Édouard Manet ed il Realismo

Già negli esordi l'arte di Édouard Manet (1832-1883) apparve indubbiamente connotata da pressanti esigenze realiste, a tal punto che arrivò persino a infuriarsi con il maestro Couture, troppo legato agli accademismi («insomma, vi comportate così quando andate a comprare un mazzo di ravanelli dalla vostra fruttivendola?»).

A turbarlo in particolar modo era in particolare la mancanza di naturalezza delle pose adottate dalle modelle:

«Vedo che ha dipinto una finanziera.

E di eccellente fattura.

Ma dove sono finiti i polmoni della modella?

Sembra che sotto l’abito non respiri.

Come se non avesse un corpo.

È un ritratto da sarto»

William Holman Hunt | The Awakening Conscience, 1853

The Awakening Conscience was conceived as the material counterpart to Hunt's The Light of the World (1851-3, Warden and Fellows of Keble College, Oxford). Its inspiration was a verse from Proverbs:

'As he that taketh away a garment in cold weather, so is he that singeth songs to an heavy heart'.

With his typical thoroughness, Hunt hired a room at Woodbine Villa, 7 Alpha Place, St John's Wood, a 'maison de convenance', to use as the setting.

Vicente López Portaña | The Marquess of Remisa, 1844

Title: The Marquess of Remisa
Author: Vicente López Portaña** (Spanish painter**, 1772-1850)
Date: 1844
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: w147.5 x h232
Current location: Museo Nacional del Romanticismo

Yosuke Ueno / 上野陽介, 1977 | Pittore Pop-Surrealista

Yosuke Ueno è un artista autodidatta di fama internazionale.

La sua arte è un chiaro riflesso delle radici asiatiche dell'artista e dell'influenza della cultura pop contemporanea.

Le opere d'arte di Ueno sono ispirate alla religione giapponese dello Shinto che si basa sui particolari e sul godimento della natura.

Elementi fumettistici, giovani personaggi, improbabili piante, animali e creature antropomorfe popolano le sue surreali galassie dipinte su tela, e vivono felici in una dimensione psichedelica di superfici luccicanti.

Claude Monet | Argenteuil landscapes

From December 1871-1878 Oscar-Claude Monet (1840–1926) lived at Argenteuil, a village on the right bank of the Seine river near Paris, and a popular Sunday-outing destination for Parisians, where he painted some of his best-known works.

In 1873, Monet purchased a small boat equipped to be used as a floating studio.

From the boat studio Monet painted landscapes and also portraits of Édouard Manet and his wife; Manet in turn depicted Monet painting aboard the boat, accompanied by Camille, in 1874. In 1874, he briefly returned to Holland.

Claude Monet | Snow at Argenteuil, 1874

Claude Monet | Figures / Portraits

• I'm not performing miracles, I'm using up and wasting a lot of paint...
• No one is an artist unless he carries his picture in his head before painting it, and is sure of his method and composition.
• Eventually, my eyes were opened, and I really understood nature. I learned to love at the same time.
• I have never had a studio, and I do not understand shutting oneself up in a room. To draw, yes; to paint, no.
• I do have a dream, a painting, the baths of La Grenouillere for which I've done a few bad rough sketches, but it is a dream. Renoir, who has just spent two months here, also wants to do this painting.

Peder Severin Krøyer | Midsummer Eve bonfire on Skagen's beach, 1906

The painting includes many of the Skagen Painters: Krøyer's daughter Vibeke, mayor Otto Schwartz and his wife Alba Schwartz, Michael Ancher, Degn Brøndum, Anna Ancher, Holger Drachmann and his 3rd wife Soffi, the Swedish composer Hugo Alfvén and Marie Krøyer.

This picture was Krøyer’s last large figure painting.
Peder Severin Krøyer (1851-1909)** gathers all the representatives of the artist colony, members of the town’s bourgeoisie, as well as some of the residents of Skagen, in a large circle around the Midsummer eve bonfire on Skagen Sønderstrand.

The painting is a tribute to the artist colony in Skagen, but it is the first time Krøyer depicts the local population together with the artists.

There are still clear differences between the two groups, because the artists and the bourgeoisie are placed on the lighter, left side of the picture, while most of the residents are placed on the darker, right side.