Category Archives: more artists

More artists: Andy Warhol

I did some research on Andy Warhol to follow up the resemblance I recognized to my experiments for Assignment 5, where I combined charcoal with watercolours. I think I remembered some of his silkscreen portraits. Looking up his works on wikiarts, I found quite a few that were in that style of grayscale photos colorized with bright colours and no gradations. There were portraits but also images of flowers as well as seemingly arbitrary everyday subjects like shoes. I felt quite close to this idea of seeing the interest in everyday items that surround us and are normally taken for granted and receive no attention. I guess this informed some of my own subject choices, for example when I painted a pair of shoes in the coloured grounds project. I think the research encouraged me to employ bold colours and simple shapes when I worked towards abstraction in Assignment 5.

Besides the silkscreen works, I discovered that Warhol also had made mixed media portraits, using collage and drawing. I’m including those of Albert Einstein and Mick Jagger. I find them quite fascinating in their combination of elements and also in their lightness and simplicity. As I’m now finished with the watercolour course, the inspiration will not become visible in this context anymore, but I’m quite sure that I’ll get back to this in my printmaking work and in painting/mixed media as well.

References

Images from Wikiart: http://www.wikiart.org/en/andy-warhol

More artists: Tamara de Lempicka

The charcoal rendering I had employed in the worked out drawings of the male figure and the female nude reminded me of Tamara de Lempicka – the strong contrasts, the shadings vs edges, the style. Therefore I was taking a closer look. at this artist after the first nude painting which I found somewhat “expressionless”.

My memories of Tamara de Lempicka’s works were faint, but looking at her works, I find the resemblance to these charcoal renderings striking. I think her 1932 Self Portrait (Tamara in the green Bugatti) comes close to the essence of what I remembered.

I found a website that presented her works in chronological order, and going through these, I was impressed by the bold figure drawings which were quite different from my own attempts so far.

It was interesting to see that de Lempicka had also been working in Cubist style.

Later in her life she experimented with a different painting technique, which I actually prefer over those works for which she’s become well known.

While continuing to paint I hadn’t been aware of it, but there was obviously quite some influence on the approach I took. This concerns particularly my treatment of shadows and lights and figure vs. ground. It’s not that I had de Lempickas paintings in mind while I was working on my series. I think the influence was rather due to similarity in approach so that the resulting images show resemblance. I think seeing her works has also encouraged me to go bold with the female form, in particular with Figure III, the orange figure with green background.

References

Images from http://www.delempicka.org

Research into collage and painting

This research point hid inside the first exercise of this project and was comprised of two parts: Firstly, looking at two Cubist collages and making notes, and secondly, expanding the research into paper collage combined with painting by looking at two or more additional artists.

Two cubist paper collages

My research led me to a highly interesting press article published by the Metropolitan Museum of Art at the occasion of a Cubist collection gift. It was donated by Leonard A. Lauder and consisted in 78 works by the most known Cubist artists Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Juan Gris and Fernand Léger. And what’s best about it, the collection will be shown at the museum in an exhibition that is about to open on October 20th. I was over the moon to be able to see all these works in real.

The article mentions Georges Braque’s “Fruit Dish and Glass” (1912) as the first paper collage ever created. It’s included in the collection and I selected it as my first image. As my second, I chose Pablo Picasso’s “Siphon, Glass, Newspaper, and Violin” (1912 or later), which is not part of the collection but located at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Sweden. I chose these two because they are so similar and I think they reflect the close friendship and collaboration between Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso at the time.

Both works are drawings combined with collage. Braques (left image) used wood-textured wallpaper, and Picasso (right image) included wood-textured materials and printed newspaper as well. Both lack painted colours, they are based on coloured shapes and lines and include typographic elements. Both use a white background which makes them resemble tryout compositions pinned to a wall, rather than 3-dimensional illusions of space.

Both use tonality to some degree, Braque more than Picasso, but the effects are flat, not 3-dimensional. Both are based on simple shapes and lines characteristic for Cubism. Braques’ composition is somewhat denser, whereas I find more recognizable objects in Picasso’s collage (the bottle, a musical instrument). These images are very graphical and “clean” and not at all painterly in overall expression.

