Category: cityscapes

Grant Wood

Grant Wood, “Spring in Town”, 1941, Oil on Wood Panel, 66 x 60.9 cm, Swope Art Museum, Terra Haute, Indiana

Born in February of 1891 near Anamosa, Iowa, painter Grant Wood was one of the major exponents of Midwestern Regionalism, an art movement that flourished during the 1930s. His adolescent years on the family farm remained an inspiration to him throughout his artistic career. In his early years, Wood studied under tile-craftsman Ernest A. Batchelder and took drawing classes under painter Charles Cumming at the University of Iowa. In 1913, he moved to Chicago to study at the Art Institute until the death of his father in 1916; at which time, Wood returned home to Cedar Rapids to support his mother and sister.

Wood traveled to France in 1923, where he studied for two years at the Académie Julian in Paris. He then continued his European travels, staying in Italy for a period to paint. During this period, Wood painted in an Impressionist-inspired style, focusing on landscapes. Though his style changed significantly over time, the decorative patterns of foliage and light seen in his early work remained a feature of his mature style. Encouraged in 1925 by his friend David Turner, Wood gave up teaching to focus full-time on his art, setting up a studio space, furnished by Turner, in Cedar Rapids.

It was in this developmental time, through the support of the Cedar Rapids community and his exposure to its culture, that he became committed to Regionalism, drawing the subjects of his work from the local population and landscapes of the region. Wood’s distinctive style was finalized after a trip to Munich in 1928, where he oversaw the fabrication of his stained glass window design for the Veterans Memorial Building in Cedar Rapids. By 1929, after having  viewed painter Hans Memling’s canvases and painter-printmaker Albrecht Dürer’s work in Munich’s museums, Wood came to believe the crisp edges and meticulous details of their execution could be used to convey a distinctly American quality.

In Iowa City in the spring of 1941, with war overseas and anxiety growing at home, Grant Wood began his sketch work for “Spring in Town”, which he finished that summer along with its companion piece “Spring in the Country”. He painted the scene with crisp, clear lines and gave the scene a  perspective from slightly above: this enabled the viewer to see the whole panorama of small-town life and labor as well as its minute details. Wood drew from his own memories of farm life as a young boy but combined these with aspects of his present life, the houses he noticed, the people he knew, and his feelings about family and friends.

“Spring in Town” was one of Grant Wood’s last midwestern rural scenes before his death in February of 1942. After the United States entered World War II, the Saturday Evening Post magazine printed “Spring in Town” as patriotic propaganda, presenting the idyllic scene as the exemplar of American life. The painting, however, although manifestly tranquil, represented a traumatic personal memory- the death of Wood’s father and, as a result, the loss of the family’s Anamosa farm. Wood’s first conception of the “Spring in Town” image coincided with the fortieth anniversary of his father’s death on March 17, 1901.

Top Insert Image: Grant Wood’s “Self Portrait” was reworked several times by the artist, beginning in 1932, but was never finalized. This last version of the enigmatic artist was uncompleted at his death. It is in the Davenport Collection of the Figge Art Museum located in Davenport, Iowa.

Second Insert Image: Grant Wood’s 1937 “Saturday Night Bath” is a charcoal drawing on wove paper which is in the collection of Houston’s Museum of Fine Art. In 1939, the image, reproduced as a lithograph, was considered by the U. S. Post Office to be pornographic due to the depictions of the two naked men. 

Bottom Insert Image: Grant Wood, “Plowing on Sunday”, 1934, Black Conté Crayon, Ink, Colored Pencil and Gouache on Brown Wove Paper, 45.7 x 43.5 cm, Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence, Rhode Island

 

Andrea Pezzatti

Photography by Andrea Pezzatti

Andrea Pezzatti is a freelance photographer working in the fields of portraiture, commercial, and landscape photography. Based in both Montevideo and Paysandú, Uruguay, she has traveled worldwide, producing portfolios of her work in Italy, France, Spain, Argentina, and Sicily. Pezzetti is currently shooting her work with both the Canon Powershot GFX Mark iii and the Canon Eos 6D. 

More examples of Andrea Pezzatti’s work can be found at her 500px site located at: https://500px.com/p/andreapezzatti?view=photos

Dana Yurcisin

Photography by Dana Yurcisin

Dana Yurcisin is a screenplay and song writer, cinematographer, musician and photographer. He entered Rowan University in 2007 and graduated with a Bachelors of Art in radio, television, and film.  In his third year at Rowan University, Yurcicim, along with John Bradley and Kevin McTinge, created the eight-part mini-series “The Adventures of Squirrel Man”, which won a Silver Telly Award. 

