Galocha Cultural

sábado, 2 de janeiro de 2021

Vista Aérea, 1935, Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, Brasil

Vista Aérea, 1935, Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, Brasil
Ribeirão Preto - SP
Fotografia

Quiosque / Bar Existente no Jardim Público / Praça XV de Novembro, Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, Brasil

Ribeirão Preto - SP

Fotografia

Coreto no Jardim Público / Praça XV de Novembro, 1929, Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, Brasil

Coreto no Jardim Público / Praça XV de Novembro, 1929, Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, Brasil
Ribeirão Preto - SP
Fotografia

Coreto ou pavilhão da música, doação do coronel Francisco Schmidt em 1901. Inicialmente era rodeado por um espelho d'água com carpas douradas. Em remodelação da praça nos anos 1919/1920, o espelho d'água foi substituído por um cercado de balaústres. Em 1930, antes da inauguração do Quarteirão Paulista, o coreto foi demolido, permanecendo apenas o cercado até a instalação do monumento em homenagem ao soldado constitucionalista.

Uma Bebida Refrescante (A Refreshing Drink) - Ludwig Deutsch

Coleção privada

Óleo sobre painel - 55x46 - 1891

On the streets of old Cairo in the shade of a gnarled tree, a vendor spoons sahlab or salep into a cup for a fellaheen woman and her child, while a Nubian man and two seated girls drink thirstily. A traditional Egyptian drink popular in winter, sahlab was made by bringing to the boil a mixture of milk, sugar, and orchid tuber powder. The hydrating beverage, which is still enjoyed to this day, would then be served hot with a topping of cinnamon, coconut or nuts.
A related, earlier version of this work, painted in 1886, was sold at Christie’s London in 2005. For both versions, Deutsch would have relied on photographs of individual figures as study aids; however, in the finished compositions, these observations are blended seamlessly to bring the scene alive.

O Guarda do Palácio (The Palace Guard) - Rudolf Ernst

Coleção privada

Óleo sobre painel - 61x50

In this richly finished work, a man stands tall at the entrance of a Nasrid palace, yielding an Ottoman yataghan and dagger to discourage any trespassers. The man also holds a weapon which appears to be a seventeenth-century Eastern European steel war-hammer, known as a nadziak.
The composition is an interesting mix of architectural and ethnographic elements. The colourful tiles and Moorish decorations recall the melding of styles of the Alhambra palace in Granada, while the metal urn to the right appears to be a late nineteenth-century Indian reproduction of the type sold to Western travellers. No doubt it was one of the many props Ernst himself acquired on his travels and brought home to Paris with him.

sexta-feira, 1 de janeiro de 2021

A Posse de George Washington, Nova, York, Estados Unidos (The Inauguration of George Washington) - James H. Cafferty / Charles G. Rosenberg

Nova York - Estados Unidos

Coleção privada

OST - 76x63 - Circa 1860

America's first President took the oath of office on April 30, 1789 in New York City on the balcony of the Senate Chamber at Federal Hall on Wall Street. The votes had taken over two months to tally, but when they were all counted, General Washington became the first and only United States President to be unanimously elected by the Electoral College. Washington's inauguration was preceded by a nine-day journey to New York from his home in Mount Vernon, Virginia, and in each town along the way the president-elect was greeted with crowds and ceremony. Inauguration Day began with the ringing of church bells across the city followed by a full ceremonial procession to Federal Hall, during which Washington was escorted by a military contingent of 500 soldiers; the day ended with the citizens of New York celebrating in the streets while fireworks exploded overhead.

Fábrica e Casa em Gloucester, Estados Unidos (Gloucester Factory and House) - Edward Hopper

Gloucester - Estados Unidos

Aquarela - 35x50 - 1924

Executed during Hopper’s third visit to Gloucester in the summer of 1924, Gloucester House and Factory exemplifies the artist’s watercolors of this period in its careful attention to the classic American architecture as well as its fluid washes in cool tones. The translucency of the watercolor medium, combined with the spontaneity required in execution, proved to be ideally suited to capturing the luminosity Hopper sought – a quality that has become a hallmark of his work. His commitment to commonplace subject matter, which he often infused with a subtle mood of mystery or melancholy, continued to offer his contemporary audience a fresh interpretation of the familiar American scene.