More research into collage and painting

The course brief pointed to United States and Britain in the 1960s and Germany and Russia in the 1920s. I looked up art history timelines online for the kind of art movements that came up in these countries at the indicated time. After some digging I found Robert Rauschenberg as a major proponent of Pop-Art in the United States in the 1960s, and the German artist Kurt Schwitters as a contemporary of the Constructivist and Dadaist movements in the 1920s.

Robert Rauschenberg worked in a variety of different media. The first work I found that combined collage and paper was from the series of his Black Paintings, “Untitled” (1951), of which I selected a photo showing just a detail. It shows layers of torn paper painted entirely with black paint. It mainly works on the haptic effects of the layered surface. There are no figurative pictorial elements, only the shapes created through the edges of the torn paper. This was not quite what I expected! I went on searching and found a painting from 1963, titled “Estate”. It combines photographs and paints to create a dense and colourful urban scene. It’s obviously New York and I can identify the energy the city conveys.

Finding an example for paper collage with painting from the 1920s in Germany or Russia was difficult. There were Constructivist and Dadaist movements and I found quite a few paper collages, but none combining collage and painting beyond just colouring the background a bit. I finally came across Kurt Schwitters which I knew by name but had never actually looked closer at his works. I was surprised to find abstract works with subtle tonal qualities and inventive use of materials in collage. The painting I selected for a closer look is entitled “Merz Picture 32 A. The Cherry Picture”, after the printed cherrie in its center.

In this collage, Schwitters uses paint to integrate some of the paper pieces into the background. This breaks up the composition into clean edges and softer blendings which resembles cubist painting techniques.

Concluding remarks

I was glad about the pointers in the course materials, because they helped me to find relevant periods in art history and interesting artworks. By contrast, a naive Google search for “collage with painting” brought up very mediocre results of contemporary experimentation and youtube tutorial videos. Art history writing emphasises the enormous impact of cubism and collage onto contemporary art, but I don’t know where examples of this may be hidden in contemporary art movements. Maybe they can easier be located through a search for mixed media paintings.

For my own practice, I found this research quite inspirational and providing me with some ideas how to approach the associated collage exercise. Maybe it would have been interesting to do the exercise before the research just to see what I’d make of the instructions, before looking at how other artists used the collage technique. Sometimes I feel that beginning a new technique by looking at other artists has a somewhat limiting effect because it frames the approach to take and it might create a barrier for more innovative ideas.

Lightbulb moments: Lea Nixon and the purpose of art making

I came across Lea Nixon’s work through his posting to the Facebook group “En Plein Air Paintings”. Watercolours are not very often posted and I’m always attentive when some appear. These caught my interest because I found them technically very well executed and highly characteristic for a particular watercolour painting style. I don’t know if this style has already a name. I think it is very British and old school, and definitely like it.

Looking at these three paintings, I had some lightbulb moments about watercolour painting.

Work with the silhouette!

In this painting called “Behind hotel Le Negresco”, the building to the right is created as a blotch of watercolour in different tones from dark to light. What makes it look like a row of buildings is the silhouette, which follows the contours of those buildings in linear perspective. The second important element is the black detail for windows etc which is only suggested. Of course there are more interesting aspects in the painting, but the silhouette is what caught my attention.

I think I was sensitized because I made the first sunflower drawings this afternoon. I realized the contours of the flowerheads are important and I was collecting ideas how I might go on to paint them. One idea was to use a linear medium to draw outlines of leaves, the other was to work with intense yellow against a different coloured background. Maybe I can try the silhouette technique: Use much water and make sure that I get the silhouette of the yellow leaves in the flowerhead right, then add pigment and let it run through the wet area.

The similarities between using coloured paper and using washes for background!

It actually occurred to me somewhat earlier that painting on coloured ground is nothing else than painting over a wash. The main difference may be the intention in which it is done – washes seem to be used for skies or other backgrounds that are part of the picture, and lighter areas are protected with resists. But an artist will paint over his wash and so in effect he’s painting on coloured ground. He or she can then employ the techniques that were introduced in the previous project, like lightening up areas with gouache and creating new colours through layering.

