vamp 'til ready

i'm working on a project that is taking a looooooooong time,
so i thought i'd give you something to play with.

HODLER

ROBBE

HOYTEMA

CZESCHKA

POUND

YEATS

STEICHEN

PHILLIPS

YOSHITOSHI

CASSATT

i tried finding photos of artists who have been featured here, when they were fairly young. for these artists, this is the best i could do. i could find no photographs of a young mary cassatt, only this painting. but i read something interesting while i was looking:

Although Mary Cassatt was a member of and surrounded by an astounding Impressionist circle, she was drawn to one genius and artist in particular. Edgar Degas and Mary Cassatt shared a very unique and intimate relationship. Both rejecting the conservative artistic directions, Cassatt and Degas' restless intelligence drew them together. Both Degas and Cassatt inspired and facilitated each other's artistic careers. Cassatt even proclaims “the first sight of Degas' pictures was the turning point in my artistic life.” In fact, it was the sight of Degas' pastel work that turned Cassatt onto pastel for the first time. Cassatt and Degas soon became quick supporters of each other's work. For instance, Cassatt bought one of Degas' pastels and brought it back to America, making it the first Impressionist artwork to come to America. 1

The Quiet Landscapes of William B. Post

William B. Post (1857-1921) of Fryeburg, Maine, was an influential member of the Photo- Secession, the group that first championed art photography in the United States at the turn of the 20th century. A colleague of Alfred Stieglitz, Post was active from the mid-1880s through the 1910s, producing platinum prints.

Post frequently captured the seasonal changes to the Maine landscape in his sensitively printed photographs such as Intervale, Winter of 1899. The most widely exhibited photograph during his lifetime, this image also appeared as a photogravure in Stieglitz's famous magazine Camera Work. The high horizon line, the expanse of snow in the foreground, and the limited tonal ranges of the trees suggest his creative ability to invent new compositions and poetic harmonies influenced by Japanese art. His use of a narrow, vertical format and choice of floral subjects in other pictures also relates to Asian scroll paintings.

Like many painters, photographers, and designers of his day, Post absorbed the craze for Japonisme after a trip to Japan in 1891. He began showing his photographic work in New York the following year, and in 1893 he showed the young Stieglitz how to use a hand-held camera.

[yes, this article, reviewing a show that has been making the rounds for a year or so, is about post, but, as clearly seen in the last paragraph, it could be about ivan bilibin, in his little vertical print. it could be about coburn or white, whose photographic histories resemble that of post in many ways. and of course riviere's 36 views of the eiffel tower fits right in.]