O Pagamento de Dízimos (The Payment of Tithes) - Pieter Bruegel "o Jovem"

Coleção privada

Óleo sobre painel - 78x125 - 1615

The Payment of Tithes, or The Country Lawyer, is a particularly fascinating and unusual subject in Pieter Brueghel the Younger’s oeuvre, since it does not derive from a composition designed either by his father, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, or one of his contemporaries, such as Marten van Cleve. A humorous take on the authority and practice of the law, it was clearly one of Brueghel’s most popular works, attested to by the more than ninety versions that exist, of which almost a quarter are considered autograph. Of these, the present painting is one of the largest and best quality. Dated 1615, it is also one of two of the earliest treatments of the theme, and extensive underdrawing, much visible to the naked eye, reveals numerous small adaptations between the preparation of the design and the painted surface, granting us an insight into Brueghel’s working technique.
Almost all the versions of The Payment of Tithes considered autograph are signed, or signed and dated, indicating that they were produced between 1615 and 1630. Most were executed before 1620 and at least five are dated 1618. Undated paintings may be distinguished by the forms of their signatures: two works bear the ‘Brueghel’ spelling, suggesting dates before 1616, and six are signed ‘Breughel’, the form used by the artist after this date.
Most iterations of the subject by Brueghel and his studio are painted on the smaller standard size panels used in Brueghel’s workshop, measuring around 60 x 80 cm.1 The present work is one of only four that are depicted on a larger scale, however, including the other earliest version; all four of these panels were produced in 1618 or before. A panel of even greater dimensions (115 x 187 cm.), also considered autograph, is dated 1617.
Brueghel used panels of specific dimensions because his designs were transferred using tracings, a subject that has been explored in particular depth in recent scholarship by Christina Currie. The underdrawing visible in the present panel has been executed on the surface of the imprimatura – a preparatory layer brushed over the surface in advance of the painted surface itself – a practice typical of Brueghel and his workshop. Infra-Red Reflectography shows that the underdrawing in the present panel is carried out quite freely but, as with the other larger compositions, the placement of the main outlines was likely guided by a means of mechanical transfer, namely tracing. It is interesting to note, however, that the artist has deviated from the drawn outlines in several areas, most noticeably in the placement of several of the peasants’ feet. Close inspection of the painting also reveals a detail unique to this version of the composition – in all other iterations the lawyer wears a traditional dark mortarboard, whereas here this has been reduced to a skullcap, the form of the mortarboard just visible above this, having been painted out.
There is no doubt that the depiction of this subject benefits from the large size of a panel such as this one. The proliferation of figures, their expressions and interior details are all brought to life in the vivid expression enabled by painting on this scale. The present painting is also characterised by its exceptional condition, rare in a painting of this age and size, with the surface in an excellent state of preservation and the details still legible down to the smallest minutiae. In contrast to other subjects treated by Pieter Brueghel the Younger, versions of The Payment of Tithes are characterised by an emphasis on modelling to achieve three-dimensionality in the figures’ faces, clothes and the objects in the room. This is particularly apparent in the present work in the use of white highlights and graphic formal lines, and may reflect the sculptural, idiosyncratic nature of a lost prototype – the figural and facial types certainly contrast strongly with any found in the work of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, for example.
Unlike many of Pieter Brueghel the Younger’s paintings, which look to his father’s works, the source of a possible prototype for The Payment of Tithes has been the subject of much debate. Jacqueline Folie was the first to suggest that Brueghel may have based his work on a design of French origin - an idea predicated on the fact that the calendar on the wall of the lawyer’s office is written in French and that the short beards and close-cropped hair of the peasants are of a type not seen in the Southern Netherlands at this time. An inventory of the collector Antoinette Wiael, from as early as 1627, also describes a panel painting by the younger Brueghel as ‘een franschen procureur’ (a French lawyer). It has been noted, however, that French was the official language of law in Flanders during Brueghel’s lifetime, and Dirk De Vos and Klaus Ertz both consider the theory possible but speculative, with Ertz attributing the invention of the design to Brueghel the Younger himself in the absence of any more convincing evidence.
The Payment of Tithes is a comment on the venality of the legal profession, and the sense of caricature here is particularly strong, even by comparison with some of the artist’s most satirical subjects. The poor and naïve are at the mercy of the lawyer’s blatant incompetence. Peasants have filed in and wait before his desk, the entire office in disarray and strewn with papers. The lawyer peruses a document, which one of the peasants appears either to be trying to convince him of, or argue against. A clerk sits just inside the door paying no attention to the crowded interior, which consists largely of men in attitudes of apprehension and deference - a couple partially shield their faces with their hats, while one particularly beleaguered-looking man approaches the desk with a dead chicken slung over his arm. Meanwhile a woman hunts inside a large wicker basket to find produce to offer as currency for the lawyer’s services, and a man hides behind the open door of the office, apparently spying through a knot in the wood.
The earliest engraving produced after this composition in reverse, dated 1618, by the
Nuremberg book and art dealer Paulus Fürst, illustrates a pamphlet attacking the corruption of lawyers and their ability to twist the law to their own ends. And the subject’s popularity also reached the Northern Netherlands, where artists such as Pieter de Bloot depicted the same theme in 1628, inscribed with the Dutch equivalent of the proverb: "Go to law for a sheep and lose a cow".

