Hard-line conservatives concerned about the deficit are among President Trump’s most stalwart supporters in Congress. But they say they cannot in good conscience back the budget plan he has endorsed.
Representative Eric Burlison, Republican of Missouri, is one of about a dozen hard-line conservatives who have said they cannot back their party’s budget blueprint to unlock President Trump’s spending and tax cuts.
Trump is seeking to establish a truly chilling proposition: that no one can stop his administration from imprisoning anyone it wants, anywhere in the world.
Trump is seeking to establish a truly chilling proposition: that no one can stop his administration from imprisoning anyone it wants, anywhere in the world.
In the first of these two articles tracing the first century of railways in paintings from the early 1840s, I had reached Claude Monet’s views of the Gare Saint-Lazare in Paris before 1880. By this time few countries in Europe had no railways, and trains frequently conveyed artists from their studios in the cities out to the beaches and mountains, journeys that a few years earlier could have taken days rather than hours.
Frits Thaulow (1847-1906), The Train is Arriving (1881), oil on canvas, 14.5 x 24 cm, National Gallery (Norway), Oslo. Wikimedia Commons.
Although Norway was a greater challenge for the railway engineers, Frits Thaulow seized the opportunity to show the results in The Train is Arriving from 1881. The country’s first public steam-hauled railway was developed by the son of George Stephenson, whose Rocket locomotive had inaugurated the first steam railway in the world. Norway’s line opened in 1854, and during the 1870s progressively made its way to Trondheim.
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890), The Blue Train (Viaduct in Arles) (1888), oil on canvas, 46 x 49.5 cm, Musée Rodin, Paris. Wikimedia Commons.
In 1888, Vincent van Gogh gave us The Blue Train (Viaduct in Arles).
Volodymyr Orlovsky (1842–1914), Steppe (date not known), oil on canvas, 95 x 183 cm, location not known. Wikimedia Commons.
Volodymyr Orlovsky’s undated Steppe shows a river in summer, with water levels at their minimum. Cattle are taking the opportunity to drink and cool off in the water. In the distance is the plume of smoke from a railway train, probably carrying grain and other produce from the Ukrainian countryside to one of the growing coastal cities for export.
The twentieth century brought the beginning of the end of the power of steam, marked in an unexpected twist of history. Between 1898 and 1900, a new railway station, initially known as the Gare d’Orléans, was built on the bank of the Seine at Quai d’Orsay, Paris. The first electrified urban railway terminal in the world, it was a star of the Exposition Universelle in 1900, where many Impressionist paintings were exhibited.
Victor Marec (1862-1920), Construction de la gare d’Orléans en 1899 (Construction of the New Gare d’Orléans Station in 1899) (1899), media and dimensions not known, Musée Carnavalet, Paris. Wikimedia Commons.
Victor Marec’s painting shows construction work being progressed in 1899, with a steam locomotive hauling construction trucks.
The Gare d’Orsay, as it became, started to suffer physical limitations in 1939, and its upper levels closed from 1973. In 1986 it re-opened as the most extensive collection of Impressionist art in the world, the Musée d’Orsay.
Maximilien Luce (1858–1941), La Gare de l’Est (1917), oil on canvas, 129.5 x 161.5 cm, Musée de l’Armée, Paris. By Ji-Elle, via Wikimedia Commons.
Maximilien Luce was one of the most expressive artists, who wasn’t an official war artist, to show scenes relating to the First World War. In his La Gare de l’Est (1917), a collection of wounded and battle-weary soldiers are shown at the entrance to this large Paris railway station.
Maximilien Luce (1858–1941), The Gare de l’Est in Snow (1917), oil on canvas, 130 x 162 cm, Musée de l’Hôtel-Dieu, Mantes-la-Jolie, France. Wikimedia Commons.
The Gare de l’Est in Snow (1917) is even better-known, and a classic painting of falling snow in a large city.
Lesser Ury (1861–1931), Nollendorfplatz Station at Night (1925), media and dimensions not known, Märkisches Museum, Berlin, Germany. Image by anagoria, via Wikimedia Commons.
Lesser Ury’s Nollendorfplatz Station at Night from 1925 shows the brilliant electric lighting around this busy railway station to the south of the Tiergarten, in one of Berlin’s shopping districts.
By this time, painting trains was becoming something of a sub-genre, particularly as steam trains were being replaced throughout Europe.
Eric Ravilious (1903-1942), Train Landscape (1940), watercolour and pencil on paper (collage), 44.1 x 54.8 cm, Aberdeen Art Gallery & Museums Collection, Aberdeen, Scotland. WikiArt.
Eric Ravilious is one example of a twentieth century artist who painted motifs deeply embedded in the railway, in his Train Landscape from 1940.
A few narrative artists, including Joaquín Sorolla, set their stories inside railway carriages. My favourite among these is Berthold Woltze’s Der lästige Kavalier (1874), rendered into English as The Annoying Bloke, from 1874.
Berthold Woltze (1829–1896), Der lästige Kavalier (The Annoying Bloke) (1874), oil on canvas, 75 x 57 cm, Private collection. Wikimedia Commons.
This is set in a railway carriage where there are two men and a young woman. She is dressed completely in black, and stares towards the viewer with tears in her eyes. Beside her is a carpet-bag, and opposite is a small wooden box and grey drapes.
Leaning over the back of her seat, and leering at her, is a middle-aged dandy with a brash moustache and mutton-chop whiskers, brandishing a lit cigar. He appears to be trying to chat her up, quite inappropriately, and very much against her wishes. Behind him, and almost cropped off the left edge of the canvas, is an older man with a dour, drawn face.
The young woman has apparently suffered a recent bereavement, and may even be travelling back after the funeral. She looks too young to have just buried a husband, so I think it more likely that she has just lost her last parent, and is now living alone, prey to the likes of this annoying and abusive bloke.
Not content with adorning the walls of their mansions with paintings, some of the nobility covered them with tapestries, for which artists like Francisco Goya were employed to create cartoons. They were expensive, and those who still aspired to fortunes used wallpaper instead. That could be hand-painted, or more usually printed, and became sufficiently popular by the time of Oliver Cromwell in the middle of the seventeenth century to be a bone of contention with his Puritan government.
During the eighteenth century, Britain became the largest manufacturer of wallpaper in Europe, largely because it lacked the tapestry factories that had been established for other royal courts, and for the period 1712-1836 England even had a wallpaper tax.
Because paper could only be produced in relatively small sheets, early wallpaper had to be assembled from many of those. For example, Albrecht Dürer’s woodblock print of The Triumphal Arch for the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I in 1516-1518, required a total of 195 woodblocks printed onto 36 separate sheets of paper.
Wallpaper came of age and appeared on the walls of many more homes when paper could be produced in long rolls using the Fourdrinier process in the early nineteenth century.
