Deux jeunes filles (La Belle Rosine)

Antoine Wiertz, 1847

oil on canvas, 140 × 100 cm

Wiertz Museum

Antoine Joseph Wiertz (February 22, 1806 - June 18, 1865) was a Belgian romantic painter and sculptor. 1847 was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... February 22 is the 53rd day of every year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1806 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... June 18 is the 169th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (170th in leap years), with 196 days remaining. ... 1865 is a common year starting on Sunday. ... Romanticism was an artistic and intellectual movement in the history of ideas that originated in late 18th century Western Europe. ... A painter is a person who paints woodwork, walls, etc. ... Sculptor redirects here. ...

Born in Dinant from a relatively poor family, he entered the Antwerp art academy in 1820. Thanks to his protector Pierre-Joseph de Paul de Maibe, a member of the Second Chamber of the States-General, king William I of the Netherlands awarded an annual stipend to Wiertz from 1821 onwards. Between November 1829 and May 1832, he stayed in Paris, where he studied the old masters at the Louvre. Main church of Dinant at the Meuse river, picture taken from the citadel Dinant is a municipality located in the Belgian province of Namur, in Wallonia. ... 1820 was a leap year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ... King William I of the Netherlands was born as Willem Frederik on 25 August 1772 in The Hague, and died December 12, 1843 in Berlin, Germany. ... 1829 was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... 1832 was a leap year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... The Eiffel Tower has become a symbol of Paris throughout the world. ... I.M. Peis Louvre Pyramid: the entrance to the galleries lies below the glass pyramid The Louvre Museum (Musée du Louvre) in Paris, France, is one of the largest and most famous museums in the world. ...

In 1828, Wiertz took part in the Grand Concours, also known as Concours de Rome, but came out only second. He landed the prestigious Prix de Rome only at his second attempt in 1832, which enabled him to go to Rome, where he resided from May 1834 until February 1837. Upon his return, he established himself in Liège with his mother. 1828 was a leap year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... 1832 was a leap year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... City motto: Senatus Populusque Romanus – SPQR (The Senate and the People of Rome) Founded 21 April 753 BC mythical, 1st millennium BC Region Latium Mayor Walter Veltroni (Democratici di Sinistra) Area  - City Proper  1290 km² Population  - City (2004)  - Metropolitan  - Density (city proper) 2,546,807 almost 4,000,000 1... 1834 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... 1837 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... Liege or Liège has several meanings: A liege is the person or entity to which one has pledged allegiance. ...

During his stay in Rome, Wiertz worked on his first great work, Les Grecs et les Troyens se disputant le corps de Patrocle ("Greeks and Trojans fighting for the body of Patrocles", finished in 1836), on a subject borrowed from canto XVII of Homer's Iliad. It was exhibited in Antwerp in 1837, where it met with some success. Wiertz submitted the work for the Paris Salon of 1838, but it arrived too late and was refused. In Greek mythology, Patroclus, or Pátroklos (gr. ... Bust of Homer in the British Museum For other uses, see Homer (disambiguation). ... The Iliad (Greek Ἰλιάς, Ilias) tells part of the story of the siege of the city of Ilium, i. ... 1837 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... The Eiffel Tower has become a symbol of Paris throughout the world. ... 1838 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ...

At the Paris Salon of 1839, Wiertz showed not only his Patrocles, but also three other works: Madame Laetitia Bonaparte sur son lit de mort ("Madame Laetitia Bonaparte on her deathbed"), La Fable des trois souhaits — Insatiabilité humaine ("The fable of the three wishes — Human insatiability") and Le Christ au tombeau ("Christ entombed"). Badly hung and lit, his entry elicited indifference on the part of the public, and provoked sarcasm among the critics. This secons humiliation led to a profound rancour against art critics and against Paris, as expressed in his virulent pamphlet Bruxelles capitale, Paris province. Maria Letizia Ramonlino was born into a mediocre family in the Republic of Genoa on August 24, 1750. ...

