Month: October 2019

John William Waterhouse, nicknamed “Nino,” was born in Rome to two parents who were also painters. Growing up, Waterhouse was encouraged to draw, without a doubt having an influence on his eventual career.

Waterhouse attended the Royal Academy of Art in London, where he later held regular exhibitions of his art. Initially studying sculpture, he soon completely abandoned that direction and moved to paint.

Although he came a little bit too late to be considered a part of the pre-Raphaelite brotherhood, his style is very close to it. He is often associated with them because of their shared interest and inspiration from literary subjects such as Homer, Ovid, Shakespeare, Tennyson & Keats.

As well as being inspired by literary subjects, he also depicted many women from greek mythology and Arthurian legend. Waterhouse painted a lot of women, many of them about to die in or near water. The dramatic beautiful women he painted often included damsels in distress, enchantresses and the “femme fatale.”

John William Waterhouse had a good reputation among fellow artists, art critics, and the general public during his lifetime, although he fell out of popularity around the beginning of the 20th century along with other artists of similar style.

I really like Waterhouse’s work. His paintings are absolutely beautiful and the richness and vibrancy of the colours he chose are really enjoyable to look at.

Sources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_William_Waterhouse

https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-William-Waterhouse

http://www.johnwilliamwaterhouse.com/

Blind literacy has always been a problem, but it used to be a much bigger issue than it is today. At the beginning of the 19th century, the only reading option for the blind was a system invented by Valentin Haüy, founder of the Royal Institute for Blind Youth (Institution Royale des Jeunes Aveugles) in Paris. Haüy’s system consisted of embossed versions of normal letters. Although the idea of embossing letters was an important development in blind literacy at the time, it was difficult to read and made it practically impossible for the blind to write. It was said to be “talking to the fingers with the language of the eyes.”

Night Writing

A part of Napoleon’s army, Charles Barbier witnessed many soldiers killed when trying to read maps and letters at night, being exposed by the lights they were using to see. In an attempt to create a way for soldiers to read at night without light, he invented night writing. Night writing was a 12 dot system of raised dots that could be read by the fingers.

When presented with Barbier’s night writing system, the government was not interested in using it for the military. Convinced that it was a good idea and could be used elsewhere, he brought his system to the Royal Institute for Blind Youth, where Louis Braille happened to be a student.

Louis Braille

Louis Braille tragically lost his sight in an accident when he was 3 years old. Playing in his father’s leather workshop, an awl slipped from his grip and landed in his eye. Despite the best medical care available at the time, the infection eventually spread to his other eye and left him completely blind.

A very good student and intelligent boy, Braille was offered a scholarship to study at the Royal Institute for Blind Youth in Paris. While he was a student there, Charles Barbier visited and shared his night writing system with the school. Braille saw potential in what Barbier presented and decided to work to improve it. He identified a few issues with the night writing system; the absence of punctuation or numbers, the 12 dot cells were too large to be read with a single touch, and the phonetic nature of the system left little room for orthography.

Louis Braille finished refining Barbier’s night writing system at the age of 15, later publishing books on how to use his system as well as a few revisions of the system. Braille’s system contained 6 dots instead of 12, making it small enough to be read with the single touch of a finger. Braille and his peers used the Braille writing system during his time at the institute. He continued to teach it at the school when he got older, but the system was not officially adopted by the school until 2 years after his death.

Sources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_writing

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braille

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Braille

https://www.historytoday.com/louis-braille-and-night-writer

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Braille-writing-system

Caspar David Friedrich was a german romantic painter. He first studied at the University of Greifswald in Germany, where the art department is now named the Caspar David Friedrich Institut, in his honour. He went on to study at the Academy of Copenhagen, before settling in Dresden for the remainder of his lifetime.

Friedrich was elected a member of the Berlin Academy after two pieces of his were purchased by the Prussian Crown Prince, helping him more known. His altarpiece “Cross In the Mountains” also helped his name spread, but not for the best reasons. It was the first landscape in Christian art and was heavily critiqued because of that. In 1805, Friedrich won a prize, helping establish his reputation.

He was decently popular in his early career, but his reputation, unfortunately, declined over the last 15 years of his life, leaving him to die in obscurity. Romanticism went out of style, and Friedrich’s work was too original and personal to be understood by the public. Living in poverty and relative isolation near the end of his life, symbols of death began to appear in his paintings. Around this time, he was described by friends as “the most solitary of the solitary.”

