Category Archives: #FineArtFriday

August 9, 2024 · 6:00 am

FineArtFriday: Poder da Trinidad by Diego Mato Toledo

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Artist: Diego Mato Toledo

Title: Querétaro Otomi: Poder da Trinidad (English: The Power of Being a Trinity)

Spanish: Poder da Trinidad

Date: 02/06/07

Medium: oil on canvas

Dimensions: 100 × 90 cm (39.3 × 35.4 in)

What I love about this painting:

This is a wonderful exploration of form and color. The sky is powerful, the visual representation of the Triune God watching over the town and its people. I love the passion, the vibrancy of the town and the way Diego Mato Toledo brings life to this scene.

This painting tells the story of the spirit of the people of Central America, the mix of indigenous and Spanish religion that makes a culture that is so uniquely theirs.

It is an image that makes me happy.

About the Artist: Diego Gustavo Mato Toledo was born in 1978 in Montevideo, Uruguay. His work celebrates the life and culture of Uruguay and also that of Central America. You can visit his personal website at Ateliê Crea-Sion Artes Visuales. Also, you can find his art for sale at Artlista.com.

Credits and Attributions:

IMAGE: Poder da Trinidad by Diego Mato Diego. Uploaded to Wikimedia Commons 02-06-2007. Wikimedia Commons contributors. “File:116 – Poder da Trinidad – 100×90 cm.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:116_-_Poder_da_Trinidad_-_100x90_cm.jpg&oldid=764498925 (accessed August 7, 2024).

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August 2, 2024 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: Chahut (The Can-Can) by Georges Seurat 1889

Georges_Seurat,_1889-90,_Le_Chahut,_Kröller-Müller_MuseumArtist: Georges Seurat  (1859–1891)

Title: Chahut (English: The Can-Can)

Genre: Genre Art

Description: Français : Le Chahut | English: Can-can

Date: 1889

Medium: oil on canvas

Dimensions: 170 × 141 cm (66.93 x 55.51 in)

Collection: Kröller-Müller Museum

Current location: Otterlo

What I love about this painting:

I love everything about Seurat’s work. This painting is full of life—the vibrant, amazing, and unsavory life of dancehalls like the Moulin Rouge in Montmartre. It was a part of Paris the decent people didn’t go. It was a free-wheeling place where the artists and students of the day partied and lived on the edge, pushing the boundaries of sexual morality as far as they were able. An ordinary middle-class woman such as I am would have been out of place here. But she would have secretly enjoyed the hedonism while decrying the lack of public decency–and would have loved the opportunity to indulge in a little moralizing to the younger generation. (Hypocrisy and “do-as-I-say, not-as-I-did” never goes out of style.)

About this painting via Wikipedia:

Le Chahut (English: The Can-can) is a Neo-Impressionist painting by Georges Seurat, dated 1889–90. It was first exhibited at the 1890 Salon de la Société des Artistes Indépendants (titled Chahut, cat. no. 726) in Paris. Chahut became a target of art critics, and was widely discussed among Symbolist critics.

Formerly in the collection of French Symbolist poet and art critic Gustave Kahn, Chahut is located at the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo, Netherlands.

John Rewald writes of both Le Chahut and Le Cirque:

The figures in these paintings are dominated by monotony or joy (there is no sadness in the pictures of Seurat) and are, of course, governed by strict rules, being controlled by that play of line and color whose laws Seurat had studied. In these canvases, Seurat, without yielding in any way to the literary or the picturesque, rehabilitated the subject which had been relinquished by the impressionists. His works are “exemplary specimens of a highly developed decorative art, which sacrifices the anecdote to the arabesque, nomenclature to synthesis, the fugitive to the permanent, and confers on nature—weary at last of its precarious reality—an authentic reality,” wrote Fénéon. [1]

About the artist via Wikipedia:

Georges Pierre Seurat, 2 December 1859 – 29 March 1891) was a French post-Impressionist artist. He devised the painting techniques known as chromoluminarism and pointillism and used conté crayon for drawings on paper with a rough surface.

