Realism is becoming popular once again in painting studios. This development is welcome but it’s also sobering. Looking at the growing number of realists demonstrates how much has been lost. Much of it is Impressionism-adjacent which is not a good path. And for many new realists, Sargent has an oversize influence, which is also a…
Category: Art history
aesthetics, Art history, Artists, Books, Reviews
Good art books: David to Delacroix, The Rise of Romantic Mythology
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Dorothy Johnson has written several books related to David and the Neoclassicists. David to Delacroix: The Rise of Romantic Mythology is probably her best work. I think about this little book a lot. Even though the Neoclassicists are best known for their Classically-inspired history paintings, Johnson reminds us that it was under their brush that…
aesthetics, Art history, Paintings, Politics, Uncategorized
Death of history painting
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At the end of the eighteenth century, art flowed along several currents. History painting, the primary current, was in its heyday and remained the undisputed champion until ‘history’ intruded into contemporary events with the French Revolution. This current continued into the middle of the nineteenth century with Delacroix. Another important current used myth to launch…
Amusement Park series, Art history, Drawings, materials, Paintings, Photography, Shop Talk
Amusement park series
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I visited Lake Erie’s preeminent amusement park, Cedar Point, five times this summer. I am using the thousands of photos that I took from these visits as reference material for my new series–Amusement Parks. I have 10 finished designs and I’ve started the drawings on several canvases. Yesterday, I finished the drawing for the first…
Art history, Art Museums, Artists, Cleveland, Paintings, video
Next YouTube video, Jacob van Ruisdael
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I enjoyed preparing my last video so much, I am charged-up to do another. In my last video about Jan van Goyen, I mentioned his fellow Dutch Golden Ager, van Ruisdael. I’ve got a lot of material about this artist so I’ve already started the next video. One benefit of visiting art museums regularity is…
Art history, Artists, Cleveland, YouTube
New YouTube video about Jan van Goyen and the Dutch Golden Age
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I published a new video on YouTube about the artist Jan van Goyen. As I’ve done with other videos, I used a painting in Cleveland’s Museum of Art as the starting point. In the video, I analyze van Goyen’s View of Emmerich in the Cleveland Museum of Art, and discuss van Goyen’s career, the Dutch…
anecdotes, Art history, Bio, materials, Uncategorized
Reader gift
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For me, visiting the Utrecht store on 3rd Ave. in Manhattan was like going to Disneyland. An entire store dedicated to art supplies! Utrecht along with Pearl and other independent icons like David Davis made New York City a mecca for working artists. Those days are gone. Pearl closed and when Utrecht’s founders, Harold and…
aesthetics, Art history, Artists, Uncategorized
Protectors
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Some artists have goals similar to my own. Among these artists are some I find especially sympathetic–my protectors. My protectors are the artists from whom I learn the most. My protector list is different from the artists that influenced me when I was young. My youthful influences include Rodin, Monet, and van Gogh. Of these,…