He came back into the light at the beginning of the 20th century, over half a century after his death, when 32 of his pieces were featured in an exhibition in Berlin. This modern revival died out and he lost popularity once again post-war after the nazi party used his work to promote their ideologies. Friedrich later came back into acknowledgement around the 1970s.

Landscapes were Caspar David Friedrich’s specialty. Contemplative, emotional silhouettes, night skies, morning mists, barren trees and gothic ruins were all commonly found in his paintings. The gloominess can easily be attributed to Friedrich’s state of mind. Being familiar with death from an early age, losing his mother at the age of 7 as well as two sisters soon after. This most impactful loss in life though was surely his brothers, whom he witnessed fall through the ice of a frozen lake and drown. He was once described to be “surrounded by a thick, gloomy cloud of spiritual uncertainty.”

I personally really like Friedrich. His pieces evoke a lot of emotion, which I really appreciate, but I also really like and relate to him as a person. One of the reasons he fell out of popularity in his lifetime is said to have been because he was “too eccentric, melancholic and out of touch with the times,” which describes how I often feel myself.

Sources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caspar_David_Friedrich

https://www.sothebys.com/en/articles/21-facts-about-caspar-david-friedrich

https://www.wikiart.org/en/caspar-david-friedrich/all-works#!#filterName:all-paintings-chronologically,resultType:masonry

Baroque architecture is directly linked to the counter-reformation; the movement of the Catholic Church to fight against the reformation. The architecture of the time was meant to serve as a visible statement of the wealth and power of the Church. Unique for its exploration of form, light and dark, and dramatic intensity, baroque architecture incredibly detailed and grandiose, often including massive gardens, plazas and courtyards.

Italy

Baroque architecture began in Rome before making its way throughout Europe. Many Italian architects of the time are known for their work in baroque architecture.

The first example of Italian baroque architecture is Carlo Maderno’s Santa Susanna. Like most early baroque architecture, Santa Susanna is a catholic church located in Rome. Carlo Maderno was hired to remodel the facade of the building, as the church already existed long before the baroque period.

Another great example of baroque architecture in Italy is Santi Luca e Martina. Originally a simple rectangular structure, it was renovated in the baroque period by Pietro Da Cortona.

The grandiosity of Baroque architecture didn’t stop at the outside facades. The interiors were even grander. On the inside, massive open spaces with walls and ceilings adorned in intricate paintings and filled with incredible sculptures.

France

French Baroque architecture is marked by large curved forms, twisted columns, high domes, and complicated shapes. It was often considered to be more restrained than the architecture found throughout the rest of Europe at the time.

The greatest and most well-known example of Baroque architecture in France is the palace of Versailles. The palace is also the greatest example of secular Baroque architecture. It was designed for Louis XIV by Louis Le Vau and was meant to glorify France as well as show the power and greatness of the King. The palace of Versailles is massive: 700 rooms and 2,000 acres of gardens, all filled with lavish decorations.

Sources

https://bettybaroque.wordpress.com/2011/02/07/santa-susanna/

https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Baroque_Architecture

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santi_Luca_e_Martina

https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-arthistory/chapter/architecture-of-the-baroque-period/

Jan Steen was a Dutch painter who created about 800 pieces, 350 or so of them surviving today. He was a busy man. He painted various types of pieces including portraits, religious and historical scenes, but he was most well known for his genre paintings. Genre paintings simply portray everyday life. His paintings are said to portray a realistic image of 17th-century Dutch life.

His genre paintings are known for being chaotic. There is even a dutch expression inspired by him, “a Jan Steen household,” meaning a messy and chaotic house.

The son of a brewer, Jan Steen painting quite a few inns, and in order to make some extra income on the side, he opened a brewery and a tavern himself.

As well as the various other topics he was inspired by and liked to portray, he was heavily influenced by the world of theatre. Many of his pieces are quite theatrical in nature.

I personally really enjoy the chaotic and real nature of his pieces, as well as his sense of humour that is evident in many of his paintings.

Sources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Steen

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jan-Havickszoon-Steen

https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/rijksstudio/artists/jan-havicksz-steen

http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/artists/181/jan-steen-dutch-1626-1679/

https://www.holland.com/global/tourism/discover-holland/traditional/dutch-masters/jan-steen-12.htm

https://www.wikiart.org/en/jan-steen/all-works#!#filterName:all-paintings-chronologically,resultType:masonry