Augustus Saint-Gaudens: Background

"My father's full name was Bernard Paul Ernest Saint-Gaudens. 'Bernard Paul Honeste, if you please,' he called it later in life. It sounded nicer. He was born in the little village of Aspet, five miles south of the town of Saint-Gaudens, in the arrondissement of Saint-Gaudens, in the department of the Haute-Garonne, a most beautiful country. He learned his trade of shoemaker in the employment of his elder brother who had quite a large establishment of thirty or forty workmen. When through with his apprenticeship, he moved northward from his native village as a journeyman shoemaker, a member of the 'Compagnons du Tour de France,' a popular organization which facilitated the traveling of workmen from town to town, the members being pledged to procure employment for one another as they arrived.  They each had some affectionate sobriquet; my father's was 'Saint-Gaudens la Constance,' of which he was very proud. 

My father passed three years in London, and later, seven years in Dublin, Ireland, where he met my mother in the shoe store for which he made shoes and where she did the binding of slippers. Father told me that an overcrowded passenger list prevented his leaving Dublin with my mother, with me at her breast, in a ship named 'Star of the West' that burned at sea during the trip. 

They landed at Boston town, probably in September, 1848, then found work in New York, where we went to a house on the west side of Forsyth Street, where now is the bronze foundry in which the statue of Peter Cooper that I modeled was cast forty-five years later. And it was there I made the beginnings of my conscious life." 

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Reminiscences of Augustus Saint-Gaudens" by Augustus Saint-Gaudens and his son Homer Saint-Gaudens.)

Franz Xaver Winterhalter: Faithful 02 03

"Isabella Brandt" by Peter Paul Rubens

"Franz Xaver Winterhalter sought respite from the pressures of a busy portrait practice in holidays abroad, In Italy, Switzerland and above all, in Germany. He remained firmly attached to his native country by past ties and deep family affections. He and his brother Hermann travelled regularly to Karlsruhe, Baden-Baden and the Black Forest. They remained in constant touch with their father, and they continued to support him and their sisters on a generous scale. In the autumn of 1851, for example, Winterhalter sent a remittance of 3,000 francs to his father (5,000 the year before), and 6,000 francs to each sister; to Theresia for the education of her sons; to Justina for a new kitchen at the Adler Inn.

As the Second Empire approached its zenith, Winterhalter's world contracted. The reminiscences of the art critic, Friedrich Pecht, provide an invaluable insight into his life at this time:

'Formerly he had had a small pale head with black hair its chief attraction, now the locks were silver-grey. He had withdrawn from French society and associated almost exclusively with Germans. They formed a small circle round him, which met at his table for the excellent cooking of Mère Morel, to whom he introduced me. I later spent most of my evenings there.

Winterhalter was always high spirited, and when we left the restaurant we went to the Grand Café to enjoy our demi-tasse, after which we would stroll along the boulevards till late at night. He would tell comic stories about his own youth, and his time in Italy, the very last thing he would do would be to boast about his high acquaintances and sitters, as so many others did. His criticisms of works of art were individual, never depreciative.

Though depreciatively nicknamed 'the Frenchman' he remained always a German, for all his love of French manners and Paris. Yes, it was touching to see how he could not suppress his German nature.'

Pecht's impression is confirmed by another contemporary, W. Landgraf:

'I made Winterhalter's personal acquaintance in Paris in 1853. Never did a royal portrait painter correspond less to the conception one has of such a favourite of rulers. He had remained completely simple, natural and without mannerisms, and even retained something of the southern German rural population about him. His lifestyle, his needs were extremely modest. His correspondingly simple studio contained only on ornament, naturally the most exquisite and costly: a wonderful large portrait of a woman (lifesize half-portrait) by P.P. Rubens that probably represents his first wife with a fur wrapper over her shoulders.'" 

To be continued

(Excerpts from the introduction by Richard Ormund, to "Franz Xaver Winterhalter and the Courts of Europe 1830-70.")  

 

Franz Xaver Winterhalter: Retirement 02 04

"

"Olga von Grunelius" by Franz Xaver Winterhalter

"Franx Xaver Winterhalter was in Switzerland taking a cure, when news came of the outbreak of war between France and Prussia, the early disastrous battles, and finally of Napoleon's capitulation at Sedan (2 September 1870). The Second Empire was swept away. Instead of returning to Paris, at the end of the holiday, he and his brother Hermann headed for Karlsruhe instead. The transition was smooth and without trauma, a natural culmination of Winterhalter's growing preference for Germany over France, an enforced early retirement. He was still officially credited to the Baden Court; all the orders and honours he had received had always been formally approved at Karlsruhe before acceptance. He and Hermann fitted back into provincial court life, taking an apartment at no. 4 Friedrichsplatz, the elegant and spacious circle designed by Berckmüller. 'We are quite happy here,' he told a friend, 'though naturally we miss many things.'  

Occasional interruptions to their quiet regime served to remind them of the world of high fashion they had left behind. In 1871, they were guests of the Tsar and Tsarina at Bad Petersthal, a popular spa, with a glittering company of European Royals. Winterhalter's later letters, however, reveal little sign of nostalgia or regret for the past. Workhorse though he was, he seems content to have hung up his brushes and mahl-stick, and to have accepted retirement naturally.

During his last two years of life, Winterhalter found a limited circle of patrons in the banking community of Frankfourt. Among his sitters of this time were Olga von Grunelius and Emma von Passavant."

To be continued

(Excerpts from the introduction by Richard Ormund, to "Franz Xaver Winterhalter and the Courts of Europe 1830-70.")  

 

Franz Xaver Winterhalter: His Death

Franz Winterhalter's Grave, Frankfurt

"During a visit to the Frankfurt in the summer of 1873, Franz Xaver Winterhalter contracted typhus, as a result of an epidemic that eventually claimed sixty lives. The speed with which he succumbed to the disease suggests that years of travel and concentrated work had taken their toll of his health. He was rushed from the house of his banking friends, the von Metzlers, to the Diakonissen Krankenhaus, a hospital run by Protestant nuns, but all efforts to save him were in vain. He died on 8 July 1873. His disconsolate brother, Hermann, sent brief details in a letter to a family member: 

'He had not been feeling well for some time but he didn't go to bed till Friday when he had a burning fever, which brought his life to an end. It is a comfort for me to know that he was unconscious and I think without pain. I ask you to tell all our relatives of this so irreplaceable loss in my name, as I am at present quite unable to do it. I have to stay here to attend the funeral.'

Winterhalter lies buried in the cemetery in Frankfurt under an imposing tomb topped by an angel. Funds for the maintenance of the tomb have long since evaporated and the tomb is now maintained by the city authorities. By the terms of Winterhalter's will, his fortune of 4 million francs was divided equally between his brother and the children of his two sisters. One notable benefaction of 50,000 francs established a foundation for the support of youth of Menzenschwand, his birthplace, and two neighbouring villages 'who wish to learn useful trades, arts and sciences.'

In European capitals the news of his death was greeted with official expressions of regret, as of the passing of a court dignitary rather than a great artist. Obituaries were brief and few. Winterhalter belonged to an age that was rapidly fading from people's memories. The figures of the Second Empire whom he had chronicled had died or disappeared from public gaze. Few of those who had made him famous were there to remember or to mourn him. But the widowed Queen Victoria was one, and she poured out her feelings in a letter to her daughter:

'His death was terrible . . . quite irreparable . . . His works will in time rank with Van Dyck. There was not another portrait painter like him in the world . . . With all his peculiarities I liked him so much.'"

