Jean Baptiste Debret: the man who painted slaves

 

In 1807 during the Peninsular War when Napoleon’s troops invaded Iberia, King João VI of Portugal fled his country taking his entire court of almost 15,000 to live in Brazil. A few months later, seventeen fishermen from the small fishing town of Olhão in the Algarve crossed the Atlantic to tell their King that the French had been defeated but he stayed in Brazil for another 13 years. In Rio de Janeiro he created many new titled nobles among the local Brazilians, he encouraged the development of manufacturing industry and modernised the city with a sewer system, public libraries, botanic gardens, an opera house and of course palaces. A bureaucratic civil service was established and every day life depended upon the labour of African slaves.

Meanwhile in Paris, Jean Baptiste Debret, was training at the French Academy of Fine Arts, as a pupil of the famous Jacques-Louis David. In 1816 after the defeat of Napoleon, Debret travelled to Brazil as part of the French Artistic mission to create an arts and crafts lyceum in Rio de Janeiro. Later this became the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts where Debret would teach.  Favoured by Dom João VI, Debret painted his portrait and a painting of the arrival of his new wife Maria Leopoldina of Austria prior to them becoming Emperor and Empress of Brazil. But Debret also used his Romantic style to sketch details of the lives of the slaves and the persecuted indigenous people. The pictures show us an honest view of their suffering and their day to day lives.

Indian creek

The gypsy's house

On his return to France in 1831 Debret published his lithographs in a book entitled Voyage Pittoresque et Historique au Bresil but although it depicted such important images of early 19^th century Brazilian life it was not successful and Jean Baptiste Debret died in Paris in 1948 in poverty.

Bird Sellers

The Coronation of Dom Pedro I

#AtoZChallenge E is for Elephants

A to Z Challenge 2020

Things to be Grateful For

is for Elephants




I love elephants, their shape, their faces and their general disposition.  They are very popular in fabric design.

Children love to read about them 

And they are a popular choice for artists

The fable of the six blind men and the elephant is a lesson in considering the views of those who come from a different perpective:

It was six men of Indostan, to learning much inclined,

who went to see the elephant (Though all of them were blind),

that each by observation, might satisfy his mind.

The first approached the elephant, and, happening to fall,

against his broad and sturdy side, at once began to bawl:

'God bless me! but the elephant, is nothing but a wall!'

The second feeling of the tusk, cried: 'Ho! what have we here,

so very round and smooth and sharp? To me tis mighty clear,

this wonder of an elephant, is very like a spear!'

The third approached the animal, and, happening to take,

the squirming trunk within his hands, 'I see,' quoth he,

the elephant is very like a snake!'

The fourth reached out his eager hand, and felt about the knee:

'What most this wondrous beast is like, is mighty plain,' quoth he;

'Tis clear enough the elephant is very like a tree.'

The fifth, who chanced to touch the ear, Said; 'E'en the blindest man

can tell what this resembles most; Deny the fact who can,

This marvel of an elephant, is very like a fan!'

The sixth no sooner had begun, about the beast to grope,

than, seizing on the swinging tail, that fell within his scope,

'I see,' quothe he, 'the elephant is very like a rope!'

And so these men of Indostan, disputed loud and long,

each in his own opinion, exceeding stiff and strong,

Though each was partly in the right, and all were in the wrong!

So, oft in theologic wars, the disputants, I ween,

tread on in utter ignorance, of what each other mean,

and prate about the elephant, not one of them has seen!

John Godfrey Saxe

Annie Rose Laing, artist #MondayBlogs

A Helensburgh Breakfast

Annie Rose Laing came to my attention because of the painting “A Helensburgh Breakfast.” I was born in Helensburgh and this painting reminds me of the light shining in from the Gareloch in the mornings.  I love her choice of subject and on further investigation I discovered her propensity to paint sunlit tables where children and young women sat.  There are often flowers and a feeling of relaxation. You feel you want to sit at the table too.

At the breakfast table

Annie was born in Glasgow in 1869 and she studied at the Glasgow School of Art shortly after the famous Glasgow Boys. Glasgow became a major cultural centre and from 1890, Charles Rennie Mackintosh and his wife Margaret MacDonald added to the fame.

The Mirror

Annie exhibited her first picture in 1894 and in the following year she travelled to Algeria.  In 1896 her Algerian pictures were exhibited at the Glasgow Institute exhibition after which she turned to the portraits and interiors for which she became renowned.  In 1898, Annie married the artist, James Garden Laing, who was 17 years older than her and the couple lived and painted in Glasgow.  After her husband’s death she moved to Italy before settling in London in the mid-1920s.  She died in 1946 and was buried in Crowborough, East Sussex.

Sewing

#PastMeetsPresent in Guildford

I recently bought a book of old 19th century pictures of Surrey views, collected and printed by Charles W Traylen, a bookseller, who lived and worked in Guildford from the 1920s until his death in 2002.  There are 24 reproductions of pictures around Surrey which include the following Guildford views.

As you can see Guildford hasn't really changed very much.

The Guildhall at night

I can't really reproduce this picture today as there is now a block of flats in the foreground so here is a photo looking from the opposite direction half way down the High Street.

And Abbot's Hospital is still providing a home for the elderly who were born in Guildford as Archbishop George Abbot wanted it to be.

