Photo of upturned tree trunk placed with 18th-century Persian rug. Seen at Feriarte Madrid

This week and next, I'm in Madrid, where a number of impressive exhibitions and fairs are taking place, including:

• The 32nd Annual Feriarte: One of Europe's largest Fine & Decorative Art Fairs.
• Rembrandt, History Painter: An exhibition of painter's narrative works the Prado Museum.
• Between Gods & Men: A rare look at two major ancient sculpture collections, from Dresden and Madrid, on show at the Prado Museum.
• Sorolla Museum in Madrid: My report on a visit to the home and private studio of the Valencian painter who befriended Zorn and Sargent.
• El Escorial: The country palace of Spain's Hapsburg Royalty, which contains major works from their collection

All this coming over the next week in a series of posts.

Ilya Repin (Russian, 1844-1930) Portrait of Vasily Polenov, Detail (c. 1880) Oil on canvas. 80 BY 65CM. The State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

Vasily Polenov (Russian, 1844-1927) was 17 years old when Alexander II freed the serfs of Russia. The Tsar's Emancipation Manifesto of 1861 was an acknowledgement of democratic changes in Western governments. The decree changed the political and economic landscape of Russia, forcing landowning aristocrats to pay for labor and contributing to a rising middle class.

Art academies in St. Petersburg and Moscow catered to the classical tastes of old Russia, represented by the aristrocracy. Shortly after the emancipation of the serfs, a group of artists, named Peredvizhniki, or The Wanderers, believed it was time "take art to the people." With their first exhibition in 1870, The Wanderers rejected the classical ideals taught in official school in favor of Realism. They painted earthy, everyday peasants and took their exhibitions to rural areas of the country where a wider public could appreciate it.

Polenov was an adopted as a member of The Wanderers, yet maintained his ties with the Russian Academy. He studied in the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg from 1863-1871. Polenov was perhaps the most traveled Russian artist of his generation. During his studies, he was pensioned in Italy and France, where he experienced first hand the contemporary movements of Realism and Impressionism. He returned with a love of plein air, and was one of the first to introduce the approach to other Russian painters. Using the technique he created numerous landscapes of his native countryside.

From 1877-1878, Polenov served as a military artist in the Russo-Turkish war. Shortly thereafter, he dedicated his work to religious scenes, especially from the New Testament.

His painting, Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery (a. 1886) is considered by many to be his masterpiece. It is drawn from the Gospel of John, Chapter 8, verses 1-11, where a woman caught in the act of adultery is taken to Christ. Hoping trick Christ, a group of his enemies brought the woman to him:

4 They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. 5 Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou? 6 This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not. 7 So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. 8 And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground. 9 And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. 10 When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? 11 She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.

In preparation for the painting, Polenov had made sketches of people, architecture, and landscape in the Middle East and Greece, where he travelled from 1881-1882.

During his lifetime, Polenov was widely acclaimed for his work by both the Russian Academy and those that had broken from it. In 1893, he was made a fellow of the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg, and taught at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture until his death in 1893.

Today, Polenov's home in Borok, near Moscow, has been made a museum and placed in the national trust.

Today's Washington Post features a story on a major work by the ninteteenth-century painter, Paul Philippoteaux (French, 1826-1923).

In 1884, the painter was commisioned to create a massive dedication to the Battle of Gettysburg for the site's visitors center. Under rennovation for several years, the Cyclorama, as the piece is known, is open to the public:

On Friday, after a five-year and $15 million restoration effort, the panoramic Battle of Gettysburg cyclorama will reopen to the public. Decades of neglect, cropping and overpainting have been fixed. The painting has been restored to its original 377-foot-by-42-foot size and installed in a new rotunda.

The Cyclorama was considered a major innovation in visitor experience by placing a visitor in the center of the battle.

Philippoteaux came to America after an impressive education at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris and in the studios of Leon Cogniet (French, 1794-1880) and Alexandre Cabanal (French, 1883-1829).

Since I am now here in Madrid I do not regret at all my coming. I have seen big painting here. When I had looked at all the paintings by all the masters I had known I could not help saying to myself all the time, its very pretty but its not all yet. It ought to be better, but now I have seen what I always thought ought to have been done & what did not seem to me impossible. O what a satisfaction it gave me to see the good Spanish work so good so strong so reasonable so free from every affectation. It stands out like nature itself. [sic.]-Thomas Eakins, in a letter to his father, Benjamin, dated December 2, 1869.

