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Captain Gilbert Heathcote : William Owen

… brushstroke bravado …

Heathcliff Royal Navy Nelson

Why the Birmingham Art Gallery and Museum doesn’t make more of this lush portrait, goodness only knows.

This is one of William Owen‘s finest portraits. He painted Captain Gilbert sometime between 1801-05 whilst he was in his mid-twenties and a dashing Naval officer in the Napoleonic Wars. The face is finely worked whilst the rest of the picture is a virtuoso demonstration of impressionistic paint handling. The loose brushwork of his gold braiding, epaulettes and buttons add a very glamorous swagger to the Captain.

heathcotesleeve

Born in Shropshire, William Owen was apprenticed to a coach painter and then sent to the Royal Academy School in 1791 when he was 22. Owen was a success and in 1810 he was appointed portrait painter to the Prince of Wales, later George IV;  however the prince never gave Owen a sitting and in 1813, when Owen was offered a knighthood, he declined. Whether out of exasperation or disappointment, I cannot find out.

In 1825 Owen died of accidental poisoning by an overdose of ‘Barclay’s Drops’, a heady mixture of aniseed, camphor and opium, after a chemist had mislabelled his bottles.

Portrait of Captain Gilbert Heathcote, 1802-5, (Birmingham Art Gallery & Museum) by William Owen (1769 – 1825).

 

 

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Berthe Morisot : Édouard Manet

… sassy, confident and alive …

berthe_morisot_by_manet

How I love this portrait of Berthe Morisot! She looks sassy, confident and alive. It was painted by her friend, colleague and perhaps lover, Edouard Manet, in 1873 when she was 32 years old.

In 1868, the year they met, Edouard was eight years old than the 27 year old Berthe and he was already married. He joked in a letter to Fantin-Latour: “The young Morisot girls are charming. It’s annoying that they are not men…they could serve the cause of painting by each marrying a member of the French Academy & sowing discord in the camp of those dotards, though that would be asking for considerable self-sacrifice.”” * She married his brother, Eugene, in 1874 .

Berthe Morisot (January 14, 1841 – March 2, 1895) was a leading pioneer of Impressionism though her work and her influence lacks the attention of her peers because of the social context of her time and also the prejudices of later art criticism. She chose to use her maiden name and exhibited regularly alongside her more famous colleagues.  In 1890, Berthe Morisot confided in a notebook: “I don’t think there has ever been a man who treated a woman as an equal, and that’s all I would have asked, for I know I’m worth as much as they.” **

morisotphoto

In fact her story is so intriguing, Berthe has taken over this post – which I thought was going to be about the painter, Manet. (Photo, c. 1870)

Portrait of Berthe Morisot, 1882, (Marmottan Monet museum) by Édouard Manet (23 January 1832 – 30 April 1883)

There is a very interesting and detailed blog about Berthe and her relationship with Manet at Julie Schauer’s Artventures.

The Marmottan Monet museum’s website is http://www.marmottan.fr/

* Jeffrey Meyers: The Impresionist Quartet: The Intimate genius of Manet and Morisot, Degas and Cassat.

** Review by: Therese Dolan in Woman’s Art Journal, Vol. 15, No. 2 (Autumn, 1994 – Winter, 1995), pp. 40-43 – Perspectives on Morisot by Teri J. Edelstein; Berthe Morisot by Anne Higonnet; Berthe Morisot’s Images of Women by Anne Higonnet.

 

 

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Quince, cabbage, melon & cucumber: Juan Sanchez Cotan

… intriguing still life … 

still life bodegón melon quince cucumber

Quince, Cabbage, Melon and Cucumber, 1602, (San Diego Museum of Art) by Juan Sánchez Cotán (June 25, 1560 – September 8, 1627) was a Spanish painter, now famous for being a pioneer of a Spanish form of still life painting which is also called bodegón.

The Spanish term bodega is a pretty movable term Continue reading “Quince, cabbage, melon & cucumber: Juan Sanchez Cotan” →

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A Griffin, a Fire Demon and a Monster.

… C17th extravaganza …

ommegriffinThere’s a side to C17th Europe which fascinates me: the Courtly emphasis on masquing and processions.  These theatrical displays employed the finest painters, writers and architects, cost fabulous amounts and, being largely ephemeral, can only be caught via hasty sketches, terse descriptions and the occasional commissioned painting or engraving.

In London’s V&A we are lucky enough to have The Ommeganck in Brussels on 31 May 1615: The Triumph of Archduchess Isabella. It was commissioned by the Archduke Albert and Archduchess Isabella to celebrate an Ommegang. This was an important civic procession honouring Isabella as Queen of the procession and the scene shows the ten pageant cars that formed the most spectacular element of the parade.

These must have been the equivalent of the big budget movie extravaganzas of their time with fantastical beasts, special effects and royalty on display.

There’s huge unicorns and griffins made from wickerwork and painted canvas; special effects like this demon who holds a fire club, a fizzing hollow reed packed with charcoal and gunpowder;

ommefire

and a scary backwards monster waving a bladder (?) to amuse the crowds.

ommeback

The V&A has a marvellous interactive programme of the work where you can zoom in, roam around and read details about various elements of this large painting.  The work and the computer display can be found in the Europe 1600-1715 Galleries but can be overlooked as it’s in a low lit corner.

There’s another scene of this festival in the Prado.  It appears they got the boring religious procession whereas we’ve got the lighter side of the affair. Huzzah.

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