Tag Archives: Fine Art Friday

November 29, 2024 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: Fruit Piece by Jan van Huysum 1722 #Thanksgiving

Fruit Piece by Jan van Huysum (Dutch, 1682 – 1749)– artist (Dutch)

Genre: still-life

Date: 1722

Medium: oil on panel

Dimensions: Height: 800 mm (31.49 in); Width: 610 mm (24.01 in)

What I love about this painting:

This painting first appeared here the day after Thanksgiving in 2020, the year of lockdown and virtual family gatherings via Zoom and Discord. Despite quarantine and lockdown, we gave thanks that year for the good things and for each other.

And this year, we did the same, with turkey, and all the family’s favorite side dishes. I made everything except the turkey using plant-based recipes that I have developed over the years of being vegan. My husband and son are not vegan, so I do go out of my way to accommodate their wishes while still keeping all the side-dishes plant-based.

I love the romance of today’s painting. The scene depicts the very essence of abundance and comfort. Every piece of fruit in this image is perfect, begging to be eaten, every flower wishes to be admired. Carnations, grapes, plums, figs, apples, a melon, raspberries, and numerous other fruits occupy the center of the image. Butterflies have found the flowers.

In the background, slightly out of focus as if the centerpiece is seen through a camera lens, we have a lush garden, a fantasy of earthly paradise. Far to the rear of the scene, painted as if they just happened to stray into it, two figures on a low bridge carry on a quiet conversation beneath a graceful statue.

More than any other artist of his time, van Huysum understood how to show the “life” aspect of still-life by combining fantasy with the faithful reproduction of perfect, ripe fruit.

Yesterday, we hosted our son and granddaughter and her husband, giving thanks for the abundance in our lives, the multitude of blessings for which we are truly grateful. While life has thrown us some hurdles in the last year, we have good food, safe shelter, and most importantly, we have each other.

This painting celebrates food in plentiful, mouthwatering profusion, a true blessing for which we should all be thankful.

About the Artist: The website at the National Gallery says:

Jan van Huysum (1682 – 1749)  was the last of the distinguished still life painters active in the Northern Netherlands in the 17th and early 18th centuries, and an internationally celebrated artist in his lifetime. Although he specialised in flower still lifes, van Huysum also painted a few landscapes.

His early works are more concentrated in design than his elaborate later paintings, like the Gallery’s Flowers in a Terracotta Vase, with its lighter background and superabundance of detail.

Van Huysum was a native of Amsterdam and was trained, according to Arnold Houbraken, by his father, who was also a still life painter. His first dated work is of 1706.

Van Huysum often travelled to horticultural centres like Haarlem so he could make sketches of rare and unusual flowers. During his lifetime, his flower paintings were sold for as much as 2,000 guilders, and he had famous patrons including the Duc d’Orléans, William VIII, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel, and Sir Robert Walpole.

Credits and Attributions:

Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Jan van Huysum (Dutch – Fruit Piece – Google Art Project.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Jan_van_Huysum_(Dutch_-_Fruit_Piece_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg&oldid=507579017 (accessed November 25, 2020).

National Gallery Contributors, Biography of Jan van Huysum (1682 – 1749) | National Gallery, London ©2020 National Gallery, London  https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/artists/jan-van-huysum (accessed November 25, 2020).

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November 22, 2024 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: Barge Haulers on the Volga by Ilya Repin, 1870 #writing #prompt

Barge Haulers on the Volga by Ilya Repin  (1844–1930)

  • Date: 1870
  • Medium: oil on canvas
  • Dimensions: Height: 131.5 cm (51.7 ″); Width: 281 cm (110.6 ″)
  • Current location: Ж-4056 (Russian Museum)
  • Inscriptions: Signature and date: И. Репин / 1870-73

To see this image best, right click on it and have it open in a new tab. or visit the Wikimedia page (which will open in a new tab).

