Category Archives: #FineArtFriday

October 6, 2023 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: A Coming Storm by Sanford Robinson Gifford

Gifford_A_Coming_Storm_1863-1880_PMA

Artist: Sanford Robinson Gifford,

Title: A Coming Storm (1863)

Date: 1863 (retouched 1880)

Location: Philadelphia Museum of Art.

What I love about this painting:

Gifford demonstrates his skill as a devotee of luminism and gives us the perfect view of a fine autumn day and the approaching storm. The way he contrasts the sun’s light against the ominous black clouds is true to nature, to how storms really look as they close in.

I like the way he shows the rock outcroppings, visible evidence of the hard stone of the mountains that lies beneath the lush finery of autumn foliage.

For the moment, the waters of the pond are quiet, reflecting the sky above. Rain cloaks the view of the distant valley, and soon we will feel the brunt of it. Enjoy the blaze of color while you can, as tomorrow those trees will be half-bare, and the ground will be covered in sodden tatters of red and gold.

While there appears to be some damage in the upper center, the integrity of the painting is still intact. It was retouched in 1880, but a modern retouching would likely bring it back to its original glory.

About the Artist, via Wikipedia:

Sanford Robinson Gifford (July 10, 1823 – August 29, 1880) was an American landscape painter and a leading member of the second generation of Hudson River School artists. A highly regarded practitioner of Luminism, his work was noted for its emphasis on light and soft atmospheric effects.

Although trained as a portrait painter, the first work Gifford exhibited at the National Academy was a landscape, in 1847. Thereafter, Gifford devoted himself primarily to landscape painting, becoming one of the finest artists of the Hudson River School. He was elected an Associate of the National Academy in 1851, and an Academician in 1854.

2008 National Academy of Design controversy:

In December 2008, one of Gifford’s paintings, Mount Mansfield, Vermont (1859), became part of a controversy over deaccessioning by the National Academy of Design. The Academy was a member of the Association of Art Museum Directors, whose policy stated that member museums could not sell works of art to cover operating expenses, only to purchase superior works or to weed out inferior or redundant ones. Prior to joining AAMD, the Academy had sold two Thomas Eakins works (including his “diploma painting,” Wrestlers) in the 1970s, and Richard Caton Woodville‘s War News from Mexico (1848) in 1994. According to its former curator, David Dearinger: “When the Academy later applied to the museum association for accreditation, Mr. Dearinger recalled, it was asked about the Woodville sale and promised not to repeat such a move.”

In a 2008 sale, the Academy quietly sold Frederic Edwin Church‘s Scene on the Magdalene (1854) and Sanford Gifford’s Mount Mansfield, Vermont (1859) to a private collector for US$13.5 million. The former was the Academy’s only painting by Church; the latter was its only painting by Gifford. Both had been “donated to the Academy in 1865 by another painter, James Augustus Suydam.” News of the sale was broken by arts blogger Lee Rosenbaum. As punishment for these actions, AAMD asked its other member museums to “cease lending artworks to the Academy and collaborating with it on exhibitions.” The Academy had contemplated selling additional paintings, but those plans were abandoned after being reported by Rosenbaum. [1]

Credits and Attributions:

IMAGE: A Coming Storm by Sanford Robinson Gifford. Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Gifford A Coming Storm 1863-1880 PMA.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Gifford_A_Coming_Storm_1863-1880_PMA.jpg&oldid=803742381 (accessed October 5, 2023).

[1] Wikipedia contributors, “Sanford Robinson Gifford,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sanford_Robinson_Gifford&oldid=1176083433 (accessed October 5, 2023).

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September 29, 2023 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: Dordrecht Harbor by Moonlight by Aelbert Cuyp 1643

Aelbert_Cuyp_-_Dordrecht_Harbor_by_Moonlight_4168Artist: Aelbert Cuyp (1620–1691)

Title: Dordrecht Harbor by Moonlight

Genre: landscape art

Date: 1643

Medium: oil on panel

Dimensions: height: 76.5 cm (30.1 in); width: 106.5 cm (41.9 in)

Collection: Wallraf–Richartz Museum 

What I like about this scene:

Aelbert Cuyp’s paintbrush tells a story. But what kind of story is he showing us?

A ship is docked beside a mill at Dordrecht Harbor. Night has fallen, and a full moon, veiled by clouds, lights the scene. On the wharf, three figures stand, talking, perhaps making a deal. What could be so important that these men must discuss it in the dark?