Seurat’s artistic personality combined qualities that are usually thought of as opposed and incompatible: on the one hand, his extreme and delicate sensibility, on the other, a passion for logical abstraction and an almost mathematical precision of mind. His large-scale work A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (1884–1886) altered the direction of modern art by initiating Neo-Impressionism, and is one of the icons of late 19th-century painting.

Seurat took to heart the colour theorists’ notion of a scientific approach to painting. He believed that a painter could use colour to create harmony and emotion in art in the same way that a musician uses counterpoint and variation to create harmony in music. He theorized that the scientific application of colour was like any other natural law, and he was driven to prove this conjecture. He thought that the knowledge of perception and optical laws could be used to create a new language of art based on its own set of heuristics and he set out to show this language using lines, colour intensity and colour schema. Seurat called this language Chromoluminarism.

In a letter to the writer Maurice Beaubourg in 1890 he wrote: “Art is Harmony. Harmony is the analogy of the contrary and of similar elements of tone, of colour and of line. In tone, lighter against darker. In colour, the complementary, red-green, orange-blue, yellow-violet. In line, those that form a right-angle. The frame is in a harmony that opposes those of the tones, colours and lines of the picture, these aspects are considered according to their dominance and under the influence of light, in gay, calm or sad combinations.”

Seurat died in Paris in his parents’ home on 29 March 1891 at the age of 31. The cause of his death is uncertain and has been variously attributed to a form of meningitis, pneumonia, infectious angina, and diphtheria. His son died two weeks later from the same disease. His last ambitious work, The Circus, was left unfinished at the time of his death. [2]

Credits and Attributions:

[1] Wikipedia contributors, “Le Chahut,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Le_Chahut&oldid=1177459932 (accessed August 1, 2024).

[2] Wikipedia contributors, “Georges Seurat,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Georges_Seurat&oldid=1231112655 (accessed August 1, 2024).

IMAGE: Wikipedia contributors, “Le Chahut,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Le_Chahut&oldid=1177459932 (accessed August 1, 2024).

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July 26, 2024 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday – the Mountain Brook by Albert Bierstadt 1863

Mountain_Brook_oil_1863_Albert_BierstadtArtist: Albert Bierstadt  (1830–1902)

Title: Mountain Brook

Genre: landscape painting

Date: 1863

Medium: oil on canvas

Dimensions: height: 111.8 cm (44 in); width: 91.4 cm (35.9 in)

Collection: Art Institute of Chicago

What I love about this painting:

This is an unusual subject for Albert Bierstadt. There is no immensity of sky watching over all who walk below. Instead, he gives us the immensity of a quiet wood and the solitude of a small mountain stream.

I love this peaceful glade, with the sun filtering through the forest canopy. I could sit there happily, writing the day away.

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.

In 1851, Bierstadt began to paint in oils. He returned to Germany in 1853 and studied painting for several years in Düsseldorf with members of its informal school of painting. After returning to New Bedford in 1857, he taught drawing and painting briefly before devoting himself full-time to painting.

Bierstadt’s popularity in the U.S. remained strong during his European tour. The publicity generated by his Yosemite Valley paintings in 1868 led a number of explorers to request his presence as part of their westward expeditions. The Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad also commissioned him to visit and paint the Grand Canyon and surrounding region.

Despite his popular success, Bierstadt was criticized by some contemporaries for the romanticism evident in his choice of subjects and for his use of light, which they found excessive.

Some critics objected to Bierstadt’s paintings of Native Americans based on their belief that including Indigenous Americans “marred” the “impression of solitary grandeur.” [1]

Credits and Attributions:

IMAGE: Wikimedia Commons contributors, Mountain Brook by Albert Bierstadt, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Bierstadt_Albert_Bavarian_Landscape.jpg&oldid=823443562 (accessed July 25, 2024).

[1] Quote: Wikipedia contributors, “Albert Bierstadt,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Albert_Bierstadt&oldid=1210445403 (accessed July 25, 2024).

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July 19, 2024 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: Midsummer Eve Bonfire by Lake Jølstravatnet by Nikolai Astrup 1909

N_Astrup-St._Hansbål_ved_JølstervatnetArtist: Nikolai Astrup  (1880–1928)

Title: Norwegian: St. Hansbål ved Jølstervatnet,

English: Midsummer Eve Bonfire by Lake Jølstravatnet

Date: 1909

Medium: oil on canvas

Inscription: Signature bottom right: NASTRUP

What I love about this painting:

This is a scene that is full of life, family, and tradition. I love the intensity of color, the way people are shown enjoying the company of their loved ones.

