Under the vault of heaven - Interior of the Pantheon, Rome, by Giovanni Paolo Panini, circa 1734

Text from the website of the National Gallery of Art:

In Panini's day, as in our own, the Pantheon was one of the great tourist attractions of Rome. Built under Hadrian in the 2nd century, this monumental domed temple has survived intact, owing to its consecration as a Christian church—Santa Maria Rotunda—in AD 609. Panini's depiction is populated with foreign visitors and a lively mix of Romans from all social strata who congregate in the Pantheon to pray, to chat, and to admire the wondrous architecture.

Trained in architecture and theatrical design, Panini manipulated the perspective to show a larger view of the interior than is actually possible from any single place. The viewpoint is deep within the building, facing the entrance. The portals open to the colossal columns of the porch and a glimpse of the obelisk in the piazza before the church. Through the oculus in the center of the dome, Panini revealed the bright blue sky flecked with clouds.

As Canaletto was to Venice, so Panini was to Rome. Both artists documented with exacting skill and vibrancy the monuments of their cities and the daily comings and goings of the inhabitants. In this case, Panini depicted the classical landmark that inspired the design of the Rotunda in the National Gallery's West Building.

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Giovanni Paolo Panini, the most celebrated and popular view painter in eighteenth-century Rome, was born 17 June 1691 in Piacenza. Although he prepared as a youth for a career in the Church, he studied perspective and architectural painting in his native city and had received some architectural training by the time of his arrival in Rome in November 1711. Although already recognized as an independent painter of landscapes and architectural and perspective views, Panini attended the drawing academy of the figure painter Benedetto Luti until about 1717-1718. The formative influences upon his style were the classical ruin paintings of Giovanni Ghisolfi, the landscapes of Jan Van Bloemen and Andrea Locatelli, and the topographical views of Gaspar Van Wittel (1653-1736).

In his early years Panini established himself principally as a fresco decorator of the villas and palaces of the Roman ecclesiastical intelligentsia and aristocracy. In 1718 Panini was elected to the Congregazione dei Virtuosi al Pantheon and in 1719 to the Accademia di San Luca in Rome; in 1754 and 1755 he served as the Academy's president, or principe. Panini's associations with the French in Rome advanced his career significantly, particularly after 1724 when he married the sister-in-law of Nicolas Vleughels, director of the Académie de France at Rome. Panini taught perspective there and in 1732 was received as a member of the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture in Paris, an honor accorded few Roman artists. Patronized by Cardinal Melchior de Polignac, Louis XV's chargé d'affaires in Rome from 1724 to 1732, and by the Duc de Choiseul, French Ambassador to Benedict XIV, he influenced younger French painters like Claude-Joseph Vernet, Hubert Robert, and Jean-Nicolas Servandoni, who traveled to Rome to complete their education.

Although Panini worked as an architect, designing Cardinal Valenti's villa and the chapel in Santa Maria della Scala (1728), and produced fireworks, festival apparatuses, and other ephemeral architectural decorations (and painted magnificent records of them), in the last thirty years of his life he specialized in painting the views of Rome that secured his lasting reputation. These were of two main types, vedute prese da i luoghi (carefully and accurately rendered views of actual places) and vedute ideate (imaginary views and combinations of particular buildings and monuments). His views of ancient and modern Rome encompassed practically everything worth noting in the eighteenth-century guidebooks to the Eternal City. These paintings were not idealized or symbolic representations of Rome's past and present grandeur, but accurate and objective portrayals of the most famous, most picturesque, or most memorable sights of the city. In the 1740s and 1750s, Panini produced numerous views of ancient and contemporary Rome to meet the growing demand for such highly commercial paintings created by foreign visitors to the city on the Grand Tour. The popularity of his paintings among the British in particular is confirmed by the the large number of paintings (and many replicas and copies) with a British provenance.

In addition to the view paintings for which he is best known, Panini produced religious and historical scenes, records of contemporary historical events, real and imaginary architectural pieces, and fantasy views of Roman ruins. The tremendous size of Panini's oeuvre, the number of extant versions of certain compositions, and the mechanized and routine handling characterizing many of these canvases confirm that he relied upon an extensive workshop to produce reproductions of his more popular compositions. Panini's son Francesco served as his principal studio assistant and, after the artist's death in Rome on October 21, 1765, supplied drawings after his compositions to engravers.

