Antoine Wiertz (1806 - 1865)
Related: art in Belgium - Romanticism
Rosine à sa toilette (1865) - Antoine Wiertz
The Reader of Novels (1853) - Antoine Wiertz
Premature Burial (1854) - Antoine Wiertz
Art commentator, Jeffery Howe, suggests that Wiertz was inspired by Edgar Allan Poe, in whose fiction premature burial is a recurring theme (e.g. the short story entitled The Premature Burial, Madeleine in The Fall Of The House Of Usher, and Fortunato in The Cask Of Amontillado). [Sept 2006]
Biography
Antoine Joseph Wiertz (February 22, 1806 - June 18, 1865) was a Belgian romantic painter and sculptor. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine_Wiertz [Sept 2006]
Profile
For a painter/sculptor who is still largely unrecognised outside his native Belgium, Antoine Joseph Wiertz (1806-1865) certainly divides opinion. The art dictionaries and encylopedias that bother to mention him in their brief entries variously describe his work as banal, melodramatic, morbid, mystical, ambitious. Opinions about the artist himself are equally conflicting, ranging from visionary, eccentric, to megalomaniacal. If there is any agreement about Wiertz and his oeuvre, it is that his single-mindedness and considerable self-confidence produced some utterly distinctive paintings on unusual subjects that are not much like anybody else's. Astonishing, then, that so few books have been written about Wiertz, and what has is now many decades out of print. Moreover, to my knowledge, there has never been a Wiertz monograph written in English. In other words, he is long overdue substantial critical attention. I hope this short essay will introduce some of Wiertz's work to those who have not yet encountered this most idiosyncratic of artists. --The Wonderful And Frightening World Of Antoine Wiertz - by Chris Blackford, 1999, http://www.btinternet.com/~rubberneck/witzhome.html
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