Category Archives: #FineArtFriday

September 27, 2024 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: revisiting Indian Summer by William Trost Richards 1875

Indian_Summer_MET_DT276257Title: Indian Summer by William Trost Richards

Genre: landscape art

Date: 1875

Medium: oil on canvas

Dimensions: 24 1/8 x 20 in. (61.3 x 50.8 cm)

Collection: Metropolitan Museum of Art

What I love about this painting:

Autumn is upon us once again. I was looking through the vault at Wikimedia Commons, and my eye kept being drawn to this painting by William Trost Richards. I featured this painting two years ago, and still love the feeling of “zen” that Trost Richards managed to instill into this scene.

He captured a singular moment of tranquility. A light breeze barely ruffles the surface of our pond. At the bottom right, two girls play beside a large boulder at the water’s edge.

Across the pond, in the center and nearly hidden in the shadows, a teamster and his oxen wade across the shallows.

Autumn’s haze lends a feeling of mystery to the scene, muting the reds, yellows, and oranges of leaves about to fall. This last burst of grandeur can’t hold back winter, though it tries. Soon, the forest will sleep, snow and ice will decorate barren limbs, and ice will stop the waters’ gentle motions.

But beneath the grasp of winter, new life will bide its time, and winter will fade into spring. The seasons will follow their course, but today is autumn’s day to shine, to go down in a blaze of golden glory.

A century ago, William Trost Richards painted a scene of peace and serenity, perfectly capturing it. He preserved the glory of the scenery, but more than that, he captured the mood and the atmosphere of a perfect autumn day. When we view this scene, we can sit back and admire the beauty of our world.

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About William Trost Richards via Wikipedia:

William Trost Richards (November 14, 1833 – November 8, 1905) was an American landscape artist. He was associated with both the Hudson River School and the American Pre-Raphaelite movement. [1]

In 1856, he married Anna Matlack Richards (1834–1900), a 19th-century American children’s author, poet and translator best known for her fantasy novel, A New Alice in the Old Wonderland. The couple had eight children, only five of whom lived past infancy. Anna educated the children at home to a pre-college level in the arts and sciences. [2]

One of the couple’s sons, Theodore William Richards, would later win the 1914 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Anna Richards Brewster, their sixth child, went on to become an important painter in her own right, having received an early arts education from her father as well. [2]

Richards rejected the romanticized and stylized approach of other Hudson River painters and instead insisted on meticulous factual renderings. His views of the White Mountains are almost photographic in their realism. In later years, Richards painted almost exclusively marine watercolors. [1]

Credits and Attributions:

Indian Summer by William Trost Richards, Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Indian Summer MET DT276257.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Indian_Summer_MET_DT276257.jpg&oldid=678817431 (accessed November 3, 2022). Public Domain.

[1] Wikipedia contributors, “William Trost Richards,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=William_Trost_Richards&oldid=1089835304 (accessed November 3, 2022).

[2] Wikipedia contributors, “Anna Matlack Richards,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Anna_Matlack_Richards&oldid=1055684363 (accessed November 3, 2022).

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September 20, 2024 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: Undergrowth with Two Figures, Vincent van Gogh 1890, a second look

Vincent_van_Gogh_-_Undergrowth_with_Two_Figures_(F773)Artist: Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890)

Title: Undergrowth with Two Figures

Date: late June 1890

Medium: oil on canvas

Dimensions: height: 50 cm (19.6 in); width: 100.5 cm (39.5 in)

Collection: Cincinnati Art Museum

Two years ago, in April of 2022, I was privileged to attend an immersive exhibit of Vincent van Gogh’s life through his work. Viewers roamed freely inside an everchanging exhibit that flowed through many of his most famous works and zoomed in on bits one wouldn’t ordinarily notice.

I managed a few shots with my cell phone that offered some idea of what the exhibition was like, but sadly, the camera on that phone wasn’t the best. Here is the one that nearly shows what we experienced, a glimpse into van Gogh’s Starry Night:

Van Gogh immersive 1 connie j jasperson LIRF04072022

The exhibit was such a moving, emotional experience. It really brought you into touch with the man and his art. I became a Vincent van Gogh fangirl that day.