To be continued

(Excerpts from the introduction by Richard Ormund, to "Franz Xaver Winterhalter and the Courts of Europe 1830-70.")  

 

Franz Xaver Winterhalter: Tributes

"Portrait of Grand Duchess Maria Nikolayevna"
by Franz Xaver Winterhalter

"In Karlsruhe, obsequies for Franz Xaver Winterhalter were elaborate and heartfelt. It was from this city that he had set out as an unknown young painter forty years before, and to which he had returned as a European celebrity. His beloved Baden honoured him with an exhibition in October 1873. Exhibits from local collections, those of the Grand Duke of Baden, the Prince of Fürstenberg, the King of Württemberg and various private individuals, were complemented by loans from further afield. Queen Victoria lent four pictures, the early portraits of 1842 of herself and Prince Albert, Duleep Singh, and 'The First of May.' No biographer came forward to chronicle the dead man's achievement. 

In 1894, Winterhalter's nephew Franz Wild published a brief memoir, with an invaluable checklist of portraits, but the artist had to wait a further forty years before a reawakening of interest in the Second Empire brought his work once more to prominence with exhibitions in London and Paris in 1936. His name had become associated with fashionable court portraiture. Little was known about him personally, and his art was not taken seriously. It will be only after a further lapse of time that his style can be set in context, his career documented, and the full range of his achievement fairly judged."

(Excerpts from the introduction by Richard Ormund, to "Franz Xaver Winterhalter and the Courts of Europe 1830-70.")  

 

Abbot Thayer: A Short Visit with the Thayers, Pt. 2

"The Sisters" by Abbott Thayer

"Uncle Abbott was a great talker because he was just bubbling over with ideas all the time, and his talk stimulated ideas in other people. He was the center of attraction for many interesting and unusual people. George De Forest Brush, another well-known painter of that time, was a friend of Uncle Abbott. They had studied in Paris together. The Brushes lived near Dublin, New Hampshire, too, at the time I used to go there. Mr. Brush had six children. Other interesting or famous people I met there were Alan Seeger, a poet; Percy McKaye, writer and playwright; Randolph Bourne, another writer; and Rockwell Kent, painter, writer, architect, carpenter, and fighter for human rights.

For several summers, Mark Twain was in Dublin. I always felt very thrilled that I had met and shaken hands with him. When Mr. James Bryce, the English historian and scholar, was Ambassador to the U.S., the summer Embassy was in Dublin, and Mr. Bryce was a frequent visitor of Uncle Abbott. By that time automobiles were in use and Mr. Bryce rather upset the 'high society' of Dublin by walking everywhere in true English style. There were a couple of young Lords in Mr. Bryce's entourage who rather thrilled me at the time.

Dr. Edward Emerson, son of Ralph Waldo Emerson, had a summer place in Peterboro and used often to ride over on his horse to see Uncle Abbott. He was a friend of long-standing. Louis Fuertes, the painter and naturalist, was a good friend of Uncle Abbott.

Before I entirely dismiss the Thayers from my story I must tell you a funny tale, connected only slightly with them, of an escapade of mine that dogged my footsteps like a ghost for years till after I graduated from college. One time when I was about 13, I think, Gra [Abbott Thayer's son, the author's cousin] was visiting us and told us that he had once caught grasshoppers, fried them and eaten them and found them very good! Well, he was persuasive. We got a sheet, went into a big field and ran along holding one edge of the sheet near the ground. The captured grasshoppers we fried, and then chopped up and put into sandwiches as a filling. These sandwiches we then brought home and offered to our two families as delicacies. The joke was, from one aspect, that without knowing what was in the sandwich both families liked them! But when the secret was out Papa's cousin was horrified at the thought. She was more horrified at me and considered me some kind of monster. That crime dogged me for years!"

(Excerpts from "My Berkshire: Childhood Recollections written for my children and grandchildren" by Eleanor F. Grose.)

Abbott Thayer: A Short Visit with the Thayers, Pt. 1

Abbott Thayer, "Stevenson Memorial"

I was recently introduced to a delightful memoir, "My Berkshire" by Eleanor F. Grose, in which there is an account of the well-known artist Abbott Thayer, who was her uncle. I hope you enjoy it, too!

"Being with Uncle Abbott was like suddenly coming out into a new physical world of light and color because he made you see so much in everything around you. But the mental and moral world was even more thrilling and exciting. I always felt as if the dimensions of my life grew in every way while I was with him. With them, the Thayers, everything and everybody was treated on their own merits, nothing was done for show or because other people did it. They had no institutional religion and never went to church but had an exceptional love of things and people of beauty and value in the world. You can see from what I have said before about myself how greatly I was influenced by them.

Among the normal run of people they were a queer family. Uncle Abbott was, in his time, one of the well-known and distinguished painters of the country. They had lots of unusual and different ways of living. His first wife died of tuberculosis so he was very apprehensive that his children might have it; therefore he thought that if they lived outdoors all the time they wouldn't get it. So their house in Dublin, which was only built for a summer home, was not heated in the winter except by open fires and the kitchen stove and small stove in the bathroom to keep the pipes from freezing.

Each member of the family had a little hut in the woods, open on one side, and there they slept winter and summer, in sleeping bags in the winter with hot water bottles and all sorts of warm clothes. When I visited them, in the winter, I think when I was in college, I slept on a balcony and I can remember now how cold it was to get undressed and into that cold bed even with a hot water bottle."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "My Berkshire: Childhood Recollections written for my children and grandchildren" by Eleanor F. Grose.)

Franz Xaver Winterhalter: Success 02 02

"Jadwiga Potocka, Countess Branicka"
by Franz Xaver Winterhalter

"No portrait painter has ever enjoyed such extensive Royal patronage as Franz Xaver Winterhalter. One has to go back to the age of Rubens and Van Dyck to find court painters operating in a similar international network of contacts. In both periods, recognized masters could transcend the normal barriers of country and culture with a style that was recognized universally. The links through marriage and friendship between the Royal houses of Europe were very close in the nineteenth century. Queen Victoria's epithet as the grandmother of Europe was almost literally true. A painter who established himself successfully in one court had the possibility of recommendations to other courts at the highest and most personal level.

The secret of Winterhalter's success was not simply one of good connections. His portraits gained currency because they flattered the self-esteem and pretensions of his patrons. He breathed life into the tired and debased conventions of Royal imagery. His monarchs and consorts were staged in settings of princely magnificence, but they remained refined and elegant figures of their own time. Winterhalter's style was suave, cosmopolitan and above all plausible. 

One other important factor underlying the widespread recognition of Winterhalter's work was the fact that it originated in Paris. Though he remained incorrigibly German in his habits and temperament, his painting represented that quality of high style and elegance, peculiarly French, to which other countries had always aspired. French taste continued to be a touchstone of excellence. In architecture, painting and the decorative arts, people took their cue from developments in Paris. Among the highest classes in Germany, Poland and Russia, the passion for things French exercised a pervasive influence. With the prestige of French art behind him, Winterhalter came armed with impeccable credentials. 

