beside the easel

Self-Portrait, 1887 Born March 3, 1853 in southern Netherlands, Vincent Van Gogh , the infamous Dutch Post-Impressionist artist, tortured soul and a key figure in Modern Art . Biographies abound in Van Gogh's dramatic and psychological personal life as a troubled man with mental health issues that lead to his own suicide at the young age of 37, but here I'd like to explore what makes Van Gogh unique as a painter. His brushwork and use of bold colors is the most expressive and powerful of arguably any artist in the history of Western Art. Although I cannot say I understand a lot of his work, in particular his portraits, flower arrangements and street scenes, nonetheless it is his use of color and paint that I find fascinating and worth delving further into. For those wishing to read more about his life, click here . Of his numerous self-portraits he painted, above is a legendary example of his idiosyncratic technique. Look up close and those seemingly neat arrangement of po...

Eglée barbouillant Silène de mûres pour le forcer à chanter l'histoire du monde, 1771 Born September 2, 1711 in Paris, Noël Hallé was a French painter and printmaker. Hallé is a lesser-known artist among his contemporaries yet his work exudes a poetry and drama that is distinctly French—he was the nephew of Jean Jouvenet . However his brushwork is sometimes loose and this loose style is reminiscent of Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini and Giuseppe Maria Crespi . Hallé's graceful use of figures and body language along with vivid color are what make him interesting to study. In the above painting, Hallé's Silenus is quite different than the usual portrayal by painters such as Rubens, who often depicted him as obese and disgusting. Here, Silenus is obviously drunk but in a very relaxed manner, yet exudes a certain Classical grace. I don't understand the entire context of this narrative but Eglee is a naiad who smears blackberry on his face in an attempt to extract his pr...

A fascinating look at the genius of Velázquez in this BBC documentary

Louis-Jean-François Lagrenée was born in Paris on December 30, 1724. A student of Carlo Van Loo, Lagrenée is a painter of pure French Rococo with beautiful skin tones and bright, sumptuous colors that are pleasing to the eye. In fact, Lagrenée is one of the most erotic painters of his day, rivaling even Boucher. It is his Classical DNA that makes him more interesting than other Rococo artists however because he combines solid anatomy and figures with expressive composition and unabashed color. His colors are purely emotional. A familiar theme in painting, Amor and Psyche above in the hands of Lagrenée becomes a sensual moment. Look at how Psyche gazes into his eyes, touching his cheek with her hand. Lagrenée is setting the scene for a passionate kiss that will take place only in our minds. Here Lagrenée reinterprets this mythology into an allegory of young love, with Cupid as a young man who has met the woman of his dreams. The way in which Lagrenée paints his wings also indicate...

The original painter of light, Rembrandt van Rijn was born on July 15, 1606 in Leiden, Netherlands. He is one of the most imitated painters in terms of brushwork, although his particular use of chiaroscuro is truly unique and personal. His etchings are also what make him one of the greatest in that genre, producing an enormous amount in his lifetime, and lastly, his self-portraits are among the most famous of any artist in history for their sincerity and penetrative insight. Of the many he painted the example above is one of his finest, in my opinion, for its execution and presence: he was 34 years old, towards the peak of his success. Years ago I watched the film of his life made in 1936 by Charles Laughton , and is still the best film I've seen on an artist to date. Laughton was perfect for the role. Danaë, ca.1636-47 Rembrandt's interpretation of this often painted mythological scene is intimate and real, and Danaë's body language is what makes this painting so ...

I remember when I was younger I had photocopied self-portraits of all my favourite artists tacked to the wall in my basement studio...stern black and white faces looking at me...it made me feel safe, like I was surrounded by the All-Stars of Art, encouraging me silently to get over making mistakes and get past them. It was great support for a self-taught artist! And I needed all the support I could get back then. When we think of self-portraits by famous artists, the usual suspects come to mind...Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Kahlo, or maybe Velazquez or Da Vinci, and it is interesting to note that the Renaissance was where the self-portrait really became popular. With the idea of the artist as more than just a faceless member of a guild (as was the case in the Middle Ages) artists began to study nature and, with better quality mirrors, themselves. This was not a conceit. The publicity machine back then was not quite as state-of-the-art as today, and I'm sure most people could not attach a ...

Last summer I did something quite ambitious, challenging...something I wasn't sure I could do...something that only after being in Italy for a month in the previous September would rouse my brain to attempt: I decided I needed to do an Old Master study. Up until this point I had done numerous sketches like most artists, but the extent of my practice was mostly visual. I went museum crazy all over Rome in 2010 and in the process I felt like I learned enough to move up to the next level. Somehow, the pastel work I had done made me want to give it a shot. I had found this image online from my usual research of Old Master Baroque paintings: Vision of St. Jerome, c 1627 Johann Liss was a German Baroque painter of the seicento, or 17th century, who lived in Venice for most of his career. Having been inspired by Caravaggio and the deep colors of Titian and Tintoretto he blended those styles into his own craft of drama, solid figures and intense color. St. Jerome has been a subject ...

La Cuoca, 1712 Giuseppe Maria Crespi also known as "lo spagnolo" (the spanish one) because his clothing apparently had a spanish style, is a unique painter both for his technique and subject matter. It's difficult to compare him to anyone from his period, (except for Alessandro Magnasco , who painted more dramatic landscapes) . His brushwork was quite loose, his figures in haunting chiaroscuro, and his relentless sense of experimentation are what make him fascinating to study. Several years back I remember looking at this painting of his at a local art exhibit: Allegory of the Arts, 1730 and I remember being hypnotized by it's pseudo-mannerist elegance, deep blues and Crespi's characteristic indistinct facial features. I love how the fold of her robes flow toward the canvas, along her wrist and curls back toward herself. Note how she is painting a sculptor sculpting (Pygmalion and Galatea) to pay tribute to that great art form. And the harp behind her represe...

The rape of Europa,1750 Another March 6th birthday I completely missed, this French Rococo genius Jean Baptiste Marie Pierre was another one of those painters who was appreciated in his day but waned in popularity afterwards. Although some didn't like him— Diderot thought he was arrogant and couldn't stand him— I find his work important enough to mention because of three things: 1.superb composition 2.great color harmony 3.graceful figures Pierre has a notably brighter palette than those of his contemporaries, who placed more emphasis on chiaroscuro due to the influence of Titian, than mere color. Also the portrait was becoming immensely popular at this time and the rise of pastel helped usher in this change, whereas Pierre painted mostly mythology and allegorical subjects. Pierre's shadows are thin and transparent, rarely dark except as a framing device around the figures. In the example above for Europa, Pierre creates a three-dimensional space by a sort of circu...

I don't think there is any other artist in history who is as well known for painting a massive fresco by himself.The loner. The genius. The perfectionist. The terribilitá. The homosexual (if he was indeed gay, which is still being debated). We think we know him, but we really don't know him at all. His genius was based on a solid training with a fanatical attention to anatomy. His perfectionism comes from a father who was probably pretty hard on him for most of his life. His personality was probably not as dramatic as history conveys him— in fact, I suspect he was quite introverted, preferring to observe rather than talk excessively. Just don't piss the guy off. Even so, the labours of his art reveal he had to have had an inordinate amount of patience, or he would not have been able to deal with the many projects from Pope Julius II and their problems. Although I do love sculpture very much, it's painting that I want to talk about in this blog, and since Michelangelo...