In 1844, Wiertz painted a second version of his Patrocles on an even bigger scale than the first (the 1836 version measures 3.85m by 7.03m; the 1844 version 5.20m by 8.52). The Rome version is now in the Museum of Walloon Art in Liège, the 1844 in the Wiertz Museum in Brussels. Liege or Liège has several meanings: A liege is the person or entity to which one has pledged allegiance. ... Emblem of the Brussels-Capital Region Flag of The City of Brussels Brussels (Dutch: Brussel, French: Bruxelles, German: Brüssel) is the capital of Belgium and is considered by many to be the headquarters of the European Union, as two of its four main institutions have their headquarters in the...

After the Paris disaster, Wiertz veered more and more to the excessive. A fine example is the monumental La Chute des Anges rebelles ("The Fall of the rebellious Angels", 1841), on an arched canvas of 11.53m by 7.93m.

The death of his mother in 1844 was a terrible blow to the artist. He left Liège in 1845 to settle in Brussels for good. During this period he painted a confrontation of Beauty and Death, Deux jeunes filles — La Belle Rosine (1847), which remains perhaps his most famous work. 1844 was a leap year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... 1845 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... 1847 was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ...

Dissatisfied with the shiny effect of oil painting, he developed a new technique combining the smoothness of oil painting with the speed of execution and the dullness of painting in fresco. This technique of mat painting entailed the use of a mixture of colours, turpentine and petrol on holland. La Lutte homérique ("The Homeric struggle", 1853) was the first big-scale painting executed in this technique. However, the components used in this technique are responsible for the slow degradation of the works produced with it. Mona Lisa, Oil on wood panel painting by Leonardo da Vinci Oil painting is done on surfaces with pigment ground into a medium of oil - especially in early modern Europe, linseed oil. ... A XIV Century fresco featuring Saint Sebastian Note: Fresco is the NATO reporting name of the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17. ...

Many of his works from the 1850s have a social of philosophical message, often translated in delirious imagery, like Faim, Folie et Crime ("Hunger, Madness and Crime", 1853), La Liseuse de Romans ("The Reader of Novels", 1853), Le Suicide ("The Suicide", 1854), L'Inhumation précipitée ("The hasty burial", 1854), Le Dernier Canon ("The last gun", 1855).

Wiertz was also a fine portrait painter, who made self-portraits at various ages. As a sculptor, he produced his most important project towards the end of his life: a series of plasters representing Les Quatre Âges de l'Humanité ("The Four Ages of Humanity", 1860-1862), reproduced in marble for the Wiertz museum by Auguste Franck. 1860 is the leap year starting on Sunday. ... 1862 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ...

After difficult negotiations with the Belgian government, Wiertz was able to realize his dream to turn his last studio into a museum for his works. The Belgian State bought a piece of land and funded the construction of a huge hall to accomodate the painter's monumental works. In exchange, Wiertz donated all his works to the Belgian State, with the express proviso that they should remain in his studio both during and after his lifetime. The Wiertz Museum is located in the Leopold district of Brussels, near the Luxembourg railway station, today overshadowed by the bombastic European Parliament complex.

Wiertz died in his studio. His remains were embalmed in accordance with Ancient Egyptian burial rites and buried in a vault in the municipal cemetery of Ixelles. Ixelles (French) or Elsene (Dutch) is one of the nineteen municipalities located in the Brussels-Capital Region of Belgium. ...

Influenced mainly by Rubens and the late Michelangelo, Wiertz' monumental painting often moves between classical academism and lurid romanticism, between the grandiose and the ridiculous. His pictorial language nevertheless preannounced symbolism and a certain kind of surrealism, two currents that would be very strong in Belgian painting. Pieter Pauwel (Peter Paul) Rubens (June 28, 1577 – May 30, 1640) is considered one of the greatest painters in European art history (together with Dutchman Rembrandt van Rijn), and the most important Flemish (Netherlands, nowadays Belgium) painter of the sixteenth century. ... This page is about the artist. ...

External links

• Antoine Wiertz: Belgian Romantic by Jeffery Howe
• Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium Catalogue: Antoine Wiertz