The courts of Europe rewarded the artist for his services with appropriate marks of respect: The Order of St. Anne, third class, from the Russian court; the Royal Order of the Red Eagle, third class, from the Prussians; the Imperial Franz Josef Order from the Austrians; the Comenthur Cross from the Württembergs. The rank accorded to him was similar to that of a minor court official. Only in France was he given higher recognition, becoming a chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur in 1857." 

To be continued

(Excerpts from the introduction by Richard Ormund, to "Franz Xaver Winterhalter and the Courts of Europe 1830-70.")  

 

Franz Xaver Winterhalter: International Portraits 1 31

"Roza Portocka" by Franz Xaver Winterhalter

"Outside the Imperial Court, Franz Xaver Winterhalter continued to fulfill a wide range of international obligations. In 1852, he travelled to Spain with a friend to paint a flamboyant state portrait of Queen Isabella. In 1854 followed portraits of King Pedro of Portugal and his brother, the Duke of Oporto, the Belgian Prince de Chimay, Princesse Murat, Queen Victoria's Indian protétgé the Maharajah Duleep Singh, and her son, Prince Leopold, William I of Prussia, and the artist's old patron, the widowed Sophie of Baden, elegant and beautiful to the end. In 1856, he briefly visited England, executing a set of watercolours of the Queen and her family.

The most extensive journey of 1856, however, was much further afield, to Warsaw. His patronsin Paris had included many of the great Polish families, the Potockis, Krasinskis and Branickis, who were closely linked by ties of marriage and friendship. These Francophile families were well-established in Parisian society and noted for their beauty, earlth and taste. Winterhalter found them congenial spirits.

The year of the Poles was 1845, 1857 the year of the Russians. In the summer of that year, Winterhalter went to Bad Brückinau to paint the Tsar and Tsarina. Writing from Germany on 26 July 1857, the Tsarina's lady-in-waiting, Countess Tolstoi, acknowledged the arrival of these two works:

'I displayed them skillfully and in a good light, and only then did their Majesties enter. I wanted to see the first impression in order to report it to you, my dear Monsieur Winterhalter. Well, you must be satisfied, for both the Emperor and the Empress were delighted and did not know which of the two portraits to prefer, each being thrilled. But there was a still bigger exhibition and among the numerous guest was the King of Prussia, who greatly admired your work and told us that you painted him in two sittings. Opinions on the likeness of the two portraits were divided as is usual, but the enthusiasm for the beauty of the painting was universal and unanimous. As I looked at the beautiful pictures I myself thought I was once again in the beautiful Peterstal, where we have spent so many lovely days. I only wish that you will not forget them and that the memory of them may one day bring you to St. Petersburg, where you will find the same friends again.' 

To be continued

(Excerpts from the introduction by Richard Ormund, to "Franz Xaver Winterhalter and the Courts of Europe 1830-70.")  

 

Franz Winterhalter: Court Painter to Napoleon III 1 30 2026

"Emperor Napoleon III"
by Franz Xaver Winterhalter

"It may seem strange that the court painter of an overturned dynasty should be employed by the dynasty succeeding it, but the connection between art and politics is rarely straight-forward. Napoleon III set out to mobilize the best artistic talents of the time in the service of the state irrespective of past loyalties.

Artists were regularly invited to the famous series of week-long parties given four or five times a year at Compiègne, when the Emperor and Empress entertained a gathering of distinguished guests from all walks of life. Winterhalter was invited to Compiègne in 1853, before the séries élégantes had begun, the first artist to be so honoured. The invitation was no doubt a result of the commission he had received to paint the state portraits of the Imperial couple. These were finished in December 1853 at a cost of 24,000 francs.

So huge was the reproduction business that special request forms were printed to cope with the  demand. The portraits were engraved, transferred to Sèvres porcelain, woven into tapestry, made into miniatures, interpreted in sculpture, to become universal talismans of the Second Empire. It was as a painter extraordinary to the Empress that Winterhalter left his mark on the Second Empire. With unerring judgement she had selected him as the artist best able to do justice to herself and the ladies of the court, and she treated him generously. She gave orders for a studio to be constructed in the attics of the Tuileries: 'she decorated this with rich stuffs and objects of art. Here artists showed her their works and here Royalty sat for them.

In 1855, Winterhalter painted his masterpiece, 'The Empress Eugénie Surrounded by her Ladies-in-Waiting.' When the picture was finished, it was unveiled before the Emperor and Empress at the Tuileries. 'It enchangted their Majesties. The likeness and admirable conception were appreciated by all. The picture was subsequently exhibited at the Exposition Universelle in 1855 to a mixed critical reception where it was awarded a first-class medal."

To be continued

(Excerpts from the introduction by Richard Ormund, to "Franz Xaver Winterhalter and the Courts of Europe 1830-70.")  

 

Franz Xaver Winterhalter: Revolution 01 29

"Countess Eliza Krasinska, née Branicka"
by Franz Xaver Winterhalter 

"In a letter to a friend in Holland in 1846, Franz Xaver Winterhalter wrote: 'Soon I will have done with the entire royal family [of France], and then should end the period of portrait painting for me, and I shall be able to resume my way in the arts which derive their inspiration from the imagination, a pleasure which one cannot enjoy as a portrait painter.'

Two years later Winterhalter's wish was almost granted, but not in a way he could have foreseen. The Revolution of 1848 swept away the Orléanist monarchy, whose patronage had established him, and with it the world he knew and admired. The Revolution realized all the worst fears of this deeply conservative man, with his reverence for order and authority. The events which he was forced to witness in Paris, as the mob took control of the city, overturned the army and forced the abdication of the King, appalled him. He withdrew to Switzerland. 

The following March Winterhalter crossed to England, which seemed like a welcoming haven after the storms ravaging Europe. He confided his experiences to Queen Victoria, who wrote them in her journal: 

'We talked of France and Germany and the horrors of the past year; and he said that what he saw at Paris had made a terrible impression upon him, and that he had been unfortunate enough to come in for a revolution in almost every place! The fate of the French Royal Family and the behaviour of Germany is what distresses him most.'

Professional pride prevented him from giving up or giving way to despair. He had commitments to fulfill, portraits to paint. He was still in demand. Persistence saw him through from the fall of one dynasty to the rise of another."

To be continued

(Excerpts from the introduction by Richard Ormund, to "Franz Xaver Winterhalter and the Courts of Europe 1830-70.")  

 

Franz Xaver Winterhalter: The Winterhalter Brothers

"Portrait of Lady Rimsky-Korsakov"
by Franz Xaver Winterhalter

"Royal portraits dominated Franz Xaver Winterhalter's work during the 1840s, but not exclusively so. In spite of the pressures exerted on him by the demands of the French and English Courts, he found time to continue his normal practice as a portrait painter in Paris. His sitters were drawn almost exclusively from the highest aristocratic circles in Europe, who found his style irresistible. To a long list of French grandees, were added famous titles from Germany, Belgium, Russia and Poland. 

Without his brother Hermann's support, Winterhalter's task would have been immeasurably more difficult. The business side of the practice, the organization of the studio, the bast production line of replicas, the publication of prints, the manufacture of frames, and the delivery of pictures, fell on the shoulders of the younger man. He was reliable and loyal. Less important portrait commissions were pushed his way; he painted and exhibited charming studies of models, his most individual form of expression; but his chief energies went to aid the development of his brother's career. When Winterhalter went off on his travels to European capitals, he would leave Paris with complete assurance that all was well at home.

