Mønsted's Open Landscapes

Peder Mork Mønsted is best known for his scenes of forest streams, so it's interesting to see what he does with open fields. 

Heather Covered Hills by Peder Mork Mønsted contrasts the greens with the reddish tinge of the heather. 

A view of Borresö from Himmelbjerget, Denmark, 1912 by Peder Mork Mønsted.

Below are some larger scans of the images.

Alexander Hugo Bakker Korff

Alexander Hugo Bakker Korff (1824 – 1882), was a Dutch painter of genre scenes in the 19th century. 

Korff is best known for his scenes of women in domestic situations.  This one shows a woman rummaging around in a rag basket for making a patchwork quilt. This painting is quite small: 21 cm (8.2 in) by 16 cm (6.2 in). 

He lived in a house with his two posh, unmarried sisters. They would pose wearing items from his collection of 18th century costumes. 

This painting is called the Secondhand Dealer, and it's about 5 x 7 inches.

This one is called "Under the Palm." 

Two prosperous women listen in reverie as another woman plays a romantic tune.

Probably most of his inspiration came from Gerard Dou and Gabriël Metsu, who lived in his town of Leyden. His scenes are also reminiscent of Ernest Meissonier and Norman Rockwell, with frontal lighting, a stage-like space, fine detail, old fashioned setting, and a charming human situation. 

Two women say grace over a luncheon of soup on an October day, and one of them has her dog in a basket.

Becher Typologies

Hilla and Bernd Becher were photographers who captured sets of matching black and white photos of related industrial objects. 

Water Towers by Hilla and Bernd Becher

They needed overcast days to do their work, because the forms were always lit by indirect light.

 

Blast Furnaces by Hilla and Bernd Becker

They worked as a team, traveling around Europe and North America documenting the disappearing industrial architecture and arranging them in typologies reminiscent of natural history collections.

Water Towers by Hilla and Bernd Becher

They were attracted by the unintentional sculptural beauty of these forms. Bringing the images together invited viewers to compare and contrast. They said: "We photographed water towers and furnaces because they are honest. They are functional, and they reflect what they do - that is what we liked."

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Another View of Saint Eulalia

John William Waterhouse painted the martyrdom of Eulalia, which created a sensation at the Royal Academy when it was exhibited in 1885. 

 

Saint Eulalia exhibited 1885 by John William Waterhouse

Tradition says that she was a devout Christian who was killed by Romans in 304AD for refusing to make sacrifices to the Roman gods and for insulting the emperor Maximian. She declared her Christian faith and challenged the authorities to martyr her. While she was being tortured, "She taunted her torturers all the while, and as she expired a dove flew out of her mouth. This frightened away the soldiers and allowed a miraculous snow to cover her nakedness, its whiteness indicating her sainthood."

Catherine Nixey’s book The Darkening Age presents a different view of Eulalia, based on Roman sources. According to Nixey, the presiding magistrate Flavious Probus wrote that a fervent group of these early Christians were indulging in a suicide cult, hoping for a ticket to the afterlife. 

Nixey quotes Romans trying to talk Eulalia out of killing herself: “Don’t you see the beauty of this pleasant weather?” Probus pleaded with Eulalia. “There will be no pleasure to come your way if you kill your own self.” 

Which was she, an innocent martyr or a suicidal fanatic? Let me know what you think in the comments.

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Rokeby Remote Learning Course

An artist and researcher named Courtney Clinton has found a trove of letters and sketchbooks in the Rokeby Museum that reveal how remote learning was handled a century ago.

Sketch of Honeysuckle Tree Branch, 1901, 

Rachael Robinson Elmer (1878–1919)

In a series of blog posts, Courtney will narrate the artistic journey of of one student, Rachael Robinson Elmer, who learned to draw and paint by means of an exchange of letters, drawing exercises, and critiques from a master.. 

To involve the rest of us online, she has invited us to join into the learning process with a free 12 week drawing challenge. 

