M. Shawn Cornell’s web site opens with the statement "If you see snow in the painting, it means that the artist was standing in snow. If you see rain in the painting, it means that the artist was getting very wet."

Inexplicably, it requires that you drill down into Paintings, and then choose a sub-section (summer, spring, etc.) before seeing a color image.

Cornell’s paintings, when you do get to them, are rewardingly fresh and lively, with accomplished but abbreviated notation of the subjects, nicely embodying the strengths of the plein air approach.

Subjects include rocky bluffs, wooded hillsides, muddy fields, formal gardens and placid streams, mostly of places in Wisconsin, Colorado and Missouri, arranged on the site by season.

Cornell’s palette is controlled and understated, to the extent that the bright colors of autumn can be represented in muted tones, lending the images a feeling of quiet refinement. Most are fairly large by contemporary plein air standards, and it’s a little disappointing that there are no larger or detail images provided on the site.

Cornell is also a potter, and apparently represents himself and sells his work through art events rather than gallery representation. He also conducts workshops, sometimes in the company of his father, David M.Cornell, who is also a plein air painter.

Jean Fouquet was a painter of portraits and landscapes, even though, as a painter of the early Renaissance in 15th century France, he was largely limited to painting those things in the context of religious art (see my post on Giovanni Bellini).

Fouquet was the court painter to Louis XI, and is usually regarded as the most important French painter of his period. He traveled to Italy, where he caused a stir by painting a portrait of Pope Eugenius IV on canvas rather than wood; and brought the influence of Italian art into his own style, combining it with the influences from Jan and Hubert van Eyck, whose styles dominated northern European painting at the time (see my post on Jan van Eyck).

Fouquet painted at least one free-standing portrait, a self portrait on a copper medallion, now in the Louvre, that is the earliest known portrait miniature; and is in contention for the earliest formal self-portrait in Western art, depending on whether Jan van Eyck’s Portrait of a Man is actually a self-portrait (which it likely is).

It is as a miniaturist that I find Fouquet at his most interesting. He produced astonishing “illuminations”, miniature paintings on pages of manuscript, that have an uncanny monumentality and presence, and a surprising feeling of painting styles more common many years after his time. He was particularly known for his miniatures form the Book of Hours by Étienne Chevalier.

The image at top, above (larger version here, click for enlargement and click “100%’ if image doesn’t show), is a manuscript illumination from a history of Julius Ceasar, and portrays his crossing of the Rubicon. The naturalistic feeling and attention lavished on the background convinces me that, were he born a few centuries later, Fouquet might have dedicated himself to landscape. (It’s interesting, though, as accomplished as he is, to see Fouquet apparently struggle a bit with perspective, particularly if you assume the trees to be the same height. Perhaps the confines of the illuminated manuscript made laying out geometric perspective difficult.)

The other image, Virgin and Child Surrounded by Angels, is the right half of a now separated diptych. It caused a stir in later years (and perhaps at the time) for its sensual overtones, and portrayal of the Madonna in fancy and stylish fashions of the time. (Hey Renaissance fair re-enactors, are the noblewomen among you shaving your forehead and temples as part of your period dress?) It has also been suggested that the model for Mary was Agnés Sorel, a famously beautiful woman of the time, further cause for moral outrage. The Madonna is accompanied by some bizarre cherubs, starkly blue and red, except for their glassy eyes, arranged in a pattern reminiscent of one of M.C. Escher’s surface tessellations.

The Bibliothéque nationale de France (the National Library of France, roughly analogous to the Library of Congress for the U.S.) has mounted a virtual exhibition of Fouquet’s work, particularly his manuscript illumination miniatures, titled Fouquet, painter and illuminator of the XVth century, that gives a good introduction, though the images are somewhat small. You can supplement it with some of the other resources I’ve listed below, particularly the Web Gallery of Art.

[Virtual exhibition listing via “Thomas J. Wise” on MetaFilter]

Norwegian painter and engraver Frits Thaulow long ago became one of my favorite artists on the basis of a single painting in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Water Mill. I make a point of visiting it every time I’m at the museum.

This stunningly beautiful and dramatically large painting embodies Thaulow’s wonderful touch with the portrayal of small bodies of water. He captures again and again the mercurial effects of light as it dances over, under and through the rippled surfaces of small streams, canals, mill races and rivers.

Thaulow is often classed as a “Norwegian Impressionist”, and it’s interesting to compare his paintings to works by Sisley and Caillebotte; but like most painters outside the circle of original French Impressionism, he was actually a painter who learned when he liked from the French painters, but took it in his own direction, with a more naturalistic academic draftsmanship underlying the vibrant colors and painterly brushwork.

For that reason, and because of his command of light, color and tonal subtleties, I think of him in comparison to painters labeled “American Impressionists”, like William Merritt Chase, Childe Hassam, Edmund Tarbell, and Daniel Garber.

When I first wrote about Thaulow for Lines and Colors back in 2006, there were few resources available and most of them frustratingly repeated the same 6 or 8 images. Last year, I wrote specifically about Thaulow’s Water Mill, and resorted to posting my own photo.

Since then, I’m delighted to say, resources for viewing Thaulow’s work on the web have expanded considerably, and you can now get a sense of his overall range of subject matter and approach.

In particular, Allpaintings Art Portal has an extensive collection of Thaulow’s work; be sure to click through on the text link above the main image for the larger version (see my post on Allpaintings Art Portal). There are other new and expanded resources, and I’ve listed as many as I can find below.

It’s obvious that interest is growing in the work of this wonderful Norwegian painter. Maybe it will even convince a publisher to bring out a new English edition of Vidar Poulsson’s hard to find book on Frits Thaulow. (See Vidar Poulsson’s comments on my original post for more details about the book.)

I’m particularly delighted to report that Thaulow’s Water Mill, which had disappointingly been rotated out of view and into storage last year, has been returned to view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. (Thanks to Barbara Lesley for letting me know.)

It’s like having an old friend move back into town.