Saying that everything he had seen before "was pretty" but "not enough" is surprising. Eakins had just left the studio of one of the greatest painters of his day, Jean-Leon Gerome (French, 1824-1904), and lived in Paris, then capitol of the art world.

Eakins' trip to Spain was a watershed for his personal development, and an indication of the draw Spain had for many painters working in Paris.

At the time Eakins visited Spain--during of the Winter of Spring of 1869 and 1870--it was considered a backwater, years behind civilized Europe in the arts and economics.

Yet, Eakins and a number of other important artists (e.g.. Eduoard Manet, Mary Cassat, John Singer Sargent) traveled to Spain works by Spanish masters in the Prado Museum. In 2003, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, featured an exhibition on French artists in Spain. Titled Manet and Velázquez and with 200 works, the exhibition discussed a newfound love of Spain that grew out of the French invasion by Napoleon's armies in 1808 and the Mariage of Napoleon III to, Eugénie de Montijo, a Countess of Spanish Royal blood.

Eakins travelled to Spain shortly after the country's government was overthrown. Despite the chaos, he was able to visit the Prado Museum and a number of galleries throughout the country.

He was especially impressed by the work of Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez (Spanish, 1599-1660). Eakins claimed Velázquez's painting, The Weavers, was "the most beautiful piece of painting I have seen in all my life."

"Here is how I think the woman tapestry-weaver was painted . . . [Velázquez] drew her withouth giving attention to the details. He put her head and arme well in place. Then he painted her very solidly without seeking or even marking the fold of the draperies, and perhaps he sought his color harmonies by repeated painting over, for the color is excessively thick on the neck and all the delicate parts . . ."

This kind of careful attention to technique was absorbed into Eakins' own work.

According to M. Elizabeth Boone, author of Visitas de España: American Views of Art and Life in Spain, 1860-1914, it was shortly after seeing these that Eakins made his first original painting: Carmelita Requeña . In it, Eakins mimics Velázquez's subtle use color and shadow, using very closely-related tones and small gradations of light to dark.

Besides, The Weavers, Eakins was inspired by Velázquez's Crucifixion, painting a version of his own.

In the past decade, a great deal has been done to re-assert the influence of Thomas Eakins and France on American painting. With that in mind, it would seem necessary to explore the role of Spanish painting on these painters.

Tabernacle frame. (Italian, late nineteenth or earth twentieth century). Samuel Kress Collection. National Gallery, Washington, D.C.

In a continuing series on painting frames, I would like to focus on a particular style: the tabernacle frame.

According to researchers at that National Gallery in Washington, the tabernacle frame grew out of devotional paintings. The architectural nature of the frame was meant to imitate the shape of a cathedral or church. As a result, the tabernacle frame was a portable religious site that could be put in a home or other private place of worship.

Like a church building, the make up of the frame consists of a plinth at the base and two columns surmounted by an entablature.

Sandro Botticelli (Italian) The Wemyss Madonna (c. 1481-1484) Tempera on canvas. 122 BY 80.5CM

The earliest surviving examples of wooden tabernacle frames are from fifteenth-century Italy, where they were used in religious paintings, especially those featuring the Virgin and Christ Child.

(Some conservators, like those at the National Gallery in London, insist that Italian, pre-nineteenth-century frames should only be put on images with the Virgin and Christ Child.)

Though commissioned by collectors for older works, the tabernacle frame was rarely seen or used on contemporary paintings until the "Olympian painters" of Great Britain, especially Frederick Lord Leighton and Lawrence Alma-Tadema, began using them on their own paintings.

Flaming June by Frederick Lord Leighton, P.R.A (British, 1830-1896) as pictured in the Ponce Museum, Puerto Rico.

Leighton and Tadema separated the tabernacle frame from its religious context and used it to depict non-traditional scene. Both Leighton and Tadema often designed their own frames, and created unique approaches to the Greco-Roman architecture, especially Tadema, who chose Egyptian themes for many of his works and created frames to match.

Lawrence Alma-Tadema, O.M., R.A. (Dutch/British, 1836-1912) Cleopatra (1877) Oil on panel. 190 BY 267CM

Edward Moran (American, 1829-1901). Seated in a side pose in front of a work in progress. Photographer unknown. (c. 1870)

A new and exciting historical photography source is now online. (Yes, I used "historical" and "exciting" in the same sentence.) Called "The Commons," it is a collaboration between the Library of Congress, Smithsonian, Flickr.com and several historical societies to digitize historical photographs and make them available online.

