Archive for January, 2010
Calusa: The Shell Indians
The sun has again smiled on us in SW Florida after many days of rain and/or cold weather. (That’s a relative term). So tomorrow my friend and I plan to paint en plein air at the Randell Research Center at Pineland on Pine Island, northwest of Fort Myers, where the Calusa (kah-LOOS-ah) Indians once lived.
The population of this tribe may have been as many as 50,000 and they controlled most of south Florida from Tampa to Miami for 1500 years. Calusa means “fierce people” and they were the first ones the Spanish wrote home about in 1513.
The Calusa lived along the coast and inner waterways, built homes on stilts and made roofs from Palmetto leaves. They fished for food, used spears to catch eels and turtles and made fish bone arrowheads to hunt for animals such as deer. They used shells for tools and utensils, jewelry and ornaments. Shell spears were made for hunting and fishing, and shell mounds (garbage dumps) are still found on Pine Island. The Calusa died out in the late 1700s due to enemies and diseases brought by Spanish and French explorers.
Pissarro: The Father Figure
Camille Pissarro (1830-1903) was the father figure and peacemaker of the Impressionists. He mentored Cezanne and Gauguin and cautioned them “Do not define too closely the outline of things. It is the brushstrokes of the right color and value that should produce the drawing.”
A patient teacher, Pissarro instructed Cezanne in how to control form through color and diagonal strokes. Cezanne called him, “humble and colossal.” Pissarro was a dedicated plein air painter and he daily took his canvas in search of a scene which he reproduced with bright colors and patchy brush strokes. He is also known for bustling Parisian street scenes filled with people and carriages rendered in spots of colors, as if viewed from a second story window.
Morisot: The Independent One
Berthe Morisot (1845-95) was the great granddaughter of Fragonard, an 18th century painter of beautiful women. She refused to study with her stuffy drawing teacher and, instead, painted en plein air with Corot. While copying a Rubens at the Louve, she met Manet, who greatly influenced her work. She, in turn, persuaded him to try open-air painting and brighter colors. She later married his younger brother and put down her brushes to care for the family.
She was treated as an equal by the other Impressionists, receiving her share of condemnation from the critics, to which she just laughed. Like Cassatt, she painted mostly women and children.
She used no outlines, only color to indicate form and volume and her style was even freer than the other Impressionists. In 1875 her works brought higher prices than those of her male colleagues. Her pictures were as pretty as Renoir’s but always had a brooding sadness.
Cassatt: Mothers and Children
Mary Cassatt (1845-1926) was the daughter of a wealthy Pennsylvania business man. In those days, painting was a man’s world and her father not only discouraged her, he refused to pay for her supplies. She left the United States as soon as possible to study art in Paris. Since Victorian women were not allowed to be alone with any man except a relative, Cassatt’s only male subjects were her father and brothers.
When Degas first saw her work, he said, “There is a person who feels as I do” and soon afterward they became life long friends. She was a gifted draftsman, precisely outlined her figures, and composed excellent designs. She used the Impressionist palette of vivid hues, pale tines, golden light, and shadows tinged with color and she exhibited with them. Her trademarks were women and children.
Her wealthy friends bought paintings from Monet, Manet, Cezanne and Cassatt for their private collections. Although the French were slow to appreciate the Impressionists, with the Americans it was love at first sight!
Degas: The Ballerinas
Edgar Degas (1934-1917) was classically trained by a student of Ingres and his work shows emphasis on linear drawing and composition. three dimensional depth, and firm contours. “No art is less spontaneous than mine,” he said. The many preparatory sketches he made set him apart from the Impressionists, yet he was counted a member because of friendship with the group, commitment to contemporary subjects and his opposition to official academic painting.
Degas’ specialty was the human form in a moment of arrested motion. He took great care to show his dancers off-guard while yawning or adjusting their slippers. He painted them from oblique angles, typically clustered to one side with a large area of floor space. His nudes were shown doing utilitarian tasks, such as combing their hair, unaware of observation and off balance – as though seen “through a keyhole.”
As his eyesight failed, he turned to pastels which allowed him to draw and color at the same time. Nearly blind, he relied on his sense of touch to model wax figurines of dancers and horses which were cast in bronze after his death.
Renoir: Happy People in Pretty Places
Pierre-August Renoir (1841-1919) thought a picture should be a pleasant thing, joyful and pretty. He loved painting lovely female faces and forms, sunlit meadows and gardens, and open-air cafes.
Renoir invented the dappled-light effect which he used so effectively throughout his career. He never used black and sometimes his figures went off the edge of the page. His early paintings have a snapshot feel – a slice of life has been captured on canvas before the scene shifts. The dappled light, the quick brushstrokes and sketchiness of painting resulted in a distinctive impressionist look.
Later, instead of focusing on fleeting moments, he wanted his art to make a lasting impression. He went to Rome to study with the Renaissance masters and especially liked Raphael’s work. As a result, his figures became much more solid. Solid figures and blurred backgrounds became the trademark of his mature style.
The Salon
The governments of most European countries sponsored official academy exhibitions for artists throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. These exhibitions were usually the only venues in which artists could show their work and they typically showcased art that followed the rules - painting theoretical topics and using many layers of paint.
The Salon was established in 1667 by the French Academy and was named for the room in the Louvre in which it was held. It was the only public art exhibit in Paris and, as such, the jurors held great power in standardizing taste and preserving the status quo.
In 1863, jurors rejected 3000 paintings out of the 5000 submitted. As a result, Napoleon III established a Gallery of the Refused for artists whom the Salon rejected and it was held periodically over the next 20 years.
The Tree Tradition throughout Art
There is a unique relationship that humans share with trees—we have a codependence on earth, and throughout history trees have been used as a symbol for life and vitality. We are all familiar with the expression “the tree of life,” as well as literary analogies that have been drawn, such as “The Giving Tree” and “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.” The structure of the tree is even used as a metaphor for the family dynamic.
For hundreds of years artists have captured the aesthetic beauty and cultural significance of these pieces of foliage in their work. Not only do they appear in classic, realist landscapes, but there are also a myriad of abstract tree paintings that show them in a different light. Many fads come and go in art but trees have been—and probably will continue to be—a source of inspiration for artists.
Monet: Painter of Light (Part II)
In his later years, Monet captured the light by painting series of the same scene painted at different times of day. The landscape paintings of his haystack series is especially well known, and you can almost tell the time of day by the shadows in the painting.
Most of the Impressionists were not accepted into the juried Salon exhibits, so they held their own exhibits allowing everyone to enter. At the first one in 1874, among other works, Monet showed his painting, Impression: Sunrise. That name inspired one critic to condemn all the paintings as “impressionistic”, or unfinished. Although the name was intended as an insult, the artists liked it and it continues to this day.
Monet: Painter of Light (Part I)
Claude Monet (1840-1926) worked in plein air and his style came from a shift in focus. Instead of looking at the object itself, he focused on the patches of color forming the object. He advised: Merely think, here is a little square of blue, here is an oblong of pink. Paint it as it looks to you, the exact color and shape of the patches.
Monet had found a different way of painting by capturing the subtleties of light and color and he experimented with the effects of light throughout his long career. He often painted patches of complementary colors next to each other. This causes your eye to rapidly bounce back and forth between the two colors, giving a shimmering effect. Sometimes we say the painting vibrates, and the end product was a freer looking painting.