The moonlight casts a pale glow over the scene, casting shadows and illuminating the mist rising in the distance. It adds to the mystery of the scene, conveying a feeling of clandestine conversations.

It’s 1643. The Eighty Years War, a revolution and quest for independence is still ongoing. It’s a battle for religious freedom as well as for the rights of the Dutch people to govern themselves.

Yes, indeed … some conversations by moonlight are best kept secret.

About Dordrecht in the 17th Century:

Dordrecht (Dutch: ) historically known in English as Dordt (still colloquially used in Dutch, pronounced) or Dort, is a city and municipality in the Western Netherlands, located in the province of South Holland.

During the Eighty Years’ War merchants from Dordrecht were involved in taking control and founding sugar cane plantations in the West Indies. At the end of the 17th century this led to a stable sugar refining industry in Dordrecht. This flourished in the 18th century, when Dordrecht had 16 sugar refineries, as opposed 120 in Amsterdam and 40 in Rotterdam. Dordrecht still has a few buildings purposely designed as a sugar refinery, e.g. the imposing Sugar Refinery Stokholm.

Overall, the economic importance of Dordrecht began to wane in the 18th century, and Rotterdam became the main city in the region. [1]

The Eighty Years’ War  or Dutch Revolt (Dutch: Nederlandse Opstand) (c. 1566/1568–1648) was an armed conflict in the Habsburg Netherlands between disparate groups of rebels and the Spanish government. The causes of the war included the Reformation, centralization, taxation, and the rights and privileges of the nobility and cities.

An end was reached in 1648 with the Peace of Münster (a treaty part of the Peace of Westphalia), when Spain retained Southern Netherlands and recognized the Dutch Republic as an independent country.[2]

About the Artist:

Aelbert Jacobszoon Cuyp or Cuijp (20 October 1620 – 15 November 1691) was one of the leading Dutch Golden Age painters, producing mainly landscapes. The most famous of a family of painters, the pupil of his father, Jacob Gerritszoon Cuyp (1594–1651/52), he is especially known for his large views of Dutch riverside scenes in a golden early morning or late afternoon light. He was born and died in Dordrecht.

Little is known about Aelbert Cuyp’s life. Even Arnold Houbraken, a noted historian of Dutch Golden Age paintings and the sole authority on Cuyp for the hundred years following his death, paints a very thin biographical picture.

His period of activity as a painter is traditionally limited to the two decades between 1639 and 1660, fitting within the generally accepted limits of the Dutch Golden Age’s most significant period, 1640–1665. He is known to have been married to Cornelia Bosman in 1658, a date coinciding so directly with the end of his productivity as a painter that it has been accepted that his marriage played a role in the end of his artistic career.

The year after his marriage, Cuyp became the deacon of the reformed church. Houbraken recalled that Cuyp was a devout Calvinist and the fact that when he died, there were no paintings of other artists found in his home. [3]

Credits and Attributions:

IMAGE:  Dordrecht Harbor by Moonlight by Aelbert Cuyp, 1643. Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Aelbert Cuyp – Dordrecht Harbor by Moonlight 4168.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Aelbert_Cuyp_-_Dordrecht_Harbor_by_Moonlight_4168.jpg&oldid=782562344 (accessed September 28, 2023).

[1] Wikipedia contributors, “Dordrecht,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dordrecht&oldid=1169436434 (accessed September 28, 2023).

[2] Wikipedia contributors, “Eighty Years’ War,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Eighty_Years%27_War&oldid=1177125376 (accessed September 28, 2023).

[3] Wikipedia contributors, “Aelbert Cuyp,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Aelbert_Cuyp&oldid=1177164314 (accessed September 28, 2023).

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September 22, 2023 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: Autumn in North America by Frederic Edwin Church 1896

Autumn_in_North_America-Frederic_ChurchArtist: Frederic Edwin Church  (1826–1900)

Title: Autumn in North America

Genre: landscape art

Date: 1856

Medium: oil on board

Dimensions: height: 28.5 cm (11.2 in); width: 43.1 cm (17 in)

Collection: Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum

What I love about this picture:

This is a New England autumn in full color, the way autumns never are here in my part of the world. Yes, non-native trees will turn these bright shades, but the only bright red fall color in native species will be vine maples. Staghorn Sumac is a non-native plant that has become a part of our local flora, and it turns bright red also. But we do have gorgeous golds and oranges beginning to show in our native deciduous forests.

