Year: 2021

J. C. Leyendecker’s wide awake Santa

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CategoriesEye Candy for Today, Illustration

Santa drinks coffee illustration by JC Leyendecker
Santa drinks coffee illustration by JC Leyendecker (detail)

Well, here’s something I didn’t know: coffee perks you up! — at least, according to this ad from the December 16, 1940 issue of Life magazine, delightfully illustrated by J. C. Leyendecker.

Apparently, Santa is WIDE AWAKE in this ad from the Pan American coffee producers. This is an advertisement for coffee in general, rather than a specific brand, back when they apparently had to convince Americans to drink coffee!

According to the text: “For sound scientific reasons, it brightens conversation, makes mind and muscles more alert — lifts up the spirits when you’re tired.”

And Santa, let me tell you — after sipping this remarkable beverage — is READY for something!

I have long suggested that, in building on the contributions of Thomas Nast and Reginald Birch, the brilliant American illustrator J. C. Leyendecker is the artist who contributed most to the characterization of Santa Claus as we recognize him, and provided the basis for later contributions by Norman Rockwell, Haddon Sundblom, N. C. Wyeth and others.

This copy of the image is sourced from the Vintascope blog, which is devoted to “vintage illustration, advertising and ephemera”.

Merry Christmas!

 
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Link: Leyendecker Coffee Santa, Vintascope blog
Related posts:
Lines and Colors search: Santa

Eye Candy for Today: Stepan Kolesnikoff Winter Landscape

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CategoriesEye Candy for Today, Gallery and Museum Art

Winter Landscape, Stepan Kolesnikoff, gouache painting
Winter Landscape, Stepan Kolesnikoff, gouache painting

Winter Landscape, Stepan Kolesnikoff, gouache on card, roughly 20 x 26 in (50 x 65 cm).

Link is to a 2019 auction result on Christie’s (large image here). I assume the painting is currently in a private collection.

Another beautiful snow scene in gouache by the Ukrainian/Rusian painter Stepan Kolesnikoff, who was active in the early part of the 20th century. For more, see my previous post on Stepan Kolesnikoff.

Happy Winter Solstice!

 
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Link: Winter Landscape, Christie's
My previous post on Stepan Kolesnikoff

Arturo Noci

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CategoriesGallery and Museum Art

Arturo Noci paintings
Arturo Noci paintings

Arturo Noci was an Italian painter active in the early to mid 20th century. He painted landscapes in the Divisionist style, a post-Impressionist style that focused on the separation of colors into individual dots — similar to Pointilism — but that were intended to be blended optically.

In the later part of his career, he moved to New York and was in demand as a portrait painter.

 
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Link: ArturoNoci.com (IT)
Berardi Galleria D-Arte
Berardi Galleria on YouTube (IT, engage subtitles for English translation)
Google Art Project
American Gallery
Artnet

Eye Candy for Today: Francis Seymour Hayden etching

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CategoriesDrawing, Gallery and Museum Art, Prints and Printmaking

The Lovers Walk, No 1, Francis Seymour Hayden, etching and drypoint
The Lovers Walk, No 1, Francis Seymour Hayden, etching and drypoint

The Lovers’ Walk, No. 1, Francis Seymour Hayden, etching and drypoint, roughly 9 x 13″ (23 x34 cm); in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, look for both download and zoom links under the image.

This deceptively simple etching by the British painter and printmaker (active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries) uses sweeping, seemingly casual lines to create texture — and, in effect, color — in a composition that invites you to step into the image. Notice the small, delicately suggested figures to the right of the first grouping of trees (images above, second from bottom).

 
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Link: The Lovers' Walk, No. 1, Met Museum

Eye Candy for Today: Vermeer’s Geographer

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CategoriesEye Candy for Today, Gallery and Museum Art

Vermeer Geographer
Vermeer Geographer

The Geographer, Johannes Vermeer, oil on canvas, roughly 18×20 inches(45 x 51 cm). Link is to zoomable version on the Google Art Project, downloadable file on Wikimedia Commons; original is in the Staedel Museum, Germany.

Twenty six years ago this month, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC debuted a most remarkable exhibition of the works of 17th century Dutch master Johannes Vermeer. The exhibition included 21 of the painter’s 35 known works, including such famed works as Girl with a Pearl Earring, The Music Lesson, Woman with a Pearl Necklace and The Lacemaker, as well as his only two existing landscapes.

By comparison, the blockbuster exhibition of Vermeer’s work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2001 showcased 15 of the master’s works, which was still considered an impressive number.

There is a chart on Jonathan Janson’s excellent Essential Vermeer website that lists the pieces present in every major Vermeer exhibition.

I had the good fortune to see both the D.C. and New York exhibitions. Even in the midst of the mind boggling cornucopia of Vermeer’s gem-like paintings in the 1995 show in D.C., The Geographer stood out as one of his finest paintings.

 
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Link: The Geographer, Google Art Project
1995 exhibition, National Gallery, D.C.
2001 exhibition, Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Geographer, Essential Vermeer
Related posts:
Lines and Colors search: Vermeer