On this Date in History, August 24: Birth of Lavinia Fontana, death of Parmigianino

What happened in the arts on this date in history, August 24? Italian Renaissance Painter Lavinia Fontana was born in Bologna in 1552, this date also marks the death of the Mannerist painter Parmigianino in 1540.

The Holy Family with Saint Catherine of Alexandria, Lavinia Fontana, 1581, LACMA

Lavinia Fontana (August 24, 1552 – August 11, 1614) was an Italian Renaissance painter who was born and trained in Bologna, a city which provided more opportunities for women. 

She first studied painting under her father, Prospero, who studied under the famous Giorgio Vasari.  Prospero Fontana also taught Ludovico Caracci.  Later Ludovico and other members of the Caracci family opened one of the first art schools in Europe, the Accademia degli Incamminati in 1580.  Fontana married and had 11 children, her husband Paolo Zappi worked as both her studio assistant and main caretaker for them.  Fontana supported their family through her painting, while this was quite unusual for the time Paolo recognized and supported her great talent as a painter.
 

After Cardinal Ippolito Aldobrandini became Pope Clement VIII in 1592, she and her family moved to Rome in the early 17th century when he called for her to work for him.  She was very highly regarded, successful and sought after as an artist.

Portrait of a Noblewoman, Lavinia Fontana, 1580,
National Museum of Women in the Arts

Parmigianino (January 11, 1503 – August 24 1540) died on this day in 1540.  Born as Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola, he got his nickname as he was from the city of Parma.

Madonna with the Long Neck, Parmigianino, 1534-40, Uffizi Gallery, Florence

The Italian Mannerist painter known as Parmigianino painted many works, his portraits were quite realistic, but today his most famous painting is a work which has come to be known as the Madonna with the Long Neck.  Mannerism was the style that directly followed the High Renaissance and is known for figures with elongated limbs, bright unnatural colors and asymmetrical, crowded compositions.  The style was considered elegant and was favored by the Medici family, though today it is often thought of as much less harmonious than the High Renaissance.  Mannerist painters were influenced greatly by similar elements within the work of Michelangelo.  Parmigianino's Madonna is one of the most well known Italian Mannerist Paintings.

Gage Georgetown Calling: Art Lecture Series with Emily Pothast

Gage Academy of Art has a new location in Georgetown that opened last fall and starting in 2017 there is a new art history lecture series taught by visual artist, musician, arts writer and curator, Emily Pothast.  Emily will lecture on a wide variety of subjects from Hilma Af Klint to Marcel Duchamp to Albrecht Dürer.  Each hour long lecture will be followed by an hour long art workshop tying in to the subject matter.

Hilma af Klint, The Ten Largest, 1907

Gage Georgetown Calling: Art Lecture Series with Emily Pothast

Lecturer: Emily Pothast
Third Thursdays
Lecture: 7:00 P.M. – 8:00 P.M.
Studio Workshop: 8:15 P.M. – 9:15 P.M.

September 21 | Hilma Af Klint and the Birth of Abstraction
Historians once believed that Kandinsky was the first European artist to paint truly abstract works. We now know that he was preceded by at least two female artists: the Swedish mystic Hilma af Klint and the even earlier Victorian spiritualist Georgiana Houghton. This lecture introduces the work of these and other often overlooked artists in the context of early 20th century cultural movements.

October 19 | The Secret History of Feminist Self-Portraiture
In the 1980s, the Guerilla Girls asked, “Do women have to be naked to get into the Met?” noting that fewer than 5% of the artists in the museum’s collection were women, but 85% of the nudes were female. Art historians have, however, speculated that the proportions of the Paleolithic Venus of Willendorf suggest that she might be a self-portrait. Using this possibility as a point of departure, this class will delve into the history of the body in feminist and women’s art, examining how our experience of the gaze shifts when women are in command of their own images.

Jan Van Eyck, The Arnolfini Wedding Portrait, 1434, National Gallery, London

November 16 | Sacred Geometry for Artists

In addition to their anatomical study of the human form, artists like Jan Van Eyck, Leonardo da Vinci, and Albrecht Dürer have also studied geometry in an attempt to determine how the mind interprets certain arrangements of shape and form as beautiful. This class starts with the natural world as the basis for proportion, exploring how the underlying ratios of nature have given rise to the field of sacred geometry, with exercises you can use to explore visual mathematics on your own.
 
December 21 | Marcel Duchamp: Étant Donnés and The Large Glass
A household name for his readymades and meta-art antics, Marcel Duchamp’s most complex works—The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors, Even (also known as The Large Glass) and the mysterious, posthumously-installed Étant Donnés are far more enigmatic than the one-liners he is best known for. Using Duchamp’s historical context and the detailed diagrams the artist created for both works, this lecture will shed some light on the fascinating relationship between these two extraordinary works of art.
 
January 18 | The Graphic Works of Albrecht Dürer
Once considered the greatest painter in Northern Europe, Albrecht Dürer also wrote the first textbooks in mathematics in the German language. Dürer’s woodcuts and etchings on religious and secular themes reflect the transformative politics of the Protestant Reformation, as well as an interest in science and mathematics that would soon come to eclipse religious thought in Europe. This lecture will serve as an introduction to the graphic art of Albrecht Dürer in its historical context.

February  15 | Eternity in an Hour: An Introduction to the Art of William Blake
Largely unrecognized during his lifetime, the English Romantic painter, printmaker, and poet William Blake created a highly distinctive visual language that delights and confounds viewers to this day. This lecture will serve as an introduction to the visual works of William Blake in the context of his spiritual and poetic writings.



Michelangelo, David, 1501-04, Galleria dell'Accademia (Florence)

 March 15 | The Male Nude

Female nudes may be ubiquitous in the history of art, but a sizable number of male nudes are out there, too, both idealized and unglamorous. This class will serve as an introduction to the history of the male nude in sculpture, painting, and photography.

