The Rococo painter Marguerite Gerard (1761-1847), born in Grasse, France, specialized in genre paintings of mothers and children. Marguerite’s father Claude Gerard was a distiller of perfume. Grasse, on the hills north of Cannes, was and continues to be known as the perfume center of the world. Following the death of her mother when Gerard was fourteen, she went to live in Paris with her older sister Marie-Anne and her husband. Marie-Anne was a miniaturist and the spouse painter Jean Honore Fragonard.  Fragonard and his family lived in the Louvre, at that time the royal palace, and Gerard had access to study the royal collection and the opportunity to meet many important French artists. 

Gerard wanted to be an artist, and by 1778 she had become Fragonard’s student and assistant. Together they created nine etchings between 1770 and 1778.  “The Child and the Bulldog” (1778) (etching 6.75” x 8.75”) (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City) is Gerard’s copy of Fragonard’s original drawing titled “The First Riding Lesson.” The quality of the work suggests Gerard was talented and a quick learner, able to depict the scene accurately and artistically.  At the time, Fragonard and Marie-Anne had two children, a girl and a boy. The young boy about to ride the Bulldog likely is her nephew, Alexandre (b.1770).  Although Gerard never married or had children, she helped to raise the Fragonard children. Mothers and children became her chosen subject matter.

 Gerard and Fragonard collaborated on several of her early paintings, for example, “The Beloved Child’ (1780-85) (23.75 x 28.75’’) (Fogg Museum, Harvard University). The choice of the subject of mother and child subject was Gerard’s. A young, beautiful, and well-dressed mother pulls her child in a gilded red carriage through a lush landscape. Her pink silk dress is covered by a sheer white and green gown with a ruffled neckline.  She pulls the carriage with her pink shawl. Her hair is piled on her head in loose curls, tied with a ribbon. She smiles at her baby, who holds onto his ginger cat and waves back. Her companion, perhaps a sister or a nursemaid, pushes the carriage.

Gerard had a fondness for cats and dogs, and she often included them in her paintings. Ears flapping and tails wagging, two white dogs are enthusiastic participants in the scene. A young boy with a garden rake smiles at the baby. Flowers are clustered in the foreground, and a bouquet rests on the light pink cushion in the carriage. This happy group runs gently through the scene, their drapery flowing on the breeze.

By 1785, Gerard had established a reputation as a genre painter, depicting family life. She was the first French painter to make genre popular. Her style was largely derived from her observation of the 17th Century Dutch masters Gabriel Metsu (1629-1667) and Gerard ter Borch (1617-1681). In “Sleep My Child” (1783-1786) (21.5’’ x 17.7’’) Gerard  depicts the figure of the mother in 17th Century dress, a fur-lined jacket and heavy silk skirt. Her rendering of the texture of the skirt is particularly Dutch, and she places the mother and sleeping baby in a simple and modest interior. Gerard often depicted women playing musical instruments. In this painting the mother plays a guitar as she smiles and sings a lullaby to her sleeping baby. It is a quiet and peaceful scene.  

Gerard abandoned the typical Rococo subject matter that consisted of the frivolous treatment of the loves of the Greek gods, and amorous encounters full of sensuous innuendo. Gerard placed mother and child images in middle-class interiors to give to her subject matter the seriousness and clarity she believed it deserved. During the reign of Louis XV (1740’s until 1770’s), French nobility moved from the grandeur of the Palace at Versailles into the city of Paris. Hotels and townhouses were abundant. An educated bourgeoisie opened salons, shops, and cafes. The flamboyant party atmosphere of Versailles continued in the city. Gerard’s middle-class genre and smaller painting, that fit into the smaller rooms, only increased the market for work. Her paintings continued to sell well, and prints made from them were popular with the middle class because of their reduced price.