The first of Augustus Egg’s narrative series Past and Present from 1858 shows an ordinary middle-class drawing room, with a deep-coloured heavily patterned wallpaper typical of this Victorian setting.
Edgar Degas (1834–1917), Interior (‘The Rape’) (1868-9), oil on canvas, 81.3 x 114.3 cm, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA. Wikimedia Commons.
In Edgar Degas’ famously enigmatic Interior from 1868-69, the wallpaper is lighter and floral, matching the pattern on the lampshade, and making an association with the woman.
Édouard Muller (1823-1876), The Garden of Armida (1854), block-printed wallpaper, 386.1 x 335.3 cm, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA. Wikimedia Commons.
This exquisite wallpaper designed by Édouard Muller in 1854 is now in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, its five long rolls forming a trompe l’oeil of this enchanted garden from Torquato Tasso’s epic poem Jerusalem Delivered.Trompe l’oeils like this became popular, and have their origins in frescos painted on the walls of Roman villas in classical times. While a fresco was a costly one-off, improvements in printing made such wallpapers more widely available in the later nineteenth century.
Camille Pissarro (1830–1903), Still Life: Apples and Pears in a Round Basket (1872), oil on canvas, 45.7 x 55.2 cm, Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, NJ. Wikimedia Commons.
Camille Pissarro painted a few delightful still lifes, among them this Still Life: Apples and Pears in a Round Basket from 1872, which ingeniously adds floating flowers from the wallpaper in its background.
Gustave Caillebotte (1848–1894), Mademoiselle Boissière Knitting (1877), oil on canvas, 65.1 x 80 cm, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX. Wikimedia Commons.
Gustave Caillebotte’s portrait of Mademoiselle Boissière Knitting from 1877 is one of the first in which he might be said to be painting in Impressionist style. Its east Asian inspired wallpaper is typical of increasingly popular designs of that period.
Harold Gilman’s early Edwardian Interior from about 1907 shows the drawing room of his family home in the Rectory at Snargate, with the artist’s youngest sister as model. This wallpaper has a more complex design to make it appear less regular.
Wallpapers in the home of Pierre Bonnard make cameo appearances in several of his paintings, and usually feature bold stripes of colour, as seen in his famous Bowl of Milk from 1919. Although it looks informal if not spontaneous, this painting is the result of deliberate compositional work, and attention to details such as the form of the pillars on the balcony outside. In its informality is formality, in the model’s pose, the layout of the table settings, and the echoing verticals in the window and wallpaper.
Édouard Vuillard (1868–1940), Madame Vuillard Sewing (1920), oil on cardboard, 33.7 x 35.8 cm, National Museum of Western Art 国立西洋美術館 (Kokuritsu seiyō bijutsukan), Tokyo, Japan. Wikimedia Commons.
When Édouard Vuillard painted his mother Madame Vuillard Sewing in 1920, he returned to a more Nabi style, and a wallpaper with a simple and bold pattern.
Eric Ravilious (1903–1942), Farmhouse Bedroom (1939), watercolour, further details not known. Wikimedia Commons.
Further into the twentieth century, even bolder patterns appear in some of Eric Ravilious’ interiors, such as this Farmhouse Bedroom from 1939.
原文：The recent heated exchanges between Zelenskyy, Vance, and Trump at the White House have garnered significant attention. Could you develop a simple interactive simulation that allows me to role-play as President Zelenskyy during those debates? I’m interested in an engaging interactive game that recreates this political scenario.
在过去，同类的工作在过去可能需要用户用一个 AI Agent 工具，多次分步输入指令，或者需要用户自己用多个工具来分别完成任务再自行组合，无论怎么做都很麻烦。而 Manus 的自动化程度，超过了包括 Claude 在内的同类方案。就算你坚信 Manus 的能力没什么过人之处（毕竟套壳），但不可否认它的体验是更优秀的。
综上各点，Manus 确实超过了过去一段时间以来我们对 AI 工具的体验认知。如果说以前的 Agent 更多只是没「脑子」的工具，Manus 已经非常接近一个有「脑子」的 AI 助手，从人机互动升格为人机协作。
AI 技术突飞猛进，早已离开了学术科研的襁褓，和大公司的封锁。企业航母 all in AI 难保一帆风顺，小公司却完全可以只用一周时间起飞。现有的开源、半公开，付费、收费的工具比比皆是，只要不违反相应的开源许可证规则和商业授权协议，任何人都可以充分且自由地利用它们，无论出于纯粹的个人使用，还是做拼装组合叠加的「套壳」式创新。
更别提这个「创新」的结果还挺好玩（就算拿不到邀请码，你也可以去网站上感受几十个现成的 use cases）。
As Ovid reaches the end of Book Twelve of his Metamorphoses, Nestor is still telling stories to the feast in honour of Achilles’ victory over Cycnus in the Trojan War. He has just completed the long and colourful story of the battle between the Lapiths and the Centaurs at the wedding of Pirithous and Hippodame.
Tlepolemus, the son of Hercules (Heracles), is offended that Nestor hasn’t mentioned his father in his stories, to which Nestor points out his hatred for Hercules. Nestor says that he’s the only survivor of twelve sons of Neleus, Hercules having destroyed all the others. Nestor then goes on to tell of the strange death of his brother Periclymenus, who had been given the power of shape-shifting by Neptune. After Periclymenus had torn the face of Hercules and had flown away as an eagle, Hercules’ arrow severed the sinews of his wings. When he fell to earth, the arrow was driven into his neck, killing him.
Ovid then jumps to the closing months of the Trojan War, writing that Neptune’s hatred of Achilles has not gone away. Seeing the Greeks are about to conquer the city, Neptune speaks with Apollo, seeking a way to kill Achilles at last. As Neptune cannot face him in combat, Apollo agrees to use his skills as an archer to bring about the warrior’s death.
Apollo goes down to the walls of Troy, where he finds Paris (Alexander), whose abduction of Helen had started the war, shooting arrows almost at random. The god reveals himself and offers to help him make his shots more effective by aiming them at Achilles. Apollo assists Paris and his arrow, to ensure that it reaches its target; Achilles falls, mortally wounded, as a result.
Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640), The Death of Achilles (sketch) (1630-35), oil on panel, 45.3 × 46 cm, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Wikimedia Commons.
Of those who have painted this, it was Peter Paul Rubens who has told the story most vividly, in a series on Achilles that he completed between 1630-35, towards the end of his own career and life. This painting of The Death of Achilles is an oil sketch on a smaller panel.
Achilles, an arrow piercing straight through his right foot, is shown in the centre foreground, overtly moribund. But Rubens doesn’t place Achilles in battle, as does Ovid: he has been standing at a small altar to the goddess Diana, with her strong association with archery. At the door to the left, Paris is still holding the bow that loosed the arrow, and behind him is Apollo aiding and abetting in the killing.
Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640), The Death of Achilles (c 1630-35), oil on canvas, 107.1 x 109.2 cm, The Courtauld Gallery, London. Wikimedia Commons.
