John-François Millet: Godliness and Virtue in Physical Labor

John-François Millet - The Gleaners - 1857 - Oil on canvas - 83.8 cm × 111.8 cm (33 in × 44 in) Musee d’Orsay, Paris (click photo for larger image)

Another work that Dr. Jill will discuss during her presentation on Friday, September 24th is John-François Millet’s work, The Gleaners. Three peasant women gather grains from what's left at the end of a harvest day as the evening shadows gather around them. In the background, a horse-drawn cart full of wheat, haystacks, sheaves of wheat, a man on horseback, a village, and a large crowd of laborers depict the abundance of the harvest. Of course, the people who worked so hard to bring in the harvests were rarely the ones to benefit from them.

John-François Millet (1814-1854) was a French artist and one of the founders of the Barbizon school in rural France. Millet is noted for his paintings of peasant farmers and can be categorized as both a “naturalist” and a “realist”.

The Barbizon School was a loose association of artists who worked around the village of Barbizon, located just outside Paris near the Forest of Fontainebleau. Members came from different backgrounds and worked in a range of styles but they were drawn together by their passion for painting en plein air and their desire to elevate landscape painting to a genre in its own right.

“Feast and Famine” is a FREE program but Registration is required. Please click HERE to sign up. Registration is limited to 15 people so early signup is recommended. The program will be held in-person at BAC, Covid permitting and following CDC and NYS safety guidelines. The OAC Hungers/Harvests Exhibition runs from September 1st – October 3rd.

Jackson Pollock: Jack the Dripper

Jackson Pollock - Number 1, 1949 - 1949 - Enamel and metallic paint on canvas - 63 × 102 in (160 × 259.1 cm) - Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles (click photo for larger image)Could a painter who flung paint at canvases with a stick, who poured and hurled it to create roiling vortexes of color and line, possibly be considered "great"? 

New York's critics certainly thought so, and Pollock's pre-eminence among the Abstract Expressionists has endured, cemented by the legend of his alcoholism and his early death. The famous 'drip paintings' that Jackson Pollock (1912-1956) began to produce in the late 1940s represent one of the most original bodies of work of the century. 

“Pollock's greatness lies in developing one of the most radical abstract styles in the history of modern art, detaching line from color, redefining the categories of drawing and painting, and finding new means to describe pictorial space.” His work both embodied and transcended the modern movements that preceded him.

Join us at Dr. Jill’s online class on Pollock to find out how he got there, on Friday, Nov. 12th - 11:00 AM-12:00 PM

Click HERE to REGISTER!

You will also find out more about Jackson Pollock right HERE on What About Art?

Quote of the Day

"Every great work of art should be considered like any work of nature. First of all from the point of view of its aesthetic reality and then not just from its development and the mastery of its creation but from the standpoint of what has moved and agitated its creator.” - Amedeo Modigliani

Marc Chagall: Maintaining the Narrative

Marc Chagall - 1912 - Calvary (Golgotha) - Oil on canvas, 174.6 × 192.4 cm - Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York (click photo for larger image)Marc Chagall (1887-1985) possessed a poetic, figurative style that made him one of most popular modern artists, while his long life and varied output made him one of the most internationally recognized. 

While many of his peers pursued ambitious experiments that led often to abstraction, Chagall's distinction lies in his steady faith in the power of figurative art and folk art, too. Chagall remained committed to narrative art, making him one of the modern period's most prominent exponents of the more traditional approach. 

“Although never completely aligning himself with any single movement, he interwove many of the visual elements of Cubism, Fauvism, Symbolism and Surrealism into his lyrically emotional aesthetic of Jewish folklore, dream-like pastorals, and Russian life. In this sense, Chagall's legacy reveals an artistic style that is both entirely his own and a rich amalgam of prevailing Modern art disciplines.”

Join us to examine his unique talents at Dr. Jill’s online class on Chagall, on Wed., Nov. 17th, 11:00am-12:00 PM

Click HERE to REGISTER!

You will also find out more about Marc Chagall right HERE on What About Art?

Edward Hopper: A Master of Isolation

Edward Hopper - Tables for Ladies - 1930 - Oil on canvas - 48 1/4 × 60 1/4 in. (122.6 × 153 cm) - Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (click photo for larger image)No one captured the isolation of the individual within the modern world like Edward Hopper (1882-1967). 

His imagery of figures within urban settings goes well beyond simply representing modern cityscapes.  Hopper’s art exposes the underbelly of the human experience. So while his oeuvre officially falls within the rubric of Realism, it offers a far more evocative look at life between the World Wars—and the individual psyche.

By providing a minimum of action, stripping away almost any sign of life or mobility, and adding dramatic means of representation with striking lighting schemes in claustrophobic spaces, Hopper suggests something of the psychological inner life of his subjects.

“In Hopper’s Tables for Ladies [featured here] a waitress leans forward to adjust the vividly painted foods at the window as a couple sits quietly in the richly paneled and well-lit interior. A cashier attentively tends to business at her register. Though they appear weary and detached, these two women hold posts newly available to female city dwellers outside the home. The painting’s title alludes to a recent social innovation in which establishments advertised "tables for ladies" in order to welcome their newly mobile female customers, who, if seen dining alone in public previously, were assumed to be prostitutes.” (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

As the artist’s style matured Hopper applied his signature iconography to “isolated figures in public or private interiors, to sun-soaked architecture, silent streets, and coastal scenes with lighthouses”.

Dr. Jill will be delivering a single-session program on Edward Hopper, on Wednesday, November 3rd at 11 AM. Register HERE so you don’t miss this presentation.

You can also read more about Edward Hopper right HERE on What About Art?