Edgar Maxence: Symbolism via Women

There are plenty of images of the work of Edgar Maxence (1871-1954) on the Internet, but little information about him. His Wikipedia entry is here, and the French Wikipedia entry is about the same size. One possibly noteworthy fact is that he studied under Gustave Moreau, the noted Symbolist painter.

Maxence painted a good many religious scenes and a number of his other subjects were treated in a similar manner. He was a good draftsman and used other media besides oil. As best I can tell, he painted in a higher key (less darks) by the 1920s and some of his landscape paintings are loosely done. Perhaps because of the war or maybe because he had turned 70, his production seems to have fallen off drastically after 1941.

Although he occasionally depicted men, his subjects were almost always attractive young women.

Gallery

L'Âme de la Forêt - 1898

Les fleurs du lac - 1900
Note the two ladies glancing at us.  Plus the rare inclusion of male subjects.

La femme à l'orchidée - 1900
Might that be a cigarette in her right hand?  Don't notice any smoke, though.  Must be unlit.

Edelweiss
Not a religious painting, and not very Symbolic, so far as I can tell (though I'm ignorant of many symbols, religious or otherwise). But, as noted above, the treatment is similar.

Jeune fille nourrissant des cygnes

Portrait de jeune fille - c.1900

study of a young woman's head
It looks like the same model was used for these three paintings.  A caption I found on the Internet for the middle one stated that the media were watercolor, gouache and pastel.  The lower work clearly incorporates some watercolor.

Serenité - 1912

Le livre de la paix
All three women look like they were derived from the same model.

Reflection

Le carrefoure de Prigny
This is dated, but I can't quite read it. Might be 1944. But it's freely done and modernist-influenced.

Portrait du femme - 1941
One of his later works. Its style shows a modernist influence in its simplicity, but only slightly.

Chrysler 300C: An Unexpected Preview

Some concept cars are intended to test public reaction to various styling ideas.  Others are thinly-disguised versions of cars scheduled for production within the next year or two.  The latter are often easily identifiable and commented upon in car buff magazines.  Readers are left to wonder which features are production-bound and which are camouflage.

It turns out that the show car conceptualizing Chrysler's iconic 2005 300C didn't have a speck of teasing to it.  People at Chrysler probably were mostly interested in exposing the public to a design that would take some getting used to, due the fact that it was a strong break from current Chrysler designs as well as from most other designs on the road.  I certainly thought the 300C was odd-looking when I saw the first photos of it.  Actually, it wasn't until I began seeing 300s on streets and highways that the design began to appeal to me; about a year later, I bought an entry-level 300.

What is odd is that the real disguised "teaser" concept car for the 300C came from Ford, not Chrysler.  Let's take a look.

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2003 Chrysler 300C Concept Car The concept 300C is virtually identical to the 2005 production version introduced in 2004.

2001 Dodge Super 8 Hemi Concept Car
This concept car from Dodge contains some hints regarding the future Chrysler 300C design.  Those hints include the general brick-shape of the lower body, the fender shape (forget the grooves on the doors) and the wheel housing treatment.  Inclusion of a 1954-vintange General Motors style wraparound windshield is a cute diversion.

2003 Ford 427 Concept Car
This makes one wonder if Ford and Chrysler stylists were hanging out at the same bar in the early 2000s.  In reality, probably not.  That's because Joseph Baker, the 427's designer, was working at Ford's Irvine California studio, whereas I'm pretty sure that the 300C was styled in Detroit.  But aside from the front and rear ends, the two cars closely resemble one another.  Could the Irvine facility staff have included one or two recently hired stylists from Chrysler?
Also posted at Car Style Critic.

Werner von Axster-Heudtlass: Illustration Political, and Not

This is an advertisement for Eagle artistic silks, 1925.

And here is another piece by Werner von Axster-Heudtlass (1898-1949). My German was never good and now it's pretty rusty, but I translate the top slogan as "Hate and Destroy our Enemies" and the bottom one as "Freedom, Justice and Bread (for) our People." The "enemies" are labeled Judaism (in a secular sense, "Jewdom"), Bolshevism, Plutocracy and Capitalism.

I don't have a date for this Hitler Youth poster, but guess from the content that it was created before Hitler assumed power, probably sometime between 1927 and 1933.

What little is known about Axster-Heudtlass can be found here, though I suspect researchers in Germany might have dug out more. The link notes that he and his wife Maria (no dates) probably collaborated on some of the Axster-Heudtlass works.

I recently posted about Ludwig Hohlwein, a top-notch advertising illustrator who also created posters supporting the Nazi regime.  Hohlwein, as I noted in the post, did posters that were supportive in a positive sense and he steered clear of negative subjects.  This was not the case for Axster-Heudtlass who, in the poster above, depicts enemies that are evil serpents that must suffer destruction.

