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Home > Argyll Artists > History Of Art

PAUL CEZANNE

Born: 1839
Died: 1906
Gender: Male
Nationality: French

"All things, particularly in art, are theory developed and applied in contact with nature. Painting is not only to copy the object, it is to seize a harmony between numerous relations." Paul Cézanne.
Paul Cézanne was born in Aix-en-Provence, the son of a wealthy banker. He was a talented student and among his school friends was Emile Zola who introduced him to Manet and Courbet and persuaded him to move to Paris to study art. Destined by his father to study law, he was eventually, at the age of 22, allowed to devote himself entirely to painting. A yearly allowance from his father enabled him to work without distraction for the next 23 years. The 1860s were to see the beginnings of Impressionism and Cézanne met many of the key figures such as Pissarro, Monet and Renoir. His early work was unaccomplished, however, and it wasn't until 1873 that his skill became apparent in 'The House of the Hanged Man', which was exhibited at the First Impressionist Exhibition of 1874.

Cézanne exhibited again with the Impressionists in 1877 but refused to identify himself with the movement. Instead he was searching for a new way to approach the representation of nature. He talked of humanising a landscape through the exercise of an artist's feelings. From 1880 onwards Cézanne spent less time in Paris preferring the landscape of Provence. Upon his father's death in 1886, Cézanne's inheritance gave him financial independence. He continued to concentrate on his favourite themes such as portraits of his wife, Hortense and studies of the Provence landscape such as 'Mont Ste Victoire' (c.1886-1888) and 'Aix: Rocky Landscape' (c.1887). In 1895 the dealer Ambroise Vollard mounted Cézanne's first one-man exhibition and this was to bring the artist out of the shadow of obscurity and by the end of the century he was referred to as 'Sage' by many of the avant-garde.

Cézanne was fascinated with structure and the way painting can tackle nature. His work can summon up a broad range of sensations for the viewer. Through his use of colour and space Cézanne achieved an extraordinary degree of expressiveness. Since his death his work has been enormously influential, most notably on the Cubist movement.

SALVADOR DALI

Born: 1904
Died: 1989
Gender: Male
Nationality: Spanish

"I'll be a genius... Perhaps I'll be despised and misunderstood, but I'll be a genius, a great genius." Salvador Dalí.
Salvador Dalí was born in Figueras, in the Catalan region of Spain, and studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Madrid. His main influences came from metaphysical painters such as De Chirico and Carra and the realism of the Pre-Raphaelites and French 19th century painters. In 1927 Dalí exhibited in Madrid and Barcelona, gaining a reputation as one of the most promising painters of his generation. In 1928 Dalí visited Paris where he met Picasso and the Surrealists Miro, Masson, Ernst, Tanguy and Breton. Joining this group the following year he rapidly became the leading figure of the movement for the next ten years. In 1929 he made the Surrealist film ‘Un Chien Andalou’ with Buñuel.

Dalí's work of the Thirties, in line with the Surrealist mode of thinking, attempted to describe the unconscious. He took images culled from his dreams and fantasies and integrated these into natural environments. For example, 'Apparition of face and fruit-dish on a beach' (1938) depicts a dog's head, a fruit bowl and a human head emerging out of a beach landscape. A number of recurring images appeared in his work such as human figures with half open drawers protruding, burning giraffes and melting watches. Dalí named his technique 'critical paranoia', describing the delusional state one could create while aware that control of reason and will have been deliberately suspended. Dalí's art was a sensation, yet despite being the most recognised exponent of Surrealism, due mainly to his flamboyant and eccentric personality, he was thrown out of the movement by Breton in 1937. The reason was two-fold; firstly his art had become more traditional and secondly his political views, openly supporting General Franco, were not in accordance with the consensus Surrealist opinion. In 1940, Dalí left for the U.S. to have his first retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. From 1948 he split his time between Spain, Paris and New York, finally settling in Spain in 1955 where he became a world famous recluse. As well as his paintings and prints he was a sculptor, jewellery designer and set designer. As mentioned before, he also worked in cinema collaborating with Luis Buñuel and later Alfred Hitchcock.

Dalí is one of the most famous artists of the 20th century, yet there is much debate as to the actual quality of the work he produced. His paintings of the Thirties are generally well-respected but his later works are much criticised. His religious paintings in particular are often described as kitsch, for example 'The Crucifixion of St. John of the Cross' (1951), yet this remains incredibly popular amongst the public.