Hermann was supported in the studio by assistants, who helped in the task of copying and who probably contributed to the painting of dresses and accessories. Prominent among these assistants were two German artists, both of whom were to have independent careers: Albert Graeffle and Louis Coblitz, both of whom had trained with the Winterhalters in Munich.

Socially, as well as professionally, the two brothers were remarkably self-sufficient and self-contained. Success and wealth did not alter their modest and contented lifestyle. Social climbing was alien to their upbringing; they remained loyal to old friends in Germany and to a limited circle of acquaintances in Paris. Although Franz had become an international celebrity through his portraits of Royalty, he continued to believe that this was only a temporary phenomenon."

To be continued

(Excerpts from the introduction by Richard Ormund, to "Franz Xaver Winterhalter and the Courts of Europe 1830-70.")  

 

 

Franz Xaver Winterhalter: At the Court of Queen Victoria

"Queen Victoria and Prince Albert with Five
of Their Children" by Franz Xaver Winterhalter

"Louise-Marie, Queen of the Belgians, had first introduced Winterhalter to her father, Louis-Philippe. She was also responsible for arranging his first visit to the English Court, describing him to Queen Victoria in a letter of 16 May 1842 as 'an excellent man full of zeal for his art, of goodwill, obligingness and real modesty.' Between 1842 and 1871, Winterhalter painted more than a hundred works in oil for Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, including four pairs of state portraits, the great family piece, sequences of their children at various ages and in various guises, infants, highlanders, and débutantes, portraits of the ever-growing army of relatives that meant so much to the Queen, and quantities of delightful, informal sketches.

He came to England every summer or autumn for a stay of six to seven weeks, sometimes longer, in the early years when commissions were plentiful, and painted at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle, but rarely elsewhere in England. He made few contacts socially or professionally outside the Royal circle, and exhibited only a token number of pictures at the Royal Academy. He understood English but spoke it brokenly, joining a small and select group of German retainers at court.

The nature of Winterhalter's appeal to the British Royal family is not difficult to explain. His portraits were elegant, refined, lifelike and pleasingly idealized. He invested the traditional imagery of monarchy with romance and a fresh idealism which inspired the Royal couple as parents and rulers. The Queen, whose chief concern was that portraits should be like, was easily satisfied. The more knowledgeable Prince Albert, however, responded to the academic and technical virtuosity of his compatriot.

His painting aside, he fitted easily into court life, made his contribution to social occasions, provided the Queen with her first lessons in oil painting, advised the Prince on the arts, helped to secure pictures for him and became, in short, a friend. His simplicity of manner and absence of affectation appealed to the Queen, who liked plain speaking and directness in those around her. She never ceased to be fascinated by watching him paint, his skill in catching likeness, his wizardry with the brush. She was used to the vagaries of the artistic temperament, and expected painters to be unreliable. The methodical Winterhalter, turning portraits out like clockwork, was a paragon."

To be continued

(Excerpts from the introduction by Richard Ormund, to "Franz Xaver Winterhalter and the Courts of Europe 1830-70.")  

 

Franz Xaver Winterhalter: Court Painter

"Victoria of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha"
by Franz Xaver Winterhalter

"A rare glimpse of the artist at work is provided by Jules Janin in an account published in 1844. Franz Xaver Winterhalter and the medallist, Jean Auguste Barré, were invited to Neuilly to portray the beautiful young Duchess de Nemours. While the medallist slowly traced her profile in wax, the painter 'throws upon the canvas the charming head; he proceeds like a man who improvises with wonderful readiness . . . 'Madam' said he, 'Your Royal Highness is released from me; I have finished.' 'But it is impossible' cried Barré. 'Look then' replied Winterhalter. And in fact there was the faithful likeness of the Duchesse de Nemours . . . 'That I may not trouble Your Royal Highness,' said Winterhalter, 'I will take away the portrait, I will paint the dress at home.'

Royal patronage established Winterhalter's reputation, but cut him off from his artistic roots. The critics, who had loudly hailed the appearance of 'Il Dolce Farniente' and 'The Decameron,' condemned the artist two years later as a Royal 'toady.' He had abandoned his passport as a painter and could no longer be taken seriously. The attitude was to persist throughout the artist's career, condemning his work to a category of its own in the hierarchy of painting.* Arthur Stevens reviewed Winterhalter at the Salon of 1863:

'Everything has been said about this artist's talent. His colleagues lost interest in him long ago. For them, he no longer exists but he has retained his noble clientele. He specialises in painting the queens and princesses of the whole world; every august head appears to require consecration by Winterhalter's brush.' 

From 1839 onwards, Winterhalter painted an average of three to four formal portraits each year for Louis-Philippe. They included not only the King's children, but his grandchildren as well."

*The hierarchy of painting: 

• History painting, including historically important, religious, mythological, or allegorical subjects
• Portrait painting
• Genre painting or scenes of everyday life
• Landscape and cityscape art (landscapists were called "common footmen in the Army of Art"
• Animal painting
• Still life 

To be continued

(Excerpts from the introduction by Richard Ormund, to "Franz Xaver Winterhalter and the Courts of Europe 1830-70.")  

 

Franz Xaver Winterhalter: The French Court

"Portrait of King Louis-Philippe"
by Franz Xaver Winterhalter

"Franz Xaver Winterhalter had arrived on the Paris scene at a fortunate moment. Following the Revolution of 1830, Louis-Philippe revealed a reverence for the past achievements of his country which he hoped to emulate. At Versailles, he had established a national pantheon, transforming part of the palace into a museum, and filling it with pictures of personalities and events famous in French history. It was within this framework of historiography that he decided to commission a series of full-length portraits of himself and his family. He was an unusually proud father, and his sons were encouraged to play a prominent part in public and military affairs. The idea of a dynastic portrait gallery, which would satisfy the demands of official imagery, naturally appealed to the King.

It is difficult to know the reasons which lay behind the choice of Winterhalter for this work. Some think that he had come to the king's attention through the artist's portraits of his daughter, Louise-Marie, Queen of the Belgians, and her husband, King Leopold I. Also at that time, the older generation of portraitists had died. Of the big names in French art at the time, few were interested in undertaking official portrait commissions. Winterhalter's chief rivals were men of second rank. For a foreigner to take the prize after only four years in Paris is a tribute to the court's nose for talent, and evidence of the influence which the artist could call on to support his case.

Winterhalter executed more than thirty commissions for Louis-Philippe. His state portraits of the King and Queen became the accepted images of the Royal couple, and Winterhalter the established painter at court. A set of whole-lengths of the King's sons and daughters, as well as their spouses and children, was painted over the course of the next six years, and this was supplemented by portraits of other Royal personages. The largest commission came in 1844, when he was asked to record the King's reception at Windsor Castle on the occasion of his state visit to England. For the thirty pictures or so listed as painted for the King in his accounts (which are by no means comprehensive), Winterhalter received over 70,000 francs. When the sum raised through the mass-production of copies is taken into account (800 francs apiece), as well as the copyright in prints, it is clear that Winterhalter was not only successful but also rich. The award of the Légion d'Honneur in 1839 put the stamp of Royal approval on his achievement."

