beside the easel

The Wedding Dance, ca.1890's Born March 6, 1847 in Florence, Federico Andreotti was a genre and aristocratic painter. Andreotti's work is characterized by a vivid palette with elegantly dressed Rococo figures, revolving around the themes of flirtation and music. There is a spontaneity and naturalism in his figures that is contagious, even with the incredible detail and well-conceived compositions. Andreotti was astute enough to realize his era had already let go of the noble themes of his predecessors and he gleefully accepted. His style is very reminiscent of Eugene de Blaas , a contemporary from Rome and Vittorio Reggianini from Modena. Up close, however, Andreotti had a fairly loose brush and that sense of fun is evident in his modelling and blending. In The Wedding Dance above, Andreotti depicts a country wedding in the lush outdoors. Look at the young couple kicking up their heels. Andreotti creates movement and alacrity while taking us back in time. I love how t...

Lady with a Bouquet, 1890 Born February 13, 1861 in Hartford, Kentucky, Charles Courtney Curran was an American painter and illustrator. He is known for his graceful and elegant paintings of women in natural surroundings with vibrant use of light and colour. His work has a highly feminine sensibility and is sometimes criticized for its sentimentality, but Curran's appreciation of both interiors and nature, light and sky, and beauty in its most unpretentious and natural form makes him worthy of study. In Lady with a Bouquet , Curran turns a quiet moment of a woman's love of flowers into a thing of beauty herself. I don't think I've ever seen a painting with a green palette used in this way before. The folds of the woman's jacket are just right, not overstated or too simple, painted with a light stroke to emphasize texture yet with some of the underpainting visible in the shadows. The way her arm raises up to smell the bouquet, and the shape o...

Open Air Interior, 1892 Born on January 4, 1866 in Barcelona, Ramon Casas i Carbó was a Spanish portrait painter and graphic designer. He was a contemporary of Santiago Rusiñol , both founders of the Spanish art movement modernisme . Where Santiago painted pensive interiors and moody landscapes, Casas focused more on the portrait and figure with a penchant for costume and posture. His palette often consists of more muted tones with vibrant color accents. Casas enjoyed a lengthy and prominent career throughout Europe and South America where he often exhibited in shows with his friend Rusiñol. In Open Air Interior above, Casas encapsulates a quiet moment outdoors during tea time. I love these kind of paintings for their calm visual intensity. The way that man sits in his chair, lost in thought while his wife carefully stirs her tea...this is the kind of mindfulness in the subjects that makes us, the viewer, envision ourselves in this scene. Casas paints the far ...

Mother, 1893 Elin Kleopatra Danielson-Gambogi was born September 3, 1861 in southwest Finland. She moved to Helsinki for her early art education then travelled and studied in Paris and finally Florence, Italy under a scholarship for a year until she moved to northern Italy in a small village called Antignano where she met her husband, painter Raffaello Gambogi . Elin only lived to the age of 58, but in her short time produced a solid, diverse body of work that embraces the individuality and strength of women and nature. Her broad spectrum and saturation of colors is fascinating in that she was equally drawn to many different kinds of light and all the effects they produce. In Mother above, Elin captures a quiet, tender moment with a palette of earth colours, greys and white. Love how that window is painted in thick, impasto strokes of almost pure white that fade as she scumbles the edges to simulate transparent drapes—an absolutely brilliant effect. Elin...

Man with the Cat (Henry Sturgis Drinker), 1898 Born on May 1, 1855, Cecilia Beaux was an American portrait artist from Philadelphia. Often compared to John Singer Sargent for her loose brushwork, Beaux studied in Paris under Tony Robert-Fleury and William-Adolphe Bouguereau to craft a style that was distinctly her own. Beaux developed a less formal sensibility than Sargent, except in her commissioned portraits, yet she maintains a human warmth in her subjects that is more spontaneous at times, whereas Sargent composed his paintings with an austere elegance. Where Sargent experimented with light and costume Beaux held an empathy with her sitters that reveals a more relaxed style of portraiture. Beaux was known to be a very independent and headstrong woman who lived a full life with many lovers yet never lost her sensitivity for her subjects. In Man with the Cat above, Beaux takes a rather ordinary pose and through her incredible brushwork transforms this painting into magic. He...