United States or Sint Maarten ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
As Barrias had his reputation as a historical painter to sustain and as the likenesses of others on the canvas are correct, it is not improbable that he painted Delphine as he saw or remembered her. If so, this is the only known portrait of Chopin's faithful friend, the Countess Delphine Potocka.
Sherry E. Fry was born in Iowa in 1879. He has been most fortunate in having the best instruction, having studied at the Chicago Art Institute, the Julian Academy and the Beaux Arts of Paris, a year in Florence, and later with McMonnies, Barrias, Verlet and Lorado Taft. He has traveled extensively, so has had the opportunity of seeing the best that the world holds for the artist.
M. Barrias is an artist of considerably greater powers than either M. Le Feuvre or M. Delaplanche; but one has a vague perception that his powers are limited, and that to desire in his case what one so sincerely wishes in the case of M. Dubois, namely, that he would "let himself go," would be unwise. Happily, when he is at his best there is no temptation to form such a wish.
Probably the public, which clings to romance, still will cling to the pastel portrait of Countess Potocka as that of the woman who sang to the dying Chopin and so the portrait is reproduced here. Barrias, the French historical painter, who was in Paris when Chopin lived there, painted "The Death of Chopin." It shows Delphine singing to the dying man.
M. Barrias, M. Delaplanche, and M. Le Feuvre have each of them quite as much spontaneity as M. Falguière, though the work of neither is as important in mass and variety. M. Delaplanche is always satisfactory, and beyond this there is something large about what he does that confers dignity even in the absence of quick interest.
Its triumph over the prodigious difficulties of elaborate composition "in the round" difficulties to which M. Barrias succumbed in the "Spartacus" of the Tuileries Gardens and its success in subordinating the details of a group to the end of enforcing a single motive, preserving the while their individual interest, are complete.
Felix Barrias, Franz Winterhalter, and Albert Graefle are others who tried with more or less success. Anthony Kolberg painted Chopin in 1848-49. Kleczynski reproduces it; it is mature in expression. The Clesinger head I have seen at Pere la Chaise. It is mediocre and lifeless. Kwiatowski has caught some of the Chopin spirit in the etching that may be found in volume one of Niecks' biography.
Word Of The Day