I recognized the principle in the rose background colour of this painting titled “The carousel”. The rose hue is overpainted with trees and foliage. I think this painting is less successful but it contains nice elements, like the white roof of the carousel which is spared out.

I’ll just keep this in mind for the future when I consider using a wash – it has the effect of a coloured ground and is open for techniques to play with that.

Using dull colours makes the bright colours shine!

A principle that I’ve already heard of, but not applied myself and not recognized in other paintings. In this view, the technique is used to emphasize the yellow and red colours of the buildings in the foreground by placing them adjacent to a muted grey area.

I think I can make use of this technique of colour contrast for my sunflowers to bring out their intense warm yellow colours

The painting again has “important silhouettes” in the center area: The shadows of the group of trees, the truck and the building.

The purpose of art making

These paintings by Lea Nixon are not modern art and are not meant as political statements. They are very classical in approach, simply and skillfully representing a view the artist found interesting and inspiring. I wish I’ll arrive at that level of skills with watercolours one day. But having rejected “politics in art” so vehemently, I’m now realizing that I want to go beyond making nice paintings. I think I will not be satisfied with pure representation and building up technical skills, there has to be more to it.

Looking at Anselm Kiefer’s work in the previous research has triggered another lightbulb moment. I understood how Kiefer incorporated his personal concern with German history into his artwork. It made me realize that part of my journey will be to discover what my own concerns are. In German, deep concerns that are rooted in one’s past are called “dead bodies in the cellar” and they are something one has to come to terms with at one point in life. I think art making is a good way of doing this. That said, I still want to be enjoying myself and not overindulge in the dark side of things.

Sources:

Lea Nixon Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/leanixonwatercolours

Some sources of inspiration

About a year ago, I started using my Facebook page as a “visual diary” of interesting artwork I come across online. The idea was to have a reminder for later research on particular artists or other topics related to art.

What I tagged were mostly paintings, many rooted in the classical traditions but also abstract paintings. One very interesting Facegroup page I follow is “I Require Art” (https://www.facebook.com/IRequireArt?ref=profile). Over the last couple of months, they brought up several less known works by artist like Van Gogh or Picasso, but also pointed me to artists I had never heard of, both from the U.S. and other parts of the world, contemporary, “modern” and traditional.

Anselm Kiefer 1981 Margarete

Recently I tagged the painting “Margarete” (1981) by Anselm Kiefer (German, born 1945), because I wanted to keep track of it for Part 5 of this course, as an inspiration for mixed media approaches. It is an oil painting which includes bundles of straw. The painting’s subject is embedded in Kiefer’s engagement with German History and the Nazi era. Margarete refers to a personnage in Paul Celan’s poem “Death Fugue”. Much symbolism can be read in the intertwining of straw and oil colour. I’m particularly interested in the haptic qualities of that painting and the use of unusual materials. I guess I’m going to do more research on Kiefer.

Sue Hubbard on Anselm Kiefer’s work and the relationship to Paul Celan’s poem: http://suehubbard.com/index.php?mact=News,cntnt01,detail,0&cntnt01articleid=109&cntnt01returnid=57

Brian Eskill 2014 Road close to home

A second important source of inspiration is the Facebook Group “En Plein Air Paintings”, where contemporary professional and amateur artists post their recent paintings. The group has around 11000 members mostly in the U.S., but also in other contries, with often 20 or more postings per day. The submissions cover a broad range of styles and are very interesting to follow. I haven’t posted there yet because I consider my attempts too weak to present them to a broader audience. But the value of the group for me is in seeing so many different styles and approaches, and I learn from looking at the paintings and how others solved problems I encountered myself.

Today there was a painting I found particularly interesting and very successful. It is by Brian Eskill, his first posting to the group. I think he’s relatively young and completely unknown as an artist, maybe an art student. But the painting impressed me because it is such a successful translation of an apparently uninteresting suburb road into a painting that’s pleasant to look at, with a great composition and harmonious choice of colours.

I appreciate how the artist has simplified the shapes of houses, cars and trees, and how he suggests rather than explicitly painting everything he sees. The painting style reminds me a bit of Edward Hopper but is livelier because it retains the “rough edges” where Hopper smoothed and cleaned. I’m totally impressed and think this is the way I’d like to go as well, apart from suspecting this artist will make his way. The style is not directly transferable to watercolours, but the approach would work for me similarly: Reduction of details, retaining the essentials, and keeping it light and lively.