 

“First Steps” (1788) depicts an abundance of mothers and children. Two mothers at either side of the composition hold scarves around their children who struggle to stand upright and take their first steps. The center of attention is the blond baby in the woven Rococo version of a stroller. A young girl and a small dog also look on. The babies are all chubby cherub types. The sashes used to hold the three babies who want to walk are gathered in such a way as to suggest angel wings. 

The women are dressed in the Empire style that became more and more popular as the troubles of the French government under Louis XVI (1774-1793) increased. The Empire style, introduced to Marie Antoinette by her court painter Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun, was intended to recall the strength of the Roman Empire and the virtue of the government. The simple white gown suggested purity and simplicity. 

 

“Motherhood” (1795-1800) (20’’x 24’’) (Baltimore Museum of Art) depicts a simple middle-class interior, a young mother gently holds her baby while he kisses her on her cheek. A smiling maid looks on, and a fluffy white, spotted cat completes the three white elements in the composition, including the white dress of the maid, and the white dress of the mother. Gerard developed a glaze medium using several translucent colors to paint her favorite white satin dresses.

Gerard survived the Revolution and Restoration and began exhibiting in open Salon Exhibitions from 1799 until 1824, winning three medals. She maintained a studio in the Louvre, and made portraits of several of the delegates to the National Convention that tried and executed Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. She contributed funds to pay war debts by selling her jewelry. Gerard survived the death of Fragonard in 1806, and the death of her sister in 1824. She became head of Fragonard’s large family. Gerard invested her earnings in real estate and government annuities, amassing a large fortune. Never married, she continued to paint tender scenes of mothers and children. Three hundred genre paintings, 80 portraits, and several miniatures are still in existence. Gerard was an independent woman of talent and means, unusual for women of her time.

Beverly Hall Smith was a professor of art history for 40 years.  Since retiring with her husband Kurt to Chestertown six years ago, she has taught art history classes at WC-ALL and Chesapeake College’s Institute for Adult Learning.  She is also an artist whose work is sometimes in exhibitions at Chestertown RiverArts and she paints sets for the Garfield Center for the Arts.

Emily Carr (1871-1945) is an artist whose paintings are a perfect fit for the celebration of Arbor Day on Friday, April 29. Born in Victoria, British Columbia, she was the second youngest of nine children in a strict Presbyterian household. Emily was the family rebel. She was determined to draw, and at an early age was allowed to take drawing lessons. She went on to study off and on from 1889 until 1895 at the San Francisco Art Institute, the West Minister School of Art in London in 1889, and the Academy Colarossi in Paris in 1910. Between trips to Europe, she returned to Victoria where she organized and taught art classes to ladies’ groups. Carr smoked and cussed and could be rather rude, but she was very good with children.

She began visiting Skagway and the Haida indigenous people in British Columbia. She became fascinated with the native culture of Canada. She lived with them and got to know them and their culture. The people and their totem poles became her subject matter for the next several years. Carr’s painting style is her own, but it uses the bright and penetrating colors of French artists. Her enthusiasm for her subject is represented by the careful depiction of the totem poles placed in the richly colored and wild landscape. The Indians gave her the name Klee Wyck (the laughing one), also the title of one of her books first published in 1941. It is a wonderful telling of her memoirs from her journal, and it won the Governor General’s Award for books that year. 

Carr visited British Columbia, to the Haida and Upper Skeena River from 1912 until 1927: “Whenever I could afford it, I went up North, among the Indians and the woods, and forgot all about everything in the joy of those lonely, wonderful places. I decided to try and make as good a representative collection of those old villages and wonderful totem poles as I could, for the love of the people and the love of the places and the love of the art; whether anybody liked them or not…. I painted them to please myself in my own way, but I also stuck rigidly to the facts because I knew I was painting history.”

Carr exhibited 200 of these paintings at the Dominion Hall in Vancouver in 1913. She commented, “the Indians do not make them now and they will soon be a thing of the past. I consider them real Art treasures of a passing race.”  Unfortunately, when she offered the paintings to a new Provincial museum, they were refused because they were modern representation and were considered inaccurate. 

