Category Archives: #FineArtFriday

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_&_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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DIGITAL CAMERA

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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