Ilya Repin's Portrait Studies

The image above is of the painting "Formal Session of the State Council in Honor of Its Centenary on May 7th, 1901" painted in 1903 by the Russian master, Ilya Repin (1844-1930). Information on the nature of the Council can be found here.

The painting is huge, occupying much of a wall in the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg. The museum is well worth seeing if you are interested in Russian art and have any time or energy left after traipsing through the Hermitage.

According to David Jackson in this book (pp. 168-70):

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Repin was given extraordinary permission to study council meetings, having insisted that everything be done from life. He worked on the enormous canvas between April 1901 and December 1903 with assistance of two pupils, Boris Kusodiev and Ivan Kulikov. It presented formidable technical problems, not least the perspective of the circular chamber, but also the complexity of arranging scores of figures of varying sizes whilst seeking to retain a harmonious colour scheme amongst a riot of official uniforms and sumptuous furnishings. In the event the Tsar was pushed to the background as Repin was forced to reduce the actual number of members to a more manageable figure.

Several artistic devices were employed to to solve these difficulties. The fore-figures are painted larger than life to forestall the portraits in the background dwindling to minisule proportions. To solve the difficulties of perspective the chamber is seen from a number of converging viewpoints, rather than any single one. All lines in the picture bend rather than travel straight, since a true rendition would create the illusion of concavity and collapse. To harmonise the colour scheme complementary tones were highlighted; black, red and yellow, punctuated with the sky-blue of members' sashes.

There is some doubt as to how much of the finished work is by Repin as there are discrepancies in quality between the figures, though this does not necessarily point to his assistants. From the late 1890s he began to suffer increasing pains in his right hand which had begun to atrophy due to a lifetime's overwork.... According to Repin he painted the entire canvas with only the use of his left hand, though he was still stubbornly trying to use his natural hand as late as 1917....

Natalya Nordman, Repin's companion at this time, used a Kodak camera to assist in the process of recording data, but Repin insisted upon personal sittings which he integrated into the overall composition and the work was finished in a surprisingly short time, less than three years.

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Here are some of the portrait studies Repin made.

Gallery

Count Dmitry Martynovich Solsky - 1903

Unidentified

Konstantin Pobedonostsev - 1903

Prince Mikhail Sergeyevich Volkonsky - 1903

Sergei Witte - 1903

Count Aleksey Pavlovich Ignatiev - 1902

Molti Ritratti: Aline Masson by Madrazo

Raimundo de Madrazo y Garreta (1841-1920), son of the artist Frederico de Madrazo (1815-94), although a Spaniard, was born in Rome and spent much of his career in France. Biographical information about him on the Internet is sparse: his Wikipedia entry in English says almost nothing, though his Spanish entry is better.

Madrazo was no third-rater, so far as Spaniards are concerned; the Prado museum in Madrid has a room devoted to his work. I'll try to get around to showing more varied examples later, but for now I'll focus on paintings he made of what seems to have been of his favorite model, Aline Masson.

I find it somewhat interesting that we know Aline by name, because many models used by famous artists are anonymous, such as those I wrote about here.

Let's take a look Mlle. Masson as seen by Madrazo.

Gallery

La modelo Aline Masson

Aline Masson in Blue

Aline Masson in a White Mantilla

Aline fixing a hat

Aline Masson Leaning Against a Sofa

Woman in white and pink

The Love Letter

Molti Ritratti: Ida Rubinstein

Ida Rubenstein (1885-1960) was a Russian ballerina whose distinctive appearance appealed to painters even at a time when she could easily be photographed. Her Wikipedia entry is here, and it states that because her formal ballet training was limited, she was never first-rate in her field; she compensated by virtue of her stage presence.

Let's take a look.

Gallery

Ida Rubinsteitn as Phaedra - 1923
Here is a photograph taken a few years after the paintings below were completed.

By Leo Bakst (Ida as Cleopatra) - 1909
Bakst was the ace costume designer for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes.

By Leon Bakst - c.1910
Here is another Bakst take on Rubinstein, a portrait rather than illustrating a costume concept.

By Valentin Serov - 1910
Serov was a master of Russian portraiture. Most of his works were naturalist, but this Rubinstein shows him drifting into modernism shortly before his death.

By Antonio de la Gándara - 1913
Gándara was a fashionable artist based in Paris, so this portrait was probably painted while the troupe was there on tour.

