Category Archives: #FineArtFriday

December 12, 2025 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: Traditions of Christmas by Adolph Tidemand 1846

Artist: Adolph Tidemand (1814–1876)

Title: Norwegian Christmas Tradition

Date: 1846

Medium: oil on canvas

Dimensions: height: 69 cm (27.1 in)

Collection: Trondheim art museum

Inscriptions: Signature and date bottom right: A. Tidemand 46. Df.

 

What I love about this painting:

Adolph Tideman shows us a community gathering in front of a traditional Norwegian store house, a stabbur. Everyone is having fun, enjoying traditional winter activities. For me, the stabbur is the most interesting part of this painting. I love the architecture, the way it is constructed to protect the foods and items stored within it.

I also love the birds who circle above and roost on it. They are partaking of the feast offered by the sheaf of grain, apparently enjoying the festivities happening in the street below.

In Norway, the hoisting of a sheaf into the air during Christmas is a tradition known as Julenek or Kornband. They hang a sheaf of oats or grain on a pole near homes and barns to attract birds for an avian Christmas dinner. According to the article, Julenek – Christmas Sheaf A Norwegian Tradition | Norway with Pål, “It symbolizes good luck and is believed to bring prosperity for the coming year. Historically, it was thought to be an offering to the gods or a way to protect against evil forces. The sheaf is typically hung on Christmas Eve and is a common sight during the holiday season in Norway.” [1]

About the stabbur, via the Scandinavian Heritage Association website:

“Trunks with clothing and valuables were stored on the upper floor. Food and commodities were stored on the ground floor. Water and rodents were the biggest enemies in a storehouse. Stilts raised the floor level, the wooden steps did not come into contact with the building to reduce the possibility of rodent infestation and meat/cheese was hung from the ceiling.” [2]

About this painting, via the Trondheim Kunstmuseum:

” In this painting of modest size the pictorial space is packed with people who perform different tasks, all dressed in Norwegian national costumes. The store house is the centre of attention, and on the roof a sheaf is hoisted into the air, a Norwegian Christmas custom.” [3]

About the Artist, via Wikipedia:

Adolph Tidemand (14 August 1814 – 8 August 1876) was a noted Norwegian romantic nationalism painter. Among his best known paintings are Haugianerne (The Haugeans; 1852) and Brudeferd i Hardanger (The Bridal Procession in Hardanger; 1848), painted in collaboration with Hans Gude. [4]

To read more about this extraordinary artist’s life, go to  Adolph Tidemand – Wikipedia

Credits and Attributions:

IMAGE: Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Adolph Tidemand – Norwegian Christmas Tradition – Norsk juleskik – TKM-1-1867 – Trondheim kunstmuseum (cropped).jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Adolph_Tidemand_-_Norwegian_Christmas_Tradition_-_Norsk_juleskik_-_TKM-1-1867_-_Trondheim_kunstmuseum_(cropped).jpg&oldid=1030315615 (accessed December 11, 2025).

[1] Quote from Julenek – Christmas Sheaf A Norwegian Tradition | Norway with Pål © 2025 Pål Bjarne Johansen, Norway with Pål (Accessed December 11, 2025).

[2] Quote from Stabbur – Scandinavian Heritage Association © 2025 Scandinavian Heritage Association Contributors, (accessed December 11, 2025).

[3] Quote from Adolf Tideman – Trondheim kunstmuseum © 2025 Trondheim Kunstmuseum Contributors (accessed December 11, 2025).

[4] Wikipedia contributors, “Adolph Tidemand,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Adolph_Tidemand&oldid=1325534158 (accessed December 11, 2025).

 

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December 5, 2025 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: A closer look at “The Sycamores” by Alexandre Calame 1854

1175px-'The_Sycamores'_by_Alexandre_Calame,_Cincinnati_Art_MuseumTitle: The Sycamores by Alexandre Calame

Genre: landscape art

Date: 1854

Medium: oil on canvas

Dimensions: height: 54.3 cm (21.3 in)

Collection: Cincinnati Art Museum

What I love about this painting:

I live in the Pacific Northwest, a part of the world where sycamore trees do not grow in the wild. They are native to the eastern United States and are often featured as part of the landscape in 18th and 19th-century American literature.

