Eye Candy for Today: Frits Thaulow river scene in France

Picquigny, Frits Thaulow, oil on canvas landscape painting
Picquigny, Frits Thaulow, oil on canvas landscape painting

Picquigny, Frits Thaulow, oil on canvas; roughly 29 x 36 inches (73 x 92 cm); in the collection fo the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NY, which has a zoomable and downloadable version of the image.

Norwegian painter Frits Thaulow has long been one of my favorite landscape painters. He was an absolute master of painting the flow of water through small streams and rivers.

Thaulow spent a good part of his career living and working in Paris, and many of his paintings are of rural areas in northern France.

 
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Eye Candy for Today: Eugène Bléry etching

L'arbre aux racines (Tree with Roots), Eugene Blery, etching
L'arbre aux racines (Tree with Roots), Eugene Blery, etching (details)

L’arbre aux racines (Tree with Roots), Eugène Bléry, etching on chine collé, roughly 5×7″ (11 x 16 cm), in the collection of the National Gallery of Art, DC, which haas both zoomable and downloadable versions of the image.

A wonderful evocation of a deep forest scene, showing the effectiveness of just value and texture to convey mood and atmosphere. The images on the NGA site are actually much higher resolution than the detail crops I’ve provided above.

Chine collé refers to a technique in which a print is made on delicate or thin paper, supported by a thicker material during the printing process

 
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James Gurney botanical study video

James Gurney botanical study video, Painting This Botanical Study Nearly Broke My Brain
James Gurney botanical study video, Painting This Botanical Study Nearly Broke My Brain

Painter, illustrator and writer James Gurney frequently posts short videos to YouTube, often showing his painting process. Though I have found pretty much all of those I’ve seen enjoyable and informative, he recently posted a video that I found particularly appealing.

In Painting This Botanical Study Nearly Broke My Brain he sets out to paint a detailed study of a hosta plant in the New York Botanical Garden with watercolor and gouache.

I think what I like about his approach here is the pace of the video. It’s a little longer, and I think proceeds a little slower than most of his short videos.

The subject involves maintaining intense concentration while focused on painting the plant accurately, and — with the exception of a short, sped-up sequence in the beginning — seems paced in a way that pleasingly suits the subject, approaching a feeling of ASMR in places.

 
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Eye Candy for Today: Hans Memling double portrait

Portraits of Folco Portinari and Maria Portinari (Maria Maddalena Baroncelli), oil painting on wood, Hans Memling
Portraits of Folco Portinari and Maria Portinari (Maria Maddalena Baroncelli), oil painting on wood, Hans Memling

Tommaso di Folco Portinari; Maria Portinari (Maria Maddalena Baroncelli), Hans Memling, oil on wood, roughly 17 x 13″ (42 x 32 cm), respectively.

These remarkable portraits by the noted 15th century Flemish painter are stunning examples of Northern Renaissance oil painting.

The Met’s page for the paintings indicates they were originally part of a triptych, both facing an inner panel of the Virgin and Child.

Look at the superb rendition of the couple’s eyes, the subtle modeling of the faces, the delicate variation of color in the skin, as well as the intricate attention paid to the woman’s jewelry, both of their rings, and the woman’s fingernails.

As if that wasn’t enough to wow the viewer, Memling has added a bit of trompe l’oeil trickery with a faux inner frame, overlapped subtly by the man’s cloak and the shadow of the woman’s praying hands, and more overtly by the veil of her headdress.

[Addendum: Reader Richard Budig (see this post’s comments) points out a fascinating detail I missed entirely. There is a pentimento of a line of beaded jewelry showing through the paint surface on the woman’s neck, just above the other jewelry.]

 
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Not the usual Van Goghs #5

Not the Usual Van Gogh's
Not the Usual Van Gogh's

As I’ve pointed out in four previous posts — browsing through books, selections of prints or posters, and even some museum exhibitions, can give you the impression that Van Gogh’s oeuvre was somewhat limited, when nothing could be further from the facts.

What you find is repetitions of his “greatest hits”. This is an unfortunate characteristic of our popularity focused culture, and applies to other artists as well.

Vincent van Gogh was astonishingly prolific, particularly considering that his active time as a painter was only about ten years.

Here are some more paintings by the Dutch artist that are not often seen.

You can find many more at some of the links provided below.(Timesink warning!)

 
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Eye Candy for Today: River Gnilitsa by Vladimir Orlovsky

River Gnilitsa by Vladimir Orlovsky, Ukrainian painter, oil painting on canvas
River Gnilitsa (details) by Vladimir Orlovsky, Ukrainian painter, oil painting on canvas

River Gnilitsa, Vladimir Orlovsky; oil on canvas, roughly 37 x 61″ (95 x 155cm).

Link is to 2012 Bonham’s auction (with zoomable image). I assume the present location is a private collection. There is a reasonably large downloadable image here on Art Market Monitor.

Ukrainian painter Vladimir Orlovsky, who I featured recently as well as in 2014, gives us a wonderful landscape that feels both immediate and sweeping. My restricted crops don’t do the feeling of the painting justice. Go to one of the enlargements and view it full screen if possible.

 
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