Saturnino Herrán: A Mexican Brangwyn and Lambert

Saturnino Herrán (1887-1918) was a Mexican painter who died aged 31 after an operation for a gastric problem. His Wikipedia entry is here and a longer biography that includes an evaluation of his work is here. Charley Parker blogged about him here.

Herrán was an almost exact contemporary of Diego Rivera, a more famous -- but lesser, in my opinion -- painter. One wonders whether Herrán would have evolved his subjects and style in the direction of Rivera, Orozco, Siqueros and others whose careers spanned the 1930s and often dealt with political subjects.

As it was, his style apparently was influenced by Frank Brangwyn and, to my mind, is similar to many of George Washington Lambert's works. Herrán was an excellent draftsman and his paintings include lines that help define his subjects. In a word, it can be called muralistic.  But then, he also painted murals, so it all makes sense.

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El rebozo - 1916
A study for the paintings below.

La criolla del rebozo

El Ciego - blind man - 1914

La criolla del mantón - 1915

Girl with Calabaza - 1917

La dama del mantón - his wife

La criolla del mango

La cosecha - 1909

La ofrenda - 1913

Towards the End: Lawren Harris

Lawren Harris (1885-1970), who I wrote about here, was a key member of Canada's famous Group of Seven painters. His Wikipedia entry is here.

Unlike most noteworthy artists, Harris never experienced even moderately serious financial problems because his family was the Harris of Canada's Massey-Harris farm implement firm. And of course he had many of the right social connections that allowed him to gain influence in the Canadian art establishment of his time.

Due to his circumstances, besides his efforts to get the establishment to accept modernism, Harris' "struggles" in art largely had to do with improving his skills. And perhaps more importantly, seeking a kind of art that meshed with his strong interest in Theosophy, a spiritual belief system that had a burst of popularity during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Theosophy-related concerns seem to have strongly influenced Harris's drift from representational to abstract painting over the arc of his career. The turning point took place during the years he lived an Santa Fe, New Mexico, whose art colony included other budding abstractionists.

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The Corner Store - 1912
An example of Harris' representational works.

North Shore, Lake Superior - 1926
One of his best-known paintings from the mid-point of his career where real-world objects were simplified.

Abstract No. 7 - ca. 1939
Harris for a while had the habit of testing abstractions by viewing them with different orientations -- the idea being that the abstract design would hold up no matter which way the painting was displayed. I've seen at least two orientations of this on the internet. The one above is that used by the Vancouver Art Gallery, where the painting resides.

Composition No. 1 - 1940
One of his most strictly geometric works.

Abstract Painting No. 20 - ca. 1943
Drifting from Geometry.

LSH 134 - 1950
A more "organic" look is now in place.

Untitled - 1952

Abstraction - 1964
This was painted around the time Harris had a heart attack.  By the time he died, he had developed dementia and his final painting were of blobs built up with wispy strokes somewhat like is seen here.

More Philadelphia Suburban Rail Car Photos

Several years ago I posted regarding 1930s-vintage rolling stock used on suburban Philadelphia railcar lines. Since then, I scanned slides I took in April 1969 of some of those cars. They aren't very good portraits of the equipment, but perhaps they might nevertheless be of interest to some readers.

Most of the photos are of the Philadelphia & Western suburban line that ran from Norristown to Philadelphia's 69th Street Station where riders heading for the city center would have to change to a different transportation mode. I caught a car at Haverford and rode it to 69th on my photography expedition.

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P&W car near Haverford Station (cropped)

P&W car entering Haverford Station (cropped)

P&W car at Haverford Station

P&W car near Haverford Station (cropped)

P&W car at 69th Street Station

P&W car at 69th Street Station (cropped)

Philadelphia Suburban Transportation Company cars at 69th Street Station (cropped)

Red Arrow Liberty Liner at 69th Street Station (cropped)

The Gray Steampunk World of Vadim Voitekhovitch

Vadim Voitekhovitch, painter of gray, gloomy-atmosphere, northern European Steampunk scenes was born and raised in Belarus and has been working in Germany since 2004. And that's about all I know about personal details from a short Google search.

I find most of his images fascinating because he creates an almost-believable world of circa-1900 European cities and towns where airships and other never-quite-happened contraptions abound. Besides his attention to detail, Voitekhovitch gives his scenes believable atmospherics. Northern Europe is gloomy a good part of the year, after all.

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Fleet at Sea
The coal-fired warships are similar to 1890s French cuirassés designs such as the Masséna, featuring extreme tumble-home sides and ram bows. The airships also seem to have coal-fired steam engines: note the dark smoke from their stacks.