The trees featured in this painting are European Sycamores. When I first came across this painting in 2022, I was impressed by both their size and the rough, boulder-strewn landscape that is their home.

These are trees with a presence. They grow on a sunlit hillside and seem as tough as the boulders surrounding them. Storms may come and go, but these trees remain.

Like people, these trees have seen some stuff. No delicate hothouse specimens here; these are sturdy peasant trees, able to make do with whatever nature throws at them.

About the Artist, via Wikipedia:

Alexandre Calame (28 May 1810 – 19 March 1864) was a Swiss landscape painter, associated with the Düsseldorf School.

He was born in Arabie at the time belonging to Corsier-sur-Vevey, today a part of Vevey. He was the son of a skillful marble worker in Vevey, but because his father lost the family fortune, Calame could not concentrate on art, but rather he was forced to work in a bank from the age of 15. When his father fell from a building and then died, it was up to the young Calame to provide for his mother.

In his spare time he began to practice drawing small views of Switzerland. In 1829 he met his patron, the banker Diodati, who made it possible for him to study under landscape painter François Diday. After a few months he decided to devote himself fully to art.

In 1835 he began exhibiting his Swiss-Alps and forest paintings in Paris and Berlin. He became quite well known, especially in Germany, although Calame was more a drawer than an illustrator. He is associated with the Düsseldorf school of painting. In 1842 he went to Paris and displayed his works Mont Blanc, the Jungfrau, the Brienzersee, the Monte Rosa and Mont Cervin.

Credits and Attributions:

Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:’The Sycamores’ by Alexandre Calame, Cincinnati Art Museum.JPG,” Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:%27The_Sycamores%27_by_Alexandre_Calame,_Cincinnati_Art_Museum.JPG&oldid=618822225 (accessed December 4, 2025).

Wikipedia contributors, “Alexandre Calame,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Alexandre_Calame&oldid=1088977147 (accessed December 4, 2025).

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November 28, 2025 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: “Feast in the Interior” by artist unknown, 17th century

Title: Feast in the Interior.

Artist: Unknown. Flemish School of the 17th century,

Medium: Oil on canvas.

Size: 57 x 89 cm.

What I love about this painting:

Based on the boy’s interactions with his mother, I would have titled this painting “It’s not my fault!” I assume she is his mother based on the level of frustration she is showing. (Speaking as a mother, frustrations do occasionally boil over.) This painting has been posted to Wikimedia Commons as a 17th-century Flemish painting possibly by the Circle of Frans Francken.

But the more I look at it, the more I wonder why an art historian came to that assessment. To me, this painting looks nothing like any of the paintings I have seen that are attributed to the Francken dynasty of painters. They were definitely active in Flanders during the 17th century, but to me, the composition and style are wrong, and honestly, the subject is a genre scene. The Franckens were more well-known for their excellent cabinet paintings, altar pieces, and religious subjects.

There is one wedding scene attributed to Frans Francken the Elder, which could be why this is attributed to a follower of his. But the people in that painting are quite stiff, a style more reminiscent of Pieter Brueghel the Younger. Frans Francken (I) – The Wedding Dance – Frans Francken the Elder – Wikipedia

These people have a sense of movement and life, the style I think of late 1600s rather than early. This is why I would think it the work of a follower of one of the later artists. An admirer of Jan Steen’s work comes to mind, but it could be a follower of any of the great later genre artist.

The clothing is definitely that of the early 17th century, which is in favor of Frans Francken. However, artists often dressed actors in costumes. Rembrandt most certainly did.

Also, composition of this painting, and certain style features (such as the shape of legs and how the garters are shown) shows us the kind of scene a follower of Dutch Golden Age painter Jan Steen, or a member of his workshop, might have painted.

