Mariano Fortuny, Plaster head of Francesco Paolo Michetti by Vincenzo Gemito, undated, before 1874, pen and brown ink on paper, 21.1 × 30 cm, British Museum, London. © The Trustees of the British Museum. CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. One reality, several ways of seeing Mariano Fortuny’s drawing of Vincenzo Gemito’s plaster portrait of Francesco Paolo MichettiContinue reading “Francesco Paolo Michetti and the Investigation of the Visible”
Tag Archives: realism
Nikolai Kuznetsov (1850–1929) and Ilya Repin (1844–1930): Fields and Flowers
Two women inhabit two expanses of grass and flowers. In Nikolai Kuznetsov’s Holiday of 1879, a young woman lies almost full length in the vegetation, her body settling into the broad horizontal spread of the field. Thirteen years later, in Ilya Repin’s Autumn Bouquet. Portrait of Vera Repin, the artist’s daughter stands upright in anContinue reading “Nikolai Kuznetsov (1850–1929) and Ilya Repin (1844–1930): Fields and Flowers”
The Laundress: Between Social Type and Individual
Edgar Degas, Woman Ironing (La Repasseuse), c. 1869, oil on canvas, 92.5 × 73.5 cm, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen – Neue Pinakothek, Munich, inv. 14310. Image credit: Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen – Neue Pinakothek München, CC BY-SA 4.0. Laundry was an inescapable part of life in nineteenth-century Paris. Clothes and household linen were generally sent out to be cleaned,Continue reading “The Laundress: Between Social Type and Individual”
An Elusive Realism: Gustave Courbet’s Les Cribleuses de blé (The Grain Sifters).
Courbet, Ornans and 1854–55 When Gustave Courbet painted Les Cribleuses de blé (The Grain Sifters) in 1854–55, he was in his mid-thirties and had already become one of the most contentious figures in French painting. Born in 1819 at Ornans, a small town in the Doubs close to the Swiss border, Courbet came from aContinue reading “An Elusive Realism: Gustave Courbet’s Les Cribleuses de blé (The Grain Sifters).”
The Depth of the Surface: Vittorio Corcos (1859–1933) and the Art of Appearance
Formation and the vero Vittorio Corcos enrolled at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence in November 1875 and progressed with conspicuous ease. Admitted directly to Enrico Pollastrini’s drawing course, he passed his examinations and, in 1876–77, received a silver medal for a figure study copied dal vero. Despite this success, he soon became dissatisfiedContinue reading “The Depth of the Surface: Vittorio Corcos (1859–1933) and the Art of Appearance”
Light, colour and the vitality of motion: Introducing the world of Francesco Paolo Michetti (1851-1929).
The featured image of this article, Francesco Paolo Michetti’s 1877 self-portrait (Palazzo Zevallos Stigliano, Naples) offers an introduction to the artist while also immediately conveying the light and colour characteristic of his work. In the words of Marina Miraglia: The half-open mouth and the intense, passionate gaze express that healthy fullness of life and thatContinue reading “Light, colour and the vitality of motion: Introducing the world of Francesco Paolo Michetti (1851-1929).”
