Vilhelm Hammershøi | La poesia del silenzio

Vilhelm Hammershøi (1864-1916) è stato un pittore Danese, noto per i suoi ritratti ed interni poetici e sommessi.

Vita

Vilhelm Hammershøi nacque a Copenhagen, in Danimarca. Figlio di un mercante benestante, Christian Hammershøi, comincia a studiare disegno all'età di otto anni con Niels Christian Kierkegaard e Holger Grønvold, oltre a dipingere con Vilhelm Kyhn.

Più grande, segue i corsi di Frederik Vermehren presso la Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts.

Dal 1883-1885 studia con Peder Severin Krøyer debuttando alla "Mostra primaverile di Charlottenborg", nel 1885, con "Ritratto di una giovane ragazza" (che mostra sua sorella Anna).

Vilhelm Hammershøi | Ritratto di una giovane ragazza. La sorella dell'artista, Anna Hammershøi

Frans Stracké | The Two Mothers, 1893 | Rijksmuseum

Franz Stracké created this sculpture in terracotta in 1893. The title "Two Mothers" refers to the woman and the dog, positioned at her feet looking upwards, whose puppies she is carrying. This work by Franz Stracké is exhibited at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

This sweet scene reflects increasing interest in the lives of fishermen. The statue shows a young woman holding her child, with her dog’s puppies gathered in her apron. Yet life is not a bed of roses for this barefoot fisherman’s wife. She has only two fish in her pouch, and the net that she drags behind her is empty. | Rijksmuseum

Frans Stracké | The Two Mothers, 1893 (detail) | Rijksmuseum

Franz Skarbina | Impressionist painter

Franz Skarbina (1849-1910) was a German impressionist painter, draftsman, etcher and illustrator.

Born in Berlin, he was the son of a goldsmith from Zagreb. From 1865-1869, he studied at the Prussian Academy of Arts.

After graduation, he spent two years as a tutor to the daughters of Count Friedrich von Perponcher-Sedlnitzky (1821-1909), during which time he travelled to Dresden, Vienna, Venice, Munich, Nuremberg and Merano.

In 1877, he had acquired the funds to make a year-long study trip to the Netherlands, Belgium and France, where he came under the influence of impressionism.

Claude Monet | The River, 1881 | Museum Barberini

Claude Monet depicted an evening on the river using a reduced formal vocabulary. The impulsive play of lines seems to be rapidly set down, as if the painter had wanted to complete the composition just before the sun disappeared.

Several branches glow in the red light of its last rays. Although the picture has the appearance of a sketch, the artist’s signature indicates that he considered it an independent, completed work.

According to Academic standards, a finished painting was characterized by a polished surface in which even subordinate elements should be developed in some detail.

Monet resisted this aesthetic of the fini by dissolving the traditional distinction between the preparatory sketch (esquisse or étude) and the painting intended for exhibition (tableau).

John Duncan | Pre-Raphaelite / Symbolist painter

John Duncan (1866-1945) was a Scottish painter. Duncan was born in the Hilltown area of Dundee on 19 July 1866, the son of a butcher and cattleman. John, however, had no interest in the family business and preferred the visual arts.

By the age of 15 he was submitting cartoons to the local magazine "The Wizard of the North" and was later taken on as an assistant in the art department of the Dundee Advertiser. At the same time he was also a student at the Dundee School of Art, then based at the High School of Dundee.

In 1887-88 he worked in London as a commercial illustrator, then travelled to the continent to study at Antwerp Academy under Charles Verlat and the Düsseldorf Art Academy.

In 1889 Duncan returned to Dundee and exhibited in the new Victoria Art Galleries extension of the Albert Institute. The following year he became one of the founder members of the Dundee Graphic Arts Association (now Dundee Art Society).

John Duncan | Tristan and Isolde, 1912

Fred Stead | Landscape / Genre painter

Frederick 'Fred' Stead (1863-1940) was born in Shipley, Yorkshire in August 1863.

He studied initially at the Shipley School of Art before being awarded a scholarship to The Royal Cambrian Academy.

Stead gained a reputation as portrait painter of the rich and wealthy of Bradford and became the Chairman of the Society of Yorkshire Artists.

Paul Delaroche | The Execution of Lady Jane Grey, 1833

"I am assured that I shall, for losing of a mortal life, win an immortal life" - Lady Jane Grey, February 1554.

Since its rediscovery in 1973 and first exhibition at the National Gallery two years later, Paul Delaroche’s The Execution of Lady Jane Grey, 1833, has become one of the nation’s best-loved paintings.

For the first time, 'Painting History' examines this iconic masterpiece in the context of Delaroche’s great historical paintings, particularly the poignant scenes from English history which made his reputation.

The exhibition features seven major international loans of paintings by Delaroche including 'The Princes in the Tower', 1830 and 'Young Christian Martyr', 1854-5 (both Louvre), and 'Strafford on his way to Execution', 1835 (private collection).

Henrik Nordenberg | Genre and interior painter

Carl Henrik Nordenberg (1857-1928) was a German-Swedish landscape, genre and interior painter, etcher and lithographer from the Düsseldorf School.

Nordenberg, nephew of the genre painter Bengt Nordenberg, followed his uncle to Düsseldorf in 1873, where he received private lessons from him.

From 1873 to 1883/1884 he studied at the Düsseldorf Art Academy.

There Andreas and Karl Müller, Heinrich Lauenstein, Eduard Gebhardt, Julius Roeting, Carl Ernst Forberg and Wilhelm Sohn were his teachers.