We were in, above, and surrounded by his work. The powerful soundtrack of classical music paired perfectly with the images, complementing them like fine wine does good food.

The link to what we saw at that exhibit is here: Van Gogh, The Immersive Experience.

What I love about Undergrowth with Two Figures:

This very late work was painted at the end of June 1890, a few weeks before Van Gogh’s death. It was one of several paintings in Auvers-sur-Oise, a commune on the northwestern outskirts of Paris, France. This was also the place where Vincent van Gogh died from injuries suffered in an attempted suicide.

This painting is one of several he made in the last weeks of his life using a double-square format. The double-square paintings were made on uncommonly large canvases, rectangular, twice as wide as they were tall. Vincent’s need to express his art couldn’t be contained on an ordinary canvas—he saw the world with a panoramic view.

One of the things I love about this painting is the use of violet and blue in the trunks of the poplars. They are tall, immense, like bars in a window framing the courting pair. The trees stand out against the black backdrop. They have power and are the soul of the painting, even more so than the flowers and undergrowth through which the couple walks.

I think it’s a wonderful composition, with strong brush strokes and deep, dark colors. He saw the beauty in life and painted it.

[1] About this painting, via Google Arts and Culture:

In a letter to his younger brother, Theo, dated June 30, 1890, van Gogh explained the structure and brilliant colors of “Undergrowth with Two Figures”: “The trunks of the violet poplars cross the landscape perpendicularly like columns,” adding “the depth of Sous Bois is blue, and under the big trunks the grass blooms with flowers in white, rose, yellow, and green.”

“Undergrowth with Two Figures” has a silvery tonality characteristic of van Gogh’s works from Auvers. His brushwork may be swift and visceral, his colors strong and biting, his emotion raw and visible, but the composition reveals no hint of psychological torment.

It is painted on a double square canvas, twice as wide as it is high. Van Gogh explored the artistic possibilities of this panoramic format in several of his last paintings. [1]

Credits and Attributions:

[1] Google Arts and Culture Contributors, Undergrowth with two Figures, Vincent van Gogh 1890, Accessed April 7, 2022.

Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Vincent van Gogh – Undergrowth with Two Figures (F773).jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Vincent_van_Gogh_-_Undergrowth_with_Two_Figures_(F773).jpg&oldid=618842665 (accessed April 8, 2022).

View of Vincent’s Starry Night, © 2022 Connie J. Jasperson, own work,

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September 13, 2024 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: The Peasant and the Nest Robber by Pieter Bruegel the Elder 1568

The_Peasant_and_the_Birdnester_Pieter_Bruegel_the_Elder_1568Artist: Pieter Brueghel the Elder (1526/1530–1569)

Title:  “The Peasant and the Nest Robber”

Date: 1568

Medium: oil on oak wood

Dimensions: 59.3 × 68.3 cm (23.3 × 26.8 in)

Collection: Kunsthistorisches Museum

What I love about this painting

Pieter Brugel the Elder was a man with a sharp eye for the humorous and the ability to wield allegory and symbolism like a knife. He cuts to the heart of things, pointing out the hubris and vanities of people from all walks of life.

Pieter Brugel the Elder was earthy and honest in his depictions of village life in his time. He painted what he saw and celebrated the ups and downs of the human condition. Today, his art is an important source of evidence about the social mores and values governing 16th-century life.

This painting details his favorite subject of human frailty, but he’s taken a different approach, narrowing his usual cast of thousands to just two.

In this case, he is pointing out that people are opportunists. We either have the knowledge and nerve to take what we need or the knowledge and sly desire to point out the failings of others.

Both men in this scene are taking the opportunity to advance themselves. One gains eggs and a good meal, and the other gains a sense of moral superiority.

Neither man feels guilty.

About this painting, via Wikipedia:

This unusual subject apparently illustrates a Netherlandish proverb:

Dije den nest Weet dijen weeten, dijen Roft dij heeten
He who knows where the nest is, has the knowledge, he who robs, has the nest.

The painting presents a moralising contrast between the active, wicked individual and the passive man who is virtuous in spite of adversity (a similar theme appears in his drawing The Beekeepers)] And lastly it could be suggested that the pointing man is making judgement on the robber whilst not aware that he is nearly stepping into the water in front of him.

