Up Close: Edmund Tarbell's "The Blue Veil"

Edmund Charles Tarbell (1862-1938) was one of those "Ten" group Boston area painters who did a lot of interesting work during the decades around the year 1900. As his Wikipedia entry notes, he might be classified as an American Impressionist -- interested in French Impressionist coloring while giving more respect than Monet or Pissarro, say, to accurate drawing.

One of his most intriguing paintings can be found in San Francisco's de Young museum. It's titled "The Blue Veil," painted in 1898.

I viewed it (again!) in December 2016 and took some close-up photos showing Tarbell's brushwork in the hope that you, too, might be interested. Click on the images below to enlarge.

Gallery

The painting as seen on the Internet -- perhaps from the museum's web site.

My establishment shot, showing how my camera captured the painting in the gallery lighting conditions.

Note the contrast in brushwork. Thinner paint on the face and veil, impasto on the hat and some of the background.

Close-up of the subject's face The violet of the veil is duplicated in the facial shadows and the face's outline.

Up Close: Anders Zorn's Mrs Bacon

Anders Zorn (1860-1920) is generally placed with John Singer Sargent and Joaquin Sorolla in the top rank of late-19th / early 20th century portrait painters. I posted about him here and here.

It seems that New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art has a very nice Zorn portrait, that of Mrs. Walter Rathbone Bacon (Virginia Purdy Barker), made in 1897 and presented to the museum by her in 1917.

Since I seldom get to New York City these days and visit the Met even less often, I have to wonder if the portrait of Mrs Bacon has been on display very much. But it was on display when I visited early last September. Hence, the present post.

This is the image of the painting found here on the Met's web site. If you click on it, your computer should be directed to an image that allows you to greatly enlarge areas of it you select. Seriously Up Close, in other words. One thing about the image: It is more yellowed than it appeared on display. I have to assume it was cleaned since it was photographed.

This is a slightly cropped and doctored version of a photo I took during my hurried visit.

Up Close: Robert Lewis Reid's Fleur de Lys

While dashing through New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art early in September, I came across Fleur de Lis (c. 1895-1900) by Robert Lewis Reed (1862-1929). His Wikipedia entry is here, and I wrote about him here. The Met's website page on the painting is here.

At the time the painting was made, Reid was practicing the American version of Impressionism where broken color and visible brush strokes were combined with greater attention to drawing than in classical French Impressionism, and where key areas such as faces were painted more traditionally. Fleur de Lis has a similar feeling to some of paintings of women by Frederick Frieseke and Richard E. Miller.

Image of Fleur de Lis from the Met's web site.

My establishment / aide-memoir photo.  Note the difference in color due to artificial lighting in the museum and perhaps sensors in my camera.

Close-in photo. This is slightly cropped, and I also played around with the color which is still slightly more in the red direction than the colors in the museum's image above. Reid painted fairly thinly here, though parts of flowers and the subject's clothing show stronger brushwork. Note the blueish background color touches on the subject's face, hair and hands. Also bits of her hair color spotted elsewhere. This helps to unify the painting.

Up Close: J.W. Alexander's Study in Black and Green

John White Alexander (1856-1915) -- Wikipedia entry here -- painted some interesting stylized pictures featuring women. Like most artists, he also painted many less formal works. A while ago I posted about several paintings he made that featured women clad in outfits featuring the color green.

I was on a rare (for me in recent years) visit to New York City early September and managed to spend an hour or two at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and viewed a few fragments of its huge, world-class collection.

While there, I snapped a few photos of Alexander's circa-1906 Study in Black and Green, more of a sketch than a finished work. The Met has these few words to say about it.

My establishment shot.

Closer in, slightly cropped.

Tighter view of the face and hands.  Alexander seems to have done some underpainting and layering.  Most brush strokes not on the subject's face are obvious.  Alexander's brushwork on the hands and arms follows the paths of the forms rather than including strokes across those paths -- something other artists often do.  This a reason for calling this painting a sketch or study: he seemed to have worked fairly quickly and didn't bother to define the forms' structures in much detail.

Up Close: Some Sargent Brushwork

John Singer Sargent's reputation continues to rise.

For example, New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art now has a room with several fine examples of his portraiture, as the above photo I took in September shows.

One of his paintings on display is the dual-portrait of Isaac Newton Phelps Stokes and Edith Minturn Stokes. The museum has this to say about it.

And this is what they actually looked like around 1897 when Sargent painted them. Both were age 30 and married when they were 28.

Here is the establishment photo I took. For once its colors aren't grossly far from those in the photo the museum took of it, shown above. However, my photo is slightly skewed towards the red. Getting accurate results when photographing in museums is a matter of luck, I've found. The source of trouble is the artificial lighting.

My close-up of Edith. Sargent slightly exaggerated the height of his two subjects in the same manner fashion illustrators ply their trade.  He does capture the uneven setting of her mouth, but the eyes seem a bit odd and the light and shading of her nose also seem a little off. Viewed from a normal distance, these quirks matter little. You can see that Sargent touched up the background in places close to her head.  Also, her collar does not wrap around her neck, but he apparently didn't think it worth the trouble to tidy up that defect.

