Eugène Grasset

Eugène Grasset (25 May 1845 – 23 October 1917) was a Franco-Swiss artist and also one of the Art Nouveau painters. In early, he was taught by François Bocion who had been teaching at the Lausanne École Industrielle for forty years. After graduation, his family took him on a trip to Egypt which had an important influence on his future style. He became interested in Egyptian art and Japanese prints.

In addition, Grasset’s father was a cabinetmaker and sculptor, that Eugène Grasset was influenced by him so much since he was young because he could have so much practice in these crafts.

Eugène Grasset‘s works were known for delicate elements, such as flowers, trees, and plants, and largely using curvy and circular motifs. The influence of Japanism is obvious, complex lines and float graphic build up a lot of his images.

Alfred Choubrac

Alfred Choubrac ( Paris, 30 December 1853 – Paris, 25 July 1902 ) was a French poster artist. His elder brother, Léon Choubrac (17 November 1847 – 5 April 1885), was also a poster designer, and they were both trained by Charles Doërr and Isidore Pils at the École des Beaux Arts. Afterward, they created the Ateliers Choubrac and work for themselves.

Alfred Choubrac’s works are mainly about the posters for the shows in the Parisian night-life scene of the Belle Époque such as the Théâtre des Variétés, Théâtre du Châtelet, Folies Bergère. Due to this topic, in April 1891, under the orders from the Minister of the Interior, several of Alfred’s posters were prohibited and he was brought to court along with the printers. However, Alfred said that “nudity is exposed everywhere and in much more provocative ways; and I frankly confess that I do not see where the evil was, I sought to make a work of art and nothing more.”

Reference

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eug%C3%A8ne_Grasset https://www.widewalls.ch/artist/eugene-grasset/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A9on_Choubrac https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Choubrac https://www.europeana.eu/portal/en/explore/people/118578-alfred-choubrac.html

Back Ground Summary

Qianlong is a renowned Emperor in Chinese history, reigned from 1735 to 1796, who is famous for his legendary life. He sustained the previous high-speed development of society in his early and mid periods but lost the control to the internal corruption in later years. However, no matter how controversial he is in political, he absolutely influenced Chinese culture and arts a lot. He was not a very literate person but he really liked to collect literature, arts, crafts, machines, etc; he also travelled around the country many times. In folk stories, he at least six times travelled with a large group of accompanying people to the Jiangnan area. Someone even considers this large amount of expenditure as a reason for the treasury deficit.

Mechanical Clock

Because of the industrial revolution and the increasing communication between eastern and western in that period, more and more people began to tribute something highly scientific instead of traditional treasures to the Chinese emperor. One of the most representative is the mechanical clock which many Chinese emperors liked the most from western. Qianlong was also in love with this novel artificial stuff, especially when this clock is not only mechanical in the movement of the dial. Usually, the whole clocks are made up of complicated device combinations that run the decorations on the appearance, normally including animals, stars, and figures, etc. Qianlong liked the mechanical clock so much and that he even on-site command the production in the palace but not only bought from the western. Since the emperor’s love towards this machine, the craftsmen constantly transformed and reformed it fresh for Qianlong seeing each clock was new. Finally, the clock making technique developed so much that they could even make flowers blooming, pictures changing, text appearing and figures actions on the clock.

Obviously, the style of this clock is deeply influenced by western culture, especially Baroque. In the Qing Dynasty, the Chinese royal family liked this kind of complex appearance very much, and they developed it to more and more complicated patterns.

Revolving Vase

Chinese pottery was highly developed in the Qianlong era, traditional pottery differentiated to diverse forms. One of them is the revolving vase which cleverly combined with the machine. It usually made of the outer vase, inner vase, and a revolving device. For the outside appearance, the outer vase has the hollow patterns which allows people to see the inner vase. Then, the inner vase has pictures on its surface for viewing. During the rotation, the viewed inner vase’s appearance changes. In addition, the type of device determined the outer vase or the inner vase can move.

However, since the technical difficulty and resource wasting, the revolving vases is hard to see except the Qianlong era in Chinese history.