Midsummer Eve is the best part of summer. The weather usually cooperates, allowing for an outdoor picnic that goes late into the night. In Norway and in Scandinavian countries, the eve of the Birth of St. John is celebrated with a communal bonfire. The celebration is also known as Jonsok, meaning “the wake of Saint John.”

The summer solstice has just passed and the longest days of the year are upon us. Twilight lasts long into the evening. Nicolai Astrup has shown us a cozy celebration of family and friends gathered at a place he clearly loved. They light bonfires to celebrate the birth of a saint, but more than that, they are there to share the holiday with the people they love.

About the Artist, via Wikipedia:

Nikolai Astrup (Norwegian pronunciation: [nɪkʊˈlɑ̀i̯ ˈɑ̀stɾʉp]) (30 August 1880 – 21 January 1928) was a Norwegian modernist painter. Astrup was a distinctive, innovative artist noted principally for his intense use of color depicting the lush landscapes of Vestlandet featuring the traditional way of life in the region.

Astrup held three significant exhibitions during his lifetime; at Kristiania 1905 and 1911 and at Bergen in 1908. In 1907, he was married to Engel Sunde with whom he had eight children. Astrup struggled with tuberculosis and general poor health as his asthma worsened. In 1913, Astrup settled with his wife and children in Sandalstrand (now Astruptunet) on the south side of Lake Jølstravatn across from the village of Ålhus. He died of pneumonia in 1928 at the age of 47 in the neighboring municipality of Førde. Astrup was buried in Ålhus Cemetery, in Jølster Norway. [1]

Credits and Attributions:

IMAGE: Nikolai Astrup, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Wikimedia Commons contributors. File:N Astrup-St. Hansbål ved Jølstervatnet.jpg [Internet]. Wikimedia Commons; 2024 May 31, 05:34 UTC [cited 2024 Jul 17]. Available from: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:N_Astrup-St._Hansb%C3%A5l_ved_J%C3%B8lstervatnet.jpg&oldid=880323847.

[1] Wikipedia contributors, “Nikolai Astrup,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nikolai_Astrup&oldid=1156381035 (accessed July 17, 2024).

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July 12, 2024 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday:  The White Horse by John Constable 1819

The_White_Horse_by_John_Constable_-_Google_Art_ProjectArtist: John Constable  (1776–1837)

Title: The White Horse

Date: 1819

Medium: oil on canvas

Dimensions: 51 3/4 × 74 1/8 in. (131.4 × 188.3 cm)

Collection: The Frick Collection 

What I love about this painting:

John Constable gives us the perfect summer day, one not too warm to work, and not so cool one would have to wear a heavy coat. He paints a sky that I would find familiar, very similar to the Pacific Northwest in early June. Clouds drift above, gathering, but drop no rain. The white horse being ferried across the river will be working in comfort today as it tows the barges up and down the river, ensuring the goods and fresh produce reach the people of Sussex and Essex.

What the Artist had to say about the craft of painting landscapes:

“It will be difficult to name a class of landscape in which the sky is not the key note, the standard of scale, and the chief organ of sentiment… The sky is the source of light in nature and governs everything.”

John Constable, writing to his friend and patron, John Fisher, Bishop of Salisbury

About this Painting, via Wikipedia:

The White Horse is an oil-on-canvas landscape painting by the English artist John Constable. It was completed in 1819 and is now in the Frick Collection in New York City.

The painting marked a vital turning point in the artist’s career. It was the first in a series of six so called ‘Six-Footers’, depicting scenes on the River Stour, which includes his celebrated work The Hay Wain. The subject of the painting is a tow-horse being ferried across the river in Flatford, just below the Lock, at a point where the towpath switches banks.