Below are examples of normal commercial art by Axster-Heundtlass along with one more Nazi propaganda piece.

"Merry Germany"

Steinway Pianos

Railway guide cover - 1936

Advertising the port city of Stettin (now in Poland) - 1934

This is another poster or flyer supporting the Nazi regime, probably from 1944-45. It's more difficult to translate than the one above, but goes something like this: "We listen to you, Leader. The future can bring us nothing save victory. [This next phrase is the tricky bit: help me, please, if it needs fixing] And if questioned as to its basis, we state: Because the Lord God gave us the Leader." "Leader" being the reference Hitler bestowed on himself -- Führer in German.

I am not fond of what might be called "political art," the political message almost always draining whatever artistic merit might have been incorporated in the work. Some artists do political art strictly to bring needed income, as if the assignment were just another form of advertising that required illustration. Others are in favor of the cause, as we see above. Axster-Heudtlass did some nice commercial work, but the Nazi pieces are clearly inferior. How much of this artistic damage was his own doing and how much might have been owed to the taste of clients is probably impossible to judge at this late date.

Irving Ramsey Wiles, Portrayer of Women

I measure artists' skill by how well they depict human beings. By this, I do not necessarily mean that such depictions are a measure of artistic greatness. There is more to greatness than how well humans are represented on a canvas or other surfaces, though in many cases I consider it an important factor.

One artist who skillfully portrayed many women was Irving Ramsey Wiles (1861-1948). Internet information on Wiles is pretty sparse. Here is his Wikipedia entry, and Charley Parker posted about him here. At the bottom, Parker mentions a book about Wiles that was forthcoming at the time he wrote the post. I looked it up on Amazon and saw that some of the reader reviews were very negative, mostly because the book apparently was poorly illustrated (few images, and those mostly in black and white).

Luckily for us, the Internet has a nice collection of Wiles' works in color. Here is a selection:

Gallery

Mrs. Wiles in the Garden

Russian Tea

Afternoon Tea on the Terrace

The Yellow Rose

Lady with blue hat

Portrait of a lady

The Reader

Woman in Blue - 1915

Brown Kimono

Wiles seems to have been a skilled painter, as the images above demonstrate. Greatness is even more subjective to evaluate than skill, so I'll set that aside.  My take is that he was good at the genre he pursued.  Not the very best, but not all that far behind on his better days.

Placing People on Red Backgrounds

Many (most?) of the how-to-paint books I've read at some point deal with color relationships. They show the differing effects on a color of interest when it is juxtaposed to other colors.

An interesting case is the skin color of Caucasians (whites). Although there are variations, so-called white skin is actually a subtle mix of hues that can seem to vary depending upon lighting conditions, presence of fat, bone or blood under the skin, and, of course, neighboring colors. Those books often focus on mixing colors so that the appearance of skin is convincing.

When it comes to neighboring colors, the orange-red-yellow part of the spectrum that happens to match white skin most closely is normally the least aesthetically pleasing range where Caucasian skin is concerned. However, rules are supposedly made to be broken, so some artists will take the risk of using such background hues. This might be done to create a particular mood for a painting or illustration, or it might simply be a means for the artist to test his skill and maybe even show off a bit.

Below are examples of images where red is the background color.

Gallery

Detroit Auto Show
This is a photograph I found on the Internet of a model posing in front of a Ferrari at the 2013 Detroit Auto Show. It illustrates what painters face. Note how gray the girl's face and body seem with all that Italian Racing Red behind her, not to mention the outfit she's wearing.

Lady in Black (The Red Room) by Irving Ramsey Wiles
Wiles avoids the grey effect by exaggerating the yellow aspect of "white" skin. The use of blacks in the composition helps to isolate the subject from the background red.  (But keep in mind that this image might not reflect the colors of the actual painting, so my analysis might be flawed.)

The Count of Monte Cristo - by Mead Schaeffer
I posted about this illustration here. Schaeffer also uses blacks to isolate the skin color from the background to some degree. Still, in the image above, the Count's skin seems grayed like that of the model in Detroit. But the link contains a photograph I took of the actual illustration, and it can be seen that Schaeffer introduced a greenish tint to the face. Green being the normal color wheel opposite to red, this helps keep the face from being absorbed or neutralized by the red background.

Millard Sheets: General-Purpose Artist

Millard Sheets (1907-1989), was a Californian involved in a variety of art-related activities ranging from watercolor and oil painting to mosaic design, architecture, and art school administration. This diversity of pursuits (perhaps along with the fact that he wasn't totally in the modernist/abstraction tank) might have diluted his image to the point where he isn't well known today.