Wenwan(Artworks in the Study Room)

Chinese people named the brush, ink, paper, Inkstone as Four Treasures of the Study in the past. Furthermore, accompany with the prosperity of the Qing Dynasty, more and more people began to truly make these everyday items into works of art. Wenwan is the general name for all of those, and in addition to the above, it also includes pen holder, pen washer, ink bed, paperweight, printing box, seal, etc, and even walnut.

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Above is one of Qianlong’s ink collections which decorated by golden patterns. The text means the essence of the sun and the moon.

References

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/16/%E6%B8%85_%E9%83%8E%E4%B8%96%E5%AE%81%E7%BB%98%E3%80%8A%E6%B8%85%E9%AB%98%E5%AE%97%E4%B9%BE%E9%9A%86%E5%B8%9D%E6%9C%9D%E6%9C%8D%E5%83%8F%E3%80%8B.jpg http://fashion.163.com/13/0805/14/95H72VIO00264MK3_mobile.html http://bbs.1shoucang.com/data/attachment/forum/201305/08/101719ohhgw6wwwhax4lql.jpg http://antiquities.npm.gov.tw/Utensils_Page.aspx?ItemId=6 https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/44012334 http://imgsrc.baidu.com/baike/pic/item/6a63f6246b600c33b196edeb174c510fd9f9a121.jpg

Isaac Newton, one of the most famous physicists, was born on 4 January 1643, at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth. No need to more explain his life, he is too famous hard to introduce him differently for avoiding repeating of the same stories. Now, just directly reflecting on his achievement in finding gravity.

A widely known story is that after Newton was hit on the head by a fallen apple, he began to think of the reason why the apples fall but the stars do not. After serious reflection, smart Newton got the answer, gravity. However, truth is not only a straightforward fairy tale.

First off, Newton was considering why the apples always just straightly fall down but not gone up or change its direction of movement in the air. Then, he presumed the existence of something that attracts the apples to move towards the center of the Earth. This is the most initial gravity, and then he tried to calculate if this theory is workable for the moon which is much larger and far away. Afterward, by comparing his calculated result with the observed information, he got the answer that everything has this kind of ability to influence all the other stuff.

Nevertheless, except technically the unimaginable amounts of calculation and observation for the moon, one of the well-known problems is the conflict between Newton and Robert Hooke. Indeed in the earlier time, about the exploring of Opticsn, light, Hooke strongly opposed Newton’s hypothesis and thesis. They were endlessly struggling with each other in that period, and even when Newton was calculating the gravity, he was fighting with Hooke in the letter. Finally, when Newton proved the existe of gravity, Hooke was also clamming that find gravity is his achievement but not Newton. Ultimately, those increasing discord caused a serious problem after Hooke dead. Newton destroyed all the portrait of Hooke and was even trying to clean all Hook’s personal information.

References

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61zOAr3OsJL.SL1001.jpg https://www.newhistorian.com/2016/08/22/robert-hooke-wrath-isaac-newton/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton#Mechanics_and_gravitation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Hooke

Amiens Cathedral

The biggest church in France, Amiens Cathedral, was built between 1220 and 1270. The surface area is 7,700 square meters and 126 pillars support its space. As one of the oldest French Gothic buildings, it locates in Amiens beside River Somme and about 120 kilometres north of Paris.

The Exterior

Amiens Cathedral’s doors of the central portal are divided by a trumeau with a statue of the Christ. They are flanked on both sides with images of the apostles. When people lookup in front of the portal, they will see numerous angles, martyrs, and virgins with the Tree of Jesse forming the outer ring. Above the portals, a gallery and a row of 22 oversized statues of kings are illustrated. Furthermore, the chevet of Amiens Cathedral displays standard Gothic characteristics including flying buttresses. By the way, the original facades were full of colours and we can see that again by modern technology.

The Interior

There are also numerous interior decorations in Amiens Cathedral. The great collection of statues at Amiens would later be known as “the Bible of Amiens”. For example, the baroque pulpit, made of marble and gilded wood. It is hold by the three allegorical female figures, apparently representing Faith, Hope and Charity, the three Theological Virtues. Furthermore, a large amount of survived stained glasses are also rare after frequent wars.

