau, 1955

Sunflowers for Jonathan, David Hockney, 1995

The Orders of the Night (Die Orden der Nacht), Anselm Kiefer, 1996

Untitled (Sunflowers), Glenn Goldberg, 1999

Hommage a van Gogh, Friedensreich Hundertwasser, c. 1998

Sunflower in Grey and Green no.1, Jimmy Wright, 2008

Jul 28

After Manet’s Masterpiece

Le déjeuner sur l’herbe, with Gustave Courbet, Claude Monet, 1865-1866

Manet’s painting inspired Picasso to a cycle of 27 paintings, 140 drawings, 3 linogravures and cardboard marquettes for sculpture carried out between 1949 and 1962

Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe (Picnic on the Grass), a 1959 film directed by Jean Renoir

Jim Lee’s version for Cosmopolitan, June 1974

Déjeuner sur l’herbe, a photograph by Jonathan Charles, 1974

Title, and features similar front cover art, of British bigband the New Jazz Orchestra on Verve Records,1969

See Jungle! See Jungle! Go Join Your Gang, Yeah! City All Over, Go Ape Crazy! (1981) is the second studio album by pop rock group Bow Wow Wow. The album was the first release by the group to chart, at #192 on the Billboard 200. Posing nude is lead singer Annabella Lwin, who was fifteen at the time of the album’s release. The Andy Earl cover caused outrage that led to an investigation by Scotland Yard, instigated by Lwin’s mother and never appeared on UK and US releases.