Frederick Auguste Bartholdi (French, 1834-1904). Mounted portrait of Bartholdi in coat with hand inside lapel. (1880)

While looking through the collection, I stumbled upon an area of The Commons dedicated to late-nineteenth-century portraits of painters. Most photos are studio portraits of American artists. Some are candid shots of artists working in their studios or en plein aire.

Theodore Robinson (American, 1852-1896) Robinson seated on a bank, with an unidentified artist, painting. (1872)

There is something unnerving and almost ironic about photographs of painters. For me, it's like seeing a picture of a well-known radio host for the first time (e.g. Terry Gross from Fresh Air), or like seeing one of my high school teachers in the supermarket. My image of them is thrust out of the compartment I placed them in and into reality.

Alexander H. Wyant (American, 1836-1892) Wyant seated on the porch of his studio at Arkville in the Catskills, New York. Wyant was a painter, Catskills, N.Y. (c. 1890)

Titian (Venetian, a. 1506-1576) Bacchus and Ariadne (1520-23) Oil on canvas. 176.5 BY 191CM. National Gallery, London.

In the upcoming exhibition, "Benjamin West and the Venetian Secret," (beginning September 18) Yale's Center for British Art explores an obsession with recreating the methods of Titian. The Sunday New York Times dedicates an excellent article to the topic.

Benjamin West (Anglo-American, 1738-1820) Cicero Discovering the Tomb of Archimedes (1797) Oil on canvas. 124.5 BY 180.5CM. Yale University Art Gallery.

Benjamin West (Anglo-American, 1738-1820 ) was one brightest stars in British painting at the end of the eighteenth century. During his career, art and art academies turned away from nearly a century of lighter subject matter and back towards the subjects and methods of the Old Masters. This included investigating how Old Masters actually painted. Color theory, the chemistry of paints, grounds and, even, proper stance while painting, were all debated in the halls of England's Royal Academy.

Benjamin West (Anglo-American, 1738-1820) Portrait of artist posing as President of the Royal Academy.

West had served as President of the Royal Academy (1792-1805; 1806-1820) and was particularly interested in the works of the Venetian painter Titian (Venetian, a. 1506-1576), and his ability to achieve high intensity color in his paintings.

So when an artist named Ann Jemima Provis and her father, Thomas Provis, approached West and told him they had found a copy of an old manuscript that explained how the Venetians achieved their distinctive style of painting, he jumped at the chance to learn more. Eager to incorporate the methods in the manuscript into his own work, West began experimenting with them.

There was only one problem.

“The story was an absurd invention, and the manuscript was a fake,” said Angus Trumble, senior curator of paintings and sculpture at the Yale Center. In addition, to the manuscript Ann and Thomas Provis offered demonstrations of the Venetian technique. These included a new approach to painting grounds and using Prussian blue. (Prussian blue was invented by Heinrich Diesbach and Johann Konrad Dippel in 1704 or 1705, more than 100 years after Titian's death. In his own paintings, Titian used lapis lazuli (a.k.a ultramarine); therefore, the "rediscovered" method was clearly not Titian's.)

(From "Be An Old Master, for 10 Guineas" by J. D. BIERSDORFER, August 29, 2008. New York Times.)

Painters working under the instructions of the Provises did not have the same results as the Old Masters, which led to suspicions regarding the Provises's claims. The Provises were discovered for their hoax, and a number of artists who had paid for their advice were discredited in the press and at the Royal Academy. West, especially, was criticized for not having seen the hucksters for what they were.

"Not a day without drawing," was a motto often repeated by Menzel and recalled by his students at the Royal Academy of Art in Berlin.

Portrait of Adolf von Menzel (a. 1880) Image published in Newcomb, A; Blackford, K.M.H.: Analyzing Character, 1922. Photographer Paul Thompson.

While Menzel is well remembered in German-speaking countries--a few books on him have been published in that language--his legacy has been largely forgotten by the rest of the world. This is despite the impact that he had on a number of painters including Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida, Ernest Meissonier, with whom he was friends, and a following of artists in France.

Adolf von Menzel (Polish/German, 1815-1905) The Artist's Sister, Emille, Sleeping (c. 1848). Oil on paper. 46 BY 60CM. Kunsthalle, Hamburg.

Short biography Menzel was born in Breslau, Poland. In 1830, his father moved the family to Berlin and founded a lithgraphy business, in which Menzel worked from the age of fourteen.

Adolf von Menzel (Polish/German, 1815-1905) View from a window in the Marienstrasse (1867) Gouache over chalk. Oskar Reinhart Foundation, Winterthur.

