Nick Dudka is a German born artist who studied art in Russia. After developing an interest in Buddhist religion and philosophy, he studied the art of Thangka, or scroll painting, in Mongolia, Nepal and India.

Thangka paintings are usually painted on cloth — linen or cotton for most subjects, silk for more important subjects — that is sized with a gesso-like mixture of animal hide glue and talcum powder.

The paintings are done in paints made of pigments suspended in animal hide glue mixed with other materials. Paints in a hide glue vehicle are known in the West as distemper or body color, and are handled in a manner similar to gouache. I’m uncertain how similar the materials and processes are between the two sets of mediums and approaches.

The home page of Dudka’s website gives a bit of introduction to the art, and the gallery showcases a selection of Dudka’s works. (Click on the individual images, or the “Zoom Image” links for larger versions.) Some of his pieces are available in his shop as posters, cards or other reproductions.

I don’t know enough about Thangka art to know how closely Dudka follows in the traditions of the classical works, but my impression is that he is working within the traditional style. Some of his pieces utilize a wide range of intense colors, others are in a more restricted palette. Perhaps this is a choice relevant to the individual subjects, which are usually depictions of the Buddha, other enlightened individuals or various deities.

Dudka has provided some background on the subjects on the detail pages for the individual paintings in his gallery.

Thangka, along with other Buddhist art, has often been the basis for contemporary visionary art.

For more, see my previous post on Nickolai N. Dudka.

As the impact of French Impressionism spread to the U.S. in the late 19th century, groups of American artists influenced by the new style began to form in Old Lyme, CT, New Hope, PA, Boston, New York and California. Less well known were groups of American Impressionist artists in the middle of the country, like those known as the Hoosier Group, who devoted themselves to portrayals of the Indiana countryside.

Prominent among them was Theodore Clement Steele, sometimes more simply referred to as “T.C. Steele”, who exemplified the crisp, colorful, painterly realism that was characteristic of the best American Impressionists.

Steele studied art in Chicago, returned to Indiana and became a portrait painter. He moved to Germany in 1880 to study at the Royal Academy in Munich, taking his family with him. When he returned, he began to supplement his portrait practice with landscape painting, bringing into play the Impressionist influence he had encountered in Europe.

After the death of his first wife, Steele resettled in Brown County, the landscape of which became the subject of some of his most notable work.

There is a collection of Steele’s work, Theodore Clement Steele, by William H. Gerdts, perhaps the foremost authority on American Impressionism, and an illustrated historical account of the wider group, T.C. Steel and the Society of Western Artists by Rachel Berenson Perry, Fine Arts Curator for the Indiana State Museum.