Carr had to stop painting from 1913 until approximately 1924. She returned to Victoria, and to make a living, she ran a boarding house she named The House of All Sorts. She also raised chickens and rabbits, bred Old English Sheepdogs, and made pottery. In 1924, when Carr was in Seattle to see the exhibition Artists of the Pacific Northwest, she met Mark Tobey, an American artist from Seattle. Inspired by Tobey, Carr started painting again. She was invited in 1927 by Canada’s Group of Seven artists to participate in their exhibition. The group stated, “You are one of us.” She was welcomed and supported for the first time.

In 1930/31 Carr began a series of paintings of trees. She wrote in her journal in January 1931 about being tired of the past direction of her work:  “My old things seem dead. I want fresh contacts, more vital searching.” Carr plunged again into the British Columbian forest and found trees, but she also found logging and the destruction of the forest. “Western Forest” (1931) depicts a dense rich green forest, so dense that only a few yellow streaks of sunlight and touches of white cloud and blue sky penetrate the silent depth of the forest. The trees are majestic. 

Carr was a prolific painter and writer. A journal entry describes her feelings: “Here is a picture, a complete thought–and there another–and there. There is everywhere something sublime, something ridiculous or joyous or calm or mysterious. Tender youngness laughing at gnarled oldness, moss and ferns and leaves and twigs, light and air, depth and colour–chatting, dancing a mad joy dance, only apparently tied up in stillness and silence.”

Carr’s passion can best be expressed by her own words, written in journals and then published in several books: “What do these forests make you feel? Their weight and density, their crowded orderliness. There is scarcely room for another tree and yet there is space around each. They are profoundly solemn yet upliftingly joyous. You can find everything in them that you look for, showing how absolutely full of truth, how full of reality the juice and essence of life are in them. They teem with life, growth, expansion….”

She observed, “Trees are much more sensible than people, steadier and more enduring…I ought to stick to nature because I love trees better than people.” Carr’s work finally was reaching viewers across Canada and beyond. Her first solo exhibition was in Toronto at the Women’s Art Association in 1935. Her work was included in a group exhibition in 1938 at the Tate Gallery in London. She stepped upon the national and international stage. Her work was exhibited at the New York World’s Fair of 1939.

Carr did not miss the destruction of her beloved forest by the logging industry. As her tree series continued so did logging, and her paintings and journals included her thoughts on this sad trend. Titled “Odd and Ends” (1939) (26.5’’ x 42’’) a journal entry describes her thoughts: “Growth had repaired all the damage and hidden the scars. There were second-growth trees, lusty and fine, tall-standing, bracken and sword ferns, sallal, rose and blackberry vines, useless trees that nobody cuts, trees ill-shaped and twisty that stood at the foot of those mighty arrow-straight monarchs long since chewed by steel teeth in the mighty mills, chewed into utility, nailed into houses, churches, telephone poles, all the ‘woodsyness’ extracted, nothing remaining but wood.” 

 

Carr suffered a heart attack in 1937, and another in 1939. A stoke in 1940, and a third heart attack in 1942, left her with limited movement. She lived with her sister and wrote seven books about her life. She was to be awarded an Honorary Doctor of Letters by the University of British Columbia, but she died just before the ceremony. In 1952, Emily Carr work was chosen to represent Canada in its first entry into the Venice Biennale. Emily Carr, whose art was scorned by the art market until she was 50 years old, never stopped painting, never stopped writing, and never stopped loving the natives and trees of British Columbia.

Note: “Crazy Stair” (1913) sold in 2013 for $3.39 million. “Skedans (Haida Gwaii)” (1912) sold at auction in 2019 for an undisclosed amount between $3 and $5 million. “Cordova Drift” (1931) sold in 2021 for $3.36 million.

Beverly Hall Smith was a professor of art history for 40 years.  Since retiring with her husband Kurt to Chestertown six years ago, she has taught art history classes at WC-ALL and Chesapeake College’s Institute for Adult Learning.  She is also an artist whose work is sometimes in exhibitions at Chestertown RiverArts and she paints sets for the Garfield Center for the Arts.

