David Teniers the Younger and the Art Collection
I love to look at collections of Art. The title image shows a collection that belonged to Archduke Leopold Wilhelm. The painting is titled, The Archduke Leopold Wilhelm in his Painting Gallery in Brussels, and it was rendered by David Teniers the Younger. It hangs in the Prado Museum.
The painting is a painting of other paintings, which fascinates me.
The Archduke commissioned a number of paintings by Teniers, including this one. The painter painted himself in the painting, standing at the table. The Archduke has a more gallant pose, topped with a gallant hat.
About half of the paintings are by Titian. Six are by Teniers. There's a Raphael, three Giorgiones, a Tintoretto, two Messinas, a Rubens, a Ribera, a Veronese, a van Dyck and other fabulous works. Most of the paintings in the Archduke’s collection are now exhibited at the Kunsthisorisches Museum in Austria, but there are paintings you see in the painting of paintings that are in museums in the United States, Spain, France, the United Kingdom, Poland and elsewhere.
What would your dream Art collection look like?
I decided to use David Teniers the Younger’s painting to exhibit my dream Art collection. In turn, my dream Art collection is your nightmare Art Quiz. Can you identify the paintings and artists represented below? A little hint: Some of the artists may appear more than once.
Pencils up!
KOS Art Expo 2020
Before I give you the answers to our fiendishly difficult Art Quiz, let me invite you to attend another Art Collection created by your friends here at daily kos. Tomorrow, on Labor Day, the KOS Art Expo group will publish a number of Museums that exhibit their Art and Poetry. The first “museum” will publish at Noon (Eastern). The second comes out at 6:00 pm (Eastern). I have had the pleasure of viewing these treasures already, and you won’t want to miss it!
The New Old Art Mystery
When you’re done with the Art Quiz, I have something else for you. I’ve published a number of Art Mysteries at daily kos, and one of my favorites is entitled, “An Art Mystery: Can a Fake Billionaire Have Enough Fake Money to Afford Two Fake Renoir Paintings?” It is specially tailored for those who love Art and hate Trump.
Like Russian wooden dolls, there is actually a mystery inside this mystery.
I’ve decided to put some of my old Art Mysteries on video, with no advertisements, and I’m starting with this one:
Answer Key
My favorite painting. The detail and technical ability are astonishing. The artist was telling a story from the bible. Caravaggio used live models, and he positioned them like a film director or Vogue photographer.
In the story, the two disciples on either side of the table are shocked at what Jesus has just told them.
The shock is so great that Caravaggio depicted all kinds of motion in the picture, including impending motion and what I believe was actual motion. Note the blurriness of the right hand of the disciple on the right.
That’s the subject of another Art Mystery.
Caravaggio was not only cinematic in his approach to painting, but also witty. You can see for yourself in the larger image below. The “Still Life” basket of fruit is hanging over the edge and is about to be knocked over by the apostle on the left bumping into the table.
Perhaps the second most shocking paintings that I have ever seen are Mummy portraits. There’s one in the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. It should hang in the National Gallery of Art. The female portrait dates to about 200 AD; the male to about 100 AD.
These two were not Pharaohs, just well-to-do folks. The portraits were tucked into their mummified wrappings.
The artists painted on wood with an encaustic formulation (basically pigment and beeswax). They are masterpieces of three dimensions; the artist obviously skilled in the art of illusion:
After having finished the Art Quiz, I realized I had made a mistake. This is not my fantasy collection. My true fantasy collection of Art would include a lot more Canaletto. Nobody painted a sky better than him, or buildings, or distances.
Canaletto painted many idyllic scenes of the Venetian waterways, usually on giant canvases sold to English nobility. After the Venetian economy collapsed, he moved to England to be near this rabid clientele. Here’s one of his masterpieces:
“Venus' body is anatomically improbable, with elongated neck and torso. Her pose is impossible: although she stands in a classical contrapposto stance, her weight is shifted too far over the left leg for the pose to be held. The proportions and poses of the winds to the left do not quite make sense, and none of the figures cast shadows.”