By Romaine Brooks - 1917
Brooks had a three-year affair with Rubinstein, and this is one of the paintings from that time.

Molti Ritratti: Circe

As an artist, what's not to like about the subject of Circe, a beautiful enchantress whose hobby is turning men into animals (some women might object to the "turning" part). Adding more dramatic spice, the Homeric character Ulysses and his crew arrive at Circe's place during the course of the Odyssey and he and Circe square off. For a more detailed, scholarly account of Circe, click here.)

Depictions of Circe, with or without Ulysses, began centuries ago and continue up to the present age of digital illustration. The selection below is centered in Victorian times but includes several outliers.

Gallery

By Francesco Maffei - c.1650

By George Romney - "Lady Hamilton as Circe" - c.1782
Emma Hamilton while living in Naples entranced Lord Nelson when his squadron patrolled the Mediterranean. The painter Romney had also fallen under her spell and this painting of her as Circe is one of many he made of her.

By Wright Barker - 1889

By Gustave Adolphe Mossai - 1904

By Franz von Stuck - "Tilla Durieux as Circe" - 1913

By George Grosz - 1927
Grosz is perhaps best known for his crudely done politically-themed works. This one is unusual because he introduced a classical theme to the normally contemporary setting of his objects of scorn.

Now for my current favorites...

By Charles Hermans - 1881
A contemporary (for the artist) Circe setting with the Ulysses stand-in getting the worse of it.

By J.W. Waterhouse "Circe Offering the Cup to Ulysses" - 1892

By J.W. Waterhouse - "Circe Invidiosa"
Waterhouse painted at least one more Circe, but it lacks the drama of these fine images that I consider among his best.

Molti Ritratti: Kiki de Montparnasse

Alice Prin (1901-53), better known as Kiki de Montparnasse, was the archetypical artist's model / bohemian bon vivante of 1920s Paris. Never-married, her best-known companion was Man Ray, who painted in Dada-Surrealist modes but is best known as a photographer ranging from experimental work to high fashion. He took many pictures of Kiki, some of which are indeed iconic.

I found biographical information about her on the Internet to be rather skimpy. Here is her Wikipedia entry in English and the French entry is here. Neither is truly informative, though the general path of her life is sketched. A source I like is this book which contains a decent amount of text along with scads of fascinating photos of Kiki and many of the rest of the arty crowd that inhabited the Left Bank; the coverage is roughly 1900 to 1930.

The Internet offers many photos of Kiki, but not a lot of paintings. And many of those painting are of her "in the nude" as it was once politely phrased -- she was an artist's model, after all. Nevertheless, below are a few photographs to set the scene, followed by interpretations of her face by various painters.

Gallery

By Man Ray

When proclaimed "Queen of Montparnasse"

By André Kertész - 1927

With Alexander Calder

By Foujita

By Man Ray - 1923

By Luigi Corbellini

By Gustaw Gwozdecki

By Moise Kisling

By Kees van Dongen

By Per Krogh - 1928

Note that even the photographs show that Kiki's appearance was elusive. In part this had to do with camera angle, lighting and whatever makeup she was wearing. Otherwise, her shape changed over the 1920s as she got older and added weight: note how she looks in the Kertész photo (and how Krogh slimmed her down).

Molti Ritratti: Andrew Jackson

Andrew Jackson (1767-1845), seventh president of the United States (1829-1837), lived just long enough to have had a few photographic portraits taken. For most of his life his image had to be recorded by various artists, which is the point of this continuing Molti Ritratti (many portraits) series.

Let's begin at the end with a couple of those late-in-life photographs.

From 1844-45

From 1845
The second image appears to be retouched, assuming that the top image and another I found via Google are representative of the quality of the time.

Now let's have the painters have their say:

Gallery

By Samuel Lovett Waldo - 1817; black & white image of a painting
This strikes me as one of the better images of Jackson. Note to self: find some information on Waldo.

By Ralph E.W. Earl - 1817
Apparently Earl and Jackson were friends, and he did several portraits of his subject over the years.

By Thomas Sully - 1824
Thomas Sully, perhaps the best portrait painter in America in his day, also did several paintings of Jackson. The color on this image was altered digitally by someone who didn't seem to like an equally oddly colored version on a Wikipedia site.

By Asher Durand - 1835
Durand was another competent portraitist of the first half of the 19th century in America.

By Ralph E.W. Earl - 1837
Another version of Jackson by Earl, who wasn't in the same league as Sully and Durand. This portrait strikes me as being too abstracted from what the painter actually saw; could it have been done from memory?

