Saturday, October 6, 2018

Boldini's portrait of Sem

Giovanni Boldini, portrait of the caricaturist "Sem" (Georges Goursat, 1863–1934)
In 1876 Boldini visited Holland, where he studied paintings by Frans Hals. Afterward he developed a style that featured boldly slashing brushstrokes and subjects in informal, offhand poses. A 1933 article in Time magazine called him "The Master of Swish."


Artists were always painting and sketching each other when they got together. Sem caricatured his friend Boldini in return.

3 comments:

rock995 said...

Saw a lot of Boldini paintings during several visits to Italy. This article seems to say that a great deal of Boldini's "Slashing" style comes from Franz Hals.

Unknown said...

Thank you for introducing me to this artist. I googled him and looked at his fantastic paintings. I'm now a fan.

Rich said...

That's interesting to hear about Boldini's "boldly slashing brushstrokes", adopted after seeing the paintings of Frans Hals.

Made me remember a Max Liebermann quotation - saying that "Frans Hals had all his imagination at the tip of his brush".
Something in that vein.