Category Archives: Artists

Featured Artist at the e.Gallery this week is a 20th Century artist of the American Scene movement, Charles Burchfield [American, 1893-1967] Link: https://fineart.elib.com/fineart.php?dir=Alphabetical/Burchfield_Charles

Charles Burchfield grew up in Ohio where he enjoyed nature’s company in the woods which surrounded his home. He attended the Cleveland School of Art and later moved to New York. In 1929, he retired from designing wallpaper and devoted his time to painting, supporting himself off the sales of his paintings.

Burchfield is best known for his expressionistic large-scale watercolor paintings of the “American Scene” genre, although he did not consider himself a Regionalist painter. Other motifs in his work include fantastical scenes of memories from his youth as well as mystical scenes.

Burchfield’s thick and heavy stroke creates substance and vitality in his watercolors. Brooding Earth reveals earth’s anticipation of an oncoming storm on the horizon. The solitary tree on the left produces a feeling of loneliness or even melancholy. The earth itself fills the majority of the picture as the pale crest of the hill draws the eye upwards and to the left.

The earthly foreground seems quiet when compared to the dark storm brewing on the skyline. The forms are simplified, the brushwork is elegant, and the colors are monochromatic; these qualities help create the mood which Burchfield was seeking.

Featured Artist at the e.Gallery this week is a 20th Century artist of the American Scene movement, Charles Burchfield [American, 1893-1967] Link: https://fineart.elib.com/fineart.php?dir=Alphabetical/Burchfield_Charles

Charles Burchfield grew up in Ohio where he enjoyed nature’s company in the woods which surrounded his home. He attended the Cleveland School of Art and later moved to New York. In 1929, he retired from designing wallpaper and devoted his time to painting, supporting himself off the sales of his paintings.

Burchfield is best known for his expressionistic large-scale watercolor paintings of the “American Scene” genre, although he did not consider himself a Regionalist painter. Other motifs in his work include fantastical scenes of memories from his youth as well as mystical scenes.

Burchfield’s thick and heavy stroke creates substance and vitality in his watercolors. Brooding Earth reveals earth’s anticipation of an oncoming storm on the horizon. The solitary tree on the left produces a feeling of loneliness or even melancholy. The earth itself fills the majority of the picture as the pale crest of the hill draws the eye upwards and to the left.

The earthly foreground seems quiet when compared to the dark storm brewing on the skyline. The forms are simplified, the brushwork is elegant, and the colors are monochromatic; these qualities help create the mood which Burchfield was seeking.

Featured Artist at the e.Gallery this week is a 19th Century artist, I Hiroshige [Japanese, 1797-1858] Link: https://fineart.elib.com/fineart.php?dir=Alphabetical/Hiroshige_I

Hiroshige (1797-1858), Japanese painter and printmaker, known especially for his landscape prints. The last great figure of the Ukiyo-e, or popular, school of printmaking, he transmuted everyday landscapes into intimate, lyrical scenes that made him even more successful than his contemporary, Hokusai.

Ando Hiroshige was born in Edo (now Tokyo) and at first, like his father, was a fire warden. The prints of Hokusai are said to have first kindled in him the desire to become an artist, and he entered the studio of Utagawa Toyohiro, a renowned painter, as an apprentice. In 1812 Hiroshige took his teacher’s name (a sign of graduation), signing his work Utagawa Hiroshige. His career falls roughly into three periods. From 1811 to about 1830 he created prints of traditional subjects such as young women and actors. During the next 15 years he won fame as a landscape artist, reaching a peak of success and achievement in 1833 when his masterpiece, the print series Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido (scenes on the highway connecting Edo and Kyoto), was published. He maintained this high level of craftmanship in other travel series, including Celebrated Places in Japan and Sixty-nine Stations on the Kiso Highway. The work he did during the third period, the last years of his life, is sometimes of lesser quality, as he appears to have hurriedly met the demands of popularity. He died of cholera on October 12, 1858, in Edo.

