Month: March 2017

Love Them Waterlilies A baleful side effect of being required to read those thick, interminable classics in high school is that we absorb the notion that high culture can only be equated with what is most dreary and difficult, and that we must discount what is accessible and pleasurable. Claude Monet (1840-1926) suffers especially from this…

Fitz Hugh Lane, early and late Contemplate the tranquility of this late piece by Fitz Hugh Lane (1804 – 1865).   It’s painted in glazes (thin, transparent layers). Oil paint grows increasingly transparent as it ages, which sometimes reveals details about how a work was executed. Here, for example, the background was painted first, then…

Harnett and Peto Last week’s post included pieces by William Harnett (1848-1892) and John F. Peto (1854-1907). Here we take another look. For many years their unfashionable work was thought to be by the same person, but there are lively differences between them.  Detail decisions make a huge difference in results. Harnett aims for the…

Newer and Older I don’t know whether in the pairings below the more recent artists were  influenced by the earlier ones, or whether it is simply that there are engaging subjects all around us that don’t change much from century to century. These aren’t the Great Themes (The Three Graces, the Last Judgment) in which…