Sounds Of Silence

H J. Johnstone specialized in peaceful evening riverside scenes in the 19th century.  The painting below depicts the Murray River in South Australia in 1880.  Johnstone's strong background in photography is evident in the stillness and precision of the painting.  The subtle colour gradations is what impresses me as well as the stillness.  Apparently aboriginal campsites along river banks were becoming increasingly rare by the 1880's due to pastoralists  and government policy of herding them into settlements for "Christian education".

Evening Shadows, Backwater of the Murray, South Australia 1880    121 cm x 180 cm

"Evening Shadows" was the first acquisition by the Art Gallery of South Australia of a painting of an Australian subject.

Twilight, River Goulburn Victoria 1878

Strange as it may seem, these works were painted in London on commission.  Johnstone, who was born in Birmingham in 1835, came to Australia to  prospect on the Victorian goldfields in 1853.  He returned to the UK via California in 1876.

The Billabong  1876

Architecture Way Ahead Of Its Time

This is the Barcelona Pavilion designed by Mies Van Der Rohe for the 1929 World Expo.  According to author Alain De Botton he was frustrated with the clutter and fussiness of domestic architecture.

Mies Van Der Rohe wanted something that was simple yet elegant.  It's difficult 86 year on to appreciate what an impact this architecture must have had on audiences at the time.

Gustave Dore's Mid Victorian London

In 1869 French artist Gustave Dore teamed up with journalist Blanchard Jerrold to produce an illustrated record of the 'shadows and sunlight' of London.  As Jerrold later recalled, they spent many days and nights exploring the capital, often protected by plain-clothes policemen. They visited night refuges, cheap lodging houses and the opium den described by Charles Dickens in the sinister opening chapter of The Mystery of Edwin Drood.  According to The Guardian, the project took 4 years during which time, Dore produced 180 engravings. 

Over London By Rail

Some doubts have been cast as to the accuracy of these images as Dore disliked sketching in public.  Jerrold's text was thought to be superficial at the time.

Dudley Street, Seven Dials

However both men were "transfixed by the deprivation, squalor and wretchedness of the lives of the poor, even though they realised that London was changing and some of the worst social evils were beginning to be addressed."  THE GUARDIAN 

Scripture Reading In A Night Refuge

Their work has been described as a landmark account of the deprivation and squalor of mid-Victorian London.

Wentworth Street Whitechapel

 

 

The Poor Side Of Town

"A Meeting",  193 cm x 177 cm, Oil On Canvas 1884

This is a painting by Maria Bashkirtseff.  Given the canvas is almost 2 meters tall the boys are depicted life size.  To the far right we can see a little girl walking off.  Bashkirtseff was known to have strong feminist tendencies.  Given the boys' well worn clothing it can be inferred that they are from a working class area, and the surroundings reinforce this impression.  Although this painting was well received at the 1884 Paris salon, Bashkirtseff was furious that it didn’t win a medal.  Her reaction mirrors that of many artists today,

"I am exceedingly indignant [...] because, after all, works that are really rather poor have received prizes" and also "There is nothing more to be done. I am a worthless creature, humiliated, finished".

At the time she was aware she was dying of tuberculosis at age 25, and was concerned she would die a forgotten artist.  She needn’t have worried, as this painting is housed at the Musee d’Orsay.

Among the artists she admired was Jules Bastien-Lepage whose painting "The Potato Gatherers" hangs at the NGV in Melbourne.  

Melodrama In Art

This is Jules Delaunay's The Plague In Rome (131 x 176 cm) which was a huge hit at the 1869 Paris Salon.  Critics at the time likened it to an operatic production.  As described by Robert Rosenblum (see previous post), this work is a blend of the historical and supernatural.  It illustrates a narrative from The Golden Legend (a 13th Century compilation) that tells the story of how, during the Roman plague of 680AD, a good angel commanded the bad angel to strike the doors of the godless with a spear, the number of knocks determining how many deaths there should be in the home.  

Rosenblum explains that epidemics such as cholera were still recurrent in 19th Century France and, as is often the case with human disasters, a religious explanation of sinful behaviour could easily be provided.

King Frederick The Musician

The Flute Concert, oil on canvas by Adolph Menzel 1850.  Frederick The Great is the flutist and C. P. E. Bach as on harpsichord.  The setting is the kings residence Sans Souci in Potsdam, Prussia around 1750.  As well as being a ruthless ruler, Frederick was an accomplished musician and composer.  Multi-skilling at its best.

Sans Souci

Peder Severin Kroyer

The artist Vilhelm Hammershoi (see previous post) had a Danish tutor Peder Severin Kroyer who was described as a rumbustious realist who had quite a repertoire.  Anything from rugged industrial scenes to interiors of taverns or beauties strolling the beach.

Kroyer - Steel Forge 1880's

Kroyer - In The Store During A Pause From Fishing, 1882

Kroyer - A luncheon, the artist, his wife and the writer Otto Benzon

Intimate Interiors

The understated, yet intimate paintings of Danish artist Vilhelm Hammershoi (1864-1916).  In an article published in the Guardian a few years ago, Julian Bell describes the artist as a master of demure conservatism who hit upon a modernist way of looking.  There is mystery, the viewer is being beckoned to enter these scenes, yet there is nothing to hold on to.

"Your curiosity is lured into that enclosed hall, yet your attention is held back - left dangling over the bare floorboards with their scuffed varnish, which is the nearest to an indicator of commonplace living and everyday usage that the picture is prepared to provide. A tantalising juggle with emptiness."

Author Alain De Botton argues that Hammershoi was selling an appreciation of the everyday.  Yet we are being "seduced by the nape of a lovely female neck, the delicate strands of unruly hair and the carefully calculated angle of the head, to get us to like a person and enter their imaginative world."

Hammershoi enjoyed great success with sellout shows in Berlin and London in the first decade of the 20th century.