In 2011, Dana Yurcisin teamed with Daniel Attamante on the short film “Dog” for the Campus MovieFest competition. A campus finalist and an AT&T Rethink Possible semi-finalist, it was nominated for a Golden Tripod Award for cinematography and won the AT&T Wild Card Award. It also eared a spot at the International Grand Finale at Hollywood in June of 2011.

Expanding into still photography at the end of 2018, Yurcisin shoots with a fixed-lens Fuji and edits his images using Photoshop and Lightroom, often incorporating effects inspired by graphic novels and cinema. Using the backdrops of East coast beach towns, he produces images devoid of human presence that explore themes of solitude and loneliness.

Yurcisim  has done work in the digital marketing field: creating videos, shooting events and travel footage, advertising photography, and advertising campaigns. Currently based in Asbury Park, New Jersey, Yurcisin has also worked in all facets of media production including motion graphics, music and logo composition, and writing and editing.

The artist’s website is located at: http://www.danayurcisin.com

Julien Duval

Julien Duval, “Port  and City of Rovinj, Croatia”, Date Unknown

Julien Duval, a professional photographer specializing in travel photography, interior design, and music photography, is based in Zagreb, the capital city of Croatia. Born in Normandy in western France, he lived most of his life in Besançon, located in eastern France close to the border with Switzerland. Duval majored in geography, obtaining a Masters degree in geography and started a PhD at the University of Franche-Comte in France. 

Julien Duval, upon changing his field of study to photography, spent three years of  study in Paris. Photographers that he admires include Finish portrait photographer Arno Rafael Minkkinen, American photo-journalist Steve McCurry, landscape photographer Max Rive from the Netherlands, and Croatian photographer Tošo Dabac, best known for his social photography of the1930s. 

Combining his photography and geography skills with his desire to travel, Duval  travels, preferably to remote places, to capture the beauty and simplicity of nature with his camera. Recent travels have taken him to the Plitvice Lakes National Park on the Croatian coast, the rural areas of Iceland, the streets of New York City, and the still less-visited national park of Durmitor in northern Croatia. His clients include tourist boards and agencies, hotels, corporate work, and global music festivals.

The artist’s site is located at: https://www.julienduvalphoto.com

Charles Burchfield

Charles Burchfield, “House of Mystery”, 1924, Watercolor over Graphite on Heavy Textured Cream Wove Paper Laid on Cardboard and Varnished, 74 x 60 cm, Art Institute of Chicago

Insert: Charles Burchfield, “Orion in December”, 1959, Pencil and Watercolor on Paper, 101 x 84 cm, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Born in Ashtabula Harbor, Ohio, Charles Ephraim Burchfield was a Modernist painter known for passionate watercolor scenes of nature and townscapes. During his life, he often drew inspiration from the urban atmosphere of Buffalo, New York, and the small town settings in Salem, Ohio. 

Charles Burchfield won a scholarship to attend the Cleveland School of Art, where he studied under the Modernist watercolor painter Henry G. Keller, graduating  in 1916. He developed his own particular style, working in a dry-brush technique, by the summer of 1915, sketching and painting around Salem, Ohio. Burchfield painted in an almost Fauvist style with broad areas of simple colors and, adding in 1917, visual motifs expressing human, often disturbing, moods. Painting consistently, he produced half of his life-time work while living in Salem from 1915 to 1917. 

Starting in 1919, initially to provide financially for his wife and children, Burchfield painted small-town and industrial scenes in the style of the Regionalist movement with the intent to sell them in the New York art market. After the approach in 1928 to the Frank Rehn Gallery in New York, the successful sales of his work enabled him to resign his wallpaper design employment at Birge & Co in Buffalo and paint full-time. These large watercolors of small towns and industries, often resembling oil paintings, which continued until 1943, are the ones most associated with him.

Attempting to regain a lost intensity, Charles Burchfield again returned in 1943 to the enthusiasm of his earlier work, developing large, visionary renditions of nature envisioned with heightened colors, swirling brush strokes, and exaggerated forms. Using the skills he mastered in his middle years, he attempted to show an era of human history where men saw spirits in natural objects and forces of nature. He also returned to watercolors done in his youth, reworking and enlarging them by adding sections of paper to the original sheets. 

Charles E. Burchfield died on January 10th of 1967 at the age of seventy-three, after spending most of his life in West Seneca, New York. He is buried in Oakwood Cemetery in the Village of East Aurora, New York. The largest collection of his paintings are in the collection of the Burchfield Penney Art Center in Buffalo. 