It has been suggested that, with his knowledge of Italian art, Bruegel intended the peasant’s gesture as a profane parody of the gesture of Leonardo‘s St John. [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 from Brabant, 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.

Around 1563, Bruegel moved from Antwerp to Brussels, where he married Mayken Coecke, the daughter of the painter Pieter Coecke van Aelst and Mayken Verhulst. As registered in the archives of the Cathedral of Antwerp, their deposition for marriage was registered 25 July 1563. The marriage itself was concluded in the Chapel Church, Brussels in 1563.

Pieter the Elder had two sons: Pieter Brueghel the Younger and Jan Brueghel the Elder (both kept their name as Brueghel). Their grandmother, Mayken Verhulst, trained the sons because “the Elder” died when both were very small children. The older brother, Pieter Brueghel copied his father’s style and compositions with competence and considerable commercial success. Jan was much more original, and very versatile. He was an important figure in the transition to the Baroque style in Flemish Baroque painting and Dutch Golden Age painting in a number of its genres. He was often a collaborator with other leading artists, including with Peter Paul Rubens on many works including the Allegory of Sight.

Other members of the family include Jan van Kessel the Elder (grandson of Jan Brueghel the Elder) and Jan van Kessel the Younger. Through David Teniers the Younger, son-in-law of Jan Brueghel the Elder, the family is also related to the whole Teniers family of painters and the Quellinus family of painters and sculptors, through the marriage of Jan-Erasmus Quellinus to Cornelia, daughter of David Teniers the Younger. [2]

Credits and Attributions:

[1] IMAGE and Quote about this picture: Wikipedia contributors, “The Peasant and the Nest Robber,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Peasant_and_the_Nest_Robber&oldid=1160869804 (accessed September 12, 2024).

[2] Wikipedia contributors, “Pieter Bruegel the Elder,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pieter_Bruegel_the_Elder&oldid=1218696694 (accessed September 12, 2024).

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September 6, 2024 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: Morning at Grand Manan by Alfred Thompson Bricher 1878

Morning_at_Grand_Manan_by_Alfred_Thompson_BricherArtist: Alfred Thompson Bricher (1837–1908)

Title: Morning at Grand Manan

Date: 1878

Medium: oil on canvas

Dimensions: height: 25 in (63.5 cm); width: 50 in (127 cm).

Collection: Indianapolis Museum of Art

Current location: Paine Early American Painting Gallery

What I Love about this painting:

This is a satisfying scene capturing the best moments of a morning at the shore. The light falls on the water with an almost photographic sheen. Fishing vessels leave the harbor, heading out to sea. The sea is calm, and the waves roll up to embrace the shore. One could wade in the shallows and search the tidal pools for starfish or crabs and other creatures in safety.

The sun is up and the few clouds in the sky are dissipating. This will be a good day, perhaps the best day of the summer.

About this painting via Wikipedia:

Morning at Grand Manan is an 1878 oil painting by Alfred Thompson Bricher. It is part of the permanent collection at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, and is currently on view in the Paine Early American Painting Gallery.

Painted along Grand Manan Island, a favorite vacation spot of the artist in New Brunswick, Canada, Bricher painted the sunrise coming above the Atlantic Ocean in a tiny inlet on the coast. Four sailing ships are clearly visible against the pink sky. On the left of the canvas, a sharp, rocky cliff face is seen, breaking up the composition. Bricher clearly depicts each wave rolling onto the beach in minute detail. The sun is positioned a little left of center of the canvas, but is the major focal point, drawing the eye in. Just like other Hudson River School painters, Bricher hides his brushstrokes as if to make the canvas disappear.

Alfred Thompson Bricher was part of the American Luminist movement, coming out of the Hudson River School. Much like the Impressionists, they were interested in the play of light in landscapes, with Bricher himself being particularly interested in how light played against the ocean. Bricher, in particular, became famous for his seascapes and depicting the North Atlantic seaboard. Bricher is considered the last important luminist painter. Morning at Grand Manan came at the height of his career, and displayed Bricher’s acquisition of European aesthetics into his own paintings.

