Icarus (2) old engravings

Below are some Icarus and Daedalus engravings. Engraving is taking out material, from glass, wood, stone so I link it to sculpture, although I agree it is very close to drawing!  Famous artists have depicted Icarus with that technique.
Here is a colored woodcut, made by one of my favourite engraver, Albrecht Dürer, in 1493, showing Icarus and his father flying, just before the fall of Icarus.

Here is an Italian engraving (school of Finiguerra) showing the Cretan labyrinth.
Maso Finiguerra (1426-1464) was an engraver (but also a goldsmith) working in Florence. Giorgio Giorgio Vasari declared that he invented the process of engraving to print paper, but it is now proven that Germany developed it before Italy.

The engraving below was done in 1588 by Hendrick Goltzius, showing the Fall of Icarus. Based on a Cornelis Cornelisz van Haarlem design.

And here is a woodcut made by the German engraver Virgil Solis (1514-1562), to illustrate the Ovide's Metamorphoses book relating the myth of Icarus. He made 183 engravings for Ovid texts. This engraving is visible in Glasgow. He was influenced by the French engraver Bernard Salomon.

 And the Salomon version here from 1557:

In France, we found one engraving from Bernard Picart (1673-1733), who was extremely talented even at a young age, possibly due to his father's skills and good practice at the Royal Academy. Indeed at the age of sixteen he got honors at the Academy of Paris. He established fully in Amsterdam, in 1710, which was a major center for both publishing and printmaking.
This engraving 'The Fall of Icarus' originates from The Temple of the Muses, a portfolio of sixty plates both designed and engraved by Bernard Picart.

Sources :
Wikipedia
http://www.artoftheprint.com/artistpages/picart_bernard_thefallicarus.htm
https://issuu.com/eliczek/docs/daedalus_and_icarus_representations

Icarus (1) Classical sculptures

Since my childhood and the reading of Mythology Tales, followed by classical studies and trips to Greece, Italy and Egypt, I always kept an interest towards mythology.
So today you will see a first post about Icarus & Daedalus sculptures, which will be followed by one or two posts about more recent & contemporary sculptures of them. I will add my version of it as well, done in blue alabaster.

Below is a bas-relief done in the 17th century, with a Cretan labyrinth, visible at the Musée Antoine Vivenel in Compiègne (France).

A short summary of the Legend (re-written/shortened from Wikipedia):

''Icarus' father Deaedalus, a very talented and remarkable Athenian craftsman, built the Labyrinth for King Minos of Crete near his palace at Knossos to imprison the Minotaur, a half-man, half-bull monster born of his wife and the Cretan bull. Minos imprisoned Daedalus himself in the labyrinth because he gave Minos's daughter, Ariadne, a ball of string in order to help Theseus, the enemy of Minos, to survive the Labyrinth and defeat the Minotaur.

Daedalus fashioned two pairs of wings out of wax and feathers for himself and his son. Daedalus tried his wings first, but before trying to escape the island, he warned his son not to fly too close to the sun, nor too close to the sea, but to follow his path of flight. Overcome by the giddiness that flying lent him, Icarus soared into the sky, but in the process he came too close to the sun, which due to the heat melted the wax. Icarus kept flapping his wings but soon realized that he had no feathers left and that he was only flapping his bare arms, and so Icarus fell into the sea in the area which today bears his name, the Icarian sea near Icaria, an island southwest of Samos.''

The fall of Icarus has been sculpted (and painted) numerous times. So I only suggest a very subjective selection of sculptures. Let start with a magnificent white marble sculpture achieved by Paul Ambroise Slodtz (1702-1758), the death of Icarus, displayed in the Louvre museum.

Here is a medallion from the 18th century, showing Icarus fall, the author is unknown. Located in the Louvre Museum collection in Paris. 

Below, the first masterpiece from the sculptor Canova, dated 1779, commissioned by Pisani, procurator of the Venetian republic. This 'group sculpture' in marble shows Icarus' father attaching the wings to his son's arms. This sculpture is visible at the Museo Correr in Venice (Italy).

Not too long after that, the French sculptor Henri Joseph Ruxthiel sculpted the same type of scene, a bas-relief showing Daedalus attaching the wings to Icarus' body. It is located in the Ecole Nationale des Beaux Arts in Paris.

To finish today's post, here is a bronze sculpture from Sir Alfred Gilbert (1854 – 1934), son of professional musicians, who was an English sculptor and also a goldsmith (he was passionate about bronze casting techniques). This is a bronze with a very dark patina, placed on an ebonised wood plinth.

This art piece representing Icarus was commissioned by Frederic Lord Leighton in 1882 after the exhibition of Perseus Arming at the Grosvenor Gallery. Lord Leighton, a painter and a sculptor, was already mentioned in this blog here, and had already painted the subject of Icarus, see below. 

Sources:
Wikipedia
National Gallery of Art

http://lemythedicare.unblog.fr/category/le-mythe-dicare-arts-plastiques/

Abel (2) by Vincent Emile Feugère des Forts

The other Abel sculpture I want to share is from the French sculptor Vincent Emile Feugères des Forts (1825-1889). His 'death of Abel' was first created in plaster, and he showed it at the 'Salon' in 1864, for which he got a medal. You can see the plaster sculpture in Chartres, at the 'Musée des Beaux- Arts'.
He then sculpted it in marble, and presented it two years later. It is a very sensual sculpture of a young man lying on the ground.

The marble sculpture is in Paris, at the Musée d'Orsay. A cast in bronze was reportedly also visible at the Chateau des Forts (Illiers), during the end of the 19th century but I could not find any trace of it.