Many years it is too wet for a colorful fall, and the leaves turn a soggy brown and drop off their trees, sodden masses nearly impossible to rake.

About the Artist, via Wikipedia:

Frederic Edwin Church (May 4, 1826 – April 7, 1900) was an American landscape painter born in Hartford, Connecticut. He was a central figure in the Hudson River School of American landscape painters, best known for painting large landscapes, often depicting mountains, waterfalls, and sunsets. Church’s paintings put an emphasis on realistic detail, dramatic light, and panoramic views. He debuted some of his major works in single-painting exhibitions to a paying and often enthralled audience in New York City. In his prime, he was one of the most famous painters in the United States. [1]

Credits and Attributions:

IMAGE: Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Autumn in North America-Frederic Church.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Autumn_in_North_America-Frederic_Church.jpg&oldid=718218353 (accessed September 19, 2023).

[1] Wikipedia contributors, “Frederic Edwin Church,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Frederic_Edwin_Church&oldid=1162133197 (accessed September 19, 2023).

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September 15, 2023 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: Autumn Landscape (September) by Lucas van Valckenborch

GG_5684.tif

Artist: Lucas van Valckenborch  (1535–1597)

Title: Autumn Landscape (September)

Date: 1585

Medium: oil on canvas

Dimensions: 116 x 198 cm Rahmenmaße: 131,5 x 214 x 6,5 cm

Collection: Kunsthistorisches Museum

What I love about this painting:

We see an entire view of ordinary autumn life in the 16th century, but better than that, Lucas van Valckenborch shows us the passage of time. He depicts the chronology of how people lived and celebrated each week of the changing season by showing us September in the Netherlands.

The way he shows us this chronology is ingenious and is a signature of his work. The early weeks of September are shown in the left foreground, with laborers bringing in the harvest. Others are working to dry and preserve foods. The colors he uses are vivid, the last shades of summer.

In the bottom to middle right, he shows us mid-September with people relaxing, feasting, bowling, and dancing. The harvest is in, and people have a little time to enjoy the last days of good weather. The colors he uses are more muted, with shades of brown dominating. The leaves are brown and falling. Yet, there is a vibrancy about it, a sense of life. People celebrate a successful harvest one last time before winter’s cold grip closes in.

In late September, people fish, and the market becomes the center of village life. People are less active, but the market draws customers. The end of September presages colder weather and hints at the beginning of winter. This is shown in cool shades of gray, as if in a black-and-white photograph.

He is known for using this trick of color to denote receding distances. But he deliberately places figures performing specific activities within those colors, showing us how people lived and the passage of their days as well as distance.

The first days of September are bright, days of plenty. Yes, we’re working hard, but we’ll be grateful for the bounty when winter comes.

We look forward to the middle of September, because once the rush of harvest is over we will party like it’s 1585.

In the distance, we know the cold dark days loom, but we are prepared. Our cellars will be full and we will hunt and fish while we can.

Lucas van Valckenborch’s body of work shows us that he was a brilliant storyteller as well as an artist. Many paintings of that time show us the poverty, but here we see the prosperity of a village during the early renaissance. It wasn’t all doom and gloom after all.

About the Artist and his work, via Wikipedia:

Lucas van Valckenborch or Lucas van Valckenborch the Elder (c. 1535 in Leuven – 2 February 1597 in Frankfurt am Main) was a Flemish painter, mainly known for his landscapes. He also made contributions to portrait painting, and allegorical and market scenes. Court painter to Archduke Matthias, the governor of the Spanish Netherlands in Brussels, he later migrated to Austria and then Germany where he joined members of his extended family of artists who had moved there for religious reasons.

In their mixture of fantasy and accurate topographical details, van Valckenborch’s landscape paintings offer a view of the world and man’s relationship to it. This is particularly clear in his rocky landscapes in which the diminutive people on the winding path are reduced by the monumental cliffs. An example is the Rocky Landscape with Travelers on a Path (c. 1570, Sotheby’s 6 July 2016, London lot 3) where the distant goatherd and the silhouettes of his charges seem ant-like in comparison to the vast distance, and the vertiginous perspective of the scene. This dramatic visual depiction is clearly intended as a commentary on man’s place within the universe.

