Woman's Club Work and Programs Part 11

III--SPAIN

1. _Early Spanish Painters_--Murillo: the artist of the church; his Madonnas. Ribera.

2. _Velazquez_--The artist of the crown; influence on him of Herrera and Pacheco; peculiarly Spanish character; his patron, Philip IV.; the forty portraits of this king; visit of the painter to Italy; mythological and religious pictures; his Christ on the Cross.

3. _Recent Spanish Painters_--Goya: his portraits; story of his quarrel with the Duke of Wellington. Fortuny: influence upon him of Meissonier; small and motley figures. Zuloaga: resemblance of style to Goya. Sorolla y Bastida: painter of suns.h.i.+ne on figures; pictures in the Luxembourg and the Metropolitan Museum.

4. _The Madrid Gallery_--The greatest picture-gallery of the world; built for Charles III. Collections of Charles V., Philip II., and Philip IV. (2,000 pictures.) Its paintings by t.i.tian, Raphael, Tintoretto, Velazquez, Van Dyck, Rubens, and Teniers. Huge modern historical works like those at Versailles.

BOOKS TO CONSULT--Curtis: Velazquez and Murillo. Armstrong: Life of Velazquez. Stirling-Maxwell: Annals of the Artists of Spain. Temple: Modern Spanish Painting.

There were several great patrons of art in Spain, like Charles V. and Philip II. Read of their relations to the painters and their work.

Discuss the contribution of the Spanish painters to realism. How does Velazquez compare with Raphael? a.n.a.lyze the peculiar contribution of Sorolla to modern painting.

IV--HOLLAND AND BELGIUM

1. _Painters of Interiors_--Metsu, Van Ostade, Jan Steen, Wouvermans.

Note the humor and satire in the painters of genre; also, their minutely careful method.

2. _Landscapes and Marines_--Cuyp, Ruysdael, Van der Velde. Describe the characteristics of the Dutch landscape. Show pictures of cattle combined with landscape.

3. _Figures_--Hals, Van der Heist, Van Dyck, Rubens. Tell the story of Van Dyck and the English court, and describe his pictures of King Charles I. Note the huge canvases of Rubens, his high colors and his heavy figures. Mention the meeting of Rubens and Velazquez and its probable effect on the former. Notice the quant.i.ty of works attributed to Rubens (1,300 t.i.tles Smith's catalogue), and discuss the likelihood of his having produced all these without help.

4. _Rembrandt_--His history, style (light and shade), and effect on painting. Describe the numerous portraits of himself and his wife. Note his work as an etcher. Description of the Night Watch.

BOOKS TO CONSULT--Crowe and Cavalcaselle: Early Flemish Paintings. Max Rooses: Dutch Painters of the Nineteenth Century. Malcolm Bell: Rembrandt van Rijn and His Work. E. Dillon: Rubens.

The Dutch school was the pioneer of modern landscape-painting; show its influence on Constable and other English artists. The Dutch were faithful ill.u.s.trators of peasant and burgher life, and it is interesting to make a study of costume, furniture, and jewelry as shown by them.

Take up the galleries of Amsterdam, The Hague, and Antwerp, and show photographs of Van Dyck's Crucifixion, and Rembrandt's Night Watch. At Haarlem there is a small gallery noted for its paintings by Franz Hals, particularly The Syndics. There is a small group of modern Dutch painters deserving of notice: Mauve, the two Marises, Mesdag, and Israels.

V--FRANCE (PART I)

1. _Poussin and Claude_--Influence of Domenichino on Poussin. Relation to Cardinal Barberini. Richelieu and Louis XIII. Influence of Poussin on landscape-painting. Claude's studies in Italy. Late success.

Mythological and Scriptural subjects. The _Liber Veritatis_. Ruskin's estimate. Comparison with Turner in the National Gallery, London. Claude as an etcher. Hamerton's opinion of him.

2. _Court Painters and Others_--LeBrun. Patronage of Seguier. Work under Louis XIV. and Colbert at Fontainebleau, Versailles, and Sceaux.

Watteau, _peintre des Fetes Galantes_. Artificial pastoral scenes.

Reading from Pater's A Court Painter. Chardin. Only painter of humble life of his time. Neglect then; appreciation now. Why this change in opinion? Fragonard. Relation to Chardin. Greuze. Names of some of his court beauties. Are they true to life?

3. _David and Ingres_--Inspiration of the antique in David. Historical subjects. Napoleon pictures. Compare Ingres with David.

4. _Delaroche, Gericault, Delacroix_--Delaroche's loyalty to cla.s.sic traditions of painting. Pictures at Versailles. Gericault: His pictures of nature and especially animals. Delacroix: Connection of the romantic movement in painting with that in literature. Effect of Delacroix's influence on modern painting.

