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See also:SPAIN AND See also:PORTUGAL See also:Modern See also:Spanish See also:painting began with Mariano See also:Fortuny (q.v.), who, dying as See also:long ago as 1874, nevertheless See also:left his See also:mark even on the following See also:generation of artists. During his See also:residence in See also:Paris in 1866 he had been strongly influenced by See also:Meissonier, and subsequently selected similar subjects—scenes in x8thcentury See also:costume. In Fortuny, however, the See also:French painter's elaborate finish is associated with something more intense and vivid, indicative of the See also:southern Latin temperament. He collected in his studio in See also:Rome the most See also:artistic examples of See also:medieval See also:industry. The See also:objects among which he lived he also painted with incisive spirit as a setting for elegant figures from the See also:world of See also:Watteau and of See also:Goya, which are thrown into his pictures with amazing dash and sparkle; and this love of dazzling kaleidoscopic variety has animated his successors. See also:Academic teaching tries to encourage See also:historical painting. Hence, since the 'seventies, the See also:chief paintings produced in Spain have been huge historical See also:works, which have made the See also:round of See also:European exhibitions and then been collected in the See also:Gallery of Modern See also:Art at See also:Madrid. There may be seen " The Mad See also:Queen Juana," by Pradillr: ; " The See also:Conversion of the See also:Duke of See also:Gandia," by Moreno Carbonero; " The See also:Bell of See also:Huesca," by Casado; " The Last See also:Day of See also:Numantia," by See also:Vera; " Ines de See also:Castro," by Cabello. It is possible, of course, to discern in the love of the horrible displayed in these pictures an See also:element of the See also:national See also:character, for in the See also:land of See also:bull-fights even painting turns to See also:murder and sudden See also:death, See also:poison and the rope. However, at least we must admit the See also:great See also:power revealed, and recognize the audacious colouring. But in point of fact these works are only variants on those executed in See also:France from the See also:time of See also:Delaroche to See also:Jean See also:Paul See also:Laurens, and tell their See also:story in the See also:style that was current in Parisian studios in the 'sixties. What is called the national garb of Spain is mainly the See also:cast-off See also:fashion of Paris. After all this magniloquent See also:work Fortuny's See also:rococo became the rage. The same painters who had produced the great historical pictures were now content to take up a brilliant and dazzling See also:miniature style; either, like Fortuny himself, using small and See also:motley figures in See also:baroque subjects, or adapting the modern national See also:life of Spain to the rococo style. Here again we observe the acrobatic dexterity with which the painters, See also:Pradilla especially, use the See also:brush. But here again there is nothing essentially new—only a repetition of what Fortuny had already done twenty years before. The Spanish school, therefore, presented a very old-fashioned aspect at the Paris See also:Exhibition of 1900. The pictures shown there were mostly See also:wild or emotional. See also:Bedouins fighting, an See also:antique See also:quadriga flying past, the inhabitants of See also:Pompeii hastily endeavouring to See also:escape from the See also:lava torrent, See also:Don Quixote's Rosinante See also:hanging to the See also:sail of the See also:windmill, and the terrors of the Day of See also:Judgment were the subjects; See also:Alvarez See also:Dumont, Benlliure y Gil, Ulpiano Checa, See also:Manuel Ramirez Ibanez and Moreno Carbonero were the painters. Among the huge canvases, a number of small pictures, things of no importance, were scattered, which showed only a genre-like wit. Spain is a somewhat barren land in modern art. There painting, although active, is See also:blind to life and to the treasures of art which See also:lie unheeded in the road. Only one artist, Agrasot, during the 'seventies painted pictures of Spanish See also:low life of great sincerity; and much later two See also:young painters appeared who energetically threw themselves into the modern See also:movement. One was Sorolla y Bastida, by whom there is a large fishing picture in the Luxembourg, which in its stern gravity might be the work of a See also:Northern painter; the other was Ignacio See also:Zuloaga, in whom Goya seems to live again. Old See also:women, girls of the See also:people, and cocottes especially, he has painted with admirable spirit and with breadth. Spain, which has taken so little See also:part in the great movement since See also:Mallet's time, only repeating in old-fashioned See also:guise things which are falsely regarded as national, seems at last topossess in Zuloaga an artist at once modern and genuinely national. Portugal took an almost See also:lower See also:place in the Paris Exhibition. For whereas the historical Spanish school has