Egyptian Artist

Egypt (1902) by the American artist Maxfield Parrish (1870-1966).

Maxfield Parrish was a famous Illustrator of the Art Deco era, who worked regularly for great magazines like Colliers, Scribners or Century. He experimented a lot with new techniques and achieved above all dazzlingly luminous colors. Like many modern artists of that time Parrish renounces to paint a historical illusion. To him history is only a kind of decoration, a fantasy, so he doesn’t pretend to be realistic. His Egyptian artist is much more color, form and elegance.

The Doors of Tamerlane

The Doors of Tamerlane (1872-73) by the Russian painter Vasily Vasilyevich Vereshchagin (1842-1904).

Vereshchagin served in the Russian army in their campaigns in Central Asia and participated in military actions against the Emir of Bukhara and fought with bravery in the defense of Samarkand. During these campaigns he became fascinated by the live and culture of the people there. He painted later many Central Asian warriors in their archaic look. Or he painted like here historical warriors guarding the palace of Tamerlane in Samarkand resembling their actual heirs.

Classical Ideal

View of the Acropolis in Athens (1846) by the German artist Leo von Klenze (1784 - 1864). Klenze was above all a well known architect who studied classical architecture in Greece and Italy and designed public buildings in this tradition in Munich. So he wasn’t very interested in narrating old stories but more to show how his ideal may have looked like.

Patriotic Icon

The Departure of Jeanne d'Arc

Entrance of Jeanne d'Arc at Orleans

These two romantic paintings of the national icon Jeanne d’Arc are by the French painter Jean-Jacques Scherrer (1855-1916). Scherrer did them in the 1870s after the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian war, when he left his beloved Alsace which was lost in the war.
So Jeanne is here a kind of patriotic consolation and hope for a victory in the future.

The Rider on the Pale Horse

Napoleon’s Vision (1910) by the Polish painter Wojciech Kossak (1857-1942). Wojciech Kossak was the son of the famous history painter Juliusz Kossak and became well known for his battle paintings. Despite he preferred normally a more realistic depiction he shows here a symbolic interpretation of Napoleon. Napoleon appears as one of the four
Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the rider on the pale horse whose name was Death!

A Bitter Death

The Last Voyage of Henry Hudson (1881) by the British painter John Collier (1850-1934).

The great English sea explorer and navigator Henry Hudson traveled on his last expedition in 1611 far north in search of the Northwest Passage when his crew mutinied and set him adrift in a small boat with six of his men and his young son. They were never seen or heard of again.
Collier dramatizes the moment when Hudson already knows about his certain death but has also to face this of his confident son.

The Daughters of the Cid

The Daughters of the Cid (1879) by the Spanish painter Ignacio Pinazo y Camarlench (1849-1916).

Legend tells that the daughters of the famous Spanish hero, the Cid, were once expelled by their husbands the princes of Carrión. But there is nothing told of torture, nudeness and so on.

Nevertheless Pinazo y Camarlench used the subject to paint two sweet suffering nude girls during his scholarship in Rome. Interesting is that a generation earlier a painter would have used a classical subject to present his nudes, but now the artist turned more to his own national history, which was invented as well.

Nordic Kitsch

To Valhalla

Wotan takes leave of Brunhild (1892)

These two illustrations by the German painter Konrad Wilhelm Dielitz (1845-1933) are typical for the popular Nordic fantasies at the end of the 19th century so strongly influenced by Wagnerian stage decorations.

Entering Constantinople

The Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II "the Conqueror" entering Constantinople in 1453 by the French painter Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant (1845-1902).

Entrée de Mehmed II dans Constantinople (1876)

Constant where had studied in Paris and was a pupil of Alexandre Cabanel. Later he traveled to Morocco and was strongly influenced by Orientalism. Probably because of that he took here more the romantic eastern perspective than the traditional western.

Folkloristic Varangians

The Vikings who went in the 9th and 10th centuries on the great rivers to Russia were called Varangians and are considered as important co-founders of the later Russian states. Here two interpretations by Russian painters who belonged to the avant-garde of their time.

Guests from Overseas (1899) by Nicholas Roerich (1874–1947).

Volga Song (1906) by Vassily Vassilyevich Kandinsky (1866-1944).

It’s interesting to observe that Roerich as well as Kandinsky abandoned the traditional forms of "realistic" history painting and came to a more ornamental and abstract style. They didn’t pretend to narrate history "as it has been", they show history more as a kind of folkloristic aesthetic heritage.

Perfect Luxury

Preparation in the Coliseum (1912) by the Dutch painter Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836-1912).
This was the last great painting by the famous artist. Above all it strikes by it’s details: the marble, the flowers, the silver, the furs.

Most impressive are probably the fruits and the plates on the marble table. Here a detail.

Sometimes people are quoting artwork like this as "real art" opposite to less well done modern art. But I think it’s more symptomatic of the decline of history painting in general. Almost obsessed Alma-Tadema amasses more and more of these perfectly painted details, probably to ensure the value of the painting to underline his knowledge of the past.

But a well done illusion is not already art. For example Alma-Tadema was very afraid of falsifications and introduced a special identification system together with his signature. Sure it’s an impressive painting and it’s much better than a lot of kitsch in that time, but it hasn’t for example half the power of a good illustration by Howard Pyle.

Merry Old Times

Day in a tavern (1880) by the Spanish painter Luis Ricardo Falero (1851-1896).

Above all Falero became famous for his fantasy paintings of gorgeous nude fairies and witches. Nothing against that, but it indicates that the artist painted at first what could be sold easily.