Brian Eskill 2014 Road before the house
Posted to the Facebook group “En Plein Air” Paintings
https://www.facebook.com/groups/104484319588591/?fref=nf

More Artists: Naiza Khan

Looking at this artist, I’m following up a suggestion by my tutor. I first looked at the recommended “Shifting Ground” series (from 2011) and liked it. I don’t include any pictures here because their download was blocked. Most paintings in this series consist of large watercolour blotches that are combined with very fine line drawings of buildings or other constructed elements. The buildings were small in size, compared to the watercolour blotches, and this creates a very interesting shift in perspective. I also like how this brings out the characteristic flowing effects of watercolours.

I find Naiza Khan’s work is interesting and unusual. In this series I like how watercolour as medium has been given room to speak for itself, the chance effects of pigments flowing in water onto the paper support. This is something I’d like to develop in my own work as well.

From skim reading, I understood that Naiza Khan’s biography of living in a politically unstable country has found its way into her artwork. On a second go, I went though the complete gallery of works and was quite impressed. The Ruskin Drawings (1987-90) from her time as an art student convey the imagery of being haunted – by nightmares or bad memories maybe. They are visually very appealing, with much energy and intense contrasts.

The series of works over her career are on varied topics, very sensual and in parts quite explicit. Not the kind of stuff I’d want to make but I appreciate that her themes follow ‘personal obsessions’, which is what I still have to discover for my own practice.

I also like the “emptyness” of some of the works. There’s open space and few marks that create larger entities. By contrast, my drawings and paintings tend to be “cluttered”, there’s too much squeezed into them. Another aspect I’d like to improve in my works.

Overall, quite an interesting excursion into the world of a modern artist. By personal preference, I’m more into traditional painting and would rather research classical artists. But looking at contemporary artists with non-traditional approaches is interesting nevertheless.

References

http://www.naizakhan.com/

More artists: Sigmar Polke

Today I went to the Sigmar Polke exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA). I had high expectations because Polke (1941 – 2010) was introduced as a highly experimental and influential German modern artist. I thought the exhibition might be a nice starter at the beginning of part 5 and provide some inspiration.

I’m probably repeating myself by stating that I’m generally not very much into modern art because it’s too conceptual for my taste. But I went to the Mike Kelley exhibition recently, following a recommendation by my sister and was really impressed. I wrote about the visit in my drawing 1 blog (http://www.patricia-karsten.de/wp-drawing1/wordpress/?p=2922). That visit slightly changed my attitude so I was a bit more willing to have a closer look at another modern artist.

But what I saw in the Polke retrospective just didn’t appeal to me visually. For me, it was a collection of strange ideas, presented as works of art. Some political content, some sexual content, expression of protest against ‘the establishment’. I’m quite critical of society myself but wasn’t able to relate to Polke’s works.

From the visit I realized that I’m interested in different things, not so much into making visual jokes. A politically or socially critical message is not detrimental but I think I just have a different taste. I’m back to my base line attitude, similar to explaining why I don’t like capres. I just don’t like the taste. But I can absolutely respect people who find them delicious. It makes no sense to argue whether they taste good or bad.

Resources

MOMA exhibition website: http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/1407
Exhibition review: http://www.newyorksocialdiary.com/node/1911649/print

More artists: Abstract paintings

Working on the Part 4 Assignment piece confronted me again with the topic of abstraction. Getting back to my tutor’s feedback on assignment 3, I took the opportunity to look at the abstract painters suggested and reflect about the meaning of ‘abstract’.

Contemporary: Tomma Abts, Tauba Auerbach

I’m not particularly into this kind of painting. It is decorative but doesn’t talk to me.

