beside the easel

There is nothing in all the world more beautiful or significant of the laws of the universe than the nude human body. Robert Henri Charles Louis Müller , A Standing Female Nude Leaning Against an Arch, ca.1864 Once again I decided to talk about some Old Master drawings and delve into the thinking behind how these drawings may have been created and the knowledge of the artist. In the above drawing by Müller, done in sanguine with white chalk highlights, the figure is drawn from a low view-point, with her body twisting toward her left side while resting on one knee. Note how Müller alternates the bent right leg with the bent left arm to create dynamic contrast. The right arm is also foreshortened and partially in shadow. Expressing power and femininity, this is a study that is Renaissance in spirit, even Mannerist, revealing the female nude as sculptural yet always graceful. Anton Raphael Mengs , Seated male nude viewed from the back, 1755 One of several Academic nu...

Hercules and Omphale, 1724 Born in Paris, 1688, François Lemoyne was a Rococo painter with flowing compositions, dramatic light, beautiful colors and graceful figures. A busy artist who was one of the many First Painters to the King of France, his tenure at Versailles (1736–1737) earned him the nickname of "new Lebrun". After his grievous death in 1737, the position as Premier peintre du Roi (Painter to the King) would be vacant for nine years before being replaced by Charles-Antoine Coypel. Lemoyne's legacy to the Rococo is his strong ties to the Baroque while embracing the sensuality of a new art movement that was unequivocally French. In Hercules and Omphale , Lemoyne uses body language and symbolic objects to tell the story here. Omphale is standing yet leaning to the right to depict domination while Hercules is seated, his powerful legs apart and at angles that point directly to her. Note the sumptuous skin tones. In the myth, Hercules is punished for killing...

The Soothsayer, 1740 Born on February 13, 1682 in Venice, Giovanni Battista Piazzetta was a Rococo painter. He studied with Crespi while in Bologna and quickly evolved into his own style of Venetian Neo-Baroque Rococo with dark colors and graceful figures. Although a contemporary of Ricci and Tiepolo, Piazzetta remains a unique artist for his use of light and figures that seems to defy the lighter Rococo era of his time. A teacher and co-founder of the Venetian Academy of Fine Arts Scuola di Nudo (I would love to attend a school like that!) Piazzetta would prove to leave a lasting legacy of Rococo genius, even if under-appreciated today. His drawings reveal an understanding of character and charm in the human face, especially in his studies of children, that is unmistakably Piazzetta. In The Soothsayer above, Piazzetta melds warm and cool together with distinctive warm light and deep shadows. Note how he achieves the darks in the background with deep browns that transition into...

The Resurrection of Christ by Paolo Veronese, ca.1570 Beside the Easel is now over a year old, and having written about and analysed well over 80 Old Masters from the Renaissance to Academic, I will continue to focus on techniques and methods of great artists but with more comparison and observation. Up until now I have focused on celebrating artist birthdays and their work, but moving forward I will be also writing about art books, color palettes and color, and interesting blogs to showcase some current ideas and methods.

Self portrait Born March 8, 1869 in London, George Spencer Watson was an English Realist portrait and figure artist. Watson was a member of the prestigious Royal Institute of Oil Painters and the Royal Society of Portrait Painters , whose famous alumni include artists such as Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Henri Fantin-Latour, John Singer Sargent, James Whistler and Auguste Rodin. By the time his career was in full-swing the 20th century changed art in a way that punished Realist painters and Watson's talents were not appreciated as much as they could have been had he been born a mere fifty years earlier. Although obscure considering the company he was in, Watson had a uniquely modern eye for the portrait and especially the female nude that is definitely worth looking at. In his Self-Portrait above, Watson portrays himself as an artist with uncanny self-awareness, studying himself with cautious scrutiny by the way he leans forward. Note how tightly rendered his head is, and how the...

St Sebastian, ca.1660 Born on 24 February, 1613 in Taverna , a small town in Catanzaro of southern Italy, Mattia Preti was a Baroque painter who worked in both fresco and large-scale paintings. Preti is the only major artist of success to come out of the region south of Naples, the only city besides Rome that was a hotbed of Baroque talent at the time. Having been influenced by Caravaggio and taught by Battistello Caracciolo , Preti would become a major force in Italian Baroque art, although today his name is not entirely recognized except in Italy. Preti's style is characterized by chiaroscuro with dynamic anatomy and dramatic angles, and a gift for facial expressions. I had the pleasure of observing St. Sebastian at the Capodimonte Museo in Naples back in 2010, and I have to say it is not only one of Preti's masterpieces, it is a triumph of Baroque art. Choosing a low view-point, Preti's brilliant composition is created by a sagging figure with each limb bendin...

The Portrait of a Sergeant, 1874 Born on February 21, 1815 Jean-Louis Ernest Meissonier was born in Lyon, France. A Classical painter known primarily for his military themes, Meissonier is someone who, within his narrow subject matter, shined as a storyteller through his incredible understanding of people and body language. His portraiture and studies of people have an insight that is absolutely captivating.Where Renaissance and Baroque artists were constrained to focus on the drama and exaltation of religion, by this era the Naturalism of everyday life is what distinguished France as the last great country of art. Meissonier was one of those great Masters. Note the use of perspective in The Portrait of a Sergeant above. Meissonier uses a warm, brick covered wall with a yellowish-grey cobble-stone pavement to frame these soldiers in their greenish-yellow uniforms, who are fascinated by the artist sketching the sergeant. Meissonier also creates depth by varying the distance and...

Self-Portrait of the Artist holding a Palette, ca.1635 Giovanni Francesco Barbieri , known as Guercino was born on February 8, 1591 in Cento, a small city near Ferrara. He is one of the great masters of the Italian Baroque and poet of painters. Noted for his speed and efficiency, Guercino also worked in a number of mediums with equal passion whether ink, chalk, charcoal, or oils. His nickname, which means 'little cross-eyes' in Italian, derives in part from an apocryphal childhood accident where he supposedly awoke from a deep sleep as a child from a loud scream that caused his eyes to cross. Another story says something was thrown into his eyes. At any rate, he was self-taught as an artist from as early as nine years old and by his early teens was discovered by the eldest of the Carracci where he would spend some time at the Accademia Degli Incamminati before venturing out on his own. Despite his apparent 'handicap', his vision and talent would make him a giant t...