Women Across the Globe & the Centuries
Saturday, March 16, 2024
Women Sewing Outdoors - Franch William-Adolphe Bouguereau 1825-1905
Full disclosure - Bouguereau's depictions of children & young women knitting & sewing & pouting & even flirting make me very uncomfortable. Just saying...
William-Adolphe Bouguereau (French Academic painter, 1825-1905) Young Worker 1869
William-Adolphe Bouguereau (French Academic painter, 1825-1905) Little Knitter 1879
William-Adolphe Bouguereau (French Academic painter, 1825-1905) The Knitting Woman 1869
William-Adolphe Bouguereau (French Academic painter, 1825-1905) Sewing
William-Adolphe Bouguereau (French Academic painter, 1825-1905) The Spinner
William-Adolphe Bouguereau (French Academic painter, 1825-1905)
William-Adolphe Bouguereau (French Academic painter, 1825-1905) Young Girl Sewing
William-Adolphe Bouguereau (French Academic painter, 1825-1905)
Thursday, March 14, 2024
Women by Czech artist Alphonse Maria Mucha 1860-1939
Alphonse Maria Mucha (Czech artist, 1860-1939) The Red Cape 1902
Although this artist is famous for his highly stylized Art Nouveau illustrations, I am more attracted to a few of his powerful winter paintings & to his personal family portraits.
Alphonse Maria Mucha (Czech artist, 1860-1939) Marushka, The Artist's Wife 1905
Alphonse Maria Mucha (1860-1939) was a Czech painter & decorative artist, best known for his distinct style & his images of women. He produced many paintings, illustrations, advertisements, & designs.
Alphonse Maria Mucha (Czech artist, 1860-1939) Girl with Loose Hair and Tulips 1920
Mucha studied in France & was in America from 1906-1910.
Alphonse Maria Mucha (Czech artist, 1860-1939) Christmas in America 1906
Mucha spent many years working on what he considered his life's fine art masterpiece, The Slav Epic (Slovanská epopej), a series of twenty huge paintings depicting the history of the Czech & Slavic people in general, which he bestowed to the city of Prague in 1928.
Alphonse Maria Mucha (Czech artist, 1860-1939) Winter Night 1920
The rising tide of fascism in the late 1930s led to Mucha's works, as well as his Slavic nationalism, being denounced in the press as "reactionary."
Alphonse Maria Mucha (Czech artist, 1860-1939) Woman with a Burning Candle 1933
When German troops marched into Czechoslovakia in the spring of 1939, Mucha was among the first persons to be arrested by the Gestapo. During the course of his interrogation, the aging artist fell ill with pneumonia.
Alphonse Maria Mucha (Czech artist, 1860-1939) Jaroslava and Jiri, The Artist's Children 1919
Though eventually released, he never recovered from this event or from seeing his homeland invaded & overcome. He died in Prague on 14 July 1939, of a lung infection.
Tuesday, March 12, 2024
Women Working Outdooirs - England George Clausen 1852-1944
Sir George Clausen (English rustic naturalist painter, 1852-1944)
Sir George Clausen (English rustic naturalist painter, 1852-1944)
Sir George Clausen (English rustic naturalist painter, 1852-1944) Serendipity
Sir George Clausen (English rustic naturalist painter, 1852-1944)
Sir George Clausen (English rustic naturalist painter, 1852-1944) Flora the Gypsy Flower Seller
Sir George Clausen (English rustic naturalist painter, 1852-1944)
Sir George Clausen (English rustic naturalist painter, 1852-1944)
Sir George Clausen (English rustic naturalist painter, 1852-1944)
Sir George Clausen (English rustic naturalist painter, 1852-1944) Noon in the Hayfield 1897
Monday, March 11, 2024
Sadly, this is the Last of my collection of 18C Women Around the World
Costumes de Differents Pays, by Jacques Grasset de Saint-Sauveur (France, 1757-1810) c 1797 Hand-Colored Engraving from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
By the end of the 18C, worldwide exploration & colonization by Europeans were fairly commonplace, enabling the late 18C & 19C public to catch a glimpse of the clothing & customs of other peoples.
Sunday, March 10, 2024
Women Spinning - Time to Head Outdoors to Make a Skein
From Exodus 35:25 Every skilled woman spun with her hands & brought ...... All the women who were skilled in sewing & spinning prepared blue, purple, & scarlet thread, & fine linen cloth...
