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Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Philip Absolon (1960– )
| Philip Absolon | |
 Philip Absolon | |
| Born | 24 November 1960 Erith, Kent, England |
| Nationality | British |
| Field | Painting |
| Training | Medway College of Art and Design, Epsom College of Art |
| Movement | Stuckism |
| Works | Job Club |
Philip Absolon (born 24 November 1960) is an British artist and a founder member of the Stuckists art group, exhibiting in the group shows, including The Stuckists Punk Victorian at the Walker Art Gallery in 2004, and taking part in Stuckist demonstrations against the Turner Prize. He has had long-term unemployment problems, depicted in his work with imagery of skeletons; his other main subject is cats, which he studies and depicts in motion.
Life and career
Philip Absolon was born in Erith, South East London, and is the great-great-grandson of the Victorian watercolourist John Absolon (1815-1895). He attended Rede School, Strood, and Educational Special Unit, Chatham (he is dyslexic). 1977–79, he was at the Foundation Art course, Medway College of Art and Design, along with future Stuckist artists, Billy Childish and Bill Lewis, who in 1979 formed The Medway Poets performance group with Charles Thomson and three others. This group—with which Absolon read, although he was not a formal member- was the core of the Stuckism art group founded in 1999.
1979–82, he did a Diploma course at Epsom College of Art, where his paintings were thrown in a skip on the orders of the Principal. 1982–93 was spent either unemployed or in job training schemes for computer or office work. In 1984, his application for the Slade School of Art was rejected, and so in 1987 was his application for the Royal College of Art, to which he submitted pictures of cats. 1993–94, he was on a Fine Art Access course at Maidstone College of Art, then accepted for a part-time degree, which financial constraints made him unable to accept; he was then awarded a grant for a full-time course, but his application was rejected. In 1999, he was accepted for an NVQ in horse care, which he could not finish as he had to undertake a mandatory Government Project Work placement. Childish provided a source of support during Absolon's difficult times.
In 1999, he was one of the founder members of the Stuckists art group, launched by Thomson and Childish; he has regularly exhibited in Stuckist shows, and also participated in most of the group's demonstrations against the Turner Prize at Tate Britain. 2003–04, he was Artist-in-Residence at the Rochester Adult Education Centre, Kent. In 2004, he was one of the fourteen "founder and featured" artists in The Stuckists Punk Victorian held at the Walker Art Gallery for the Liverpool Biennial.
John Davies, a Liverpool Church of England vicar chose Absolon's Job Club as his picture of the month in February 2005, saying, "Of all the striking paintings in The Stuckists: Punk Victorian exhibition ... Philip Absolon's hit me hardest. I get the impression a lot of Stuckists are well used to life on society's fringes, on the receiving end of welfare-to-work policies which just don't work for many. Absolon's pictures - many in this style and on this theme - seem born out of the awful experience of sitting in places like Job Clubs and feeling, well, skeletal, living dead."
In July 2006, he was selected by Matt Price for the Saatchi Gallery Your Gallery: Critic's Choice. Absolon was one of the ten "leading Stuckists" in the Go West exhibition at Spectrum London gallery in October 2006.
He travels Europe by train in order to visit art museums and palaces. He has a strong interest in the German Hohenzollern Empire (1871–1918), and likes The Arts Club in Mayfair, London. He lives in a cottage in Norfolk, England.
Art
Absolon has drawn regularly since he was sixteen, and still attends courses on sculpture, life drawing and painting. He always carries a sketch book with him, drawing, for example, customers in cafées. He studies cats in movement and draws them. Cats and skeletons are the main subjects in his work, which can be compared to Outsider Art, but has much greater depth.
His working method is to enlarge the original drawing on a photocopier and then trace it onto the canvas with dressmaker's tracing paper. He usually paints 8 – 10 at night; a painting taking up to a month to complete.
He described the origin of his painting,
Writing
His poetry collection, Illicit Meeting, was published in 1994, and Fear of Desire in 1999.
Gallery
 Cat Cleaning |  College Canteen |
 See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil |  Turner Prize |
 Breakdown |  Fit for Work | ||
 Cassie Thinking About Cubism |  Cat Cleaning and Dead Mouse |
Nikolaj Abraham Abildgaard (1743–1809)
Nikolaj Abraham Abildgaard (September 11, 1743 – June 4, 1809), Danish artist, was born in Copenhagen, the son of Sren Abildgaard, an antiquarian draughtsman of repute, and Anne Margrethe
Engraving from 1868, showing Nikolaj
Abildgaard
Life
He trained under a painting master before coming to the new Royal Danish Academy of Art (Det Kongelige Danske Kunstakademi) in Copenhagen, studying under Johan Edvard Mandelberg and Johannes Wiedewelt.
He won medallions at the Academy from 1764 to 1767. The large gold medallion from the Academy won in 1767 included a travel stipend, which he waited five years to receive.
He assisted Professor Mandelberg of the Academy as an apprentice ca. 1769, painting decorations for the royal palace at Fredensborg. These paintings are classical, influenced by French classical artists such as Claude Lorrain and Nicolas Poussin. Mandelberg had studied in Paris under François Boucher.
