Tag Archives: Fine Art Friday

October 27, 2023 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: Mountain River Landscape, Jan Brueghel the younger and Joos de Momper the Younger (revisited)

A collaborative work by:

Jan Brueghel the Younger  (1601–1678)

Joos de Momper the Younger  (1564–1635)

Title:    An extensive mountainous river landscape with travellers near a village

Date:   by 1678

Medium: oil on panel

Dimensions: Height: 46.5 cm (18.3 in); Width: 66 cm (25.9 in)

Collection: Private collection

I first found this painting in November of 2020. Something about this image spawned a short story featuring the beggar, and also two (absurdly bucolic) poems about the countryside. But it was the pandemic, so there you go–I went a bit stir crazy.

Ah, those were the days, when the weekly masking up and going to pick up the groceries felt like a real day out.

What I like about this painting:

There is an intensity, a richness of color in the foreground, and a subtle chastisement the subject matter of this picture.

In the center we have a beggar on his knees and praying before a cross, with his worldly possessions stacked beside him and his dog patiently waiting. All around him, the world is going about its business. Shepherds are moving their flocks from one field to another, a merchant urges his horse-drawn cart down the hill. Further down the hill, another merchant unloads a wagon. At the right of the beggar, two travelers on horseback ignore the outstretched hand of yet another beggar, this one an old woman.

This painting is relatively less known, a scene composed and executed by two prolific artists, both of whom were the sons of two of the more famous artists of the 17th century.

At first glance this seems like an ordinary bucolic view of a village and surrounding countryside. Yet, I think the lesson they offer us is clear—we go through life relatively comfortably, unaware of the opportunities for charity that are all around us.

Both artists made their livings from their work so there was a market for what they produced. For both Brueghel and de Momper, their fathers (and in Brueghel’s case, his grandfather ) were hard acts to follow.

About the Artists, via Wikipedia:

Joos de Momper the Younger  primarily painted landscapes, the genre for which he was highly regarded during his lifetime. Only a small number of the 500 paintings attributed to de Momper are signed and just one is dated. The large output points to substantial workshop participation. He often collaborated with figure painters such as Frans Francken II, Peter Snayers, Jan Brueghel the Elder and Jan Brueghel the Younger, usually on large, mountainous landscapes, whereby the other painters painted the staffage (people) and de Momper the landscape. His works were often featured in the prestigious gallery paintings of collections (real and imagined) from the early seventeenth century.

Jan Brueghel the Younger was born and died in the 17th century in Antwerp. He was trained by his father and spent his career producing works in a similar style. Along with his brother Ambrosius, he produced landscapes, allegorical scenes and other works of meticulous detail. Brueghel also copied works by his father and sold them with his father’s signature. His work is distinguishable from that of his parent by being less well executed and lighter.

In an episode of BBC’s Britain’s Lost Masterpieces broadcast in November 2019, a very badly damaged picture of a village scene, whose panel has spilt into two pieces, was located at Birmingham Art Gallery. Following a complete restoration by Simon Gillespie, the landscape was attributed to Joos de Momper and the figures were attributed to Jan the Younger.

Credits and Attributions:

Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Jan Brueghel II and Joos de Momper II – An extensive mountainous river landscape with travellers near a village.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Jan_Brueghel_II_and_Joos_de_Momper_II_-_An_extensive_mountainous_river_landscape_with_travellers_near_a_village.jpg&oldid=345270137 (accessed November 19, 2020).

Wikipedia contributors, “Jan Brueghel the Younger,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jan_Brueghel_the_Younger&oldid=988772158 (accessed November 19, 2020).

Wikipedia contributors, “Joos de Momper,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Joos_de_Momper&oldid=988664019 (accessed November 19, 2020).

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September 29, 2023 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: Dordrecht Harbor by Moonlight by Aelbert Cuyp 1643

Aelbert_Cuyp_-_Dordrecht_Harbor_by_Moonlight_4168Artist: Aelbert Cuyp (1620–1691)

Title: Dordrecht Harbor by Moonlight

Genre: landscape art

Date: 1643

Medium: oil on panel

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

Collection: Wallraf–Richartz Museum 

What I like about this scene:

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

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

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

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

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

About Dordrecht in the 17th Century:

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

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

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

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

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

About the Artist:

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

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

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

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

Credits and Attributions:

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

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

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

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

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September 22, 2023 · 6:00 am

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

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

Title: Autumn in North America

Genre: landscape art

Date: 1856

Medium: oil on board

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

Collection: Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum

What I love about this picture:

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

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

About the Artist, via Wikipedia:

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

Credits and Attributions:

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

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

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September 15, 2023 · 6:00 am

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

GG_5684.tif

Artist: Lucas van Valckenborch  (1535–1597)

Title: Autumn Landscape (September)

Date: 1585

Medium: oil on canvas

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

Collection: Kunsthistorisches Museum

What I love about this painting:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

About the Artist and his work, via Wikipedia:

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

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

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

Credits and Attributions:

