#jacques guillaume lucien amans

[highly-important]

Little Art things I'm obsessed with pt 1

Portraits of absent figures:

David Hockney - A Bigger Splash, 1967

Hockney originally visited California in 1963 and was won over by the sunlight and laid-back lifestyle, especially the luxury and ubiquity of the swimming pool. He described it as his "promised land" The splash is about freezing a moment in time, but it is also empty of human presence but implying a human. The male figure is present in some of David's other works from this time period, especially his muse and then-partner Peter Schlesinger. These paintings are about a hedonistic gay lifestyle, and the swimmers, the divers, are often the subject of voyeurism and desire. But in this painting, we just missed the diver, which makes the object of desire more private and personal. Who was the painter looking at, lusting after, etc. I like the contrast of the incredibly sharp and graphic suburban neighborhood, and the chaotic, organic splash. So again, if the divers represent this homosexual desire, we have this contrast of an orderly heterosexual world, and the queerness that joyfully disrupts it.

And then of course, with the absent figure, there is this massive sense of loss and loneliness. And so much of loneliness is about concealment, hiding in shame. This is a private space, but its also an exposed space, enhancing the loneliness. The figure is isolated, alone, invisible. Its a sadness that contrasts with the setting, the activity, and saturated lighting.

Felix Gonzalez-Torres - Untitled (billboard of an empty bed), 1991

These billboards were exhibited in the streets of Manhattan during the AIDS crisis. This piece was created the same year Felix Gonzalez-Torres's boyfriend Ross died. This portrait is a celebration of love and a memorization of loss and the emotions between intimacy and publicity. In the artist's own words:

“What I’m trying to say is that we cannot give the powers that be what they want, what they are expecting from us. Some homophobic senator is going to have a very hard time trying to explain to his constituency that my work is homoerotic or pornographic, but if I were to do a performance with HIV blood — that’s what he wants, that’s what the rags expect because they can sensationalize that, and that’s what’s disappointing. Some of the work I make is more effective because it’s more dangerous. We both make work that looks like something else but it’s not that. We’re infiltrating that look.“

The work intentionally uses the matching, identical depressions to imply a same-sex couple. The image itself is extremely intimate, but its being displayed in public spaces.

Felix Gonzales-Torres became known for his absent bodies.

And then, a little different, this painting by Jacques Guillaume Lucien Amans (1837) commissioned by Frederick and and Coralie Frey, depicts the three Frey children, with the faint shadow of a figure. There was a legend that there was a fourth figure in this painting. In 2005 a private collector, Jeremy K Simien, purchased the painting and it underwent conservation.

The painting revealed Bélizaire, a fifteen year-old enslaved domestic owned by the children's father. The picture captures the complex relationship between the boy and the children, the family that was keeping him captive. For one thing, the way he is set back from the others. There is this sort of intimacy between them along side the psychological trauma of forced bondage.

Here is a great Tiktok about the painting, to quote "What I'm struck by is what a sensitive portrait this is of this young man who was living in an inhumane society where he, despite being a human being, was bought and sold."

A few years after this painting was created, the three Frey children died, and Bélizaire was the only one who survived into adulthood.

The painting stayed in the Frey family. At some point, likely in the late 19th or 20th century, Bélizaire was intentionally painted over. In 1972, the great-granddaughter of Coralie Frey donated the painting to a Louisiana museum, informing them that a figure was painted over. During the course of the painting's life at the museum, no effort was put into restoring the figure.

Jeremy Simien's, who bought and restored this painting, said on his instagram "Bélizaire, they know your name now. Tell the ancestors to let me sleep for a minute."

And shout out to the picture that make me want to write this, Hyde Park Flowers, London by Tumblr user @kimironside I won't re-post it so check out the link.

[misscromwellsmonocle]

Creole in a Red Headdress (c. 1840) by Jacques Guillaume Lucien Amans

(more info)

[jadeseadragon]

Jacques Guillaume Lucien Amans (French, 1801 - 1888), Portrait of the three Frey children, commissioned by Frederick and Coralie Frey, 1837. (Top) restored after having been painted over in the late 19th or early 20th century. The cleaning "revealed Bélizaire, a fifteen year-old enslaved domestic owned by the children's father."

@jeremy.k.simien

More on Hyperallergic

[artthatgivesmefeelings]

Jacques Guillaume Lucien Amans (French, 1801-1888) The Frey Children and Bélizaire, ca. 1840

Jacques Guillaume Lucien Amans was a French neoclassical portrait painter working in New Orleans in the 1840s and 1850s. He is famous for his New Orleans Creole portraits.

The term Creole was first used on the Gulf Coast to refer to the first generation of French or Spanish people who were born in the colonies.

In 1837 New Orleans, the Frey family lived in an elegant three-story townhouse in the French Quarter on the current site of the Carousel Bar in the Monteleone Hotel.

In this painting, a Black teenager stands beside a trio of White children. A recent historical discovery found that the young New Orleanian was an enslaved household servant named Bélizaire.

[bohemian-nights]

If George R. R. Martin ever wrote a short novel about Nettles📖

[portraituresque]

Jacques Guillaume Lucien  Amans (French , 1801 – 1888) - self portrait

[andronetalks]

Painting that covered up enslaved boy restored, set to hang in Met

New York Post By Alex Mitchell August 21, 2023 2:46pm Updated A 19th-century family portrait that was altered to cover an enslaved teenager has been restored to its original version. The painting, initially etched on canvas, is now set to hang in the Metropolitan Museum of Art this fall after half a century in hiding. The Jacques Guillaume Lucien Amans attributed work from 1837, titled “Bélizaire…

[alisiarobinsontheeartist]

Digital sketch study of Jacques Guillaume Lucien Amans “Creole in Red Headdress” 1840 New Orleans

[citylifeorg]

The Metropolitan Museum of Art Acquires Important Painting Attributed to Jacques Amans

Image: Attributed to Jacques Guillaume Lucien Amans (Franco-American, Maastricht (then under French rule) 1801–1888 Paris). Bélizaire and the Frey Children, ca. 1837. Oil on canvas. 47 1/4 × 36 1/4 in. (120 × 92.1 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, Acquisitions Fund, Brooke Russell Astor Bequest, Friends of the American Wing Fund, Muriel J. Kogan Bequest, and funds from various…

[somanyhumanbeings]

Jacques Guillaume Lucien Amans, Portrait de Madame Gustave Miltenberger (1840)

[thecolorblockcurator]

Clara Mazureau, Jacques Guillaume Lucien Amans

[jadeseadragon]

Jacques Guillaume Lucien Amans (French, 1801 - 1888), Creole in a Red Headdress, c. 1840, oil on canvas, 28¾ × 23⅝ inches; Historic New Orleans Collection.