Perhaps because I was extremely stressful for a long time, I was deeply moved when I stood in front of Rodin’s “The three shades”, a part of “The gates of hell”, in the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco. I saw his sculptures of Balzac and Hugo here again. I was more interested in Camille’s status works, which revealed her sensation and obsession.
I was painting water lily before this trip. I did not follow the instruction given from Mr. Chung, the teacher of the painting class; instead, I intended to draw my lilies in cruel coldness under the moonlight. Therefore, I had already applied dark colors onto the lilies as well as the background. While I was looking at Monet’s water lilies, I thought to make my lilies brighter, and use straight vivid colors with black contour as he did.
I never paid much attention to Italian paintings even to those in the glorious Renaissance age, no matter how graceful and harmonious they look. But, I was still amazed by the fact that the color of velvet dresses (in particular, blue) can be preserved for several hundred years. As compared with other’s portraits, Da Vicci’s are more active in their facial expressions. I later found I had the same comments in my notebook that I made in Louvre a year later.
I also learned about some artists that I did not pay attention to before. Parmigianino (Italy, 1503-40) has several impressive works. His portraits are similar to those of Rembrandt. Hans Holbein (German, 1497-1543). His “Christina of Demark” is reminiscent of “The lady with a parrot” by Manet. Christina was dressing in black whereas Manet’s lady was in white. Joachim Beuckelaer (Flemish, ca.1534-1574) had a series of huge paintings that illustrate the life of his age I was also interested in his still-life.
History
Due to the excavation of Pompe (~1748 A.D.), antiques prevailed and stimulated the neoclassical arts. This is exemplified by David’s paintings and some detailed still lives of other artists during the time of empire revolution in France. “Symbolism” gave implications or deeper meanings of the subjects; for example, poppy means death and bird means soul. A representative painting is “Ophelia” (a woman in Shakespeare’s Hamlet) by John E. Millais (1892-96). I also paid some attention to another painting, “Mariana”, who dresses in blue. Mariana is from Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure. These paintings belong to the Pre-Raphaelites, and have hidden meanings in each subject.
It appears that English painters in the 18th-20th centuries were somehow neglected, since French impressionism was overwhelming and spread all over the world. However, I guess such geographic separation led a more independent development of English painting. Nevertheless, Courbet, like French fellows, started to challenge the establishment and stressed realism over idealism via direct observation instead of conceptualization.
Some artists were impacted by the 2nd world war and therefore returned to traditional motifs to pursue peace and reconstruction. Some, instead, turned to destruction and created Surrealism. Following, austere colors and flattened shapes were used in Cubism.
Techniques
I particularly like impressionism paintings. While I was looking at those paintings, I took the notes regarding techniques used by impressionists. Sisley often captured natural effects by his sensitive brushwork and colors. Degas used pastel in a number of his oil paintings. Manet often uniformed settings, colors and strokes, but he still had some paintings with exceptionally loss brushwork. Monet painted fog by covering white onto the background. He used vivid colors such as pink and yellow for autumnal leaves and used palette knife to make the grey light priming in the tree. Cezanne used hatched brushstrokes to unify the meadow and used short parallel strokes for the foreground. For the subjects such as trees and clouds, he used strokes at different angles. I guess Cezanne’s short strokes inspired later painters who used spots.
I made a comparison among Renoir, Pissaro and Cezanne. Renoir used active and bright colors, but his portraits appear to lack deepness. Pissaro applied simple and light colors on his scenery paintings. Cezanne had slightly wilder brushstrokes.
Painters
Vermeer (1632-1675)
I love blue in Vermeer’s and Modigliani’s woman portraits. Why was Vermeer very sensitive to blue? Is this because he stayed in Delft for a period of time? Vermeer’s blue is tranquiller, while Modigliani’s is more melancholy. I also guess Vermeer had influenced on Hammershoe (1864-1916).
Manet (1832-1883)
He is my most favorite artist. I have been deeply attracted by the spirit of his model in “The Woman with a Parrot” I have visited her again and again at the Metropolitan Museum. Olympia appeared to be transmigrated from the models of Velazquez’s portraits and Tizian’s Venus of Urbino several centuries ago. She is my “Mona Lisa”.
Fantin-Latour (1836-1904)
He was a realist painter. I like his still-lives. He did not always emphasize the details of the subjects (such as flowers) as did the artists in the neoclassical age.
Sisley (1839-1899)
His brushwork was particularly energetic and sketchy which gave the picture a sense of immediacy. A kind of lyric elements is particularly embedded in his works. Manet had a subject similar to that of Sisley, in which Manet used short brushwork to create light and atmospheric effects.
Constable (1776-1837)
Although I knew Constable but his paintings never left anything in my mind. Constable was an English Romantic painter. His works, and belong to romantic naturalism are comparable to Turner’s. The special exhibition in Tate showed a number of his oil-paintings. Many practice works were juxtaposed with the final ones. From such an display we could learn how he painted. He emphasized natural elements a lot. The sky often occupies more than half of the canvases. However, he still used very tiny and fine brushwork to paint the trees and meadows. When his wife was ill, his brushwork became more turbulent and made the sky stormy. His English rural subjects attracted a number of local people to visit.
Tuner (1775-1851)
Tuner was a painter and a poet; his subjects included landscape, history and genesis. He produced many works of sea, which all look very contemporary and very different from those by the artists in his era. I like “Norham castle at sunrise”, in which both the sky and sea white with a little pale yellow are and the castle is particularly highlighted by pale blue. The sun brings the sea white reflection in his several paintings. However, he also painted sea using dark colors. In those paintings, a combination of black, grey and white generates different atmospheric effects of the sky. His paintings tell the power of the nature. Similarly, some paintings with rural subjects are also in a dark tone. He explored the sublime effects to create stillness. Sublime gives the nature a dramatically obscure threatening and terrible atmosphere; it contrasts to the smooth and pleasurable things. It is somehow odd that Turner used beautiful and bright colors to describe some terrible accidents on the sea. In contrast, Constable used black and grey heavy clouds to emphasize the capricious and frightening sea; which more reflects the truth.
In Tate, I also looked at a number of small pieces of pencil sketch and watercolor by Turner with great interest. I like some of his paintings that are simple but very modern. Like his sketches, his watercolor works are also appreciable.
Some early 20th-century artists
This time, I leaned about some 20th-century English artists such as Duncan Grant, Vanessa Bell, and Clement Serneels. Grant (1885-1978) learned painting in Paris and was influenced by Matisse and Picasso. Vanessa Bell (1879-1961), the sister of Virginia, drew her Bloomsbury group of friends with simple but influential colors. I was impressed by a painting blue sea and white beach, with the subjects in black contour. Vanessa has been considered as a major contributor to British 20th century paintings. Grant was Vanessa’s lover and somehow he was also a homosexual. “Congolese woman” by Clement Serneels (1912-1991) has her eyes similar to Manet’s Olympia.
I saw the transformation of Kandinsky (1866-1944). His early works belong to impressionism. Later, he completely eliminated figure subjects. but his abstract works still hold some harmonious elements. However, from my point of view, the majority of contemporary art works completely lose aesthetics.
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