Shortly after moving to Berlin, Menzel's father died unexpectedly leaving a young Menzel as the sole provider for the family. Eventually, Menzel was able to involve other members of the family in the business and pursue an education and career in art.

Adolf von Menzel (Polish/German, 1815-1905) A Study of Castes. Oil on canvas. Private collection.

He accepted at the prestigious Royal Academy of Art, where he was discovered by a wallpaper magnate, Carl Heinrich Arnold, who would be become Menzel's patron, promoter, and friend.

His graduation from the Academy was followed by a series of lithographic commissions, including works by Goethe and a history of the Frederick the Great.

Adolf von Menzel (Polish/German, 1815-1905) Meissonier in his studio at Poissy (1869) Oil on panel. 8 1/4 BY 11 3/8IN. Private collection.

In 1855, Menzel traveled to Paris for the first time. The occasion was most likely the influential Paris Exposition Universelle, with thousands of artists' works on display in series of pavilions organized by nationality. There Menzel saw Gustave Courbet's "Pavillon du Réalism," which led to a more naturalistic approach to his paintings. From that time forward, he would make regular trips to Paris and came to know some of the city's most important artists.

Adolf von Menzel (Polish/German, 1815-1905) Aufbewahrungssaal während des Museumsumbaus (1848) Pastel on paper. 46 BY 57CM. Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin.

By the end of his life, Menzel was considered one of Berlin's greatest artists. He joined the Royal Academy of Art in 1853, and was a teacher at the school from 1875 until his death in 1905. He had been decorated as a Knight of the Black Order, given the rank of Privy Councilor with the title "Your Excellency," and awarded an honorary doctorate at the University of Berlin.

This gave him a crowd of admirers and friends within government and other circles; in fact, one of his closest friends was the composer Johannes Brahms.

Adolf von Menzel (Polish/German, 1815-1905) Portrait of an Old Man (1884) Pencil on paper. 8 1/2 BY 5IN. Private collection.

Internationally, he had been honored with a show dedicated to his work in Paris in 1884, and was granted membership at the Royal Academies of London, St. Petersburg, and Paris. His works regularly appeared in the Paris Salon until his death.

Theodore Gerard (Belgian, 1829-1895) The Farmer's Child (1861) Oil on panel 33 BY 22IN. Private collection.

The French word "genre," directly translated as "kind" or "type," is used to describe a variety of paintings. As a result the use of the term "genre painting" can be confusing.

Jozef Israëls (Dutch, 1824-1911) Awaiting the Fisherman's Return. Oil on canvas. 32 1/2 BY 44 3/4IN. Private collection. A painting that depicts a scene of everyday life is generally considered a genre painting, and can include contemporary figures, urban life or peasant scenes. In her book, Keywords of Nineteenth-Century Art, Dr. Christine Lindey describes what sets a genre painting apart:

It did not aspire to the elevated scale, generalised effects or high moral truths of the grand manner; rather it sought to be entertaining (and often humorous), anecdotal and sentimental. Moreover, it depicted in telling detail non-heroic, anonymous, "ordinary" people going about their daily lives, whether they be contemporary and "real," historical or literary.

(Christine Lindey. Keywords of Nineteenth-Century Art. p. 105)

Genre paintings originate from Dutch and Flemish painting traditions going as back as the fifteenth century. In the seventeenth-century, Dutch painters like Jan Steen (1626-1679) and de Hooch (1629-1684) took common genre scenes to a new level of refinement through their nuanced use of symbols (e.g. an discarded slipper as sexual innuendo) and highly skilled treatments of light and materials.

Peiter de Hooch (Dutch, 1629-1684) The Courtyard of a House in Delft (1658) Oil on canvas.

The greatest criticism of genre paintings came from painters following Italian and French traditions of art that emphasized large scale works of historical or mythological scenes. In his assessment of Gustave Courbet, the father of Realist painting, Pierre-Joseph Proud'hon, an academic painter, wrote:

It would be no truer to call him a genre painter, like the Dutch and Flemish, whose paintings, though pleasant or comic, are insubstantial; they rarely go to the heart of things, reflect no philosophical concerns, and reveal more imagination than observation . . . (Harrison and Wood. Du principe de l'art et sa distination social. Christine Lindey, trans. p. 408)

Despite the lack of credibility they often received, there were many nineteenth-century genre painters. During the first half of the century, their works appeared more often on the private market than in public exhibitions. By the end of the century genre painting had gained greater credibility and regularly appeared in the annual Paris Salon.