The painting is based on sketches that Constable produced in his native Suffolk, but the full composition was finished between 1818 – 1819 during his time in London. The painting was completed and exhibited at the Royal Exhibition in 1819, where it was well received. Constable was voted an Associate of the Royal Academy on the strength of it. The painting was purchased for 100 guineas by Constable’s friend John Fisher, the Bishop of Salisbury, who would later commission his painting Salisbury Cathedral from the Bishop’s Grounds. This purchase finally provided Constable with financial security and it’s arguable that without it, he may have given up painting altogether.

The White Horse was one of Constable’s favourite paintings. He commented in a letter to Fisher in 1826:

There are generally in the life of an artist perhaps one, two or three pictures, on which hang more than usual interest – this is mine.

In 1830, when Fisher was heavily indebted, he bought the painting back, also for 100 guineas. He would keep it for the rest of his life. After his death in 1837, the painting passed through the hands of various English collectors, before being brought to the United States by financier J. P. Morgan. [1]

About the Artist, via Wikipedia:

John Constable was born in East Bergholt, a village on the River Stour in Suffolk, to Golding and Ann (Watts) Constable. His father was a wealthy corn (grain) merchant, owner of Flatford Mill in East Bergholt and, later, Dedham Mill in Essex. Golding Constable owned a small ship, The Telegraph, which he moored at Mistley on the Stour estuary, and used to transport corn (grain) to London. He was a cousin of the London tea merchant Abram Newman. Although Constable was his parents’ second son, his older brother was intellectually disabled and John was expected to succeed his father in the business. After a brief period at a boarding school in Lavenham, he was enrolled in a day school in Dedham, Essex. Constable worked in the corn (grain) business after leaving school, but his younger brother Abram eventually took over the running of the mills. [2]

Constable’s story is continued at John Constable – Wikipedia.

Credits and Attributions:

IMAGE: The White Horse by John Constable 1819, PD|100. File:The White Horse by John Constable – Google Art Project.jpg – Wikimedia Commons (accessed July 10, 2024).

[1] Wikipedia contributors, “The White Horse (Constable),” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_White_Horse_(Constable)&oldid=1222277388 (accessed July 10, 2024).

[2] Wikipedia contributors, “John Constable,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_Constable&oldid=1232567526 (accessed July 10, 2024).

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July 5, 2024 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: York Harbor, Coast of Maine by Martin Johnson Heade 1877

Martin_Johnson_Heade_-_York_Harbor,_Coast_of_Maine_-_1999.291_-_Art_Institute_of_ChicagoArtist: Martin Johnson Heade  (1819–1904)

Title: York Harbor, Coast of Maine

Genre: marine art

Date: 1877

Medium: oil on canvas

Dimensions: height: 38.7 cm (15.2 in)

Collection: Art Institute of Chicago

What I love about this painting:

We see the sun rising, slowly burning off the morning mist–my favorite time of the day. I love the detail, the way Martin Johnson Heade shows us the truth about harbors that serve small communities in a low-tech world. They aren’t necessarily fancy, and they don’t accommodate large boats. Somewhere out of the picture is a simple wooden pier, a place for the fishing boats to offload their catch. Perhaps there is a sandy beach where fisherfolk can pull their boats above the waterline, resting them upside down when they’re not in use.

The scene he shows us is a salt marsh, alive with a thriving wildlife community.

The line of branches emerging from the water has been placed there by human hands, but for what purpose? Whatever they are meant to do, they have been there long enough that seaweed clings to them, nourished by the rise and fall of the tide.

About the Artist, via Wikipedia:

Martin Johnson Heade (August 11, 1819 – September 4, 1904) was an American painter known for his salt marsh landscapes, seascapes, and depictions of tropical birds (such as hummingbirds), as well as lotus blossoms and other still lifes. His painting style and subject matter, while derived from the romanticism of the time, are regarded by art historians as a significant departure from those of his peers.