In a Distant Country
Harbor scene.  I like the rust on the battleship -- it makes the scene more believable.

No One Will Come Back
Setting off to war, though the people seem indifferent aside from the woman near the cannon and another with her young son near the stairway.

Old Harbour
Details include what might be a steam-powered omnibus and an airship "carrier."

Postal Dragon
Loading mail aboard from the rickety tower.

Stolen Sky

The Road to Babylon
Two scenes with airships, while the rest of the technology is pre-automobile.

Tide
The nearest airship is attached to a loading platform.

Gloomy Morning
Again, no cars.

Closeup of a Voitekhovitch airship.  Note the rust on the sides and what looks to be a royal or national crest on the rudder.  Clearly, his airships are impossible from an engineering standpoint.  The rust implies steel cladding -- very heavy.  They are powered by steam, often from coal-fired boilers.  Steam engines, boilers and filled coal bins are very heavy too.  Finally the size of the steel-clad "air bag" is much too small to house enough hydrogen to lift all that weight.  But I can easily ignore such matters because the world he has created is so enchanting for a history and design buff such as me.

Kirchner's Street Scenes

I am not fond of paintings by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938), as I've mentioned here. Biographical information on Kirchner is here for greater context.

That said, his works that interest me the most are street scenes he painted about 1913-15. New York's Museum of Modern Art had a show in 2012 dealing with those. More about that here.

Many images of Kirchner's street paintings are below. I find it interesting that V-shaped compositions are common.

Gallery

Berlin Street Scene - 1913

Five Women at the Street - 1913

Frauen auf der Strasse - 1915

Friedrichstrasse, Berlin - 1914

Leipziger Straße mit elektrischer Bahn - 1914

Potsdammer Platz - 1914

Rote Kokotte - 1914

Strasse, Berlin - 1913

Street Scene - 1913

Zwei Frauen auf der Strasse

Zwei Kokotten - 1914
This seems to be a study for the painting immediately above it.

Street scene - 1926
Kirchner occasionally did street scenes later in his career, but in a different style.

From Three Countries, Similar Style

Artists are often influenced by others. Or they steal outright ... but only from the best, it is said. Possibly styles are similar simply due to coincidence. The last possibility was probably most likely in the days before decent-quality color reproductions in books and magazines were common, especially for artists widely scattered geographically.

Paintings from three artists having a similar "feel" caught my eye recently, so I thought I'd give you a look and so you can decide for yourself if my conjecture makes sense.

The painters are George Washington Lambert (1873-1930), information here, an Australian working in London; Saturnino Herrán (1887-1913), information here, a Mexican painter who spent his short life in that country; and W. Herbert "Buck" Dunton (1878-1936), an American who I wrote about here.

Not all their paintings featured a strong, solid style, but the ones shown below seem to.

Gallery

Lambert: "The Sonnet" - 1917
He was painting in this style as early as 1907 ("Portrait Group, The  Mother"), so priority for this threesome goes to Lambert.

Herrán: "La ofrenda" - 1913

Dunton: "My Children" - 1920

While it is possible that Herrán and Dunton where familiar with Lambert's work, it seems equally possible that they were not. Another possibility is that all three artists were influenced by a fourth, earlier painter. Offhand, I can't think of who that might be. Let me know in comments if you have suggestions.

Sculptor Aristide Maillol's Flat Paintings

Aristide Joseph Bonaventure Maillol (1861-1944) is best known as a sculptor, but began his artistic career as a painter and continued to paint off and on for much of his life (biographical information here).

What interests me about many, not all, of his paintings is that (1) they are flat, and (2) the heads of his subjects are either in profile or facing the viewer head-on. Admittedly, most of the paintings shown below were made before Maillol took up sculpture seriously, but even as late as 1940 he continued these characteristics.

One would think that a sculptor would be thinking more three-dimensionally, but it seems he was following the modernist desideratum regarding flat surfaces. On the other hand, late in his career, Maillol did make a number of drawings of his model/muse Dina Vierny that depicted her well-rounded form. Below are some of his flat paintings.

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In the Western Pyrenées - 1885
Although he used linear perspective, Maillol's use of color gives this painting a flat appearance.

Woman in White - 1890-91

Les deux jeunes filles - 1891

Enfant couranne - 1892

Jeune femme pensive au feuillage - 1893
This also has been dated 1894 and the subject has been said to be the future Mme. Maillol.

Mme. Maillol - 1895

La femme à l'ombrelle - 1895
Another painting with the same title featuring a women in the same costume is dated 1891-92, so this might have been painted then as well.

Dina á la robe rouge - 1940