This painting tells us a story. The tavern is full, the feast is on the table, and the innkeeper’s wife has had enough of Junior’s antics. A well-dressed man turns, ready to jump into the fray, and Junior deflects the blame, pointing to someone just out of the frame.

Beneath the table, several playing cards and a decoration from someone’s garment lie where they have fallen. The wine and ale flow, the ladies of dubious virtue are working the crowd, and the family that owns the tavern is struggling to serve their customers in the midst of the chaos.

This is a story with a moral wrapped in a sense of humor. The composition of this scene is full of symbolism. The positions of various hands, the bounty of oysters, and the clutter beneath the table are deliberately placed to convey subtext that a 17th-century viewer would immediately understand.

The symbolic gestures of the hands could reference tenets of one or the other of the two warring religious faiths, which might have influenced the attribution toward Frans Francken.

You can read about the Francken Dynasty here: Francken family – Wikipedia

And you can read about the brilliant Jan Steen and his merry, chaotic genre scenes here: Jan Steen – Wikipedia

And I wish I could tell you more about the painter who created this wonderful glimpse of tavern life in the 17th century.

Credits and Attributions:

IMAGE: Feast in the Interior, artist unknown. Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Flämisch 17 Jh Festmahl im Interieur.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Fl%C3%A4misch_17_Jh_Festmahl_im_Interieur.jpg&oldid=1113684537 (accessed November 25, 2025).

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November 14, 2025 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: a closer look at “The Bridge of Sighs” by John Singer Sargent ca,1905 – 1908

John_Singer_Sargent_-_The_bridge_of_sighsArtist: John Singer Sargent (1856–1925)

Title: The Bridge of Sighs

Date: between 1905 and 1908

Medium: watercolor on paper

Dimensions: height: 25.4 cm (10 in); width: 35.6 cm (14 in)

Collection: Brooklyn Museum

Current location: American Art collection

What I love about this picture:

I love the work of John Singer Sargent. He was known for his portraits and the scandals that sometimes followed him, but it is his watercolors that fascinate me.

This painting of Venice’s Bridge of Sighs is one of my favorites. Done in every shade of blue and brown, Sargent conveys the heat of afternoons in Venice. He shows us the bridge as a passenger sees it from a gondola, with a view of well-heeled ladies sheltered beneath parasols and passing in the opposite direction.

I especially like the way he shows us the gondoliers as they labor, how their bodies move as they work to propel their passengers to whatever place they are going. Sargent made several watercolors depicting gondoliers while he was in Venice.

The bridge is the true center of the piece. By his choice of colors, Sargent paints the atmosphere of a poignant, tragic place and contrasts it with the freedom and wealth of the sightseers.

They are like me, people with an interest in history but who have no true concept of the reality, the tragedy of the famous place they have come to see.

About this picture, via Wikipedia:

The Bridge of Sighs (Italian: Ponte dei Sospiri, Venetian: Ponte de i Sospiri) is a bridge in Venice, Italy. The enclosed bridge is made of white limestone, has windows with stone bars, passes over the Rio di Palazzo, and connects the New Prison (Prigioni Nuove) to the interrogation rooms in the Doge’s Palace.

The view from the Bridge of Sighs was the last view of Venice that convicts saw before their imprisonment. The bridge’s English name was bequeathed by Lord Byron in the 19th century as a translation from the Italian “Ponte dei sospiri”, from the suggestion that prisoners would sigh at their final view of beautiful Venice through the window before being taken down to their cells. [1]

About The Artist via Wikipedia:

John Singer Sargent (January 12, 1856 – April 14, 1925) was an American expatriate artist, considered the “leading portrait painter of his generation” for his evocations of Edwardian-era luxury. He created roughly 900 oil paintings and more than 2,000 watercolors, as well as countless sketches and charcoal drawings. His oeuvre documents worldwide travel, from Venice to the Tyrol, Corfu, the Middle East, Montana, Maine, and Florida.