endeavoured to be modern to some extent, at least in See also:colour, the Portuguese cling to the See also:blue-See also:plush and red-See also:velvet splendours of Delaroche in all their crudity. Weak pictures of monks and of visions are produced in See also:numbers, together with genre pictures depicting the popular life of Portugal, spiced to the See also:taste of the tourist. There are the younger men who aim at availing themselves of the efforts of the open-See also:air painters; but even as followers of the Parisians they only say now what the French were saying long years ago through Bastien-Lepage, Puvis de Chavannes and Adrien Dumont. There is always a Frenchman behind the Portuguese, who guides his brush and sets his See also:model. The only painter formed in the school is See also:Carlos Reis, whose vast See also:canvas " Sunset " has much in See also:common with the first huge See also:peasant pictures painted in See also:Germany by See also:Count See also:Kalckreuth. One painter there is, however, who is quite See also:independent and wholly Portuguese, a worthy successor of the great old masters of his native land, and this is Columbano, whose portraits of actors have a spark of the See also:genius which inspired the works of See also:Velazquez and Goya. See A. G. See also:Temple, Modern Spanish Painting (1908). (R. MR.)
See also:DENMARK
Denmark resembles See also: 1847), a genre painter reminding us of See also:Ludwig Knaus. The two artists Laurits Tuxen (b. 1853) and See also:Peter Kroyer (b. 1851), who are most nearly allied to See also:Manet and Bastien-Lepage, have a sort of elegance that is almost Parisian. Kroyer, especially, has bold inventiveness and amazing skill. Open-air effects and twilight moods, the glare of See also:sunshine and artificial light, he has painted with equal mastery. In See also:portraiture, too, he stands alone. The two large pictures in which he recorded a " See also:Meeting of the See also:Committee of the See also:Copenhagen Exhibition, 1887," and a " Meeting of the Copenhagen See also:Academy of Sciences," are modern works which in power of expression may almost compare with those of Frans See also:Hals. Such versatility and facile elegance are to be found in no other Danish painter. At the See also:period of historic painting it was significant that next to Bloch, the See also:cosmopolitan, came Kristian Zahrtmann (b. 1843), who painted scenes from the life of Eleonora See also:Christina, a Danish heroine (daughter of See also:Christian IV.), with the utmost simplicity, and without any emotional or theatrical pathos. This touching feeling for See also:home and country is the keynote of Danish art. The Dane has now no sentiment but that of home; his country, once so powerful, has become but a small one, and has lost its See also:political importance. Hence he clings to the little that is left to him with melancholy tenderness. Viggo Johansen (b. 1851), with his See also:gentle dreaminess, is the best representative of modern Danish home-life. He shows us dark sitting-rooms, where a quiet party has met around the See also:tea-table. " An Evening at Home," " The See also:Christmas See also:Tree," " Grandmother's Birthday," are typical subjects, and all have the same fresh and fragrant See also:charm. He is. also one of the best Danish landscape painters. The silvery See also:atmosphere and sad, mysterious stillness of the See also:island-See also:realm See also:rest on Johansen's pictures. Not less satisfactory in their little world are the rest: Holsoe (b. 1866), Lauritz See also:Ring (b. 1854), Haslund, Syberg (b. 1862), Irminger (b. 185o), and Ilsted paint the pleasant life of Copenhagen. In Skagen, a fishing See also:town at the extreme end of See also:Jutland, we find painters of See also:sea life: See also:Michael Ancher (b. 1849), See also:Anna Ancher (b. 1859), and C. Locher (b. 1851). The landscape painters Viggo Pederson (b. 1854), Philipsen (b. 1840), See also:Julius See also:Paulsen (b. 186o), Johan Rohde (b. 1856) have made their home in the villages round Copenhagen. Each has his own individuality and See also:sees nature with his own eyes, and yet in all we find the same sober See also:tone, the same gentle, tearful melancholy. The new See also:Idealism has, however, been discernible in Denmark. Joakim Skovgaard (b, 1856), with his " See also:Christ among the Dead " and " See also:Pool of See also:Bethesda," is trying to endow Denmark with a monumental type of art. See also:Harald Slott-Moller (b. 1864) and J. F. Willumsen (b.,1863) affect a highly symbolical style. But even more than these painters, who aim at reproducing See also:ancient folk-tales through the See also:medium of modern See also:mysticism, two others claim our See also:attention, by the infusion into the old tradition of a very modern view of beauty approaching that of See also:Whistler and of See also:Carriere: one is Ejnar Nielsen, whose portraits have a See also:peculiar, refined See also:strain of gentle Danish melancholy; the other, V. Hammershgj, who has an exquisite sense of tone, and paints the magical effect of light in See also:half-darkened rooms. Among the more noteworthy portrait painters, Aug. Jerndorff