Os Banhos de Mar em Étretat, França (Bathing in Étretat) - Eugène Modeste Edmond Le Poittevin

Étretat - França

Coleção privada

OST - 63x149 - 1864

The painting Sea Bathing, the Beach at Etretat by Eugène Le Poittevin was thought to have been lost since the fall of Napoleon III – who bought it at the 1865 Salon – when some of his belongings were sold. It was known only from a photograph taken by the art dealers Maison Goupil, from a few drawings by the artist himself, and from the descriptions given by critics at the 1865 Salon, where it was exhibited.
It was however always considered to be his masterpiece, on the same footing as his other large seaside painting, which has almost the same title (Sea Bathing atEtretat; Troyes, Musée des Beaux-Arts et d’Archéologie; inv. 898.2.3) and was painted a year later, no doubt following on directly from the present painting.
All trace of the painting was lost after the proclamation of the Third Republic on 4 September 1870 and the imprisonment and then exile of Napoleon III to England. The emperor’s assets were impounded: some were returned to him (and to the empress) while others were sold. Sea Bathing, the Beach at Etretat was sent for storage to the Garde Meuble, after which it disappeared. The most likely hypothesis is that it was returned to the empress and that she, in exile in Spain at the end of her life, gave it away to her nephews, the Dukes of Alba (see N. Sébille, op. cit.).
Sea Bathing, the Beach at Etretat was exhibited at the 1865 Salon and acquired directly by Emperor Napoleon III himself, an indication of the work’s importance. A couple of years later – although the painting was at that time hanging on the walls of the Palais de l’Elysée, then the imperial residence – members of the paintings jury asked Eugène Le Poittevin to lend Sea Bathing, the Beach at Etretat to the 1867 Exposition Universelle, a remarkable honour and a reminder of the admiration his contemporaries felt for the painting.
More than a simple seaside genre scene, this is an ambitious composition. Despite the interval of 150 years, the artist’s great achievement is still clearly apparent today. Opting for a panoramic format that is astonishing in its originality – and indeed its modernity – Le Poittevin seems to have created, over one and a half metres, a real, almost cinematographic tracking shot along the length of the Etretat beach. Arrayed across it, from left to right, is a throng of figures enjoying themselves: bathers, fashionable women in crinolines, well-dressed men and peddlers.

The more ‘decorative’ elements of the composition all successfully help to evoke the delightful atmosphere of a Normandy summer – from the bathing huts on the right to the splendid still life of heaped clothes and belongings in the foreground, to the lobster pots and the planks of wood laid on the ground, which allowed bathers and walkers to cross over the sand and shingle on the beach.
Better still, Le Poittevin’s ambition seems here to have exceeded the limitations of the simple genre scene. He has sought to go beyond his taste for anecdote by adding an extra dimension to the work, a more social and personal angle. Thanks to Raymond Lindon, who published a long article on the painting in 1967 (op. cit., pp. 349-357), we have every reason to believe that the figures the artist has chosen to feature in the scene are not studio sketches or even anonymous models, but actual portraits of people close to the artist. Lindon, on the basis of an in-depth analysis of the painter’s family and social circle in Normandy, as well as photographs of the period, has convincingly been able to identify most of the protagonists in this charming piece of theatre. Thus, the bearded man in the centre of the composition may well be the painter Charles Landelle (1821-1908); while the other elegant bearded man on the right, reading his newspaper, is probably the illustrator and caricaturist Bertall (1820-1882). Last but certainly not least, note the skinny, lanky young man among the bathers. The painter has shown this still anonymous adolescent just after he has emerged from the sea, in a black bathing costume, wearing a cap, stooping and no doubt shivering from the cold waters of the Channel. This is Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893), Le Poittevin’s great-nephew…
Not only a snapshot of social life under the Second Empire but also an affecting and joyful illustration of the developing leisured society, Sea Bathing, the Beach at Etretat offers a vision that is astonishingly original for its time, in which the bustling protagonists play their part cheerfully, encapsulating the happiness of summer. The artist looks with amusement and benevolence upon the new pastimes of the modern world, with its enthusiasm for escape to fresh air and wide open spaces.

A Onda (The Wave) - Guillaume Seignac

Coleção privada

OST - 64x50