With Hokusai, Hiroshige dominated the popular art of Japan in the first half of the 19th century. His work was not as bold or innovative as that of the older master, but he captured, in a poetic, gentle way that all could understand, the ordinary person’s experience of the Japanese landscape as well as the varied moods of memorable places at different times. His total output was immense, some 5400 prints in all.

Featured Artist at the e.Gallery this week is a 16th Century artist, Lucas Cranach the Elder [German, 1472-1553] Link: https://fineart.elib.com/fineart.php?dir=Alphabetical/Cranach_the_Elder_Lucas

Cranach, Lucas the Elder (1472-1553). German painter. He takes his name from the small town of Kronach in South Germany, where he was born, and very little is known of his life before about 1500-01, when he settled in Vienna and started working in the humanist circles associated with the newly founded university. His stay in Vienna was brief (he left in 1504), but in his period there he painted some of his finest and most original works. They include portraits, notably those of Johannes Cuspinian, a lecturer at the university, and his wife Anna (Reinhart Collection, Winterhur), and several religious works in which he shows a remarkable feeling for the beauty of landscape characteristic of the Danube school. The finest example of this manner is perhaps the Rest on the Flight into Egypt (Staatliche Museen, Berlin), which shows the Holy Family resting in the glade of a German pine forest. It was painted in 1504, just before Cranach went to Wittenberg as court painter to Frederick III (the Wise), Elector of Saxony.

From October of 1916 through January of 1917, Rudolf Steiner gave a series of nine lectures known as the Art Course. These lectures were given the title of: The History of Art. Click here to discover what Steiner said about Cranach in the third lecture, or in the entire lecture series.

Featured Artist at the e.Gallery this week is a 16th Century artist, Lucas Cranach the Elder [German, 1472-1553] Link: https://fineart.elib.com/fineart.php?dir=Alphabetical/Cranach_the_Elder_Lucas

Cranach, Lucas the Elder (1472-1553). German painter. He takes his name from the small town of Kronach in South Germany, where he was born, and very little is known of his life before about 1500-01, when he settled in Vienna and started working in the humanist circles associated with the newly founded university. His stay in Vienna was brief (he left in 1504), but in his period there he painted some of his finest and most original works. They include portraits, notably those of Johannes Cuspinian, a lecturer at the university, and his wife Anna (Reinhart Collection, Winterhur), and several religious works in which he shows a remarkable feeling for the beauty of landscape characteristic of the Danube school. The finest example of this manner is perhaps the Rest on the Flight into Egypt (Staatliche Museen, Berlin), which shows the Holy Family resting in the glade of a German pine forest. It was painted in 1504, just before Cranach went to Wittenberg as court painter to Frederick III (the Wise), Elector of Saxony.

From October of 1916 through January of 1917, Rudolf Steiner gave a series of nine lectures known as the Art Course. These lectures were given the title of: The History of Art. Click here to discover what Steiner said about Cranach in the third lecture, or in the entire lecture series.

Featured Artist at the e.Gallery this week is a 16th Century artist, Palma Vecchio [Italian, 1480?-1528] Link: https://fineart.elib.com/fineart.php?dir=Alphabetical/Negretti_Jacopo

Palma Vecchio (1480 – July 1528), born Jacopo Palma or known as Jacopo Negretti, was an Italian painter of the Venetian school born at Serina Alta near Bergamo. He is called Palma Vecchio in English (“Old Palma” — in Italian Palma il Vecchio) to distinguish him from Palma Giovane, his great-nephew.

When Palma arrived in Venice early in the 16th century, he reputedly was a companion and competitor of Lorenzo Lotto, and to some extent a pupil of Titian. He may also have taught Bonifazio Pitati and influenced Giovanni Busi. Palma’s earlier works betray the influence of the Bellini.

Palma’s work demonstrates superior richness of color, but he did not excel with regard to invention nor vigorous draughtsmanship.