Rubens’ finished painting of The Death of Achilles adheres faithfully to that sketch. Achilles’ face is deathly white, and this brings to life the supporting detail, particularly the lioness attacking a horse at the lower edge of the canvas, symbolising Paris’s attack on Achilles.
Alexander Rothaug (1870-1946), The Death of Achilles (date not known), brown ink and oil en grissale over traces of black chalk on canvas, dimensions and location not known. Wikimedia Commons.
Much later, Alexander Rothaug’s undated Death of Achilles is true to the original accounts, with the arrow passing through the Achilles tendon. Paris, still clutching his bow above, looks mortified, and Apollo stands behind him.
Henry Fuseli (1741–1825), Thetis Lamenting the Death of Achilles (1780), tempera on cardboard, 41.8 × 55.8 cm, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL. Wikimedia Commons.
Henry Fuseli’s Thetis Lamenting the Death of Achilles (1780) is less straightforward to read. In the foreground, Achilles’ body lies like a fallen statue on his shield, his great spear by his left side. There is no sign of any wound, arrow, or injury. At the water’s edge, his mother Thetis is waving her arms in lament for her dead son. Another deity is flying past in the distance, and is seen white against the dark and funereal sea and sky.
Ovid is quite vague as to how Achilles died, other than telling us it was from an arrow shot by Paris. Since that account in his Metamorphoses, a new myth has flourished, giving a more familiar explanation. When Achilles was a young child, his mother Thetis immersed him in the water of the river Styx, to make him invulnerable. However, she had to hold him by part of his body, the left heel, which was therefore left as his only weakness, hence his Achilles Heel. This was first recorded in the poetry of Statius, in the first century CE.
Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640), Thetis Dipping the Infant Achilles into the River Styx (1630-35), oil on panel, 44.1 x 38.4 cm, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Wikimedia Commons.
Rubens included this oil sketch in his Achilles series, showing Thetis Dipping the Infant Achilles into the River Styx (1630-35). This is taking place in the foreground, while in the middle distance Charon is seen ferrying the dead across the River Styx into the Underworld. Rubens complies with Statius’ story in making Achilles’ left heel the one left vulnerable.
Jan-Erasmus Quellinus (1634–1715), Thetis Dips Achilles in a Vase with Water from the Styx (1668), oil on canvas, dimensions not known, Private collection. Wikimedia Commons.
Nearly thirty years after Rubens’ death, Jan-Erasmus Quellinus painted his version of Thetis Dips Achilles in a Vase with Water from the Styx (1668). It’s set not on the bank of the River Styx, but at a temple, where Achilles undergoes a baptismal procedure in a a huge pot, at the lower left. Thetis appears to be holding the infant, who is almost completely immersed, by his left foot, again in compliance with Statius. Quellinus has engaged in a little intentional Christianisation of this myth, which may also have made it seem more familiar to those who saw it.
Antoine Borel (1743-1810), Thetis Immerses Her Son Achilles in Water of the River Styx (date not known), oil on canvas, dimensions and location not known. Wikimedia Commons.
Antoine Borel’s more traditional account of Thetis Immerses Her Son Achilles in Water of the River Styx was painted at least a hundred years later, in the late eighteenth century, and again has Thetis hold Achilles by his left foot.
Unusually for Rubens, though, his paintings of the death of Achilles show the arrow transfixing his right foot, not the left. That was a necessity by virtue of its composition, although Rubens could just as easily have reversed his drawing to achieve consistency with this detail.
With Achilles on his funeral pyre, Ovid closes the book as King Agamemnon calls his warriors to meet, to decide who should be awarded Achilles’ shield and arms, in the opening of book thirteen.
This is the second of this weekend’s two articles in which the artists and paintings of Ukraine tell their own story. Each of the links given takes you back to the series of articles I compiled here a couple of years ago.
By the end of the nineteenth century, Ukrainian art schools were at last training the Ukrainian artists of the future, who were able to make their own styles and develop distinctive movements. Among them were some who went on to earn a place internationally. Unfortunately, history conspired to change all this in the political unrest around the October 1917 Revolution in Russia, and through two World Wars. As a result, the lives of many Ukrainian artists were brought to an early end, by disease, starvation, or execution. A large proportion of their output has been deliberately suppressed, hidden away in collections of banned works, destroyed, or looted.
Mykola Pymonenko (1862–1912), Waiting for the Blessing (1891), oil on canvas, 133 x 193 cm, Rybinsk Museum-Preserve Рыбинский историко-архитектурный и художественный музей-заповедник, Rybinsk, Russia. Wikimedia Commons.Mykola Pymonenko (1862–1912), Harvest in Ukraine (1896), oil on canvas, 87 x 140 cm, location not known. Wikimedia Commons.
Mykola Pymonenko (1862–1912) was born in a village outside Kyiv and started his training in his father’s icon workshop in the city, prior to his discovery by Mykola Murashko of the Kyiv Art School, where he trained before heading off to Saint Petersburg. He returned to Kyiv in 1884 to teach and to paint in the Naturalist style that was so popular at the Salon in Paris at the time. It was he who perhaps painted the first distinctively Ukrainian works that drew on local themes such as Paska at Easter, traditional weddings and the grain harvest. Kazymyr Malevych was among his pupils.
Mykola Ivasyuk (1865–1937), Entry of Bohdan Khmelnytskyi to Kyiv in 1649 (date not known), media not known, 350 x 550 cm, National Art Museum of Ukraine Національний художній музей України, Kyiv, Ukraine. Wikimedia Commons.
Many Ukrainian artists had depicted Zaporozhian Cossacks, and they remained a favourite theme for Ilia Repin right up to his death, but the first prominent specialist national history painter was Mykola Ivasyuk (1865–1937), who was born and brought up in Zastavna in western Ukraine when it was still part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He therefore trained at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, but chose to spend much of his career in Chernivtsi and Kyiv, where he also taught.
During the nineteenth century, the evolution of painting in Ukraine had largely been constrained by the orthodoxy of the Imperial Academy, and the supply of Russian patrons. As its own art schools flourished, and support for the arts grew, the pace of progress rose rapidly in Ukraine. The first decade of the twentieth century saw Ukrainian artists in the same avant garde as those in France and the rest of Europe, until the First World War and the October 1917 Revolution.
The war threw Ukraine into the midst of the conflict between Austro-Hungary and Russia, with Ukrainians fighting one another on behalf of two different empires. Then from 1917 onwards, the country lapsed in and out of complete chaos. By 1920, many Ukrainian artists had been forced to leave, or were intending to do so.
For painters like Ivasyuk, the world changed too rapidly. Initially he was commissioned to design postage stamps, then in 1926 he was made a professor at the Kyiv Art Institute. In a few years he had been moved away to Odesa as a result of political criticism. In the autumn of 1937, he was arrested, convicted of terrorism on the basis of his history paintings, and was shot by a firing squad at the age of seventy-two. Many of his paintings were confiscated or destroyed in a bid to erase him and his work completely.
