American Art History Gallery
Le Grands Boulevards,
Paris
Childe Hassam
1897
Mother and Daughter,
Both Wearin Large
Hats
Mary Cassatt
Early Morning
Robert Bruce
Crane
Tyroler
Frank Duveneck
Childe Hassam was one of America's foremost
Impressionist painters. The Impressionists were
interested in the workings of color and light
rather than line and form. First, they understood
that colors change depending upon the quality
of light upon them. They also understood that
color was not actually a uniform quality. Consequently, they tended to use broken brushwork
- short, choppy dabs that placed colors side by
side for the eye to mix rather than blending the
color on the palette first and filling in a form.
This sometimes led to what were considered unconventional colors representing commonplace
objects, such as purple shadows.
Mary Cassatt has simplified elements in her
Impressionist painting in order to get to the essence of her subject. First, notice the flat planes
of color – she has avoided traditional Western
linear perspective in this piece; the two characters seem to have no depth between them and
the background is two broad planes of color,
providing a negative space that focuses attention
wholly on the subject of the painting.
One of the techniques in the painting by
Crane is its focus on the element of texture.
Texture refers to the surface quality or “feel”
of a work of art. It can be actual, in which it is
tactile, or virtual, in which it is suggested by the
way the artist has painted something through
cross-hatching or other techniques. In this case,
we’re dealing with actual texture in the form of
impasto. Impasto is paint thickly applied with a
brush or palette knife so that it “peaks” up above
the surface of the painting. Impasto can only be
accomplished with oil or acrylic paints and was
particularly popular among the Expressionists.
By the end of the 19th century, artists could
no longer be satisfied with a realistic depiction of
a person for posterity; photography could do that
more effectively, cheaply, and quickly. Instead,
figurative painting was becoming an exploration
of psychological states, an examination of character rather than a rendition of facial features.
Duveneck achieves his character study largely
through his use of chiaruscuro, referring to the
use of bold contrasts between light and dark in an
artwork. Chiaruscuro is an Italian term meaning
literally “clear-dark”. Usually this is presented as
a positioning of a light source within a painting
that throws one side of the subject into sharp
relief and the other into shadow, as we see in the
two sides of the subject’s face in this painting.
Remington Gallery
Like many late 19th century artists, Frederic Remington began his professional career as an illustrator.
His works had to be copied by engravers and printed
in black and white for magazines and books. Creating the works in grisaille made the engraver’s job
Don't Nobody Hurt easier. Grisaille is painting solely in tones of gray. It
was originally done in order to imitate sculpture, but
Anybody Said
over time its use spread. The ability to render scenes
Speciman Jones
Frederick Remington using such a limited palette was a revealing test of a
painter’s draftsmanship when color couldn’t fudge
1895
his delineation of form.
South Wing Corridor
The
Painting
Techniques
Self-Guided Tour
This work by Robert Addison is using the favored
medium of the Middle Ages, tempera, to produce a
painting in a style known as neo-realism. Tempera
can be a difficult medium, largely because the binder,
egg yolk, dries so quickly that only small sections
can be painted at a time. The advantages to this are
New Orleans Facade that each stroke dries almost instantly so layers can
No. 1
be built up quickly, and the artist can therefore also
Robert Addison
use some techniques traditionally associated with
1971
drawing, like hatching, which are not possible with
oil or watercolor. The egg yolk also provides a luminescent quality to the paint, adding a gold tone that
echoes natural light. However, mistakes are pretty
much irreversible and the paint can’t be reused, so
it’s a medium that takes not only precision but also
patience.
McCluskey's "Morning Glory" is an example of
photorealism and is done in acrylics, as are most of
the paintings produced today. The acrylic medium
was developed by combining pigments with a polymerized resin. It’s particularly popular because the
resulting paints are relatively quick drying, while still
allowing times for the correction of mistakes, as well
as being resilient and flexible. In short, it’s a very
forgiving medium, the dead opposite of tempera.
