IN the performing arts, there’s no shortage of father-offspring combos. Some stand out, like Jane and Peter Fonda with their father Henry, or the countless generations of Barrymores whose careers stretch back to the 19th century.
Others are more discreet, such as the less-cosy duo of Jon Voight and Angelina Jolie. Singers are just as likely to follow in their father’s footsteps.
For the other types of artists — painters and sculptors — it is a rare phenomenon in the 21st century, and the 20th century is hardly peppered with them either.
The number of leading contemporary artists with a father who did the same thing is negligible.
Art is still an activity for would-be rebels, and what could be less rebellious than joining dad’s business? I’m having trouble thinking of any current artists who are counter-rebels. In the 20th century, Picasso’s father was an art teacher, which doesn’t quite count.
Go back earlier, though, and art was more of a family tradition. Usually the skills were handed down from father to son, and occasionally a daughter got the training.
In the past, art was not the classless activity it is now. Contemporary artists around the world can come from any background these days.
In centuries past, it was considered an inappropriate activity for the elite, and an impossibility for the very poor. Artists were craftsmen. It was a skill that had to be learnt, and who better to learn it from than a father?
Many of the leading Renaissance painters had fathers who were painters. A prominent exception was Giotto.
A pioneer of what is now considered to be serious art, with perspective, it is thought that he started life as a shepherd whose talent was somehow spotted in the fields. His offspring don’t seem to have made the same impression on the history of art.
This was a common phenomenon with the Italian Renaissance; one individual from a family of artists so outshines the others, they become forgotten entirely.
Then there was the complication of the workshop system that was so popular in Renaissance Italy.
It’s often hard to know who painted certain works at all. One intriguing aspect of the Italian greats is that a large number had no offspring to follow them. Either they were monks, workaholics, died young or quite frequently were more interested in men than marriage.
OUTSIDE OF ITALY
For dynasties of artists with roughly equal fame, it’s better to look outside Italy. The greatest exemplars of all are probably the Brueghels.
These Dutch masters, whose views of peasant life are still a number-one choice for Christmas-card buyers, spanned two centuries. The most celebrated of them are a father and two sons.
From a nature versus nurture point of view, it’s remarkable that Pieter Brueghel the Elder died when his two sons, Pieter Brueghel the Younger and Jan Brueghel the Elder, were less than five years old.
Who taught the infant Brueghel boys and turned them into artists as famous as their father?
They seem to have had a grandmother who was also in the family painting business, and so a woman might have been responsible for the second generation of big-name Brueghels.
Over the border in Germany, and then Switzerland, was the Holbein dynasty. It didn’t last as long but the members travelled further, or at least Hans Holbein the Younger did.
He reached the unsophisticated shores of England in 1526, after his father had died. Almost every important image of the early Tudor period comes from the brush of young Hans.
His portraits included Henry VIII and two of his wives, including the unfortunate Anne of Cleves. Henry VIII felt Holbein’s image of her was too flattering when he actually met his bride after marrying her on the basis of this painting.
FATHER AND OFFSPRING TEAM
France also provided some father and son teams. The most famous are probably the Pisarros. There are about 20 of them of different generations, with the top painters being Camille Pisarro and his son Lucien, the eldest of seven siblings.
Camille was a founder of the Impressionist movement, while his son worked in a similar style until he ended up living in England.
Father and son worked closely for many years and family friends were also an influence, which would have been inevitable when they were of the stature of Renoir and Monet.
Another French name with a dynastic approach was Vigee. The father, Louis Vigee, was a renowned portraitist in the 18th century, but it was his daughter Elisabeth Vigee Le Brun who’s now the real celebrity.
Having been taught the trade by her father, she went on to become the favourite painter to the most famous woman of her time, Queen Marie Antoinette.
Elisabeth’s painting of the less renowned Muhammad Dervish Khan recently set a world record when it was sold at Sotheby’s. Portraits were the raison d’etre for both father and daughter, and even for the granddaughter, Julie Vigee Le Brun. Both women overshadowed their father/grandfather.
The same is true of one of Italy’s greatest artists. Artemisia Gentileschi is one of those rare female artists whose reputation now approaches Caravaggio’s. Her father was also an artist, Orazio Gentileschi, and Artemisia learnt painting from him, along with her numerous less-talented brothers.
The father’s skill as a painter was not matched by his judgment of fellow artists. One whom he hired to tutor his daughter ended up raping her. This resulted in a notorious court case of 1610 in Rome.
Perhaps the most famous artist father to have taught his daughter lived far away from Europe. Katsushika Hokusai’s reputation has not been overshadowed at all by Katsushika Oei. They had a wonderful relationship, both as father-daughter and as artistic colleagues. Best of all, he doesn’t seem to have introduced her to any rapists.