BOOKS TO CONSULT--Sir Edmund Head: Handbook of the History of the Spanish and French Schools of Painting. Lady Dilke: French Painters of the Eighteenth Century. Staley: Watteau and His School. Turner and Baker: Stories of the French Artists.

Have a paper on The Influence of the French Revolution on French Art.

Before that, that artificial and frivolous spirit characterized the work of the painters as it did the life of the court, for which they largely did their work. Note the many pictures ill.u.s.trating the life of Napoleon, his battles, and his victories; Versailles is full of them.

The enthusiasm of patriotism and the new national sense are shown in this reaction.

VI--FRANCE (PART II)

1. _The Romanticists_--Followers of Delacroix. Their principles. Dupre, Isabey, Jacque, Corot, Daubigny. Story of Corot's life. Coloration and style. Compare with Constable.

2. _The Barbizon School_--Description of life in the Forest of Fontainebleau. Millet. Country life. Poverty. Later appreciations. The Angelus. Pictures in the United States. Rousseau. Diaz. Cazin.

3. _The Impressionists_--Manet, Monet, Degas, Raffaelli.

4. _Pictures of Genre_--Describe what is meant. Discuss the relative merits of pictures that tell a story and those that merely give an impression. Meissonier, Cabanel, Baudry, Rosa Bonheur, Ziem, Bouguereau, Constant, Fromentin, Jules Breton. Pictures by these painters in the United States.

5. _Painters of the Open Air_--The appreciation of atmosphere in French painting. Lepage, Roll, Dagnan-Bouveret.

BOOKS TO CONSULT--Hourticq: Art in France. Theodore Child: Some Modern French Painters. J. C. Vand.y.k.e: Modern French Masters. D. Cady Eaton: Handbook of Modern French Painting. C. Sprague Smith: Barbizon Days.

The story of the life of the artist colony and their friends at Barbizon would make a delightful paper. Material of an interesting sort may be found in A Chronicle of Friends.h.i.+ps, by Will H. Low. See also R. L.

Stevenson. Among the great decorative artists of our time is Puvis de Chavannes. He has one well-known painting in the Boston Public Library.

Boutet de Monvel, the painter of children; Bonnat, the portrait-painter; and, among the younger artists, Sisley may be mentioned. Ill.u.s.trate with photographs of a Corot landscape, Millet's Angelus, Meissonier's 1805, Rosa Bonheur's Horse Fair, Jules Breton's Brittany Pardon, Lepage's Joan of Arc, and Dagnan-Bouveret's Madonna.

VII--GERMANY

1. _German School of the Reformation Period_--Albrecht Durer: Nuremberg.

Court painter to Charles V. Lucas Cranach: Court painter to three Electors. Hans Holbein: Augsburg. Court painter to Henry VIII. Drawings at Windsor.

2. _Munich School_--Cornelius, the founder. Study in Rome. Brought to Munich by King Ludwig. Kaulbach (his cartoons), Piloty, Defregger, Lenbach, Carl Stuck, Plockhorst, and Gabriel Max, and the religious painters.

3. _The Dusseldorf School_--Schadow, the chief director. In Rome with Cornelius. Hubner, the two Achenbachs, Carl Muller, Meyer von Bremen.

p.r.o.nounced sentimentalism.

4. _The Berlin School_--Ludwig Knaus, head of the Academy; his Holy Family in the Metropolitan Museum. Menzel, Werner, Carl Becker.

5. _Painters of To-day_--Arnold von Bocklin. (Photographs.) Fritz von Uhde. (Photographs.) Realism and impressionism in Germany. Influence of French art on Germany of to-day.

BOOKS TO CONSULT--Atkinson: Schools of Modern Art in Germany. Radcliffe: Schools and Masters of Painting. K. Berlin: Contemporary German Art.

Buxton and Poynter: German, Flemish, and Dutch Painting.

If there can be one more paper in this program, it should be on the critic Winckelmann and his cla.s.sical influence. This was shown particularly in Raphael Mengs, in the eighteenth century, court painter to the King of Poland, and his pupil, Angelica Kauffmann. German art has been influenced greatly by those who have written about his philosophy, Lessing, Goethe, the Sehlegels, and others. Mention should be made of Kugler, Waagen, and Doctor Bode, to-day.

VIII--ENGLAND (PART I)

1. _Lely and Kneller_--Story of their lives. Their rank as artists.

Lely's relation to the court of Charles II. Kneller's to that of William and Mary. Similarity of the work of the two painters. The pictures of the Hampton Court beauties of the time.

2. _Hogarth_--Choice of subjects and manner of treatment. Influence of the Dutch school. Reasons for the great popularity of his work among the English. Historical value. Interest rather than beauty. Engravings.

Pictures in the British Museum.