Really Large War Paintings in the Arte Moderna

There is a gallery in Paris' Louvre that, if memory serves, has nothing but huge easel paintings.  Painting huge was not unusual during the 19th century.  However, that largely fell out of fashion during the 20th, aside from murals (exceptions include Robert Rauschenberg's "F-111" and Chuck Close's monster portraits).

Following the Risorgimento, when Italy was transformed from a geographical place to a political entity, a degree of nationalism was generated. Not to be outdone by the French, some huge paintings were commissioned that commemorated battles of the Italian unification effort and subsequent conflicts. A few of these can be seen in Rome's Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna (Web site here).

I visited the Arte Moderna recently and took some photos of huge war paintings by Giovanni Fattori (1825-1908) and Michele Cammarano (1835-1920). I included a bit of the surroundings so that you might get a sense of the scale of these works. Click on the images to enlarge.

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La battaglia di Custoza [fought 1848] - Fattori, 1880

La battaglia di San Martino [better known as Solferino, fought 1859] - Cammarino, 1880-83

La battaglia di Dogali [fought 1887 in Abyssinia] - Cammarano, 1896

Hans Liska: Equally Good Drawing People and Machines

Some artists are good at people, but seem clueless when it comes to man-make artifacts -- sometimes buildings, but more usually cars, airplanes, ships and such. Others are all-rounders who seem to be able to draw almost anything convincingly. One such artist was the illustrator Hans Liska (1908-1983).

Internet biographical information is sparse. A Wikipedia entry in German is here. You can click on the translation button for an English version, but the result isn't very pretty and might even be misleading in places. And there is a website devoted to Liska that has this biographical page; its English also isn't the best, but it presents the basic facts. This site also includes plenty of samples of Liska's works that, unfortunately, have the website watermark on them.

In  a nutshell, Liska was born in Vienna, received early art training in Austria, and then moved to Germany for further training and to establish his career. During World War 2 he was in the army, attached to a public relations unit. In that role, he produced sketchbooks that served as wartime publications which are highly valued nowadays. Postwar, he moved to a town near Bamberg (my favorite small German city) and did a good deal of work for Mercedes and other auto industry firms.

Here are examples of Liska's work.

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Sketches of cameramen in a public relation unit

Junkers Ju 88 overflying destroyed Russian aircraft - probably 1941

Junkers Ju 88

Junkers Ju 87 Stukas being serviced

Machine gun crew

Nebelwerfer ("fog-weapon") rocket salvo

Paris casino showgirls as seen two months after France fell

Mercedes-Benz brochure cover art - 1951

Mercedes 180D competing in the 1955 Mille Miglia race

Up Close: Boldini's Casati with Peacock Feathers

I was in Rome recently and made sure to revisit the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna (Web site here). It's on the grounds of the Villa Borghese, which puts it slightly off the usual tourist track. Nevertheless, it's worth a visit for those interested in 19th and early 20th century Italian painting.

One of the Galleria's noteworthy items is a portrait of the colorful Marchesa Luisa Casati (1881-1957) who inherited great wealth and spent it away by the 1930s. She was portrayed by many artists, including Giovanni Boldini (1842-1931) who depicted her at least twice.

One of these portraits can be seen in the Galleria, as the images below attest.

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La marchesa Luisa Casati con penne di pavone - 1911-13
This is a public domain image of the painting from the Internet.

And this is what my camera captured in the gallery. Outside light was coming from the left, which affects what you see here and below compared to the Internet-sourced image at the top. This supposed defect is actually beneficial, because it captures Boldini's impasto and other brushwork better.

A closer view of the subject.  A bit of the frame was included to allow the camera to get a better focus (many paintings lack crisp edges, and can confuse a camera).

An even tighter shot featuring La Casati's face. Click on images to enlarge.

Bradshaw Crandell's Glamour-Face Niche

The time was -- and maybe still is -- that a fairly safe way to build a successful career in art involved being able to paint faces of beautiful women. For illustrators the marketing sweet-spot was magazine covers, be they movie fan magazines, women's magazines or even general-interest magazines.