Born in Florence to American parents, he was trained in Paris before moving to London, living most of his life in Europe. He enjoyed international acclaim as a portrait painter. An early submission to the Paris Salon in the 1880s, his Portrait of Madame X, was intended to consolidate his position as a society painter in Paris, but instead resulted in scandal. During the next year following the scandal, Sargent departed for England where he continued a successful career as a portrait artist.

From the beginning, Sargent’s work is characterized by remarkable technical facility, particularly in his ability to draw with a brush, which in later years inspired admiration as well as criticism for a supposed superficiality. His commissioned works were consistent with the grand manner of portraiture, while his informal studies and landscape paintings displayed a familiarity with Impressionism. In later life Sargent expressed ambivalence about the restrictions of formal portrait work and devoted much of his energy to mural painting and working en plein air. Art historians generally ignored society artists such as Sargent until the late 20th century.

With his watercolors, Sargent was able to indulge his earliest artistic inclinations for nature, architecture, exotic peoples, and noble mountain landscapes. And it is in some of his late works where one senses Sargent painting most purely for himself. His watercolors were executed with a joyful fluidness. He also painted extensively family, friends, gardens, and fountains. In watercolors, he playfully portrayed his friends and family dressed in Orientalist costume, relaxing in brightly lit landscapes that allowed for a more vivid palette and experimental handling than did his commissions (The Chess Game, 1906). His first major solo exhibit of watercolor works was at the Carfax Gallery in London in 1905. In 1909, he exhibited eighty-six watercolors in New York City, eighty-three of which were bought by the Brooklyn Museum. Evan Charteris wrote in 1927:

To live with Sargent’s water-colours is to live with sunshine captured and held, with the luster of a bright and legible world, ‘the refluent shade’ and ‘the Ambient ardours of the noon.’

Although not generally accorded the critical respect given Winslow Homer, perhaps America’s greatest watercolorist, scholarship has revealed that Sargent was fluent in the entire range of opaque and transparent watercolor technique, including the methods used by Homer. [2]

Credits and Attributions:

[1] Wikipedia contributors, “Bridge of Sighs,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bridge_of_Sighs&oldid=1096829521 (accessed November 13, 2025).

[2] Wikipedia contributors, “John Singer Sargent,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_Singer_Sargent&oldid=1099859237 (accessed November 13, 2025).

[Image] Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:John Singer Sargent – The bridge of sighs.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:John_Singer_Sargent_-_The_bridge_of_sighs.jpg&oldid=660236372 (accessed November 13, 2025).

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November 7, 2025 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: a closer look at “The Beeches” by Asher Brown Durand 1845 #prompt

The_Beeches_MET_DT75Artist: Asher Brown Durand  (1796–1886)

Title: The Beeches

Genre: landscape art

Date: 1845

Medium: oil on canvas

Dimensions: 60 3/8 x 48 1/8 in. (153.4 x 122.2 cm)

Collection: Metropolitan Museum of Art

Current location: American Paintings and Sculpture

What I love about this painting:

It’s been raining cats and dogs here, a regular monsoon. There has been some minor flooding here as the street drains aren’t able to cope with the quantities of rain that has fallen for the last week. It seems like a good time to revisit one of my favorite paintings, one detailing a sunny day painted during a calmer time.

Asher Brown Durand gives us a summer day on the shore of a large pond, in a grove of beech and birch trees. The large beech tree is magnificent, with its rough, moss-covered bark commanding the center stage. In the distance, as if they were accidentally included, a shepherd leads a flock of sheep, a minor part of the scene as compared to the superb majesty of the beech tree.

Yet, nothing in this painting is accidental. The sheep and their shepherd are painted in exquisite detail, with as much attention as he gives to the texture of the bark and the moss. Each leaf, each blade of grass, each stone—every part of this scene is painted with intention. Each component of this landscape painting is as true and perfect as they were in real life.

I love the natural feeling of the plants, the intense colors of nature, the sense of a place that is vibrant and alive.