Heade’s primary interest in landscape, and the works for which he is perhaps best known today, was the New England coastal salt marsh. Contrary to typical Hudson River School displays of scenic mountains, valleys, and waterfalls, Heade’s marsh landscapes avoided depictions of grandeur. They focused instead on the horizontal expanse of subdued scenery, and employed repeating motifs that included small haystacks and diminutive figures. Heade also concentrated on the depiction of light and atmosphere in his marsh scenes. These and similar works have led some historians to characterize Heade as a Luminist painter. In 1883 Heade moved to Saint Augustine, Florida and took as his primary landscape subject the surrounding subtropical marshland. [1]

To read more about this Artist, go to Martin Johnson Heade – Wikipedia

Credits and Attributions:

IMAGE: Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Martin Johnson Heade – York Harbor, Coast of Maine – 1999.291 – Art Institute of Chicago.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Martin_Johnson_Heade_-_York_Harbor,_Coast_of_Maine_-_1999.291_-_Art_Institute_of_Chicago.jpg&oldid=828607401 (accessed July 3, 2024).

[1] Wikipedia contributors, “Martin Johnson Heade,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Martin_Johnson_Heade_-_York_Harbor,_Coast_of_Maine_-_1999.291_-_Art_Institute_of_Chicago.jpg&oldid=828607401 (accessed July 3, 2024).

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June 28, 2024 · 6:00 am

FineArtFriday: Holiday on the Hudson by George Luks ca. 1912

George_Luks_(American,_1866–1933)_-_Holiday_on_the_Hudson_-_1933.2291_-_Cleveland_Museum_of_ArtArtist: George Luks  (1867–1933)

Title: Holiday on the Hudson

Date: circa 1912

Collection: Cleveland Museum of Art

What I love about this painting:

These are the working-class people of New York on a sunny Sunday in high summer. Fishing has been good, and while the oyster boats and small fishing dories have seen heavy use, they’ve been tidied up a bit, and everyone is looking forward to a carefree day on the water. The fishermen in their sleeveless shirts are quickly moving ropes and gear around to make room for the ladies.

I love the life instilled in the painting, the action, the colors, the intensity, and the way it shouts, “Freedom beckons,” even if that freedom is only temporary.

I see a story here, a historical romance. I imagine that some of this group of friends are the servants of the rich enjoying their half-day off. Besides the fishermen, we have footmen, maids, cooks, and housekeepers. I like to think they’re heading to a favorite beach for a clambake, that time-honored seaside picnic that even the poor working-class could afford.

Who is courting whom? Will they get married?

About the artist, via Wikipedia:

George Benjamin Luks (August 13, 1867 – October 29, 1933) was an American artist, identified with the aggressively realistic Ashcan School of American painting.

After travelling and studying in Europe, Luks worked as a newspaper illustrator and cartoonist in Philadelphia, where he became part of a close-knit group, led by Robert Henri, that set out to defy the genteel values imposed by the influential National Academy of Design. His best-known paintings reflect the life of the poor and hard-pressed on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. [1]

For more about George Luks, I highly recommend continuing to read his biography here: George Luks – Wikipedia

Credits and Attributions:

IMAGE: Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:George Luks (American, 1866–1933) – Holiday on the Hudson – 1933.2291 – Cleveland Museum of Art.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:George_Luks_(American,_1866%E2%80%931933)_-_Holiday_on_the_Hudson_-_1933.2291_-_Cleveland_Museum_of_Art.jpg&oldid=779825858 (accessed June 27, 2024).

[1]Wikipedia contributors, “George Luks,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=George_Luks&oldid=1217710156 (accessed June 27, 2024).

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June 21, 2024 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: La Mirenda (The Snack) by Elin Danielson-Gambogi 1904

Elin_Danielson-Gambogi_-_La_Merenda_(1904)Artist: Elin Danielson-Gambogi  (1861–1919)

Title: By the Sea – The Snack (La Merenda)

Date: 1904

Medium: oil on canvas

Dimensions: height: 102 cm (40.1 in)

Collection: K. H. Renlund art collection

What I love about this painting:

Elin Danielson-Gambogi gives us a perfect afternoon for an afternoon picnic by the sea with friends. An afternoon beside the surf and the company of friends—it doesn’t get any better.

The good years just prior to the outbreak of WWI seem golden in many ways. Women’s work was never done but they have the luxury of a little leisure time, and they are enjoying it. Two women have removed their headscarves as if they don’t care if they get a little sun-browned. The cast-off squares of cloth lie on the rocky beach as if blown by the wind.