Since I don't want this post to be too lengthy, I suggest that readers interested in details regarding Sheets' life and career link to here and here for plenty of information. His son maintains this site, the page I linked to containing examples of works that are confirmed as not being Sheets' paintings and others of dubious provenance.

Below are examples of what Sheets did.

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Angel's Flight - 1931
This early painting is perhaps his best-known. It deals with what might be the station platform for a funicular that transported people to the now vanished Bunker Hill neighborhood in downtown Los Angeles.

Tenement Flats - c.1934
This also looks like the old Bunker Hill area.

California - 1935

Padua Olive Hills Drive - 1940

World of Life - mural, Hesburgh Library, University of Notre Dame - 1964
Details regarding this project can be found here.

Home Savings Bank building - Sunset & Vine, Hollywood - 1968
Sheets was not a licensed architect. But his Millard Sheets Designs Company did have architects working under his direction. Sheets was responsible for many (most?) of the distinctive Home Savings buildings with sculpted motifs that graced California from the 1960s into the 1990s. Home Savings is no more, having been passed to Washington Mutual and then Chase. Many of the former Home Savings buildings have lost their former distinctiveness.

In the Beginning: Giovanni Battista Tiepolo

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696-1770) is one of my favorite 18th century artists. That's because, unlike many others who painted classical and religious scenes, his women's faces looked like those of real people rather than the idealized versions inspired by Greek and Roman sculpture. His Wikipedia entry is here, and I wrote about those women here.

Although he burst on the artistic scene when fairly young, a certain amount of ramping up was inevitable. In this post, we take a look at some paintings he made by the time he reached his mid-20s. Click on the images to enlarge.

Gallery

Virgin Mary Appearing to the Dominican Saints - 1747-48
This is a painting from Tiepolo's mature period indicating where he evolved.

Doge Marco Cornaro - c.1716
He was about 20 when this was painted. Most artists agree that hands are harder to depict than faces, but here Tiepolo does a decent job on the hands whereas the treatment of the Doge's face is questionable. But the Doge was a patron and helped Tiepolo to become established, so perhaps that's how the man really looked.

Apostolo Tommaso - 1715-16

Apostolo Giovanni - 1715-16
These are a pair of works fitted into the architecture of the Santa Maria dei Derelitti (Ospedaletto) in Venice.  I find these interesting because of the way Tiepolo includes many facets or planes while constructing the figures.

Scipio Africanus Fleeing Massiva - 1719-21

The Martyrdom of St. Bartholomew - 1722
By this point Tiepolo is settling into his oil-on-canvas style (his mural work was a different matter).

The Astonishing Pegaso

Not many Pegaso automobiles were ever built during the period 1951-57 when the brand was active.  Cars were a minor activity of what was essentially a Barcelona based truck manufacturer described here.

There is also some Internet-based information regarding the Pegaso automobile line here and here. However, there is very little other than photographs having to do with the Pegaso that interests me the most.  In fact, there seems to be no agreement even as to its name other than it was one of the Z-102 series.  Besides Z-102, its name might have included "BS 2.5 Cúpola" or "Berlineta Cúpola" or just "Cúpola."

It is also unclear who styled it.  Some sources credit Italian coachbuilders, others suggest that Pegaso built it in-house.  I have been saying "it" having for years assumed that it was a one-off, but several sources indicate that two cars of the design were actually built.

What matters is that the Pegaso under discussion has a design that was astonishing when it first appeared more than 60 years ago and that continues to astonish (me, anyway) even now.  This is not to say the design is a great one, but it's a good one with the ability to fascinate as well as astonish.

Let's take a look.

Gallery

The original car was painted yellow, as shown here.  The most serious design defect was that the backlight (rear window) shape failed to blend with the roofline curve, as is evident in this side view.

After being introduced in Europe in 1952 it was displayed at the 1953 New York Auto Show, where this photo was taken.

Here is another early picture.  For a while a red (I think) stripe decorated the top of the car.

This is a fairly recent picture, probably taken at a concours d'élégance.  The paint is now silver, but it might be that second car whose original paint color is unknown to me.

Another view, this featuring the front end.  The wheel housings are mostly covered by the fenders, probably for aerodynamic reasons.  This implies a wide side overhang beyond the wheels which would give the Pegaso an awkward appearance (to our eyes in 2013) if seen from the rear.

This shows the Pegaso "opened up."  Well, not completely opened; the access panel covering the rear wheel remains closed.  Also note that the door windows do not roll down due to the extreme concave shape of the inner side of the door; instead, they swing out to open.

This article is also posted on Car Style Critic