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

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

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September 8, 2023 · 6:00 am

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

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

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

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

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

Claude_Monet,_Impression,_soleil_levant

Artist   Claude Monet  (1840–1926) 

Title    Impression, Sunrise

Genre  marine art

Date    1872

Medium          oil on canvas

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

Collection       Musée Marmottan Monet  

 

The_Fighting_Temeraire,_JMW_Turner,_National_Gallery

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

Title: The Fighting Temeraire 1839

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

Date: 1839

Medium: oil on canvas  

Dimensions: height: 90.7 cm (35.7 in)

Collection: National Gallery 

Credits and Attributions:

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

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

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September 1, 2023 · 6:00 am

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

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

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

Genre: landscape art

Date: 1866

Medium: oil on canvas

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

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

What I love about this painting:

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

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

About this painting via Wikipedia:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

About the Artist, via Wikipedia:

Albert Bierstadt (January 7, 1830 – February 18, 1902) was a German American painter best known for his lavish, sweeping landscapes of the American West. He joined several journeys of the Westward Expansion to paint the scenes. He was not the first artist to record the sites, but he was the foremost painter of them for the remainder of the 19th century.

Bierstadt was born in Prussia, but his family moved to the United States when he was one year old. He returned to study painting for several years in Düsseldorf. He became part of the second generation of the Hudson River School in New York, an informal group of like-minded painters who started painting along the Hudson River. Their style was based on carefully detailed paintings with romantic, almost glowing lighting, sometimes called luminism. Bierstadt was an important interpreter of the western landscape, and he is also grouped with the Rocky Mountain School.

Credits and Attributions:

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

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

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

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August 18, 2023 · 6:00 am

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

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

Genre: landscape art

Date: 1857

Medium: oil on canvas

Collection: Indianapolis Museum of Art

What I love about this painting:

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

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

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

About the Artist, via Wikipedia:

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

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

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

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

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

Credits and Attributions:

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

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

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August 4, 2023 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: Fisherwomen, Cullercoats by Winslow Homer 1881

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

Title: Fisherwomen, Cullercoats

Date:   1881

Medium: watercolor and graphite on paper

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

Collection: Honolulu Museum of Art

What I love about this painting:

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

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

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

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

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

About the Artist, via Wikipedia:

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

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

Credits and Attributions:

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

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

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July 21, 2023 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: Wivenhoe Park, Essex by John Constable 1816

John_Constable_-_Wivenhoe_Park,_Essex_-_Google_Art_ProjectArtist: John Constable  (1776–1837)

Title: Wivenhoe Park, Essex

Genre: landscape art

Date: 1816

Medium: oil on canvas oil on canvas

Dimensions: height: 56.1 cm (22 in); width: 101.2 cm (39.8 in)

Collection: National Gallery of Art

What I love about this image:

This is the painting that made John Constable’s name. It contains everything he idealized about his native country, England. He gives us a deceptively simple image of a summer’s day, with white clouds drifting above a peaceful scene.

So beautifully composed, and so relaxing. When life is crazy, a Zen picture as painted by a master reminds me to slow down and enjoy the scenery.

About this painting, via Wikipedia:

The National Gallery of Art holds this painting as one of its highlights:

A pleasant sense of ease and harmony pervades this landscape of almost photographic clarity. The large areas of brilliant sunshine and cool shade, the rambling line of the fence, and the beautiful balance of trees, meadow, and river are evidence of the artist’s creative synthesis of the actual site.

The painting was commissioned by the owner of Wivenhoe Park, Major General Francis Slater Rebow, who was among the artist’s first patrons, being a close friend of the artist’s father, Golding Constable. Wivenhoe Park is 200 acres (81 ha) of parkland, purchased by the Rebow family before 1734. Slater-Rebow commissioned several paintings from Constable, including a portrait of the general’s seven-year-old daughter in 1812. She also figures in this painting, in a donkey cart to the left. This painting, finished in September 1816, earned the artist enough money to allow him to marry his long-time love, Mary Bicknell. They married in October 1816.

Constable’s art is always penetrated by longing, melancholy and a yearning for the simple, natural life, for a bucolic, pastoral idyll, to rural subjects and aspects of life in the countryside, a “golden age” when people lived together in harmony with nature, a world on its way of disappearing when he painted his landscapes thanks to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. He was aware of the issue of urban growth, of urban life’s unpleasantness, which he contrasted to life in the countryside. Constable’s art was rather unconventional for his time, and he loved simple things, a natural landscape without the ruins, dramatic effects or exalted, often excessive feelings, like the ones displayed in the paintings of his contemporary, J. M. W. Turner. His landscapes are flooded by a silvery brilliant light in the water and air and in the sky, and are characterised by a special intensity that is such an important feature of this artist’s works. [1]

About the Artist, via Wikipedia:

John Constable RA (11 June 1776 – 31 March 1837) was an English landscape painter in the Romantic tradition. Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for revolutionising the genre of landscape painting, with his pictures of Dedham Vale, the area surrounding his home – now known as “Constable Country” – which he invested with an intensity of affection. “I should paint my own places best”, he wrote to his friend John Fisher in 1821, “painting is but another word for feeling”.[3]

Constable’s most famous paintings include Wivenhoe Park (1816), Dedham Vale (1821) and The Hay Wain (1821). Although his paintings are now among the most popular and valuable in British art, he was never financially successful. He became a member of the establishment after he was elected to the Royal Academy of Arts at the age of 52. His work was embraced in France, where he sold more than in his native England and inspired the Barbizon school. [2]

Credits and Attributions:

[1] Image: Wikipedia contributors, “Wivenhoe Park (painting),” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wivenhoe_Park_(painting)&oldid=1163430201 (accessed July 20, 2023).