This painting is not merely a photographic representation of a summer morning in 1845. It has a life, a sense that you are there. We can almost feel the warming sunshine and slight breeze lifting the morning haze, hear the sheep as they walk to the water, perhaps even catch the earthy scent of the woods around us.

What story will you find in this scene? I think there are several. The observer has a story, but so does the shepherd and the sheep. The tree also has a story, but trees rarely tell what they know.

Durand was a master in the Hudson River School, a group of artists who believed that nature in the form of the American landscape was a reflection of God. Durand himself wrote, “The true province of Landscape Art is the representation of the work of God in the visible creation.” [1]

This painting demonstrates that conviction.

About the Artist, via Wikipedia:

Asher Brown Durand (August 21, 1796, – September 17, 1886). (He) was an American painter of the Hudson River School. was born in, and eventually died in, Maplewood, New Jersey (then called Jefferson Village). He was the eighth of eleven children. Durand’s father was a watchmaker and a silversmith.

Durand was apprenticed to an engraver from 1812 to 1817 and later entered into a partnership with the owner of the company, Charles Cushing Wright (1796–1854), who asked him to manage the company’s New York office. He engraved Declaration of Independence for John Trumbull during 1823, which established Durand’s reputation as one of the country’s finest engravers. Durand helped organize the New York Drawing Association in 1825, which would become the National Academy of Design; he would serve the organization as president from 1845 to 1861.

Asher’s engravings on bank notes were used as the portraits for America’s first postage stamps, the 1847 series. Along with his brother Cyrus he also engraved some of the succeeding 1851 issues.

Durand’s main interest changed from engraving to oil painting about 1830 with the encouragement of his patron, Luman Reed. In 1837, he accompanied his friend Thomas Cole on a sketching expedition to Schroon Lake in the Adirondacks Mountains, and soon after he began to concentrate on landscape painting. He spent summers sketching in the Catskills, Adirondacks, and the White Mountains of New Hampshire, making hundreds of drawings and oil sketches that were later incorporated into finished academy pieces which helped to define the Hudson River School.

Durand is remembered particularly for his detailed portrayals of trees, rocks, and foliage. He was an advocate for drawing directly from nature with as much realism as possible. [1]

Credits and Attributions:

Image:  The Beeches by Asher Brown Durand, PD|100. Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:The Beeches MET DT75.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:The_Beeches_MET_DT75.jpg&oldid=617658539 (accessed November 6, 2025).

[1] Wikipedia contributors, “Asher Brown Durand,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Asher_Brown_Durand&oldid=1129313847 (accessed November 6, 2025).

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October 31, 2025 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: Twilight Confidences by Cecilia Beaux 1888 #prompt #

Twilight_Confidences_by_Cecilia_BeauxTwilight Confidences by Cecilia Beaux  (1855–1942)

Date: 1888

Medium:  oil on canvas

Dimensions: 23 1/2 x 28 inches, 59.7 x 71.1 cm

Inscriptions: Signed and dated: Cecilia Beaux

What I love about this painting:

This is one of my all-time favorite paintings. It is not merely a portrait of how two women looked on a summer’s day; it tells us a story. What that story is will be up to you, but in this very simple scene, two women beside the sea, Cecelia Beaux tells us many things.

First, we see brilliant world building in what Beaux has chosen to focus on: their expressive features, and the lonely stretch of beach where they can talk and not be overheard. The artist hasn’t cluttered it up with anything that is not necessary.

We know this was painted toward the end of Beaux’s time in France. The two women may be nurses, or they may be sisters of a religious order. Or, their dress and headwear may be a fashion of their local area, but I’m leaning toward young nurses.

There is an honesty, a real sense of intimacy depicted here. The feeling of sisterhood between the two women is conveyed across the years–they find it safe to confide in each other.

One holds an object with a personal meaning, perhaps a gift from a young man who is absent. She tells the other something about that object, a secret she feels she may be judged for. The other takes in what she has been told and accepts it for what it is.

