The Death of Sardanapalus (detail) by Eugène Delacroix There is still debate about the identity of the artist Eugène Delacroix’s father, both possible candidates having been powerful political figures.What is certain is that, despite being born into privilege in 1798, he was fortunate to survive his infancy. Left for a lot of the time in the care of nannies and housekeepers, he was once almost burnt to death and left permanently scarred when his sleepy nurse overlooked a candle falling into his crib.
Another of his nannies dropped Delacroix into the ocean, when, as she leant over the side of a docking ship to embrace her lover, the child slipped from her arms. He was also accidentally poisoned, nearly choking to death.
Yet, despite these brushes with calamity, Delacroix survived to become one of the vital artists of the French Romantic movement.
His ostensible father was Charles-François Delacroix, the Minister of French Foreign Affairs. Charles-François supported his son’s creative studies and the young artist slowly secured himself a solid reputation within the Salon de Paris. Paintings exploring the Greek War of Independence, such as The Massacre at Chios, painted in 1824 when Delacroix was 26, were well received.
Yet the drama of his infancy seemed to haunt Delacroix like a dark shadow. Doubts were cast over Charles-François’s paternal claim – he was supposedly infertile at the time of Eugène’s conception.
Many historians have argued that the French statesman Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord was the artist’s biological father, thanks to a physical resemblance between the two, and the support he gave Delacroix.
Talleyrand is a peculiar, intriguing figure: a laicised bishop, politician and diplomat, his role in the French Revolution remains the subject of considerable debate. For some, he is a trusted and integral agent of the French government, for others, a Machiavellian traitor. Yet one fact remains clear: he always protected Delacroix, helping to secure his reputation as an admirable painter amongst diplomats and aristocracy.
Only one of Delacroix’s paintings was not purchased by the state: The Death of Sardanapalus, painted in 1827.
The story of the last Assyrian king has featured time and time again in mythology and legend, most often to illustrate notions of corruption, sloth and debauchery. Sardanapalus is believed to have reigned around the 7th century BC and was notorious for his hedonistic lifestyle.
Delacroix’s painting is lavish in its treatment of colour and texture, depicting Sardanapalus lying in his stately chamber at the moment his armies have been conquered by the enemy. The scene is grotesque, full of writhing naked concubines, servants and even Sardanapalus’s prize horses, all of whom are about to be slain, in order to die with their defeated king.
The free, expressive brushwork and the lush treatment of this nightmarish subject matter contrasted greatly with the painterly norms of the day. Delacroix had eclipsed Neoclassicism, which routinely tended towards orderly form and a sense of realism. His composition is loose and free-flowing, far removed from the grid-like precision of his predecessors.
But The Death of Sardanapalus is far more than a simple exercise in storytelling. For one, it exemplifies Orientalism, a theme that was heavily prevalent in 19th-century painting. At the time, Napoleon was taking an active interest in the efforts of the Ottoman government to reform and modernise itself and art became a propaganda tool, a means by which the culture and history of the Orient could be diminished, substantiating the ambitions of the French to control the region.
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres’s Grande Odalisque (1814), for instance, a painting of a concubine within a harem, encouraged the viewer to associate untethered sexual misconduct and corruption with the Orient. However, as a proselytising device, the work is undone by its own hypocrisy: the concubine – apparently representative of Eastern culture – is, in fact, European, with pale, translucent skin.
In comparison, Delacroix treated the notion of the Orient with respect and neutrality. Unlike many artists of the time – who, despite painting their Oriental scenes with an almost anthropological sense of realism, had never left Europe – before he embarked on Sardanapalus, Delacroix travelled to Morocco, Algeria and Spain. The sketches he made there covered all areas of life: market places, landscapes, seascapes, women and children dressed in traditional attire, families gathered in their living rooms. Delacroix seems to have developed a childlike enthusiasm for discovering how others lived, in a manner completely alien to the stuffy formality of the Salon de Paris.
But, though it seems at first glance to support the political expectations of the era, in fact, The Death of Sardanapalus undermines them. Instead of demonstrating the flaws of the Orient, it diminished the relevance of sovereignty in a France in which the monarchy had only recently been restored, because the character of Sardanapalus reaffirmed the link between royalty and chaos in the French consciousness. Many noted, for instance, that the mighty king remained detached and apathetic in the midst of the horrors surrounding him.