and See also:Otto See also:Bache should be included; and among the more decorative artists, L. Frolich; while Hans See also:Tegner may be considered the greatest illustrator of his day. (R. MR.) See also:SWEDEN There is as great a difference between Danish and See also:Swedish art as between Copenhagen and See also:Stockholm. Copenhagen is a homely provincial town and life is confined to home circles. In Stockholm we find the whirl of life and all the elegance of a See also:capital. It has been styled the Paris of the See also:North, and its art also wears this cosmopolitan aspect. See also:Dusseldorf, where in the 'sixties most painters studied their art, appeared to latter-day artists too provincial. See also:Munich and, to a still greater extent, Paris became their " See also:Alma Mater," Salmson (1843-1894) and Hagborg (b. 1852), who were first initiated into See also:naturalism in Paris, adopted this See also:city for a See also:domicile. They paint the fishermen of See also:Brittany and the peasants of See also:Picardy; and even when apparently interpreting Sweden, they only clothe their Parisian See also:models in a Swedish garb. Those who returned to Stockholm turned their Parisian art into a Swedish art, but they have remained cosmopolitan until this day. Whilst there is something prosy and homely about Danish art, that of Sweden displays See also:nervous elegance and cosmopolitan See also:polish. Simplicity is in her eyes humdrum; she prefers light and brilliant notes. There, a naturalness and simplicity allows us to forget the difficulties of the brush: here, we chiefly receive the impression of a cleverly solved problem. There, the greatest moderation in colour, a soft all-pervading See also:grey: here, a cunning See also:play with delicate tones and gradations—a striving to render the most difficult effects of light with obedient See also:hand. This tendency is particularly marked in the See also:case of the landscape painters: Per Ekstr6m (b. 1844), Niels Kreuger (b. 1858), Karl Nordstrom (b. 1865), See also:Prince Eugen of Sweden (b. 1855), Axel Sj6berg Wallander (b. 1862), and Wahlberg (b. 1864). Nature in Sweden has not the idyllic softness, the veiled elegiac character, it displays in Denmark. It is more coquettish, southern and French, and the painters regard it also with French eyes. As a painter of animals, See also:Bruno Liljefors (b. 186o) created a sensation by his surprising pictures. Whatever his subjects —quails, capercailzies, See also:dogs, See also:hares, magpies or thrushes—he has caught the fleetest motions and the most transitory effects of light with the cleverness of a See also:Japanese. With this exception, the Swedish painters cannot be classified according to " subjects." They are " virtuosi," calling every technical aspect of art their own- -as well in • See also:fresco as in portrait painting. Oscar Bj6rek(b. 186o), See also:Ernst Josephson (b. 1851), Georg See also:Pauli (b. 1855), See also:Richard Bergh (b. 1858), See also:Hanna See also:Hirsch now Pauli (b. 1864) are the best-known names. Carl Larsson's (b. 1853) decorative panneaux fascinate by their easy lightness and coquettish See also:grace of See also:execution. Ander Zorn (b. 186o), with his dazzling virtuosity, is as typical of Swedish as the prosaic simplicity of Johansen is of Danish art. His marine pictures, with their undulating waves and naked forms bathed in light, belong to the most surprising examples of the cleverness with which modern art can stereotype quivering motions; and the same boldness in handling his subjects, which triumphs over difficulties, makes his " interiors, his portraits and etchings, objects of admiration to every painter's See also:eye. In his " See also:Dance before the Window " all is vivacity and See also:motion. His portrait of a" Peasant Woman ". is a powerful See also:harmony of sparkling yellow-red tones of colour. Besides these older masters who cleave to the most dazzling light effects, there are the younger artists of the school of Carl Larsson, who aspire more to decorative effects on a grander See also:scale. Gustav Fjalstad (b. 1868) exhibited. a picture in the Paris Exhibition of 1900 that stood out like See also:mosaic among its surroundings. And great similarity in method has See also:Hermann Normann, who, as a landscape painter, also imitates the classic style. (R. MR.) See also:NORWAY We enter a new world when in picture-galleries we pass to the See also:Norwegian from the Swedish See also:section. From the great city we are transported to nature, See also:solemn and solitary, into a land of silence, where a See also:rude, sparse See also:population, a See also:race of fishermen, snatches a scanty sustenance from the sea. The Norwegians also contributed for a time to the See also:international See also:market in works of art. They sent mainly genre pictures telling of the See also:manners and customs of their country, or landscapes depicting the phenomena of Northern scenery. Adolf Tidemand (1814–1876) introduced his countrymen—the peasants and fishermen of the Northern See also:coast—to the European public. We are introduced to Norwegian Christmas customs, accompany the Norseman