Painters and Visual Artists

Discussion in 'History and Culture' started by DEFinning, Apr 29, 2023.

  1. Talon

    Talon Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    That's certainly quite a departure from de Vlamick's Fauvist pieces where you see the trademark presence of bright hot primary colors:

    2013_CKS_01102_0027_000(maurice_de_vlaminck_arbres_a_la_maison_bleue073113).jpg


    ...shades of Macke, once again.

    De Vlamick's move to the darker palette and broad, heavy brush work definitely has an Expressionist quality to it, and the empty, brooding and enigmatic landscapes are akin to those of Surrealist painter Giorgio de Chirico, even though the aesthetics are completely different. Again, as you mentioned, it's a lot about the feel one gets from the artist and his painting.


    Some of his paintings do have a sinister quality to them, and he's borderline over the top with this one:

    Maurice De Vlaminck - Tutt'Art@ (59).jpg

    Very Expressionistic in its own way, but he lets a little of the Fauve out in the sky....
     
    Last edited: Jun 1, 2023
  2. Talon

    Talon Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I meant to post this in my response (#120 above) to @FatBack about Vincent Van Gogh, whose work we have yet to explore, but this detail from one of his self-portraits illustrates what a magnificent painter he was:

    8bb3ed5b82499c09ce351484b50ab80a.jpg

    What a masterful use of color and brushwork.

    Obviously, it pays to get up close and stick your nose in Vincent's canvases. You can't appreciate this when looking at the painting from a distance.
     
  3. DEFinning

    DEFinning Well-Known Member Donor

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    You had meant "knifework," hadn't you? Isn't that the work of palette knives? That was a technique I regret not having tried. I had actually been thinking that his use of differing techniques, with both brushes and knives, was where our Gaugin discussion would be headed.
     
  4. Talon

    Talon Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Self-portraits can be real static and boring, but VVG's brushwork gives the painting movement and energy it would otherwise lack:

    tumblr_pnd908VdLL1x7886bo1_1280.jpg

    The older I've gotten the more I've come to appreciate his work, probably because I'm more inclined to look past all the negative drama surrounding the man and his career. Artists are like children, it's hard to pick a favorite, but over the years Vincent has become one of my favorites. In my book, he definitely deserves to be ranked amongst the greatest painters of all time.
     
  5. Talon

    Talon Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Perhaps a combination of both and more. That detail is a good illustration of the impasto technique that Van Gogh employed in many of his paintings:

    Now, that's taking finger painting to a whole new level :D and Vincent certainly could cake it on:

    StarryNightStars.jpg

    Personally, I'm very fond of this technique and the texture it brings to a painting. Frank Auerbach took it to the extreme in some of his work:

    head-of-e-o-w-i.jpg

    Head of E.O.W. I, 1960

    Painting about paint....
     
    Last edited: Jun 1, 2023
  6. DEFinning

    DEFinning Well-Known Member Donor

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    I'd say, while having some good qualities, this one goes a bit beyond the top.

    But your showing it (and I wonder why you didn't offer a de Chirico) gives me the opportunity to show another painting I love but which, again, it is impossible to appreciate, on a computer screen. This work of Theodore Rousseau's, if my memory can be trusted, is a something like 6 foot high, by 12 foot long (and has its own section of wall, at the NY Metropolitan Museum). It is really a scene, capable of taking a person into it.

    Rousseau went back to work on this piece, again and again, like his own personal Mona Lisa.



    main-image (1).jpeg



    Turns out, I wasn't that far off: its dimensions are 64" × 102 3/8"

    The Forest in Winter at Sunset
    Théodore Rousseau French

    ca. 1846–67
    On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 802

    Unrivaled for its scale and ambition, this monumental forest scene was begun early in Rousseau's career and remained unfinished at the time of his death, despite the urging of Millet and other artist friends to complete and exhibit it. By one account, Rousseau’s intention was to recreate the effect of a sunset he had seen in Bas-Bréau, a section of Fontainebleau forest, in December 1845. The tangled web of trees, denuded of foliage and suffused with deep color, conveys a sense of awe before nature that is amplified by the presence of two stooped peasants at the center.



    And, here's some Fauvist sky for you, long before Fauvism:


    1920.1.a.jpg






    52a5f35a3a35c.jpg






    This next one is just as an example of that slightly over the top use of color. Not that sunsets cannot be more colorful, still, but here it reads somewhat like comic book artwork, to me.


    landscape_at_sunset.jpg





    1-pond-at-the-edge-of-a-wood-theodore-rousseau.jpg






    images - 2023-06-01T072449.281.jpeg




    Screenshot_20230601-081356.png





    rousseau001.jpg





    4_gm_349289EX1_x480.jpg





    8_gm_30649801_x480.jpg


     
    Last edited: Jun 1, 2023
  7. Talon

    Talon Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Yes, I was being a bit generous there. He would have done himself a favor to tone down the color as he did in the examples you showed earlier, but it is consistent with the mood you find in the other paintings.


