Horace Vernet

Happy Birthday Horace Vernet!! French born in 1789 this painter was from a family of painters. He is best known for his battle and horse scenes. His primary work was the gigantic gallery of Battles at Versailles that was painted for Louis Philippe. One of these is pictured here, The Battle at the Bridge of Arcole. Doesn’t the dynamic composition as well as the expressive features on the figures capture your attention?

John Storrs

Happy Birthday John Storrs!! American Modernist sculptor born in 1885, John Storrs was from Chicago. He traveled to Berlin to study singing, but switched to sculpture. He later studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He went to Paris and studied with Rodin and the Academie Julien. Storrs was detained a couple of times in Germany by the occupied forces but returned to his studio in Mer greatly weakened and died in 1956. He is most well known for his machine like sculptures such as the one below.

Peter Paul Rubens

Happy Birthday Peter Paul Rubens!! Born in 1577, the Flemish painter considered a Baroque painter, influenced by Renaissance artists, especially Titian and Michelangelo. He painted portraits, religious works, historical and mythological scenes, etc. Rubens was a court painter as well as a diplomat for the Spanish Netherlands. After the death of his first wife, Rubens, 53, married his second wife who was 16. She was a model for many of his subsequent paintings, including the one below, titled Helene Fourment in a Fur Wrap, said to model her after previous classical sculptures of Venus such as Medicci’s Venus.

Philip Guston

Happy Birthday Philip Guston!! Born in Canada 1913, Philip Guston was an American painter, considered an Abstract Expressionist from the New York School. His family moved to California at an early age and he was a classmate and friend of Jackson Pollock. He only attended art school a short time so was largely self-taught. He worked with a muralist in Mexico and then went to New York to join Pollock. Guston participated in several mural projects there before settling into painting canvases. He worked with the opposing ideas of naturalism and abstraction in an attempt to meld the two. Guston taught at various universities including New York University and Pratt Institute. The image below is titled The Studio.

George Morland

Happy Birthday George Morland!! The English painter was born in 1763. His father was an engraver and George showed talent at an early age, even exhibiting some paintings at the Royal Academy by age 10. His fondness of nature was apparent in his art, as he favored rustic genre scenes of farm animals and country folk. Unfortunately Morland lived beyond his means and spent quite a bit of time dodging creditors. The last eight years of his life he produced over 900 paintings and 1000 drawings! His power of observation and the skill of execution were superb. Inside of a Stable is one of his finest works.

Antoni Gaudi

Happy Birthday Antoni Gaudi!! Born in Reus, Spain, in 1852, Antoni Gaudi is one of my favorites. His parents were coppersmiths. Gaudi was sick with rheumatic fever in his youth, causing him to be alone much of the time perhaps leading to his love of nature. Although he worked during the Art Nouveau period, he had his own style. Known primarily as an architect, Gaudi had an unusual organic approach to his structures. He was also incredibly adept at mosaic work with broken tiles, called trencadis. His most spectacular feat was the (unfinished) La Sagrada Familia, a cathedral in Barcelona. He worked with the Gothic structure and transformed it into a spectacular, natural wonder. It is still being worked on, with completion speculated for 2026. My husband and I were fortunate enough to visit this incredible vision in Barcelona as well as his Parc Guell, also never fully realized. Gaudi's patron, Eusebi Guell envisioned his property as a garden city for the rich with the land divided into 60 plots. Only 3 of the plots were sold, two to a family who still own them and the other to Gaudi himself. The idea was to have homes above in the natural surroundings with viaducts below creating an underground space for a marketplace. Gaudi worked with the existing land formation (a bald mountain) planting Mediterranean trees and vegetation. Rock rubble columns support the underground structure. A serpentine mosaic tile bench snakes around the top, creating a spectacular, panoramic view of the city below. You may have noticed in my blog portrait, I am sitting on that bench. Street musicians can be found playing in the cave-like area below ground, while artisans peddle their wares above. Many of Gaudi's plans were cut short with his untimely death in 1926 after being hit by a tram. A visit to Barcelona reveals several of his architectural visions and countless examples of his influence as his dreams live on. I have included two pictures of the park, one above and one underground.

John Michael Rysbrack

Happy Birthday John Michael Rysbrack!! (Known as Michael) The Flemish sculptor was born in 1693. His father, Peter, was a landscape painter. Michael began as an architect assistant but then turned to sculpture, becoming England’s most highly regarded sculptor of the day. He created numerous busts and funerary works for prominent personalities. Perhaps his most well known work is his Hercules which exhibits the ideal male figure. It is said he used wrestlers and boxers as his models, taking the “best parts” for his final sculpture.