Student travels
Although artists of that time typically traveled to Paris for further study, he chose to travel to Rome, where he stayed during the years 1772-1777. He took a side trip to Naples in 1776 with Jens Juel. His ambitions lay in the genre of history painting. While in Rome he studied Annibale Carracci's frescoes at the Palazzo Farnese, and the paintings of Rafael, Titian and Michaelangelo. In addition he studied various other artistic disciplines (sculpture, architecture, decoration, wall paintings), and developed his knowledge of mythology, antiquities, anatomy and perspective.
In the company of Swedish sculptor Johan Tobias Sergel and painter Johann Heinrich Füssli he began to move away from the classicism he learned at the Academy. He developed an appreciation for the literature of Shakespeare, Homer and Ossian, legendary Gaelic poet. He worked with themes from Greek, as well as Norse mythology which placed him at the forefront of Nordic romanticism.
He left Rome in June 1777 with the hope of becoming professor at the Academy in Copenhagen. He stopped for a stay in Paris, and arrived in Denmark in December of the same year.
An Academic and artistic career
His admission into the Academy went quickly, and he was named professor in 1778.
He was an Academic painter of the Neoclassical school. During the years 1777-1794 he was very productive as an artist, in addition to his role at the school, where he taught painting, mythology and anatomy. He produced not only monumental works, but also occasionally smaller pieces, such as vignettes and illustrations. He designed old Norse costumes. He illustrated the works of Socrates and Ossian. Additionally he did some sculpting, etching and authoring. He was interested in all manner of mythological, biblical and literary allusion.
Among his students were Asmus Jacob Carstens, sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen and painters J. L. Lund and Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg, both of which took over his vacated professorship at the Academy after his death. Eckersberg, as professor at the same Academy went on to lay the foundation for the period of art known as the Golden Age of Danish Painting, and is referred to as the "Father of Danish painting."
Around 1780 as royal historical painter, he was requested by the Danish government to paint large monumental pieces, a history of Denmark, to decorate the entirety of the Knights' Room (Riddersal) at Christiansborg Palace. It was a prestigious and lucrative assignment. The paintings combined not only historical depictions, but also allegorical and mythological elements that glorified and flattered the government. The door pieces depicted in allegory four historical periods in Europe's history. Abilgaard used pictorial allegory like ideograms, to communicate ideas and transmit messages through symbols to a refined public that was initiated into this form of symbology. Abildgaard's professor Johan Edvard Mandelberg supplied the decorations to the room.
He married Anna Maria Oxholm on March 23, 1781.
He made a failed attempt to be elected to the post of Academy Director in 1787. He was unanimously elected to the post two years later, serving as Director during the period 1789-1791. He had the reputation for being a tyrant, and for taking as many of the academy's monumental assignments as possible to himself.
He was also known as a religious freethinker and an advocate of political reform. In spite of his service to (and in his artwork the glorification of) the government, he was hardly a great supporter of the monarchy, and of the state church. He supported the emancipation of the farmers, and participated in the collection of monies for the Freedom Monument (Frihedsstøtten) in 1792. He contributed a design for the monument, as well as for two of the reliefs at its base. He came into conflicts with the authorities often at the end of the 1700s with his published words and satirical drawings. He was excited by the French Revolution, and in 1789-1790 he tried to give place for these revolutionary ideals in the Knights' Room at Christiansborg Palace. The King rejected his design.
His showdowns with the establishment culminated in 1794 when his allegorical painting "Jupiter weighs the fate of mankind" (Jupiter vejer menneskenes skæbne) was exhibited at the Salon. He was politically isolated, cut out of the public debate by censors, and he never again received any official assignment.
The fire at Christiansborg Palace in February 1794, also had a dampening effect on his career when 7 of the 10 monumental paintings he had already delivered to the grandiose project were destroyed. The project was stopped, and so were his earnings.
However devastating, the fire also brought him new decorative assignments, and also the opportunity to practice as an architect. He headed the decoration of the Levetzau Palace, now known as Christian VIII's Palace, at Amalienborg (1794-1798), the recently occupied home of King Christian VII of Denmark's half-brother Frederik. His young friend Bertel Thorvaldsen headed the sculptural efforts.
He also worked up plans for the rebuilding of Christiansborg Palace, but the assignment did not go to him.
At the start of the 1800s his interest in painting was restored, when he painted four scenes from Tenet's comedy "Andria". This coincided with his second marriage in 1803 to Juliane Marie Ottesen, which was a very happy situation for the aging Abilgaard. The marriage resulted in two sons and a daughter. He bought a lovely little place in the country for the family, Spurveskjul (Sparrow hideaway).
He was once again selected to serve as the Academy's Director from 1801 until his death in 1809. He is buried in Copenhagen's Assistens Cemetery.
In 1804 he received a commission for a series of painting for the throne room in the new palace, but disagreements between the artist and the crown prince put a halt to this project. He continued however to provide the court with designs for furniture and room decorations.
Works
He was a cold theorist, inspired not by nature but by art. His style was classical, though with a romantic trend. He had a remarkable sense of colour. As a technical painter he attained remarkable success, his tone being very harmonious and even, but the effect, to a foreigner's eye, is rarely interesting.
His works are scarcely known out of Denmark, where he won an immense fame in his own generation, and helped lead the way to the period of art known as the Golden Age of Danish Painting.
A portrait of him is painted by Jens Juel, and made into a medallion by his friend Sergel. August Vilhelm Saabye sculpted a statue of him in 1868 based on contemporary portraits.
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