He also painted, between 1584 and 1587, a series of large pictures depicting the labours of the months, probably on commission for Archduke Matthias. These compositions, of which seven survive (five of which are in the Kunsthistorische Museum), present the various months of the year by showing the changing landscape and the traditional activities of humans during each month. It is not clear whether the five missing paintings were never painted or are lost.[4] Due to their realistic setting these compositions carry a documentary interest. The work of Pieter Bruegel the elder, who had painted a series of 6 on the times of the year, was influential on van Valckenborch. Lucas van Valckenborch moved away from the tradition of painting the landscape in three cascading distances that were rendered in three different colours: brown, green and blue for each receding plane. Rather he often left out the green tone for the middle distance. He also innovated the thematic scenes by developing them into genre scenes with a stronger narrative depth. [1]

Credits and Attributions:

[1] Wikipedia contributors, “Lucas van Valckenborch,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lucas_van_Valckenborch&oldid=1173224796 (accessed September 14, 2023).

IMAGE: Autumn Landscape (September) by Lucas van Valckenborch. Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Lucas van Valckenborch – Autumn landscape (September).jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Lucas_van_Valckenborch_-_Autumn_landscape_(September).jpg&oldid=618977280 (accessed September 14, 2023).

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September 8, 2023 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: Impression Sunrise by Claude Monet 1872, and the Fighting Temeraire by J.M.W. Turner 1839

Today I am featuring two famous paintings, Claude Monet’s Impression Sunrise, the painting that gave  a name to an entire movement withing the artistic community. But Monet was not the first of the impressionists, and he freely admitted that he was an admirer of the radical and oft criticized (in his time) J.M.W. Turner.  Indeed, during the years Monet resided in England, he visited the National Gallery, viewing the works of Turner, whom he held in high regard. The painting that, in my opinion, belongs in the same room with Impression Sunrise is turner’s masterpiece, the Fighting Temeraire.

Both paintings are best viewed from a distance, and both have power. Both tell a story, and both artists faced the slings and arrows of critics who were unwilling to accept anything that strayed from traditional portraiture and landscape art.

Uncaring of the critics, both Monet and Turner wandered off in their own artistic direction, and we can be grateful for that stubborn desire to paint what they felt as well as what they saw.

Turner’s work influenced Monet, and both artists influenced generations of artists who followed them.

Claude_Monet,_Impression,_soleil_levant

Artist   Claude Monet  (1840–1926) 

Title    Impression, Sunrise

Genre  marine art

Date    1872

Medium          oil on canvas

Dimensions     height: 48 cm (18.8 in); width: 63 cm (24.8 in)

Collection       Musée Marmottan Monet  

 

The_Fighting_Temeraire,_JMW_Turner,_National_Gallery

Artist:  J. M. W. Turner  (1775–1851)  (by Joseph Mallord William Turner)

Title: The Fighting Temeraire 1839

Description: The Fighting Temeraire tugged to her last berth to be broken up, 1838

Date: 1839

Medium: oil on canvas  

Dimensions: height: 90.7 cm (35.7 in)

Collection: National Gallery 

Credits and Attributions:

Impression Sunrise, Claude Monet 1872 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons: Impression, Sunrise – Wikipedia accessed September 09, 2023.

The Fighting Temeraire, J. M. W. Turner: 1839 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons: The Fighting Temeraire – Wikipedia accessed September 09, 2023.

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September 1, 2023 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: A Storm in the Rocky Mountains – Mt. Rosalie by Albert Bierstadt 1866

Albert_Bierstadt_-_A_Storm_in_the_Rocky_Mountains,_Mt._Rosalie_-_Google_Art_ProjectArtist: Albert Bierstadt  (1830–1902)

Title: A Storm in the Rocky Mountains, Mt. Rosalie

Genre: landscape art

Date: 1866

Medium: oil on canvas

Dimensions: height: 210.8 cm (82.9 in); width: 361.3 cm (11.8 ft)

Collection: Brooklyn Museum: American Identities: A New Look, American Landscape, 5th Floor

What I love about this painting:

Albert Bierstadt painted his idea of what the American West of his time should be, grand, pristine, and wild. He painted what he saw, slightly fictionalized, so the viewer would see what he felt. He gave us entire stories on his canvas, epic explorations of the power and beauty of nature.

