The River Severn, Alfred H. Vickers, Oil on Canvas, owned by they Amarillo Museum of Art given by Marilyn Seven and Ray Matney. The painting uses a luminism artistic style that is defined by “a 19th-century painting style emphasizing a unique clarity of light. . . . almost always landscapes or seascapes. . .” After reviewing Mr. Vickers’ other work, he is definitely a realist artist with many works that portray accurate size, color, and depictions of landscapes.
Mr. Vickers created this work by using oil paint on a canvas. His strokes follow the luminist style of hidden strokes with mixed hues. The subject is stated obviously in the title as the work is about the serene and beautiful view of the River Severn as it continues towards a mountainous backdrop and eventually disappears.
Along the far left bank you see a single brick red chimney with a low roof as light wafts of smoke drift toward the left. In the bottom right corner, we see a bit of the bank the perspective is from and bits of grass are also leaning to the left, so one is given the picture of a nice day with at least slight breeze. Towards the center of the painting, you can see large boulders, smoothed, rising out of the river. Far into the distance, past the bank of the river, onto a higher level of the valley area, you see small gathers specks and shapes that represents a small mountain village.
The structure of the painting fits the example given on page 58 of open composition “in which the eye can wander off the canvas or escape the frame, as disunified.” perfectly. The line structure deals with curved lines only, the focus being the center of the water. If focus is shifted from the water to the surrounding area, it is not without effort. The subject of th...
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...as the mountains appear less detailed but accurate size across the back. Sizes of objects definitely lends itself to the perspective with larger objects being close and smaller less detailed objects in the distance.
Very little information is available on the English artist, but compared to his other works, one would assume that the intent was delivered every time. Alfred H. Vickers continued painting landscapes and waterscapes with the same luminism technique and it took him quite far.
Works Cited
"Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History." John Frederick Kensett: Hudson River Scene (07.162). N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Mar. 2014.
The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica. "Luminism (painting)." Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d. Web. 31 Mar. 2014.
Sporre, Dennis J. Reality through the Arts. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2013. Print.
Claude-Joseph Vernet’s oil on canvas painting titled Mountain Landscape with an Approaching Storm was created in 1775, and it is currently located in the European Art Galleries (18th- 19th Century North) 2nd Floor at the Dallas Museum of Art. It is a large-scale painting with overall dimensions of 64 1/2 x 103 1/4 in. (1 m 63.83 cm x 2 m 62.26 cm) and frame dimensions of 76 1/8 x 115 1/4 x 4 3/4 in. (1 m 93.36 cm x 2 m 92.74 cm x 12.07 cm). Vernet creates this piece by painting elements from nature and using organic shapes in order to create atmospheric effects, weather and different moods. This piece primarily depicts a landscape with a rocky mountainous terrain and villagers scrambling to an upcoming storm.
The Appalachian Mountains in the nineteenth century landscapes are often depicted in a grand, glorious, and often spiritually uplifting form. The Hudson River School artists painting in the romantic style engages viewers to tell a story through naturally occurring images as well as interior knowledge of the times at hand.
At the left-bottom corner of the painting, the viewer is presented with a rugged-orangish cliff and on top of it, two parallel dark green trees extending towards the sky. This section of the painting is mostly shadowed in darkness since the cliff is high, and the light is emanating from the background. A waterfall, seen originating from the far distant mountains, makes its way down into a patch of lime-green pasture, then fuses into a white lake, and finally becomes anew, a chaotic waterfall(rocks interfere its smooth passage), separating the latter cliff with a more distant cliff in the center. At the immediate bottom-center of the foreground appears a flat land which runs from the center and slowly ascends into a cliff as it travels to the right. Green bushes, rough orange rocks, and pine trees are scattered throughout this piece of land. Since this section of the painting is at a lower level as opposed to the left cliff, the light is more evidently being exposed around the edges of the land, rocks, and trees. Although the atmosphere of the landscape is a chilly one, highlights of a warm light make this scene seem to take place around the time of spring.
Joseph Mallord William Turner, 1775-1851, born the son of a London Barber and Wigmaker, is considered one of the greatest European artists of the 19th century. Turner, the English romantic landscape painter, watercolourists and printmaker, was regarded as a controversial and revolutionary figure by his contemporaries despite his training being similar to other artists of the time. His work ‘Walton Bridge’, Oil on Canvas 1806-10, reflects much of his training as a young artists as well as his well-known Romantic style. In this essay I will follow the beginnings of Turners artistic life, showing how his influences, training and opinions surrounding landscape painting have influenced his work ‘Walton Bridge.’ I will further explore how art critics, fellow artists and the wider public of the 19th Century received ‘Walton Bridge’ and his Landscape paintings in general.
