30 x 48 inches
Monday, November 17, 2008
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Ivan Aivazovski (1817-1900) Armenian
Exhibition catalogue
The Wave
Orage
Amid the Waves
Aivazovsky (Aivazovski) was a master painter of tempests.
Hans Gude - Norwegian 1825-1903
These two images show how greatly reproductions of paintings can vary. It's always best to study the real thing, hanging in a gallery. Not only are reproductions often misleading about colour and tone, they don't give a sense of the scale of a work, or the three dimensional nature of brushwork and paint layers. Visiting galleries is also instructive on how works are framed and displayed. In the past it was a part of an artist's training to visit galleries, set up an easel and make copies of masterpieces.
Tim Storrier - Australian, born 1949
Wreath, Claus Bergen - German
Tim Storrier, The Wave (& Garland) 1998,
Acrylic on canvas, 183 x 304.7 cm
Storrier's painting of a garland floating on an empty sea is very similar to an oil by the German painter Claus Bergen showing a wreath commemorating the loss of lives during a naval battle. Bergen was a marine and landscape painter who was sympathetic to the Nazis, unfortunately. In Bergen's composition the clouds take the form of a garland or wreath, echoing the subject.
It is an image that communicates a sense of loss in a very simple way.
Storrier's canvas is huge and must have enormous power.
Tim Storrier, Pacific Swell(?)
Ernest Briggs
This isn't an oil painting but it's a nice composition for one.
The visual weight of shadows in the waves at the bottom of the image is enough to balance the tree at the top.
George Brandriff - American
Unrelenting Surf
The eye is led to a patch of white surf contrasted to a dark cliff behind
Dahl
If the image is divided in the middle (both vertically and horizontally) there is a point of interest in each half (moon and patch of reflected moonlight, figures and sailboat) and the points are linked by a trail of light. The child's pointing arm leads the eye to the second focus, while the boat leans slightly towards the first.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Church's technique
Frederick Church - Coast Of Mount Desert
Source: gurneyjourney.blogspot.com
This unfinished oil painting shows Church's technique: a salmon pink underpainting unifies the image and adds warmth to the sky, gives vibrancy to the green areas through complementary colour. The fine detail of the drawing is visible. Church has painted area by area, rather than doing what many teachers advise: covering the whole canvas with rough massing first, adding detail later.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
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Mermaids
Benes Knopfer, 1848-1910 - Clash of the Titans
Ferdinand Leeke
A Mermaid Tempting a Satyr into the Water
The Hon. John Collier, 1850-1934
The Land Baby, 1909
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Edward Gordon, American,1940 -
Edward Gordon's scenes are often of the sea seen through a window. Interiors are combined with seascape in a mix of genres.
The fluid, chaotic pattern of waves contrasted to hard elements: rocks, the hulls of ships, buildings; is a recurring theme of marine art.