Bierstadt’s skies were imbued with high drama contrasted with peaceful vistas below. He took the places he had visited and made them bigger, grander, made the viewer feel the emotions he experienced when he first laid eyes on them.

About this painting via Wikipedia:

A Storm in the Rocky Mountains, Mt. Rosalie is an 1866 landscape oil painting by German-American painter Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902) which was inspired by sketches created on an 1863 expedition.

Bierstadt traveled to the Colorado Rocky Mountains where he was taken up to the Chicago Lakes beneath Mount Evans. The painting is named after Bierstadt’s mistress and, at the time, his friend’s wife, Rosalie Osborne Ludlow. The painting, measuring at 210.8 × 361.3 cm (83.0 × 142.2 in), is exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum, which acquired it in 1976.

The painting depicts Native American hunter/gatherers hunting deer in the foreground. A Native American encampment resides by a stream in the distance. The mountains are thrown into either sunlight or the darkness of a thunderstorm. In order to increase its dramatic value, Bierstadt exaggerated the scale of the Rocky Mountains.

Peering through a break in the clouds in the far distance is a snow-capped Mt. Rosalie, named after Bierstadt’s wife.

Upon its completion, the painting toured the United States for a year. On 7 February 1866, A Storm in the Rocky Mountains, Mount Rosalie exhibited for one day and evening at the Somerville Art Gallery in New York City as a benefit for the “Nursery and Child’s Hospital.” [1]

Quote from Wikimedia Commons: Albert Bierstadt enjoyed great success in the years surrounding the Civil War, producing finely detailed vistas of nature’s splendor in majestic canvases that were similarly invested with significance beyond their surface appearance.

The first technically advanced artist to portray the American West, Bierstadt offered to a rapidly transforming nation pictures whose spectacular size and fresh, dramatic subject matter supplied a visual correlative to notions of American exceptionalism, while also contributing to the developing concept of Manifest Destiny.

Trained in the highly finished manner of the Düsseldorf Academy, Bierstadt’s precise style imbued his works with a reassuring sense of veracity despite their sublime subjects and occasional liberties with geographic reality. [2]

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.

Credits and Attributions:

Image: Wikimedia Commons contributors, ‘File:Albert Bierstadt – A Storm in the Rocky Mountains, Mt. Rosalie – Google Art Project.jpg’, Wikimedia Commons, 29 July 2023, 05:50 UTC, <https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Albert_Bierstadt_-_A_Storm_in_the_Rocky_Mountains,_Mt._Rosalie_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg&oldid=787844562> [accessed 1 September 2023]

[1] Wikipedia contributors, “A Storm in the Rocky Mountains, Mt. Rosalie,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=A_Storm_in_the_Rocky_Mountains,_Mt._Rosalie&oldid=1160866547 (accessed September 1, 2023).

[2] Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:1875, Bierstadt, Albert, Mount Adams, Washington.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:1875,_Bierstadt,_Albert,_Mount_Adams,_Washington.jpg&oldid=272380899 (accessed March 9, 2018).

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August 25, 2023 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: the Dragon’s Cave by Georg Janny 1917

Georg_Janny_-_The_Dragon's_Cave_1917Artist: Georg Janny  (1864–1935)

Title: The Dragon’s Cave (German: Drachenhöhle)

Date: 1917

Medium: oil on canvas

What I love about this painting:

What’s not to love about a dragon? Georg Janny gives us the beast in his natural environment. Our dragon is immense, gloriously armored with steel gray and silver scales. Twin streams of smoke rise from his nostrils, evidence of his fiery internal workings. The dragon sits at the entrance to his mountain aerie, surveying the world, and believes that he is the master.

I love fantasy paintings. The artists who painted scenery for the opera were, and are, incredibly skilled. The scenery painters of the early twentieth century were often influenced in their subject matter and style by the works of the pre-Raphaelites.

About the Artist, via Wikipedia:

Georg Janny (20 May 1864, Vienna – 21 February 1935, Vienna) was an Austrian landscape painter and set designer.

He worked as a scene painter in the studios of Carlo Brioschi and Johann Kautsky, alongside Alfons Mucha, and was a member of the Dürerbund.

