and was a Swiss-born French Art Nouveau painter and printmaker.
He went to Paris at the age
of 19 to live
and devote himself to drawing professionally.
Around 1880,
he settled in the risqué arrondissement of Montmartre, the centre of the Parisian art community.
In the late nineteenth century,
'Le Chat Noir'
was a Parisian cabaret
located
in Montmartre.
'The Black Cat' was a
fitting name for such a locale,
conjuring up as it does images of black
magic and witches,
and was probably influenced by Edgar Allan Poe's
short story of the same name, published in 1847.
Steinlen's
illustrations in the associated journal
Le Chat Noir, set him on the
road
to becoming
one of the foremost
illustrators in Paris at the turn
of the century.
His contemporaries
were Toulouse-Lautrec and Alphonse
Mucha.
Steinlen
loved cats.
He drew them, painted them, and sculpted them.
He tried to
translate every imaginable subtlety of their
poses and movements.
His
house on the rue Caulaincourt in Paris was, according to accounts, a meeting place for all the cats of the quartier.
In his
early, years as an artist,
he would sell drawings of cats in exchange
for food, and in later years a cat would usually appear in most of his
drawings, magazine illustrations, lithographs or posters, almost to the
point of being a sort of signature.
Theophile Steinlen died in 1923 in Paris and was laid to rest in the Cimetière Saint-Vincent in Montmartre.
Vita Sackville-West was a British poet, a novelist, and world-renowned horticulturist. She was the descendent of an aristocratic family whose Gothic manor house, Knole, in Kent, England was a gift from Elizabeth I.
She was a complex woman who was married to Sir Harold Nicholson
(21 November 1886)
and she was also famous for her passionate affair with the novelist Virginia Woolf, among other high profile lesbian affairs.
Together she and Nicholson
worked on the creation of one of Britain's most beautiful gardens; Sissinghurst Castle.
Both Sackville-West and her husband had same-sex relationships,
as did some of the people in the Bloomsbury Group of writers and artists,
with many of whom they had connections.
One of Vita's lovers was Violet Trefusis
These affairs were no impediment to the closeness between Sackville-West and Nicolson
and he gave up his diplomatic career partly so that he could live with
Sackville-West in England, uninterrupted by long solitary postings
abroad.
Following the pattern of his father's career,
Harold was at different
times a diplomat, journalist, broadcaster,
Member of Parliament, and
author of biographies and novels.
The couple lived for a number of years
in Cihangir, Constantinople, and were present,
in 1926, at the coronation of Rezā Shāh, in Tehran, then Persia.
They returned to England in 1914.
Vita in her wedding dress
The affair for which
Sackville-West is most remembered was with the prominent writer Virginia
Woolf in the late 1920s. Woolf wrote one of her most famous novels, Orlando, described by Sackville-West's son Nigel Nicolson as "the longest and most charming love-letter in literature",
as a result of this affair.
Her most famous woman lover was Virginia Woolf
Unusually, the moment of the conception of Orlando was
documented: Woolf writes in her diary on 5 October 1927: "And instantly
the usual exciting devices enter my mind: a biography beginning in the
year 1500 and continuing to the present day, called Orlando: Vita; only
with a change about from one sex to the other" (excerpt from her diary
published posthumously by her husband Leonard Woolf).
Vita's son Nigel Nicolson praises his mother:
"She fought for the right to love,
men and women, rejecting the conventions that marriage demands exclusive
love, and that women should love only men, and men only women. For this
she was prepared to give up everything… How could she regret that the
knowledge of it should now reach the ears of a new generation, one so
infinitely more compassionate than her own?"
Sackville-West and Nicolson found Sissinghurst in 1930.
Although
Sissinghurst was derelict, they purchased the ruins and the farm around
it and began constructing the garden we know today.
The layout by Nicolson and planting by Sackville-West
were both strongly influenced by the gardens of Gertrude Jekyll.
Sissinghurst was first opened to the public in 1938.
Sissinghurst Castle is now owned by the National Trust,
given by Sackville-West's son Nigel in order to escape payment
of inheritance taxes.
Its gardens are famousand remain the most visited in all of England.
