Interactive Panorama

Here's a fun new image interface. Click on image below and move it side to side. If it doesn't work, click on this word "DerManDar." This is a Lebanese word that means "all around."



The painting is "Saurian Steps," from Dinotopia. The original is currently on view at the Lyman Allyn Art Museum exhibition in New London, Connecticut.

You can make your own 270 or 360 degree panorama on the Dermandar.com website.

Along the Old Post Road

Yesterday was warm and sunny for November, so Jeanette and I set up our sketching stools along the old post road in Red Hook, New York.

I was attracted to the craggy old sugar maple tree and how it cast soft shadows on the whitewashed side of the old house. The tree and house looked like bones bleaching in the morning sun. As I painted, the wind scattered the brittle leaves across the ground and the fleeting shadows drifted across the wall, making the house seem even more permanent by contrast.

Speaking of permanence and change, here's what the house looked like in 1936. It's known as the Martin homestead, built in the year of our country's founding in 1776.  

Here's how the painting looked in its foundational stages. My goal at this point was to paint some warm tone around the outside of the picture to bring out the whiteness of the wall. Then I wet the wall's surface so that I could drop those shadow colors.

After that we went to our favorite diner, which was full of veterans who had just finished dedicating a new monument in the town's park.
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Tools: Schmincke Watercolor Pocket Set , Caran D'Ache watercolor pencils, Moleskine Watercolor Notebook, and various sizes of flat watercolor brushes. Some of the rough textures come from Caran d'Ache Water Soluble Pastels

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Martin Homestead, Red Hook, NY
Previous GJ posts from the diner:
American Diner
War Jitters
While Waiting for Lunch
Two Creamers

French Paintings at the Wadsworth

During the twentieth century, many art museums deaccessioned their 19th century academic paintings, only to find themselves impoverished today during the realist reawakening. The Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington is one such notorious example.

One museum that did not dump their academic collection is the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut. In fact, the Atheneum has recently been acquiring paintings, such as "The Schism," by Jehan-Georges Vibert, above (1875, oil on panel, 15x21 inches).

Above: Henri Paul Motte (1846-1922) The Trojan Horse. 

Writing in the December issue of Fine Art Connoisseur magazine, the museum's recently retired curator, Eric Zafran chronicles the history of the museum's French painting collection, which includes Lefebvre, Ribot, Tissot, Merle, Bouguereau, Leroux, Meissonier, and de Neuville.

Paintings by those artists are currently on view in a special exhibition at the Wadsworth. The show also includes more familiar French artists such as Toulouse-Lautrec, van Gogh, Gauguin, Redon, Vuillard, Bonnard, Poussin, Claude, Boucher, and Chardin. 

Medieval to Monet: French Paintings in the Wadsworth Atheneum, through January 27, 2013
Book: Renaissance to Rococo: Masterpieces from the Collection of the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art
Book on Vibert: Cavaliers and Cardinals: Nineteenth-Century French Anecdotal Paintings

Four Videos

Here are some videos that I thought you might enjoy.

(Video link) When you see a black and white image, is it a black and white image of a color scene, or a color picture of a scene that really is black and white? 

(Video Link) Chris LaPorte describes how he created his epic pencil portrait of a marching band.

Thought of You - Making Of from Ryan J Woodward on Vimeo.

(Video Link) Animator Ryan Woodward discusses the inspiration and the making of his short film "Thought of You." If you haven't seen the original film, you can see it at his website. Thanks, Melle Ferre.

(Video link) The story of recreating the circus poster that inspired John Lennon to write one of the great songs on the Sargent Pepper's album. Link to the video here. Thanks, Roger.

Sparkle Secret

 
Here's a plein-air study of kids frolicking at the  beach by Peder Krøyer. The bits of foam seem whiter than white because in a way, they are.


(Detail of above) By applying the white as a very thick impasto, it sticks up above the rest of the paint, and even casts a little shadow underneath. Since most paintings are illuminated from above, those globs of paint catch a highlight that's actually whiter than ordinary white paint applied flat to the surface of the painting.
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Thanks, Timothy Adkins for the photo.

Alex Ross Exhibition

An exhibition of the comic book art of Alex Ross will be opening on Saturday, November 10 at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.

"Paintings and sketches from his early career from projects like Marvels and Kingdom Come will be included, as well as works from more recent projects, such as Justice, Flash Gordon, and Green Hornet. Showcasing the heavy influence of American illustration and Pop Art on Alex Ross, works by Andy Warhol, Norman Rockwell, Andrew Loomis, and JC Leyendecker will be included. Works by Lynette Ross, the artist’s mother and an artistic inspiration, will be featured, as will Myths prints created by Andy Warhol, featuring many of the subjects of Alex Ross paintings, including Superman, Uncle Sam, and the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz."

The exhibition ends February 24, 2013.

Alex Ross will appear at the Norman Rockwell Museum on Saturday November 10, 2012 from 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm. Commentary at 7 p.m. Autographs (limit of 2 – 3 items per person) with the artist to follow.

Heroes and Villains: The Comic Book Art of Alex Ross

Part 6. Durand’s Legacy

(Last in the series on American landscape painter Asher B. Durand)

By the time Durand died in 1886, the taste for landscape painting in America had moved away from the carefully rendered epic visions of nature that were dominant before the Civil War.

The vogue for Impressionism brought a new interest in painterliness and design as subjects in themselves. Plein-air work, once regarded as a means for gathering raw material, was now accepted as a finished mode of art, replacing the imaginative creations of the studio.

Through it all, Durand’s work never fell from favor. His fundamental belief that truth to nature was the foundation of all beauty echoed down through generations of the artists he influenced, and it serves as a standard for the revival of realism in our own times.

