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The first article in my series to commemorate the centenary of the death of the Swiss artist Ferdinand Hodler (1853–1918) showed some of his realist paintings from the early years of his career. During the late 1880s, he started to develop his mature style, a form of Symbolism which he referred to as Parallelism.

It was also a period of great change in his personal life. In 1887, Hodler and his partner Augustine Dupin (1852-1909) had a son. Two years later, Hodler married Bertha Stucki, but they divorced in 1891. He met his future second wife, Berthe Jacques (1868-1957), in 1894. All three of his partners modelled for his paintings, although not, as far as I can tell, simultaneously.

Ferdinand Hodler (1853–1918), Portrait of Hélène Weiglé (1888), oil on canvas, 88.5 × 69.5 cm, Städelsches Kunstinstitut und Städtische Galerie, Frankfurt, Germany. Wikimedia Commons.

Hodler’s Portrait of Hélène Weiglé (1888) remains…

Byron is an English surname derived from a place name meaning “place of the cow sheds”, either a locational name or an occupational name for someone who herded cows. It derives from Old English byrum via PIE root word.

Origin: Proto-Indo-European

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Variants:

• Byrom (English)

Next month, I will be commemorating here the centenary of the death of the great Swiss artist Ferdinand Hodler (1853–1918). He is not a painter that I have known well, and I can’t recall seeing any of his paintings in the flesh. Researching his life and work has been revelatory, though, and in the coming weeks I’d like to share with you what I have found out. I hope that you too will come to appreciate the work of one of the period’s most versatile and innovative painters.

Hodler was born the first child of a poor, working family in Bern, Switzerland. His father, a carpenter, died when Hodler was seven, but the following year his mother married a second time, to a decorative painter who painted stage scenery, etc. Tuberculosis was rife in the poor quarter of the city where they lived, and Hodler saw his brothers and sisters…

Of the painters normally associated with the French Impressionists, two appear to be rather different: Edgar Degas, about whom I wrote at length last autumn, and Gustave Caillebotte (1848–1894).

With the recent ‘rediscovery’ of Naturalism, or social realism, Caillebotte is now being associated with accepted Naturalist artists such as Jules Bastien-Lepage, in many respects more strongly than with the core French Impressionists such as Monet and Pissarro. In this and the next article, I am going to look at a small selection of Caillebotte’s paintings across the breadth of his career, considering how Naturalist they might be, and how that fits in with their appreciation.

Gustave Caillebotte (1848–1894), Nude Woman Lying on a Couch (1873), pastel on paper, 88.9 x 116.2 cm, Private collection. Wikimedia Commons.

Caillebotte started painting seriously quite late: he had already completed his law degree and obtaining a licence to practice law before the Franco-Prussian War…

On the 3rd of April 1950, German composer Kurt Weill died of a heart attack in New York City. His highly innovative and eclectic works for the theatre, such as the Threepenny Opera, Mahagonny, Lady in the Dark, Street Scene, but also numerous popular songs and instrumental music, have secured him lasting fame and a reputation that continues to grow in time as more of his music is performed. Thinking of Weill one must also remember his wife and life and work companion Lotte Lenya, whose voice is associated with…

via Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya: Love in the Creative Partnership | A R T L▼R K

Godard est souvent décrit comme un cinéaste misogyne. Où la femme n’est jamais belle, la femme n’est jamais sublimée. Pourtant ses icônes sont belles, elles sont mises en scène dans une société où la femme se libère progressivement.