The girl is very likely the artist’s niece, as she and her mother figure prominently in many of Elin’s paintings. I like to think she is pleased to have been included in the picnic, proud to be serving the snacks.

There is a pleasant warmth to this image, the peace of a Goldilocks day, that rare summer’s afternoon that is just right.

About the Artist, via Wikipedia:

Elin Kleopatra Danielson-Gambogi (3 September 1861 – 31 December 1919) was a Finnish painter best known for her realist works and portraits. Danielson-Gambogi was part of the first generation of Finnish women artists who received professional education in art, the so-called “painter sisters’ generation”. The group also included Helene Schjerfbeck (1862–1946), Helena Westermarck (1857-1938), and Maria Wiik (1853-1928).

In 1883 Danielson received a grant and moved to Paris. While there, she took lessons at the Académie Colarossi under Gustave Courtois and painted in Brittany during the summertime. A few years later she returned to Finland and lived with her relatives in Noormarkku and Pori. In 1888 she opened an atelier in Noormarkku. During the 1880s and 1890s she worked as a teacher in several art schools around Finland.  She also attended the artists’ colony Önningeby in Ålands.

In 1895, she received a scholarship and traveled to Florence, Italy. A year later she moved to the village of Antignano in Livorno where she met an Italian painter 13 years younger than herself, Raffaello Gambogi (1874–1943). They began working together and got married on February 27, 1898.  They held exhibitions in Paris, Florence (where she was awarded an art prize by the city) and Milan, and in many Finnish cities, and their paintings were also included in the 1900 World’s Fair in Paris, where she again won bronze medal. She also got to second place in the 1901 national portrait painting competition organized by the Finnish state.  In 1899, King Umberto purchased a painting from her. That same year, she participated in the Venice Biennale.

Their marriage was strained when Raffaello had an affair with Danielson’s Finnish friend Dora Wahlroos.  While the affair quickly ended, it had a lasting impact on the Gambogis’ marriage.  She moved to Finland for a while but returned to Antignano in 1903.  Because of World War I, her connection to her homeland was cut, and by the time she died, of pneumonia, at Antignano in 1919, she had been mostly forgotten in Finland.

Because of her choice of rare subject matters that often even caused some offence, Danielson is now seen as one of the central artists of the Golden Age of Finnish Art. Danielson-Gambogi was included in the 2018 exhibit Women in Paris 1850-1900. [1]

Credits and Attributions:

IMAGE: Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Elin Danielson-Gambogi – La Merenda (1904).jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Elin_Danielson-Gambogi_-_La_Merenda_(1904).jpg&oldid=848460780 (accessed June 20, 2024).

[1] Wikipedia contributors, “Elin Danielson-Gambogi,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Elin_Danielson-Gambogi&oldid=1203975014 (accessed June 20, 2024).

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June 14, 2024 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: View of Bruges with City Hall by August Fischer

August_Fischer_Ansicht_von_Brügge_mit_Rathaus_1905Artist: August Fischer  (1854–1921) 

Title: English: View of Bruges with City Hall, Dansk: Udsigt til Brügge

Date: 1905

Medium: oil on canvas

Dimensions: height: 45 cm (17.7 in); width: 59 cm (23.2 in)

Inscriptions: Signed and dated lower right: Aug. Fischer, Bruges 05.

What I love about this painting:

We see history here, the city of Bruges as it was in 1905, before the outbreak of WWI. It was a prosperous town with many churches and a large middle class.

The boatman has a story. How old is he? Does he support his wife and children with what he earns ferrying people to and from? Or is he just starting out in life, working to earn enough to marry a certain girl? This is a fairytale painting, serene and yet concealing many secrets. I think it’s the perfect setting for fantasy romance.

Perhaps the future looks bright to him now, but in less than a decade, our boatman will be thrown in the most horrific war the world had ever seen. If he is young, he will be sent to the front. If he is old, his boat will be conscripted to ferry soldiers and munitions, and he will do what he must to survive.

More than a century has passed since this scene was recorded. Bruges is now the capital and largest city of the province of West Flanders in the Flemish Region of Belgium.

About the Artist: I could find no Wikipedia article about Fischer, but random searches at the websites of several auction houses yielded some information.