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Asher B. Durand 
Part 1: Durand on Location

Part 2: Durand's America
Part 3: Durand's Letters
Part 4: Durand's Subjects

Part 5: Durand's Color

The American Landscapes of Asher B. Durand (1796-1886) 
The Painted Sketch: American Impressions From Nature 1830-1880

Part 5: Durand's Color

(Continuing the series on American landscape painter Asher B. Durand)

In Durand’s paintings, the colors are understated and the technique is restrained, never showy. “Waste not your time on broad sketches in color,” he advised.

"One must not “fix the attention of the observer on the nice mixture of pigments rather than the sentiment of his work....all the best artists have shown that the greatest achievement in the production of fine color is the concealment of pigments, and not the parade of them; and we may say the same of execution. The less apparent the means and manner of the artist, the more directly will his work appeal to the understanding and the feelings.” When the technique becomes so conspicuous that it asserts itself as the principal feature of the picture, “it is presumptive evidence...of deficiency in some higher qualities.”

These “higher qualities” took on an almost religious aspect in Durand’s writings about art. He believed that the artist is privileged to see “through the sensuous veil, and [embody] the spiritual beauty with which nature is animate.” By cultivating “childlike affection and religious reverence,” the act of painting from nature becomes more than a mechanical process: in Durand’s view, it is a form of spiritual devotion. 

“The external appearance of this our dwelling place,” he wrote, “apart from its wondrous structure and functions that minister to our well-being, is fraught with lessons of high and holy meaning, only surpassed by the light of Revelation.”

Durand reflected on the appeal of enduring masterpieces after taking a voyage to visit the picture galleries in Europe in 1840. He described the measure of greatness as “sober, quiet tone, depth and mellowness, transparency and glow.” A well-painted picture “draws you into it—you traverse it—breathe its atmosphere—feel its sunshine, and you repose in its shade without thinking of its design or execution, effect or color.”

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Tomorrow: Durand's Legacy

Asher B. Durand 
Part 1: Durand on Location

Part 2: Durand's America
Part 3: Durand's Letters
Part 4: Durand's Subjects
The American Landscapes of Asher B. Durand (1796-1886) 
The Painted Sketch: American Impressions From Nature 1830-1880

Part 4: Durand’s Subjects

(continuing the series on Asher B. Durand)

Asher B. Durand (1796-1886) would often select a small group of forms from within a complex scene and study it to the exclusion of its background detail. His son recalls that “finding trees in groups, he selected one that seemed to him, in age, color, or form, to be the most characteristic of its species, or in other words, the most beautiful."

"In painting its surroundings, he eliminated all shrubs and other trees which interfered with the impression made by this one. Every outdoor study...was regarded as a sort of dramatic scene in which a particular tree or aspect of nature may be called the principal figure.”

Durand’s form of realism was not a slavish or “servile imitation,” but rather a refined sensibility, guided by feeling, that sought to identify the characteristic form of specific varieties of trees, rocks and clouds while still attending to the minutiae of the individual subject. 

He drew a distinction between imitation, which satisfies only the eye, and representation, which satisfies the mind’s conception of ideal form. He conceded that a perfect copy of natural forms like flowing water or intricate foliage was impossible, but that the attempt to achieve it helped the artist develop methods that could be brought into service in recreating those forms back in the studio. 

Close examination of Durand’s original studies reveals that he did not necessary follow the practice of completing an entire scene la prima in one sitting. He typically painted foliage passages over a dry sky background that had been previously applied, and often worked for at least two consecutive sittings to accomplish his more detailed studies, probably executing the tree and the landscape at two different locations. 

Tomorrow: Part 5: Durand's Color

Asher B. Durand 
Part 1: Durand on Location

Part 2: Durand's America
Part 3: Durand's Letters
The American Landscapes of Asher B. Durand (1796-1886) 
The Painted Sketch: American Impressions From Nature 1830-1880

Part 3: Durand’s Letters

(Part 3 of a series)
Durand articulated the principles of his art in a series of influential articles called “Letters on Landscape Painting,” published in The Crayon magazine in 1855.

Taken together, these writings are the most complete expression of the philosophies of the Hudson River School, and provide valuable insights for today’s painter or collector. Art historian James Flexner describes “Letters” as “one of those rare documents that summarizes the spirit of a group and a generation.”

Durand wrote that direct study from nature was the ideal way for the artist to transcend the limitations of tired compositional formulas, providing “the only safeguard against the inroads of heretical conventionalism.”

He defined conventionalism as “the substitution of an easily expressed falsehood for a difficult truth.” He advised students to begin with a thorough familiarity with the pencil before graduating to paint, and even then, to develop a mastery of foreground objects in strong light and shade before attempting atmospheric distances.

The goal in plein-air work, according to Durand, was to render nature as faithfully as possible, and to “scrupulously accept whatever she presents him, until he shall, in a degree, have become intimate with her infinity, and then he may approach her on more familiar terms, even venturing to choose and reject some portions of her unbounded wealth.”

He addressed the limits of artistic license by saying that the artist “may displace a tree, or render it a more perfect one of its kind if retained,” but the placement of elements in the middle ground and the “characteristic outline, undulating or angular, of all the great divisions, may not be changed in the least perceptible degree, most especially the mountain and hill forms. On these God has set his signet.”

Tomorrow: Part 4--Durand's Subjects 

Part 1: Durand on Location

Part 2: Durand's America

The book The American Landscapes of Asher B. Durand (1796-1886) is one of the few places where you can get the full text of Durand's Letters on Landscape Painting.

Also: The Painted Sketch: American Impressions From Nature 1830-1880