That may be so, but who cares? The painting is beauty, the beauty you can find only in your imagination. The Uffizi has an entire Boticelli room!
This is an amazing painting in every respect. Goya has three paintings in my fantasy Art collection. No other painter has more than two.
There are various interpretations of the piece, but the most logical one, to me, is that it represents the Spanish people fighting back against the Napoleonic occupying forces during the Peninsular War.
The destruction of war is epitomized in both the Colossus itself and the fleeing people and livestock in the foreground.
Goya has taken allegory to an extreme not seen before. He must have had an empathetic heart.
Why is the Girl with a Pearl Earring wearing a silver earring? That was an early Art Mystery published here at daily kos. This is my second favorite painting because of the mystery surrounding it and Johannes Vermeer.
And the painting is exquisite.
What a striking pose! It is justly called “the Mona Lisa of the North.”
Vermeer could make a wall beautiful. He painted elegant drapes. And yet an unhandy forger was able to pawn off ugly canvases as those of Vermeer. How did that happen? Another Art Mystery. There is so much beauty and intrigue in the work of this Artist!
This was a very hard painting to identify in the Art Quiz. Perhaps you would notice the color palette? Maybe see the arch of the Japanese footbridge? This is an impossibly beautiful and serene painting that I was privileged to see at the National Gallery.
The gentle arc of the bridge sits atop a scene that is serene and yet bustling like an ant mound on war day with seductive colors and, in the water, reflections of that beauty.
A less impressive Monet painting of water lilies sold in 2018 for $84,700,000 at auction.
This remarkable image was painted before the High Renaissance. There are elements of fantasy and what seems like early Science Fiction in the painting. The aspect of the painting that first drew my attention was the roundels on the wing of the dragon. They reminded me of the designs on French and British warplanes, especially those from World War I. In researching that aspect, I learned that these roundels were used by the various Roman legions of antiquity.
The story is that St. George happened upon a town besieged by a dragon. The townspeople provided it sacrifices. When the King’s daughter was picked by a lottery to be the sacrifice, St. George showed up to rescue her, taming the dragon, then extorting the townspeople into Christianity or he would let the dragon go lose. More or less.
This is the view that Van Gogh saw out of his window at the asylum in Saint-Rémy, although the town was imaginary. It is similar, but even more abstract than the earlier Starry Night on the Rhône, which, in turn, was even more abstract than its earlier cousin, Café Terrace at Night.
Shortly before his death, and after painting The Starry Night, Van Gogh wrote to his friend and fellow painter Emile Bernard about how he had been “fighting hand-to-hand with reality.” He decided to spend his time painting more realistic images—avoiding abstraction—but The Starry Night was a relapse: “However, once again I’m allowing myself to do stars too big, &c., new setback, and I’ve enough of that.” Letter to Emile Bernard, November 26, 1889.
The world loves your stars, Vincent.
Love the colors, love the mood, love the little girl, love the furbutt, love the painting.
The story of Mary Cassatt entering it as an item for the World’s Fair in 1878 in Paris—and having it rejected by the American delegation—is entertaining as well. “I was furious…. At that time this appeared new and the jury consisted of three people of which one was a pharmacist!"
Sounds like he was a Trump appointee.
The dog was a Brussels Griffon. This painting is a highlight of any trip to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
In researching the Art Mystery involving the two fake Trump Renoir paintings, I acquired a book about the collection of Art that is held at the Art Institute of Chicago. This was the first Renoir that Trump said he owned. Ha!
When I saw this painting, it immediately became a favorite. The painting depicts a scene at a restaurant in Paris off the Seine, with boats in the water and lovely flowers and trees.
Renoir was known for painting beautiful women. I think it is smart to paint either the beautiful or the curious.
Like the self portraits of his Artistic hero, Rembrandt, the self portraits of Vincent van Gogh are iconic. The swirls, the stares at the audience. He always hoped that one day his Art would be recognized as valuable. The world only became aware of Van Gogh’s genius after his sister-in-law published his letters.
It is called the Rice portrait because that was the name of the family who owned it. But it might be a portrait of Jane Austen, and that’s why it’s one of my favorites.