GUSTAV KLIMT

Born: 1862
Died: 1918
Gender: Male
Nationality: Austrian

"The water-lily grows by the lake. It is in bloom. The yearning for a handsome man is in her soul." Gustav Klimt.
Gustav Klimt was born in Baumgarten, a country suburb of Vienna, and was the oldest son among seven children. Early on in his career he achieved great academic success as a painter of elaborate decorative interiors, but he soon became impressed by the Impressionist, Symbolist and Art Nouveau movements. In opposition to the conservative values espoused by the Viennese Artists' Association Klimt, among others, set up the Sezession in 1897. (This trend was first established in Munich in 1892 by Franz von Stuck and Wilhelm Trübner and others followed later such as Max Lieberman presiding over the group in Berlin).

Klimt painted a mural for the Vienna University on 'Jurisprudence, Medicine and Philosophy' at the turn-of-the-century but it received heavy criticism for its incendiary content and official commissions were few and far between after this. Klimt's avant-garde tendencies, however, were admired by many and he was frequently commissioned to produce portraits, which he did so depicting his subjects in a variety of allegorical themes. He was fascinated with the female form. Paintings such as 'Judith I' (1901) show the female subject as a figure of both mystery and intense sensuality. In his most famous work, 'The Kiss' he combines this depiction of womanhood with elaborate decoration in golds and silvers. The figures are draped in a flat mosaic-patterned robe, rich in texture and colour, conveying a sense of passion as well as wealth.

Klimt's work is still highly regarded, with 'The Kiss' being one of the most celebrated works of the time. His lustrous designs and supreme craftsmanship have influenced numerous artists and designers. His use of rich textures and strong colours was remarkable at the time and still remains extraordinarily powerful today.

HENRI MATISSE

Born: 1869
Died: 1954
Gender: Male
Nationality: French

"What I dream of is an art of balance, of purity and serenity devoid of troubling or disturbing subject-matter... like a comforting influence, a mental balm - something like a good armchair in which one rests from physical fatigue." Henri Matisse.
Matisse began by studying law in Paris but by 1891 had taken up art instead, becoming a student at the Académie Julian in Paris under Bouguereau. He left a year later, however, displeased with Bougereau's teaching, and unofficially joined the Ecole des Beaux-Arts studying with Rouault, Piot, Guerin and Bussy amongst others. By 1896 Matisse had four of his paintings accepted for exhibition at the Salon du Champ-de-Mars, he sold two of them. A year later he saw the work of Camille Pissarro and van Gogh and was deeply impressed.

In 1900 Matisse had fallen on hard times and had to paint exhibition decorations at the Grand Palais to make a living. He continued with his painting, however, and, after having experimented with still-lifes and landscapes in the late-Nineties turned to Neo-Impressionism and produced one of his first major works in 1905. 'Luxe, calme et volupte' (1904-1905) was exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants and bought by Signac. In the same year Matisse and his friends caused a sensation at the Salon d'Automne giving rise to the name, 'Fauves'. He also found himself important patrons in the American Steins thus solving his financial difficulties.

His paintings were brightly coloured and contain a deep sensuality, for example, 'Pink Nude' (1935) and one of his most uplifting paintings, 'Large Red Interior'. He worked constantly throughout his life, creating possibly his masterpiece between 1949 and 1951 in the Chapel of the Rosary at Vence. It was a dedication to the woman who nursed him back to health after a serious illness and later became a nun. Matisse designed every aspect of the convent in immaculate detail. Other digressions from his painting include sculpting, for example, 'The Back I-IV' (1909-1929) and an original technique involving the arrangement of brightly-coloured cut-out shapes into abstract patterns. He also designed sets and costumes for Diaghilev and was a supreme book illustrator. Whatever Matisse turned his hand to, his work always shows a lightness and airy quality. He loved colour and vitality and was loathe to represent tragedy. Alongside Picasso he was internationally renowned from the 1920s onwards.

