John Singer Sargent, Madame X, 1883-1884, oil on canvas, 82.1” x 43.3”, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Madame X is the painting that ultimately ruined John Singer Sargent’s reputation in the Parisian art society. It is a portrait of Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau, an American-born expatriate who was well known for her style and beauty. Sargent emphasized … Continue reading
Berthe Morisot, The Cradle, 1872, oil on canvas, 22" x 18.1", Musée d'Orsay, Paris, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
“It is important to express oneself… provided the feelings are real and are taken from your own experience.” Berthe Morisot Happy Mother’s Day from The Art Minute.
Vincent van Gogh, Gauguin’s Chair, November 1888, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, Image Courtesy of 1000Museums.com.
The original “tortured artist,” Vincent van Gogh, painted this chair during his good friend and fellow artist, Paul Gauguin’s, visit to his Yellow House in Arles, France, a place that van Gogh dearly hoped would become and artists’ collective someday. … Continue reading
© 2013 Sally Whitman Coleman, PhD. All rights reserved.
Alexander Gardner was one of three photographers who “documented” the American Civil War with collodion photography, a new type of photographic process that used glass negatives. Advantages of this photographic process were that the images were clear and crisp and … Continue reading
James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1, 1871, oil on canvas, 56.8
“An artist is not paid for his labor but for his vision.” James Abbott McNeill Whistler
Andō Hiroshige, Snow at Kambara from the Fifty-Three Stations of the Tōkaidō Highway series, c. 1833, woodblock print, 9.9” x 14.8”, Brooklyn Museum, New York, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Inspired by Hokusai’s success with his views of Mount Fuji, Japanese artist Andō Hiroshige created prints of the various locales in Japan capturing the mood and character of each setting. In his Snow at Kambara from his Fifty-Three Stations of … Continue reading
Oscar Gustave Rejlander, Two Ways of Life, 1857, albumen print, 31
Combination Print (noun) A printing technique in photography, popular in the nineteenth century, in which a photographer would compose a final image using more than one negative. To make the combination print, the photographer would expose only a section of … Continue reading
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, The Swing, 1876, oil on canvas, 36.2” x 28.7”, Musée d’Orsay, Paris, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Like other Impressionist artists, Pierre-Auguste Renoir painted outside, or en plein air, in order to capture the light and atmosphere of a split second. His painting entitled, The Swing depicts his brother, a fellow painter, his favorite model and a little girl … Continue reading
Winslow Homer, The Fox Hunt, 1893, oil on canvas, 38” x 68½”, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Winslow Homer, the American Realist painter, lived and worked in his studio at Prouts Neck in Scarborough, Maine for nearly thirty years before he died, creating many of his most memorable paintings such as The Fox Hunt. Today, this studio will … Continue reading
Vincent van Gogh, Vase with Twelve Sunflowers, 1888, oil on canvas, 35.8" x 28.3", Neue Pinakothek, Munich, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
He very well may have been. Click here to read a fascinating article about vision expert Kazunori Asad’s explosive hypothesis. You’ll find many good illustrations in the article.
Mahavairocana Mandala, Tibet, 19th century, painted wooden panel, 11 3/4" x 11 1/2", The James and Marilyn Alsdorf Collection, Photo by Cea., Creative Commons Attribution License via Flickr.
Mandala (noun) A cosmic diagram that presents Buddhist deities in schematic order. The cosmic Buddah, who presides over the universe, is at the center and attendants and other deities are in the surrounding areas in a diagrammatic structure. In this … Continue reading
Eugène Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People, 1830, oil on canvas, 128" x 102.4", Musée du Louvre, Paris, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Romanticism (noun) A style of art, first popular in the early nineteenth century, that attempted to elicit strong emotions from a viewer by presenting dramatic, exotic and sometimes frightening subjects. It was the stylistic antithesis of the rational clarity of … Continue reading