Charles Baudelaire

art

Edouard Manet – Pioneer of Modern Painting

23. January 2023 Harald Sack

On January 23, 1832, French modernist painter Édouard Manet was born. Manet was one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, as well as a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism. “I was painting modern Paris while you were still painting Greek athletes.” – Edouard Manet, c. 1879 Edouard Manet – Family Background and Childhood Édouard Manet was born in the Saint-Germain-des-Prés district of Paris, directly opposite…

art

Honoré Daumier and the Art of Caricature

10. February 2020 Tabea Tietz

On February 10, 1879, French printmaker, caricaturist, painter, and sculptor Honoré Daumier passed away. A rather prolific draftsman, Daumier produced over 500 paintings, 4000 lithographs, 1000 wood engravings, 1000 drawings and 100 sculptures. He was perhaps best known for his caricatures of political figures and satires on the behavior of his countrymen, although posthumously the value of his painting has also been recognized. Honoré Daumier Background Honoré Daumier was born in 1808 in…

poetry

The Expressionistic Power of The Poems of Georg Trakl

3. February 2020 Harald Sack

On February 3, 1887, Austrian poet Georg Trakl was born. Trakl is most probably the most important Austrian poet of Expressionism with strong influences of Symbolism. However, it is not possible to clearly assign his poetic works to one of the almost simultaneous currents of literary history of the 20th century. Verwandlung (2. Fassung) Entlang an Gärten, herbstlich, rotversengt: Hier zeigt im Stillen sich ein tüchtig Leben. Des Menschen Hände tragen braune…

literature

Charles Baudelaire and the Flowers of Evil

9. April 2019 Harald Sack

On April 9, 1821, French poet Charles Baudelaire was born. He produced notable work as an essayist, art critic, and pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe. Baudelaire is most famous work, Les Fleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil), expresses the changing nature of beauty in modern, industrializing Paris during the 19th century. Baudelaire is considered one of the major innovators in French literature. His themes of sex, death, lesbianism, metamorphosis, depression,…

art

Auguste Rodin – Progenitor of Modern Sculpture

12. November 2018 Tabea Tietz

On November 12, 1840, Auguste Rodin, French sculptor and draughtsman, was born. He is widely considered to be the progenitor of modern sculpture. “Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely.” — Auguste Rodin, As quoted in [9] Rodin was born in times of riots and revolutions that spread through Europe. France was hit by this wave of change in particular during the ‘February Revolution‘ in 1848 which…

art

Nadar and How Photography became an Art

5. April 2018 Tabea Tietz

On April 5, 1820, Gaspard-Félix Tournachon better known under his pseudonym Nadar, was born. He is considered to be one of the first grand masters of photography, besides being a caricaturist, a journalist, a novelist, and also a renown balloonist. Early Years Tall, red-haired, with frightened eyes, whimsical to the vagrant youth, Felix Nadar defined himself as “a real daredevil, a jack-of-all-trades, ill-mannered to the point of calling things by their name, and…

art

Gustave Courbet and French Realism

10. June 2017 Harald Sack

On June 10, 1819, French painter Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet was born, who led the Realism movement in 19th-century French painting. Committed to painting only what he could see, he rejected academic convention and the Romanticism of the previous generation of visual artists. An Independent Spirit Gustave Courbet was born in in Ornans, a village in the Franche-Comté in eastern France, to Régis and Sylvie Oudot Courbet, a prosperous farming family with…