The garden is designed as a series of 'rooms',
each with a
different character of colour and/or theme, the walls being high
clipped
hedges and many pink brick walls.
The rooms and 'doors' are so arranged that, as one enjoys the beauty in
a given room,
one suddenly discovers a new vista into another part of
the garden,
making a walk a series of discoveries
that keeps leading one
into yet another area of the garden.
Nicolson spent his efforts coming up with interesting new
interconnections,
while Sackville-West focused on making the flowers in
the interior of each room exciting.
The site of Sissinghurst is ancient, "hurst" is the Saxon term for an enclosed wood
and Sissinghurst had once been owned by Vita's ancestors.
A
manor house with a three-armed moat was built there in the Middle Ages.
In 1305, King Edward I spent a night there and in 1573, Queen Elizabeth I spent three nights at Sissinghurst.
Vita's tower at Sissinghurst
A very delightful and enchanting recording was made of Vita Sackville-West's
reading from her first poem called The Land, written in 1926.
*oh do please listen*
"We are all things, the flower and the tree;
We are the distant landscape and the near.
We are the drought, we are the dew distilled;
The saturated land, the land athirst;
We are the day, the night, the light, the dark;
The waterdrop, the stream; the meadow and the lark." V.S.W
An excerpt from V.S.W's novel 'The Edwardians':
Then...there is another danger which you can scarcely hope to
escape. It is the weight of the past. Not only will you esteem material
objects because they are old.... you will venerate ideas and
institutions because they have remained for a long time in force;... You
inherit your code ready made. That waxwork figure labelled Gentleman
will be forever mopping and mowing at you. Thus you would never forget
your manners, but you would break a heart, and think yourself a rather
fine fellow for doing it... You will never tell lies - avoidable lies -
but you will always be afraid of the truth. You will never wonder why
you pursue it because it is a thing to do. And the past is to blame for
all this; inheritance, tradition, upbringing; your nurse, your father,
your tutor, your public school, Chevron,
your ancestors.' Vita Sackville-West The Edwardians
L.C. Tiffany
was an American artist and designer who is most associated with the Art
Nouveau and Aesthetic movements. One of the most creative and prolific
designers of the late 19th-century, Tiffany declared that his life-long
goal was “the pursuit of beauty.” One of America's most acclaimed
artists, his career spanned from the 1870s through the 1920s. He
embraced virtually every artistic and decorative medium, designing and
directing his studios to produce leaded-glass windows, mosaics,
lighting, glass, pottery, metalwork, enamels, jewelry, and interiors.
As the son of Charles Lewis Tiffany (1812–1902), founder of Tiffany
& Company, the fancy goods store that became the renowned jewelry
and silver firm, L.C. Tiffany chose to pursue his own artistic interests
in lieu of joining the family business.
Tiffany home - Laurelton studio
Originally trained as a
painter, he began studying the chemistry and techniques of glassmaking
when he was 24. Beginning in the late 1870s, Tiffany turned his
attention to decorative arts and interiors, although he never abandoned
painting.
In 1885, Tiffany established his own firm and while
he continued to undertake decorating commissions, his focus was on new
methods of glass manufacture. Of all of Tiffany's artistic endeavors,
leaded-glass brought him the greatest recognition.
Tiffany’s
aesthetic was based on his conviction that nature should be the primary
source of design inspiration. Intoxicated by color, he translated into
glass the lush palette found in flowers and plants. This
fascination with nature and with extending the capabilities of the
medium led to the exploration of another technique—in 1893 Tiffany
introduced his first blown-glass vases and bowls, called “Favrile.” The
name, he declared, was taken from an old English word for hand made.
Favrile glass quickly gained international renown for its surface
iridescence and brilliant colors.
Tiffany revolutionized the
look of stained glass, which had remained essentially unchanged since
medieval times when craftsmen utilized flat panes of white and colored
glass with details painted with glass paints before firing and leading.
In 1899, Tiffany introduced enamelwork in London, where he exhibited
plaques and vases made in the firm's unique style. Layers of translucent
enamel in wide-ranging naturalistically shaded hues were applied to a
luminous surface that was usually gilt, and finished with an iridescent
coating that provided a rainbow luster.