 

 

 

The elephant is a metaphor that awakens the yearning for forgotten conversations between humans, the Earth and all living things…It is a poignant metaphor, when you think about the size of this powerful animal, and the shrinking environment that surrounds it. (Andries Botha, 2010)

To celebrate Earth Day this Friday, April 22, 2022, meet Andries Botha (b.1952), artist and political activist from Durban, South Africa. Botha graduated from the University of Natal in the 1970’s. His prints and sculptures have won many awards. Beyond his career as an artist, he has founded several art related organizations in South Africa: Community Arts Workshops (1984-86); Bheka Plambile (1994), creative training for women; Create Africa South (1999), to promote creativity in South Africa; and the NGO Create South Africa Trust (2002); Human Elephant Foundation (2009); and the Andries Botha Foundation (2012). 

Botha’s “You Can Buy My Heart and My Soul” (2006), consists of nine life-sized elephant sculptures, each made from driftwood and wooden pallets nailed to a metal skeleton. The elephant mothers and babies walk across De Panne beach in Belgium. The elephant parade takes the viewer’s breath away. They are a magnificent and an unforgettable presence on this white sandy beach.  Botha purposely creates his sculptures from recycled materials, as he states, “to prove that art should also play a part of man’s struggle to achieve a perfect balance in living in accordance with nature’s laws. There is no need to destroy more in order to create something.”

Botha placed these elephants on the De Panne Beach for a very specific purpose. De Panne beach is the widest beach in Belgium, a perfect place for family vacations. The sculptures are placed on the beach in front of what was Belgian King Leopold’s (1865-1909) holiday residence. During his reign, Leopold gained control of the Belgian Congo. He purchased much of the land for himself to avoid government control. He plundered the Congo for ivory and later for rubber. He was responsible for the slaughter of thousands of elephants, and his bloody rule also caused the deaths of as many as 10 million Congolese. Botha’s elephants walk away from Belgium into the sea toward Africa.

In the Summer of 2007, this writer walked out of the train station in Antwerp, Belgium, onto Queen Astridplein and encountered six of these elephants. They were an unexpected and a remarkable sight. Nothing prevented viewers from walking around them and touching them. Skillfully crafted, each had a distinct character. They were a reminder of the presence of many magnificent endangered species and our awakening to the climate crisis. Their impact made a lasting impression.

Nomklubulwane is the Zulu Goddess of rain, nature, and fertility. She represents Mother Earth. The Goddess is referred to as “she who chooses the state of an animal.” Botha has said his elephants “represent the world of nature from which we have removed ourselves and for which we increasingly yearn.”  Botha founded the Human Elephant Foundation in 2009. He describes it as “a partnership to catalyze a new creative language that expands environmental awareness and commitment.”  He made 20 elephant sculptures of various recycled materials that have toured the world to raise public awareness.

One of the twenty “Nomklubulwane” (2009) (this one recycled tires) (10’ tall x 18’ long x 6’ wide) traveled around the world. This one now stands outside the historical Museum Beelden ann Zee in the Hague, Belgium. Like all her recycled sisters, she represents the waste humans generate every day, and she inspires the viewer to reflect on the consequences for the environment. “Nomklubulwane” in the Hague is part of an exhibition sponsored by the Rainbow Nation, a South African organization named after Archbishop Desmund Tutu’s term for post-apartheid South Africa beginning in 1994. In a speech one month after his election, President Nelson Mandela stated: “Each of us is as intimately attached to the soil of this beautiful country as are the famous jacaranda trees of Pretoria and mimosa trees of the bushveld–a rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world.”  

The twenty elephants were sent on a world-wide tour from Durban, South Africa, including Mexico, Texas, Arkansas, Chicago, Montana, and Detroit. The tour was sponsored by several organizations in partnership with the Human Elephant Foundation.