She'll give everybody two weeks for each exercise. Here's the link to her first blog post and challenge. Future challenges will include doing an old master copy, a still life, a portrait, an illustration, and more. It's a great way to learn to draw and paint while learning how people learned in the past.

I asked her a few questions: 

1. How was art instruction in Rachael's time different compared to now?
Teachers were much tougher 100 years ago! Rachael is 12 when she first starts the course and her teacher Ernest Knaufft is not afraid to tell her when her drawing is “not good”. To a contemporary audience he might come off as mean but it’s extraordinary to watch how quickly Rachael progresses under his instruction.

When you read through the letters you understand that his criticism is very focused on objective truths like proportions, structure and line quality. His critics aren't a personal attack. He is trying to help her train her eye.

2. How would you describe Rachael's outlook toward nature?
Rachael grew up in Ferrisburg, Vermont on a Merino sheep farm. She is very connected to the land. Her father is a nature writer and she seems to emulate his work in her diary. In her writing she describes multi day hikes she would take with friends. She also keeps an almost daily record of the birds, flowers and sunsets she sees.

3. Can you tell us more about her process of doing nature studies, both in terms of practical techniques and mental approach?
Throughout her life Rachael kept up an active sketchbook practice. Rachael makes studies of both the individual parts of nature (branch of flowers, tree trunk, etc) and larger landscape scenes. Beside her sketches she often makes short observational notes. This tells us that her engagement goes beyond mere representation and is a kind of study of nature.

4. What would you like modern art students to get out of this project?
There is a narrative that exists that pits art theory against creativity. I lean into some of the philosophy that informs art theory to try and show how [the act of] engaging with the craft of drawing can actually inspire creative ideas. Beyond the lessons, the project also shares Rachael’s artistic journey. My aim is to demystify the life of an artist and give young artists a kind of path to follow.

5. Are there any other instructional books or resources that people can explore to help with their progress?
The books that influenced the form of this project are Color and Light by James Gurney; The Practice and Science of Drawing by Harold Speed, Fundamentals of Drawing by V.A. Mogilevtsev; and The Drawing Course by Charles Bargue. These books are designed for self directed learning. What I love about all of these examples is their use of images and drawing as the central tool for instruction.

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Check out Courtney's Rokeby Remote Learning Course

and Courtney Clinton's website

Photographers and the Great Depression

Local children enjoy a dip in the pool in front of an Iron City billboard,

The photographs that document the Great Depression give a vivid record of life in America during the hard times nearly a century ago.

Farm Boy Who Sells Grit at Irwinville Farms

John Vachon/Library of Congress. (May 1938)

Those photos didn't just happen on their own. They came about as a result of a federal program to document the work of the FSA agency (Farm Security Administration). The program was launched by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and headed up by Roy Stryker. 

Stryker and his staff handed out detailed lists of subjects for the photographers to shoot as they fanned out across the country. In a shooting script for farm debt adjustment, the list included "Milk blockades -- dumping -- rioting -- trucks tipping over, etc." and "Worried farmer (going over accounts, etc.)" 

Arthur Rothstein

The program yielded many benefits. It launched the careers of photographers such as Dorothea Lange, Arthur Rothstein, Walker Evans, and Ben Shahn. Secondly, as the images were printed in magazines, Americans were able to see how their fellow citizens fared. Finally,  it gave meaningful work to photographers, capturing images that might otherwise not have been recorded.  

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Read More:

Library of Congress: Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Written Records: Selected Documents

How do you force yourself to improve?

Comando Speciales on YouTube asks: "How do you force yourself to improve? I'm a fine arts student and every time I try to paint or draw I get absolutely frustrated and feel like quitting. I like it and want to get better at it, but there's like a mental barrier. I know that we all have to start at some point to improve, but I feel like I'm old and after many years of doing this I simply can't get better at it."

My answer: Don't worry too much about improving, especially if you're forcing yourself. You'll improve if you keep experimenting and having fun. 