To be continued

(Excerpts from the introduction by Richard Ormund, to "Franz Xaver Winterhalter and the Courts of Europe 1830-70.")  

Franz Xaver Winterhalter: Move to Paris

"El Dolce Farniente" by Franz Winterhalter

"In August 1834, Franz Xaver Winterhalter was appointed court painter to the Grand Duke, no doubt as a result of his Italian trip. Then suddenly, in December, Winterhalter packed his bags and departed for Paris, settling at no. 17 rue des Petits Augustins, an area in which he would reside for the next thirty-six years. He had made his decisive move, not within Germany, but to the capital of a foreign country. We can only guess at the reasons for this dramatic move. Even with the support of patrons, the chances of success for a foreign painter, in a city not short of native talent, were decidedly risky. 

Instinct must have told Winterhalter that his sympathies lay overwhelmingly with French painting, and that the prospects of patronage for a court painter were much greater in this cosmopolitan centre than in any of the German capitals. Paris would be his testing ground.

Within months of arrival, Winterhalter had sent his first contribution to the Salon, a portrait of an unidentified woman. During 1835, he was devoting his energies to a more substantial contribution. 'Il Dolce Farniente,' a dreamy siesta scene set in Naples and staffed by an unusually large cast of handsome girls and young men, was a full-scale academic composition, dressed up as a genre scene. The harmonious disposition of the figures on two levels, the studied poses, and the mood of dreamy reverie, were inspired by Raphael's 'Parnassus.' Winterhalter was creating a Golden Age in modern dress, with exotic Italian props, and here lay the secret of its success. When the Salon of 1836 opened, 'Il Dolce Farniente' scored an immediate success; it was widely noticed in the press and it established its author as an up-and-coming man.

At the 1837 Salon, he followed up his earlier success with 'The Decameron,' a picture of Boccaccio's circle of storytellers. The recipe was the same as before, a tightly controlled academic composition in the style of Raphael, this time in a picturesque historical setting. Once again he scored a success. It was decorative and colourful, and formed a welcome contrast to the violent productions of the Romantic School. The picture was sold for 10,000 francs to a wealthy wool merchant and philanthropist, the Deputé Paturle, a fact sufficiently well publicized to reach the ears of Baron Eichtal, who relayed it at once to Menzenschwand."

To be continued

(Excerpts from the introduction by Richard Ormund, to "Franz Xaver Winterhalter and the Courts of Europe 1830-70.")

 

Franz Xaver Winterhalter: Italy

"Study of Italian Girl"
by Franz Xaver Winterhalter

"There is no doubt of the liberating effect which Italy had on Franz Xaver Winterhalter's imagination. In his only surviving letter from Rome, written from the Caffè Greco, on 12 March 1833, he wrote of his delight in the country: 'I will be glad all of my life that I came here.' Free for the first time from the pressures of lithographic work and portrait commissions, he raised his sights to academic composition and embraced new subject matter. His pencil was never still; a surviving sketchbook includes copies from the Old Masters, figure studies, landscapes, and ideas for compositions. Six of his drawings after Michelangelo's figures of prophets and sybils in the Sistine Chapel were later lithographed by Josef Anton Selb and published in a portfolio by Anton Werder in Munich. 

The apparently simple, sensual, uncomplicated lives of the Italian peasants of the south, resplendent in native costume, provided excellent copy for Romantic, Northern painters in love with the Mediterranean. Numbers of German painters, and those of other nationalities, devoted themselves to this popular and profitable genre. Winterhalter threw himself into this enchanted world with enthusiasm, developing a new richness of palette, a new fluency of technique and subtle effects of lighting.

Winterhalter left Rome early in 1834, returning to Karlsruhe not only with saleable pictures but with plans for several large-scale pictures in his mind. Events in his life now moved rapidly." 

To be continued

(Excerpts from the introduction by Richard Ormund, to "Franz Xaver Winterhalter and the Courts of Europe 1830-70.")  

 

Franz Xaver Winterhalter: To Karlsruhe and Beyond

"Portrait of a Young Architect, 
Probably Karl Josef Berckmüller"
by Franz Xaver Winterhalter

"In the summer of 1828, Franz Xaver Winterhalter visited Karlsruhe and began to cement his relations at court. Karlsruhe was a political and cultural backwater, and the Grand Duchess Sophie must have found the presence of a talented young artist a distraction from the stifling provincialism of court life. It was no doubt at her instigation that Winterhalter was employed on Royal commissions, an early instance of his adroitness in cultivating the feminine interest at court.

Many of his commissions also served as the source of prints as Winterhalter capitalized on his skills as a lithographer to earn extra income. Although he came to Karlsruhe each year for a specified period, his base was Munich. He told his parents in a letter of 16 January 1830, 'We both keep painting portraits but otherwise nothing else. . . I expect I shall be coming to Karlsruhe in three months' time, but I am not yet certain. I still have to write and ask if I may come.'

Late in 1832, he set out on a long postponed visit to Italy, in part funded by Grand Duke Leopold, arriving in Rome early in 1833. No serious German artist could consider his education complete without a visit to Rome, the centre of a large, polyglot community of artists. Winterhalter had a number of friends in Rome. A drawing by the architect, H.W. Schüle, dated 4 March 1833, includes the painter among a group of convivial drinking companions. Winterhalter did not, however, share the fervent idealism or nationalism common to so many German artists in Rome. In matters of taste he leaned, by instinct, towards Horace Vernet and the French Academy, earning the nickname of 'der Französische' among his contemporaries. His introduction to Vernet came from the Count Jenison, the Bavarian ambassador in Paris, and the young German assiduously cultivated his friendship."

To be continued

(Excerpts from the introduction by Richard Ormund, to "Franz Xaver Winterhalter and the Courts of Europe 1830-70.")  

 

Franz Xaver Winterhalter: Progress

"Sophie, Grand Duchesse of Baden"
by Franz Xaver Winterhalter

"Franz Xaver Winterhalter had arrived in Munich for studies at a momentous period of its history. The new King, Ludwig I, was a Maecenas* of the arts, intent on turning his capital into a new Athens. Architects were commissioned to design prestigious public buildings in the Classical style and artists employed to decorate them. Two of the leading luminaries of German art, Peter Cornelius and Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld came to Munich in the 1820s to carry out monumental mural schemes and their achievements raised Munich's prestige to unparalleled heights. Cornelius took up the post of Director of the Munich Academy in 1825, soon after Winterhalter had begun to study drawing and painting there.

In July 1825, Winterhalter received a modest and welcome acknowledgement of his progress. He was given a pension of 200 florins** by the Grand Duke of Baden in return for executing an annual drawing. Writing in the same year, he described the work he was doing:

'I have drawn a few other portraits, partly because I have been paid for them, partly because I had to do them out of complaisance and courtesy. But now I am going to work continuously at the portrait for the Grand Duke. By the 8 February he has to have it in the room. When this is finished I must attend the Academy and work diligently under the direction of the new director, Cornelius, if I am in time to have good references, and how necessary these are for Karlsruhe [the capital of the Grand Duchy of Baden]! For academic study is what really matters, and if in time I should wish for favour from the court, or an appointment, they would look for an academic education. So now we have to sit down and work like schoolboys beside a crowd of others. We now have one hour's lecture on anatomy every afternoon from three o'clock till four. We often have to tear ourselves away violently from our lithography, for although we are earning money, the actual learning is not making progress. When my drawing is finished for the Grand Duke, I will quite definitely paint both portraits.'