    I'm not a fan of de Chirico's work...

    There's a lot to be said for large scale paintings.

    As I mentioned earlier, I'm not a big fan of Picasso's work, but Guernica is an exception largely due to the scale of the painting:

    Pablo-Picasso-Guernica-1937-Image-via-hyperallergiccom.jpg

    It wouldn't be anywhere near as evocative on a much smaller scale.
     
  8. DEFinning

    DEFinning Well-Known Member Donor

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    Here is a much better picture of T. H. Rousseau's masterpiece, "Forest In Winter At Sunset."

    images - 2023-06-01T101638.376.jpeg




    And, more of his work (it should be noted, of the generation predating the Impressionists):


    images - 2023-06-01T101420.495.jpeg




    images - 2023-06-01T102055.506.jpeg





    images - 2023-06-01T101502.052.jpeg




    images - 2023-06-01T101517.966.jpeg




    52a5f35a3a35c.jpg




    images - 2023-06-01T101847.404.jpeg




    main-image.jpeg




    gathering-wood-in-the-forest-of-fontainebleau_theodore-rousseau__51158__26427.jpg




    images - 2023-06-01T101433.357.jpeg






     
    Last edited: Jun 1, 2023
  9. Steve N

    Steve N Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    That looks like it was done with a trowel.
     
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  10. Steve N

    Steve N Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    These are the kinds of paintings I can get into.
     
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  11. Talon

    Talon Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    His brother must have spent a fortune on his paint.

    Back in my poor starving artist days I couldn't afford to paint like that....
     
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  12. Steve N

    Steve N Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    One of the things I admire about the old timers, besides their creativity and ability to paint, is their skill at blending different paints to get the color they wanted.
     
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  13. DEFinning

    DEFinning Well-Known Member Donor

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    Somewhat related to that idea, what I admire more, about the "old timers"-- though it might be more applicable, at times, to say what I hold against modern artists-- is that most of the artists, back then, made their own paints. That is-- aside from stretching and sizing their own canvases, with rabbit skin glue, and then priming them, with lead white-- these artist apprentices learned, in the studio, to grind the pigments and suspend them, in their oil vehicle (for example). IOW, these artists really knew the materials, with which they worked.

    OTOH, when I first visited the Guggenheim Museum (of Modern Art), it was a poor reflection on the modern artists, that-- despite these artists having technological advantages, such as our having weeded out older pigments, that were found to not be permanent-- their works were in ill repair, after less than a century, or half-century. The works were all roped off, so that people would not get too close, for fear that their breathing on them, might make them fall to pieces. Contrastingly, in a gallery of the Old Masters, one was always allowed to walk right up to, say, a Rembrandt painting which, after three and a half centuries, still stood in solid shape. Not that I am a fan of Rembrandt's work. I just respect the commitment to craftsmanship.
     
    Last edited: Jun 2, 2023
  14. Steve N

    Steve N Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I colorized this picture of the Burning Monk on a challenge, which is common. A lot of people colorized this iconic pic and I thought it really would be a challenge to be able to select the flames and get the colors right. The flames were done in sections using three color gradient maps of yellow, orange and red. As usual, I got the skin tones wrong.

    4BBEA269-56D1-4DC7-B086-B9317A8D9E25.jpeg
     
  15. DEFinning

    DEFinning Well-Known Member Donor

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    That is funny/interesting-- you specifically like the Theodore Rousseau paintings, more distinctly than you do those I earlier posted to you, of Corot & Daubigny? Granted, I had not been doing much of a survey of the overall work of those other two, just looking for examples of skies, but they were contemporaries of T. H. Rousseau's, working in a similar vein, & in the same landscape. It should be noted that, at that time, strict landscape paintings were something of an under- appreciated novelty. The tradition had always been to set human scenes, within those landscapes.

    Here is a brief, but worthwhile introductory article, on the plein air, Barbizon painters.

    https://www.christies.com/features/The-Barbizon-School-Collecting-Guide-12014-1.aspx
     
  16. DEFinning

    DEFinning Well-Known Member Donor

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    @Talon and @Steve N :

    Here is an idea, for working from different areas, to meet in a connected middle. More specifically, I found it interesting to read you speak, Talon, of your fondness for Van Gogh's work, after your coming across as being underwhelmed by Picasso. As it turns out, Picasso identified with, and thought extremely highly of, Van Gogh. In fact, didn't you say something about appreciating Van Gogh more, as you got older? The same seems to be true of Picasso:

    <Google Snip>
    What did Picasso think of Van Gogh?

