beside the easel

Sortie Du Maitre, 1914 Born December 16, 1832 in Paris, Jules Worms was an illustrator, lithographer and painter. Worms is considered a relatively obscure artist by today's standards—he has no Wikipedia article in English—but his craft nonetheless deserves merit for its freshness and spontaneity, attention to background detail, and his particular use of color and light. In Sortie Du Maitre above, translated as the Exit of the Master, infidelity was a recurring motif in his paintings and as we see here the wife helping her husband with his coat while turning to admire a more handsome man—possibly the landlord or boss—who is coming down the stairs making an exit. Note the incredible body language and storytelling ability of Worms here in how natural the figures are, not posed at all. The expression on her face is as natural as real life. Note the indignation and jealousy in her husband's face, in contrast to the admiring glance of the "master" at his wife...

Italian landscape, ca. 1645 Born around 1615 in Utrecht, Netherlands, Jan Dirksz Both was a painter and etcher whose dramatic landscapes influenced Dutch painting deeply. Both spent time in Rome and Venice where he discovered several Masters, including the vibrant landscapes of Claude Lorrain. Where Lorrain used Classicism heavily in his paintings, with Roman architecture and figures, Both concentrated more on the luminous effects of light and elevated trees to a noble kind of natural architecture. Both also created atmosphere and mood with perspective in a way that not only depicts a view, but invites us to share a beautiful moment of fleeting sunlight. In Italian landscape above, Both leaves much of the foreground in shadow, something most landscape painters would never do. Note how the light is coming from the far left, beyond the frame of the painting. Look at how it falls across the rustic path—Both creates a sliver of light where his figures stand, on horseback, pos...

A Rainy Day in New York City, 1905 Born in St. Louis, Missouri on August 15, 1864, Paul Cornoyer was an American Impressionist painter. He studied under a scholarship at the Académie Julian in Paris under Jules Lefebvre and Benjamin Constant before eventually settling in New York years later, where his strong French influences would surface to bring about his own vivid style. Cornoyer had the uncanny ability to meld mood and color together in a way that made his architectural settings seem to speak aloud. In this post I'd like to talk about a few of his works. In A Rainy Day in New York City above, Cornoyer uses reflections and strong darks to balance warm and cool colors under an overcast sky that, despite being grey, actually has many subtle colors. The use of one-point perspective also leads our eye toward very cool distant buildings and an empty sky that brings our eye back to the architecture and pedestrians. Note the use of variance in edges, how the foreground tree i...

L'Atelier du peintre, ca.1740 Born November 25, 1699 in Southern France, Pierre Subleyras was a late-Baroque painter. At the age of 29 he won a scholarship to study in Rome and remained there for the rest of his life painting mainly alterpieces and portraiture. Subleyras had a unique eye for composition, color and figure arrangement, along with an astute sense of perception and presence in his portraits that is distinctively his own. One can see the heavy Italian influence yet there is also a clear French pride in his work, and most often he is an eclectic blend of the two, which makes him very interesting to study as a truly underrated and brilliant painter who had an amazing range. In the painting above in his studio, we see a self-reflexivity that is almost Post-Modern, showing himself painting some of his most famous works as if some kind of greatest hits album cover or something. He is poking fun of himself as an artist carelessly mass-producing work as if in a factory...

A portrait is a picture in which there is something not quite right about the mouth. —John Singer Sargent Portrait of Sarah Choate Sears, 1899 Probably one of the most renown portrait artists of the last century, John Singer Sargent was born on January 12, 1856 in Florence, where his American family lived at the time. Sargent's family travelled extensively throughout his childhood, and it was his Italian influences, namely Tintoretto for his vivid brushwork that would have a lasting impact on the young artist. When Sargent trained under Carolus-Duran, a up-and-coming French painter from Lille, he taught Sargent about alla prima and the lively brushwork of Velázquez and drawing with the brush. This would lead Sargent to travel himself to Spain and study Velázquez up close, subsuming him into what would become Sargent's trademark sort of 'tight' impressionism that is often imitated today by portraitists. Despite this loose and vivacious brushwork Sargent...

A Couple Walking in the Citizens' Hall of Amsterdam Town Hall , ca. 1665 A contemporary of Vermeer yet not nearly as famous, Pieter de Hooch (pronounced Peter de HOHhuh) also known as Pieter de Hooghe was baptized on December 20, 1629— for some reason birthdates were not always recorded accurately or at all, as was the case with Vermeer also. Similar in style, it is not known whether they ever met or who influenced whom, although present day scholars believe it was Vermeer that influenced de Hooch. This genre of Dutch painting that explores everyday life, completely secular, is the one similarity they both have but if we look more carefully there are very distinct differences between these two Masters. And de Hooch, far from being the lesser of the two, is quite the contrary as we will see in these examples. De Hooch seems to have favored warm light and a warmer palette than Vermeer. In the above example, A Couple Walking in the Citizens' Hall of Amsterdam Town Hall ...

Belisarius, 1776 A Neoclassical painter from France, François-André Vincent was born on December 30, 1746. Known for being one of the founding members of the Académie des Beaux-Arts , Vincent's growing reputation would become eclipsed by another French NeoClassist who would define the era, Jacques-Louis David . Nonetheless, Vincent deserves merit for his use of color, his draftsmanship, his portraiture, and his distinct visual narrative. In Belisarius , a former soldier carefully eyes the legendary general as he offers his donation of charity. He recognizes him, but says nothing as Belisarius is a blind beggar, once a formidable general who served under Justinian defending Italy from the Goths. Note the difference in color saturation between the soldier and Belisarius, who is paler and downcast, yet still maintains a strength and quiet dignity. There is a complex arrangement of arms between the boy, Belisarius and the soldier...note how they form an "x" between the...