Winterhalter also traveled in Germany to look at works of art, and wrote sententiously, 'An artist needs to see other men's work if he would himself create.'  He had received patronage from the Grand Duke, Ludwig, but in the near future it would be the his half-brother, Prince Leopold, and his beautiful wife, Sophie, that the artist would owe his advancement." 

* a generous patron

** "In 1825, 30 florins could buy a pair of boots, and 60-70 florins could buy a coat. A salary of 4,000 florins was considered a very high, upper-class income. Therefore, 200 florins represented several months' to a year's wages for a skilled worker." 

To be continued

(Excerpts from the introduction, by Richard Ormund, to "Franz Xaver Winterhalter and the Courts of Europe 1830-70.")  

Franz Xaver Winterhalter: Munich

"Woman Reading a Letter"
by Franz Xaver Winterhalter

"The decision that Franz Xaver Winterhalter should train in Munich had been taken on Baron Eichtal's advice and with his support. He finally left the Herder Institute early in 1823. An emotional letter of farewell from a young priest who taught there is dated 23 January 1823. He warned the young artist to be sincere, God-fearing and diligent, to avoid the company of inferiors, and not to raise himself in the world by a liaison with a fashionable woman and to steel himself against desire and lust. Winterhalter was said to have carried the letter with him wherever he went, an indication of his simple and pious outlook on life that changed little with age.

It had been decided that his brother, Hermann, should join him in Munich, after a second fracas with Herder, and the older brother wrote to advise his father as to what things Hermann should bring with him:

'His shirts must be of fine linen. The best you can do and must do is to ask Frank's sisters to cut them out and sew one of them as a pattern. They must have many pleats and very fine collars. For you must not imagine that things are the same here as they are at home or in Freiburg: here one has to be very well dressed simply to be ordinary. But my brother, through us, is going to become acquainted with people of such station. It is happening to us more and more every day, and at the same time our business is very good. It is natural: where the common people give a guilder, the important people give a thaler, and they are no better informed. He will see for himself how good things are. If he has got decent waistcoats at home he should bring them and his coat, too. He might also have some boots made in Freiburg, so that they are not Menzenschwand clodhoppers; they must be elegant boots.'

Winterhalter had gotten work as a lithographer which enabled him to keep himself, as well as earning small sums from portrait commissions. Over twenty lithographs by him from this Munich period are known, mostly after the work of other artists. By 1825, he had joined the Munich Academy where he continued to draw from life. He had also joined the studio of the fashionable portrait painter, Josef Stieler. Winterhalter must have been useful as an assistant, and he is also known to have lithographed several of Stieler's portraits."

To be continued

(Excerpts from the introduction, by Richard Ormund, to "Franz Xaver Winterhalter and the Courts of Europe 1830-70.")  

Franz Xaver Winterhalter: Apprenticeship

"Self-Portrait" at 17 years of age
pencil on paper
by Franz Xaver Winterhalter

"Within a year of the young Winterhalter's arrival, his teacher, Karl Ludwig Schuler, was appointed as Director of the Institute for the Arts established by the publishing house of Herder. His eight apprentices went with him, and boarded at Herder's, to become part of a team of engravers and lithographers producing the illustrated books for which Herder was famous. 

The young Winterhalter wrote to his parents of the bullying he suffered from the other apprentices, of the bad language they used, of Bartholomaus Herder's rages at their ingratitude and of his own determination to be a religious painter. He worked on copper-plate engravings of peasant scenes, religious subjects for Bible illustrations and on lithographic reproductions of famous works of art. His artistic training was not neglected, and there are several surviving drawings by him from plaster casts of Classical busts, as well as animal studies and sporting scenes. 

In 1819, Winterhalter was joined by his eleven-year-old brother Fidel, or Hermann, as he would become known. Their lives were simple and circumscribed. By 1822, the two brothers were living in lodgings in the town and beginning to draw from life. Winterhalter's surviving life studies show a stronger grasp of form, and a surer technique, than his drawings of busts. His sense of his own achievement and his self-evident talent, coupled with an ambition to get on, soon made his restive at the Herder Institute. He wanted to pursue his career in less restrictive and provincial surroundings, and he was encouraged in his desire to move by Baron Eichtal. 

The irascible Herder, however, was not prepared to release his gifted apprentice without a fight. He complained to Winterhalter's father: 

'For some time now, the disgusting ingratitude of my apprentices has made me positively ill, and it gets worse and worse...the revolutionary conduct in my Institute I will not tolerate. I would sooner dismiss all my ungrateful and unwilling apprentices at once than allow myself to be played with. The parents are very much to blame.' 

But a compromise was worked out. Winterhalter would be allowed to leave the following year to train in Munich, while Hermann remained with Herder at the Institute." 

To be continued

(Excerpts from the introduction, by Richard Ormund, to "Franz Xaver Winterhalter and the Courts of Europe 1830-70.")  

 

Franz Xaver Winterhalter: Beginnings

"Portrait of a Lady with a Fan"
by Franz Xaver Winterhalter

"Franz Xaver Winterhalter was born in Menzenschwand, a small village in the upper reaches of the Black Forest in Germany, on April 20, 1805. Though considerably altered, the Winterhalter family house still stands to this day in the village and the painter is commemorated by a public memorial and a room at the local inn named in his honor.

Franz Xaver, known in youth as Xaver, had four brothers and four sisters, of whom only four survived beyond infancy.  The passionate interest shown by Fidel in the careers of his sons, and his anxious solicitude for them long after they had grown up, is evidence of this. So is the reciprocal interest shown by Winterhalter himself in events at home. Year after year he returned to Menzenschwand, followed the fortunes of his sisters and their children, and contributed financial assistance. His character had been formed by the independence, conservative outlook, simple morality and deeply-held Catholic beliefs of the rural community in which he had been raised. These qualities continued to exert a determining influence on him throughout his life.

Franz Xaver and his brother Hermann were both taught at the local Pfarr-schule by the priest, Father Lieber. Lieber was interested in the arts, and had acquired his own modest picture collection. He encouraged the two brothers to draw, nurtured their talent and drew their work to the attention of a local grandee, Daniel Seligmann, Baron Eichtal, who ran a textile factory. He had become one of the leading industrialists in the Grand Duchy of Baden, and a prominent figure at court in Karlsruhe.

Between them, Father Lieber and Eichtal persuaded Winterhalter's father to allow his son to train professionally as an artist. They may well have helped to raise the initial premium necessary to apprentice him for four years, and to pay for his board and instruction. He left Menzenschwand in 1818 at the age of thirteen to study drawing and engraving in the studio of an established Freiburg artist, Karl Ludwig Schuler."

To be continued

(Excerpts from the introduction, by Richard Ormund, to "Franz Xaver Winterhalter and the Courts of Europe 1830-70.")   

Pietro Annigoni: The Last Word

Pietro Annigoni's self-portrait as "Gulliver"

We now leave Pietro Annigoni's autobiography, which was published in 1977, eleven years before his death in Florence on October 28, 1988, of kidney failure. He was a controversial figure - definite in his classical approach, searching for the raison d'etre behind his subject matter, unabashedly expressing his thoughts on art and not caring overmuch what his critics thought.