on his nocturnal fishing expeditions, join the " Brudefaerd " across the Hardanger See also:fjord, sit as disciples at the feet of the Norwegian sacristan. See also: Especially in the 'eighties, when naturalism was at its See also:zenith, we find the Norwegians its boldest devotees. They portrayed, life as they found it, without embellishment; they did not trouble about plastic elegance, but painted the land of their home and its people in a See also:direct, rough-hewn style. Like the people we meet in the North, giants with stalwart See also:iron frames, callous hands, and sun-burnt faces, with their See also:sou'-westers and blue blouses, who resemble sons of a bygone heroic See also:age, have the painters themselves—notably Niels Gustav Wentzel (b. 1859), Svend Jorgensen (b. 1861), Kolstoe (b. 186o), Christian Krohg—something See also:primitive in the directness, in, one might almost say, the barbarous brutality with which they approach their subjects. They preferred the most glaring effects of plein-air; they revelled in all the hues of the See also:rainbow. But these very uncouth See also:fellows, who treated the figures in their pictures with such rough directness, painted even in. those days landscapes with great refinement; not the midnight sun and the precipitous cliffs of the fjords,, by which foreigners were sought to be impressed, but austere, See also:simple nature, as it lies in deathlike and spectral repose—lonely See also:meres, whose See also:surface is unruffled by the See also:keel of any See also:boat, where no human being is visible, where no See also:sound is audible; the See also:hour of twilight, when the sun has disappeared behind the mountains, and all is chill and drear; the See also:winter, when an icy blast sweeps over the crisp See also:snow-See also:fields; the See also:spring, almost like winter, with its See also:bare branches and its thin young shoots. Such were their themes, and painters like Amaldus Nilsen (b. 1838), Eilif Petersen (b. 1852), Christian Skredsvig (b. 1854), Fritz Thaulow (b. 1848), and See also:Gerhard Munthe (b. 1849) arrested public attention by their exhibition of pictures of this character. Latterly these painters have become more civilized, and have emancipated themselves from their early uncouthness. Jorgensen, Krohg, Kolstoe, See also:Soot, Gustav Wentzel, no longer paint those herculean sailors and fishermen, those pictures of 'giants that formerly gave to Norwegian exhibitions their peculiar character. Elegance has taken See also:possession of the Norwegian See also:palette. This transformation began with Fritz Thaulow, and indeed his art threatened to relapse somewhat into routine, and even the ripples of his See also:waters to sparkle somewhat coquettishly. Borgen (b. 1852), Hennig (b. 1871), Hjerl6w (b. 1863), and Stenersen (b: 1862) were gifted recruits of the ranks of Norwegian painters, whilst Halfdan Strom (b. 1863), who depicts rays of light issuing from silent windows and streaming and quivering over solitary landscapes, dark blue streams and ponds, nocturnal skies, variegated See also:female dresses, contrasting as spots of colour with dark See also:green meadows, has a delicacy in colouring that recalls Cazin. Gerhard Munthe, who, as we have seen, first made a name by his delicate vernal scenery, has turned his attention to the classical See also:side of art; and, finally Erik Werenskjold (b. 1855), who was also first known by his landscapes and scenes of country life, afterwards gained success as an illustrator of Norwegian folk-See also:lore. (R. MR.) See also:Russia Until See also:late in the 19th See also:century modern See also:Russian painting was unknown to western See also:Europe. What had been seen of it in international exhibitions showed the traditions of primitive European art, with a distinct vein of barbarism. In the early 'fifties, painters were less See also:bent on art than on political agitation; they used the brush as a means of propaganda in favour of some political See also:idea. Peroff showed us the miserable See also:condition 'of the See also:serfs, the wastefulness and profligacy of the See also:nobility. Vereschagin made himself the See also:advocate of the soldier, painting the horrors of war long before the See also:tsar's manifesto preached universal disarmament. Art suffered from this praiseworthy misapplication; many pictures were painted, but very few See also:rose to the level of modern achievement in point of technique. It was only by the St See also:Petersburg art See also:journal Mir Iskustwa, and by a small exhibition arranged at Munich in 1892 by a See also:group of Russian landscape painters, that it was realized that a younger Russian school had arisen, fully equipped with the methods of modern technique, and depicting Russian life with the See also:stamp of individuality. At the Paris Exhibition of 1900 the productions of this young Russian school were seen with surprise. A florescence similiar to that which literature displayed in See also:Pushkin, See also:Dostoievsky and See also:Tolstoy seemed to be beginning for Russian painting. Some of these young painters rushed into art with unbridled zest, painting with primitive force and boldness. They produced historical pictures, almost barbaric but of striking force; representations of the life of the people full of deep and hopeless gloom; the poor driven by the See also:police and huddled together in dull indifference; the popes tramping across the lonely See also:steppes, See also:prayer-See also:book in hand; peasants muttering prayers before a crucifix. There is great pathos in " The Karamasow See also:Brothers," or " The Power of Darkness." At the same time we feel that a long-inherited tradition pervades all Russia. We find a characteristic ecclesiastical art, far removed from the productions of the fin de siecle, in which the rigid tradition of the Byzantines of the 3rd century still survives.