Morning Glory
J. McCluskey
1974
Himalyan Mountains,
Thyanboche Monestary, Peter Ellenshaw
1982
Ellenshaw Gallery
For decades, Peter Ellenshaw worked in the
film industry, convincing moviegoers that they
were seeing something they weren’t with his matte
backgrounds. When he saw something with the
might and majesty of the Himalayas, he just had
to make a painting on the same scale. Scale is the
actual size of a work of art and its components in
relationship to one another. Officially the largest
work we have at the Gallery, Himalyan Mountains,
Thyanboche Monestary is an homage to scale: the
three story monestary in the foreground is dwarfed
by the snow capped peaks. A similair sense of scale
is shared with Glacier in Alaska.
Mother and Daughter, Both Wearing Large Hats
Mary Cassatt
The R.W. Norton Art Gallery
4747 Creswell Ave
Shreveport, Louisiana 71106
318-865-4201
www.rwnaf.org
Artists begin painting by preparing the canvas
or board with a ground coating, which prevents
the paints from seeping through and produces
a smoother, even-colored surface on which to
paint. Once the surface is prepared, the artist
must mix his or her paints. Pigments were
bought or gathered, ground to the appropriate
degree, and mixed with a binder. The binder
determines the medium, such as oil, watercolor,
or tempura. After choosing his or her tools of
the trade, including brushes, a palette, and a
palette knife, the artist consults a color wheel
and begins to work.
Entryway
Landscape, Sunset
Asher Durand
1849
Sunset
George Inness
1865
Asher Durand was a follower of Thomas Cole
and a member of a group of landscape painters who would become known as the Hudson
River School. Every element of this painting is
designed to lead your eye to that sunset, a superb
example of linear perspective. Perspective is the
way in which objects are depicted on a two-dimensional surface or plane so that they give the
impression of height, depth, and relative position
– in other word, seem three-dimensional. Linear
perspective is a method in which lines, such as
those represented by scenery, are slanted inward,
eventually converging to a single point called a
vanishing point.
George Inness' painting uses more of an
atmospheric perspective rather than linear;
atmospheric perspective shows distance in a
painting by gradually changing the color and
tone of objects that are “farther away” from the
viewer. You can see how the elements become
darker and less defined in the background to
suggest distance. He is using a technique here
called sfumato, which allows tones and colors
to shade gradually into one another.
Red Roses and
Rosebuds
Martin Johnson
Heade
1880
Plums, Grapes
and Peaches
Severin Roesen
1860
19th C. Lifestyles and Leisure Gallery
View of
Philadelphia from
Belmont Plateau
Thomas Moran
1871
In this work, Thomas Moran uses the picture planes and landscape tricks to exemplify
the conflicting motifs of Manifest Destiny and
mourning a vanishing wilderness. In the foreground (the area of the painting that appears to
be closest to the viewer, usually at the bottom),
we see the beauty of the raw wilderness. In
the middleground, we see the wilderness converted to parkland. And in the background (the
area that appears farther away, usually at the
top of a painting), the encroaching urban face
of civilization. Again, a series of diagonal lines
on each side of the picture plane draw our eyes
toward the focal point of the painting which
is also the vanishing point for the perspective
– the city of Philadelphia.
Self Portrait
LMD Guillaume
The Pink Lady
Alfred Stevens
North Wing Corridor
The Bonheur Gallery
Like Moran, Martin Johnson Heade began as
a member of the Hudson River School. However,
Heade soon moved on to another movement known
as Luminism for its key attribute as described by
critic John I.H. Baur, “the unique sense of light that
seems to emanate from the painting itself.” Newly
developed synthetic colors were used to evoke light
through a variety of techniques, key among them a
technique known as scumbling. Scumbling is the
partial application of one layer of paint, usually a thin
layer of opaque, semi-opaque, or transparent color
over another area of the painting without completely
obscuring the underpainting. When you add a thin
layer of color over a brilliant white, for instance, you
can get the illusion of brightness or light diffusing
the color.
