The more advanced would have insisted on not only the fibre in the wood, but
the brand on the other side of the blade, had it been physically possible to
show it.
In absolute contrast to this, there lived a man at Barbizon who maintained
that a spade was not a spade at all, but merely a mass of shadow against a low
twilight sky, in the hands of a figure who with uncovered head listens
reverently; that the spade is merely a symbol of labor; that he used it as he
would use a word necessary to express a sentence,oil paintings, which would be unintelligible
without it, and that it was perfectly immaterial to him, and should be to the
world, whether it was a spade or a shovel so long as the soft twilight, and the
reverent figures wearied with the day's work, and the flat waste of field
stretching away to the little village spire on the dim horizon line told the
story of human suffering and patience and toil, as with folded hands they
listened to the soft cadence of the angelus.
Which of these two methods of expression is correct—Ruskin or Millet? Are
there any laws which govern, or is it a matter of taste, fancy, or feeling? Is
it a matter of individuality? If so, which individual by his methods tells us
the most truths? Let us endeavor to analyze. oil paintings wholesale
I whirl through a mountain gorge and catch a glance through a car-window—an
impression. In the darkness of the tunnel it remains with me. I see the great
mass of white cumuli and against them the dark cedars, the straggling foot-path
and steep cliffs. I am impressed with the sweep of the cloud form pressing over
and around them. With my eyes closed I paint this on my brain, and if I am great
enough and wide enough and deep enough I can subdue my personality and forget my
surroundings, and when opportunity offers I can express upon my canvas the few
salient facts which impressed me and should impress my fellow men. If it is the silvery light of
the morning, I am Corot; if the day is gone and across the cool lagoon I see the
ripple amid the tall grass catching the fading color of the warm sky, I am
Daubigny; if a gray mist hangs over the hillside and the patches of snow half
melted express the warmth and mellowness of the coming spring, I am our own
Inness. oil paintings for sale
Perhaps, however, I am not content. I am overburdened with curiosity. I say
to myself: "What sort of trees, pine or cedar?" I think, pine, but I am uneasy
lest they should be hemlock. Were the rocks all perpendicular, or did not
detached bowlders line the path? About the clouds, were they not some small
cirri beneath the zenith? My memory is so bad—and so I stop the train and go
back. Just as I expected. The trees were spruce and the rocks were grass-grown
and full of fissures, and so I begin to paint and continue. I get the bark on
the trees, and the foliage until each particular leaf stands on end, and the strata of
the cliffs, and the very sand on the path. I crowd into my canvas geology,
botany, and the laws governing cloud forms. wholesale oil paintings
No comments:
Post a Comment