In 1898, he participated in painting the “Eisernen Vorhang” (Iron Curtain) at the Vienna Volksoper for the 50th jubilee of Emperor Franz Joseph I. In 1904, he exhibited in the Austrian Pavilion at the St.Louis World’s Fair with scenes from the Imperial Royal Austrian State Railways (now at the Technisches Museum Wien). Two years later, he designed the stage for The Queen of Sheba by Karl Goldmark, one of the most popular operas of the late 19th century. Pictures from the second and third acts have been preserved.

He also painted landscapes and figures, including scenes from fairy-tales or imaginary worlds that are reminiscent of the works of Arnold Böcklin or Gustave Doré. [1]

Credits and Attributions:

Image: The Dragon’s Cave by Georg Janny. Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Georg Janny – The Dragon’s Cave 1917.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Georg_Janny_-_The_Dragon%27s_Cave_1917.jpg&oldid=636191261 (accessed August 25, 2023).

[1] Wikipedia contributors, “Georg Janny,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Georg_Janny&oldid=1159021400 (accessed August 25, 2023).

Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Georg Janny – The Dragon’s Cave 1917.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Georg_Janny_-_The_Dragon%27s_Cave_1917.jpg&oldid=636191261 (accessed August 25, 2023).

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August 18, 2023 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: Summer, Lake Ontario by Jasper Francis Cropsey 1857 (revisited)

Cropsey,_Jasper_Francis_-_Summer,_Lake_Ontario_-_Google_Art_ProjectTitle: Summer, Lake Ontario by Jasper Francis Cropsey (1823–1900)

Genre: landscape art

Date: 1857

Medium: oil on canvas

Collection: Indianapolis Museum of Art

What I love about this painting:

Cropsey paints a summer evening in New York State, along the shore of one of Lake Ontario’s bays. Near the bottom center, a pair of fishers are placed on the wooden bridge over a creek. This image has a fantasy quality, as if it depicts a dream or a fond memory.

Our point of view is from a hill, looking down to the creek, the bridge, and the bay shore, and then across low hills to the great lake beyond. Cropsey gives equal importance to the earth below and sky above.

Cropsey’s signature deep colors are featured in this panoramic view of a summer evening. Warm reds, browns, yellows, and dark greens are lightened by wispy mists rising in the early evening air, lit by the setting sun.

About the Artist, via Wikipedia:

Jasper Francis Cropsey (February 18, 1823 – June 22, 1900) was an important American landscape artist of the Hudson River School.

Cropsey was born on his father Jacob Rezeau Cropsey’s farm in Rossville on Staten Island, New York, the oldest of eight children. As a young boy, Cropsey had recurring periods of poor health. While absent from school, Cropsey taught himself to draw. His early drawings included architectural sketches and landscapes drawn on notepads and in the margins of his schoolbooks.

Trained as an architect, he set up his own office in 1843. Cropsey studied watercolor and life drawing at the National Academy of Design under the instruction of Edward Maury and first exhibited there in 1844. A year later he was elected an associate member and turned exclusively to landscape painting; shortly after he was featured in an exhibition entitled “Italian Compositions.”

Cropsey traveled in Europe from 1847–1849, visiting England, France, Switzerland, and Italy. He was elected a full member of the Academy in 1851. Cropsey was a personal friend of Henry Tappan, the president of the University of Michigan from 1852 to 1863. At Tappan’s invitation, he traveled to Ann Arbor in 1855 and produced two paintings, one of the Detroit Observatory, and a landscape of the campus. He went abroad again in 1856, and resided seven years in London, sending his pictures to the Royal Academy and to the International exhibition of 1862.

Returning home, he opened a studio in New York and specialized in autumnal landscape paintings of the northeastern United States, often idealized and with vivid colors. Cropsey co-founded, with ten fellow artists, the American Society of Painters in Watercolors in 1866. He also made the architectural designs for the stations of the elevated railways in New York. [1]

Credits and Attributions:

Image: Summer, Lake Ontario by Jasper Francis Cropsey 1857. Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Cropsey, Jasper Francis – Summer, Lake Ontario – Google Art Project.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Cropsey,_Jasper_Francis_-_Summer,_Lake_Ontario_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg&oldid=618625179 (accessed June 30, 2022).

[1] Wikipedia contributors, “Jasper Francis Cropsey,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jasper_Francis_Cropsey&oldid=1093620569 (accessed June 30, 2022).