MARK ROTHKO

Born: 1903
Died: 1970
Gender: Male
Nationality: Russian

"I'm not an abstract artist, I'm not interested in the relationship of colour or form or anything else. I'm interested only in expressing basic human emotions - tragedy, ecstasy, doom and so on." Mark Rothko.
Mark Rothkowitz was born in Dvivsk, Russia. His early childhood was marked by terror campaigns against the Jews forcing his mother to emigrate with her children to the United States in 1913. Rothko turned out to be a gifted academic entering Yale University in 1921 and a man with strong radical tendencies, maintaining that he was an anarchist his whole life. Dropping out in the second year he headed to New York to study with Max Weber. His early paintings were oriented to social themes and contain expressionist as well as surrealist overtones.

In 1935 Rothko and Adolph Gottlieb founded 'The Ten', a group of artists that favoured expressionist styles over the more abstract techniques of the Americans. The Ten sought to communicate human emotion and human drama through their paintings. From around 1947 Rothko began to develop his mature and distinctive style, often featuring large rectangles of colour in vertical juxtaposition. His contrasts were carefully chosen in order to convey a wide range of human emotions from foreboding and despair to hope and rapture. In 1961 Rothko was given a major retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. After years of teaching art to subsidise his painting, this show finally brought him the success he so deserved. Some of his most impressive works were not to be seen until after his death, when his murals for the nondenominational chapel in Houston, Texas were finally unveiled. Becoming known as the Rothko Chapel these 14 final works were supremely sombre in tone but achieve an almost transcendental quality when viewed in the tranquility of the building itself. After a life of severe depression Rothko committed suicide by slashing his wrists in his studio.

Mark Rothko's most fully realised paintings with their large expanses of colour and uneven, hazy divisions between them, strive to convey emotions rarely attempted in modern art. While his work is greatly admired by many, his detractors either view his attempts at expressing the sublime as over-ambitious or see his paintings merely as boring and wholly unimpressive.

VINCENT VAN GOGH

Died: 1890
Gender: Male
Nationality: Dutch

"I am a man of passions, capable of and subject to doing more or less foolish things, which I happen to repent more or less afterwards... But the problem is to try every means to put those selfsame passions to good use... In the surroundings of pictures and works of art, you know how I had a violent passion for them, reaching the highest pitch of enthusiasm." Vincent van Gogh.
Vincent van Gogh was the eldest of six children born to a Dutch pastor. As a child he was very quiet and would rather be alone than play with his brothers and sisters. At 16, van Gogh's father arranged for him to work for his uncle at a firm of art dealers in the Hague. He approached the job with enthusiasm and in time was transferred to London. Although from a well-educated family, van Gogh preferred the company of peasants to that of the well-to-do of London, and he attempted several unsuccessful careers as both schoolmaster and missionary in England and Belgium.

In 1880 he became a full-time artist. His first pieces were sombre in tone and depicted his much loved peasants working on the land. In 1886 he left Holland for Paris where his younger brother Theo was working as an art dealer. The experience was undoubtedly influential as the works of Bernard, Degas, Gauguin and Seurat soon changed van Gogh's palette. However, the relationship between Theo and his brother became strained and Vincent moved out.

Van Gogh conceived the idea of founding a 'Studio of the South' at Arles as a working community for progressive artists. Early in 1888 he moved to Arles but the only other artist he eventually persuaded to join him was Gauguin - a man whom he greatly admired. It was after a quarrel with Gauguin that van Gogh was reputed to have cut off part of his ear. As with much of van Gogh's life, his insane behaviour and his final chronicled 'suicide' can all be accounted for by presently understood health conditions. It is true though that Vincent saw very little success with his work during his lifetime. This never deterred his belief that one day people all over the world would enjoy his work.

Van Gogh's early work, during his Dutch period was heavy and rich but subdued in colour, for example 'The Potato Eaters' (1885). After his contact with other painters in Paris, with Japanese prints and the work of such original colourists as Delacroix and Monticelli, van Gogh's style changed radically culminating in the brilliant, expressive colour and frenzied, thick brushmarks of his Arles period. The final two and a half years of his life in Arles saw Vincent at his most prolific capturing his exuberance and passion for the surrounding countryside. Among hundreds of paintings from this era are the famous 'Starry Night' (1889), 'Sunflowers' (1888), 'Cafe at Night'(1888) and 'Cornfield and Cypress Trees' (1889). His watercolours, such as 'Fishing boats at Santeo Maries' and drawings are of equal intensity, while the letters he wrote to his brother Theo are important literary and human documents in their own right.

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