Stilleben, Kaffee und Kartoffeln (Still life with Coffee and Poratoes), Albert Anker
Link is to Wikimedia Commons page with high-res image.
This domestic still life by 19th century Swiss artist Albert Anker at first looks smoothly refined, but on closer inspection reveals itself to be quite painterly.
Kenneth Cadwallader is a painter with a fresh, confident approach, and a vibrant use of color.
The galleries on his website are divided into paintings from his travels in China, figures and floral still life.
I particularly admire the strong value contrasts in many of his townscape and still life paintings.
The Castle at Heidelberg, Samuel Prout
Pencil on paper, roughly 11 x 16″ (28 x 43 cm); in the collection of the Morgan Library and Museum.
19th century artist Samuel Prout give us one of those wonderful drawings that is simultaneously loose and precise, and shows us something of the process of its creation in the more lightly rendered left side of the castle’s facade.
Fritz Baumgarten was a German children’s book illustrator active in the early to mid part of the 20th century.
He illustrated numerous books, primarily in Germany, working in a nicely finessed combination of ink and watercolor.
Baumgarten had a knack for blending the commonplace with the fantastic, putting his elf-like characters and anthropomorphized creatures into scenes of activities that might otherwise seem quite ordinary.
Many of his portrayals of the forest floor are nicely naturalistic.
I haven’t been able to find many sources for his images, but I’ve included links to a few, below. I’ll also provide a link to a Google image search, with the size filter set to “large”, and some books available on Amazon (most appear to be German language editions).
February, Joaquim Vancells
Oil on canvas, roughly 40 x 60 inches (104 x 155 cm)
Link is to zoomable image on Google Art Project, downloadable version on Wikimedia Commons; original is in the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya.
Catalonian painter Joaquim Vancells invites us into a quiet forest landscape in the heart of winter. I like the way the details of sticks, leaves and undergrowth ground us in the environment, while the meandering path in center invites us farther into the misty depths of the woodland.