In "Pietro Annigoni: A Retrospective," a catalogue for a 1969 exhibition, it is observed:

'Annigoni is a 'rara avis' [rare bird] among contemporary artists; a painter who has never abandoned his faith in the importance of humanist traditions, and who derives his strength as an artist directly from the inspiration of the Renaissance. He is an extraordinarily gifted draughtsman, and he has applied his talents during the last twenty years to the business of painting portraits - and so he is known to the world at large. His admirers - those who know the man and his work in depth - and his critics who do not respond to the substance of his art, are both taken by his mastery of drawing. 

The admirers largely fall into the category of votaries - those who seek him out because he can render a portrait or a landscape with all the apparent virtuosity of a living Old Master; those, who, as students, find his re-assurances of the values of realism nourishing to their own ambitions; and those who see him as the exponent of a wished-for artistic 'revanche*' against the tide of modern taste. 

His detractors tend to view him with dismay, seeing his career as the misguided use of a prodigiously talented hand spending itself in the pursuit of discredited ambitions. But Annigoni seems to care very little for all of this. He is content with his friends and he is sufficiently intellectual to deal with the hostile theories that assail his position. He makes but one request of the world: despite differences of opinion, his integrity be not doubted.' 

* revanche: a policy or movement aimed at achieving the return of a nation's lost territory.

(Excerpt from the introduction, by Donelson F. Hoopes, in "Pietro Annigoni: A Retrospective Exhibition," 1969.)

Pietro Annigoni: Man of Convictions

"St. Jerome" by Pietro Annigoni

Pietro Annigoni was a man of strong convictions, and is known as the author of the "Manifesto of Modern Painters of Reality," for his "Essay on Impressionism," and for his public outcry against the destruction that painting conservators were wreaking on historic works through their lack of understanding on the artists' process of painting. Here is his essay on "The Picture Cleaning Controversy."

"A few days ago, at the National Gallery, I noticed once more the ever-increasing number of masterpieces which have been ruined by excessive cleaning. 

This procedure, which, in former times, created at Munich a veritable scandal, and at the same time a reaction as vigorous as it was beneficial, recommenced, at the close of the last war, not only in England, but in Italy, France, Germany - everywhere and was received, alas! with almost total indifference.

The war did not destroy a greater number of works of art. Such is the power of a group of individuals, nowhere numerous, whose proceedings may be compared to the work of germs disseminating a new and terrible disease. 

I do not doubt the meticulous care employed by these renovators, nor their chemical skill, but I am terrified by the contemplation of these qualities in such hands as theirs. The atrocious results reveal an incredible absence of sensibility. We find no trace of the intuition so necessary to the understanding of the technical stages employed by artists in different pictorial creations, and which cannot possibly be restored by chemical means.

The most essential part of the completion of a picture by the Old Master was comprised in light touches, and above all in the use of innumerable glazes, either int he details or in the general effect - glazes often mixed even in the final layers of varnish. Now, I do not say that one should not clean off crusts of dirt, and sometimes even recent coats of varnish, coarsely applied and dangerous, but I maintain that to proceed further than that, and to pretend to remount the past years, separating one layer from another, till one arrives at what is mistakenly supposed to be the original state of the work, is to commit a crime, not of insensibility alone, but of enormous presumption.

What is interesting in these masterpieces, now in mortal danger, is the surface as the master left it - aged, alas! as all things age, but with the magic of the glazes preserved, and with those final accents which confer unity, balance, atmosphere, expression - in fact all the most important and moving qualities in a work of art.

But after these terrible cleanings little of all this remains. No sooner, in fact, is the victim in the hands of these 'infallible' destroyers, than they discover everywhere the alterations due, at different times, to the evil practices of former destructive 'infallibles'. Thus ravage is added to ravage in a vain attempt to restore youth to the painting at any price.

Falling upon their victim, they commence work on one corner, and soon proclaim a 'miracle'; for, behold, brilliant colours begin to appear. Unfortunately what they have found are nothing but the preparative tones, sometimes even of the first sketch, on which the artist has worked carefully, giving the best that is in him, in preparation for the execution of the finished work. But the cleaners know nothing of this, perceive nothing, and continue to clean until the picture appears to them, in ignorance, quite new and shining.

Some parts of the picture painted in thickly applied colour will have held firm; other parts (and these always the most numerous) which depended on the glazes, of infinitesimal fineness, will have disappeared; the work of art will have been mortally wounded.

Is it possible that those responsible for these injuries do not perceive them, do not understand what they have done? Clearly it is possible, for they are proud of their crimes, and often group the paintings they have murdered in special galleries to show their triumphs to the public - a public whose opinion, in any case, they care nothing for. 

For myself, I cannot express all the sorrow and bitterness I feel in the presence of these evidences of a decadence which strives to anticipate the destruction of civilisation itself by the atomic bomb. How long will these ravages in the domain of Art and Culture continue unrestrained and unpunished? The damage they have done is already enormous." ~ Pietro Annigoni 

(From "Pietro Annigoni: An Artist's Life" by Pietro Annigoni, 1977.) 

Pietro Annigoni: The Last Supper

"The Last Supper" by Pietro Annigoni

"By 16th November, 1974, I had completed all of the fresco above the level of the table top, which, of course, included the heads and torsos of Christ and all the Disciples. Relief at having brought the work so far in a reasonably short time was overshadowed by some doubts about the quality of the wall. It was a very old wall and I had to hold my breath and wait for several months until the new plaster dried completely before I could be sure that it was entirely sound and free of treacherous saltpetre.

My fears for the wall were unfounded. The drying process went on at the desired snail's pace throughout the winter and when I returned in March to continue the work, all was well. After twenty-five days, on 15th April 1975, the fresco was finished. Elation ought surely to have followed, but my diary tells a different story: 

'I have finished 'The Last Supper'. But if I can say now that this, too, has been done, I say it with melancholy and not without a feeling of frustration. I don't know, in truth, if I had been expecting more approval from others or from myself.' 

In the middle of September it was unveiled and consecrated by the Bishop of Pescia. It was quite an exciting occasion and a big crowd gathered in the square outside the church where the band from a nearby village was playing. Senator Fanfani, who had shown interest in the fresco from the beginning and had spent some time watching me at work, turned up unexpectedly with his wife. The sun shone and a hot wind was blowing. Inside the packed church, where film and television crews were recording the ceremony by the light of their own enormously powerful light, the heat built up to such an intolerable level that I thought I was going to faint.

I have to confess that there were moments during the ceremony and the consecration service when my mind, and sometimes my eyes, wandered up to the dome high overhead, and I experienced a strange feeling of combined thrill and fear at the thought that I had committed myself to paint a fresco up there. It was to be a Pentecost, and at the end of the day, when I was at home again, I made my first sketch for it in my diary."

To be continued 

(Excerpted from "Pietro Annigoni: An Artist's Life" by Pietro Annigoni, 1977.) 

 

Pietro Annigoni: Preparations for "The Last Supper"

Studies for Pietro Annigoni's "Last Supper"

"Now I was going to concentrate on a sacred fresco, a huge "Last Supper" that I was going to paint for love alone in the church of a village called Ponte Buggianese. I resolved that I would devote myself entirely to this work for which I had already been preparing for a year. 