Also, because it makes a grand Art Mystery.
The young lady in the portrait would have to be a thirteen- to fourteen-year-old Austen if it was painted by Ozias Humphry. I think the young lady looks older than that.
On the other hand, there were people who actually knew what Jane Austen looked like, including family and friends, who vouched for the likeness in the portrait. Is it her? I don’t know. But it is still a lovely picture:
Eva Roos was an English painter and illustrator of books. She is probably best known for her illustrations in the book The Water Babies.
Or for this painting.
The first time I saw An Impromptu Ball, it vaulted into my fantasy collection. I especially like the little girl with the hoop in the foreground with the forlorn look, as a simple dance has upstaged her extravagant toy. Yes, I know, it is four Hummel figurines and a Norman Rockwell painting come to life, but what a life!
There’s a place and time for cynical and a place and time for cute. It’s cute time.
I am completely unfamiliar with Alan Zúñiga of Monterrey, Mexico other than that he is an Artist named Alan Zúñiga from Monterrey, Mexico, and that he has uploaded some of his Art that includes contemporary portraits and other works. Here’s a page from his website.
I would love to hang this famous portrait in my fantasy Art collection. Wouldn’t you? I would also invite you to check out the KOS Art Expo diaries tomorrow, as those Artists—our friends here at daily kos—have some exceptional websites as well.
And you’ll love the beauty and variety.
This is another Botticelli masterpiece that can be found in the Botticelli room of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. I would like to spend a day there, probably half of it looking at this painting.
From left to right, you have Mercury, the three Graces, Venus (with Cupid above her), the Goddess Flora, Chloris the nymph (who became Flora in Season Three of a Real Housewives of Mount Olympus episode) and Zephyr.
There is no known story or poem that brings all of these figures together, so this appears to be the work of a creative imagination.
Rembrandt was 54 when he painted this.
“This was a year of anxiety for him. He had just been declared bankrupt. He saw his collection of art treasures disposed of at auction and himself deserted by his pupils and his friends, with no studio of his own in which to set up his easel. In this portrait we have a work of mature years, when he brought all the skill and resources of a lifetime to its creation.”
He was an artist’s artist.
Van der Weyden has two portraits in my fantasy collection. This one is entitled Portrait of a Lady, while the other is called Portrait of a Woman. The class system has been with us for centuries. Still, this is a beautiful portrait. I saw it in person at the National Gallery.
It was painted before the High Renaissance, which, for me, is intriguing, because it shows a skill and artistry and magic that you wouldn’t expect that long ago.
“The vivid contrasts of darkness and light enhance the almost unnatural beauty and Gothic elegance of the model.”
I have a Norman Rockwell painting in my fantasy Art collection. A Norman Freaking Rockwell! Oh, but it is so good, and it makes me so angry and sad and happy and proud. “It depicts Ruby Bridges, a six-year-old girl, on her way to William Frantz Elementary School, an all-white public school, on November 14, 1960.... Because of threats of violence against her, she is escorted by four deputy U.S. marshals.” We are looking at the image from the viewpoint of the racist protesters.
Fifty years later, Ruby Bridges met with President Obama in the White House. He told her, as they stood by this Norman Rockwell painting, “I think it's fair to say that if it hadn't been for you guys, I might not be here and we wouldn't be looking at this together.”
Beuckelaer was a Flemish painter who is known for pushing the development of still life renderings. His market and kitchen scenes depicted elaborate displays of food. It looks like a buffet is about to happen! In that regard, he reminds me of Charles Dickens in A Christmas Carol, as that great writer used paragraph after paragraph to describe edible holiday delights.
There are no Greek or Roman gods or nobility in the paintings by Beuckelaer. Rather, his stars were poultry, fish, vegetables, and the hard-working cooks who could turn those items into Art.
This is a triptych, or a painting that consists of three related panels. You can get a better look at all of the goings-on at this link where you can enlarge the image and view the crazy details. The original name of the triptych is unknown, and there is scholarly dispute as to whether it represents a warning about the pleasures of Earth or a “panorama of paradise lost.”