From Proverbs 31:19 In her hand she holds the distaff...Her hands are busy spinning thread, her fingers twisting fiber. ... She extends her hands to the spinning staff, & her hands hold the spindle...
As civilizations developed, the people, the fibers, & the different methods tools invented for turning the fibers into cloth traveled to different parts of the world, & many ideas on making textiles were exchanged among various peoples. Spinning is the simple process of drawing out a twisting of a few fibers together into a continuous length, & winding them into a ball or onto a stick. There is archaeological evidence to suggest that spinning was practiced in Europe at least as early as 20,000 years ago. In the early days of spinning, the drawing out & twisting of the fibers was done by hand; later the winding stick itself was modified by the addition of a weight, or whorl, at its lower end (which gave increased momentum). Thus a modified winding stick became the spinning implement, or hand spindle.
Saturday, March 9, 2024
18C Women Around the World
By the end of the 18C, worldwide exploration & colonization by Europeans were fairly commonplace, enabling the late 18C & 19C public to catch a glimpse of the clothing & customs of other peoples.
Friday, March 8, 2024
Woman Gathering 13C Fruit
Most iconography of months evolved from Medieval & early Renaissance art depicting in 12 scenes the rural activities that commonly took place in the months of the year. These early illustrations are important to the development of landscape painting.
A typical simple scheme might include:
January - Feasting
February - Sitting by a fire
March - Pruning trees, or digging
April - Planting, enjoying the country or picking flowers
May - Hawking, courtly love
June - Hay harvest
July - Wheat harvest
August - Wheat threshing
September - Harvesting Grapes or Orchard Fruit
October - Ploughing or sowing
November - Gathering acorns for pigs
December - Killing pigs, baking
But there were many variations, especially in major wine-growing areas, where more wine related scenes were included. Illustrations from further south, such as Italian cycles, often advance the agricultural scenes a month earlier than ones from the more northern Low countries or England.
Thursday, March 7, 2024
18C Women Around the World
Costumes de Differents Pays, by Jacques Grasset de Saint-Sauveur (France, 1757-1810) c 1797 Hand-Colored Engraving from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
By the end of the 18C, worldwide exploration & colonization by Europeans were fairly commonplace, enabling the late 18C & 19C public to catch a glimpse of the clothing & customs of other peoples.
Wednesday, March 6, 2024
Women Doing 19C Laundry - Camille Pissarro 1830-1903
Camille Pissarro (French artist, 1830-1903) The Laundry Woman
Tuesday, March 5, 2024
18C Women Around the World
Costumes de Differents Pays, by Jacques Grasset de Saint-Sauveur (France, 1757-1810) c 1797 Hand-Colored Engraving from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
By the end of the 18C, worldwide exploration & colonization by Europeans were fairly commonplace, enabling the late 18C & 19C public to catch a glimpse of the clothing & customs of other peoples.
Monday, March 4, 2024
Women & Children in Small Boats by Henri Lebasque 1865-1937
Henri Lebasque (French artist, 1865-1937) Promenade Sur L'Eau 1918
Henri Lebasque (French artist, 1865-1937) A Fishing Expedition 1920
Some of my favorite portraits of women & children outdoors are by Henri Lebasque (French artist, 1865-1937). He was born in Champigné, France; and by 1885, he was studying in Paris at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. Here Lebasque met Camille Pissarro & Auguste Renoir. Lebasque maintained an intense artistic exchange with young painters, especially Vuillard & Bonnard, the founders of the artists' associations "Les Nabis" (the prophets) & the "Intimists." In 1903, together with his friend Henri Matisse & other artists, Henri Lebasque founded the "Salon d'Automne," where Georges Rouault, André Derain, Edouard Vuillard and Henri Matisse exhibited. In 1924, Henri Lebasque moved to Le Cannet on the French Riviera. His portrayals of women & their children are colorful & intimate, full of the hope & joy of life.
Henri Lebasque (French artist, 1865-1937) Young Girls in a Boat c 1900
Henri Lebasque (French artist, 1865-1937) Girl in a Boat
Henri Lebasque (French artist, 1865-1937) Girls in a Boat
Henri Lebasque (French artist, 1865-1937) On the Banks of the Seine in Andelys
Henri Lebasque (French artist, 1865-1937) Fishing Party 1915
Henri Lebasque (French artist, 1865-1937) Promenade En Barque
Henri Lebasque (French artist, 1865-1937) Boat on the Marne