His paintings frequently feature his (so-called) daughter Violante, of whom Titian was said to be enamoured. Famous works by Palma include a composition of six paintings in the Venetian church of Santa Maria Formosa, with St Barbara in the centre, under the dead Christ, and to right and left SS. Dominic, Sebastian, John Baptist and Anthony. A second work is in the Dresden Gallery, representing three sisters seated in the open air; it is frequently named The Three Graces. A third work, discovered in Venice in 1900, is a portrait supposed to represent Violante. Other leading examples are: the Last Supper in Santa Maria Mater Domini; a Madonna, in the church of San Stefano in Vicenza; the Epiphany, (Brera Gallery, Milan); the Holy Family with a young shepherd (Louvre, Paris), The Holy Family with St. Catherine, St. John and Donor (Beli Dvor, Belgrade ), St Stephen and other Saints, Christ and the Widow of Nain and the Assumption of the Virgin, (Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice), and Christ at Emmaus (Pitti Palace).

Featured Artist at the e.Gallery this week is a 19th Century artist, François Ferrière [Swiss-French, 1752-1839] Link: https://fineart.elib.com/fineart.php?dir=Alphabetical/Ferriere_Francois

François Ferrière (1752–1839), was a Swiss miniaturist painter of portraits in oil and pastel, and an engraver practicing in landscape, genre scenes and trompe l’oeil. He was active in Geneva, London and St. Petersburg.

François Ferrière was born in Geneva and studied in Paris. He moved to Britain in 1793, exhibiting miniatures in London until 1804, when he traveled to St Petersburg and Moscow. He came back to Britain in 1817, exhibiting his strongly characterized portrait miniatures at the Royal Academy and the British Institution. Five years later he returned to Geneva, where he lived for the rest of his life. A respected portraitist, Ferrière included a number of Scots amongst his clients.

Featured Artist at the e.Gallery this week is a 19th Century artist of the Impressionist movement, Gustav Caillebotte [French, 1848-1894] Link: https://fineart.elib.com/fineart.php?dir=Alphabetical/Caillebotte_Gustav

Gustave Caillebotte, b. Aug. 19, 1848, d. Feb. 21, 1894, was a French painter and a generous patron of the Impressionists, whose own works, until recently, were neglected.

He was an engineer by profession, but also attended the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He met Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, and Pierre Auguste Renoir in 1874 and helped organize the first impressionist exhibition in Paris that same year. He participated in later shows and painted some 500 works in a more realistic style than that of his friends. Caillebotte’s most intriguing paintings are those of the broad, new Parisian boulevards. The boulevards were painted from high vantage points and were populated with elegantly clad figures strolling with the expressionless intensity of somnambulists, as in Boulevard Vu d’en Haut (1880; private collection, Paris). Caillebotte’s superb collection of impressionist paintings was left to the French government on his death. With considerable reluctance the government accepted part of the collection.

Featured Artist at the e.Gallery this week is a 20th Century artist of the Expressionist movement, David Smith [American, 1906-1965] Link: https://fineart.elib.com/fineart.php?dir=Alphabetical/Smith_David

David Smith was born in 1906 in Decatur, Indiana. After briefly attending college at Ohio University, the University of Notre Dame, and George Washington University, he moved to New York in 1926, where he studied painting full time at the Art Students League. During the 1930s he began to focus on sculpture, creating welded constructions by using found objects and forged metal. Smith moved permanently to Bolton Landing, in upstate New York, in 1940. Smith died in a car accident near Bennington, Vermont, in 1965. Major exhibitions of his sculptures, paintings and drawings have been presented worldwide since the 1950s, including recent retrospectives at the Sezon Museum of Art, Tokyo (1994); MNCA, Reina Sofía, Madrid (1996); and Storm King Art Center, New York (1997-1999). A centennial retrospective organized by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (2006) traveled to the Centre Pompidou, Paris, and Tate Modern, London (2006–2007).