Maurice Brazil Prendergast

Artwork by Maurice Prendergast

Born in 1858 in Saint John’s, Newfoundland, Maurice Brazil Prendergast was a post-impressionist artist who worked in watercolor, oil paints, and mono-type. At a young age with very little schooling, he was apprenticed to a commercial artist in Boston, where he became influenced by the bright-colored and flat-patterned work. A shy, reserved individual, Prendergast remained a bachelor throughout his life, closely attached to his artist brother Charles, a gifted craftsman and artist. 

Starting in 1892, Prendergast studied for three years in Paris at the Atelier Colarossi, under painter Gustave Courtis,  and at the Académie Julian. During one of his early stays in Paris, he met the Canadian landscape painter James Morrice. Under the influence of Morrice, Prendergast began sketching on wood panels scenes of elegantly dressed women and children at the seaside resorts of Saint-Malo and Dieppe. Later, drawing inspiration from the post-impressionists Pierre Bonnard and Edouard Vuillard, he developed a more sophisticated modern style, with boldly contrasting, jewel-like colors, and flattened, patterned forms rhythmically arranged on a canvas.

Returning home in 1895, Prendergast shared a studio with his brother, continuing in his work to focus on people strolling in parks, on the beach, or traveling the city streets. A trip to Venice in 1898 exposed him to the genre scenes of early Renaissance narrative painter Vittore Carpaccio and encouraged him toward even more complex and rhythmic arrangements. Prendergast also became one of the first Americans to embrace the work of Cézanne, understanding and using Cézanne’s expressive use of form and color.

A successful exhibition of the work Prendergast produced in Venice was held in 1900 at the Macbeth Galleries in New York. In 1907 he traveled to France; where,  after contact with the Fauvist movement, he started painting works with startling bright colors and staccato brushstrokes. Later in 1907, Prendergast exhibited his new work in a show with the group of artists known as The Eight, exponents of the Ashcan School. 

In 1913 Prendergast was invited to participate in the famed Armory Show in New York City which was largely arranged by his friend, landscape painter Arthur B.  Davies. In 1914, he settled in New York, along with his brother Charles, where he enjoyed great success with collectors such as Duncan Phillips, and attracted a number of important patrons, including John Quinn, modern art collector Lillie B. Bliss, and Dr. Albert Barnes, the founder of the Barnes Foundation. 

During his final years of his career, Maurice Prendergast spent his time sketching during the summers in New England and painting in New York in the winters. In frail health by 1923, he died a year later, in February of 1924, at the age of sixty-five.

Stone on Top of Stone

Photographer Unknown, (Stone on Top of Stone- Restoration)

“A third of thee dumbfounded, 33 degrees of masonry which are the controllers of mastery. Stone on top of stone, carry the U.S on my back as I travel through Rome. It’s God & I on my own,I ask for wisdom and wisdom is shown. What I have is common with Solomon is the position I take on this throne. Ancient ancestry of modern day slavery, there are thousands hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root with bravery.”
― Jose R. Coronado, The Land Flowing with Milk and Honey

The Funicular

Chas, “The Funicular”, Zagreb, Croatia

This is one of the shortest; but also one of the steepest funiculars in the world. The track length is only 217 feet; but the height is 100 feet with an inclination of 52 degrees. The funicular started operation in 1890 powered by a steam engine, which was replaced withan electric engine in 1934. The cars reach the top in 64 seconds.

Jim Edwards

Eight Paintings by Jim Edwards

Edwards’ cityscape paintings are not studies from life, nor is he trying to capture a particular viewpoint or moment in time. His paintings have their origin in memory, how he remembers the workings and landmarks of the city, rather than a straightforward representation. The compositions evolve from a combination of imagination and selective memory, which are then altered and exaggerated. Certain buildings are forgotten, or simplified, creating a personal view of the city.

This personal impression of cityscapes often runs into his more abstract work, where the block shapes he paints represent manmade forms, rooms and human spaces. These combine with connecting lines, suggesting marks within a landscape, pathways linking separate constructs.

The Annual Light Festival

The Annual Light Festival in Ghent,  Belgium

Ghent is the first city in Belgium to have a complete lighting plan designed for it. The Light Festival wants to bring the Light Plan in the spotlights and reveal a glimpse of the unique and hidden charm of the city. During the Light Festival you can embark on an exploratory voyage along the wintery track in the Ghent city centre and plunge in the most exciting light experiences.