Once again, this writer was privileged to encounter a Botha elephant. The Detroit elephant was exhibited on the campus of Marygrove College in Detroit, one of the two colleges where this writer taught art history. The Marygrove art faculty collaborated with several Detroit elementary school art teachers to make small chicken wire elephants from Botha’s model. They were distributed to the schools. The students at each school learned about the elephants, other endangered species, and conservation. Each school class decided how to decorate an elephant. The elephants were then exhibited at the various schools and at the Marygrove college art gallery. The blue Detroit School Elephant (2010) is woven of plastic blue trash bags and is embellishment with beads.

This colorful Detroit School Elephant (2010) has ribbons wrapped around the trunk, and ribbons were used to attach messages and pictures. Some students drew pictures of flowers, trees, and nature. Others wrote messages about the environment. Many of the children made pledges to plant trees or flowers.

 Andries Botha continues to create sculptures to generate awareness of the Earth’s climate crisis.  In 2016, a retrospective exhibition titled Being Here (and there) displayed Botha’s work over a period of 40 years. Botha has been on a personal journey that involved moving from being a private person to one exhibiting in public places and receiving world-wide attention. He comments, “Most of my major works were made as part of my own meditation on self within the frightening, or challenging South African space, exhibited (mostly abroad) as part of larger group show, then crated and stored (hidden again). The complex South African context unashamedly frames the universal human experience, mine as well. It is difficult to imagine expressing myself in any other way.” 

Beverly Hall Smith was a professor of art history for 40 years.  Since retiring with her husband Kurt to Chestertown six years ago, she has taught art history classes at WC-ALL and Chesapeake College’s Institute for Adult Learning.  She is also an artist whose work is sometimes in exhibitions at Chestertown RiverArts and she paints sets for the Garfield Center for the Arts.

Resurrection images showing Christ rising from the tomb were not part of early Christian art since the Gospels do not describe the event. The Resurrection was first represented by the two Greek letters Chi Rho (XP), spelling Christos. The letters intersect each other. The “Resurrection” (c. 350 CE) is a panel from a Roman sarcophagus. The wreath that encircles the letters was a symbol of victory first used by the Greek god Apollo. The Chi Rho and wreath image can be traced to the Roman Emperor Constantine I (280-337 CE), who dreamed that he would win the battle the next day if his soldiers fought with Christian crosses drawn on their shields. He was victorious at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge (312 CE), and he gained sole control of the Roman Empire. Attributing his victory to the Christian cross, he declared the empire was Christian. Constantine was to be called the Holy Roman Emperor, and he adopted this symbol as his standard. To early Christians the wreath symbolized the victory of Christ over death through the Resurrection. It also symbolized the ascendance Christianity. 

In this rare image, the stem of the Rho is extended to create a cross. Sitting on the arms of the cross are two doves, symbols of the Holy Spirit and peace.  Two pieces of cloth wrapped around the bottom of the wreath flutter toward the doves. Beneath the cross are two Roman soldiers. The figure at the right, leaning on his shield, appears to be asleep. At the left, another Roman soldier, hands folded in front of him, looks up at the cross. Corinthian capitals top the columns on either side of the image, and the outspread wings of an eagle, a symbol of Rome, form an arch across the top. The eagle holds the top of the wreath in its beak. The two heads that appear to either side of the eagle’s wings could be angels. However, the rareness of this image at the time makes such an interpretation questionable.

Images of the Resurrection appeared in the Eastern Church before they did in the Roman Catholic Church. It was not until the 12th Century that depictions of Christ emerging from the tomb developed. The “Resurrection” (14th Century, Nottingham, England) (Walters Museum, Baltimore, MD) is carved from alabaster, a stone plentiful in the area of Nottingham. The image was fully developed by that time, and Christ, having thrown off the cover, steps out of the coffin. Anatomy was being explored but was far from conquered, and Christ’s proportions and movement are awkward. The artist has shown that Christ’s ordeal on the cross left his body emaciated, most obvious His shrunken chest. 

