Artists use different mediums to visually represent different messages to viewers. While there is a multitude of techniques, all artists aim to convey a particular conceptual image through their creations. The Metropolitan Museum of Art possesses one of the most incredible art collections the world. Visitors may experience a large variety of art, in different mediums, by different artists, and art influenced from different cultures or time periods. Particularly drawn to oil on canvas paintings, I found it necessary to examine a common thread connecting five specific paintings. A common theme of seasons and how each artists uses different formal elements of art technique to reveal a setting of time and weather to the viewer.
William James Glackens, an American realist painter, typically aimed to depict robust and gritty urban scenes. However, Glackens and many realists appear to display and view the world through “rose colored glasses.” On display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is his painting Winter, Central Park. In this piece, viewers are presented with a snapshot scene of a winter, snowy day in New York City’s Central Park. Children running down a gentle hill with sleds and playing in the snow are strewn across the canvas. Watchful parents and caregivers overlook their children. This painting does not show the grit and urban scene one may expect, instead exhibiting an idyllic viewpoint of life in New York City in 1905. The children appear well behaved and are dressed warmly in heavy coats, prepared for the weather and well provided for. The women are dressed fashionably and seem to be at leisure, enjoying the recreational time outside. Glackens portrays a pleasant and peaceful day at the park, instead of the realistic depiction of one of New York’s slum neighborhoods at the time. Through this he ignores the urban poverty and struggles with immigration occurring in a transitional time for America in the early 1900’s.
Glackens mostly uses a dark color palette and gestural brush strokes to illustrate this scene. Choosing primarily dark blues, whites and gray to delineate the icy cold weather and snowy day. There are only a few subtle alternations in use of color to illustrate a few barren trees and plants with a hint of green, and to depict the figures’ clothing. His use of shadows creates a sense of iciness and cold, while he uses highlights to create the contrast of the pristine and beautifully white snow. He uses loose and rushed strokes where viewers can visibly see the imperfections to create a sense of movement and life. While it is highly idyllic, he truly captured the energy and vitality of New York City through his work.
Claude Monet was a founder of French Impressionist painting, born in 1840 and lived until 1926. Monet’s painting Houses on the Achterzaan, made in 1871, is on display in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Charles-Francois Daubigny advised Monet to travel to the Netherlands in 1871, where he painted the beautiful landscape along the Achterzaan River in Zaandam. While there, Monet wrote to Camille Pissarro, another impressionist painter, “This is a superb place for painting. There are the most amusing things everywhere: hundreds of windmills and enchanting boats, extremely friendly Dutchmen…”
Monet uses a limited color palette here with different shades of green to depict a warm yet vague and muted atmosphere. The use of a gentle yellow muted glow places the viewer in a warm season, such as summer. The brush technique he uses is highly picturesque and illustrates the rippled streaks of water along the river. His use of highlight helps to depict the vast open Dutch sky and gives a glassy reflective effect to the water.
Vincent Van Gogh was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who was one of the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. While only living from 1853-1890, Van Gogh contributed nearly 2,100 works of art in his short lifetime. In his piece Wheat Field with Cypresses, on display in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Van Gogh illustrates a wheat field with a beautiful cypresses tree. In the summer of 1889 he created multiple pieces that were focused around the cypress tree. His lively brush work with thick paint strokes layered, creates the rush of wind, movement in the trees and wheat field, and the high heat of this summer landscape. It’s sense of immediacy is striking as Van Gogh often painted his scenes directly in nature spontaneously in the moment.
Originally published 15.10.2019