For me, it looks a lot like an SAT question. A, leads to B, and therefore, C.
Because of that, I think it was a warning about the deadly sins. Moreover, that is a moral lesson taught by Bosch in a number of his other paintings.
I give extra credit to artists who showed amazing skill before the Renaissance Masters. This painting is a good example. It was painted almost fifty years before Raphael was born. This portrait is believed to be a pendant to another, presumably of her husband. Although the painting is attributed to Robert Campin, there is no documentary evidence to prove it.
Besides the technical quality of the work, it also intrigues me because of this mystery: I believe that it, and the next painting, are of the same woman (or related women), and I put both paintings through facial recognition software tests, and those tests came back positive.
Is this the same woman? I believe so. Or, she’s a relative. My supposition is that the young lady in the previous portrait gained wealth through the years and had this one done. The portraits were painted very close to each other in terms of time and geography. Rogier van der Weyden, who is said to be the artist responsible for this image, was believed to be a pupil or other associate of Robert Campin.
On another note, I do think we should get rid of the class system in paintings and call this—like Van der Weyden’s other effort—Portrait of a Lady.
Shall we? What do you think? Are these portraits of the same ladies? Relatives?
This one is a popular internet meme, and it’s fun! People put faux-Olde Englishe words that mimic rap lyrics on this painting as a larf. Instead of calling it a meme, it is given the more high brow nomenclature of image macro. Baron Joseph Ducreux was a French nobleman and a portrait painter famous for creating interesting portraits and for painting a portrait of Marie Antoinette and thereafter becoming the First Painter to the Queen. He left France during the revolution and captured the last portrait of Louis XVI.
I have a feeling that Baron Joseph Ducreux would have loved this:
I cheated a little on your Art Quiz. I wanted to include Las Meninas in my fantasy Art collection but ran out of large canvases, so I captured only the image of Diego Velázquez as that painter painted himself in the painting.
There is a lot going on in the painting, so much that you should read this if you are inclined. The painting depicts La Infanta Margaret Theresa and her ladies-in-waiting entourage. King Philip IV and his second wife, Mariana of Austria are depicted in the reflection of the mirror at the back of the room. I also like the painting because Velázquez could paint a credible dog.
One of Japan’s iconic artworks, it is a wood-block print from a series centered around sacred Mount Fuji, which you can see in the background. You can see in the larger image below how the Hokusai made the great wave look especially threatening to the boats by giving it talons like a bird of prey.
In that respect, the print tells a dramatic story in one static image.
The Impressionists and Post-Impressionists were influenced by Japanese Art. It was a mania at the time. In a letter to his brother, Vincent van Gogh indicated that if he had only one day to spend in Paris, he would call on a gallery owner “to go and see the Hokusais.”
Wright was an English science, industry, landscape and portrait painter. His use of chiaroscuro—dark shadows and much lighter tones—is reminiscent of Caravaggio. Wright spent some time studying the Art in Italy, including Naples, where he would’ve been astonished by in-person viewings of Caravaggio masterpieces there.
It is said that Wright evoked “the spirit of the Industrial Revolution” with many of his works. As a member of the Lunar Society of Birmingham, and a contemporary of Charles Darwin’s grandfather, physician and Enlightenment thinker, Erasmus Darwin, Wright expressed the development of alchemy into Science in some of his paintings.
This is the start of my heroes’ corner. Surely a person can be a hero for one thing and a scourge for another? George Washington is a hero because he was the person who gave back power. He didn’t try to keep it for himself. He didn’t try to keep it in his family. And he didn’t try to give the power to his chum.
Gilbert Stuart was another person who was a hero with a troubled past. In 1775, he left America to work in England because he was a Loyalist. He spent nineteen years there honing his craft. He returned to America in 1793 with the burning desire to paint the portrait of one of the least loyal English subjects ever, George Washington. He painted The Anthenaeum but never finished it, using the head to make dozens of copies over the years. His work as America’s portraitist (painting the first six American Presidents) was heroic. The painting below became the model for our dollar bill.
This painting made me cry.