Tiffany was among the
first American designers to be acclaimed abroad. Favrile glass, together
with stained-glass windows such as the Four Seasons, was shown at
world’s fairs and sold in galleries like Siegfried Bing’s L’Art Nouveau,
which served as a conduit for the most innovative design at the turn of
the century.
While glass is the most significant medium in
which Tiffany worked, he designed, fabricated, or sold everything that
made up an interior, including furniture, textiles, and wall coverings. A
desire to create a unified artistic expression culminated in the last
house he designed in its entirety—his own. Laurelton Hall, in Cold
Spring Harbor, Long Island, was completed in 1904.
The
eighty-four-room, eight-level estate was built at the height of his
career and was situated on nearly 600 acres overlooking Cold Spring
Harbor in Oyster Bay, New York. A showcase for his unique integration of
nature and exoticism, Laurelton Hall was the ultimate expression of
Tiffany's aesthetic ideals, envisioned as a total work of art. This was
his dream home, where creativity flowed freely and convention was
eschewed in place of novelty. Alas it was destroyed by a fire in 1957.
Tiffany’s work reflects the efforts to resolve the conflicting ideals
of the Arts and Crafts movement. William Morris, its English
protagonist, had demanded: "What business have we with art at all unless
all can share it?" Yet most companies could not produce affordable art
for the home while retaining high standards and individual expression.
Tiffany, however, successfully created an art industry. He triumphed
where others had failed because his personal fortune allowed him to
sacrifice company profits in the interests of artistic achievement. In
addition, he provided an extraordinary range of products, so that
consumers at almost every economic level had access to his religion of
beauty.
Louis Comfort Tiffany was married twice and had a total of 8 children and he died on January 17, 1933.
Taking inspiration from the unruly aspects of the natural world, Art
Nouveau or Jugendstil is an international philosophy and style of art,
architecture and applied art—especially the decorative arts—that was
most popular during 1890–1910. It influenced art and architecture especially in the applied arts, graphic work, and illustration.
Architect Victor Horta's Tassel House stairway in Brussels
Art Nouveau is considered a "total" art style, embracing architecture,
graphic art, interior design, and most of the decorative arts including
jewellery, furniture, textiles, household silver and other utensils and
lighting, as well as the fine arts. According to the philosophy of the
style, art should be a way of life. For many well-off Europeans, it was
possible to live in an art nouveau-inspired house with art nouveau
furniture, silverware, fabrics, ceramics including tableware, jewellery,
cigarette cases, etc.
Rene Lalique
Sinuous lines and "whiplash" curves
were derived, in part, from botanical studies and illustrations of
deep-sea organisms such as those by German biologist Ernst Heinrich
Haeckel.
The unfolding of Art Nouveau's flowing line may be
understood as a metaphor for the freedom and release sought by its
practitioners and admirers from the weight of artistic tradition and
critical expectations.
Although Art Nouveau was replaced by
20th-century Modernist styles, it is now considered as an important
transition between the eclectic historic revival styles of the
19th-century and Modernism.
As an art style, Art Nouveau has
affinities with the Pre-Raphaelites and the Symbolist styles, and
artists like Aubrey Beardsley, Alphonse Mucha, Edward Burne-Jones,
Gustav Klimt and Jan Toorop could be classed in more than one of these
styles. Unlike Symbolist painting, however, Art Nouveau has a
distinctive appearance; and, unlike the artisan-oriented Arts and Crafts
Movement, Art Nouveau artists readily used new materials, machined
surfaces, and abstraction in the service of pure design.
Alfonse Mucha
Art
Nouveau did not negate machines, as the Arts and Crafts Movement did.
For sculpture, the principal materials employed were glass and wrought
iron, resulting in sculptural qualities even in architecture
Louis Comfort Tiffany
Art Nouveau architecture made use of many technological innovations of
the late 19th century, especially the use of exposed iron and large,
irregularly shaped pieces of glass for architecture. By the start of
World War I, however, the stylised nature of Art Nouveau design—which
was expensive to produce—began to be disused in favour of more
streamlined, rectilinear modernism, which was cheaper and thought to be
more faithful to the plainer industrial aesthetic that became Art Deco.
