Posted on 03/04/2020 3:03:32 PM PST by mairdie
George Romney was a British portrait artist (1734-1802). The music is Beethoven's Symphony 2, D-major, Opus-36, 2nd movement, Larghetto. Performed by the Berliner Philharmoniker, Karajan conducting. Roughly chronological.
People kept trying to help her out, but she wouldn’t lower her standard of living and was constantly in major debt.
Doing it yourself is usually the best way to learn, especially when you have enough time to learn from any “mistakes”.
He's good with an Etch-a-Sketch.
I just asked my husband to screen That Hamilton Women for us tonight with the equally gorgeous Vivian Leigh. Yes she had many faults but has provided us with so much beauty.
Please do a video of the 1rst movement of this youthful Schubert Symphony - another work in transition from early style to his mature Romanticism. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdLuvGsjwlA
Magnificent! Thanks for posting.
Turner was the master. As a composer I did a suite of music based on Turners paintings. Can give a link to the music if anyone intrested
I figured as much because you know whereof you speak. My wife is an art major but I am not so much!
Beautiful blend of music and portraiture. I felt myself transported back to the late 18th century.
Delecto’s great grandfather or something? Who cares?
>>Can give a link to the music if anyone intrested
YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Best thing in the world are things created by Freepers. WONDERFUL!
WAY WAY WAY FAR Back. Let me think. My ancestors in the mid 1700s are my 5th and 6th great grandparents. So they wouldn’t even recognize the wretch today.
Thank you.
What hits me and hurts is that he makes me connect with all of these people. I feel as though I’ve just met a generation and they’re all dead and I can never talk to them.
I love that movie so much!
Thank you so much for this!
You are reducing my ignorance one video at a time. Ha.
I’ve never heard of this guy as far as I can recall. (G Romney, not Beethoven. B I’ve heard of!) I’m undecided on whether I like him as an artist. I may have to watch a few more times. What I did find interesting was the variety of poses and backgrounds and props. Some seemed especially odd and I kind of liked the “oddness”. Like the guy with some of his buttons unbuttoned. I like that the portraits weren’t “formulaic”.
bump
>>I like that the portraits weren’t “formulaic”.
Absolutely! There are wrinkles in the pants. The subject leans on anything within reach. Ugly people stay ugly but seem mostly rather pleasant. The background is detailed. The background is what will eventually become impressionist art.
He HIRED! another artist to do horses in his later portraits, though I think his early study was fine. He did the dogs himself. He had a spaniel in his studio and if someone didn’t bring their own dog, they could add his spaniel as they could add a piece of sculpture that keeps popping up. And who doesn’t love someone who loves dogs?
Sometimes his faces are perfect. Sometimes it feels like someone needs to teach him perspective. On the other hand, he studies in Rome and has had long looks at mannerism which, almost like Picasso, believes bodies can be creatively depicted.
And then he paints Emma Hart/Hamilton and you see real love shouting out from the canvas.
By the way, like someone with curly hair who wants straight hair, he is bored to death with portrait painting and always wants to be an historical scene painter, though he’s really not up to it. When he becomes ill in later life, he retires to do that. And dies insane. Wish someone wrote more about that.
So glad you’re having fun. I am!
A painter unknown to me, thank you very much.
EXACTLY the reason I did him first rather than Lawrence or Gainsborough. I collected a set of 4 portrait artists of the same time period, then spent time looking through all of them multiple times until one turned me on, and that turned out to be Romney. I “connected” better with the people in his portraits. I’m thinking of trying Lawrence next as the contrast. He’s the better painter and was president of the academy, where Romney knew better than to even APPLY for the academy.
I really enjoyed this selection of portraits. This painter with the retroactively unfortunate name certainly had a great gift for drapery, draftsmanship and form; a little less so for composition., but not bad.
I loved how he was unstinting about depicting some flaws, like poochy tummies on many of the men, but pushed his highlighting of other things like female complexions, buzoomies and gauzy white garments to an almost chiaroscuro ideal, bordering on abstraction. The mother and child portraits were affectively lovely.
I also enjoyed the range of styles, from tight to sketchy and dauby in what I assume is some of the later finished work.
He looked rather ghey in his young self-portrait, as did many of his male subjects; but it was an ambiguously fashionable era, so who knows? (To quote Fred Armisen quoting Joy Behar, “So what, who cares?”) He looked more solid in his older selfie.
Lovely presentation, mairdie, thanks.
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