Predictably, the painting was very poorly received. Delacroix had fallen out of favour with the Salon, the brutality and cold-bloodedness of this piece perhaps hitting too close to home, politically speaking. Because its potential for indoctrinating the masses amounted to very little, The Death of Sardanapalus was not acquired by the authorities, and remained hidden from view in the artist’s studio thereafter.
The picture was only brought to light again when the Louvre purchased it, in 1921, more than 50 years after Delacroix had died. Now, it is simply read as a painting of a minor fable. Nevertheless, the work itself is such a tremendous achievement that it transcends any political baggage it may have once carried.
The Large Bathers It is hard to imagine that Cézanne’s paintings were considered disturbingly ugly during his lifetime.When his dealer, the powerful Ambroise Vollard, placed one of his Bather paintings prominently in his gallery window, it drew a hostile response.
Even the progressive critic Charles Morice was appalled, stating: “Cézanne’s paintings alarm the public and delight artists – all of the public, but few of the artists.” A more conservative commentator noted that: “Cézanne never was able to create what can be called a ‘picture’, in truth.”
Paul Cézanne was born in 1839 in Aix-en-Provence, in the South of France. Vollard described Cézanne’s mother as, “vivacious and romantic, but quick to take offence”, a personality trait that the artist would later acquire himself.
Cézanne’s father was a lawyer and successful banker, and encouraged his son to follow the same career path. Although reluctant, Cézanne acquiesced to his father’s wishes, attending the University of Aix Law School for three years, while receiving drawing lessons in the evenings.
Deciding that law was not a profession he wanted to pursue, he left for Paris in 1861. Cézanne’s rejection of his father’s ambitions led to a troubled relationship between the two.
Fortunately, however, his father came around to his career choice eventually and Cézanne was financially dependent on him for many years. He received a monthly allowance of 100 francs, and a large inheritance following his mother’s death in 1897. (His father died in 1886.)
Cézanne was a self-taught artist. Arriving in Paris, he hoped to attend the École des Beaux-Arts, but was denied a place – twice. As a result, he had to find a more conventional way of improving his technique, and spent hours in the Louvre copying the great masters, such as Titian, Rubens and Michelangelo.
Soon he was able to join the Académie Suisse, a studio that, for a modest monthly fee, offered students the opportunity to draw from a live model. Here he met fellow aspiring painters Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Camille Pissarro.
Cézanne continued with his independent studies and worked diligently to exhibit his paintings at the prestigious Paris Salon, but his work was rejected every time. These submissions came at a price – a price Cézanne was unable to pay on his own. It meant he had to travel back regularly to Aix to secure further funding from his dubious father.
His friend Pissarro encouraged Cézanne to consider trying a brighter palette and livelier, more delicate brushwork. During this period, Cézanne honed his approach, applying repeated exploratory brushstrokes to his pictures. He also began work on a vast series of paintings of the female and male nude, portrayed either singly or in groups, within a landscape setting. Many bore the hallmarks of Titian and Poussin.
Cinq Baigneuses Sous Des Arbres by Paul Cezanne
He also began work on a vast series of paintings of the female and male nude, portrayed either singly or in groups, within a landscape setting. Many bore the hallmarks of Titian and Poussin.
They were mostly painted from memory and using his imagination rather than actual observation. Among them were the three wonderful Bather paintings. The Large Bathers, now at the Philadelphia Museum, was the most resolved of the three, and is today considered one the greatest achievements of modern art. Cézanne worked on this picture for a remarkable seven years, between 1898 and 1905, but he still considered it unfinished.
All three versions of the scene share similar characteristics – the merging of the bathers’s geometric forms with the background, the lack of narrative content, the parallel composition and the amorphous quality of the bathers’ expressionless faces.
It was these distortions that contemporary viewers found unappealing, even though the notion of rawness had become a focus of the avant-garde painting of the time.
This attitude persisted well after Cézanne’s death, reaching a climax in 1937 when the Philadelphia Museum purchased The Large Bathers from a leading American art collector and critic, for $110,000. Criticised by the press as a “scandalous waste of such a vast sum”, the museum was forced to justify the purchase, describing the painting as having the “feel of an unanswered question”, a testament to the “anxiety” Picasso famously declared to be the source of his great interest in Cézanne. The Philadelphia Record pointed out that this money might have been put to better use helping the 40,000 Philadelphian residents without bathtubs, or put towards urban renewal programmes.
