Ok. I have no idea if anyone has seen Fabian Perez’s work before. He is a contemporary painter, born in Argentina now living in Los Angeles. While doing research for a painting idea I had, I stumbled across his work. This one is called El Paseo. I do recommend taking a look at more of his work as he does capture a certain sense of romance with a touch of noir feeling. This piece depicts a woman walking away from the viewer down a street or alley in someone anonymous city. She wears a black cocktail dress, high heels and is smoking a cigarette. There are some compositional things that I am noticing about this painting. There is a channel in the road the bisects the painting in half. But rather than running straight away from the view, it curves at the end towards the lighted area of the painting on thr right. It also separates the woman from the light and the warmth on that side. The warmth on one side though is balanced by the weight of the woman on the left and the weight of the cooler tones surrounding her. You d get a sense that if the woman follows the channel in the road, it will lead her to the light and the warmth, yet we have no indication that this is the choice she will make. I love the big painterly brush strokes that are evident in Mr. Perez’s work that are balanced with a slightly more rendered treatment of his figures. The sheer effect that he achieves in the woman’s dress is a nice touch as well as the organic feel of the hardscape that he has achieved with the previously mentioned brush strokes. And I do love noir.
Author: markharchar
John Maler Collier
I am awestruck by this painting, yet I am unsure as to why. This type of painting is reason why I started this blog. I heard Charles Bernard, fastasy illustrator state that people may have trouble expressing why they like an image because they don’t understand what makes an attractive picture. I am trying to understand why the aesthetic of this piece is pleasing to me. On a visceral level, I love the female form. It is one of the most beautiful things ever created in natural in my opinion. Ivory skin with red hair was always attractive to me as well. Those same reds in Lady Godiva’s hair are mirrored in the horses bridal and blanket (I am sure there is another word for that). The streets are empty as the story tells, the doors closed and locked. Godiva has a look of defeat and shame as the only way to help the people was to deal with this indignity. Her indignity though is offset by the noble look of her steed, it’s head held high in opposition to her head hung low. There are wonderful details in this piece such as the embroidered lions on the tapestry (is that what it is called?) and shields on the bridal. Then there is the gold bit and the chain links meticulously rendered as well as the iron bolts on the door, whose wooden texture is only surpassed by that of the texture of the town’s stone walls. There is a wonderful flow and path for the eye to follow starting at the steed’s head, down along the bridal, up Godiva’s arm to her face.
No this, I would hang on my wall…
Gustave Caillebotte
He was a French Impressionist. The name of this piece is Le pont de l’Europe. I have done some studying of the French Impressionist, the movement, the historical context of the art and the artists living in that period and have chosen Gustave Caillebotte today, not because he was known to me, but rather because he was relatively unknown to me. His style was lsightly more realistic than his counterparts like Monet and Renoir. From what I have quickly researched, Caillebotte had interests in photography and this possibly influenced his style more than the other in the movement. This piece is a genre piece which reminds me a bit of the works of Norman Rockwell and depicts a dog and people on the street going about their business. The points of interest in this piece for me are the use of one point perspective and the repeating geometric pattern created by the bridge rafters and railings. Another point of note is the use of purple shadows which was commonly used by the Impressionist painters. Some Impressionists also used straight black on their palette which seems to be an ongoing debate as to whether to use black or not, but my guess would be that the darks of the walking couple’s clothing were actually created with black rather than a neutralized dark value mixture.
Would I hang this piece on my wall? No. But it is a strong example of the shift from romanticized narrative images to that of creating images of everyday life during this period.
John Banovich
So, I have been spending time analyzing artworks from the last 30 centuries, trying to get a good mix from contemporary and classical artists. My interests are generally naturalistic or realistic rather than abstract. I am a fan of most styles of realism which may actually embody 90-95% of the art throughout history. My hope is that anyone reading this blog would agree that I am displaying a good mix and variety, but feel free to tell me otherwise.
Today, I would like to return to the present and take a look at a piece call “Eye of the Raven” by contemporary animal painter John Banovich. I first saw Mr. Banovich’s work in the Artist’s Magazine and actually fell in love with this painting. I never really thought about why, so now I am going to take the time to try to determine why. Obviously this is a simple subject, a raven on a branch. Nothing flashy about the pose or positioning, yet still, John’s treatment of the subject is attractive and compelling to me. He seems to have used a classical portrait approach to the lighting, having a 3/4 front lit approach. Nothing too innovative there either. Yet it is compelling to me. As I look at the background, I see large and energetic brush strokes, daubing greens and ochres, siennas and umbers; I determine the color palette is in line with my aesthetic tastes. One reason for it to be compelling. On to the treatment of the raven itself. It is more refined than the treatment of the background. That sets up some contrast, wild and energetic background to more defined and stoic foreground subject. That is compelling. The color palette chosen for the raven is intriguing, with the prussian blue perhaps midtones and starker cool white highlights. Each feather is render as if they were painted individually and place into this painting. Variation in feather texture, size, and direction are all skillfully composed. There is also a warm reflected light hitting the belly of this bird, helping to define its volume in space. Lost edges on the tail feathers with sharper edges on the head and beak help to bring the focus on face of this animal, facial focus being crucial to many good portraits. It would seem that all of these items working together take this piece from mundane to exciting.
John Atkinson Grimshaw
Elaine is the name of this piece. I could only image that this is the name of the dead girl in the boat. This image could be portraying the ferryman who shuttles the dead across the river to the underworld, but I do not know for certain. What I do know is that this piece has a bold sense of mood. It’s dark shadowy silouettes of the boatman and the boat are in sharp contrast to the distant city skyline. The buildings have a warm glow to them, indicating the warmth of the living, whereas the cool tones of the death are at the forefront. I had done a painting personally where I was required to make the warmth of a fire recede into the backup and keep cooler tones push forward and it was indeed a daunting task, yet, Grimshaw has achieved this task masterfully. A relatively simply image in composition and form, the mood that is created here is indeed intriguing.