One of my heroes is Charles Dickens, who I call the most beloved Progressive of all time. I’ve written many stories about his books, always using old sketches and whatnot as illustrations. This portrait, magnificently done by Margaret Gillies, is actually a miniature, and it was painted while Dickens worked on A Christmas Carol. When it was finished, Gillies exhibited her masterwork in the 1844 Summer Exhibition of the Royal Academy of Arts.
Then, it was lost.
The painting wasn’t seen again until it was found in South Africa, covered in mold, in 2018. At the Exhibition in 1844, the painting caught the attention of Poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who wrote in a letter published in St. James Magazine, “Dickens has the dust and mud of humanity about him, notwithstanding those eagle eyes.”
Haunting. This painting is the ultimate indictment of war. Francisco de Goya was depicting a vignette from the Peninsular War, as Spaniards resisted the occupation of Napoleon’s forces. Before this, painters depicted the glory of war and paid no attention to the slaughter. In this case, Goya displayed the deaths of unarmed peasants and tradesmen up against a wall, their bodies falling where they may.
Goya’s masterpiece has rightly been proclaimed "the first great picture which can be called revolutionary in every sense of the word, in style, in subject, and in intention."
Francisco de Goya painted Saturn Devouring His Son onto his dining room wall. What an interesting fellow this Goya was! It is one of the fourteen strokes of genius that came to be referred to as his Black Paintings. All pretty gloomy, and all decorating his house.
The painting was carefully removed from his wall, placed on canvas, and then displayed in the Prado Museum in Madrid.
Goya is telling us the story of what the Roman god Saturn did when he learned about the prophecy that one of his children would overthrow him. He ate his children. What I see in the image is Trump Devouring Liberty.
Although his paintings might remind you of an imaginary mashup of Hummel figurines and Mormon Playboy magazine, Auguste Toulmouche won medals at two Paris Salons, and his paintings hang in museums around the world, including the Louvre. Moreover, Toulmouche was instrumental in sending his younger cousin by marriage for professional instruction.
That young cousin was Claude Monet.
He did actual portraits, but he made a name with idealized paintings that depicted single moments in the lives of anonymous (but well dressed) young ladies. I think a large room with a dozen of these paintings on the walls would be beautiful.
The statement made by this painting is better than the painting itself. But the message is so important that it must be heard in my fantasy Art collection. While working on this project, Delacroix wrote, “[I]f I haven't fought for my country at least I'll paint for her."
The painting commemorates the 1830 July Revolution. It was celebrated as a masterpiece at the time, but then had to be tucked away until another revolution in 1848.
They must learn that we will be free.
Pure joy brought to you by the artist who could make you cry over the beauty of a wall. For an up-close view of that spectacular wall and everything else in the painting, check out this link. Many of Vermeer’s paintings had women of a higher social status, but those, I believe, seem more awkward and less lifelike.
Here, he has captured a moment of perfection.
Other than cave paintings—possibly—this is the most astonishing Art ever created by a human. That’s my opinion. Jean Fouquet does not get the credit he deserves as an Artist of the highest order. The painting below is a diptych, or matched pair of panels.
The left panel shows the person who commissioned the painting standing next to St. Stephen. It is remarkable because it is so damn good. Jean Fouquet painted The Melun Diptych the same year that Leonardo da Vinci was born and twenty-five years before Michelangelo’s birth. They had just started construction on Machu Picchu, and Galileo’s first discovery would occur about 130 years later.
That left panel is almost unbelievable. The right panel mocks the believable.
I also adore this painting because it represents another Art Mystery: Who was the model for that marble-like Virgin Mary?
It is called The Star, or, in French, L'Étoile. Edgar Degas was smart enough to paint ballerinas, bathing nudes and racehorses.
Degas was trained in classical Art, and he spent three years in Italy painting and drawing the Renaissance masterpieces. After the Franco-Prussian War, he moved to the United States and painted in New Orleans. Once back in France, he took up the modern style and began his fascination with dancers. More than half of his paintings would involve the dance.
He was a social conservative, and lost many of his friends because of a prickly nature. He also mocked the term Impressionism. "No art was ever less spontaneous than mine. What I do is the result of reflection and of the study of the great masters; of inspiration, spontaneity, temperament, I know nothing."
