“There is something virile in it – something rugged – which attracts me strongly (…) In all these fellows I see an energy, a determination and a free, healthy, cheerful spirit that animate me. And in their work there is something lofty and dignified – even when they draw a dunghill.”
Vincent van Gogh, October 1882 (Letter R 16)
Unlike the already deceased Jean-Francois Millet, Van Gogh’s second great artistic model, Hubert Herkomer,
belonged to his own generation. Herkomer’s career offered a concrete projection screen for the late entrant who
was eager to learn. Only three years his senior, Herkomer, at the time during which Van Gogh just decided to
start a career as an artist, had already undergone a remarkable development, from a London-based illustrated
journal draughtsman to an internationally successful star painter. Until his early death in 1890, Van Gogh followed
the success story of his model with great interest. He envied the social acceptance Herkomer had gained
and even thought of visiting him in England to seek his patronage on his quest for a position as a social reportage
draughtsman. (…)
Alexander Roob’s “History of Press Graphics. 1819-1921. The Age of Graphic Journalism” is out now. (Taschen Cologne, Hardcover, 24.6 x 37.2 cm). In over 600 pages, this far-reaching compendium presents press illustration and graphic journalism as a distinct and unique genre and a laboratory for developing avant-garde aesthetics. The images are largely taken from the […]
What sails here under the flag of caricature is nothing other than an early form of blunt and bleak social realism. The group makes a powerful and monumental impression, misery in the dimension of a history picture, and that’s exactly how it was meant to be. The publisher of La Caricature, Charles Philipon, like most […]
Heavenly Zo / INRI becomes ISO / Swabian and Lorraine Somnambulism Heavenly Zo Richard’s emblematic sexual symbolism originated in the theurgic Neoplatonic geometry of Alexandrian late antiquity and had found its way from there into Jewish mysticism and Hermeticism. The most famous example was the Seal of Solomon, the hexagram, which consisted in the interpenetration […]