Tauba Auerbach (England, Contemp.) http://taubaauerbach.com/works.php

Tomma Abts (England, Contemp.) http://www.davidzwirner.com/artists/tomma-abts/

20th Century: Kandinsky, Miro, O’Keeffe, Martin

Wassily Kandinski (Russian, 1866 – 1944)

I remembered the very graphical and geometrical, colourful works by Kandinsky from other occasions, but don’t like the geometrical style. But my taste seems to have changed with age, because I remember that in my twenties I was quite fond of playing with shapes and colours in similar ways. While researching, I was surprised to find paintings with more realistic forms that referred to real objects, as for example in the landscape below, which I actually like for its expressive colours.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wassily_Kandinsky
http://www.wassilykandinsky.net

Joan Miro (Spanish/Catalan, 1893-1983)

Miro was also known to me and I can’t say anything else but that I like the colourful and playful paintings, of which I’m including two typical examples. About two years ago I experimented with printmaking and watercolour layers using the ‘Wall for David Fernandez Miró’ as a starting point. I loved the various shades of blue background tiles and the black linework and abstract creature shapes on top of it.

Dominant blue tone: Woman in front of the sun, 1950
Earth tones: Constellation Awakening at Dawn, 1941

Ceramics: The Wall for David Fernández Miró, 1983
http://catalogue.successiomiro.com/catalogues/ceramics/mur-pour-david-fernandez-miro-1983-436.html

Georgia O’Keeffe (North American, 1887 – 1986)

I had come across Georgia O’Keeffe last year in November, when I had been deliberately researching American painters for the drawing course. I have also been to an exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, ‘American Legens: From Calder to O’Keeffe’ where some of her colourful floral works were shown.

I am quite fascinated by her work, but with few exceptions don’t think they are abstract in the same sense as the geometrical works by Kandinsky or Miro. I rather see them as based on observation of natural shapes and reduction to basic forms. As an example, I’m including one of the more abstract ones (compared to her floral or landscape paintings).

Blue and green music, 1919-21 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_and_Green_Music

Agnes Martin (Canadian-American, 1912 – 2004)

I have never heard of Agnes Martin before. Her works seem to be mostly in soft colours, creating fabric-like patterns. I find them aesthetically pleasing, but cannot relate personally to this style.

The islands, undated: Presentation of works online at Pace Gallery http://www.pacegallery.com/artists/290/agnes-martin
Untitled, 2001 (blue stripes): from http://drawingroomlondon.blogspot.com/2010/05/agnes-martin-at-timothy-taylor-gallery.html

A different concept of abstraction?

I was quite stunned when I followed up the suggestions from tutor feedback. At first sight, they had nothing to do with what I had in mind when stating that I’d like to develop towards abstraction. I wouldn’t count these artists among my favourit painters, although I’m generally fond of abstract paintings, maybe even more than realistic paintings. I began to analyse what may have been the reason for the apparent contradiction.

Firstly, it may have been the choice of artists. When I think of abstract paintings, I think of Picasso, Richter, de Kooning, but also Cézanne or other painters whose style is very different from the geometrical style of Kandinsky or Miro. It is abstract, but still there’s much reference to real world objects (Picasso, Cézanne), or the abstraction is very organic and open, almost like withered by nature (de Kooning).

Then I realized how difficult it is to actually define the meaning of ‘abstract art’. The easy way would be something like ‘no real object recognizable’, but this would exclude many paintings I’d consider abstract, and it wouldn’t even be a clear demarcation. For example, Georgia O’Keeffe depicted organic forms of flowers in a way that changed them to something very abstract. I see much realism and observational skills in these paintings, so according to the simple definition, they wouldn’t be abstract. Or what about Picasso whose abstract women have their eyes and noses at unusual places and still remain recognizable and convey emotion.

It occurred to me that what I had been referring to was something dfferent: The process of abstraction during work on a drawing or painting. At the heart of my struggle was the inability to depict the objects as I saw them, because I wasn’t able to properly analyse what I saw, or maybe I didn’t even see properly (due to far-sightedness), or maybe it was also the technical problem of transferring to paper what I actually saw. I remember this vividly as it happened while I was working on the assignment 3 watercolour (The Cloisters, an ancient building surrounded by trees and with a group of trees in the foreground).