I took this photo to show how museum lighting can reveal some of the surface texture of a painting.  The facial close-up also has some reflections of museum lighting off edges of Sargent's brushwork. He seems to have used oil-rich paints, but as the image above suggests, he didn't paint thickly. It's possible that some of the effects seen here are due to varnishing brushwork, rather than the basic painting. The canvas patch on the right shows up strongly here, though it is evident in the museum photo if you look closely.

Up Close: Alfred Maurer at the Huntington

Alfred Henry Maurer (1868-1932) began as a representational painter influenced by James McNeill Whistler and then switched to various schools of modernism before committing suicide.

I wrote about Maurer here. A more recent article about him in The Wall Street Journal is here.

Earlier this year I came across a Maurer from his early period on display at the Huntington Library in San Marino, near Pasadena California. The Huntington has a good collection of late 18th century British paintings, but there is also a useful collection of American art from the decades around 1900.

Below are two examples of Maurer's work from 1901 that were shown in my previous post about him along with photos I took of the Huntington painting.

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An Arrangement - 1901
This seems to be Maurer's best-known painting from that time.

Girl in White - 1901
Another 1901 painting, perhaps of the same model.

Woman in Interior - 1901
This is the Huntington painting, also from 1901. The model might be the same woman as in the previous images. Disregard the hair color and consider the face.

Woman in Interior - 1901 (detail)
Close-up photo of the painting above.

Up Close: R.G. Smith's Aviation Art

I visited the Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Florida near the end of April. It's a must-see attraction for airplane buffs. Besides aircraft, the museum displays aviation-related artwork, including that of R.G. (Robert Grant) Smith (1914-2001).

Smith was an engineer at the Douglas Aircraft Company, working in general arrangement design under Ed Heinemann. I mentioned Smith here. More regarding Smith can be found here and here. I regard R.G. Smith as one of the all-time best aviation artists.

Below are photos I took in several areas of the museum that featured Smith's artwork. Click on the images for substantial enlargements.  (Well, that's what I get on my iMac.)

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R.G. Smith painting shown as hung. As is usually the case with this sort of photo, lighting conditions are not ideal; here the main light source shines from above the painting. The scene is a Douglas TBD Devastator torpedo bomber attacking the Japanese aircraft carrier Shoho during the Battle of the Coral Sea in early May, 1942.

  A detail of the painting shown above. Many Smith paintings featured Douglas-built naval aircraft, no doubt because he worked in that branch of Douglas.

Below are details from other paintings that allow you to see Smith's painting style up close.

A North Vietnamese MiG-17 damaged by a F-4 Phantom.

Northrop BT-1 dive bombers and the carrier Enterprise (CV-6) pictured at some time in the late 1930s.

Douglas SBD dive bomber shown in markings adopted after summer, 1943.

Another overall view of a painting.  This pictures Douglas SBDs attacking Japanese aircraft carriers at about 10:30 a.m. on 3 June, 1942 during the Battle of Midway.  In the foreground is the Kaga, above it is the Akagi, and the damaged carrier in the distance is the Soryu.

Close-up of the front part of the Kaga. It might not be in perfect focus (a chancy thing to achieve when using a digital camera's auto-focus feature). Still, you can get a feeling for Smith's skill in color selection and brushwork.

Up Close; McClelland Barclay (Again)

I visited the fabulous Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Florida near the end of April. Besides aircraft, the museum displays aviation-related artwork, including that of McClelland Barclay (1891–1943). As this mentions, Barclay was a highly successful commercial artist who became an active-duty naval officer in 1940, illustrating posters and other war-related work. He died when his ship was sunk in the South Pacific.

Two years ago, I wrote an Up Close post dealing with Barclay. Having the chance to photograph another original of his work, I'm pleased to provide a second Barclay Up Close here.

As is usually the case with this sort of photo, lighting conditions are not ideal; here the main light source strongly shines from above the painting. This has one advantage, namely that the impasto in this painting is better highlighted. Also keep in mind that poster art usually works best where images are simplified, so the example below is more simply done than the advertising image featured in my previous Barclay post.

Click on the images to enlarge.

Here's an establishing view of the poster art.  The aircraft appears to be a trainer (note the flimsy windscreen), yet it isn't painted yellow, as were Navy training planes around 1940.  The ship in the background seems to be a battleship rather than an aircraft carrier.  But Barclay had to adjust reality in order to maximize poster conventions.  A yellow airplane would grossly interfere with the composition and message.  The battleship superstructure is useful for its symbolism of the U.S. Navy.

A detailed view of a pilot who might be a aviation cadet along with a lieutenant wearing pilot's wings on his uniform.