What I love about this painting:

A burlak was a person who hauled barges and other vessels upstream from the 17th to 20th centuries in the Russian Empire. Most burlaks were landless or poor peasants.

These men are shown working, painted with brutal truth. They are beyond exhausted. Their skin is darkened and weathered from years of work in the unremitting sun, except for the young man in the middle. One day he will be like the older men, hardened to the misery and enduring his lot in life.

Each face is filled with emotion, with a story of their own. Who knows what tragedies brought them to agree to this terrible existence, this seasonal slavery of physically towing boats upriver?

For the women and men who towed the barges, winter was even worse, because once the river froze over these burlaki were unemployed. Their life was a constant circle of starvation and hellish labor under the harshest conditions.

This post first appeared in November of 2019. Each time I view this painting, I am moved by the unwritten stories, the tragedies that led these people to the life of a burlak, and the hardship shown so clearly here.

What stories are inspired by this image? Which burlak most inspires your creative mind?

About this Painting (via Wikipedia)

Barge Haulers on the Volga or Burlaki (Russian: Burlaki na Volge, Бурлаки на Волге) is an 1870–73 oil-on-canvas painting by artist Ilya Repin. It depicts 11 men physically dragging a barge on the banks of the Volga River. They are at the point of collapse from exhaustion, oppressed by heavy, hot weather.[1][2]

The work is a condemnation of profit from inhumane labor.[3] Although they are presented as stoical and accepting, the men are defeated; only one stands out: in the center of both the row and canvas, a brightly colored youth fights against his leather binds and takes on a heroic pose.

Repin conceived the painting during his travels through Russia as a young man and depicts actual characters he encountered. It drew international praise for its realistic portrayal of the hardships of working men, and launched his career.[4] Soon after its completion, the painting was purchased by Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich and exhibited widely throughout Europe as a landmark of Russian realist painting. Barge Haulers on the Volga has been described as “perhaps the most famous painting of the Peredvizhniki movement [for]….its unflinching portrayal of backbreaking labor”.[5]

The characters are based on actual people Repin came to know while preparing for the work. He had had difficulty finding subjects to pose for him, even for a fee, because of a folklorish belief that a subject’s soul would leave his possession once his image was put down on paper.[8] The subjects include a former soldier, a former priest, and a painter.[9] Although he depicted eleven men, women also performed the work and there were normally many more people in a barge-hauling gang; Repin selected these figures as representative of a broad swathe of the working classes of Russian society. That some had once held relatively high social positions dismayed the young artist, who had initially planned to produce a far more superficial work contrasting exuberant day-trippers (which he himself had been) with the careworn burlaks. Repin found a particular empathy with Kanin, the defrocked priest, who is portrayed as the lead hauler and looks outwards towards the viewer.[10] The artist wrote,

“There was something eastern about it, the face of a Scyth…and what eyes! What depth of vision!…And his brow, so large and wise…He seemed to me a colossal mystery, and for that reason I loved him. Kanin, with a rag around his head, his head in patches made by himself and then worn out, appeared none the less as a man of dignity; he was like a saint.”[11]

Credits and Attributions:

Wikipedia contributors, “Barge Haulers on the Volga,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Barge_Haulers_on_the_Volga&oldid=918607811 (accessed November 1, 2019).

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November 8, 2024 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: Upon Sunny Waves, by Hans Dahl #prompt #NovemberWriter


Artist: Hans Dahl  (1849–1937)

Title: Upon Sunny Waves

Date: before 1937

Medium: oil painting

Hans Dahl was a Norwegian painter trained in Germany and is associated with the Düsseldorf school of painting, which was characterized by finely detailed imaginary landscapes. In his later years, he endured mean-spirited criticism from other artists and art critics, because he chose to remain true to his idealized fantasy art, resisting the movement from Romanticism to Modernism.

What I love about this painting:

I first featured this painting in 2019 and think it’s a good image for a writing prompt. I love the way Dahl shares with us the bold freedom of sailing on a sunny summer day. He captures the feeling of flying on the water that makes sailing a small boat so much fun.

