George Minne (1866-1941): Bronze Edition of "Adolescent I" (Nude Male Youth)

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(Photograph of the Artist: Second from the left)

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A Berlin Gallery has recently listed a bronze edition of George Minne's "Adolescent I" on eBay Germany. The asking price is in the five figure range so that puts me at the back of the bus. George Mimme (1866-1941) was a very well listed Belgian sculptor who was famous for his Symbolist monumental works. He studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent and then at the Academie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. He established his own bronze foundry in 1910. His most famous works were a series of kneeling youths and the marble sculpture of the below subject, which I believe is in the Getty Museum. Like other Symbolist's, he favored exploring human spiritual life and inner conflict. He studied architecture before going on to painting and sculpture. Minne's works overall contain a surprisingly few motifs which he explored over and over.

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Here are just a very few of the many examples of his works:

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Artur Volkmann (1851-1941): Pen and Ink Drawing - Nude Men on Horseback , 1900

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A seller on eBay Germany has posted this pen and ink drawing by Artur Volkmann (1851-1941). When I first pulled the eBay page up, I sat here scratching my head as what the subject matter might have been then I noticed the name of the artist. Volkmann is known for his male nudes and equestrian subject matter, his most famous (below) "Youth and Horse." He began his career under the tutelage of Ernst Julius Hahnel in sculpture at the Dresden Art academy from 1868 to 1873. A lot of his works involved harmonizing ideas of the ancient world and panentheism (God-is-in-everything). No doubt he was well rounded in drawing, the graphic arts, painting, and sculpture.
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Samples of Volkmann's works:

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Youth and Horse

Novel

Pan with goats

Book Review: Alla Prima by Richard Schmid

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Title: Alla Prima, Everything I Know About Painting
Author: Richard Schmid
Publisher: Stove Prairie Press, LLC
South Burlington, VT
ISBN: 0-9662117-3-1
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In the last post I threw out a painting term, all prima, that brought to mind one of my favorite painting instruction books: Alla Prima by Richard Schmid. Alla prima or au premier coup means "direct painting" or "painting from life." Alla prima is, according to Schmid, the ultimate in representational art because it is "about real experience and demands the highest level of skill." (Apply this to 19th century academic training and you have the very definition of "the Academie."). If you would like to learn more about all prima painting techniques, then I highly recommend this book. Schmidt covers the entire subject matter in terms of his own experience and passes along some very valuable lessions without making them "rules" to live by. The volume is a bit on the expensive side but worth the investment. Available from Amazon.com.

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Here are just a few of the many color illustrations in this book:
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W. Leibl - Wilhelm Maria Hubertus Leibl (1844-1900): "Bergarbeiter" - The Miner, ca, 1900

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Portraits of the artist
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A seller on eBay Austria has recently listed a beautiful painting of a semi-nude male. The seller in his description was sort of non-committal in his attribution of the artist and simply listed it as "W. Leibl," as signed, then guessed at the date as "1910." A casual comparison of that signature and painting technique would strongly suggest Wilhelm Leibl (1844-1900). I tend to believe Wilhelm Leibl is the author of this fine painting. Just make a few comparisons yourself. Wilhelm Leibl began his artistic training with Hermann Becker (1817-1885), a local Cologne history painter and writer. He entered the Munich Academy in 1864, studying with several accomplished artists including Carl Theodor von Piloty. He set up a studio in 1869 and about the same time, Gustave Courbet visited Munich to exhibit his work, which biographers suggest made a considerable impression on many of the local artists by his demonstrations on alla prima painting techniques, that is, painting directly from nature. Leibl's painting techniques up to this point in his career, reflected his admiration for the Dutch Old Masters. After his exposure to Courbet, his painting style became looser and his subjects were rendered with thickly brushed paint against dark backgrounds. Later in 1869, Leibl went to Paris for a nine month stay during which time he met Edouard Manet. Throughout his painting career, his paintings united the disciplined drawing he adoped in the 1880's with a new delicacy and luminosity. Leibl painted without a preliminary drawing, setting to work directly with color, an approach to painting that has its parallels in Impressionism. He was committed to the representation of reality as the eye sees it. Leibl tended to think of his pictures in terms of "form" rather than "content." This can be illustrated below in the striking use of the sitters hands to add to the expression of the sitter's character and mood, a device he used often in his later works.
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Here is just a small sampling of Leibl's beautiful works:

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Amedee Felix Barthelemy Geille (1802-1843): Male Nude

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Here is another nice 19th century academic study, an engraving this time. It is a product of Amedee Felix Barthelemy Geille (1802-1843) and depicts a male model leaning against several modeling blocks. Geille took the Grand Prix de Rome in 1832 and is famous for his illustrations of the collection of the "Historic Galleries of Versailles."
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Lithograph from the Paris Salon of 1840 after a statue by Pierre-Charles Simart (1806-1857)

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Pierre-Charles Simart (1806-1857) "Oreste refugie a l'autel de Pallas"

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Addendum: I did a little more research on the original sculpture and found several illustrations of the sculpture which is now in the Musee des Beaux-Arts du Roven in France (see illustrations above).

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I found this nice lithograph at auction this morning. The illustration has been converted to grey scale (above) to see the printing better, and in it's original listed form below. It is, I believe, from my translation of the French, a copy of a drawing by Flandrin after a statue of SIMART. The "Simart" in question is Pierre-Charles Simart (1806-1857), a famous French sculptor who probably executed the subject matter of this lithograph in marble. Simart was elected a member of the Academe of Beaux-arts in 1852. Still, a beautifully executed work.
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Theodor Krause (1868 - 1956): Discus Thrower - From The Antique - 1885

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This beautiful example of academic drawing from the antique is currently running on eBay Germany. Theodor Krause (1868-1956) was a German painter and draftsman who was active in Dresden for many years. I recently bought another drawing of a standing nude male youth from a German auction house and posted it several weeks ago.
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