Ivan Trush (1869–1941), Hutsul Girls (1933), media and dimensions not known, Lviv National Art Gallery, Lviv, Ukraine. Wikimedia Commons.
Ivan Trush (1869–1941) was born in Vysotsko, to the north-east of Lviv. He settled in the city, where he was involved in the establishment of Lviv National Museum. He was a prominent portraitist, and painted Impressionist landscapes.
Petro Nilus (1869–1943), On the Bridge (c 1910), further details not known. Wikimedia Commons.
Petro Nilus (1869–1943) was born in Balta, in south-west Ukraine, and moved to Odesa, where he studied under Kyriak Kostandi. He was active in Odesa for much of his career until moving to Paris in 1920.
Mykola Burachek (1871–1942), The Mighty Dnipro Roars and Bellows… (1941), oil on canvas, 100 x 135 cm, National Museum Тaras Shevchenko, Kyiv, Ukraine. Wikimedia Commons.
Mykola Burachek (1871-1942) was born in Letychiv, western Ukraine, and trained under Khariton Platonov in Kyiv. He taught in Kyiv from 1917, then in Kharkiv from 1925. He died there during its Nazi occupation.
Oleksandr Murashko (1875–1919), Annunciation (1907-08), oil on canvas, 198 x 169 cm, National Art Museum of Ukraine Національний художній музей України, Kyiv, Ukraine. Wikimedia Commons.
Oleksandr Murashko (1875–1919) was born in Kyiv, where he became a major figurative painter. He taught there from 1909, and was a co-founder of the Ukrainian State Academy of Arts. He was shot dead by a street gang.
Kazimierz Sichulski (1879–1942), Adoration of the Shepherds triptych (1938), oil on canvas, 102 x 222 cm, Private collection. Wikimedia Commons.
Kazimierz Sichulski (1879–1942) was born in Lviv. He travelled in the Carpathian Mountains from 1905, where he painted Hutsul peoples. He taught in Lviv from 1918, then in Kraków, Poland from 1930, before returning to Lviv in 1939.
Fedir Krychevskyi (1879–1947), Miner’s Love (1935), media not known, 183 x 175 cm, National Art Museum of Ukraine Національний художній музей України, Kyiv, Ukraine. Wikimedia Commons.
Fedir Krychevskyi (1879–1947) was born in Lebedyn, near Sumy in north-east Ukraine. He studied with Gustav Klimt in Vienna before returning to teach in Kyiv in 1914, where he was appointed Rector of the Ukrainian State Academy of Arts. He remained in Kyiv during the Second World War, but was arrested by Soviet forces in 1943, and died of starvation in Irpin during the famine of 1947.
Kazymyr Malevych (1879–1935), Taking in the Rye II (1912), oil on canvas, 72 x 74.5 cm, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Wikimedia Commons.
Kazymyr Malevych (1879–1935) was born in Kyiv of Polish descent, where he started his studies. He became a Cubo-Futurist by 1912, then went on to Suprematism. He taught at Kyiv Art Institute from 1928 alongside Oleksandr Bohomazov, but was sacked from there in 1930, was arrested by the KGB and threatened with execution.
Oleksandr Bohomazov (1880–1930), Sawyers (1929), oil on canvas, 138 x 155 cm, National Art Museum of Ukraine Національний художній музей України, Kyiv, Ukraine. Wikimedia Commons.
Oleksandr Bohomazov (1880–1930) was born in Yampil, near Lyman in east Ukraine. He trained under Mykola Pymonenko at the Kyiv Academy of Arts from 1902, alongside Oleksandra Ekster and the sculptor Oleksandr Arkhypenko who were to play major roles in the development of modernist art in Ukraine and Europe. After a period studying in Moscow, he returned to Kyiv in 1908, where he became one of the leaders of the avant garde. In 1914 he wrote an innovative treatise on modern painting that formed the basis of his teaching at the Kyiv Art Institute from 1922.
Mykhailo Boichuk (1882-1937), The Prophet Elijah (1913), further details not known. Wikimedia Commons.
Like Ivasyuk, Mykhailo Boichuk (1882-1937) came from Galicia in Austro-Hungary, where he was born to the south of Ternopil, but trained first in Lviv then in the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków, Poland. He returned to Lviv in 1910, where he developed a novel style, unique to Ukraine, known as Monumentalism or Boichukism, which brings together traditional Byzantine icon painting and the pre-Renaissance. This enjoyed recognition and popularity during the 1920s, when there were more than two dozen visual artists creating commissioned works for public buildings throughout Ukraine. After the October 1917 Revolution he was a co-founder of the Ukrainian State Academy of Arts.
Boichuk and his colleagues fell from grace during Stalin’s Great Purge of 1937, when he was accused of being a bourgeois nationalist. For that, he, his wife and many of his colleagues were executed that year, and most of their work destroyed. They weren’t the last to die for their art, either: in 1946, for instance, Ivan Ivanets, director of the Lviv Art Gallery, was kidnapped and killed in Russia.
Oleksandra Ekster (1882–1949), Carnival in Venice (1930s), oil on canvas, 120.6 x 76.2 cm, location not known. Wikimedia Commons.
Oleksandra Ekster (1882–1949) was born in Poland in a Belarusian family but trained under Mykola Pymonenko in Kyiv, where she launched her career. She lived in Paris from 1906, where she developed Cubo-Futurism before returning to Kyiv in 1914, where she opened an art school in 1918. She then went to Odesa before going to Moscow, and migrated to Paris in 1924.
Arnold Lakhovskyi (1880–1937), Saint-Malo (date not known), oil on canvas, 66 x 45 cm, location not known. Wikimedia Commons.
Arnold Lakhovskyi (1880–1937) was born in Chornobyl, in north Ukraine. He trained in Odesa and Munich, and moved to Paris in 1925, then to New York City in 1933, where he was a successful portraitist.
Wladimir Baranoff-Rossiné (1888-1944), Adam and Eve (1912), oil on canvas, 155 x 219.7 cm, Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, Spain. Wikimedia Commons.
Wladimir Baranoff-Rossiné (1888-1944) was born in Kherson, and studied in Odesa. He moved to Paris in 1910. During the First World War he lived in Nordic countries, then taught in Moscow in 1920. He was a prolific inventor, whose inventions include the optophonic piano, and he was an early developer of military camouflage. He moved back to Paris in 1925, where he was arrested by the Gestapo in 1943, and he died in Auschwitz.
Abraham Mintchine (1898–1931), Self-Portrait as Harlequin (1931), oil on canvas, 73 x 50.2 cm, The Tate Gallery, London. Wikimedia Commons.
Abraham Mintchine (1898-1931) was born in Kyiv, where he studied at its Art School and with Oleksandra Ekster. He left for Berlin in 1923, then lived in Paris from 1925, where he painted prolifically before he died suddenly in 1931.