All through my career I have had plenty of moments of frustration. When I feel that way, I tell myself that all problems yield to effort. There's no shame in starting over, scrubbing off a lay-in, or trying a new material. Good paintings often have difficult births.

There's also nothing wrong with being frustrated. John Singer Sargent was like a boiling teakettle during every painting. He muttered "Demons, demons!" under his breath all the time. Embrace frustration; it's really your friend. It's good to intentionally pursue difficult challenges.

The person I worry about is the one who is too satisfied and never tries anything new. You've seen this person at sketch groups. They always use the same materials, same methods. They get the same results and they never get better.

If you have an insurmountable challenge, break the big problem into smaller parts that you can master. If you're painting an elk, take an hour in your sketchbook to draw elk antlers from various angles. If you're animating for a 1930s style video game, copy some character designs from that era. 

And don't worry about being too old. Your brain is capable of learning and growing at any age.

Interview with Pencil Kings

Here's a new podcast interview with Mitch Bowler of Pencil Kings. 

We discuss: 

Time management 

Thoughts on social media

Tips for making art videos

Radio and podcasting

Limited palettes

Painting exercises from Color in Practice

How to get started

Commitment and risk in traditional media

Art school myths, learning cultures

Composition and eyetracking

Taking risks

Online education

Learning with new technology

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Pencil Kings website

Irving Wiles

Irving Ramsey Wiles (1861-1948) painted this reclining woman in 1895 using watercolor, graphite, and gouache on paper. The size is 22 x 28 in. (55.9 x 71.1 cm). 

Irving Wiles, The Green Cushion

Her mood a bit of a mystery. The needlepoint pillow conceals half her face, and she lies languidly on the Empire revival-style recamier couch.

The painting is called "The Green Cushion." He could have called it "Reclining Woman" or "Melancholy." The title signals that color is a factor, and indeed the green patch behind the woman sets off the pearlescent tones of her skin.  

The painting, which won a prize at the American Watercolor Society's 1897 exhibition, is a feast of edges, contrasts, and accents, bringing to life the velvet cushions and silk dress. In addition to being an illustrator, he was a popular portrait painter. 
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Website with more about Irving Ramsey Wiles 

Wikipedia about Irving Ramsey Wiles

To See, Your Eyes Must Move

In order to see anything, your eyes must move around. 

Painting by Magritte

In a classic scientific study back in 1976, John K. Stevens anesthetized test subjects but kept them awake. As they sat awake with their eyes open, but unable to move them, subjects found that the images quickly faded. 

Because they were unable to move their eyes across the visual field,  they couldn't re-stimulate the retina. Without constantly changing levels of stimulation, the neurons ceased delivering signals. 

The test subjects felt a strong impulse to move their eyes, and wanted to move them. It felt to them that moving their eyes would take a huge effort, and they just couldn't do it.

Another surprising result of the study was the sensation that the visual field was displaced in the direction of the anticipated jumping eye movement (or saccade) that they intended to make. 

As author Brian Dilg put it, "They were catching their own brains trying to make sense of an image that did not shift as it normally would when the eyes move."

What generates the impulse for a saccade? Vision specialist Dr. Martin Rolfs says, "When you analyze how many of our saccades are triggered by external events, you'd probably end up with very little. A part of the scene that has high contrast will probably capture your eye movements. But as soon as you have the second or third saccade, the influence of this basic visual information in the scene will become less important. Your own interests and your own task that you have at the moment will be much more influential."

This confirms an important insight for picture-makers. The observer's eye pathway does not follow passively through the composition like a ball on a track. It is driven by the viewer's own conscious and unconscious curiosity, and the artist's job is to awaken that active participation of the viewer.

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Scientific paper: PARALYSIS OF THE AWAKE HUMAN:VISUAL PERCEPTIONS 

More in the book "Why You Like This Photo" by Brian Dilg.  It's a gem of a book, designed for photographers, but full of insights about visual perception that artists can also benefit from.