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pLog Pith XVIII
There is magic to the mystery, but there is no mystery to the magic. – TJA
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Book Note of the Day: Preservation of Breadth
John Burnet’s Practical Hints on Light and Shade in Painting, published in 1880, opens with the following quote: The highest finishing is labor in vain, unless at the same time there be preserved a breadth of light and shadow. From Reynold’s notes on Du Fresnoy
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Video: Lessons from Van Dyck
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Book Note of the Day: Alberti on Beauty
‘Beauty’, he says, ‘is that reasoned harmony of the parts within a body, so that nothing may be added, taken away, or altered but for the worse.’ —from The Chameleon’s Eye, by Caspar Pearson.
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Book Note of the Day: The Royal Road in Art
There is no royal road in art. In this department of life, as in every other, the student must serve before he can govern. He must learn to construct, to draw, to paint, to observe, and select. —From the preface of Alfred East’s, “Landscape Painting in Oil Colour,” Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott Company, 1908 This…
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Book Note of the Day: the Importance of Instinct
Velazquez, like every great artist, tempered his method with doses of instinct. —From Jonathan Brown and Carmen Garrido’s “Technique of Genius”, Yale University Press, 1998.
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“Sinking In” – When Oil Paint Dries Dull and Matte on the Canvas and Why
“Sinking in” is the term used to describe what happens when a layer of paint loses its saturation. If you, like me, often use an earth palette, then this effect can easily be seen when a layer of Raw Umber or Burnt Umber has dried.
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Anthonis Mor: Technical Info on the National Portrait Gallery Website
Alway a delight to find this kind of information.
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From the Graveyard: Formulas for Flesh – Part I: Caravaggio, Guercino, Reni and Caracci
Today I am less convinced that there is a formula for the color of flesh… but I do think there are strategies to be considered in terms of managing luminosity and temperature. What do you think?
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pLog Pith XVII
If the big things aren’t right, the small things won’t matter.Make it so that small things matter. – TJA
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Pigment Analysis in Paintings: Titian, Velazquez, Rembrandt
I always enjoy have some idea of the kinds of pigments used to create a certain color, especially if multiple layers are involved. Here is a website I stumbled upon that has some nice presentations on this very topic…
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Great Interactive Website for a Rubens Show
I hope they will keep this up even after the show ends: Rubens: The Power of Transformation Note: I found this via the Art History News website.
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Track the Lives of the Old Masters
There is a very clever new website called eVasari: you can trace the timeline, travels and pictures of many different artists… even several together. Attached is a search I did that shows how the lifetimes of Leonardo, Michelangelo and Titian overlap. Really cool. You can find it here.
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pLog Pith XVI
You follow rules to go somewhere. You break rules to go somewhere else. You ignore rules to go nowhere.
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pLog Pith XV
We need to be reminded: there is no beauty without rules and there is no better rule book than nature. —TJA
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The National Gallery Technical Bulletin: Titian after 1540
This special edition is dedicated to the study of Titian’s technique and style after 1540.
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The Palette of Gilbert Stuart
From the Natural Pigments website…
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The Providence of Fundamentals – Learning to Draw Before You Paint Pays Dividends
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The Continuity of Light and the Criteria to Capture It: A Review of the Workshop with Charles Weed
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“J. M. W. Turner and other English artists of his generation relied on the development of innovative gels. “
“To paint quickly while creating exceptional texture and volume effects, J. M. W. Turner and other English artists of his generation relied on the development of innovative gels.”
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The Pigment Compendium on Google Books
If you are doing research on unfamiliar names of pigments, then this is the resource you need: The Pigment Compendium by Nicholas Eastuagh, Valentine Walsh, Tracey Chaplin and Ruth Siddall.
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“Flesh Spheres”
In January of 2014 I made my second trip to visit Odd in Norway. It was during that visit that I first met the Italian painter, Roberto Calò, and together we began experimenting with underpainting, flesh tones and color temperature (including the turbid medium effect), through a series of spheres. I would now call those…
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The National Gallery Technical Bulletin: Sir Joshua Reynolds
This special edition is dedicated to the paintings of Joshua Reynolds in the National Gallery and the Wallace Collection.
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Titian’s Secret Revealed
“He was simply better than anyone else.”
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“Painter’s Palettes from Historical Writings”
A just-discovered great new resource by Patricia Railing.
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A Poem from 1762
—The diſtinguish’d part of Men With Compaſs, Pencil, sword, or Pen, Shou’d in Life’s viſit leave their Name In Characters, which may proclaim, That they with Ardour ſtrove to raiſe At once their Art’s and Country’s Praiſe. Prior. —from Anecdotes of Painting in England by Mr. Horace Walpole
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A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings Online
For those familiar with Ernst van de Wetering’s Rembrandt – The Painter at Work and the Rembrandt Research Project, you may also be aware of the six-part series of Rembrandt books entitled A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings. If you’re not interested in paying the going rate for an actual volume (Volume I is currently selling…
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Caravaggio’s Contarrelli Chapel in High-Res and Head-On
If you visit the Contarelli Chapel in Rome’s San Luigi dei Francesi, you can see the paintings that made Caravaggio a superstar. The only down side is having to appreciate The Calling of St. Matthew and The Martyrdom of St. Matthew at oblique angles. Thanks to Factum Arte’s extraordinary images you can now see the…
Have any book or website recommendations?