Plum Brandy -- c. 1877 -- National gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

Edouard Manet

A favourite picture of mine. I've probably posted it before, but no matter, because I never tire of it, and I hope that you don't either.

#Art #FrenchArt #19thCenturyArt #Manet #PlumBrandy

Daniel Urrabieta Vierge -- Woman Smoking a Cigarette -- Etching -- 1888 -- Art Institute of Chicago -- Public Domain

#Art #Print #Etching #Smoking #Cigarette #FrenchArt #19thCenturyArt

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Nicholas Poussin -- Rinaldo and Armida -- 1628/30 -- Dulwich Picture Gallery

>> The subject of the painting comes from the 1581 epic poem Gerusalemme Liberata by Torquato Tasso (1544-95). The poem is set at the time of the First Crusade, at the end of the eleventh century, and follows the tale of fighting Christians and Saracens. In this scene, the Saracen sorceress Armida moves to kill the sleeping crusader Rinaldo. Just as she is about to strike, however, she falls in love with the Christian hero. << (Dulwich Picture Gallery)

I've been engrossed in Richard Wollheim's account of this picture in "Painting as an Art". I won't attempt here to summarize his argument, but will instead jump to his conclusion, "that for Poussin the victory of reason over concupiscence is achieved through reason borrowing the resources of concupiscence. For him the defeat of desire by reason is experienced as the victory of one kind of desire over another."

This understanding of the picture is close to my own approach to thinking about ethics and value, one that owes much to Hume's description of reason as a slave to the passions. Wollheim, however, does not present an argument about metaethics; instead, he invites us join with him at looking deeply into the picture and follow his argument about how we see a picture, how a knowledge of other pictures might help us better understand this one, and how the picture can be both informed by an understanding of psychology and also enrich that understanding.

Some of Wollheim's claims in "Painting as an Art" strike me as tenuously supported conjectures, but his attention to the paintings themselves always excites me. His writing makes me long to go back to the pictures themselves, this stimulus being a sign of good writing about art.

I've written about a closely related scene from Tasso before as represented by....

#Art #Painting #NicholasPoussin #FrenchArt #17thCenturyArt #RinaldoAndArmida #Tasso #GerusalemmeLiberata #RichardWollheim #PaintingAsAnArt

Tribute to César Baldaccini (1 January 1921 – 6 December 1998), known as César, a French sculptor born in Marseille and deceased in Paris. A major figure of the Nouveaux Réalistes movement, he transformed modern sculpture through his compressions, expansions, and human imprints. He is also the creator of the bronze César Award trophy, linking contemporary art and French cinema.

#César
#CésarBaldaccini
#NouveauxRéalistes
#ContemporaryArt
#Sculpture
#FrenchArt
#FrenchCinema
#Tribute

Frédéric Bazille -- Pêcheur à l'épervier --1868

Read more in the
online catalogue raisonné entry.

https://www.bazille-catalogue.com/fisherman-with-a-net-45.html

#Art #FrenchArt #Painting #19thCenturyArt #Bazille #Male #Nude #Man

Léon BONNAT

Bayonne 1833 - 1922 Monchy-Saint-Éloi

Portrait of Loulia Cahen d’Anvers, née Rosalie Louise Loulia Warschawsky -- 1891 -- Oil on Canvas

This portrait hangs in the newly reopened Musée Bonnat-Helleu in Bayonne , France.

I'd love to go there.

#MuséeBonnatHelleu #LéonBonnat
# LouliaCahenDAnvers #Portrait #Art #Painting #FrenchArt #19thCentury