Despite attempts at their assimilation, control and waves of destruction under a succession of empires, painting in Ukraine has somehow flourished as a result of the dedication of this succession of artists. Long may the artists, teachers and art collections of Ukraine flourish.
References
Andrey Kurkov and others (2022) Treasures of Ukraine, A Nation’s Cultural Heritage, Thames & Hudson. ISBN 978 0 500 02603 8.
Konstantin Akinsha and others (2022) In the Eye of the Storm, Modernism in Ukraine 1900-1930s, Thames & Hudson. ISBN 978 0 500 29715 5.
Although of ancient origin, in Europe the idea of laying carpet on the floor is surprisingly recent. Woven and backed textiles resembling modern carpets appear to have originated in the Caucasian area and in Anatolia, and first made their way to western Europe with the Crusades. It was another seven centuries before Europeans realised they weren’t only intended to be hung from walls or placed on tables. Their wider adoption as floor coverings may have been limited by the difficulties in cleaning by beating them outdoors.
Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824–1904), The Carpet Merchant (of Cairo) (1887), oil on canvas, 83.4 x 64.7 cm, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN. Wikimedia Commons.
Jean-Léon Gérôme’s Carpet Merchant (of Cairo) from 1887 shows a contemporary trading scene in almost photographic detail. Standing on and among crumpled up carpets in this corner of a souk is a group of traders and their customers, admiring one particularly fine example hanging from a balcony as they haggle over price. As an image within an image, Gérôme paints the calligraphic design of the carpet in painstaking detail.
Georges Rochegrosse (1859–1938), The Palace Entertainment (date not known), oil on canvas, further details not known. The Athenaeum.
You could easily mistake Georges Rochegrosse’s undated Palace Entertainment for another by his contemporary Gérôme, although by this time (the period 1894-1914) Rochegrosse was often far more painterly in his style. It shows a dancer with musical group entertaining some Algerian men, her routine involving a pair of short swords. Under her feet is a large and brilliant scarlet carpet.
Osman Hamdi Bey (1842–1910), Kur’an Tilaveti (Reciting the Quran) (1910), oil, 53 x 72.5 cm, Sakıp Sabancı Museum, Istanbul, Turkey. Wikimedia Commons.
Carpets were also in widespread use as floor coverings throughout Turkey and the Middle East, as shown in Osman Hamdi Bey’s painting of Reciting the Quran from 1910. At its foot is a wonderful deep blue carpet.
Philip Hermogenes Calderon (1833–1898), “Lord, Thy Will Be Done” (1855), oil on canvas, 55.9 x 46.4 cm, The Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT. Wikimedia Commons.
In Philip Hermogenes Calderon’s “Lord, Thy Will Be Done” from 1855, the small and threadbare piece of carpet tells you more about this young mother’s financial and social status than any other object in the room.
Among the early depictions of floor carpets is James Abbott McNeill Whistler’s chinoiserie interior painted in 1863-65, which might give rise to geographical confusion.
James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834–1903), The Princess from the Land of Porcelain (1863-65), oil on canvas, 201.5 x 116.1 cm, Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. Wikimedia Commons.
Whistler’s The Princess from the Land of Porcelain (1863-65), from his Peacock Room, is shown above and in the detail below. The model’s features are European rather than Oriental (she was actually from an Italian family), but she’s wearing a fine silk kimono and holding a fan. Behind her is a painted screen from Japan, and under her feet is a lush white and blue carpet.
This is the painting at the focal point of the lavish dining room of the London house of Frederick Richards Leyland, a shipping magnate. Whistler and Leyland fell out over changes the artist made to the original design, and Whistler was forced into bankruptcy as a result. The contents of the room were purchased in 1904, moved to the USA, and exhibited in the Freer Gallery in Washington, DC, from 1923.
James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834–1903), The Princess from the Land of Porcelain (detail) (1863-65), oil on canvas, dimensions not known, Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. Wikimedia Commons.Giovanni Boldini (1842–1931), Peaceful Days (The Music Lesson) (1875), oil on canvas, 35.5 × 25.4 cm, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA. Wikimedia Commons.
In Giovanni Boldini’s Peaceful Days (The Music Lesson) from 1875, a younger boy sits on a vividly decorated carpet studying an epée, with a cello behind him. Judging by their dress and surroundings, these two are at least comfortably off, and certainly well-carpeted.
John William Waterhouse (1849–1917), Dolce Far Niente (The White Feather Fan) (1879), oil on canvas, 49.6 x 36.2 cm, Private collection. Wikimedia Commons.
There’s also something indulgent and sensuous about lying back on an exotic carpet, in the way that this woman is in John William Waterhouse’s Dolce Far Niente or The White Feather Fan (1879). She’s plucking feathers from the fan and watching them rise through the air, a perfect way to while away the time, it seems.
William Merritt Chase (1849–1916), Studio Interior (c 1882), oil on canvas, 71.3 x 101.9 cm, Brooklyn Museum, New York, NY. Wikimedia Commons.
William Merritt Chase’s paintings of his studio acted as a shop window for prospective customers. In his Studio Interior from about 1882, a fashionably dressed young woman is glancing through a huge bound collation of Chase’s work, sat by a grand carved wooden sideboard, decorated with almost outlandish objects including a model ship, a lute, and sundry objets d’art. Under her feet is a wonderful blue carpet, no doubt ready to transport her into the scenes shown in Chase’s book.
Félix Vallotton (1865–1925), Interior, Bedroom with Two Figures (1904), oil on cardboard, 61.5 × 56 cm, Hermitage Museum Государственный Эрмитаж, Saint Petersburg, Russia. Wikimedia Commons.
By the turn of the century, and Félix Vallotton’s disturbing domestic scenes such as Interior, Bedroom with Two Figures (1904), the prosperous were having wall-to-wall carpets fitted in their houses. The lady of the house is standing on a patterned carpet that runs under the bed, and at the left extends to the wall.
Colours and patterns soon became vibrant if not gaudy.
Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947), Nude in Bathtub (c 1938-41), oil on canvas, 121.9 x 151.1 cm, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA. The Athenaeum.
In Pierre Bonnard’s Nude in Bathtub from about 1938-41, the flooring dazzles, and Marthe’s brown dog has its own mat.
Eric Ravilious (1903–1942), Farmhouse Bedroom (1939), watercolour, further details not known. Wikimedia Commons.
Eric Ravilious’ Farmhouse Bedroom (1939) overwhelms the viewer with the patterns in its flooring that contradict rather than complement its walls.
Curtains, drapes of fabric suspended from rails or lines, have been around a long time, but have only recently become popular for providing an internal screen for windows. Although they have other purposes in paintings, they’re primarily used to conceal or to reveal when drawn back. Unusually, they can be depicted as part of the content of a picture, or added to it as a deception, a trompe l’oeil, to fool the viewer into thinking the curtain isn’t in the picture, but is real.