    “Of all the artists with whom Picasso identified, Van Gogh is the least often cited but probably the one that meant the most to him in later years. He talked of him as his patron saint, talked of him with intense admiration and compassion, never with any of his habitual irony or mockery.Jun 14, 2021
    https://www.sothebys.com › articles
    Picasso's Alter Ego and Van Gogh's Yellow Hat | Contemporary Art - Sotheby's
    <End Snip>



    Steve, however, has just had T.H. Rousseau touch a chord, in him. Yet, I just read, in a little article on the Barbizon painters (led by Corot & Rousseau), which I'd offered for Steve:

    <Snip>
    The Barbizon school’s greatest influence, however, was on the Impressionists and post-Impressionists. Those early, nuanced attempts at capturing the fleeting play of light on nature inspired Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot and Camille Pissarro to come to Barbizon, while Vincent van Gogh’s admiration for Millet was so intense he made countless studies of the artist’s work. In a letter to his brother Theo in 1884, he wrote: ‘To me, Millet is that essential modern painter who opened the horizon to many’.
    <End Snip>


    So we could come by two roads-- from Picasso, on one side; and from Rousseau/Barbizon painters/Millet, on the other-- to meet at Van Gogh.

    Any interest, or thoughts?

     
  17. DEFinning

    DEFinning Well-Known Member Donor

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    While you all contemplate my suggestion, from the last post, it gives me the chance to make use of the book that just arrived today, on the Realist painters. So far, I've only covered a few; with Henry LaThangue, being the only one I'd really done, in any depth.

    So, let me take you away from Lepage's France, and LaThangue's Britain, to visit with the work of Hungarian Realist, Béla Iványi Grunewald. His work is really all over the map. I guess, at that time in art history, as the thread has been pointing out, in particular cases, there just were so many new & interesting directions, all being pursued, simultaneously-- a highly unusual period, I think-- that I suppose it should not be surprising that many painters would dabble in more than one.

    But let's get started with some primo examples of that distinctively weird, hyper-realism of the Realist School.

    1. 1892. The Shepherd & the Peasant Woman


    Béla_Iványi-Grünwald_-_Shepherd_and_Peasant_Woman.jpg





    2. 1891. Áhitat (Praying; Devotion)


    ahitat.jpg






    Now, see these more Impressionist paintings:


    3. Woman by the Water


    Béla_Iványi-Grünwald_-_Woman_by_the_Water.jpg






    35.jpg






    35f4bddec195141b7b59a07004bd77a8.jpg






    H3883-L09623536.jpg


    I suppose one might think of that as Fauvist, though it reminds me of a Romantic painter who developed a very distinctive look for his art, full of reflected & refracted light so that this color actually took precedence over the forms, in his images of, typically, boats at sea: J.M.W. Turner.
    Funny I don't more frequently see his work connected with Impressionism.




    I like the color palette, here. The faces are all abstracted, so it is more about the colors and shapes, than the detail features. For some reason, the caricaturist Barbizon painters, Daumier, comes to my mind.


    26400.jpeg




    For some strange reason, some images I download, I can link to my pictures, for posting here, & others don't work. It's a shame, because there had been so many curious finds. One of them was of a naked, pure white lady-- for all the world, having just stepped out of a Manet painting, laying on the grass. Another was of primitive-looking indigenous women, you could very easily have mistaken for a Gaugin painting. The "Woman By the Water," above, is reminiscent of Monet. And there were such a host of styles, some rather abstract. But these few are the only ones I can currently show you:



    ivnyi-grnwald-bla-winter-hungarian-school-19th-century-2CK09FC.jpg





    images - 2023-06-03T011130.518.jpeg





    071.jpg





     
    Last edited: Jun 3, 2023
  18. DEFinning

    DEFinning Well-Known Member Donor

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    This started out to be a post of odds & ends, but evolved. I still have a few points, to cover, though.

    Item #1: First, I have to follow up on my last post's comment about J.M.W. Turner: I'm sure that the reason I don't see him connected with Impressionists, generally, is because I have not, for a very long time, read about Impressionists, in general. But the association surely existed in my head (since I, initially, had mistakenly typed "Impressionist," instead of "Romantic" painter). I just looked it up, though, and apparently many do call him the "Father of Impressionism," which I'm sure I had previously read, in ancient history. The thing about Turner's work, however, is although it is visually striking, at first blush, once you've seen one, you've kind of seen 'em all. Or at least that's my feeling-- but other opinions welcomed! Anyway, I guess what really most sets Turner apart from the Impressionists, is subject matter: instead of scenes from daily life, and nature, Turner painted heroic sea battles and such (going on somewhere under the smoke and light show).