This particular painting is a still-life which refers to
any picture of arranged inanimate objects. Still-lifes
had become particularly popular among Dutch and
Flemish painters in the 18th century. Many still-lifes
were originally conceived as vanitas paintings. You
can see some of the elements typical of them in these
works by Severin Roesen. Vanitas paintings were
works in which wilting flowers, rotting fruits, or dead
fish, rabbits, or other game waiting to be prepared
for the kitchen were mixed in amongst fresh blooms
and fruits to remind the viewer of the transience of
life and his own mortality.
This is a painting by Rosa Bonheur of haymaking in Auvergne. We call it a genre painting
because these involve depictions of everyday life,
featuring people at work or play. In producing this
sort of genre work, Rosa was creating picturesque
painting; picturesque is a term used for artists
creating the charming, or lovely in scenes or ideas
without attempting to attain sublimity or “grand”
ideas. The Hudson River School, for example, was
trying to achieve grandeur. Rosa is not.
Le Fenaison en
Auvergne
Rosa Bonheur
1855
Russell Watercolor Gallery
Three Wise Men
Charles Russell
1920
American Art History Gallery
Olla Podrida Gallery
All the works so far have been oil paintings - pigments suspended in an oil binder. This self-portrait
by LMD Guillaume is a pastel. Pastels were originally created in 16th century Italy by mixing a base
of thick aqueous paste of white pigment with a glue
and the actual pigment color. The resulting colored
paste was molded into a stick and dried. Pastels were
great for drawing; the artist could produce more of
a line and use more drawing techniques than with
a brush. The downside of pastels was and remains
that they are weak in terms of bonding to the paper,
so pastel art is particularly fragile. That’s one of the
reasons why these works are framed behind glass.
There is a difference between portrait and figurative painting. Figurative painting involves the
depiction of people in various modes, but does not
always purport to be a particular individual; it often
involves models who are posing as historical figures or allegorical figures. A work is only a portrait
when it is meant to depict a particular, real person.
The painting by Alfred Stevens is not considered a
portrait because he is using a model to demonstrate
a type of woman in a particular costume and situation rather than a specific person. This is a figurative
painting, not a portrait.
Charles M. Russell, known for this cowboy
art, deviated from his typical theme with this large
watercolor. Watercolor is a type of paint which
was originally created by blending dry pigments
with gum arabic, granulated sugar, and water.
Watercolors are spread on paper with a wet brush
and when the water evaporates, the pigment is
held to the paper by the arabic and/or sugar binder.
Watercolors were a natural choice for a technique
Charlie uses here - negative space. Negative space
is the empty space in an artwork. In this case, the
broad planes of this negative space are used to
emphasize a sense of distance these men have
already traveled and also have yet to go.
Shadows on the
Dunes
Winslow Homer
1883
Winslow Homer was the first artist to make
watercolor a professional finished medium,
rather than a “practice” material. The most basic
technique of watercolor is the flat wash. First, the
watercolor paper is placed on a sloped surface,
then the chosen area of it is wetted. Pigment is
applied to the wet surface where it will spread
out along the wet area for complete coverage.
Once the wash is complete, it has to be left to dry
and even out. Then the painter can apply a glaze,
which is a thin, transparent layer applied over
the dried wash, adding layers until the desired
effect is achieved. When artists speak of working “wet in wet”, they are referring to applying
watercolor to a wetted sheet. The pigment diffuses
along the paper so soft undefined shapes result.
For crisp, hard-edged effects, the artist will use
a dry brush technique, in which a brush loaded
with pigment but little water is applied to a dry
sheet. So, in the background sky and ocean, we
can see Homer used a wash, and a little glazing,
most of the landscape proper is wet in wet using
dabs of color, but his sailboat is created with a
dry brush technique.