Masturbating Venuses by Albert Marquet

These simple but sensual  line drawings are by the French artist Albert Marquet (1875-1947), so they entered the public domain yesterday.  Born in Bordeaux, he moved to Paris at the age of fifteen, to attend the Ecole des Arts Decoratifs, where he was a roommate of Matisse, with whom he became a lifelong friend.   

Although usually called a Fauvist. his paintings were less violent in colour and more naturalistic.  Based in Paris, he travelled widely to North Africa, Italy and Northern Europe, painting his favourite subject; rivers and coastal scenes.

He also painted some nudes and produced a number of erotic sketches, such as these masturbating girls and the girl spreading her thighs.  We will look at his other erotic work on The Seduction of Venus another time.

In the top picture and the one immediately above, Marquet's lady is well into the throes of passion here, her delicate frigging causing her to cover her eyes in ecstasy.

Festive Venus by Raphael Kirchner

Well, it is the first Christmas for my reincarnated Venus Observations blog, so it is back just over a hundred years for this festive filly with her load of mistletoe by Austrian artist Raphael Kirchner (1876-1917).  Kirchner produced some of the earliest pin up paintings, many of which were produced as postcards and were popular with troops during the Great War.  He was a direct influence on Alberto Vargas who went on to produce famous pinups for Esquire and Playboy.

I will look at some more of Kirchner's elegant ladies in the new year.  Thanks to all those readers who have followed me here and I hope you all get some Christmas kisses!

Swedish Venus: Model Writing Postcards by Carl Larsson

Model Writing Postcards (1906)

Here is a lovely watercolour by influential Swedish painter Carl Larsson.  It is a lovely image of a model taking a break from posing to write some postcards (the emails of the day - Europeans sent huge numbers of postcards to each other at the beginning of the twentieth century).

The Model on the Table (1906)

In the foreground can be seen another painting by Larsson, Model on the Table, which depicts a real (perhaps the same) model posing on a table with a couple of mannequins.

Reclining Nude on Blue Sofa

Carl Larsson (1853-1919) was brought up in a very poor family and his scholarship from a special poor school to the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts provided him with a real escape from an unsettled and unpleasant childhood.  While studying in Stockholm he also worked as a caricaturist and graphic artist for several  Swedish newspapers, earning enough to support his destitute parents.

Nude with grapes (1872)

Larsson had already developed a facility for drawing the nude and earned a medal from the Academy for his nude drawing.  This example, done when he was nineteen, shows an idealised classical style, so different from his later, realistic, illustrative style.

Karin Larsson

After several years working as a book illustrator, he moved to Paris but did not get on with the French artistic scene. In 1882 he moved to Grez-sur-Loing, a Scandinavian artists' colony outside Paris and developed his distinctive watercolour style.  It was there that he met his future wife, another artist,  the beautiful and talented, Karin Bergöö. They got married the following year and their first child (of eight) was born the year after that.  

Leontine, Bare Backed Sitting in the Studio (1902)

Leontine standing (1902)

They returned to Sweden and, luckily for them, Karin's father was a wealthy businessman who bought them a cottage in the village of Sundborn, where her father had been born..  The couple decorated it themselves in a mixture of British Arts and Crafts style (they subscribed to The Studio, the movement's magazine), Swedish folk design and Japanese style, influenced by the popular prints of the time.  The biggest influence, however, was Karin who employed her artistic skills to design and weave fabrics for the house.  She also designed furniture, working with local craftsmen.  Eschewing the usual gloomy, dark Swedish style of the time they created a home full of light and colour.  

Rose and Back

Lisa with Flower Pot (1910)

My Wife

The English style, wild garden was becoming popular in Sweden at the time and gardens became places to relax and enjoy the outdoors rather than just somewhere to grow vegetables. Karin loved her garden and her flower arrangements often appear in Carl's paintings (as in the right of Model Reading Postcards).

When the Children Have Gone to Bed (1895)

It was also Karin who gave Carl the idea of doing paintings of the interiors of their house and these pictures were released as prints and in books.  The first of these, Ett Hem (A home), published in 1898, is still in print today. It was the technological developments in colour printing, from 1890, which enabled Larsson to produce prints and albums of his work, enhancing his reputation, considerably.

In 1909 a German publisher produced another book of his work called Das Haus in der Sonne featuring Larsson's drawings and paintings of  their house.  It sold 40,000 copies in three months and since then has been reprinted more than 40 times.  It showcased the Larsson's ideas about interior decoration to the world.

Larsson's House in the Sun

The Larsson's house, Lilla Hyttnäs, today (the part of the house in the painting is at the far left)

This book created the new 'Swedish Style' which has been so influential on interior designers ever since.  Every time you see painted old furniture or blue or green pastel painted wooden walls in someone's house it is because of the Larssons. The Larsson's house became so famous that people came to visit it as tourists.  Their home, preserved as it was, in still owned by their family and is now open to the public in the summer.  It receives about 60,000 visitors a year.

Girl crouching (1911)

Apart from his nudes and interior studies Larsson was a wonderful portraitist, often using his children as subjects.  He also produced book illustrations, landscapes and other pictures of the village and countryside where he lived.