 April 19 | A Survey of Female Surrealists

Some female surrealists, like Frida Kahlo, are household names. Others, like Leonora Carrington, Kay Sage, and Maria Martins, should be. This class will serve as an introduction to themes of surrealism through the work of a diverse group of women artists.

May 17 | Powerful Void: The Life and Work of Lee Bontecou

In the 1960s, Lee Bontecou rose to prominence with her distinctive welded steel and canvas sculptures. Then, in the 1980s, she all but disappeared from the New York art scene, retreating to the Pennsylvania countryside. This class will explore Bontecou’s category-defying life, career, and body of work.

 

 

On this Date in History, August 21: Mona Lisa stolen, birth of Greuze and Beardsley

On August 21, 2017 most of North America will be watching the skies for the total solar eclipse.  What events in art history happened on August 21?  In 1911 the Mona Lisa was famously stolen from the Louvre, in 1725 the French painter Jean-Baptiste Greuze was born and in 1872 English artist Aubrey Beardsley was born.

Portrait of Benjamin Franklin, Greuze, 1777, American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia

Jean-Baptiste Greuze was born on this day in 1725, (21 August 1725 – 4 March 1805). He was a French Neoclassical painter famous for his portraits and genre scenes.  He painted the portraits of dozens of sitters and his genre scenes often had a moralizing message imbedded in the subject matter.

I thought it was fitting to show Greuze's portrait of Benjamin Franklin since the last time a total solar eclipse had a path of totality solely visible in the United States before 2017 was in 1776.  1776 of course being the year that the United States Declaration of Independence was written and Benjamin Franklin was one of the signers of that document, and the oldest of the signers at 70 years old.

The Peacock Skirt, Aubrey Beardsley, illustration for Oscar Wilde's play Salomé (1892)

1872- Aubrey Beardsley (August 21, 1872 – March 16, 1898), the English Art Noveau artist was born.  Beardsley only lived to be 21 years old, he is best remembered for his fantastical illustrations for Oscar Wilde's play Salomé.

Mona Lisa, (La Gioconda), Leonardo da Vinci, 1503-06, The Louvre

On August 21, 1911 the Mona Lisa was famously stolen from The Louvre in Paris.  Leonardo lived and worked in France for the French king and died outside of Paris in 1519.  Due to this the Louvre has at least six paintings as well as dozens of drawings.

A man named Vincenzo Peruggia who worked at the Louvre was Italian and felt that the Mona Lisa should be returned to Italy.  As an employee he was able to take it from the frame and sneak it out of the building. When word got out about the theft the public was shocked. It was said that more people came to the Louvre to see the empty frame in the month after it was stolen than visited the museum the previous year.

It was recovered two years later and today hangs behind glass and a rope and is usually surrounded by a large crowd.  

September 2017 Art Talks Lecture Series

The Gates of Paradise, Lorenzo Ghiberti, 1425-52, Baptistery Doors, Florence, Italy

I will be lecturing at the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art on one of my very favorite works of art this September, The Gates of Paradise.  After our workshop in Florence I am newly inspired to discuss Lorenzo Ghiberti's masterpiece that I just saw in person.  I am happy to be part of this series which also includes Gage Academy of Art Artistic Director, Gary Faigin and Rebecca Albiani who has for years given the very popular art history lectures at the Frye Art Museum.  My lecture is Saturday, September 9 at 10:00am, for anyone who lives locally I hope to see you there!

 

Library U & BIMA - ART Talks Lecture Series

Kitsap Regional Library’s LibraryU and Bainbridge Island Museum of Art are thrilled to host Carol Hendricks, Rebecca Albiani and Gary Faigin for the September ART Talks lecture Series. With decades of experience between them, each speaker has uniquely invested their time, skills and passion toward deepening their understanding of art methodologies and ideologies.  Join us as we explore three distinct and riveting topics!

Free with $5 Suggested Donation at the door
Doors open at 9:45
Lecture from 10:00am–11:30am
BIMA Auditorium
REGISTER HERE

Carol Hendricks
The Gates of Paradise
Saturday, September 9th
Lorenzo Ghiberti’s seminal work, the east set of bronze doors for the Florence Baptistery, was dubbed “The Gates of Paradise” by Michelangelo for its unparalleled beauty and innovative approach to the subject matter.  In 1401 a competition for an earlier set of doors started a rivalry between Brunelleschi and Ghiberti which ignited the beginning of the Renaissance.  As a direct result the Cathedral’s dome was built, one-point perspective was invented, the first nude life-sized figures since antiquity were sculpted and a new way of thinking about art was born.

Rebecca Albiani
Documenting the Dust Bowl:  Dorothea Lange and Marion Post
Saturday, September 16th
During the New Deal response to the Depression, Dorothea Lange and Marion Post Wolcott were part of the team of talented photographers dispatched by the Farm Security Administration to record conditions in the rural US.  The two women produced a vast and impressive body of work under challenging circumstances; Lange’s Migrant Mother and Post's Tenant Farmer's Children, Rickets have become icons of the hardscrabble thirties.  

Gary Faigin
How Does an Artist Become a Legend? The Epic Journey of Giorgio Morandi 
Saturday, September 23rd
The life of Italian artist Giorgio Morandi is indeed the stuff of legends.  Never married, sharing a small apartment with his three sisters, and painting the same collection of pots, pans, and cups for almost 50 years, Morandi created a body of work unmatched in its intense exploration of the mystery of perception and the shifting nature of reality.  Gary Faigin, himself a painter of still lives for 30 years, will share his insights into the surprisingly adventurous and lively work of this eccentric and beloved master.