In March 2007, the Musée d'Orsay, in his 'Correspondance' serie (in which an artist is invited to choose a Museum art piece and to present his work next to it), displayed the contemporary visions of the French artists Pierre & Gilles (previously mentioned in this blog here), who choose 'The death of Abel', and painted him, not once but 3 times, so as to give a 3D vision of this Abel, around his sculpture. An interesting way to see that sculpture with a new eye.

Here are the photographs of their 3 paintings, taken by 'Lunettes Rouges', an art blogger from the French newspaper 'Le Monde'.

Sources :

Wikipedia
Musée d'Orsay

Pierre & Gilles video interview (Italian & French)
The ''Amateur d'Art'' blog of Lunettes Rouges

Abel (1) by Giovanni Dupré

Dupré's family originated initially from France, but settled long time ago in Tuscany (Italy). Giovanni Dupré was born in Siena in 1817, and died in Florence in 1882. His father was already a carver (in wood).

The Abel marble sculpture, seen above and below, was achived in 1842, and greatly contributed to his reputation, as it was purchased by the Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna, Duchess of Leuchtenberg (wife of Maximilian de Beauharnais).  The marble sculpture is visible at the Hermitage Museum.

Abel by Dupré - Marble - Hermitage

And here is the bronze copy, casted later, and now displayed at the Palazzo Pitti in Florence.

Abel by Dupré - Bronze - Palazzo Pitti

Numerous sculptures done by Dupre can be seen in Tuscany, like the Savonarola bust, which is visible in his cell at the monastery of San Marco in Florence. And a museum existed previously, managed by a relative of Dupre (Amalia), located in Fiesole, a wonderful hill near Florence. Unfortunately that museum is now closed. 

 

Dupre wrote his memoirs (Pensieri sull'arte e ricordi autobiografici) in 1879, and it was later translated into English by F. Peruzzi (Edinburgh, 1886). 

You can have access to it easily here with the project Gutenberg. 

Sources

http://www.britannica.com/biography/Giovanni-Dupre

La Fraternité des Peuples, by Jules Dalou

This interesting sculpture made by the French artist Jules Dalou (1838-1902) - his official name was Aimé-Jules Dalou - is visible in Paris (Xème) Town Hall.

Jules Dalou's family were glover artisans. He was raised with the love of the Republican values, and he demonstrated very young great skills in drawing and clay modelling. He became the pupil of the famous French sculptor Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux.

Workshop / Studio of Jules Dalou in 1899

Jules Dalou

This sculpture 'La Fraternité des Peuples' was initially done in plaster, in 1883, and is a huge haut-relief. It is located specifically in the Weddings Room!

Numerous sculptures from Dalou can be seen in Paris, among them 'Le Triomphe de la République' (1899) located on Place de la Nation.

And a monument for Eugène Delacroix (1890) at the Jardins du Luxembourg.

Sources :
Wikipedia

Francesco Jerace - Angels, busts and Beethoven

Seeing recently the angels from the Vatican Museum, I recalled another angel, sculpted by Francesco Jerace, famous Italian sculptor (1853-1937), educated in Naples. He traveled to Holland, where he did some busts. In Italy, among his master pieces,  several sculptures can be seen such as the statue of Vittorio Emmanuele II, Donizetti, Beethoven. He exhibited in Paris, Vienna, Munich, Antwerp, St Petersburg, Buenos Aires, San Francisco, Melbourne, London, Barcelona, Venice and even St Louis and got numerous awards.

Below is a subjective selection of some of  his sculptures.

The child and the angel, marble, 1900, located at the Tomb of the Greek Chapel of Cosenza (Calabria, Italy).

Bust in plaster.

Child. In plaster.

 Beethoven, done in 1895, and located in the cloister of San Pietro a Majella Conservatory (Napoli, Italy).

   

Sources
Famedisud.It

Male art in Vatican (1) : a guided tour

Numerous gay artists have decorated, painted, and sculpted wonderful treasures visible in the Vatican and Vatican Museums. Sometimes their works or inclination had to be discreet, still many expressed a strong eroticism in their male beauties.

A guided tour is now offered by Quikky, an Italian travel agency, called 'the secret gay Vatican tour'. This tour shows several homoerotic pieces, a sort of 'gay art history' of the Vatican. And the tour has got a large success, with articles published in the New York Times, The Guardian, The Huffington Post, Out Traveler, Attitude, Vanity Fair, etc.

Lets have a look at some of these 'gay' treasures.

For paintings, of course there is the Sistine Chapel painted by Michelangelo, and the famous Ignudi.  And also the Last Judgment. 

One of the guide is Tony Adams, who used to be a Catholic priest. He said about that painting : ''And it's erotic art. It tells a spiritual story, but it doesn't deny the physical dimension." Quikky also organizes a tour in Milan, where you can see the Last Supper, by Leonardo Da Vinci. The tours are always given with extensive explanations linked to the 'hidden history' and private life of the artists, their models, or their lovers, and their art pieces of course.

In terms of sculptures observed during the tour, you can see the Apoxyomenos from Lysippus, who was a sculptor for Alexander the Great. Here with the fig leaf, which was added later on.

The Belvedere Apollo. Some considered it 'the sublime expression of Greek art'.

The busts from Hadrian, and from his lover Antinous.

 

The Laocoon and his sons. A famous and large sculpture, attributed to sculptors from the island of Rhodes. And a very old sculpture too, as it was discovered in 1505 in Rome.

St Sebastien, icon of many gays (see our previous posts on St Sebastien here).

And of course you can see many more sculptures, like angels, etc.

Sources:
The Guardian article
Quikky website
Yahoo style