It was Raphael who was probably the first painter to attempt a trompe l’oeil using curtains, in his Sistine Madonna from 1512-13.
Raphael (1483–1520), Sistine Madonna (1512-13), oil on canvas, 265 x 196 cm, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Dresden, Germany. Wikimedia Commons.
Now recognised as one of Raphael’s greatest and most important paintings, it was donated by Pope Julius II to the Benedictine basilica of San Sisto in Piacenza. The two saints shown are Saint Sixtus II and Saint Barbara, whose relics were preserved there. The Madonna and saints are painted superbly, but it’s the rest of the image that is most fascinating. The two cherubs with tousled hair at its foot are gentle touches of humour for a congregation as they looked at this image.
But Raphael’s visual feat is the curtains. He was by now confident that his realism was sufficient to pull off a trompe l’oeil, and fool the viewer into thinking that they were looking at a painting behind real curtains, at least until they got close. Having fooled them once, they’re now more receptive to the image beyond the curtains.
Those curtains also have theological significance: they mark the separation between the physical and spiritual worlds. As they are painted and not real, though, access through them is always open. No one can come along, draw them closed, and stop the ordinary person from accessing Christ. In a world where almost everything else, apart from air, was heavily controlled, this was and remains an empowering message.
Oleksandr Murashko (1875–1919), Annunciation (1907-08), oil on canvas, 198 x 169 cm, National Art Museum of Ukraine Національний художній музей України, Kyiv, Ukraine. Wikimedia Commons.
Curtains are bold moves in some other religious paintings, including Oleksandr Murashko’s breathtaking Annunciation from 1907-08. Apparently, he was first inspired to paint this when he saw a girl part light curtains to enter his house from the terrace outside, and saw a parallel with the entry of the Archangel Gabriel in the Annunciation.
Their role in Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Girlhood of Mary Virgin from 1848–9 is less convincing. This contains some archaic devices, such as the gilt and lettered halos, and an oddly-proportioned angel, but shows what Rossetti envisaged might have been the pictorial reality of the Virgin Mary during her youth. She works on embroidery with her mother, Saint Anne, while her father, Saint Joachim, prunes a vine. Those are shown realistically with an abundance of symbolic objects, but the curtains seem merely a background.
Raphaelle Peale (1774–1825), Venus Rising From the Sea – A Deception (c 1822), oil on canvas, 74 x 61.3 cm, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO. Wikimedia Commons.
A curtain formed from an outsized handkerchief is concealing in Raphaelle Peale’s Venus Rising From the Sea – A Deception (c 1822). This was a visual criticism of the small-minded attitude to the display of paintings of nudes at the time.
With curtains concealing what shouldn’t be seen, they provide a means for the voyeur to peep through them.
Lovis Corinth (1858–1925), Susanna Bathing (Susanna and the Elders) (1890), oil on canvas, 159 x 111.8 cm, Private collection. Wikimedia Commons.
The story of Susanna (or Shoshana) and the Elders is told in the Old Testament book of Daniel, chapter 13, and centres on voyeurism, blackmail, and justice. Susanna was a beautiful married woman who was bathing in her garden one afternoon, having dismissed her servants. Two lustful elders spied on her, and as she returned to her house they stopped her, and threatened that, unless she agreed to have sex with them, they would claim that she had met her lover in the garden. Being virtuous, Susanna refused their blackmail, and was promptly arrested, charged with promiscuity, and awaited her execution.
It was only after the intervention of the young prophet Daniel that the elders’ conspiracy was revealed, Susanna was acquitted of the charge, and the elders executed instead. Lovis Corinth’s early Susanna Bathing from 1890 adopts a traditional approach, where Susanna is seen in the flesh, being spied on by a peeping elder from behind a curtain.
Pedro Américo (1843–1905), Faust and Gretchen (1875-80), oil on canvas, 34 x 23 cm, Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil. Wikimedia Commons.
Pedro Américo’s Faust and Gretchen from 1875-80 uses this in the context of the seduction of Gretchen in Goethe’s Faust. The shadowy figure of Mephistopheles is eavesdropping behind the curtain at the right, and white lilies, a symbol of her virginity, lie fallen on the floor.
While peeping is implicitly non-consensual and unwelcome, curtains can also be used for revelation.
One of Millais’ last paintings, before his death the following year, was Speak! Speak! (1895), which is also one of his most enigmatic. Millais’ son reported that this scene is set in ancient Rome. The young man had spent much of the night reading through the letters of his lost love. At dawn, the curtains were parted to reveal her, dressed for her bridal night, gazing upon him with sad but loving eyes. The title of the painting is therefore the words that he said to her spectre.
The mere presence of curtains denotes separation, particularly that between performers and their spectators.
Antoine Watteau (1684–1721), The Italian Comedians (c 1720), oil on canvas, 63.8 x 76.2 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. Wikimedia Commons.
Antoine Watteau adds a scarlet curtain both for colour and as the conventional separator between The Italian Comedians (1720) and their audience.
Ludwig Knaus (1829–1910), Behind the Curtain (1880), oil on mahogany wood, 81 x 110 cm, Galerie Neue Meister, Dresden, Germany. Wikimedia Commons.
Ludwig Knaus shows the scene Behind the Curtain of a small itinerant circus in 1880. Performers were often colourful in both their costume and character, with many incongruities, such as the clown seen in the centre feeding a baby, and looking straight at the viewer. Their curtain is also rough and ready.
Grant Wood (1891–1942), Parson Weems’s Fable (1939), oil on canvas, dimensions not known, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, TX. Wikimedia Commons.
Grant Wood’s Parson Weems’s Fable from 1939 refers to Mason Locke Weems (1759-1825), who wrote the first biography of George Washington shortly after the latter’s death. This contains several apocryphal stories, including the legend of the cherry tree, which didn’t appear until its fifth edition.
According to this, when Washington was six, he was given custody of a hatchet, which he used to cut through the bark of a superb young English cherry tree. When this was discovered the next day, Washington’s father asked the boy if he knew who had killed the cherry tree, to which George Washington admitted his guilt, saying that he couldn’t tell a lie. His father was overjoyed at his son’s honesty. Sadly, the story is generally considered to be a fabrication.
Wood’s ingenious treatment places Parson Weems at the right, holding open a stage curtain, as if narrating the story to the viewer.
Across much of the temperate parts of the northern hemisphere, this is the wettest part of the year. It’s when puddles are everywhere, and what used to be firm ground turns into soft deep mud. Footpaths and bridleways become deep tracts of mud, impassable in anything but high boots. Yet look through paintings of winter and you’ll notice that few artists before 1800 have depicted people, vehicles or animals in mud of any significant depth. This weekend I look at some of the more faithful accounts of this ingloriously muddy time of year.
