Looking for pandas, I found Augusta Payne Rathbone. The giant panda is as rare a sight in art as in life. Search high and low, but you will find few images of pandas in Chinese art - or any other - until quite recently, simply because humans seldom encou
ntered the elusive bears. Panda at the San Francisco Zoo (1943) is an aquatint, Rathbone's favorite medium, and it piqued my curiosity about her. As anyone who watches pandas on the live web cameras (Smithsonian National Zoo, San Diego Zoo, and Memphis Zoo) can see, this is an image based on close observation.
ntered the elusive bears. Panda at the San Francisco Zoo (1943) is an aquatint, Rathbone's favorite medium, and it piqued my curiosity about her. As anyone who watches pandas on the live web cameras (Smithsonian National Zoo, San Diego Zoo, and Memphis Zoo) can see, this is an image based on close observation.A native of Berkeley, California, Rathbone (1897-1990) moved to France in the 1920s, where her prints were published regularly in Paris, from 1928 until the late 1930s, by Alfred Porcabouef. It seems that the artist and the printer often disagreed about what colors should be used for her images, and M. Porcabouef often carried the day. Perhaps the young American woman deferred to the man who had worked with the Impressionist artist, Berthe Morisot
.
.Rathbone uses two distinct color palettes in her work; I prefer the more muted one, without knowing whether it, or the brighter one, was her personal choice. When I first looked at Rooftops of Paris (1940), it reminded me of Henri Riviere's work. The image was created from memory, as Rathbone had returned to California in the late 1930s. 
Quimper Cathedral and Breton Woman Praying both display Rathbone's personal sense of space , visible in her pictures, most obviously in the landscapes. The Roquestrian Village by Rathbone is hers just as surely as Cezanne's Mt. Saint-Victoire was his creation.
Quimper Cathedral and Breton Woman Praying both display Rathbone's personal sense of space , visible in her pictures, most obviously in the landscapes. The Roquestrian Village by Rathbone is hers just as surely as Cezanne's Mt. Saint-Victoire was his creation.
With people - and pandas - she conveys a respect for their truths.
4 comments:
What an interesting collection of images. They just go to show that art movements have a momentum that keeps rolling after the initial spate of enthusiasm. She is essentially a Nabis artist, after the fact - no criticism implied. And the relationship with Porcabeuf (I think that's how he spelled it, sometimes you see it as Porcaboeuf, with a caesura, though goodness knows I have spelled it many ways...) is fascinating - that at this date, he is essentially dictating the colour scheme to the artist. These shifting balances of power are very subtle - and not necessarily wrong - I'm sure Albert P. had a great deal of experience and understanding that was useful to Augusta. Thanks again for introducing a new artist, with your usual delicate personal touch.
The comment deleted above was just a duplicate of my original comment!
Thank you, Neil. The last image "San Francisco" is the only one from the "brighter" pallette. Of course, the actual prints may make a different impression. It's well to remember that when Japanese prints took Europe by storm in the late 19th century, westerners often preferred the ones that had faded to the ones that had held more of their original vividness. The same phenomenon occurred when Mount Vernon, George Washington's home, was refurbished the last time. The soft hues preferred by early 20th century restorers were replaced with bright colors - that visitors found harsh and 'inauthentic.'
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