The Large Bathers
Cézanne had wanted the painting to defy all genre and style, and to be a timeless work of art. It certainly became an inspiration for some, particularly Picasso and other cubists.
Henri Matisse commented: “At critical moments in my artistic adventure it gave me courage; I drew from it my faith and endurance.” Both Matisse and Picasso agreed that Cézanne “is the father of us all”.
The last decade of Cézanne’s life was mostly spent alone in his studio in Aix, alienated from most of his friends and family due to the onset of diabetes and bouts of severe depression.
In 1906, he was caught in a storm while working in the field. Persistent as ever, he continued for another two hours under heavy showers before finally deciding to return home. The following day the model that he was currently painting called for help, as the artist appeared faint; he was put to his bed and never left – Cézanne had contracted pneumonia, dying a few days later, aged 67.
Like a number of our greatest artists, he barely enjoyed a single day of true recognition of his genius.
High spirits: Jean-Honoré Fragonard’s The Swing, painted in 1767 Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806) is most renowned for his saccharine, congenial depictions of the upper classes at play.
He was undoubtedly at his prime in the late Rococo era, a time synonymous with hedonistic freedom, and the pursuit of all things pleasurable and aesthetically agreeable.
The style emerged in France during the mid-18th century as a reflection of the gaudy embellishments that were then so popular in architecture and furniture. They were considered exceptionally stylish by the bourgeoisie and newly wealthy, who, as they surrounded themselves with all that was resplendent, sought paintings that demonstrated their refinement.
The pinnacle of full-blown Rococo style was the extraordinary Palace of Versailles, which came to be seen as the epitome of decadence and vulgar grandeur.
But then, the French Revolution arrived – bringing with it a brutal finale to the era of opulence.
Для початку - три картини про дві битви першої половини 18 ст. У першій (Турин 1706) савойське військо воювало на боці цісарців проти французів (французи обложили їхню столицю, і як назло опинилися затиснуті між мурами Турина і цісарським військом князя Євгена Савойського). А у другій (Ґвастала 1734) вже савойці воювали на боці французів проти цісарців та тимчасово захопили Мілан, за 120 років до того як (після кількох невдалих спроб) захопили його вже назавжди. До речі, війна, під час якої відбулася ця битва - це війна за Польську спадщину (1733-36), де ставкою була корона Республіки Обох Народів. І коли російська держава вперше використала гайдамаків як знаряддя своєї загарбницької зовнішньої політики
О, мало не забув - про Туринську битву там ще є дерев'яний барельєф
От цікаво іноді буває - їдеш подивитися якусь місцеву цікавинку просто тому, що вона там є, не знаючи бекґраунду - і виявляється, що вона таки ще й як вбудована в загальний плин історії. Виявляється, у цьомумонастирі королева Шотландії Марія Стюарт провела свою останню ніч у Шотландії, перед її втечею до Англії (за якою послідував арешт, ув'язнення й страта - але сильно згодом)
Ну а оскільки цього року святкується півтисячолітній ювілей початку Реформації - мене завжди дивувало, навіщо треба було руйнувати такі храми... (ну тобто зрозуміло, але...)
До речі, на обшарпані (на відміну від інших будинків) габзбурзькі казарми у фортеці начепили тримовну дошку, що повідомляє, що ця будівля є власністю центрального уряду, що й дає гроші на її утримання. Пояснення для туристів тобто чому саме цей будинок такий обдертий
Варто звернути увагу на пам"ятник загиблим у "війні 1940-45 років" (і на надпис на щиті статуя)
Алессандрія
Славне Маренґо -- неподалік. Але тоді й все місто було обнесене такими ж мурами. Зараз армія звідти пішла (як відмінили призов), і фортеця не використовується ніяк (у 2007-му там ще були якісь воєнні установи)
Також варто звернути увагу на пам"ятник загиблим у війні 1940-45 років.
Венеційська фортеця Сірміоне на озері Ґарда. Це середньовіччя, ясна річ. Розташована на перешийку вузенького півострова, що виступає в озеро з південного берега