About this painting via Wikimedia Commons:  

Cecilia Beaux was a leading figure and portrait painter and one of the few distinguished and highly recognized women artists of her time in America. Her figures are frequently compared to Sargent’s, but her style relates also to other international leaders of late-19th Century portraiture, including Anders Zorn, Giuseppe Boldini, Carolus-Duran and William Merritt Chase. She was born and lived mostly in Philadelphia, traveling frequently to Europe, especially France from a young age, and exhibited widely in Paris, Philadelphia, New York and elsewhere. Her first acclaimed work, Les Derniers jours d’enfance, a mother and child composition, was exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1887, and Beaux followed it there the next year, spending the summer of 1888 at the art colony at Concarneau in Brittany. Here she painted her remarkable Twilight Confidences of 1888, preceded by numerous studies, which are in the collection of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Lost for many years, this much admired canvas is Beaux’s first major exercise in plein-air painting, in which the figures and the seascape are artfully and exquisitely juxtaposed, and sunlight permeates the whole composition. [1]

Beaux was highly educated and had a brilliant career as one of the most respected portrait artists of her time. To read about this amazing woman’s life, go to Cecilia Beaux – Wikipedia.

Credits and Attributions:

IMAGE: Twilight Confidences, Cecilia Beaux, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

[1] Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Twilight Confidences by Cecilia Beaux.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Twilight_Confidences_by_Cecilia_Beaux.jpg&oldid=355146645 (accessed October 30, 2025).

 

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October 24, 2025 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: Haying at Jones Inn by George Henry Durrie 1854

Artist: George Henry Durrie (1820–1863)

Title: English: Haying at Jones Inn

Date: 1854

Medium: oil on canvas

Dimensions: 22″×30″

Location: Private collection

What I love about this painting:

George Henry Durrie found beauty in the depictions of ordinary life. He always found a way to fit people into his scenes.

I absolutely love the nostalgia of this scene, and the wealth of information about how a reputable roadside inn worked. It is clear that Durrie was frequent guest at Jones Inn. He traveled widely in the years he worked as a portrait painter, and this particular public house is featured in his work several times from different angles. I like to imagine he painted the inn to provide a little respite from the demands of portraiture.

This scene shows us a day at the end of summer. Laborers are bringing a wagon piled high with hay. Two oxen are hitched behind a horse, the three working together to pull the laden wagon.

Country inns were often working farms. They had to be, as they were feeding staff and laborers as well as guests all year long, and there were no Costco, Sam’s Club, or Wholesale Foods to purchase supplies from.

The stables and the people who cared for the horses were just as important. Providing well for travelers’ horses was as crucial as that of providing the best rooms and food possible for their guests.

The hay piled on this wagon will feed not only the innkeepers’ beasts but will feed the horses ridden by guests as the year progresses. Many more wagons will be required to fill the barn and hayloft.

About the Artist, Via Wikipedia:

George Henry Durrie (June 6, 1820 – October 15, 1863) was an American landscape artist noted especially for his rural winter snow scenes, which became very popular after they were reproduced as lithographic prints by Currier and Ives.

For many years, Durrie made a living primarily as a portrait painter, executing hundreds of commissions. After marriage, he made frequent trips, traveling to New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Virginia, fulfilling commissions and looking for new ones. His diary reveals that he was an enthusiastic railroad traveler, in the early days of the railroads. Durrie also painted what he called “fancy pieces”, whimsical studies of still lives or stage actors, as well as painting scenes on window-shades and fireplace covers. But portrait painting commissions became scarcer when photography came on the scene, offering a cheaper alternative to painted portraits, and, as his account-book shows, Durrie rarely painted a portrait after 1851.

Durrie’s interest shifted to landscape painting, and while on the road, or at home, made frequent sketches of landscape elements that caught his eye. Around 1844 Durrie began painting water and snow scenes, and took a second place medal at the 1845 New Haven State Fair for two winter landscapes. [1]

To learn more about this artist, go to  George Henry Durrie – Wikipedia

Credits and Attributions:

IMAGE: Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:George Henry Durrie – Haying at Jones Inn.JPG,” Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:George_Henry_Durrie_-_Haying_at_Jones_Inn.JPG&oldid=853995435 (accessed October 22, 2025).

