Lines and Colors art blog
  • Eye Candy for Today: Theodore Rousseau etching

    Chenes de Roche (Rock Oaks), Theodore Rousseau, etching
    Chenes de Roche (Rock Oaks), Theodore Rousseau, etching (with details)

    ˆ, also here, Théodore Rousseau, etching, two states; roughly 4 x 7″ (12 x 17 cm), in the collection of the National Gallery of Art, DC.

    In this wonderful etching by the 19th century French painter we see a beautifully evocative view into the depths of the forest — likely the Forest of Fontinebleau, where he and the other members of the French Barbizon School spent much time painting and sketching on location.

    The NGA collection contains example of the etching in two states; Both states are dated 1861. It’s not unusual for artists to print an edition of an etching, continue work or it and print again, possibly multiple times.

    What I find confusing there is the apparent existence of prints in opposite directions. It seems unlikely that the National Gallery would allow a simple error, like a reversal of a photograph, in the presentation of their collection, but I don’t know how an etching could be physically printed in two directions. (Perhaps a fresh print could be used to make a second monoprint? I don’t know.)

    The Dallas Museum of Art has a print of the darker state with the large oak to the left.



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  • Abbott Handerson Thayer

    Abbott Handerson Thayer
    Paintings by Abbott Handerson Thayer

    Abbott Handerson Thayer was an American painter active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He painted portraits, figures, landscapes and still life subjects, but as known in particular for his portrayals of angels, or angelic figures.

    These were distinguished from idealized angels in that they seem to be realized as portraits, the sitters sometimes members of the artist’s family.

    Thayer was also a naturalist, and with his son, Gerald Handerson, produced a book on protective coloration in nature.

    Thayer’s painting methods were a blend (or perhaps more correctly a mish-mash) of disparate techniques, from academic to experimental and even bizarre.



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  • Eye Candy for Today: The Kiss by Francesco Hayez

    The Kiss by Francesco Hayez, oil on canvas
    The Kiss by Francesco Hayez, oil on canvas (details)

    The Kiss, Francesco Hayez, oil on canvas, roughly 43 x 35 inches ( 110 x 88 cm); link is to image file page on Wikimdeia Commons, original is in the Pinacoteca di Brera (Brera Art Gallery) in Milan.

    In this beautiful painting by mid-19th century Italian painter Francesco Hayez, the woman’s stunning gown is the first thing to attract our attention. The shimmering blue material (satin?) is offset by the bright red of the man’s leotards as he leans her back in romantic embrace.

    They are standing on what appears to be a stairway landing. The shadowy silhouette of what looks to be a maid descending the lower staircase adds a bit of implied intrigue.

    Look at the wonderful range of color Hayez has worked into various areas of the stone wall.


    The Kiss, Wikimedia Commons

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  • Eye Candy for Today: Asta Norregaard portrait

    Portrait of Marthine Cappelen Hjort, b. Kiær by Asta Norregaard, pastel on canvas
    Portrait of Marthine Cappelen Hjort, b. Kiær by Asta Norregaard, pastel on canvas

    Portrait of Marthine Cappelen Hjort, b. Kiær, by Asta Nørregaard, pastel on canvas; roughly 48 x 33 inches (122 x 85 cm); link is to Wikimedia Commons; original is in the collection of the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo Norway, which has a zoomable and downloadable version of the image.

    This wonderful portrait by late 19th, early 20th century Norwegian artist Asta Nørregaard is one of those wonderful pastel “paintings” that belies the idea of pastel as a “drawing” medium. Depending on how finely you want to hash the semantics, pastel is both — sometimes simultaneously.

    It helps remind us that our definitions are often inadequate to constrain the range of possibilities in art mediums.

    In this beautifully realized portrait, Nørregaard has surrounded the finely rendered face and figure with more textural marks, the roughly circular direction of which combines with her control of value in the background to draw the eye inexorably to the sitter’s face.



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  • Simultaneous contrast in Monet’s Stacks of Wheat (End of Day, Autumn)

    Stacks of Wheat (End of Day, Autumn), Claude Monet, Impressionist painting, oil on canvas
    Stacks of Wheat (End of Day, Autumn), Claude Monet, Impressionist painting, oil on canvas (details)

    Stacks of Wheat (End of Day, Autumn), Claude Monet; oil on canvas, roughly 28 x 40 in. (66 x 28 cm); in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, which offers both zoomable and downloadable images on their site.

    Here’s a question for you: in this painting by Monet — one of several in his series of paintings of haystacks — are the color relationships intense and vibrant or are they muted and subdued?

    Could they be both?

    Drawing on his extraordinary understanding of color as we sense it, Monet has juxtaposed blues and greens with complimentary oranges and reds to produce the effect of simultaneous contrast, a visual phenomenon with which he and the other Impressionist painters became fascinated after reading Michel Eugéne Chevreul’s On the Law of Simultaneous Contrast of Colors.

    This effect intensifies the vibrance of the color as we perceive it — even if the pigments themselves are not bright and intense.

    The use of simultaneous contrast was a common technique in many Impressionist paintings. Here, Monet has combined it with very low value contrast, much as he did in his earlier painting Impression Sunrise (from which the originally derogatory term “Impressionism” was derived by a hostile journalist).

    I’ve rendered the image in grayscale at bottom, so you can see the subdued values. This combination has a unique effect on our perception, as outlined in my post on Values in Monet’s Impression Sunrise.

    In his desire to convey the visual impression of the end of an Autumn day, Monet has used the color contrast effect in both the landscape and the sky.



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  • Eye Candy for Today: Fragonard’s The Little Park (gouache)

    The Little Park, Jean-Honore Fragonard, gouache on parchment
    The Little Park, Jean-Honore Fragonard, gouache on parchment (details)

    The Little Park, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, gouache on parchment, roughly 8 x 10″ (20 x 24 cm); in the collection of the Morgan Library and Museum, NY.

    I had the pleasure of seeing this delightful little gouache painting by the 18th century French Rococo painter in a show at the Morgan several years ago. I was aware of the larger oil of the same subject in the Wallace Collection in England (which I will feature in a subsequent post), and assumed this was a study for that painting.

    However, the Morgan Library’s description indicates that this is a “small replica” of the larger work, presumed to have been done a year later than the oil.

    Both the oil and this gouache painting have a great deal of visual charm, each in a way that takes good advantage of the respective strengths of the medium. There is also an etching of the same subject.


    The Little Park, Morgan Library

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