[2] Wikipedia contributors, “John Constable,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_Constable&oldid=1162727967 (accessed July 20, 2023).

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July 7, 2023 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: Wind, Waves, and the Monarch of the Beach

Today we are looking at a series of photographs taken over the space of several years. All but one are my own work.

The first image is a sunset shot of what I think of as the Monarch of the Beach, the God-Rock dominating the shores of Cannon Beach Oregon. I took it in 2021 from the south end of the long stretch of sand. I have always loved the silhouettes of the sea stacks against the sky.

sunset-cannonbeach-08192020LIRF

The following image, Haystack Rock, is not one of mine. It was shot and uploaded to Wikimedia Commons by Tiger635. They perfectly captured the sky, showing the amazing shade of blue with stratus clouds overhead and sea below. All the world converges on Haystack,the king rock, the monarch of the beach. The photographer did everything right to capture the beauty of this place.

This year we are in the condo we like best and have a great view of Tillamook Head. When the fog lifts. I will see my favorite lighthouse, Tillamook Rock Light. I wanted to capture the pelicans and seagulls in flight, but the haze in 2020 made getting clear images difficult even with my cannon digital camera. But I managed to get this image with the aid of my tripod and a telephoto lens:

Terrible Tilly August 2022

The next image is one I shot in 2018, an unusually hot year, when we were plagued with massive wildfires here on the west coast of America. The sunsets that year were unbelievable.

The following image is of the Needles, those acolyte sea stacks gathered around Haystack’s knees. They are slowly disintegrating, more and more every year.

I shot it at low tide on Monday August 5, 2019, with my cellphone. Little did I know that it would be the last image I would ever get of that particular sea-stack. The two final images were also shot on my cell phone.

The sky that year was a shade of gray that is impossible to describe. I particularly love the way the tidal pools came out in my photo, the green of the sea moss, and the reflection of the spires across the shallow sea.

Now that sea stack is only a low hump, not too different from any other lump of basalt cresting the waves in the shallows. Where once there were three, now there are only two and a half.

Haystack Rock and the Two Needles, 20 August 2020 © 2020 by Connie J. Jasperson, All Rights Reserved

Time eventually wears everything to sand. All these sea stacks, even the God Rock, will one day be gone, shattered to rubble and ground to sand, a testimony to the violence of the wild Northeast Pacific winters. That is the way life is, and I find it reflected in myself.

Cannon Beach july 06, 2023

North View of Cannon Beach in the Fog July 06, 2023 © Connie J. Jasperson 2023

But no matter how fast our human lives change, pelicans, puffins, terns, seagulls, and rare wide-winged wanderers from far out to sea still come to nest on the Monarch of the Beach, Haystack Rock and his attendants.

Tidal pools change from day to day, but still they shelter starfish, anemones, and a multitude of other small creatures. These tiny water-worlds remind us that we are part of something larger, something deeper, a mysterious world far more bountiful than we who walk the land can know.

The sea is never the same. Untamed and dangerous one day, it is calm and serene the next.

The most important thing I’ve learned from my many walks among the tide pools at the foot of the Monarch is this: we humans are not islands—we are part of a world that extends below the surface and conceals secrets and lives we surface dwellers can only dimly imagine.

Above the eternal sea, on the strand below and around the God Rock, the Monarch of the Beach, my husband and I rediscover who we are, and we are made stronger.

The bonds my family forges each year in this place bind us together. These ties will always remain, no matter how far apart we are or how long we are separated, even after the Monarch of the Beach crumbles into the sea.

Credits and Attributions:

Haystack Rock, by Tiger635 [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)]

Tillamook Head at Sunset © Connie J. Jasperson 2018 All Rights Reserved

Sentinel, 05 August 2019 (One of the Needles, Cannon Beach) © 2019 by Connie J. Jasperson, All Rights Reserved (author’s own work).

Haystack Rock and the Two Needles, 20 August 2020 © 2020 by Connie J. Jasperson, All Rights Reserved (author’s own work).

Sunset at Haystack, 19 August 2020 © 2020 by Connie J. Jasperson, All Rights Reserved (author’s own work).

Sunset at Tillamook Head, 18 August 2020 by © Connie J. Jasperson 2023

North View of Cannon Beach in the Fog July 06, 2023 © Connie J. Jasperson 2023

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