Up Close: Boldini's Casati with Peacock Feathers

I was in Rome recently and made sure to revisit the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna (Web site here). It's on the grounds of the Villa Borghese, which puts it slightly off the usual tourist track. Nevertheless, it's worth a visit for those interested in 19th and early 20th century Italian painting.

One of the Galleria's noteworthy items is a portrait of the colorful Marchesa Luisa Casati (1881-1957) who inherited great wealth and spent it away by the 1930s. She was portrayed by many artists, including Giovanni Boldini (1842-1931) who depicted her at least twice.

One of these portraits can be seen in the Galleria, as the images below attest.

Gallery

La marchesa Luisa Casati con penne di pavone - 1911-13
This is a public domain image of the painting from the Internet.

And this is what my camera captured in the gallery. Outside light was coming from the left, which affects what you see here and below compared to the Internet-sourced image at the top. This supposed defect is actually beneficial, because it captures Boldini's impasto and other brushwork better.

A closer view of the subject.  A bit of the frame was included to allow the camera to get a better focus (many paintings lack crisp edges, and can confuse a camera).

An even tighter shot featuring La Casati's face. Click on images to enlarge.

Up Close: Morelli's Temptation of St. Anthony

A couple of years ago I committed an error in this post when I inserted a photo version of Domenico Morelli's "Temptation of St. Anthony" instead of an image of the actual painting. Now I wish to atone for my sin by posting some photos of the painting that I recently took at Rome's Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna (Web site here).

As his Wikipedia entry) indicates, Morelli (1823-1901) spent most of his career in his native Naples, concentrating on religious subjects. Le Tentazioni di Sant'Antonio (1878) is one of the best known of these. He also painted portraits. As a bonus, I include photos of his Teresa Maglione Oneto (1879) which was also on display at the Arte Moderna. Click on the images to enlarge.

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"Establishment shot" of Temptation.

Ritratto di Teresa Maglione Oneto in its setting.

Up Close: Boldini's Giuseppe Verdi

Fans of late nineteenth century painting who are planning a trip that includes Rome should try to find time to visit the Galleria nazionale d'arte moderna. It's on the grounds of the Villa Borghese, a park located a short ways northeast of the Spanish Steps area, which puts it slightly away from the main Rome tourist track. Also on the grounds is the more famous Galleria Borghese, which contains masterpiece paintings and -- especially -- sculptures by the likes of Bernini and Canova. The two museums are not close to one another, but the walk between them is not too far for most people. Once visited, the Moderna is a fairly short walk from the Piazza del Popolo that, in turn, leads to streets where Rome's fanciest shops are found.

One of the best-known works in the Arte Moderna is the 1888 pastel portrait of Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) by Giovanni Boldini (1841-1931). Below are two photos I took of it on my last visit.

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Ritratto di Giuseppe Verdi - 1888
This is an image found on the Internet.

This is my photo showing the portrait and its frame.

A close-in photo I took. Click on the image to enlarge.

Up Close: Giacomo Favretto's "Dopo il bagno"

As I mentioned in the previous post, a late-19th century Venetian painter whose brushwork I like is Giacomo Favretto (1849-1887), who died aged 38 of typhoid fever. A brief Wikipedia entry is here and more details can be found here.

One of his paintings, Dopo il bagno - "After the Bath" (1884) was on display in Rome's Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna (Web site here). I was able to take some photos of it that are displayed below. Click on the images to enlarge. But be warned that paintings are often difficult to photograph in museums, so the focus might not be as sharp as it should be, and there can be extraneous light affecting the view.

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This image was taken from the Internet to serve as reference.

Here is my "establishment shot" of the painting.

The subject up close.

Favretto's handling on the right side of the painting.

The left side, with a bit of the frame included to improve the focus.

Up Close: Bastien-Lapage's Sarah Bernhardt

Jules Bastien-Lepage (1848-1884) was short-lived, yet influential in his day and for a few years thereafter. Along with many other talented and inventive painters of the late nineteenth century, he was doomed to decades of obscurity because his style did not fit the revealed historical narrative of Modernism's march to the end-state of painting: abstraction as practiced in New York City in the 1950s.

Bastien-Lepage's Wikipedia entry is here and examples of his work can be found via "Images" on Google or other search sites.

Although he usually featured people as subject matter, he seems to have painted only a few formal portraits. The best-known of these is his Sarah Berhardt of 1879 (for more information on the actress click here). I stumbled across the painting not long ago while at San Francisco's Palace of the Legion of Honor to view an Anders Zorn exhibit that I posted about here. The Bernhardt is not in the museum's permanent collection, being on loan from the Anne and Gordon Getty collection.

Guilty confession: I wrote a Molti Ritratti post on Sarah Berhardt portriats, but somehow failed to include Bastien-Lagage's version of her. I humbly attenpt to atone for this omission below.

This is an image of the full painting that I found on the Internet. Below is a section of it it photographed at the museum.

This isn't much of a close-up because the original painting is fairly small. But it offers better detail than the image of the entire painting. Click on this image to enlarge.