Midvinterblot (1914)

Despite the popularity of his domestic interior watercolours, Larsson believed that his own best works were his large murals.  He had produced three of these for the Swedish National Museum's interior but the final one, which he considered his masterpiece, Midvinterblot (Midsummer Sacrifice), was rejected by the museum's board.  The controversy split the Swedish art establishment and even the government became involved.  The rejection of the picture hit Larsson hard and he suffered from bouts of depression.  The historical subject was considered not appropriate for Sweden's new modern view of itself at the time. Eventually, it was sold to a Japanese collector in 1987 who then lent it back to the National Museum where it became rehabilitated in the eyes of the Swedish public.  Eventually, the museum raised the money to buy it back and it was installed in the place it was designed for.

During the time he was painting Midvinterblot, Larsson started to suffer with eye problems and headaches. He concentrated on finishing his memoirs and died in February 1919.  In his posthumously published memoirs he acknowledged that his domestic pictures were really the ultimate expression of his personality and his love for his family.

In front of the Mirror (1898)

The copyright on his published pictures expired in 1969 and from this point his pictures were distributed widely, building his and Karin's reputation and that of Swedish Style, to where it is today.  Now you can buy Carl Larsson colouring books and calendars.

Carl and Karin Larsson

Three vintage Venuses

Although I am continuing to repopulate the new Venus Observations with recovered art and early photography posts from the past, it is nice to be able to pop in a new one once in a while.  This photograph of three enticing ladies probably dates back to around the mid nineteen twenties, when short hair became the fashion (although in the early part of the decade women risked social opprobrium by cutting their hair).  The middle lady has her fingers under the other girls' groins but there is no contact.

Venus by the sea: In the Water by Eugene de Blaas

 In the Water (1914)

Here is a nice one-off nude by Italian-born, Austrian painter Eugene de Blaas (1843-1932).  Blaas was born in Albano, near Rome, but spent much of his life in Venice where his father, who was also his original art tutor, was a professor at the Venice Academy.  Tourists visiting Venice wanted pictures of Venetian life and Blaas soon found a niche supplying pictures of gondoliers, fishermen and, above all, Venetian beauties in traditional costume.  His work was so popular in England two of the top art dealers of the time battled it out to represent him.

The Water Carrier (1908)

Sadly, this elegant nude, treading carefully in the shallows as a small shoal of fish darts past her legs, seems to be the only one that he did.  In all his other paintings, despite often displaying a smouldering Italian sensuality, his girls are clothed.  A lost opportunity, but perhaps for Blaas, a very commercial artist, sex didn't sell at the beginning of the last century.'

Young Italian Beauty (1932)

Japanese Venus: Woman after the bath by Goyo Hashiguchi

Woman after the bath (1920)

If there is one artist who has been more influential than any other on Agent Triple P’s pen and ink figure work it is Goyo Hashiguchi (1880-1921). His restrained use of colour as a way to give his delicate line figures a solid presence on the paper are a model for subtle printmaking and demonstrate the extraordinary lengths he went to to produce the highest quality image.

Woman washing her face (1920)

Calling himself Goyo (real name Hashiguchi Kiyoshi), he was the son of a samurai from Kagoshima. His father taught him traditional Kano painting but eventually Goyo went to Tokyo where he studied Western art and graduated top of the class at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts in 1905.  After graduating he was really more of a scholar than a practising artist although he did some book illustration. In 1911 he got his first big break: to design a ukiyo-e style poster for the Mitsukoshi department store.

Bathing (1915)

He came to the attention of publisher Watanabe Shozaburo who was looking for artists with European training to produce what he called shin hanga (new prints). These were modern prints but produced in a traditional style aimed at the valuable new Western market. Watanabe had also adoped the fairly new tradition from the west of limited edition numbered prints which could realise higher prices than the traditional non-limited edition. Watanbe realised that Goyo, with his Western style training, could be a valuable addition to his team. Goyo did produce one print, a masterpiece named Bathing (1915), for Watanabe but he was a perfectionist and felt that Watanabe’s standard of printmaking wasn’t high enough and never worked with him again. Also, having been trained in the Western method, Goyo may have appreciated more independence than Watanabe’s set up gave him; he was not the only artist to leave the publisher’s stable.

Nevertheless, his experience with Watanabe had got him interested in printmaking and he went on to supervise the production of a 12 volume book of reproductions of classical Japanese ukiyo-e prints which increased his knowledge of the printmaking process. From 1918, until his death at the age of 41, he produced 13 more prints, mainly of women (bijing-a).

Woman at a hot spring hotel (1921)

Goyo suffered from ill health most of his life (he had beri beri) and died of meningitis. Nevertheless, he managed to supervise his last print, Woman at a hot spring hotel (1921) from his death bed. His total output was only 14 prints (four landscapes, one picture of ducks and nine of beautiful women) during his lifetime, although after his death his brother and nephew worked to produce more prints from his sketches. As a result of his low output and small print runs (often less than 80 copies) his prints fetch fabulous sums these days.

Beautiful woman (1918)

Nudes had never really been a feature of Japanese art and even the most erotic Shunga art, produced by masters such as Utamaro or Hokusai (with the exception, which we will explore another time, of fisher girls), featured women who are invariably dressed. Goyo, however had learned to draw from life (as with this graphite drawing above) and his pictures can be regarded as the first successful nudes in Japanese art; perfectly pulling together the European and classical Japanese traditions.

Woman washing her hair (1920)

In our final picture, Goyo has sensuously depicted the woman’s long hair; something that would only usually be seen by a member of her family, as hair was always worn up in several buns at this time.  It adds an intimate and slightly voyeuristic quality to this beautifully composed print.