For architecture itself, the enormous size of the building will impress the visitor immediately. People normally walk into the church by side aisles, which are at a height of 20 m almost double that of Notre Dame in Paris. Nevertheless, the pillars still seem to rise more and more. Afterward, most of the glass in the nave is clear which allowing the church to be flooded by natural light.

References

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7e/Amiens_Cathedral%2C_1903.jpg https://i1.wp.com/frenchmoments.eu/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Amiens-Cathedral-©-Thierry80-licence-CC-BY-SA-4.0-from-Wikimedia-Commons.jpg?fit=1500%2C997&ssl=1 https://www.european-traveler.com/france/visit-amiens-cathedral-largest-gothic-church-france/ https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/28/Amiens_cathedral_illuminated.JPG https://frenchmoments.eu/amiens-cathedral/ https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2c/0_Amiens_-Cath%C3%A9drale_Notre-Dame%281%29.JPG

Jan Vermeer(Johannes Vermeer) was one of the greatest Dutch artists in the Dutch Golden Age. He is famous for his technique and treatment of the light using in his works. For easier to immediately understand him, below, one of the most famous paintings, Girl with a Pearl Earring, is his works.

Life

Vermeer was born on October 31, 1632, in Delft, Netherlands. His childhood is a mystery but someone said that Vermeer began to learn about art around the middle of the 1640s. His father, Reynier Vermeer, was an art dealer and silk weaver who probably was the earliest art enlightenment for Jan. However, his father dead in 1652, and then probably Vermeer took over his businesses of art and inn.

In April 1653, Jan Vermeer married Catharina Bolenes, who is from a wealthful Catholic family. They had 15 children, but this might be the reason for their unfortunately poor life. On 29 December, Vermeer joined the Guild of Saint Luke, which an art association helped Vermeer sold his works.

1672 the Rampjaar, disaster year, came, the Dutch Republic was almost crushed by the attack from France, Britain and other powers. Vermeer’s life is totally destroyed by this catastrophe. His arts were hard to sell and he almost had no economic income for years. Ultimately, Vermeer and his family moved to the home of his wife’s mother, Maria Thins. Until 15 December 1675, he suddenly died of illness.

His wife described his death by

“ …during the ruinous war with France he not only was unable to sell any of his art but also, to his great detriment, was left sitting with the paintings of other masters that he was dealing in. As a result and owing to the great burden of his children having no means of his own, he lapsed into such decay and decadence, which he had so taken to heart that, as if he had fallen into a frenzy, in a day and a half he went from being healthy to being dead.“

Art Style

In early, the warm colours of The Procuress relate Jan Vermeer’s style to the Rembrandt school, but the topic and composition displayed the influence of the Utrecht Caravaggism, of Caravaggio.

The Soldier and Laughing Girl noted the shift of Vermeer’s style because the pointillism first time appeared in his works.

Jan Vermeer usually made the light comes from the left in his works and used the light to build contrast with the shadings on the figures. He liked using yellow, blue and gray. Although some of those pigments are extremely expensive in that period, such as the lapis lazuli, he still used a lot of them in his arts even after his life was very impoverished after the Rampjaar.

Since the unimaginable details in Vermeer’s arts and his close relationship with Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, who invented single-lensed microscopes, a lot of people believe that Vermeer used camera obscura to support his creation.

Personal Opinions

Jan Vermeer is an unfortunate master. Although only a few of his works left now, we can still see what a strong dominance towards the light. His light is not so exactly sharp like Caravaggio, but more is a kind of gentle and warm. It makes me feel peaceful and comfortable, and even kind of truly touched with the warm light. His figures are not like others too, that are more normal and realistic. I really Raphael’s figures, but his paintings still are something untouchable that far away from life, however, Vermeer’s paintings are the absolutely normal humans. This sets the audiences closer to the art itself.

References

https://www.notablebiographies.com/Tu-We/Vermeer-Jan.html https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b0/Johannes_Vermeer_-The_Procuress-_Google_Art_Project.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/Johannes_Vermeer_-De_Soldaat_en_het_Lachende_Meisje-_Google_Art_Project.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d7/Meisje_met_de_parel.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Vermeer