Johann Georg Meyer von Bremen (German, 1813-1886) Making a Bouquet. Oil on canvas. Private collection.

Today, genre paintings are more popularly owned by private collectors than by museums. In my regular visits to auctions in London, I often play a game a mentor taught me. Traveling to museums and auctions together, he would ask me to move into a room and choose three paintings that I would want in my museum collection.

Paul Seignac (French, 1826-1904) The Reading Lesson. Oil on panel. 19 BY 26 1/4IN. Private collection.

These three would have to be impressive in their execution, appealing in their subject matter, possibly of historical importance (e.g. a painting of a key battle) or by an important painter. Many times as I play this game, I am forced to choose between a genre painting that I love and a work that is less appealing but more historically important. Unfortunately, this is the game that most collectors play and, as a result, genre paintings by extremely competent painters are, in my opinion, regularly undervalued.

[This post was inspired by a conversation I had with the talented and thoughtful painter Joseph Brickey. For more on his work, visit his website here.]

Over three quarters of what constitutes painting is comprised of drawing. If I had to put a sign above my door I would write: "School of drawing," and I'm sure that I would produce painters.

-Jean-Dominique Auguste Ingres (French, 1780-1867) (Henri Delborde. Ingres. sa vie, ses travaux, sa doctrine. Paris: Henri Plon, p. 123)

Previously on this blog, I have received comments questioning the sincerity, artistic integrity or creativity in nineteenth-century, academic painters and contemporary artists attempting to model them.The criticism is based on a belief that drawing accurately is not artistic (right-brain), but, in essence, an act of left-brained practice. In other words, a camera could do the same as the artist. I absolutely agree that an artist should not be a camera.

However, nineteenth-century, academic painting was not based on mimicking nature, but on observation combined with the ideal, sometimes described as the "antique."

In France and much of Western Europe, the first half of the nineteenth century was dominated by an artistic philosophy that emphasized the dominance of line, or contour, over color. Drawing was considered the underlying structure of a painting and, therefore, was the principle skill taught in the major academies. In fact, it was not until the mid-nineteenth century that the Ecole des Beaux-Arts included oil painting as part of its curriculum. (Previous to that time, artists would learn oil painting in the ateliers of a master to whom they would be assigned in tandem with their studies or after graduation from the Ecole.)

In his journal, Eugene Delacroix (French, 1798-1863) planned a study program and dictionary for artists writing:

The first and most important thing in painting is the contour. Even if all the rest were to be neglected, provided the contours were there, the painting would be strong and finished. I have more need than most to be on my guard about this matter; think constantly about it, and always begin that way. (Delacoix's Journal, April 17, 1824)

To modern eyes and to many artists who are attempting to resurrect the academic methods of the nineteenth century, the emphasis on drawing could be interpreted as an ability to correctly copy or mimic what the eye sees. This is an incorrect belief. Nineteenth-century academic drawing was only partially observational. In practice, it was a combination between observation of nature and classical construction based on an understanding of ideal form.

This combination of the ideal and the observation of nature was often objected to by the Impressionists. Claude Monet (French, 1840-1926) studied with the academic painter Charles Gleyre (Swiss, 1808-1874) and recalled an experience where the two perspectives on drawing clashed. Monet was working from a live, nude model and, on seeing his work, Gleyre reacted:

'It is not bad," he said, "but the breast is heavy, the shoulder too powerful and the foot too big."

"I can only draw what I see," I replied timidly.

"Praxiteles borrowed the best parts from a hundred imperfect models, to create a masterpiece," Gleyre replied dryly. "When you make something, you must think of the antique!"

That same evening, I took Sisley, Renoir and Bazille to one side: "Let's get out of here," I said, "This place is unhealthy, it is lacking in sincerity." (Gustave Geoffroy. Claude Monet, sa vie, son temps, son oeuvres. Paris: Les éditions G. Cres et Cie, 1927, p. 26-27)

Again, academic painters were not interested in being cameras or making accurate copies of what they saw. Academic painting was deeply ideological and conceptual. It was based on the need to construct the human figure after the ideal. In this way, many artists today, including art historians, would be surprised to know that ideologically, academic painters had more in common with the avant garde Suprematism and Constructivism in the purity of geometry and line than the Impressionist did with those same movements.

An appreciation of nineteenth-century, academic painting--and, for that matter, many Old Masters--begins with an understanding of the ideology of the ideal and as the basis for painting.