Three of the four Roman soldiers left to guard the tomb are asleep, while a fourth awakens to witness the miracle. Christ steps from the coffin, His foot on the sleeping soldier beneath it. Perhaps as the result of the artist’s lack of skill; the risen Christ’s body seems to be weightless. The alabaster from which “Resurrection” is carved has a soft texture; therefore, it was easy to carve. The translucent, pearl-like glow of the surface of alabaster made it a popular choice for religious carvings all over Europe.  

Luca della Robbia (1435-1525) was a Florentine artist famous for his glazed terracotta (cooked earth) sculptures. He developed a colorful reflective glaze fired over terracotta. It was suitable for both indoor and outdoor spaces and for small or large pieces. A well-respected stone sculptor, Luca’s first commission in which he used this new technique were two lunettes “Resurrection” and “Ascension” ordered by the Vestry Board of the Cathedral of Florence. “Resurrection” (1442-1445) was placed over the north door of the New Sacristy. 

The image of the risen Christ hovering on a cloud was first adopted by artists in Italy in the 12th Century.  The lid of the sarcophagus lies to Christ’s right. His right hand raised in blessing. In His left hand He holds a banner, symbolic of victory over death. Five Roman soldiers assigned to keep watch over the tomb are asleep. Trees and flowers on either side of the sarcophagus and Christ are in bloom. Four angels, in praying poses, rejoice as they accompany Christ’s resurrection.  Della Robbia employs only the white and cobalt blue glazes in this work. Later works have an expanded palette of yellow, green, and purple. The della Robbia family of artists kept the technique a well-guarded secret.  

The Council of Trent (1545-1563) decreed the hovering/floating figure of Christ inappropriate and demanded artists return to the image of the risen Christ standing on the ground. Many Italian artists ignored the Council. “Resurrection” (1593) (85.4’’ x 62.9’’), by Italian Baroque artist Annibale Carracci, continued the tradition of the hovering Christ figure. Carracci, in true Baroque fashion, created a highly emotional scene. Christ swirls upward out of the sarcophagus into the golden glow of Heaven. The sense of the miraculous is increased with the sarcophagus’s top remaining in place, the seal unbroken, and the Roman soldier asleep undisturbed on top. 

The sarcophagus is placed on the diagonal, as are most of the people and objects in the composition. Diagonals replace horizontals and verticals of the Renaissance to create a sense of movement, tension, and emotion so important to the Church in the Baroque era. The Protestant Reformation had drawn many people away from the Catholic Church. The Council of Trent concluded that one way to win them back was to present art that made them feel like witnesses to liturgical events. Carracci employed the Baroque technique of chiaroscuro, strong darks and lights, that provides drama. Several witnesses are asleep, but Carracci has added several civilians who react emotionally to the angels and the risen Christ. 

The scene is set as the sun begins to rise in the dark blue sky. Angels and cherubs are lit by the golden glow of Christ. Visible on the palm of Christ’s upraised hand and on his foot are the wounds from the crucifixion, and on His chest the gash delivered by the Roman soldier, Longinus, to make sure He was dead. In His left hand is the unfurling banner of victory topped by a cross. In the heavens, swirling draperies and dark clouds are employed to separate Earth from Heaven. Three uses of red, on figures to the left and right of the sarcophagus and on an angel above, create a triangle to lead the eye upward. Touches of blue also lead the eye through the painting from front to back. Annibale Carracci painted “Resurrection” for his family’s private chapel in Palazzo Luchini, Bologna. 

Beverly Hall Smith was a professor of art history for 40 years.  Since retiring with her husband Kurt to Chestertown six years ago, she has taught art history classes at WC-ALL and Chesapeake College’s Institute for Adult Learning.  She is also an artist whose work is sometimes in exhibitions at Chestertown RiverArts and she paints sets for the Garfield Center for the Arts.