The next two exhibits in my fantasy Art collection are based on the story of Judith and Holofernes. The latter was an Assyrian general sent by Nebuchadnezzar to bring Judah under control. His army besieged the city of Bethulia until Judith, a widow, seduced him and cut off his head.
Returning to the city with the head of Holofernes, so the story goes, gave the Hebrews courage to rout the invading army. Caravaggio went for the most dramatic depiction possible.
… on the other hand, Artemisia Gentileschi decided to paint a more gritty picture, which also looks more mechanically accurate. As a rape survivor, she painted this scene multiple times, as well as the similar story of Jael and Sisera and the less physically violent story of Susanna and the Elders.
Artemisia Gentileschi was the first woman accepted into the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno. She was influenced by her father, who, in turn, drew inspiration from Caravaggio. They both shared a love for the contrast between light a deep darkness (or Chiaroscuro).
I’ve taken the liberty of removing the nine-foot by eighteen-foot fresco from the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and placed it on a canvas in my imaginary Art collection. Michelangelo, I believe, was the first comic book author. Of course, he believed that his characters were drawn from real life, but all of them happened to be beautiful and quite well-muscled.
For a much closer examination of the painting, please see this link. Michelangelo ended up working for forty years on the Pope’s Tomb, including many sculptures, as well as the Sistine Chapel and other, smaller commissions. The painting in the Chapel, which included his The Last Judgment over the Altar, took four of those forty years.
One of the great Artists of all time, Élisabeth Louise Vigée began painting professionally as a young teen. She caught the attention of Marie Antoinette, who became her patron. Le Brun painted at least thirty portraits of the Queen consort.
Obviously talented, she was admitted into a number of regional Academies of Art, including the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture in Paris. The fact that the self-portrait below showed her teeth (“My God, her teeth!”) caused quite a stir among the Parisians during that day.
I think that Jules Perrot, the ballet master, might have been the inspiration for Yoda. What do you think? Or perhaps the Sensei in any number of Western martial arts movies? In any event, Degas shows an imaginary scene in Perrot’s dance class. It is an imaginary scene because the Paris Opera House had burned down the year before.
A similar work done the same year shows a grittier picture of a ballet class and does not have the Impressionistic feel that this version exudes.
Madam Le Brun painted an exquisite portrait of herself and her daughter, who may have been the cutest kid in history, or she might have been slightly idealized by a doting mother.
A few years later, she painted a similar portrait, and the child is still cute as a button.
Having been the personal painter for Marie Antoinette, Madam Le Brun found herself in distress at the time of the French Revolution. She absconded with her daughter to Italy, Austria, Russia and Germany, where she continued her work as a portraitist and trained others.
The last time I visited the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., I made a point to pick out the most beautiful, unknown paintings and then look at where they came from. A disproportionate amount came from French artists. Like Nicolas Poussin.
The painting in the Art Quiz is another rendition of the Ascension of Mary, which is quite good, but it is not as awe-inspiring as the one below, which is in the National Gallery of Art.
There are a number of different versions of this painting, five total, mostly showing different colored horses. The backgrounds are somewhat different as well. Besides hiring a kickass painter, Napoleon was a first-rate propagandist. Historians say that he rode on a mule over the Alps.
Jacques-Louis David, who was a supporter of the Revolution, followed the money and began to support the Consulate, so he undertook the commission, which led to the other versions of this painting.
One of the greatest portrait artists of all time, John Singer Sargent also found time to dabble in water colors and paint scenes of daily life. I could’ve put The Portrait of Madame X in my virtual collection. Or the official White House portrait of Theodore Roosevelt. They are exceptional. But, really, they cannot compete with the raw power of Lady Agnew’s stare.
Many of his portraits were full size, some larger than life. Even sitting down, Lady Agnew’s portrait is fifty inches tall.
Please don’t forget the KOS Art Expos tomorrow at Noon (Eastern) and 6:00 pm (Eastern). You will find there a window into the beautiful and the curious. Cheers!