About the Artist via Wikipedia:

Alfred Thompson Bricher (April 10, 1837 – September 30, 1908) was an American painter associated with White Mountain art and the Hudson River School.

Bricher was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. He was educated in an academy at Newburyport, Massachusetts. He began his career as a businessman in Boston, Massachusetts. When not working, he studied at the Lowell Institute. He also studied with Albert Bierstadt, William Morris Hunt, and others. He attained noteworthy skill in making landscape studies from nature, and after 1858 devoted himself to the art as a profession. He opened a studio in Boston, and met with some success there. In 1868 he moved to New York City, and at the National Academy of Design that year he exhibited “Mill-Stream at Newburyport.” Soon afterward he began to use watercolors in preference to oils, and in 1873 was chosen a member of the American Watercolor Society. In the 1870s, he primarily did maritime themed paintings, with attention to watercolor paintings of landscape, marine, and coastwise scenery. He often spent summers in Grand Manan, where he produced such notable works as Morning at Grand Manan (1878). In 1879, Bricher was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate member.

Credits and Attributions

IMAGE: Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Morning at Grand Manan by Alfred Thompson Bricher.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Morning_at_Grand_Manan_by_Alfred_Thompson_Bricher.jpg&oldid=872660352 (accessed September 5, 2024).

[1] ABOUT THE  IMAGE: Wikipedia contributors, “Morning at Grand Manan,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Morning_at_Grand_Manan&oldid=1192844232 (accessed September 5, 2024).

[2] BIO: Wikipedia contributors, “Alfred Thompson Bricher,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Alfred_Thompson_Bricher&oldid=1229486559 (accessed September 5, 2024).

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August 30, 2024 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: Newhaven Harbour on the Firth of Forth by Samuel Bough

Samuel_Bough_-_Newhaven_harbour_on_the_Firth_of_ForthArtist: Samuel Bough  (1822–1878)

Title: Newhaven Harbour on the Firth of Forth

Date: Unknown date

Medium: pencil and watercolor, heightened with white

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

Inscriptions: Signature bottom left: Sam Bough

What I love about this painting:

This is a faithful record of a sunny summer day at a busy harbor on Scotland’s Firth of Forth, painted before the port of Newhaven was industrialized. When this painting is viewed from a distance, there is a crispness to the scene, to the women and men purchasing fresh-caught fish, conveyed by the choice of colors, the use of pencils with the watercolors, and the impressionist’s technique.

I like this scene. It’s an active scene, bustling and full of mid-nineteenth-century life.

About the Artist, via Lyon and Turnbull:

Considered to be one of the most influential and prolific Scottish landscape painters of the 19th century, Sam Bough RSA was a self-taught artist who spent much of his career working in Scotland. Born in 1822 in Carlisle, Bough settled in Manchester where he worked as a scene painter in the Theatre Royal.

After moving to Glasgow he continued to paint in the evenings whilst working at the New Princes Theatre, eventually building enough success to move to painting full-time. Bough’s reputation as a topographical and landscape painter grew during the 1850s, and by the time he resettled in Edinburgh he had established himself as a successful landscape artist. Whilst living in the capital he created some of his most important paintings.

Bough was as successful a painter in both oils and watercolours, and was committed to depicting a wide variety of landscape views and effects, urban and rural, bright days and dark storms. However, there are specific locations and landscapes that Bough returns to regularly in his work; the hustle and bustle of harbours and coastal towns, with the distinctive Newhaven harbour a particular favourite, and the hunting forest of Cadzow, near Hamilton. Generally associated with views of Scotland, he did also create a series of Italian views. In general, his spontaneity, loose technique and interest in capturing fleeting atmospheric effects, particularly cloud formations and weather, establishes him as an important predecessor of the Scottish Impressionists, paving the way for the development towards a freer, plein air style. [1]

Credits and Attributions:

[1] Bio Quote: Sam Bough | Scottish 1822 – 1878 (lyonandturnbull.com) accessed August 28, 2024.