Louis-Léopold Boilly (1761–1845), Passer Payez (Pay to Pass) (c 1803), further details not known. Wikimedia Commons.
In the early nineteenth century, streets in major cities in Europe including Paris spent much of the winter as muddy morasses. Enterprising poorer inhabitants took long planks to locations where the more affluent would try to cross those rivers of mud, and hired them out to enable the rich to stay cleaner.
This is shown well in Louis-Léopold Boilly’s Passer Payez, or Pay to Pass, from about 1803, where a whole family is taking advantage of one of these crossings. This spared their footwear and clothing the otherwise inevitable coating of mud. As you can see, their shoes, lower legs and clothing are amazingly clean, as if they might actually have been painted in Boilly’s studio rather than the muddy streets of Paris.
Adolph von Menzel (1815–1905), Hussars Rescue a Polish Family (1850), paper, 34.5 x 47 cm, Museum Georg Schäfer, Schweinfurt, Germany. Wikimedia Commons.
As realism and real-world scenes became more popular in the middle of the nineteenth century, Adolph von Menzel showed a more accurate view of the problem of muddy roads in his Hussars Rescue a Polish Family from 1850. It had clearly been a wet autumn, with the leaves still burning red and gold on the trees in the background. These mounted soldiers are helping the elderly women from their carriage across the muddy ruts of the road. The hussar in the foreground, with his back to the viewer, even has mud on his riding boots.
Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824–1904), The Death of Marshal Ney (1868), oil on canvas, 64.1 x 104.1 cm, Sheffield Gallery, Sheffield, England. Photo from Militärhistoria 4/2015, via Wikimedia Commons.
One of the first artists to have used mud in a more meaningful way is Jean-Léon Gérôme, in his 1868 painting of The Death of Marshal Ney. Michel Ney (1769-1815) was a leading military commander during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, and was made a Marshal of France by Napoleon. Following Napoleon’s defeat and exile in the summer of 1815, Ney was arrested, and tried for treason by the Chamber of Peers. He was found guilty, and executed by firing squad near the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris on 7 December 1815.
Gérôme shows Ney’s body abandoned after the execution, slumped face down and lifeless in the mud, his top hat resting apart at the right edge of the canvas. The firing squad is being marched off, to the left and into the distance. The mud only reinforces Gérôme’s powerful image of a cold, bleak, heartless execution.
Ludwig Knaus (1829–1910), Mud Pies (1873), oil on canvas, 64.4 x 109.4 cm, Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, MD. Wikimedia Commons.
Mud also has its recreational uses, as children of all eras will attest. Ludwig Knaus’s painting of Mud Pies from 1873 shows a group of children in the evening, near Dusseldorf, Germany, who are enjoying play in and with the mud, which is less fun for the swineherd behind them.
Giuseppe De Nittis (1846–1884), The Victoria Embankment, London (1875), other details not known. Wikimedia Commons.
While other Impressionists had been exploring the effects of transient light on the River Thames, in 1875, Giuseppe De Nittis examined the city’s muddy and rutted streets, in his painting of The Victoria Embankment, London. This wasn’t one of the older roads in the city either: the Victoria Embankment wasn’t constructed until 1865, and had only opened to traffic five years before De Nittis painted it.
John Atkinson Grimshaw (1836–1893), At The Park Gate (1878), oil on canvas, 51 x 61 cm, Private collection. Wikimedia Commons.
Muddy roads in northern British cities like Leeds were one of the favourite settings for the nocturnes of John Atkinson Grimshaw. At The Park Gate from 1878 (above) and November from 1879 (below) are glistening examples.
John Atkinson Grimshaw (1836–1893), November (1879), oil on canvas, 76.2 x 62.9 cm, location not known. Wikimedia Commons.Benjamin Williams Leader (1831–1923), February Fill Dyke (1881), oil on canvas, dimensions not known, Birmingham Museums Trust, Birmingham, England. Wikimedia Commons.
There’s an old English proverb “February fill dyke, be it black or be it white”, referring to the rain (black) or snow (white) that usually falls heavily during the month and fills all the ditches. Benjamin Williams Leader borrows that in his February Fill Dyke showing the waterlogged countryside near Worcester in 1881.
Mud became a favourite effect in the Naturalist paintings made so popular in France by Jules Bastien-Lepage.
Jules Bastien-Lepage (1848–1884), Pas Mèche (Nothing Doing) (1882), oil on canvas, 132.1 x 89.5 cm, Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland. Wikimedia Commons.
Pas Mèche (Nothing Doing) (1882) shows a cheeky ploughboy equipped with his whip and horn, on his way out to work in the fields. His face is grubby, his clothing frayed, patched, and dirty, and his boots caked in mud.
But for real mud, deep enough for wheels and legs to sink in and cake clothing, I turn to central and eastern Europe.
Jakub Schikaneder (1855–1924), The Sad Way (1886), oil on canvas, 141 × 217 cm, Národní galerie v Praze, Prague, The Czech Republic. Image by Ophelia2, via Wikimedia Commons.
Jakub Schikaneder’s The Sad Way from 1886 shows a single weary horse towing a cart on which a coffin rests. The woman, presumably widowed before her time, stares emptily at the rutted mud track, as a man walks beside them. It’s late autumn in a world that is barren, bleak, muddy and forlorn.
Józef Marian Chełmoński (1849–1914), Market (date not known), oil on canvas, 57.5 x 67.5 cm, Kościuszko Foundation, New York, NY. Wikimedia Commons.
Józef Marian Chełmoński’s undated Market is one of the most vivid insights into country life in Poland during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. To reach this street market, carts are being drawn through a deep ditch full of muddy water. Market stalls are mounted on tables set in the mud, which forms the basis for everything.
Alfred Wierusz-Kowalski (1849–1915), Meeting the Train (date not known), oil on canvas, 19 x 23.5 cm, Private collection. Wikimedia Commons.
Also undated is contemporary and fellow Polish artist Alfred Wierusz-Kowalski’s Meeting the Train. A couple of horse-drawn carts have gone to a rural railway station to meet a train. The winter snow still covers much of the ground, except where it has been turned into rutted mud on the road.
With so many artists flocking to see paintings of the Renaissance masters in Florence, it was only a matter of time before they stayed a little longer and stepped out into the open to paint views of the city before they left. Far less popular than views of the canals of Venice, and lacking a Canaletto to market them to tourists, you have to look a bit harder to find these marvellous landscapes.
William Barnard Clarke (1806–1865), Florence, Firenze (1835), engraving, 30.4 x 38.1 cm, Private collection. Image by Geographicus Rare Antique Maps, via Wikimedia Commons.
To aid in their visualisation, I again include this map of the city engraved by William Barnard Clarke in 1835, showing:
The Duomo, the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, whose construction started in 1296, with its dome designed by Filippo Brunelleschi finished in 1436.
San Niccolò Weir, on the River Arno.
Boboli Gardens.
Ponte Santa Trinita, over the River Arno.