Additionally, the
new style was an outgrowth of two nineteenth-century English
developments for which design reform (a reaction to prevailing art
education, industrialized mass production, and the debasement of
historic styles) was a leitmotif—the Arts and Crafts movement and the
Aesthetic movement. The former emphasized a return to hand craftsmanship
and traditional techniques. The latter promoted a similar credo of "art
for art's sake" that provided the foundation for non-narrative
paintings, for instance, Whistler's Nocturnes. It further drew upon
elements of Japanese art ("japonisme"), which flooded Western markets,
mainly in the form of prints, after trading rights were established with
Japan in the 1860s.
Rene Lalique
Deeply influenced by the socially aware
teachings of William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement, Art
Nouveau designers endeavored to achieve the synthesis of art and craft,
and further, the creation of the spiritually uplifting Gesamtkunstwerk
("total work of art") encompassing a variety of media. The successful
unification of the fine and applied arts was achieved in many such
complete designed environments.
Art Nouveau style was
particularly associated with France, where it was called variously Style
Jules Verne, Le Style Métro (after Hector Guimard's iron and glass
subway entrances), Art belle époque, and Art fin de siècle .
As in France, the "new art" was called by different names in the
various style centers where it developed throughout Europe. In Belgium,
it was called Style nouille or Style coup de fouet.
In Germany, it was Jugendstil or "young style," after the popular journal Die Jugend.
In Germany
In Italy, it was named Arte nuova, Stile floreale, or La Stile Liberty
after the London firm of Liberty & Co., which supplied Oriental
ceramics and textiles to aesthetically aware Londoners in the 1870s.
Other style centers included Austria and Hungary, where Art Nouveau was called the Sezessionstil.
In Russia, Saint Petersburg and Moscow were the two centers of production for Stil' modern.
"Tiffany Style" in the United States was named for the legendary Favrile glass designs of Louis Comfort Tiffany.
Tiffany
Although international in scope, Art Nouveau was a short-lived
movement whose brief incandescence was a precursor of modernism, which
emphasized function over form and the elimination of superfluous
ornament. Although a reaction to historic revivalism, it brought
Victorian excesses to a dramatic fin-de-siècle crescendo.
John Singer Sargent Capricorn Pisces Sagittarius Libra (January 12, 1856 – April 14, 1925)
Carnation Lily Lily Rose, 1885-6
John Singer Sargent was the most successful portrait painter of his era, as well as a gifted landscape painter and watercolorist and was considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian era luxury. Sargent was born in Florence, Italy to American parents.
Although based in Paris, Sargent's parents moved regularly with the
seasons to the sea and the mountain resorts in France, Germany, Italy,
and Switzerland. (dream life!)
El Jaleo (Detail), 1882
Sargent grew up to be a highly
literate and cosmopolitan young man, accomplished in art, music, and
literature. (How could he not with that upbringing!) He was fluent in French, Italian, and German.
From the beginning his work was characterized by remarkable technical
facility, particularly in his ability to draw with a brush.
John Singer Sargent in his studio with Portrait of Madame X, ca. 1885
Sargent spent much time painting outdoors in the English countryside when not in his studio.
In later life Sargent devoted much of his energy to mural painting and
working en plein air. He lived most of his life in Europe.
Nonchaloir (Repose), 1911
Sargent studied in Italy and Germany, and then in Paris under Emile
Auguste Carolus-Duran whose influence would be pivotal, from 1874-1878.
Carolus-Duran's atelier was progressive, dispensing with the
traditional academic approach which required careful drawing and
underpainting, in favor of the alla prima method of working directly on
the canvas with a loaded brush, derived from Diego Velázquez.
Lady Agnew of Lochnaw, 1893
In a time when the art world focused, in turn, on Impressionism,
Fauvism, and Cubism, Sargent practiced his own form of Realism, which
made brilliant references to Velázquez, Van Dyck, and Gainsborough.
His seemingly effortless facility for paraphrasing the masters in a
contemporary fashion led to a stream of commissioned portraits of
remarkable virtuosity and earned Sargent the moniker, "the Van Dyck of our times".
Winifred, Duchess of Portland, 1902
Sargent was a lifelong bachelor who surrounded himself with family and
friends and died in England on April 14, 1925 of heart disease.