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August 23, 2024 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: Fisherwomen, Cullercoats by Winslow Homer 1881, a second look

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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August 16, 2024 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: Two Watermills and an Open Sluice by Jacob van Ruisdael 1653 revisited

Jacob_Isaacksz._van_Ruisdael_-_Two_Watermills_and_an_Open_Sluice_-_WGA20479Artist: Jacob van Ruisdael  (1628/1629–1682)

Title: Two Watermills and an Open Sluice

Genre: landscape art

Date: 1653

Medium: oil on canvas

Dimensions: height: 664 mm (26.1 in)

Collection: Getty Center

What I Love about this painting:

This painting is the perfect writing prompt. Peaceful and serene, the scene shows us two watermills opposite each other on the stream, sharing the power of the water. These mills were examples of the highest technology of that time, and the families who owned them were prosperous middle-class people. Very likely they were literate, well-respected members of the local community.

Were these mills owned by the same family?

Or were they owned by rivals, competing to grind the grain produced by the local farmers? Is one a grist mill and the other a lumber mill? Or a weaver’s mill housing looms?

Was there a love story behind their being so close to each other, perhaps a Romeo and Juliet-style romance? (Tragedy averted, of course, or it wouldn’t be a romance.)

This is a wonderful painting, a window into the past.

About the artist, via Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Jacob Isaackszoon van Ruisdael (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈjaːkɔp fɑn ˈrœyzˌdaːl] ⓘ; c. 1629 – 10 March 1682) was a Dutch painter, draughtsman, and etcher. He is generally considered the pre-eminent landscape painter of the Dutch Golden Age, a period of great wealth and cultural achievement when Dutch painting became highly popular.

Prolific and versatile, Ruisdael depicted a wide variety of landscape subjects. From 1646 he painted Dutch countryside scenes of remarkable quality for a young man. After a trip to Germany in 1650, his landscapes took on a more heroic character. In his late work, conducted when he lived and worked in Amsterdam, he added city panoramas and seascapes to his regular repertoire. In these, the sky often took up two-thirds of the canvas. In total he produced more than 150 Scandinavian views featuring waterfalls.

Ruisdael’s only registered pupil was Meindert Hobbema, one of several artists who painted figures in his landscapes. Hobbema’s work has at times been confused with Ruisdael’s. Ruisdael always spelt his name thus: Ruisdael, not Ruysdael.

Ruisdael’s work was in demand in the Dutch Republic during his lifetime. Today it is spread across private and institutional collections around the world; the National Gallery in London, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, and the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg hold the largest collections. Ruisdael shaped landscape painting traditions worldwide, from the English Romantics to the Barbizon school in France, and the Hudson River School in the US, and influenced generations of Dutch landscape artists. [1]

To read more about this artist, go to Jacob van Ruisdael – Wikipedia

About this painting via Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Two Water Mills with an Open Sluice, also known as Two Watermills and an Open Sluice, Two Undershot Water Mills with an Open Sluice is a 1653 painting by the Dutch Golden Age painter Jacob van Ruisdael. It is in the collection of the Getty Museum in Los Angeles.

The painting shows two working undershot water mills, with the major one being half-timbered with a cob-facade construction, tie beams, and vertical plank gable. This is characteristic of the water mills in the Bentheim area in Germany, to where Ruisdael had travelled in the early 1650s. This painting is one of six known variations on this theme and the only one that is dated.

Although other Western artists had depicted water mills before, Ruisdael was the first to make it the focal subject in a painting. Meindert Hobbema, Ruisdael’s pupil, started working on the water mills subject in the 1660s. Today Hobbema is more strongly associated with water mills than his teacher.

The painting is known by various names. The painting is called Two Water Mills with an Open Sluice in Seymour Slive‘s 2001 catalogue raisonné of Ruisdael, catalogue number 119. In his 2011 book on Ruisdael’s mills and water mills Slive calls it Two Undershot Water Mills with an Open Sluice. The Getty Museum calls it Two Watermills and an Open Sluice on their website, object number 82.PA.18. [2]

Credits and Attributions:

Wikipedia contributors, “Two Water Mills with an Open Sluice,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Two_Water_Mills_with_an_Open_Sluice&oldid=1160869306 (accessed November 16, 2023).

[2] Wikipedia contributors, “Jacob van Ruisdael,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jacob_van_Ruisdael&oldid=1181677660 (accessed November 16, 2023).

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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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