Also, I thought that the trees seemed impossibly long and unbelievably tall. They looked like they could go up and up forever. I stared long and hard trying to figure out how tall they must actually be. The areas where the trees were seemed higher than the stream. So, that the land actually looked like somewhat of a "u" shape. I think that it could be some type of valley. I thought the piece, in its entirety, was exceptionally painted and insanely beautiful. After, leaving it I felt inspired.
... study for the overall concept they appear rather as abstract patterns. The shadows of the figures were very carefully modeled. The light- dark contrasts of the shadows make them seem actually real. The spatial quality is only established through the relations between the sizes of the objects. The painting is not based on a geometrical, box like space. The perspective centre is on the right, despite the fact that the composition is laid in rows parallel to the picture frame. At the same time a paradoxical foreshortening from right to left is evident. The girl fishing with the orange dress and her mother are on the same level, that is, actually at equal distance. In its spatial contruction, the painting is also a successful construction, the groups of people sitting in the shade, and who should really be seen from above, are all shown directly from the side. The ideal eye level would actually be on different horizontal lines; first at head height of the standing figures, then of those seated. Seurats methods of combing observations which he collected over two years, corresponds, in its self invented techniques, to a modern lifelike painting rather than an academic history painting.
Stokstad, Marilyn. Art History. New York: Prentice Hall Inc. and Harry N. Abrams Inc. 1995.
The first thing to notice about this painting is how incredibly involved and realistic the brushwork is. The couple’s faces are so delicately rendered. Every wrinkle is visible and every hair strand is in it’s place. The soft folds and patterns of their clothing, and the grain of the vertical boards on the house, are highly developed and reveal Wood’s incredible attention to detail. The man, especially, appears to be nearly photorealistic.
The second painting was by George W. Bellows and named Shoghead. This painting brought a sense of ease and relaxation. I can picture myself on the top of the mountain listening to the waves crash on the sides. The open countryside topped by the clouds give the painting a sense of realism. The extremely bright blue water stands out the most, though the focal point is not clear. There is not an excessive use of paint. It is as if Bellows caked it on his brush and made quick short strokes. The use of such dark colors on the hill is a mystery. The terrain has a roughness that makes the painting come to life. The artist did a great job of showing the depth. If I had to guess, he was influenced by Picasso’s work because of the extensive use of thick point.
We can see a clear representation of the impressionist that tended to completely avoid historical or allegorical subjects. In this painting, Monet’s painted very rapidly and used bold brushwork in order to capture the light and the color; include relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes. An insistence on what Monet called “a spontaneous work rather than a calculated one” – this in particular accounts for the sketchy and seemingly unfinished quality of the Impressionist paintings. In the texture, he played with the shadow and light and created variation in tone, he employs patches of depth and surface. The light in the painting come from back to the windmill, it is a light shines softly behind the houses and the windmill. He was shown each brushstroke in the painting. Balance is achieved through an asymmetrical placement of the houses and the most important the
In order to show the terrain and its depth, Hassam created a linear perspective. With the vanishing point being between the trees that the road runs through, everything seems to get smaller the closer it gets to that point in the painting. The trees along the road go from recognizable objects to more blurry dabs of color. Hassam also created a sense of depth by using vertical placement. Everything in the lower part of the painting seems closer because it is so much bigger and more detailed, while everything on the top part of the painting seems much smaller and further away. Also, the use of color helps show the depth in this picture, because the trees that are closer to the bridge are not as dark as those that are in the upper part of the painting and that is because items that are further away from us appear to be darker so Hassam used this realistic coloring to further the sense of depth in his
Gardner, Helen, and Fred S. Kleiner. Gardner's Art Through the Ages: The Western Perspective. N.p., 2014. Print.
This composition titled Rocky Mountain, Lander‘s Peak was created by Albert Bierstadt. The dimension of this painting is 73 1/2 x 120 3/4 inches. His composition is 2-D, it is 2-D because you can‘t walk around this or feel it. The texture of this composition is visual. It is visual because they used oil instead of paint , therefore you can only feel the flat paper. In the middle ground of his painting he used lighting from the mountains. Which he used cool colors to give light to the water fall. The water fall is where it bring the focus of the eye of the person. Albert Bierstadt used vertical lines on the mountains, some trees trunks. His mood for this composition is it is filled with energy, full of motion, and life. His composition has analogous
Claude Monet is often considered one of greatest most dedicated of the Impressionist painters. His aim was to catch the light and atmosphere, something that was scarcely done before. He enjoyed painting outdoors and developed a free and spontaneous painting technique. His brushwork is remarkably flexible and varied. He often changed his technique, sometimes broad and sweeping other times dappled and sparkling.
Kleiner, Fred S. Gardner’s Art through the Ages: The Western Perspective. Vol 2.13th ed. Boston: Wadsworth/ Cengage Learning, 2010.