Monthly Archives: July 2020

Featured Artist at the e.Gallery this week is a 15th Century artist, Rogier van der Weyden [Flemish, 1399?-1464] Link: https://fineart.elib.com/fineart.php?dir=Alphabetical/Weyden_Rogier_van_der

Rogier van der Weyden (1399/1400–1464), was a South-Netherlandish painter, chronologically halfway up the list of mediaeval West-European innovators, ranking between Jan van Eyck and Hugo van der Goes, known as the Flemish primitives.

Rogier van der Weyden was born Rogier de la Pasture in Doornik (Tournai). As far as we know, he entered late into the services of master painter Robert Campin, in 1427, a year after marrying Elizabeth Goffaert.

His career took off quickly after that. In 1432 he established himself as a master in Doornik, rising to the position of Brussels City Painter in 1435. From that day on he only worked under his Flemish name. There are clues that he stayed in Bruges between 1432 and 1435; whatever the case, the influence of Van Eyck on his work is clearly felt. Brussels at the time was a good place to work in as it was quickly developing into a regional center.

In the Holy Year of 1450 Van der Weyden traveled to Rome. Along the way he composed several works for the Medici family in Florence.

Van der Weyden painted mostly religious themes – with the exception of several portraits his worldly work has been lost. He never signed his work, so art historians to this day are trying to discover which works are his. Most likely he ran a workshop with a large number of assistants and students.

Characteristic of his work are the clear composition and the lively use of colors, in which he incorporated much symbolism. His altarpieces are considered his highlights, including the Descent from the Cross and the multitych with the Last Judgment in Beaune, where he tried to rival Van Eyck’s Lamb of God. Van der Weyden strongly influenced later painters, among whom his student Hans Memling.

Rogier van der Weyden died in Brussels in 1464, where he was buried in the St. Gudula Church, now known as the St. Michael’s Cathedral. He was reasonably prosperous and renowned during his life. For at least half a century his style was much imitated.

Featured Artist at the e.Gallery this week is a 20th Century artist of the Surrealist movement, Alberto Giacometti [Swiss, 1901-1966] Link: https://fineart.elib.com/fineart.php?dir=Alphabetical/Giacometti_Alberto

Alberto Giacometti, 1901–1966, was a School of Paris sculptor, a painter and draughtsman born in the village of Borgonovo near Stampa, Switzerland, and son of the Post-Impressionist painter Giovanni Giacometti. Alberto began to draw, paint and sculpt at an early age. He studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts at Geneva in 1919–20, and at Italy in 1920–21. He moved in 1922 to Paris where he first studied in Archipenko’s studio, and then for five years at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière under Bourdelle. His first one-man exhibition ws at the Galerie Aktuaryus, Zurich, 1927. He went through a period of intense restlessness in which he experimented with polychrome sculpture, cages, erotic kinetic objects, near-abstraction and other styles. Giacometti articipated in the Surrealist movement in 1930–35.

He began in 1934–35 to work again from the model, but each sculpture became smaller and smaller, and was finally almost always destroyed; Alerto had no exhibitions between 1935 and 1947. In 1941–45 he lived in Geneva, then returned to Paris. His characteristic style dates from 1947 when he started to make figures which were very tall and thin. He was awarded the First Prize for Sculpture at the Pittsburgh International in 1961, the main prize for sculpture at the Venice Biennale in 1962, and the Guggenheim International Award for Painting in 1964. He died at Chur in Switzerland.