Tea at Trianon: Behind the Artist: Albrecht Dürer

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, March 8, 2018

Behind the Artist: Albrecht Dürer

From Park West Gallery:

Born in 1471 in Nuremberg, Germany, Dürer found an interest in art at an early age under the tutelage of his father, a successful goldsmith. He later apprenticed with Michael Wolgemut, a popular artist who ran a workshop specializing in the production of woodcut illustrations for various books and publications.

Following his apprenticeship, Dürer traveled extensively throughout Europe. He first visited Italy in 1494, where he was greatly influenced by the artistic works of the Italian Renaissance, particularly the naturalistic ways artists portrayed proportion, perspective, and human anatomy.

Dürer eventually returned to Nuremberg where he opened a workshop. Just a few years later, Dürer completed an original woodcut series that would bring him his first critical and popular success—1498’s “The Apocalypse.” It was quickly followed by two other acclaimed series—“The Large Passion” (1497-1500) and “Life of the Virgin” (c. 1501-1510)—all of which were heavily collected, spreading Dürer’s reputation as a talented artist. (Read more.)