My idea of developing towards abstraction was not to abandon realistic depiction in favour of a focus on geometrical shapes and colour. Or maybe yes it was, exactly this, but in a style quite different from late Kandinsky, Miro or Mondrian. I would like to simplify and ‘paint what I see, not what I know’ about the objects. How this relates to watercolour is still a different question. So actually I’m more confused than ever by the various meanings of the terms ‘Abstraction’ and ‘Abstract Art’. What remains is that I would like to improve on observational and technical skills, and I hope that with more practice, I’ll also develop a style that suits me. I’m definitely not into photorealism, but I can’t say what I’m actually aiming at, maybe I will only recognize little steps towards the direction that ‘feels right’ for me.

More artists: Arman T. Manookian

A notice from “I require Art” on Facebook made me look at Arman T. Manookian, an American-Armenian painter who lived from 1904-1931. I was immediately attracted by the intensely colourful paintings – maybe in response to my growing dislike of dull winter landscapes with bare trees in this seemingly endless New York winter.

Manookian immigrated to the US as a young man, studied art and illustration and then signed up as a Marine. He later settled in Hawaii, but must have been deeply unhappy, and finally took his own life at the age of 27. I found this very tragic and wondered how the paradisiac scenes in his paintings go along with such a sad story.

Looking at his paintings, I felt like a sponge, soaking up colours to feel alive again.

References

I require art on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/IRequireArt

John Seed on Arman T. Manookian in the Huffington Post : http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-seed/the-other-armenian-arman_b_606114.html (accessed March 2, 2104)

Exhibition visit: Metropolitan Museum of Art

To prepare assignment 3, which will develop a landscape painting, I decided to focus on landscapes on my first visit to the museum. Apparently the entire collection of the museum can be viewed and searched online, including listings of each individual room in that huge museum. From my online preparation, I decided to focus on gallery 769, which presents several landscape oil paintings. I had only 2 hours time before work, so found it made sense to focus on a topic particularly relevant for the assignment. On my way through the museum to my chosen gallery, I couldn’t resist visiting a special exhibition of 18^th century pastels, and also had a quick look at the musical instruments galleries. I’ll certainly return to the museum, there was so much more to see.

Special exhibition: 18^th century pastels

I like to use pastels from time to time, and have made one or two pastel colour and tonal studies for watercolour works, but I have no formal training how to use the medium. I thought it was a good idea to look at this exhibition to see real works from close. There were mostly portraits, but also some landscapes and waterscapes. At first I just admired the delicacy of the portraits, but after the fifth or sixth my attention shifted to technical details and I discovered that they seemed to follow a technical principle: There was a background of larger shapes for face, hair, areas of clothes in their particular colour and tonal value. Then on top of this were finer linear details to indicate contours, highlights and reflections. I was surprised to see the same principle appear also in the landscape paintings.

Adélaide Labille-Guiard, Madame Élisabeth de France
Jean Pillement, Shipwreck

The painter’s table

Very nice was the painter’s table also presented in that room: A small table with 3 drawers that had many compartments. These tables were used by pastel artists to group their pastels by colour. Artists did not mix their tones from selected base colours as with oils, but needed the exact hue readily prepared, and so built up huge collections.

Seeing this table resonated with my recent thoughts about organizing my watercolour materials by colour groups. Before part three, I had only 6 base colours of artist quality watercolours, plus my ancient Schmincke selection of pans with some more hues. But at the occasion of the mixing exercise, I had added many small tubes in different colour hues, and had put them all together in a box. This became a bit chaotic. I made notes in my book how I might organize them by base colours. Later I put the tubes in a tray with six compartments – red tones, blue tones, green tones and so on. This may sound quite obvious, but I felt as if I had made a real discovery. It made working with so many hues much easier.

Then recently when I prepared to use oil pastels for a watercolour painting, my first step was to re-organize each pastel set by colour groups. Analysing a set of pastels in this way was excellent to anticipate what I would be able to do with that particular set, very different from earlier approaches where I just saw that I had 2 different sets of 24 and one of 48, but wasn’t able to analyse the differences between each set in a systematic way.

Musical instruments

Among the many instruments, I was particularly attracted by the grand pianos. There were several historic grands presented, including some of the very early stages in the technical development of this instrument. I had a light bulb moment when I saw two large harps presented right next to the grands… A grand piano is a harp laid to one side with a wooden box around for resonance, and a keyboard attached instead of the musician directly touching the strings!