By Thomas Sully - 1845
This Sully painting was done shortly after Jackson's death. It might be strictly from memory or perhaps the artist relied on his earlier sketches and paintings of the former president. Regardless, this is the image of Jackson most familiar to Americans because it served as the basis for the engraved portrait on ten dollars bills.

Herb Kane on Art Training and Portrait Subjects

In the previous post I presented some works by Herb Kane, master illustrator of Hawaiian history.

The present post is devoted to some of Kane's views on art training, illustration and dealing with portrait subjects, as presented in his book Voyagers. Kane attended the school at Chicago's Art Institute and pursued a career in illustration in that city for several years before moving to Hawaii and taking up the depiction of Hawaii's past. I'm presenting his views because I agree with them and thought readers might be interested in hearing them from a different source.

In high school, storytelling through painting became my great interest. I was inspired by the work of American regionalists Thomas Hart Benton and Grant Wood. After serving in the Navy, I enrolled at the Art Institute of Chicago, but discovered that representational art which conveyed a mood or message was no longer labeled as real 'Art,' but as 'mere illustration.'

With the death of regionalism, art faced the new requirement of being 'universal.' Craving acceptance from my peers, like any twenty year old, I applied myself to learning formulas for what then passed as advanced theories of painting; that year it was abstract expressionism.

Of all possible subjects, Homo Sapiens has always held the most interest for Homo Sapiens. Artists who represent the human figure with skill and sensitivity will find larger and more interested audiences than artists who do not.

There have been great painters of landscape, still life, and natural history subjects to be sure, and in the last century some outstanding painters of non-representational art; but the history of art is largely the family album of humanity. Ironically, of all subjects, it is the human figure, the one subject with which viewers are most familiar and critical, that proves the most difficult. Learning to draw this figure with authority has allowed competent figure painters to surmount this difficulty, but then competent figure painters have always been a minority.

That minority is smaller today than it has been for centuries. Learning to draw, which is learning to see clearly, requires a laborious effort in which there is no instant gratification. Drawing classes have always been unpopular with art students, which may be why they are no longer required by art schools or university art departments, where the primary concern seems to be keeping up enrollments. The assumption is that drawing is not fundamental to to current art theory.

Kane goes on to mention that the Art Institute in his day had a few hard-nosed traditionalists who provided the training he needed. When he went to work in an illustration studio, he found that "Here, alive and well, was the ancient master-apprentice system, only superficially different from the way it had operated since the Middle Ages" -- another good thing for his development.

I'll finish with some of Kane's views regarding portrait painting that you might find entertaining:

Women of middle age are the most difficult portrait clients if they have not yet become resigned to their years. In her mirror, each still sees the girl in her twenties that she once was. No honest likeness will please them, and they can easily find others who will agree that the artist has missed his mark.

Most men will not object to features of age that may add character to their faces. They are usually less interested in handsome appearance, but more interested in portraiture which conveys some impression of their status. Everyone who has passed forty seems to think of himself as a young person. Nobody can know how he or she is seen by others. This is why the portrait painter is often frightening to his sitter; and why each may find the other so difficult and sometimes so impossible to forgive....

I think it was Sir Joshua Reynolds who said that when faced with a difficult female subject, he always painted the most beautiful face he could imagine; then added only those adjustments necessary to make it resemble the sitter.

Quotes are from the third (2006) printing, pages 12-17 and 142.

Molti Ritratti: Salome

Salome was quite the gal, as this Wikipedia entry indicates. Dancing, sexiness, murder and other factors contribute to rich grounds for artists to exploit. I was even about to use the work "beauty," in the last sentence but did not. That's because no one since her days has had any idea what she looked like. The best we have is the image on the coin shown below, and it isn't very inspiring.

This lack of information was never a barrier to artists who were handed subject matter to spare plus unlimited freedom to imagine her. Below are some examples of her depiction in approximate chronological order.

Gallery

By Titian

By Caravaggio

By Henri Regnault

By Gustave Moreau

By Pierre Bonnaud

By Ella Ferris Pell

By Aubrey Beardsley

By Robert Henri

By Franz von Stuck

By Lovis Corinth

By Nelson Shanks

And which Salome has the most appeal? Beats me. I'll take any of them except, perhaps, the image from Beardsley (nice drawing that it is). And the one on the coin.