A subtle game of beams that reflect on the water surface, unexpected projections on buildings, poetic shadows that play in the semidarkness between the hidden treasures of the city. About fifteen internationally renowned artists and light designers lead you during the darkest days of the year along a 6 km track. On several unique locations, both inside and outside, you can admire the work of the light artists.

Unconfirmed Dates for 2016: January 26-29. Confirm dates before traveling.

Egon Schiele

Egon Schiele, “Krumau Town Crescent I”, 1915, Oil on Canvas, 109.7 x 140 cmIsrael Museum, Jerusalem, Israel.

In 1910 Egon Schiele decided to flee the urban bustle of Vienna for a yearnful sojourn in the rural town of Krumau, the birthplace of his mother.The town is now modern-day Český Krumlov in the Czech Republic, but in the early twentieth century, it was still part of the sprawling Austro-Hungarian empire. Accompanied by artistic companions Anton Peschka and Ervin Osen, Krumau provoked a creative spark in Schiele, inspiring a vast amount of artistic output for the rest of his short life. But rather than providing a peaceful backdrop of pastoral existence, Krumau enhanced Schiele’s preoccupation with isolation and unease.

His quest to explore the spiritual essence of his environment is Expressionist in notion, revealing the hidden core of human experience through visual exaggeration and subjective insight.  In “Krumau Town Crescent 1”, the claustrophobic nature of the  unsteady throng of houses on the Moldau river emphasises the compressed nature of this decaying urban vista. Solid vertical lines support the waterside settlements, yet are helplessly undermined by the sinuous curves of their own crumpled roofs. This remote town would serve as a visual conduit for his own melancholy reflections.

Despite his longing for a provincial idyll, Schiele and his friends were to encounter a degree of hostility from some of the more conservative residents of Krumau. However, this didn’t prevent him from planning a permanent move there in 1911 alongside his partner and muse, Wally Neuzil. For a time they enjoyed a peaceful existence in their little cottage by the river, but his paintings remained haunted by the town’s ancient winding streets and compact medieval design.

Insert Image: Anton Joseph Trcka, “Egon Schiele”, 1914, Gelatin Silver Print, Gilman Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Wayne Thiebaud

Wayne Thiebaud, Oil Paintings

Wayne Thiebaud is an American painter best known for his colorful works depicting commonplace objects—pies, lipsticks, paint cans, ice cream cones, pastries, and hot dogs—as well as for his landscapes and figures. He is associated with the Pop art movement because of his interest in objects of mass culture, although his early works, executed during the fifties and sixties, slightly predate the works of the classic pop artists.

Thiebaud uses heavy pigment and exaggerated colors to depict his subjects, and the well-defined shadows characteristic of advertisements are almost always included in his work.

Note: An extensive article on the life and work of Wayne Thiebaud is “City, River, Mountain: Wayne Thiebaud’s California” written by Margaretta M. Lovell. It can be found at the Journal of the Association of Historians of American Art site located at: https://editions.lib.umn.edu/panorama/article/wayne-thiebauds-california/

Edward Hopper

Edward Hopper, “Pennsylvania Coal Town”, Oil on Canvas, 1947, Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio

In the early 1940s, American Realist painter Edward Hopper had a very productive period, in which he painted some of his most famous works, such as “Morning in a City” and “Nighthawks”. During the late 1940s, however, he suffered a period of relative inactivity.  By 1947 when he painted “Pennsylvania Coal Town”, his output had slowed. However, in the 1950s and early 1960s, despite faltering health and several surgeries, Hopper created several more major works, including the 1951 “First Row Orchestra” and the 1952 “Hotel by a Railroad”.

“Pennsylvania Coal Town” portrays a man, tending the yard outside of his house, holding a rake or similar tool. Apart from a plant with green foliage in a large vase, the yard appears bare. The man is staring at something we cannot see, a frequent occurrence in Hopper’s work. Many of his paintings depict people gazing at something unknown in the distance. The interior of the house’s front room can be seen through a large window, showing a lamp and a picture on the wall.

As with many of Hopper’s paintings, light plays an important role. The sunlight is shining directly on the man, and one side of the house, in contrast to the rest of the painting, which is shown in shadow. This gives the impression that it is, either, early morning or late evening. Typical of much of his work, this painting does not tell a story but is a location’s moment in time. It is left to the viewer to imagine what is happening here.

Another recurring motif, in Edward Hopper’s work, is loneliness. Many of his works feature a lone person staring out of a window, or sitting at a coffee table. In this painting the subject appears to be alone; there is no sign of life around him. Even the house does not appear welcoming. “Pennsylvania Coal Town” is a fine example of Hopper’s genius, depicting considerable information in a seemingly simple painting.