Johannes August Fischer (1854–1921) was a Danish landscape and architecture painter and the elder brother of the Danish artist, Paul Fischer. His parents were the master painter and varnish manufacturer Philip August Fischer (1817—1907) and Gustafva Albertina Svedgren (1827—83). The family was well off, upper middle class. While his father had started as a painter, he became financially successful as a manufacturer of paints and lacquers.

August Fischer was first apprenticed to a sculptor, but at the age of nineteen, he applied to the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, making the switch to painting. His work debuted at the Charlottenborg Spring Exhibition in 1874, where he exhibited until his death in 1921.

August Fischer traveled abroad for much of his career. He lived and worked in Spain and Italy from 1883 to 1884. After that, he traveled to southern Germany and Italy. Several of his more well-known paintings were of Nuremberg and Rothenburg on the Tauber, and Venice and Florence.

Credits and Attributions:

Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:August Fischer Ansicht von Brügge mit Rathaus 1905.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:August_Fischer_Ansicht_von_Br%C3%BCgge_mit_Rathaus_1905.jpg&oldid=807392532 (accessed June 12, 2024).

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June 7, 2024 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: A second look at “Harvesters” by Anna Ancher, 1905

Anna_Ancher_-_Harvesters_-_Google_Art_ProjectArtist: Anna Ancher  (1859–1935)

Title: Harvesters

Date: 1905

Medium: oil on canvas

Dimensions: w56.2 x h43.4 cm (Without frame)

Collection: Skagens Museum

What I love about this painting:

While she normally painted interiors, Anna Ancher captured a perfect late summer morning beneath blue skies in this painting. One can almost hear the rustling of ripe grain moving with the breeze.

I like the placement of the three figures, two women and a man. Are they husband, wife, and daughter? There is a sense of movement in this painting. They enter the scene from the right, and you feel sure they will exit to the left, where the field that is to be cut that day is.

The man will scythe, the woman who follows third will rake, and the woman in the middle will stack the sheaves.

These are not poor people. These farmers are dressed modestly in clean work clothes that aren’t tattered and patched. They are doing well; the grain is high, and life is good in these years of plenty before the outbreak of WWI.

About the Artist, via Wikipedia:

Anna Ancher (18 August 1859 – 15 April 1935), born Anna Kirstine Brøndum, was born in Skagen, Denmark, was the only one of the Skagen Painters who was born and grew up in Skagen, where her father owned the Brøndums Hotel. The artistic talent of Anna Ancher became obvious at an early age and she became acquainted with pictorial art via the many artists who settled to paint in Skagen, in the north of Jylland.

While she studied drawing for three years at the Vilhelm Kyhn College of Painting in Copenhagen, she developed her own style and was a pioneer in observing the interplay of different colors in natural light. She also studied drawing in Paris at the atelier of Pierre Puvis de Chavannes along with Marie Triepcke, who would marry Peder Severin Krøyer, another Skagen painter.

In 1880 she married fellow painter Michael Ancher, whom she met in Skagen. They had one child, daughter Helga Ancher. Despite pressure from society that married women should devote themselves to household duties, she continued painting after marriage.

Anna Ancher was considered to be one of the great Danish pictorial artists by virtue of her abilities as a character painter and colorist. Her art found its expression in Nordic art’s modern breakthrough toward a more truthful depiction of reality, e.g. in Blue Ane (1882) and The Girl in the Kitchen (1883–1886).

Ancher preferred to paint interiors and simple themes from the everyday lives of the Skagen people, especially fishermen, women, and children. She was intensely preoccupied with exploring light and color, as in Interior with Clematis (1913). She also created more complex compositions such as A Funeral (1891). Anna Ancher’s works often represented Danish art abroad. Ancher has been known for portraying similar civilians from the Skagen art colony in her works, including an old blind woman.

Credits and Attributions:

Harvesters, Anna Ancher, Public domain, via Wikimedia CommonsWikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Anna Ancher – Harvesters – Google Art Project.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Anna_Ancher_-_Harvesters_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg&oldid=371900766 (accessed October 14, 2021).

Wikipedia contributors, “Harvesters (Ancher),” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Harvesters_(Ancher)&oldid=1047378795 (accessed October 14, 2021).

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