Footnotes on the Artists

George Sidney Shepherd, who painted the view of Abbot's Hospital, was the son of a watchmaker who lived in London.   By 1800 he was exhibiting watercolours at the Royal Academy and he specialised in townscapes and scenes of London.  Although very successful, he spent his last years in poverty and died in a workhouse.

Charles Claud Pyne was a watercolour artist and Art Master at the Royal Grammar School in Guildford.

#PastMeetsPresent is inspired by Becky B.  Here is her July post from Portugal https://delightsofthealgarve.com/2017/07/01/algarve-salt-production/

Ambroise Garneray, artist and corsair

In a recent auction, a collection of paintings by Napoleonic prisoner of War, Ambroise Louis Garneray (1783-1857), were sold.  They included a picture he had painted, while held by Britain for eight years, of a line of prison hulks and warships anchored in Portsmouth harbour, which sold for over £11000.

Portsmouth Harbour c.1812

Garneray was born in Paris where his father was court painter to Louis XVI.  At the age of 13 he ran away to join the navy and sailed to the Indian Ocean.  In 1799, his ship was captured by the British off Mauritius but he swam ashore and made his escape.  There being no other naval ship present, he joined the corsair Confiance where he was a crew-member when it captured the Kent in 1800.  Using his share of the prize he became vice-captain of a slaver and then served on merchant ships until the renewal of war with the British gave him the opportunity to re-join the French 

navy in 1803.

Discovery of the island of Lanzarote

Unfortunately, three years later the Belle Poule, on which he was serving, was captured by the British and this time he was imprisoned on a hulk in Portsmouth harbour from 1806 until 1812.  His good behaviour and artistic talent meant that he was allowed ashore for the last two years of his confinement where he painted a series of views commissioned by an English picture merchant.

The return from Elba

On his release in 1815, Garneray returned to Paris and there he was commissioned by Napoleon to paint two paintings of returning ships, but these were unfinished for many years, due to the regime change.  He became the painter of the French navy in 1817 and went on to become director of the museum of Rouen.  As his career declined, he was awarded the Légion d'Honneur by Emperor Napoleon III.

Garneray was an imaginative man who wrote his own biography including many exciting, impossible achievements.  Some people consider it to be the first maritime adventure novel.  Indeed, he has been cited as an inspiration for the events of “Moby Dick.”

All pictures from Wikimedia Commons

#LouisWain - The man who drew cats

Both my grandmother and my mother collected postcards of cats painted by Louis Wain.

Many of these are of appealing cats with large eyes.  However Wain did not begin his artistic career with cats.  Born the son of a textile trader and embroiderer in Clerkenwell, he lost his father when he was 20 but continued to live with his French mother and his 5 younger sisters for most of his life.  He worked for newspapers such as the Illustrated london News, drawing detailed pictures of English country houses and livestock at agricultural shows.

When he was 23 he married his sisters' governess, Emily Richardson, but sadly she died 3 years later.  While she was suffering from breast cancer she took great comfort from the company of a stray black and white cat which the couple had taken in.  Louis began to draw the cat, eventually publishing his first cat picture in 1886.

Wain illustrated one hundred children's books during his life.  He considered taking up illustrating dogs but decided to experiment with his cat pictures.

                

At first the cats stood on four legs, but soon they walked upright and wore clothes, which was a popular motif of the day.  They always exhibited exaggerated expressions.  The postcards have always remained popular and from 1901-1915 the Louis Wain annual was published.

Louis had poor business sense and struggled financially to support his mother and sisters.  In the 1920s his behaviour became erratic and occasionally violent so in 1924 his sisters had him committed to the Pauper Ward of a mental hospital in Tooting.  A year later, at the instigation of the Prime Minister, Wain was transferred to Bethlem Royal Hospital where the garden included a colony of cats.

  

It was said that Louis Wain suffered from schizophrenia and that this could be seen in the bright colours and highly patterned cats he produced in his later years, but it now believed that in fact he had Asperger's Syndrome.  None of his pictures were dated and some argue that if these were his later drawings, they were evidence of his experimentation and artistic maturity.

One thing is certain; you either love them or hate them.

  

       

The Jewellery of Josef Hoffman #ArtNouveau

I am grateful to Pinterest for introducing me to a man of diverse talents who died in 1956.  Josef Hoffman was born in Moravia in 1870, two years after Renee Mackintosh had been born in Glasgow and like Mackintosh he became an architect.  He worked prodigiously, his most famous buildings being Stoclet Palace which included mosaic friezes by Gustav Klimt and Purkersdorf Sanatorium.  In both these buildings, the stark simplicity of the exterior is contrasted with an ornate interior.

Josef was influenced by the Art Nouveau movement but he had a more modernist approach especially favouring geometric shapes.  In 1897 he set up the Vienna Secession with Klimt and Koloman Moser reflecting his interest in the design of textiles, teapots, book covers, glass and ceramics.  Hoffman’s design for the 14^th Secession Exhibition, dedicated to Beethoven, was particularly praised. 

But Josef wished to develop the application of good design into every part of people’s lives so in the spirit of the arts and crafts Movement he set up Wiener Werksttäte where 100 employees produced ceramics, jewellery, metalwork, leather goods, woodwork and bound books.  The 37 craftsmen at Wiener Werksttäte were, in Hoffman’s eyes artists of equal standing to painters and architects.

Hoffman enjoyed designing chairs, jewellery and everything which required function and beauty.  His designs are still produced today and works of art originally made in the early 20^th century are sold for immense amounts.