[1] Wikipedia contributors, “George Henry Durrie,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=George_Henry_Durrie&oldid=1282714933 (accessed October 22, 2025).

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October 17, 2025 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: Autumn Woods by Albert Bierstadt 1886

Artist: Albert Bierstadt (1830–1902)

Title: Autumn Woods, Oneida County, State of New York

Date: 1886

Medium: Oil on linen

Dimensions: Overall (linen): 54 x 84 in. (137.2 x 213.4 cm) Framed: 64 3/4 in. × 7 ft. 10 3/4 in. × 3 1/4 in. (164.5 × 240.7 × 8.3 cm)

Collection: New York Historical  (Gift of Mrs. Albert Bierstadt)

What I love about this painting:

Albert Bierstadt gives us a beautiful day in Glorious Autumn (with capitol letters), the kind of day rare here in my part of the Pacific Northwest. In October, rainy weather usually rolls in, accompanied by a blustery wind that strips the trees of leaves and takes the joy out of sightseeing.

Bierstadt’s trees are luminous, red and gold the way they are far away in the mystical lands on the other side of the continent from me. His sky is lovely, but he has kept our focus on the theme, so it doesn’t dominate the scene. The reflections of the trees on the quiet, still waters of the pond ensure they are the stars of this painting.

I especially like the realism of the branches of a downed tree rising out of the water in the foreground. This is a romantic depiction of what Autumn should be, as opposed to the sodden mess that it often is here in my town.

I would love to go walking along the shore of this pond.

About the Artist, via Wikipedia:

Albert Bierstadt (January 7, 1830 – February 18, 1902) was a German American painter best known for his lavish, sweeping landscapes of the American West. He joined several journeys of the westward expansion to paint the scenes. He was not the first artist to record the sites, but he was the foremost painter of them for the remainder of the 19th century.

Bierstadt was born in Prussia, but his family moved to the United States when he was one year old. He returned to study painting for several years in Düsseldorf. He became part of the second generation of the Hudson River School in New York, an informal group of like-minded painters who started painting along the Hudson River. Their style was based on carefully detailed paintings with romantic, almost glowing lighting, sometimes called luminism. Bierstadt was an important interpreter of the western landscape, and he is also grouped with the Rocky Mountain School. [1]

To read more about this artist, go to  Albert Bierstadt – Wikipedia.

Credits and Attributions:

IMAGE: Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Autumn Woods, Oneida County, State of New York 1910 11.jpeg,” Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Autumn_Woods,_Oneida_County,_State_of_New_York_1910_11.jpeg&oldid=1069889157 (accessed October 16, 2025).

[1] Wikipedia contributors, “Albert Bierstadt,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Albert_Bierstadt&oldid=1308977510 (accessed October 16, 2025).

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October 10, 2025 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: An autumn walk in the English Garden of Munich by Anders Andersen-Lundby 1887

Artist: Anders Andersen-Lundby (1841–1923)

Title: English: An autumn walk in the English Garden of Munich. German: Herbstspaziergang im englischen Garten in München.

Date: 1887

Medium: oil on canvas

Dimensions: height: 77 cm (30.3 in); width: 106 cm (41.7 in)

Inscriptions: Signature and date: 1887

What I love about this painting:

Anders Anderson-Lundby shows us the perfect autumn day for a stroll. Truthfully, the day looks so pleasant that I’d like to be walking there. The leaves are nearly off the trees, and those that remain are golden and brown. Those who walk in these woods seem happy, content to be outdoors while the weather remains decent.