Ponte alle Grazie, over the River Arno.
Gaspar van Wittel (1653–1736), View of Florence from San Niccolò Weir (date not known), further details not known. Wikimedia Commons.
Gaspar van Wittel’s undated View of Florence from San Niccolò Weir from the late seventeenth century is among the earliest. This looks west from Varlungo, near 2 on the map, along the north bank of the River Arno, with the centre of the city and the dome to the right.
With the rise in oil sketching en plein air during the late eighteenth century, it was only a matter of time before a landscape painter broke away from the Roman campagna and travelled north.
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796-1875), View of Florence from the Boboli Gardens (1835), oil on canvas, 51 x 73.5 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris. Image by Sailko, via Wikinedia Commons.
Camille Corot painted this oil sketch View of Florence from the Boboli Gardens in 1835, on one of his return trips to Italy, when he visited Venice and Florence. These gardens are on the south bank of the river, 3 on the map, and afford this fine view to the north of the Duomo on the opposite bank, and the Tuscan hills in the background.
Thomas Cole (1801–1848), View of Florence (1837), oil on canvas, 99.5 x 160.4 cm, Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH. Wikimedia Commons.
The American landscape painter Thomas Cole visited Italy during his Grand Tour of Europe in 1842, so I suspect the claimed date of 1837 for his View of Florence may not be accurate. His vantage point appears to be in the Giardino Bardini, on the south bank, looking north over the Ponte Vecchio, Duomo and other major buildings in the central city on the opposite bank.
Carl Gustav Carus (1789–1869), View of Florence (1841), oil on paper mounted on canvas, 13.5 x 19.5 cm, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Dresden, Germany. Wikimedia Commons.
Carl Gustav Carus seems to have painted this View of Florence (1841) from the window of his accommodation when he was visiting. The dome of the Duomo appears slightly exaggerated in height.
Twenty years later, in November 1861, the aspiring landscape painter John Brett first visited Florence, but it was another year before he left England to paint what must be a unique view of the city, and one of very few Pre-Raphaelite landscape masterworks.
Florence from Bellosguardo (1863) was probably started in January 1863, painted without the aid of significant preparatory studies, and entirely from the motif. His viewpoint at Bellosguardo is slightly over a kilometre to the south-west of the centre. Even with Brett’s apparent eye for fine detail at a distance, much of it must have been painted with the aid of a telescope, and it has been suggested that he may also have used a camera lucida and/or photographs. Regardless of how he managed to paint such great detail, it’s a triumph of painting, both technically and artistically, and it came as a shock when it was rejected by the Royal Academy later that year.
Thankfully for Brett, the painting was purchased in May by the National Gallery, and he was acclaimed in the press as ‘head of the Pre-Raphaelite landscape school’, although by that time he was probably the last of its practitioners. Brett had also intended the painting as homage to the poet Robert Browning, who lived in Florence at the time, and had provided him great support.
Odoardo Borrani (1833-1905), My Terrace, Florence (1865), oil on canvas, 54 x 81.5 cm, Private collection. Wikimedia Commons.
My Terrace, Florence (1865) shows the terrace of the Florentine painter Odoardo Borrani’s home, against the city’s unmistakeable skyline.
Telemaco Signorini (1835–1901), Via Torta in Florence (c 1870), oil on canvas, 16.6 x 11.3 cm, Location unknown. Wikimedia Commons.
Telemaco Signorini was another local artist, who studied drawing from life at the Florence Academy of Fine Arts. In 1855 he started meeting with the Macchiaioli, and travelled to Venice, where he met Lord Leighton. After military service and a period in Paris he returned to his home city to paint en plein air, when he made this view of Via Torta in Florence (c 1870). He was appointed Professor at the Florence Academy in 1892.
Karl Kaufmann (1843–1905), Florence (date not known), oil on panel, 18 x 31 cm, Private collection. Wikimedia Commons.
Karl Kaufmann’s undated and unusual view of central Florence shows the Ponte Santa Trinita crossing the River Arno, from the east, marked as 4 on the map above. This bridge was built using stone from a quarry in the Bobolino Gardens by Bartolomeo Ammannati in 1567-69, and its ornamental statues of the seasons were added in 1608 to mark the marriage of Cosimo de’ Medici to Maria Magdalena of Austria.
Hercules Brabazon Brabazon (1821-1906), Florence (1880), oil on canvas, 27.9 x 43.2 cm, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT. Wikimedia Commons.
When visiting the city in 1880, the wonderfully named British landscape artist Hercules Brabazon Brabazon painted this oil sketch of Florence.
Odoardo Borrani (1833-1905), The Pazzi Chapel, Cloister of Santa Croce in Florence (1885-87), media and dimensions not known, Artgate Fondazione Cariplo. Wikimedia Commons.
In about 1885-87, Odoardo Borrani returned to the Pazzi family’s history with this view of The Pazzi Chapel, Cloister of Santa Croce in Florence, a contrastingly peaceful scene compared to his earlier accounts of their downfall following their conspiracy to overthrow the de’ Medicis in 1478.
Frank Duveneck (1848–1919), Villa Castellani (c 1887), oil on canvas, 63.4 × 76.2 cm, Brooklyn Museum, New York, NY. Wikimedia Commons.
With William Merritt Chase and other young American artists, Frank Duveneck visited Florence when he was training in Europe. He had already met and taught the American Elizabeth Boott in Paris when he travelled to Florence. She had been born in Boston but raised in the Villa Castellani (c 1887) overlooking the square of Bellosguardo, near where John Brett had painted his view of the city.
This villa has achieved literary fame in two of Henry James’ novels, Portrait of a Lady in which it is Gilbert Osmond’s residence, and The Golden Bowl in which Adam and Maggie Verver were modelled on Elizabeth Boott and her father Francis, a classical composer. Duveneck married Boott in 1886, but she tragically died just two years later from pneumonia.
Telemaco Signorini (1835–1901), Via Calimala (1889), media not known, 40 x 27 cm, location not known. Wikimedia Commons.
Via Calimala from 1889 is another of Telemaco Signorini’s vivacious street scenes of the city.
My last painting may come as something of a surprise: although only in the background, the city of Florence features in at least one Nabi painting.
Paul Sérusier (1864–1927), Portrait of Emile Bernard in Florence (1893), tempera on canvas, 73 x 56.5 cm, location not known. Wikimedia Commons.
While he was one of the Nabis, Paul Sérusier remained close friends with artists he had worked alongside when he had been in Pont-Aven, who were largely followers of Gauguin. Among them was Émile Bernard, who by 1893 had allied himself with Symbolists such as Odilon Redon, and travelled to Italy and the Middle East. Sérusier must have accompanied Bernard at least as far as Florence, where he painted this Portrait of Emile Bernard in Florence (1893). There again is that unmistakable red brick dome that Brunelleschi had designed almost half a millennium earlier.
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