Gallery 769, American Impressionism (1880 – 1920)

Based on my notes made on the spot

William Merrit Chase (1849 – 1916): At the seaside (ca. 1892)

This was the first picture in the gallery and my point of entry to the topic of American Impressionism. Looking at this painting, I became again strongly aware of the difference between the two mediums oil on vanvas vs watercolour on paper. The clouds: solid and “man made”, deliberately shaped and massive, as opposed to the fluidity of watercolours.

Maurice Prendergast (1858 – 1924): Picnic by the Inlet (ca. 1918 – 1923)

According to the accompanying info, this painter had much experience with watercolours and monotype before turning to oil painting, and this paintings showed his increased proficiency with the medium. I found it a very modern painting. Modern in its looseness, in the omission of detail in faces, figures, trees. I also recognized the impressionist style of composing objects from dots of colour rather than as massive shapes.

Mary Cassatt (1844 – 1926): Lilacs in a window (ca. 1880 – 1935)

Just a lovely painting. I like flowers so much and am planning to take up this topic as soon as possible. My first attempts in various mediums were not so overly successful, but I’ll have another go. Shirley Trevena’s watercolour flowers impressed me so much and I can’t wait for the moment when I’ll have a little extra time for this.

There were several paintings of Childe Hassam (1859 – 1935) in this gallery, and I had been curious to see them. Childe Hassam had lived in Long Island, The Hamptons, which is the location I’d like to explore for the assignment.

Childe Hassam : July Fourteenth, Rue Daunou, 1910 (left painting)

This painting was made in Paris on the French National Holiday. It depicts crowds of people, flags, and the typical 5-story 19^th century Paris buildings, “Le vieux Paris”.

The painting ”Avenue of the Allies” (Great Britain, 1918) (middle) intrigued me by the thin application of paint, a different technique compared to the first painting although the painting style was similar. I found it very impressionistic, the scene was vibrant in colour despite the thin material on the canvas.

The subsequent paintings were made in a similar technique. The grey-brown unprimed canvas seemed to show through everywhere. Nevertheless the paintings were colourful and vibrant. I wondered wether this had to do with financial hardship – a technique developed to make the most effective use of paint when it was difficult to finance a thick layer of material? On the other hand, when looking close, there were also thick blobs of paint applied, which could have covered a much larger area if applied evenly.

Frederick Carl Frieseke (1874 – 1939): Summer (1914)

The painting showed a nude figure in a summer garden, with an impressionistic sunlight pattern on her body. The info table talked about painting style as if the painting showed a still life with vase on a table. I was puzzled: Had the nude not been perceived as scandalous in puritan America by the time it was painted? How came that a painter with a German name showed up in the gallery of American Impressionism? How was it possible he had the nerve to paint a nude in a summer garden as if paradise was on earth, in the year where World War I began?

From later research about the artist I found out that his German parents had emigrated to America, so that puzzle was solved. I concluded that the artist must have been able to close out political developments from his life and work. Maybe life in America wasn’t as affected by the approaching war as I thought. I perceive the great contrast in the depiction of nature, compared to the dark and sinister landscape paintings of Paul Nash, John Piper and Eric Ravilious whom I had explored in the previous research.

Robert Reid (1862 – 1929): Fleur de Lis (ca. 1895 – 1900)

This painting shows a young woman inmidst the flowers. The info table points out the correspondence between the softness of the flowers and the fragility of the woman, and this was really very impressive. The correspondence was supported by the choice of colours. Lovely painting.

Concluding remarks

I’m not able to anticipate if and how this exhibition visit may influence the sketches and studies or the final painting I’m going to make for assignment three. The paintings presented were quite varied in subject and united by the “Impressionism” label, interesting in their own right. I had no knockout effect with any particular painting or artist in this gallery, and I was reminded again of the difference between oils and watercolours as a painting medium. I think I’ll be able to sense the influence later on, once I’m under way and working on the assignment.

Resources

Metropolitan Museum of Art: http://www.metmuseum.org

Gallery 769, American Impressionism: http://www.metmuseum.org/collections/search-the-collections?ft=*&gallerynos=769&rpp=40&pg=1