Tuesday, June 29, 2010

McClelland Barclay















McClelland Barclay (1891-1943) was an American commercial artist/illustrator who produced several posters for the US navy. He was lost at sea during the Pacific War in 1943.
This piece is similar in style to the work of Frederick Judd Waugh.

Friday, June 25, 2010

Ivan Aivazovsky

Ivan Aivazovsky, The Survivors, 47.5 x 64 cm
detail

Aivazovsky was a master of atmosphere. To see more works by this Armenian/Russian artist click on his name in labels.

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Australian Painters































Rupert Bunny,1864-1947, Tritons at Play c 1890, 73 x 91 cm
Fred Leist, Sinking of the Southland
Rick Amor, born 1948, People Watching the Sea 1994, 64 x 117 cm
Penleigh Boyd, 1890-1923, The Fairy Bower, Manly, 71 x 81 cm
Neil Taylor, Early Sandstone, Acrylic

The sea is a very important part of life for many Australians, and the beach is pretty much a sacred place here. Most of the population lives on the coast and arrived by boat, across the oceans, in relatively recent times. Not surprisingly then, the country has produced some talented painters whose work is inspired by the sea and the coast.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Saturday, June 5, 2010

Michael Zeno Diemer - German 1867-1939





























Running with the Tide, 38 x 55 inches.
Sailboat, 23.5 x 32.75 inches.
A fishing vessel running before the wind off the Albanian Coast, 44.5 x 59.7 cm.

To see another painting in an older post, click here.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Francesco Hayez, Italian, 1791-1881

Flight from Chios, 82 x 104 cm


detail












Hayez's subtle use of light emerald greens, complemented by pinks and reds, is particularly appealing.
The painting depicts a boatload of Greeks and Turks fleeing fighting that broke out between the two nationalities on the island of Chios.

From the Sotheby's catalogue note:
The horrific plight of the Chians quickly became a cause célèbre throughout Europe, written up as a vivid example of the barbarism of the infidel. The subject in turn inspired painters, as recorded most famously in Eugène Delacroix's monumental oil painting Massacre at Chios that was exhibited to great acclaim at the Paris Salon of 1824. Although keenly aware of Delacroix's composition, when Hayez addressed the subject he did not depict the carnage of the event; but dwelt instead on the complex rapport between the Chians and the Ottomans. In Hayez' oil both captors and captives make off from the island by boat. Although saved from the immediate terror of events on Chios, the women are still, quite clearly, subjugated to their Turkish overlords - a clear reference to Greece's indefatigable spirit in the face of long-standing Ottoman oppression.