Google Art Project – Page 4

A London Street Scene

A London Street Scene (1840) by John Parry.

If any painting requires the attentions of the Google Art Project it’s this depiction of a bill poster going about his work by John Orlando Parry (1810–1879). I know this from a cropped view (see here) which shows the care Parry applied to details of typography and the layering of the posters. There’s also some humour with the pickpocket boy on the left, and the artist himself as the subject of one poster in the centre of the picture. Wikipedia has a large version here but it’s too washed-out and blurred to be any use. For a view of the genuine article at work, see this LSE Library photo.

A note about the painting’s date: online sources give 1830 but the copy I have in a book from the V&A says 1840.

Danby’s Deluge

Since John Martin’s tumultuous canvases are back in the news it’s worth remembering another 19th-century painter of Biblical cataclysm, Francis Danby (1793–1861), whose enormous The Deluge (1840) used to hang in the same room as the Martins at Tate Britain. Danby was a contemporary of Martin although not as enthusiastic about this kind of subject matter. Visions of apocalypse proved to be popular, however, so Danby painted his Flood and similar works with reluctance. (Even Turner wasn’t above painting the occasional disaster.) Danby’s Deluge impressed me as much as Martin’s work when I first saw it not least for its having some believable human figures which give the vast canvas a tragic dimension. Martin’s figures are perfunctory and invariably dwarfed by the scale of events.

These details are from the Google Art Project which unfortunately don’t show us as much detail as they might. This is one of those paintings which encourages a lengthy contemplation, with a composition that draws the eye away from the swirling waters to a glowering sun and the shape of Noah’s ark on the distant horizon.

I’ve always been intrigued by the curious detail of the angel caught in the flood, and the even more curious detail of a drowned giant beside it. For the first time, however, I’ve noticed that the angel is peering into the face of a dead woman draped over the giant’s body. Paintings such as these often toured the country accompanied by the artist responsible who would lecture a paying audience about the various details. Besides the storytelling Danby gives the water in the foreground an astonishing transparent quality which Google’s photos can’t replicate. All the more reason to see his paintings for yourself if you’re in London.

• Francis Danby at Tate Britain

Previously on { feuilleton }
• John Martin: Heaven & Hell
• Darkness visible
• Death from above
• The apocalyptic art of Francis Danby

Whistler’s Peacock Room revisited

The Peacock Room (1876–1877).

More Japonism courtesy of the Google Art Project where it’s possible to pan around this view of Whistler’s Peacock Room at the Freer Gallery of Art. There’s only one view, unfortunately, it would have been good to see the reverse angle or, better still, a full panorama.

The Princess from the Land of Porcelain (1864).

Google has a number of the Freer’s collection of Whistler drawings and paintings, including The Princess from the Land of Porcelain, the painting which the Peacock Room was designed to show to best effect along with patron Frederick Leyland’s blue-and-white china. Once again the Google views allow us to scrutinise the details of a painting in a way which would otherwise be impossible. It’s fascinating for me to see how loose Whistler’s technique was even at this early date, the brushstrokes of the face seem to have been scumbled over raw canvas.

Caprice in Purple and Gold: The Golden Screen (1864).

Also at the Freer is another piece of exotica from the same period with a suitably Japanese frame. Whistler’s Japonism, and the Peacock Room in particular, leads directly to Aubrey Beardsley’s art thirty years later.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The Peacock Clock
• Whistler’s Peacock Room

The Isle of the Dead in detail

More from the Google Art Project where a couple of paintings by Swiss Symbolist Arnold Böcklin (1827–1901) may be explored, one of them an 1883 version of cult favourite The Isle of the Dead. No need to repeat the history of that work when I’ve already written about it. The version here is from the Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin, and is the one I’ve seen reproduced in books the least so it’s good to find it in high-quality.

Böcklin painted five versions of this scene, one of which was lost during the Second World War. A couple of them, this one included, have his initials placed over the doorway of a tomb, a detail which isn’t always visible in reproductions.

In the same collection is another gloomy Böcklin work, Self-Portrait with Death Playing the Fiddle (1872), and I hadn’t noticed before that the fiddle only has one string, the lowest, which would no doubt create a suitably dolorous melody.

For more on The Isle of the Dead see Toteninsel.net, a site dedicated to the many works in different media derived from the paintings. If you need a musical accompaniment whilst browsing, Rachmaninoff wrote the ideal piece.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Arnold Böcklin and The Isle of the Dead

The Divine Eros Defeats the Earthly Eros

Another favourite painting receiving the Google Art Project high-res treatment. Giovanni Baglione’s picture (also known as Sacred Love versus Profane Love) was painted circa 1602 as a riposte to Caravaggio’s provocative Amor Vincit Omnia. Where Caravaggio showed Eros triumphing over worldly concerns Baglione gives us an image of religious propaganda which displeased the older artist. Salt was rubbed in the wounds when Baglione produced a second (and lesser) version which puts Caravaggio’s features on the figure of the Devil. There’s an irony in this spat in the way that Baglione’s noble aspiration is subverted by erotic tension, the victorious angel shown happily astride a vulnerable and capitulating youth. If someone had pointed this out to Caravaggio he might not have felt so aggrieved.

Both Amor Vincit Omnia and The Divine Eros Defeats the Earthly Eros are part of the Old Master collection at the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, where they can be viewed side by side.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Chiaroscuro
• Angels 1: The Angel of History and sensual metaphysics