Art Analysis- Hudson & Impressionism
From the Hudson River school, the oil painting on the left is by Thomas Cole, titled The Oxbow, was painted in Massachusetts in 1836. The oil painting on the right is done by Asher Brown Durand titled, The Beaches, I do not know where it was painted but both currently reside in New York at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Both paintings carry a naturalist tone but are placed in a realism form, seen in how nature is the main subject of the paintings.
In the left painting, the darker tones are brought forward while the lighter colors are in the mid and background. This adds to the feeling of the painting when we look at the background behind it. Thomas had a friend, Reed, who was a valued customer. During Thomas's time working on another piece for Reed, he became depressed which is why Reed told him to pause and do another piece that he valued. This is where we get The Oxbow, I think there is value in relation to life in how the colors are placed as the dark tones move out of the picture and the lighter colors come into view. In life, dark times come but they also go.
The thing I like most about this work is the perspective, I appreciate how it doesn't just look like the view is looking down but also out. Second, the use of space is well done which allows for balance. See how the foreground, midground, and background are coherent with the sky.
The thing I like most about these paintings is how it feels like you are actually there seeing the landscape for yourself. Both are presented well, I can't say I would prefer one over the other because they hold very different moods.
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On the left is an impressionist depiction of a Poppy Field (titled as such) by Claud Monet done in 1871 in England. On the right, another impressionist work was done by Camille Pissarro in ~1878 -at & titled- Cote des Grouettes, near Pontoise.
Poppy Field, characterized by greens, reds, and blues which adds to impressionism because they are complementary colors. The varying tones of each color give both pieces more dimension without the use of hard lines. As for the figure placement, the artist did well putting the mother (in blue) and child in a less colorful part of the meadow to help create balance throughout the work. Imagine if they were 3 feet to the left, then we have nothing pulling our vision towards the right side, if we drew a line down the middle it would almost be two different paintings. Lastly, the values in the work are very noticeable. How Monet uses value is almost opposite to tenebrism.
Second, Pissarro's work although still, impressionist has more variety in values. The amount of subject matter is similar to the poppy field. The use of texture is more noticeable along with highlights. In the poppy field, there are some yellow flowers up close and some small yellow-green bushes farther back on the hill. However, in this work, we see a yellow-green tree in front of a cluster of darker green trees. As well as some yellow-green leaves scattered atop some of the other greenery. This artistic choice automatically creates more dimension, which is probably why I prefer it over the other.
The figures in Pissaro's work are more appealing to me. I feel that art featuring workers and the lower-class in general allows the work to communicate to more people. I understand everyone should be able to see art they connect with on an emotional level, but that means we should have more societally- and community-balanced art.
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Both styles can create complete images of landscapes, I say this because there are some who think more modern styles are not capable of depicting natural concepts.
The Hudson work is very realistic, detailed oriented. Uses a lot of luminism where the appearance of light can help create movement. We see this very clearly in The Beaches. Contrary, in Cote des Grouettes, near Pontoise there is no luminism and a lot of focus on texture placement.
To be fully honest, I like the visual appearance of realism more than impressionism, but I struggle to what Impressionism represents, whereas I can't connect to realism because it is too real.
Emotionally I'd argue that they all capture a moment in time which is important to me because people often only focus on the details and styles that they forget to appreciate art for what it is, art. Maybe this is me refusing historical norms of categorization, but I think we may have taken it too far. Maybe this is why we have modern art because it does allow for interpretation but, within interpretation allows for the individual to place value on any art.
The two styles that you have presented in this blog, I like the impressionism style the most. I love the brightly colored areas on these artworks. It brings in the sense of light to the paintings. These two styles do capture specific moments in time and show a great amount of details in them. It is interesting to read how The Oxbow came about. Every painting has some kind of a backstory of how it was created. Some of them were created through wars, deaths and other traumatic events. This can have a dark look on paintings but it also gives it a story.
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