The Countess de Castiglione

Posted by Maverick ~ on August 2, 2018
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The Countess de Castiglione (ca.1856–57)
Pierre-Louis Pierson
French, 1822–1913
Salt print with pigment

This hand-colored photograph features Virginia Oldioni, the Countess de Castiglione. Between 1856 and 1895, the Countess worked with photographer Pierre-Louis Pierson to create more than 400 self-portraits. Fascinated by photography’s capacity to shape identity, the Countess played a direct role in the creation of each work. She chose outfits, determined poses and directed Pierson on how to enlarge some of her images.

♦️

Stammer Mill with Streaked Sky

Posted by Maverick ~ on August 1, 2018
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Stammer Mill with Streaked Sky (1905-1907)
Piet Mondrian
Dutch, 1872–1944
Oil on canvas

"Before Piet Mondrian became known for his orderly red, yellow, and blue geometric abstractions, he made more than 30 paintings of the windmills that dotted the Dutch countryside. With this painting, he began a shift away from earthy naturalism, and hints of his future work emerged.

The gridded windmill blades are in perfect vertical and horizontal alignment. Notice the swaths of yellow in the sky, the blue horizon line, and the red boat. This use of primary colors and geometric forms anticipates the colors and grids of his later compositions."

💞

José Herrera

Posted by Maverick ~ on July 31, 2018
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José Herrera (1938)
Peter Hurd
American, 1904-1984
Tempera on panel

"Born and raised in Roswell, New Mexico, Peter Hurd painted the people and landscape of nearby San Patricio, where he maintained a cattle ranch. José Herrera was a farm hand on the Hurd ranch for more than 20 years. Hurd painted his friend many times and once called him "one of the most paintogenic people I know." Here he is shown looking directly out at the viewer against a panoramic view of the Hondo Valley. Filling up much of the composition, Herrera appears as strong as the mountain range behind him. The painter's use of tempera accentuates the effects of arid land and air integral to the scene. Hurd convinced his famous brother-in-law Andrew Wyeth also to adopt the medium."

🐴

Schooner Close – Hauled

Posted by Maverick ~ on July 30, 2018
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Schooner Close-Hauled  (ca. 1883)
Alfred Thompson Bricher
American, 1837-1908
Oil on canvas

"Self-taught as an artist, Alfred Thompson Bricher emerged as one of the most accomplished and popular marine painters of the late 19th century. The Massachusetts native's marine imagery found a responsive market, partly in growing numbers of world-weary urbanites escaping to coastal environs for therapeutic relaxation.

Bricher's captivating Schooner Close-Hauled presents a group of vessels off a strip of unidentified coastline. Muscular waves and thick clouds create a dramatic stage for their graceful performance. Balanced and orderly, the composition lends a degree of permanence to a subject that is otherwise shifting and transitory. The setting likely refers to the southeastern shore of Long Island, where Bricher, along with countless other vacationers, spent time in the early 1880s."

⛵️

Femme assise sur fond noir

Posted by Maverick ~ on July 29, 2018
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Woman Seated before a Black Background
(Femme assise sur fond noir)
Henri Matisse
Oil on canvas

Henri Matisse’s painting is alive with brilliant color and rhythmic line. By placing the chair off-center and shifting the woman’s pose further to the right, he establishes a lively informality. The woman’s tilted head, smile, kind eyes, and relaxed arms enhance the sense of ease. The visual weight of the black background is lightened by the lively pattern of arabesques scratched into the wet paint with the pointed tip of the artist’s brush handle.

Matisse painted this affirmation of life amid the tumult of World War II (1939–1945) and during his recuperation from surgery for stomach cancer.

🎻

Fishing on the Mississippi

Posted by Maverick ~ on July 28, 2018
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Fishing on the Mississippi (1851)
George Caleb Bingham
American, 1811-1879
Oil on canvas

"Missouri native George Caleb Bingham earned a national reputation by depicting scenes of western politics and river life. In almost 50 canvases painted from 1840 to 1855, the artist strove to create an image of the West for his own day and posterity.

Bingham painted Fishing on the Mississippi during a brief residence in New York in 1851. Three fishermen, whom Bingham based on earlier drawings, are pictured waiting to provide steamboats with wood for fuel. The warm palette, balanced composition and the figures' downturned gazes create a meditative, even melancholic mood, which reflects Bingham's own mixed feelings about the changing ways of frontier life. By 1850 steamboats were quickly displacing flatboats as the primary mode of river transportation."

🔸

Sea Grape

Posted by Maverick ~ on July 27, 2018
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Sea Grape, Marina Cay— B. V. I., 1942
Ross Eugene Braught
American, 1898–1983
Graphite on paper

"Ross Eugene Braught's large graphite on paper drawing Sea Grape, Marina Cay--- B. V. I., 1942, describes the accutely observed twisted trunk; curving branches; smooth, slightly-mottled bark; and round, leathery leaves with prominent veining associated with the tropical tree known as the sea grape. The sprawling tangle of branches in the foreground of the composition opens up in the lower right to reveal a view of an uneven, sandy shore. Beyond the beach with its small wind-shaped dunes , the calm waters of the Caribbean lagoon are lit by a full moon that has just started its rise in the cloud-filled night sky."

🍇

Peace and War

Posted by Maverick ~ on July 26, 2018
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Peace and War (1848)
George Inness
American, 1825-1894
Oil on canvas

A major early work by George Inness, Peace and War unveils a rugged and vaguely historical panoramic landscape. Basing his composition on 17th-century French models, Inness placed two diminutive shepherds tending a small flock in the foreground. An approaching company of knights strikes a disquieting note in the otherwise bucolic scene. Inness' highly descriptive style speaks to the pervasive influence of the Hudson River School of landscape painting.

Dated to 1848, Peace and War may have served as Inness' tribute to Thomas Cole, the spiritual head of the Hudson River School who died that year. The painting might also allude to the Mexican-American War (1846-1848) and to waves of political revolutions that swept Europe beginning in 1848.

🕊

Too Soon for Thunder

Posted by Maverick ~ on July 25, 2018
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Too Soon for Thunder (1943)
Kay Sage
American, 1898-1963
Oil on canvas

Kay Sage, an American, was associated with the Surrealist movement, which explored the expression of an alternative reality through the unconscious mind and dream imagery.

Too Soon for Thunder is a desolate landscape, filled with enigmatic, architectural motifs and draped, skeletal phantoms. Of a similar image Sage explained, "It's a sort of showing what's inside-things half mechanical, half alive. The mountain itself can represent almost anything-a human, life, the world, any fundamental thing…I do know that while I'm painting, I feel as though I am living in the place." 🔺

The Young Sabot Maker

Posted by Maverick ~ on July 24, 2018
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The Young Sabot Maker, 1895
Henry Ossawa Tanner
American, 1859-1937
Oil on canvas

Henry Ossawa Tanner's The Young Sabot Maker depicts a man and boy, likely a father and son, carving traditional (sabots) wooden shoes in Brittany, France. Such images of rural folk engaged in old customs were popular in the fast-changing world of the late 19th century. Tanner's painting also evokes Christian associations as, according to biblical tradition, carpentry was the trade of Joseph, Jesus' father. Fittingly, Tanner presented the painting as a gift to his mother and his father, Benjamin Tanner, who, for a time, served as bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Kansas City, Kansas.

Tanner studied in his native Philadelphia with Thomas Eakins. He subsequently trained and remained in Paris, where he encountered less racial prejudice.👥👥