I have been asked if I do not think it was arrogant to attempt a subject for which Leonardo da Vinci is popularly believed to have provided the perfect composition (thereby, it is implied, making any later artists' essays irrelevant) and if I did not find it hard to get away from that 'perfect composition.' Leaving aside the fact that, personally, I prefer Tintoretto's 'Last Supper' in San Rocco, Venice, to Leonardo's, I think it is almost as absurd to suggest that Leonardo had the last word on the Last Supper as it would be to say that in his 'Mona Lisa' he had the last word on the human face, and that therefore no other artist should paint one.

I read and re-read the Gospels, trying to feel in my ordinary human way something of the absolute loneliness that Christ must have felt at that terrible moment. Finally, I had the idea of isolating the Christ figure, and suddenly the whole thing became my own. It symbolized the difficulty even the Church has in getting near to Christ, and the impossibility for human beings to be Christlike, especially in our time. After months of thinking about and concentrating upon that idea, the form taken by my composition followed instinctively.

For every day spent in the actual painting of a fresco, many times as many days have usually been spent in planning and preparation. The nature of fresco makes it absolutely essential that the artist knows in advance exactly what he is going to paint each day, so he will work from full-size, detailed studies that he can follow without faltering. Once the paint is applied no alterations, apart from minimal retouching, can be made. Before he can begin painting, the wall itself has to be prepared by a mason and plasterer. Upon this rough surface the artist then draws a bold outline of the principal masses of his composition.

Next he decides how much of the fresco he will be able to paint each day and marks these areas on his working drawing. And each day, a few hours before he starts painting, his plasterer prepares the appropriate area, covering it with a very smooth-surfaced layer of plaster. At the end of those few hours the plaster will be firm, and, after it has been given a coat of white-wash, the artist or his assistant traces on to it the appropriate part of the design. This is usually done by making perforations all along the main lines of a full-size drawing, fixing the drawing over the newly plastered area and dusting the lines with a loose-woven cotton bag containing charcoal dust or fine chalk power, thus leaving a dotted-line drawing on the plaster."

To be continued 

(Excerpted from "Pietro Annigoni: An Artist's Life" by Pietro Annigoni, 1977.) 

Pietro Annigoni: 1969 Portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, Pt. 2

"Queen Elizabeth II" by Pietro Annigoni

"So far I had done little more than prepare the large wooden panel on which I had decided to paint it. Now I drew with a brush the outlines of the composition and painted in the principal masses. Then, using the finished study I had made at Buckingham Palace, I began to work on the head of the Queen and continued until I could take it no further without more sittings. At the beginning of October, I had the panel crated and sent to Buckingham Palace to await my arrival there.

On 19th October I left Florence by train and arrived in London the next day, and the following morning I was at the Palace with Tim Whidborne to help me to unpack the portrait, when Sir Martin Charteris sent for me. Naturally, I assumed he wanted to discuss the schedule for the Queen's sittings but instead he upbraided me about an article in a woman's magazine which reported passages of the Queen's conversations with me. The Queen, said Sir Martin, was annoyed about it. I had to admit to myself that I had succumbed to the temptation of the publicity and the fee that the magazine had offered me, and in my heart I reproached myself for having done it. But I forgave myself, too.

A sitting had been arranged for that afternoon and I prepared to offer my apologies, but the opportunity to do so never arose. From the moment of her arrival her amiability was so evident that it would have been churlish to mar it with an obviously unwanted apology. She greeted me with a friendly handshake and showed much more than polite interest in the large picture that she was seeing for the first time. From then on we talked almost continuously, covering a great variety of subjects, [which was the pattern for the following sittings].

To facilitate my work when the Queen was not with me, I had the British Empire robe draped on a dummy figure that was crowned with a wig belonging to her. Now that I was painting her hair from life, I noticed how closely the wig resembled her own hair in colour and style, and commented upon it. 'Yes,' she said, 'it's an excellent imitation and it also cost a great deal!' According to my schedule the next sitting, the sixteenth, should have been the last and the Queen remembered, but with her usual thoughtfulness she asked if I needed more and acceded to my request for two. 

During the last stages of the painting I worked for at least six hours every day at the Palace. The two extra sittings proved of little value. The portrait was already defined in a way quite different from that I had envisaged. The Queen was restless and nervous and I became exasperated as the truly Royal image that I aimed for eluded me. But before she left for the last time I thanked her for the many sittings and she replied, almost shyly, hoping that they had been enough. Then she left the room to the music of the slow march from the band in the courtyard below. I did not think she was entirely satisfied with the portrait, and I myself felt that yet again I had created a Royal portrait that was going to be liked by some and hated by others - and so it proved."

To be continued 

(Excerpted from "Pietro Annigoni: An Artist's Life" by Pietro Annigoni, 1977.) 

 

Pietro Annigoni: Portrait of Queen Elizabeth, 1969, Pt. 1

"Self-Portrait, 1971" by Pietro Annigoni

"I had been surprised to get a letter from Dr. Roy Strong asking me if I would accept a commission to paint a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II for the National Portrait Gallery, of which he was then the Director. Work on the portrait did not begin until two years afterwards. I arrived in London on 19th February 1969, having travelled by train across by train across a snowbound Europe. I had to be in the Yellow Drawing-room at Buckingham Palace, with a clear head, at eleven-thirty in the morning for the Queen's first sitting. I arrived early and arranged my things, feeling completely calm and at home in the familiar surroundings. 

It had been arranged that my portrait would show the Queen wearing the mantle of the Order of the British Empire, but it was not until the seventh and eighth sittings that she made her appearance in it for me. Each time she had come straight from another sitting which was for a sculptor who was making a bust for the new 'Queen Elizabeth' liner. 'The poor man is rather desperate,' she said. 'He says that my face is extremely changeable.' I told her that he had my sympathy and I could understand his difficulty, and she smiled, amused, and went on: 'This morning's sitting was an extra to the six agreed upon but he has destroyed the clay head again. He does it every time; takes it up in his hands and' - she imitated his action vigorously with her own hands - 'reforms it.'

At the end of the eighth sitting, the Queen reminded me that it was the last she was able to give me until the following October. I explained that during that period I would be working in Florence on the final painting, and I tried to convey to her how I visualised the finished portrait. 'I see Your Majesty as being condemned to solitude because of your position,' I said, 'and I intend to let that be my inspiration. It goes without saying that, as a wife and mother you are entirely different, but I see you really alone as a Monarch and I want to represent you that way. If I succeed, the woman, the Queen and, for that matter, the solitude will emerge.'

She nodded earnestly in agreement and then came to look at the study I had made during the eight sittings. Although I watched her closely, she gave me no idea of her reaction to it until she spoke. 'One doesn't know one's self,' she said. 'After all, we have a biased view when we see ourselves in a mirror and, what's more, the image is always in reverse.'

'I hope Your Majesty has nothing against being depicted without jewellery, including earrings?' I said. She listened and nodded in agreement and before she left she held out her hand to me and said: 'I feel that the inspiration is there. Go ahead. I look forward to seeing you and the picture in October.'"

To be continued 

(Excerpted from "Pietro Annigoni: An Artist's Life" by Pietro Annigoni, 1977.)