Autumn has arrived here in the Pacific Northwest. In a few weeks, this is how the deciduous trees in my part of the world will look. Right now the big-leaf maples are still holding fast to green but it’s shading toward brown and their leaves have begun falling. The Japanese maples and other non-native trees brightening gardens and public through-ways have turned a bright red. Soon our native vine maples and that (now undomesticated) decorative-plant-gone-native, staghorn sumac, will too.

About the Artist, via Wikipedia:

Anders Andersen-Lundby (December 16, 1841 – January 4, 1923) was a Danish landscape painter. He was most associated with winter landscapes.

(He) was born in Lundby, Denmark. He grew up in Lundby near Aalborg. In 1861, when he was twenty, Andersen-Lundby traveled to Copenhagen, and there he exhibited his works for the first time in 1864. By 1870, he gained popularity especially with his winter landscapes from both Denmark and southern Germany, most often with fallen snow or thaw.

In 1876, he moved to Munich with his family where he exhibited his paintings. He frequently visited Denmark and participated in exhibitions there. He exhibited at the Charlottenborg Spring Exhibition 1864–1913. [1]

To view more of Anders Anderson-Lundby’s work, go to Anders Andersen-Lundby – Wikipedia.

Credits and Attributions:

IMAGE: Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Anders Andersen-Lundby – Herbstspaziergang im Englischen Garten (1887).jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Anders_Andersen-Lundby_-_Herbstspaziergang_im_Englischen_Garten_(1887).jpg&oldid=1068508759 (accessed October 9, 2025).

[1] Wikipedia contributors, “Anders Andersen-Lundby,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Anders_Andersen-Lundby&oldid=1191864454 (accessed October 9, 2025).

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October 3, 2025 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: Autumn in Towadako by Li Mei-shu

Title: Autumn in Towadako

Artist: Li Mei-shu

Date: 1978

Medium: oil on canvas.

What I love about this painting:

I love how this painting shows a pool of water at the base of the trees. I suspect the pond is dry during summer but in fall, the low area fills. The light shines through the trees and reflects on the water. It’s a scene of quiet beauty, a moment of serenity in the forest. I really like this painting.

Autum has arrived in the area where I live. The trees are beginning to turn colors, and unfortunately, the rains have come. But dryer weather is on the horizon, and we will be treated to red and gold leaves decorating the maples and other deciduous trees.

Soon, the streets and lanes in my town will be dressed in a final burst of color. It must be enjoyed while we can, as the beautiful leaves will soon turn brown and soggy, and the eternal gray of the Northwest winter will set in.

The coffee shops are all pushing their pumpkin spice blends, although I have so far resisted. However, I have pulled out a few cozy sweaters for when the weather really turns cool.

About the Artist, via Wikipedia:

Li Mei-shu (13 March 1902 – 6 February 1983) was a Taiwanese painter, sculptor, and politician. He was best known for his paintings as well as his restoration attempt of the Changfu Temple.

Li was born to an upper-class family in Sankakuyū (Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Saⁿ-kak-éng), Japanese Taiwan (modern-day Sanxia District, New Taipei City) on 13 March 1902. He began to demonstrate a propensity for painting in his early years. In 1918, he was accepted into the Painting Division of the Taiwan Governor-General’s National Language School. He taught himself painting after school through a copy of A Collection of Lectures, which he ordered from Japan through post. Upon graduating, he taught at Zuihō Public School (in modern-day Ruifang District). During this time, he participated in the Summer Art Seminar organized by Kinichiro Ishikawa. His works ‘Still Life and Backstreets of Sanxia’ were selected for the first and second Taiwan Art Exhibitions (Taiten), respectively. [1]

To learn more about Li Mei-shu, go to Li Mei-shu – Wikipedia.

Also, go to https://www.limeishu.org/

Credits and Attributions:

IMAGE: Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Autumn in Towadako, by Li Mei-shu.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Autumn_in_Towadako,_by_Li_Mei-shu.jpg&oldid=1031830163 (accessed October 2, 2025).

[1] Wikipedia contributors, “Li Mei-shu,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Li_Mei-shu&oldid=1310846803 (accessed October 2, 2025).

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