And, finally, there are landscapes almost Danish in their bloodless, dreamy tenderness. Among the historical painters See also:Elias See also:Repin is the most impressive. In his pictures, " See also:Ivan the Cruel," " The See also:Cossacks' Reply to the See also:Sultan," and "The See also:Miracle of See also:Saint See also:Nicholas," may be seen—what is so rare in historical painting—genuine purpose and style. Terror is rendered, with Shakespearean power; the boldness with which he has reconstituted the past, and the power of pictorial See also:psychology which has enabled him to give new life to his figures, are equally striking in " See also:Sowing on the See also:Volga " and " The See also:Village See also:Pro-cession." He was the first to paint subjects of contemporary life, and the work, while thoroughly Russian, has high technical qualities—the sense of oppression, subjection and gloom is all-pervading. But he does not " point the moral," as Peroff did; he paints simply but sympathetically what he sees, and this lends his pictures something of the resigned melancholy of Russian songs. Even more impressive than Repin is Philippe Maliavine. He had rendered peasants, stalwart figures of powerful build; and, in a picture called " See also:Laughter," See also:Macbeth-like women, wrapped in rags of fiery red, are thrown on the canvas with astonishing power. Among religious painters See also:Victor Vasnezov, the powerful decorator of the See also:dome in the See also: But Vasnezov has painted other things: "The Scythians," fighting with See also:lance and See also:battle-See also:axe; horsemen making their way across the pathless See also:steppe; and See also:woods and landscapes pervaded by romantic charm, the home of the See also:spirits of Russian See also:legend. Next to Vasnezov is Michael Nesterov, a painter also of monks and See also:saints, but as different from him as See also:Zurbaran from the mosaic workers of See also:Venice; and Valentin Serov, powerful in portraiture and fascinating in his landscape. It is to be remarked that although these artists are austere and unpolished in their figure-painting, they paint landscape with delicate refinement. Schischkin and Vassiliev were the first to paint their native land in all simplicity, and it is in landscape that Russian art at the See also:present time still shows its most pleasing work. Savrassov depicts See also:tender spring effects; Kuindshi light See also:birch-copses full of quivering light; Sudkovski interprets the solemn majesty of the sea; See also:Albert Benois paints in See also:water-colour delicate' Finnish scenery; See also:Apollinaris Vasnezov has recorded the See also:dismal wastes of See also:Siberia, its dark plains and endless primeval See also:forest, with powerful simplicity. A See also:special See also:province in Russian art must be assigned to the Poles. It, is difficult indeed to See also:share to the full the admiration See also:felt in See also:Warsaw for the Polish painters. It is there firmly believed that See also:Poland has a school of its own, owing nothing to Russia, See also:Austria or Germany; an art which embodies all the See also:chivalry and all the suffering of that land. The accessories are Polish, and so are the costumes. See also:Jan Chelminski, Wojcliech See also:Gerson, See also:Constantine Gorski, Apolonius Kendzrierski, See also:Joseph Ryszkievicz and See also:Roman Szvoinicki are the See also:principal artists. We see in their pictures a great See also:deal of fighting, a great deal of weeping; but what there is peculiar to the Poles in the expression or technique of their works it is hard to discover. See also:Finland, on the other hand, is thoroughly modern. Belonging by descent to Sweden rather than to Russia, its painters' views of art also resemble those of the " Parisians of the North." They display no ungoverned power, but rather supple elegance. The play of light and the caprice of sunshine are rendered with much subtlety. Albert Edelfeldt is the most versatile artist of the group; Axel Gallen, at first naturalistic, See also:developed into a decorative artist of See also:fine style; Eero Jaernefelt charms with his See also:airy studies and brilliant landscapes. See also:Magnus Enckell; Pekka Halonen and Victor Vesterholm sustain the school with work remarkable for sober and tasteful feeling. (R. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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