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August 11, 2023 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: The Hay Harvest by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1565 (reprise)

Haymaking,_Pieter_Brueghel_the_Elder (1)Artist: Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1526/1530–1569)

Title: The Hay Harvest

Genre: genre art

Date: 1565

Medium: oil on panel

Dimensions: Height: 117 cm (46 in) Width: 161 cm (63.3 in)

According to the Web Gallery of Art, Haymaking, also known as The Hay Harvest, belongs to the Series of the Months. All the other panels in this series are dated 1565. July and August are the months when most summer crops are harvested. This painting and the August panel (The Corn Harvest) show the bringing-in of the harvest.

I first featured this painting in August of 2021, but it is well worth a second look. Workers scythe grain in the large field toward the center of the painting. In the foreground, other laborers harvest vegetables and pick berries. Everyone works to bring in the food, men, women, and children, as winter isn’t that far away, and the hay will sustain the draft animals in the long cold months ahead.

While each painting in the series shows the traditional occupation of that month, Bruegel’s real subject is the landscape itself, its ever-changing appearance.

I have always loved Bruegel the Elder’s work because he portrays the gathering of food as a fundamental human activity. He shows us that the quantity of food we have on our tables is determined by the knowledge and labor of others.

The variety of foods we have available to us is dictated by the form of the landscape. To carve a living from the earth a farmer must understand and care for the land that sustains them. They must know what areas of soil will be best for each crop and use that knowledge when laying out how the fields will be planted, as each crop has different nutrient requirements.

Within one valley, many types of soils will exist, so what serves to grow hay may not work for more delicate vegetables.

In the lush bounty of this painting, Bruegel the Elder shows us the wisdom of farmers, knowledge that sustains us to this day. He illustrates the way all people who grow and gather our food are bound to the land.

Those who grow food in their back gardens understand and respect the labors of those small farmers who grow produce for our local markets.

About the series, Months of the Year, via Wikipedia:

(Bruegel’s) famous set of landscapes with genre figures depicting the seasons are the culmination of his landscape style; the five surviving paintings use the basic elements of the world landscape (only one lacks craggy mountains) but transform them into his own style. They are larger than most previous works, with a genre scene with several figures in the foreground, and the panoramic view seen past or through trees. Bruegel was also aware of the Danube School‘s landscape style through prints.

The series on the months of the year includes several of Bruegel’s best-known works. In 1565, a wealthy patron in Antwerp, Niclaes Jonghelinck, commissioned him to paint a series of paintings of each month of the year. There has been disagreement among art historians as to whether the series originally included six or twelve works. Today, only five of these paintings survive and some of the months are paired to form a general season. Traditional Flemish luxury books of hours (e.g., the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry; 1416) had calendar pages that included the Labours of the Months, depictions set in landscapes of the agricultural tasks, weather, and social life typical for that month.

Bruegel’s paintings were on a far larger scale than a typical calendar page painting, each one approximately three feet by five feet. For Bruegel, this was a large commission (the size of a commission was based on how large the painting was) and an important one. In 1565, the Calvinist riots began and it was only two years before the Eighty Years’ War broke out. Bruegel may have felt safer with a secular commission so as to not offend Calvinist or Catholic. Some of the most famous paintings from this series included The Hunters in the Snow (December–January) and The Harvesters (August). [1]

About the Artist, Via Wikipedia:

Pieter Bruegel (also Brueghel or Breughel) the Elder c. 1525–1530 – 9 September 1569) was the most significant artist of Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting, a painter and printmaker, known for his landscapes and peasant scenes (so-called genre painting); he was a pioneer in making both types of subject the focus in large paintings.

He was a formative influence on Dutch Golden Age painting and later painting in general in his innovative choices of subject matter, as one of the first generation of artists to grow up when religious subjects had ceased to be the natural subject matter of painting. He also painted no portraits, the other mainstay of Netherlandish art. After his training and travels to Italy, he returned in 1555 to settle in Antwerp, where he worked mainly as a prolific designer of prints for the leading publisher of the day. Only towards the end of the decade did he switch to make painting his main medium, and all his famous paintings come from the following period of little more than a decade before his early death, when he was probably in his early forties, and at the height of his powers.

As well as looking forwards, his art reinvigorates medieval subjects such as marginal drolleries of ordinary life in illuminated manuscripts, and the calendar scenes of agricultural labours set in landscape backgrounds, and puts these on a much larger scale than before, and in the expensive medium of oil painting. He does the same with the fantastic and anarchic world developed in Renaissance prints and book illustrations.