From the garden, from the orchard, from the sea - selected work by Antoine Berjon

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Antoine Berjon (17 May 1754, St. Pierre de Vaise - 24 October 1843, Lyon), French painter and designer, among the most important flower painters of early nineteenth-century France. Born in a commune of Lyon, the son of a butcher, he first studied drawing with the local sculptor Antoine-Michel Perrache. Little is known of his early life,  though it is thought that he may have studied medicine or for a religious vocation. But he is known to have worked as a designer of textiles in Lyon's important silk industry until its collapse with the French Revolution. In 1791, the Paris Salon accepted four of his work; he subsequently visited the capital frequently, and moved there in 1794. He remained in Paris for the next sixteen years, exhibiting at the Salon at least five times. By the time he returned to Lyon he was well known, and was made a professor at the newly established École des Beaux-Arts, which had been founded by Napoléon's decree of 1807 with the goal of reviving Lyon's silk industry. He was dismissed in 1823 after a thirteen years in the position, and was replaced by his gifted pupil Augustin Thierrat. His termination was probably due to his well-known stubbornness and egotism, qualities that most likely put him in conflict with the school's administration. He then set up his own studio in Lyon, giving private instruction, and continued to make art for the remainder of his life. He died in Lyon at the age of eighty-nine.

Terra-cotta bust of Berjon by Clément Jayet, 1788.

A permanent friendship - double portrait of and by Jean-Baptiste de Champaigne and Nicolas de Plattemontagne, 1654

Nicolas de Plattemontagne.

Jean-Baptiste de Champaigne.

I love the cast shadows of the palette and, especially, those of the brushes.

This painting is a record of the great friendship between two young artists, each painting the portrait of the other on the same canvas. The were both of Flemish backgrounds, both living and studying in Paris, and both were only twenty-three-years old at the time.

Jean-Baptiste de Champaigne (10 December 1631, Brussels - 27 October 1681, Paris), was the nephew of the celebrated Philippe de Champaigne and was brought to Paris when he was only thirteen to apprentice with his uncle, with whom he had more of a father/son relationship.

Nicolas de Plattemontagne (originally Nicolas van Plattenberg, his name also appears as La Montagne, Montagne, and Montaigne; 19 November 1631, Paris - 25 December 1706, Paris). His father was the Flemish painter and engraver Matthieu van Plattenberg, originally from Antwerp, who had settled in Paris. After studying with his father, he joined the studio of  Philippe de Champaigne. There he worked beside and became the lifelong friend of de Champaigne's nephew, Jean-Baptiste. (For many years, some of Plattemontagne's early works were confused with those by both of the de Champaignes.)

Exquisite deadpan - portraits of Buster Keaton

Circa 1921.

(This print has been noticeably retouched, probably for use in a newspaper or other publication.)

Circa 1920.

Circa 1925. (Four images.)

Publicity for "The General", 1927. (Three images.)

From "The Electric House", 1922.

Circa 1930. (Two images.)

Circa 1930-31.

1930. (Two images.)

Publicity for "Free and Easy", 1930, posing with a photograph of Lon Chaney.

By George Hurrell, 1930. * 

By Clarence Sinclair Bull, circa 1928. (Three images.)

Circa 1930-31. (Two images.)

By George Hurrell, 1930.

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Sadly, the only photographers I've been able to identify here are George Hurrell and Clarence Sinclair Bull. I recently saw the wonderful Hurrell profile portrait above * in a gorgeous contemporary print by author, photographer, and archivist Mark Alan Vieira; it inspired the whole post. I have to admit that I've not seen much of Keaton's work. And like most people, I'm sure, I've always found him a bit odd-looking; that droopy "Stone Face" and protuberant eyes. But gathering these photographs - always finding far more to share than I'd planned, constitutionally unable to exclude another and yet another "fabulous" image - I began to find that odd face rather beautiful. A strange beauty, beautiful in the way Peter Lorre could be beautiful. I'm grateful that I'm just openminded enough to still allow myself new, broader ideas of what might exemplify that overused and completely subjective word.