(Metropolitan Museum exhibition - The Path of Nature: French Paintings  from the Wheelock Whitney Collection, 1785-1850.) [Notes from April 11, 2013] Re. The Giralda, Seville by Adrian Dauzats: without laboring over minute details, Dauzats gives us indications of various shifts in the color of masonry; the cobalt blue of the sky shows up in the shadows, especially effective where it meets up against the soft cream-colored plaster of the upper structures; soft edges, and allowance for how the trailing of the brush suggests surfaces, are all things I have to learn from as a painter. A really fine sense of balance between the general and the specific creates all these beautiful little forms.

^ The Giralda, Seville. Oil on paper, laid down on canvas. ca.1836/37. Adrien Dauzats (b.1804-d.1868). 


Re. The Gate to the Temple of Luxor by Antoine-Xavier-Gabriel de Gazeau: a humid sky shifts between subtle shifts of whitish hues --- slightly gray blue, white, slightly yellow ochre white.

^ The Gate to the Temple of Luxor. Oil on paper, laid down on canvas. 1836. Antoine-Xavier-Gabriel de Gazeau, comte de La Bouëre (b.1801-d.1881).


Re. Cloud Study (Distant Storm), by Simon Denis: For most of the cloud's edges, the end of the brush was allowed to point outward, creating a feathery edge, instead of using the side of the brush to create a hard edge; a huge amount of sky and cloud formation is held within these small measurements (maybe 8x10"?).

^ Cloud Study (Distant Storms). Oil on paper. ca.1786-1806. Simon Denis (b.1755-d.1813).


Re. Mountainous Landscape at Vicovaro, by Simon Denis: Simon Denis is perfect; straight forward and direct with a keen sense of tone;  all the air and light and grandeur of the place fills his little paintings.
"Each day he painted or drew on the spot, always in a different place; and, in this fashion, he learned, as he himself said, to make studies by making pictures, and to make pictures by making studies." - Joseph Bidauld, french painter, b.1758-d.1846.

^ Mountainous Landscape at Vicovaro. Oil on paper.  ca.1786-97. Simon Denis (b.1755-d.1813).


Re. View in the Gardens of the Villa d'Este, by Léon Pallière: simplicity; all hues toned down (no #1 tone --- pure white); I have read of palettes which included no blues but, rather, black serves the place of it with the very lightest gray (it would need to be a cool black then, not a warm black); this could be an example; how much we are told about the pool's structure in the foreground with only a few simple shapes, carefully calibrated tones, and the drag of the brush; again, no sharp edges, no straight edges, no hard angles; imperfections aid in description and create naturalness.

^ View in the Gardens of the Villa d'Este. Oil on paper, laid down on canvas. ca.1814-17.  Léon Pallière (b.1787-d.1820).


Re. Mountainous Landscape with Bridge, by Eugène-Joseph Verboeckhoven: dramatic use of light hitting pale, massive cliff wall places our attention on the foreground, framed dramatically on either side in other shadowed, steep formations, with masonry protruding like a ridge up the right bank; this light is repeated back further, at its source --- the early evening sun, soft and warm with some faint rosy tone, behind the foreground outcrop; evening light quickly transferring to pale baby blue but the shift is so subtle; distant hills dissolve away from their nearer sibling into soft soft violet grays with no edge, no interruption, the light melts ridges where atmosphere lay.

^ Mountainous Landscape with Bridge. Oil on paper, laid down on canvas. ca.1820s? Eugène-Joseph Verboeckhoven (b.1798-d.1801)