beside the easel

The Ghetto of Florence, 1882 Telemaco Signorini was an Italian artist born on August 18, 1835 in Florence. He was a prominent member of the Macchiaioli movement that arose in Italy during the 1850's roughly a decade before Impressionism began in France. From the Italian "macchie", meaning stain or patches, their work was heavily influenced by brushwork and the effects of light from Old Masters such as Rembrandt, Tintoretto and Velázquez. Italy during this time was under massive change and turmoil of the Risorgiomento , and for these artists the established themes of the past felt outdated and decided to turn their focus onto everyday life. The artists met at a local coffee shop called Caffè Michelangiolo , along with writers and patriots. Although their art has faded with time under the shadow of the Impressionists, their art was born of revolution and cultural rebirth, and as we will see here Telemaco was the signature artist of the group with a...

The Tame Magpie, 1708 Born on February 4, 1667 in Genoa, Italy, Alessandro Magnasco was a late Baroque painter, aka. il Lissandrino. His style was highly distinctive and idiosyncratic—elongated, muscular forms in brisk brushwork reminiscent of Tintoretto along with some of his contemporaries: Tintoretto, Sebastiano Ricci, Francesco Solimena, and Giovanni Pellegrini. His strong shadows and vibrant colors are reminiscent of a Venetian style, yet suggest an ominous influence of Piranesi in his architectural capriccios. What makes him interesting is his highly idiosyncratic subject matter that was not common during his era, making him a genre painter by definition, or Bamboccianti as some may have described him. Highly individualistic or Romantic, his work is interesting so let's take a closer look. In The Tame Magpie above, an odd collection of people gather round to watch a man attempt to teach a magpie to sing. Some appear to be drunk and destitute, the woman ...

Moret, Winter, 1895 Maurice Cullen was born on the 6th of June, in St. John's, Newfoundland. Cullen grew up in Montreal before studying in Paris in 1888. Deeply inspired by the Impressionism of the period, Cullen developed a brushwork and palette that is rich and vibrant compared to most artists in the genre. He often approached the bucolic landscape with a fresh eye and bold use of colour that makes his work easy to identify and fun to study. In Moret, Winter above, Cullen uses thick brushes and beautiful impasto strokes with dazzling colours. The reflections in the river have a magical glow of warm against cool hues. Take a closer look at these brushstrokes: detail,  Moret, Winter

The Organ Rehearsal, 1885 Henry Lerolle was born on October 3, 1848 in Paris. He studied at the popular 19th century Académie Suisse , whose alumni include Monet, Cézanne, Pissaro, and Manet amoung others, and under the private instruction of Louis Lamothe , who taught Degas and Tissot. Despite his incredible eye there seems to be a lack of productivity compared to his contemporaries yet what makes Lerolle unique is his dramatic use of light and bold colors. In The Organ Rehearsal above, we see one of the most breathtaking and underrated paintings of the 19th century. A singer rehearses a hymn at the Saint-François-Xavier in Paris to an open space of light— a brilliant composition that eschews any audience below completely and focuses on the main figures of the choir loft. This remarkable earth toned palette of browns, yellows and blacks, with a few accent colors, is superb. A couple of the standing figures off to the left have been painted in burnt sienna and y...

Birthday Wishes, ca. 1880 Born on the 24th of July, 1841 in Rome, Raimundo de Madrazo y Garreta was a Spanish realist painter. Coming from a long line of painters in the family, Raimundo moved back to Spain and studied at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid, then in Paris under Léon Cogniet. Raimundo stayed in Paris most of his life and like his family did mostly portraiture. Raimundo is distinctly unique from most in the way he paints fabric and drapery...elevating the women of his era in their beautiful shimmering dresses like very few artists in history. Despite this interesting niche Raimundo was a brilliant portrait painter of both men and women. Look closely in his brushwork and the influence of Velázquez is unmistakable, yet Madrazo has an ability to make those strokes dance. In Birthday Wishes above, the narrative is clear: a woman reads a card addressed to her from an admirer while holding a bouquet of flowers. The background wa...

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...

Flight into Egypt, 1685 Luca Giordano was born in Naples on October 18, 1634. Having studied under an aging Jusepe de Ribera, he earned a reputation for his versatility and speed, hence the nickname "Luca Fa Presto". He travelled all across Italy and also lived in Spain for a period, absorbing the influences of past painters to fuse his own style of vivid colors with dynamic compositions. Giordano is not easy to categorize in the sense that his art is not always consistent...at times the influence of Ribera is strong, while in other works there are touches of Titian, Veronese, Correggio, Carracci, Da Cortona and even Caravaggio. As with many artists, a deadline can often determine the quality of a work and in the case of Giordano his work can range from tightly rendered anatomy and figures in wonderful composition to brushwork and figures that seems so rushed it verges on amateurish. Giordano's philosophy was that a popular painter was a good painter and that color t...

Hide and Seek, 1877 James Jacques Joseph Tissot was born on October 15, 1836 on the western coast of France. A contemporary of Whistler, Degas and Manet, he reached a fair degree of success in his life yet strangely is almost forgotten today. Born twenty years before Sargent, Tissot would examine contemporary modern life while idealizing beautifully dressed women. Tissot had an eye for capturing moments and facial expressions that deserves particular attention because he did it without resorting to melodrama. He had an acute sense of light and composition, telling a story without having to a need to say a lot, yet still manages to captivate. Oddly enough, in his later years he suddenly became religious and his paintings took a mostly artificial turn, failing to capture the spontaneity and freshness of life that he was a master of. On occasion, he took biblical inspiration into anachronism and made modern-day interpretations of the bible, some of which are worth noting. In Hide ...