There were several illustrators whose careers were devoted to that subject, perhaps most notably Harrison Fisher, whose works dominated the covers of Cosmopolitan Magazine for the first three decades of the 20th century.

The present post deals with Bradshaw Crandell (1896-1966), who followed Fisher's footsteps to some degree, including creating cover art for Cosmopolitan. Crandell's Wikipedia entry is here. But artists might find this post on Leif Peng's blog of more interest. The writer, Kent Steine, describes Crandell's pastel layering technique used for much of his work up until the 1940s when he transitioned to oil paints. Pastel was popular for rendering women's faces because it could create a smooth appearance more easily than oil paints and without the fuss and potential for the artificiality of airbrush.

Crandell could and did create full-length illustrations of women and even could paint a man. But his fame was centered on depictions of women, some of which are shown below.

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Photo of Crandell and actress Bette Davis and the resulting Cosmopolitan cover
In the photo foreground are what appear to be boxes of pastel sticks.

Blonde

Brunette

Ingrid Bergman cover art

Redhead

Art, perhaps for a Cosmo cover

Saturday Evening Post Cover - 13 April 1935

Saturday Evening Post Cover - 2 June 1934
This actually includes a man.

Full-length drawing - from around 1933
Again, just to show that Crandell could do more than women's faces.

Digital Art: Benjamin Carré

Benjamin Carré (1973 - ) is one of a surprisingly large number of French digital artists who are doing well in the science fiction - fantasy field. (Is there something in the vin ordinaire?)

Charley Parker's January 8th post of this year tipped me off to Carré's work, and I think it's worthwhile to show you what interests us. As Charley mentions, information about Carré is sparse. A French Wikipedia entry is here, but it is brief. Then there's this short interview, also in French. On my computer I see that "translations" are available, but the quality of such mechanical procedures isn't always good.

It seems that, besides SFF book covers, Carré does concept art and comic strip / graphic novel work. From what I can tell according to a Google Images display, a noticeable portion of his work relates to Star Wars, a subject that lost my interest many years ago. For that reason, the Carré images I present below are Star Wars-free.

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Up Close: Morelli's Temptation of St. Anthony

A couple of years ago I committed an error in this post when I inserted a photo version of Domenico Morelli's "Temptation of St. Anthony" instead of an image of the actual painting. Now I wish to atone for my sin by posting some photos of the painting that I recently took at Rome's Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna (Web site here).

As his Wikipedia entry) indicates, Morelli (1823-1901) spent most of his career in his native Naples, concentrating on religious subjects. Le Tentazioni di Sant'Antonio (1878) is one of the best known of these. He also painted portraits. As a bonus, I include photos of his Teresa Maglione Oneto (1879) which was also on display at the Arte Moderna. Click on the images to enlarge.

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"Establishment shot" of Temptation.

Ritratto di Teresa Maglione Oneto in its setting.

Anders Zorn Watercolor Paintings

I already wrote about Anders Zorn (1860-1920) twice (here and here). But there's seldom enough of a good thing, so I'm posting once more on the Swedish master (Wikipedia entry here and a site with many of his works here).

This time, I focus on his watercolors. Even though I took a watercolor class in art school, I maintain a phobia regarding that medium. Not for decently done watercolor paintings, mind you, but for actually having to paint one of the things. There is little else in art that I find so terrifying.

As it happened, Zorn began his career as a watercolorist, and naturally was excellent at it. Viewing some of his watercolors -- especially in reproduction -- they often look more like oil paintings. Perhaps one reason for this is that he sometimes painted thickly (not using much water) or perhaps did some areas in gouache, a different water-based paint. Other works were entirely in gouache, which handles more like oil paint than ordinary watercolors.

Below are examples of Zorn's water-based work.

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Castles in the Air - 1885

Kaijroddare - 1886

The Thorn Bush - 1886

Man and Boy in Algiers - 1887

Vogskvalp (Lapping Waves) - 1887

Reveil, boulevard Clichy - 1892