We aren’t on a leisurely fishing expedition here—this is boating for the sake of adventure. We’re running with wind and enjoying every minute of it. The wind is brisk, and the waters are choppy. There’s a hint of danger, the glee of knowing we’re pushing the boundaries. We’d best be strong swimmers because if we capsize, the waters are cold, and someone might not survive.

Who are these people? What is their relationship to each other? What dramas are they seeking a temporary escape from on this glorious day on the waves?

Hans Dahl has given us a painting with great story potential.

About the Artist, via Wikipedia:

In the 1890s a new school of art arose, and artists like Dahl were not very popular in the leading circles in the capital. He was particularly criticized by the art historian Jens Thiis. He was severely criticized by fellow artists especially by Christian Krohg, who was one of the leading figures in the transition from romanticism to naturalism which characterized Norwegian art in this period. Throughout his life, he increasingly narrowed his range of topics. Dahl often described the scenery of the western part of Norway in brilliant sunshine with smiling people in national costumes. His vibrant colors and charming portrayals of young Norwegian girls in their national costume have always been very popular. [1]

Credits and Attributions:

[1] Wikipedia contributors, “Hans Dahl,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hans_Dahl&oldid=827399492 (accessed November 7, 2024).

IMAGE: Upon Sunny Waves, by Hans Dahl PD|70 [Public domain]

Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Hans Dahl – Upon sunny waves.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Hans_Dahl_-_Upon_sunny_waves.jpg&oldid=140877929 (accessed November 7, 2024).

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October 4, 2024 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: ‘Falling Leaves,’ by Olga Wisinger-Florian, my favorite image of autumn

Falling Leaves, by Olga Wisinger-Florian, circa 1899, first appeared here in October of 2018 and again in autumn of 2022.  When I think of autumn, this painting always springs to mind. It captures the mood and atmosphere of a quiet day when the leaves are falling and the forest is settling in for a winter’s nap.

It is one of my favorite depictions of autumn. The scene could be happening here in my lovely Pacific Northwestern forests. The colors of the leaves, the dirt road–this is very like where I grew up.

The painting depicts a woman and her dog enjoying a quiet walk in the serenity of an autumn day. Using light and shadow, the artist employs an impressionistic style to convey the forest. Nothing is drawn with precision, yet everything is shown in its entirety. The feeling of this piece is a little dreamlike–she carries an umbrella, so she’s prepared for rain. She is dressed all in black except for her yellow hat. Leaves in all the many shades of green, gold, and red cling to their trees; the damp, aging rails of the wooden fence offers a flimsy barrier to the carriages and motor vehicles that may travel the roadside. Leaves cover the dirt road, and more are falling down, and the dog trots happily along beside her mistress—the story is there for us to see.

About the Artist via Wikipedia:

 Olga Wisinger-Florian’s early paintings can be assigned to what is known as Austrian Mood Impressionism. In her landscape paintings she adopted Schindler’s sublime approach to nature. The motifs she employed, such as views of tree-lined avenues, gardens and fields, were strongly reminiscent of her teacher’s work. After breaking with Schindler in 1884, however, the artist went her own way. Her conception of landscapes became more realistic. Her late work is notable for a lurid palette, with discernible overtones of Expressionism. With landscape and flower pictures that were already Expressionist in palette by the 1890s, she was years ahead of her time.

Credits and Attributions:

Falling Leaves, by Olga Wisinger-Florian, ca 1899 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Wikipedia contributors, “Olga Wisinger-Florian,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Olga_Wisinger-Florian&oldid=852607929 (accessed October 11, 2018).

Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Olga Wisinger-Florian – Falling Leaves.JPG,” Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Olga_Wisinger-Florian_-_Falling_Leaves.JPG&oldid=273565541 (accessed October 11, 2018).

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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 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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