    Item #2: I had 1 last image of Grunewald's leftover. Now this one, seems like it could be by one of those Barbizon painters who were, in there own way, forerunners of the Impressionists.



    trnken.jpg



    So that you wouldn't be limited to just my descriptions, I used another way of getting Grunewald images to the right place: through screen shots. I suppose I should try to keep similar styles together, even if those aren't the ones I most want to show. One last thing to notice, in this and the next post on Grünewald-- I can't over emphasize, how much this painter adores the color yellow.
    With that, let the show, continue!

    Screenshot_20230603-023512.png




    Screenshot_20230603-023412.png




    Screenshot_20230603-023558.png





    Screenshot_20230603-023842.png




    _______________________________________

    Now, for the Gaugin, knock-off:


    Screenshot_20230603-024014.png





    And the Manet look - alike:


    Screenshot_20230603-024204.png



    __________________________________

    Then, I'll go back to the Barbizon style, to close out the post, but with a purpose:

    Screenshot_20230603-022944.png



    Screenshot_20230603-023018.png




    Item #3: This one, is actually Millet:


    Jean-Francois Millet Tutt'Art@ (13).jpg
     
    Last edited: Jun 3, 2023
  19. DEFinning

    DEFinning Well-Known Member Donor

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    Have you noticed the partiality to yellow, yet?

    Let's start off this set (there'll be one more), with a sunset, a little bit reminiscent of Turner (though not as glorious). This seems to run a bit Fauvist, as well:



    Screenshot_20230603-024252.png



    Screenshot_20230603-023811.png




    Screenshot_20230603-023051.png




    Screenshot_20230603-023126.png




    Screenshot_20230603-023339.png




    Screenshot_20230603-023743.png





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    This one, is the Hungarian version of "Adam & Eve:"

    Screenshot_20230603-023306.png







    Screenshot_20230603-023655.png







    Screenshot_20230603-024113.png
     
    Last edited: Jun 3, 2023
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  20. Talon

    Talon Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I think Van Gogh can be seen as a "bridge" between painters who were still interested in form and representing reality and painters who had abandoned one or both (ex., Picasso, Kandinsky, et al).

    You can see this in Van Gogh's later work where he is still clinging to figure painting but he is pushing further and further towards abstraction where the medium is becoming the primary subject:

    self-portrait-with-felt-hat.jpg

    w1170_900603_en.jpg

    Vincent was 37 when he died in 1890 and Picasso painted his groundbreaking Les Demoiselles D'Avignon only 17 years later. It's fun (and sad) to think where VVG would have pushed his creative frontiers had he lived into his 50s and 60s.
     
  21. Talon

    Talon Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Very striking (and unusual for Millet).

    You don't see that kind of visual energy in many paintings....
     
  22. DEFinning

    DEFinning Well-Known Member Donor

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    Screenshot_20230605-210102.png



    I agree. There is an atmospheric element, an illustrative idealization, which I wouldn't have associated with Millet. His line work, though, is always strong. I would assume that this effect, akin to what one might see in an etching, which gives the piece its vibrancy, comes from perhaps starting with a pen & ink drawing, and then adding watercolor, and additional gouache lines. Nice result.


    Since, for some reason, this image & the ones by Grunewald, which went with it, are no longer showing in my original post, I am going to repost those, here:

    Screenshot_20230603-023018.png




    Screenshot_20230603-022951.png




    P.S.-- Weird: now the images are all showing again (instead of just "attachment" numbers), in my earlier post.
     
    Last edited: Jun 5, 2023
  23. DEFinning

    DEFinning Well-Known Member Donor

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    @Steve N -- hey, I've got a challenge for you, if it sounds at all interesting. One of my Grünewald paintings, I think looks better in black & white (as I'd first seen it). Would you be up for trying to do this reverse colorization? Here is the image:



    ahitat.jpg



     
  24. Steve N

    Steve N Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Hey there, as Talon will tell you, there are about 876 ways to convert a color pic to black and white and each way takes about ten seconds. Besides yanking out the color, I’ll experiment with the contrast and other things and post them for you. You’ll have this tomorrow.
     
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  25. Talon

    Talon Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Indeed, it is a nice combination.

    The lines/strokes radiating from the sun in center of the composition (in the sky and ground) out to the viewer are something I haven't seen in any other work. With some of Van Gogh's paintings, such as the self-portrait in #129 above, you get those swirling lines that give the background an element of visual movement and energy similar to flowing water but with the Millet piece you get something more along the lines of an explosion. The kinetic effect is quite striking. Looking at his other work this appears to be somewhat of an experimental piece and I wish he had pursued this further - he was on to something truly unique there.
     

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