Innholdsfortegnelse for July/August 2023 i Artists Magazine

AN OCEAN OF IDEAS When I think of the ocean as a source of artistic inspiration, my mind goes immediately to seascape imagery—paintings of pounding waves and rocky shorelines or sprawling beaches with an endless expanse of blue water and sky. The 1860 pastel, Seascape With Open Sky (page 80), by Eugène Boudin (French, 1824–98), illustrates the more serene end of the seascape spectrum. A different side can be seen in an 1886 painting, Rocks at Port-Goulphar, Belle-Île (page 6), by Boudin’s famous pupil, Claude Monet (French, 1840–1926). Painted on an island off the coast of Brittany, this was a landscape that prompted Monet to paint more than 38 canvases over a span of a few months. As stirring as these pictures might be, there’s more to ocean life than…

“What makes any representational painting special is the intimate relationship artists create between the subject matter and their vision. Homer’s seascapes are perfect examples. The quiet, introspective nature of his Moonlight, Wood Island Light not only places me at the scene, but is also transcendent.” Moonlight, Wood Island Light (1894; oil on canvas, 30¾x40¼) by Winslow HomerGIFT OF GEORGE A. HEARN, IN MEMORY OF ARTHUR HOPPOCK HEARN, 1911 “Watson and the Shark by John Singleton Copley narrates a true story, as retold by its commissioner, Brook Watson, who lost his leg in a shark attack. The painting is filled with drama and harks back to a number of historical antecedents, including a work by Raphael, and—in the swimming pose of Watson—the figure of Laocoon from the famous statue. Shadows roll…

Edges are, simply put, lines, borders or boundaries that emphasize the shapes of objects in a work of art. Whether hard, soft, or lost and found, they relate to the other art elements—form, shape, space and texture, and particularly color and value—to create transitions, depth, atmosphere and emotion in a work. In this lesson, we’ll take a look at paintings by renowned artists to see how their masterful approach to edges both influences their work and drives it forward. JEAN SIMÉON CHARDIN Jean Siméon Chardin (French, 1699-1779) painted Still Life with a White Mug as if in the dim light at the back of the pantry. Dim light calls for a soft touch. Sharp definition and edges would mar the atmosphere, because, in low light, vision lacks sharp focus. (Your…

The paintings of Italian artist Matteo Massagrande take viewers into long-neglected villas and abandoned palazzos—places where crumbling plaster and once-glorious marble floors, rotting shutters and peeling paint lead to sun-drenched balconies lined with rusting decorative railings. The bright Mediterranean light, most often glimpsed through windows and doorways, somehow permeates these abandoned interiors with a kind of slow-moving luminosity that finds its way gently across stretches of decorative tiles and elaborate moldings before lapsing into the shadows of long-shuttered rooms. The pictures are painted with an intense sensuality, in which the artist achieves his effects by layering multiple glazes and myriad delicate touches with brush and palette knife. The final effect is wistful, elegiac and just a little surreal—like a memory transformed and intensified by a dream. A PULL TO THE…

Many artists would consider being called “original” a great compliment. Not so for Vancouver artist Jay Senetchko. “By virtue of birth, each person achieves individuality and, thus, originality,” he explains. “One need not try to be original or create anything original; one already is original, and by virtue of such, creates original work.” Far more important to Senetchko is an exploration of an artist’s many-layered influences. “An individual’s products are derivative not only of the person, but also of the influences that have impinged upon that person from birth,” he says. “It’s the navigation of these derivatives that make those products and the people who made them of interest.” CHAMPION OF FIGURATIVE ART Far from trying to escape his own influences, Senetchko spends his artistic energies on deep explorations into…

"One influential critic described Eugène Boudin’s seascape pastels as being characterized by a ‘meteorological beauty.’ The son of a mariner, Boudin grew up in the French coastal city of Honfleur, where the surrounding bodies of water captivated him. In rich layers of pastel, this work depicts the Seine River’s connection with the English Channel and the expansive, cloudy sky beyond. The water’s surface is captured in blue and yellow marks, applied quickly. A distant sailboat provides a sense of scale. Given the portability of his chosen medium, Boudin could set up an easel on-site and rapidly record the changing conditions as he saw and experienced them—a lesson that he imparted to his best-known pupil, Claude Monet." BRITANY SALSBURY Associate Curator of Prints and Drawings Cleveland Museum of Art…