He is sometimes referred to as “Peasant Bruegel”, to distinguish him from the many later painters in his family, including his son Pieter Brueghel the Younger (1564–1638). From 1559, he dropped the ‘h’ from his name and signed his paintings as Bruegel; his relatives continued to use “Brueghel” or “Breughel”. [2]

Credits and Attributions:

Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Haymaking, Pieter Brueghel the Elder.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Haymaking,_Pieter_Brueghel_the_Elder.jpg&oldid=431869636 (accessed August 10, 2023).

[1] Wikipedia contributors, “Pieter Bruegel the Elder,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pieter_Bruegel_the_Elder&oldid=1028859234 (accessed August 10, 2023).

[2] Wikipedia contributors, “Pieter Bruegel the Elder,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pieter_Bruegel_the_Elder&oldid=1028859234 (accessed August 10, 2023).

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August 4, 2023 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: Fisherwomen, Cullercoats by Winslow Homer 1881

Homer,_Winslow_-_'Fisherwomen,_Cullercoats',_1881,_graphite_&amp;_watercolor_on_paperArtist: Winslow Homer  (1836–1910)

Title: Fisherwomen, Cullercoats

Date:   1881

Medium: watercolor and graphite on paper

Dimensions: height: 34.2 cm (13.4 in); width: 49.2 cm (19.3 in)

Collection: Honolulu Museum of Art

What I love about this painting:

Homer shows us a foggy morning at the beach, capturing the quality of light on the strand at Cullercoats, Tyne and Wear, England. He paints the background with an impressionist’s eye and gives us realistic portraits of the working women whose labors fed the country.

The fish baskets are heavy, but they share the load. Their sleeves are rolled up for work, and skirts are shorter than if they were in town—no one wants wet skirts dragging around their ankles.

I love the way he shows these women as they were that day, treating them with respect. During his lifetime, Winslow Homer depicted men and women of all races, slaves and former slaves, and soldiers. He showed us people who worked hard, not giving us caricatures but painting portraits of real people.

Homer loved the sea and traveled widely, painting everywhere he went. Critics sometimes dismiss his work as “calendar art, appealing to the unschooled masses.” But think about it – calendars and magazines often were the only art poor and working-class people had in their homes. If you don’t have access to art, how can you become “schooled” in it? Some art critics are a little too schooled.

If you are interested in knowing more about the art of Winslow Homer, this documentary is excellent: FAKE OR FORTUNE SE1EO4 WINSLOW HOMER – YouTube

About the Artist, via Wikipedia:

Homer started painting with watercolors on a regular basis in 1873 during a summer stay in Gloucester, Massachusetts. From the beginning, his technique was natural, fluid and confident, demonstrating his innate talent for a difficult medium. His impact would be revolutionary. Here, again, the critics were puzzled at first, “A child with an ink bottle could not have done worse.” Another critic said that Homer “made a sudden and desperate plunge into water color painting”. But his watercolors proved popular and enduring, and sold more readily, improving his financial condition considerably. They varied from highly detailed (Blackboard – 1877) to broadly impressionistic (Schooner at Sunset – 1880). Some watercolors were made as preparatory sketches for oil paintings (as for “Breezing Up”) and some as finished works in themselves. Thereafter, he seldom traveled without paper, brushes and water based paints.

As a result of disappointments with women or from some other emotional turmoil, Homer became reclusive in the late 1870s, no longer enjoying urban social life and living instead in Gloucester. For a while, he even lived in secluded Eastern Point Lighthouse (with the keeper’s family). In re-establishing his love of the sea, Homer found a rich source of themes while closely observing the fishermen, the sea, and the marine weather. After 1880, he rarely featured genteel women at leisure, focusing instead on working women. [1]

Credits and Attributions:

Image: Fisherwomen, Cullercoats by Winslow Homer 1881. Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Homer, Winslow – ‘Fisherwomen, Cullercoats’, 1881, graphite & watercolor on paper.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Homer,_Winslow_-_%27Fisherwomen,_Cullercoats%27,_1881,_graphite_%26_watercolor_on_paper.jpg&oldid=721923030 (accessed August 3, 2023).

[1] Wikipedia contributors, “Winslow Homer,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Winslow_Homer&oldid=1168361459 (accessed August 3, 2023).

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