Belle-Île, the largest island off the coast of Brittany, France, is a fishing village that once served as a military garrison. It was briefly captured in the 18th century by the British before being restored to French control. The village has several thousand inhabitants, though the population expands in the summertime thanks to a thriving tourist trade. The island’s western shore faces the Atlantic and features harsh cliffs and thin rock spires that project from the ocean. This side of Belle-Île is called Côte Sauvage. The isolation of Côte Sauvage and its unusual rock formations appealed to Claude Monet (French, 1840–1926) when he arrived in September 1886. “I am excited by this sinister landscape,” he wrote to his dealer, “precisely because it takes me away from the things I habitually…

DEMONSTRATION Painting seascapes can present unique challenges in terms of creating depth and perspective. If you’re looking to improve your seascape paintings, here are five things to pay attention to in your work. Follow along as I walk you through how to apply these observations to a seascape painting. ARTIST’S TOOLKIT OIL PAINTS: yellow ochre, phthalo blue, cadmium yellow, quinacridone magenta, titanium white, Utrecht vivid purple deep SURFACE: Legion oil paper BRUSHES: Nos. 1 and 4 filbert mops OTHER: palette knife 1. PERSPECTIVE Look for the basic perspective lines. In this example, the cresting waves are parallel with the shoreline. If the waves in your subject aren’t parallel with the shore, they would generally be parallel with each other. This means that from the shoreline to the horizon, the receding…

Photo Ops • Head out to the shore early in the morning and again late in the afternoon to take reference photos. You’ll get more depth in both the colors and the shadows you see at these times of day. • Avoid shooting when the sun is high in the sky. The rays tend to blot out color and eliminate shadow shapes. • Looking for added drama? Take photos in which the objects in your viewfinder—namely, waves—are backlit. The light shines through them and makes the water appear to glow like stained glass in motion. • To capture reflections on the sand, shoot during low tide and crouch down when taking photographic references, but not so low that you lose your sense of linear perspective. Land Ho! • A shoreline…

A few minutes into our phone conversation about her newest book, From the Seashore to the Seafloor: An Illustrated Tour of Sandy Beaches, Kelp Forests, Coral Reefs and Life in the Ocean’s Depths, artist Peggy Macnamara paints me a mental picture of a curious-sounding deep-sea creature I’ve never heard of: “It has ears, and it looks kind of stupid, but I couldn’t believe how exquisitely it moves underwater, with all its parts flowing. And no one above water sees it, ever,” says Macnamara. “It’s called the Dumbo octopus, but, I mean, let’s give the guy credit—he’s a ballerina.” Macnamara’s enthusiasm for consuming and sharing details about the subjects she paints has grown over three decades in her role as the Artist-in-Residence at Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History—one of the…

The art world is going to the dogs (and cats) Pet portraiture, already a trending subject for artists, has only intensified since the pandemic, when one in every five households in the U.S. took on a new pet, according to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Although the presence of pets in art goes way back, the subject has become a hot topic with a number of new museum exhibitions. A survey of artist Joan Brown (American, 1938–90), organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, offers a look at the artist’s intimate, almost diaristic body of work. Notable is the recurring presence of Brown’s cats and dogs, which express an enduring love for the animals. The traveling show can currently be seen at the…

Every artist hopes their work makes an impact on the viewer and leaves them with something memorable that transcends that first impression—and keeps them engaged long after that initial encounter. If you stand in front of a collection of Ann Houle’s recent quilts for more than just a fleeting moment, you’ll recognize that quality in her work. There’s more to them than meets the eye. On the surface, the subject matter can be summarized in just one word: sports. The series captures athletes in action as they glide over the ice, push their personal limits on the field or excel on the court. That simplification, however, doesn’t do them justice. A MOMENT IN TIME Houle’s artistry is showcased by capturing the universal emotion of the moment that defines the game.…

Donna Woodley has a B.A. in accounting and worked in that field for 20 years until deciding that she could be something more than a responsible taxpayer. The Nashville resident wanted to pursue her interest in painting, perhaps even teach art at the college level someday. “With a career of counting dollars and cents behind me, I knew that I had to continue working to earn a living while completing a Master’s program,” says Woodley. So after earning a second B.A. in studio art from Tennessee State University, at age 41, she enrolled in a low-residency (low-res) MFA in Visual Arts program through Boston-based Lesley University, which she completed two years later. A GROWING TREND An increasing number of art colleges and universities have been offering low-res Masters programs in…