The Poplar Avenue at Moret Cloudy Day Morning once exhibited in “French Rural Landscape Painting Exhibition in 19th Century” in 1978 attracted numerous audiences in China with its strong artistic charm. The Poplar Avenue at Moret Cloudy Day Morning was made in 1890, which could be said to be the representative work of Alfred Sisley‘s later works. During this period, the painter’s strokes were quicker and
partly proved the dark transparent thin and high light opaque coating in the traditional painting techniques. Look at the surface of the canvas: the brush dipped in paint of Sisley was very thick. Sisley almost neither used the color oil, nor mixed the colors, but painted the original colors in the canvas. And the adjacent strokes were not linked together after complete drying. Different colors and brush strokes made the painting produce the vivid collision and vibration of air molecules.
Isaac Levitan later painting, Lake Rus, was similar to his masterpiece Above The Eternal Tranquility which contained the deep and sad era characteristics. Levitan had made multiple variants about this realism art. In order to explore the different lights and color changes in the transfer of climates of the sky and the lake, he seriously studied the different techniques and strived to exhibit the vividness and richness of the beauty of the nature. The view of the painting was open, the composition was broad and magnificent and the artistic style was close to the epic.
This landscapes was one of the most aesthetic works among the large series of paintings that were exhibited in 98 China International Art Year. The whole painting scene of Lake Rus was echoed in one kind of musical melody. Some critics compared it to the Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto, with its magnificent poetry to summon up the theme that fascinated all the painters: the broad water and land, the walking clouds and wind, the shadow floating through the newly plowed spring land, the outline of distant towns and faintly visible white church’s spire. All of these were the real scenery of the central Russia in a sunny spring afternoon. And human was just a small and precious part of the nature. The Lake Rus made before the painter’s death used very light and lively colors and made the highly generalization for the image of the nature, which was the summary of his constant exploration in art.
In the middle of 1890s, Isaac Levitan drew some lyric paintings. Among them, the outstanding was Golden Autumn. The famous painting Golden Autumn was created in 1895. The painting was full of sunshine and its blue sky floated the white clouds, like breathing. The sun went through the clouds and shined in the same blue shiny brook. The field was changing from green to yellow and the leaves had become yellow. The clearly visible strokes unleashed the surging passion of the painter’s heart.
Levitan used robust strokes and colors to highly summarize the description of the Russian gold autumn landscape. This landscape painting was a song of autumn. An invigorating autumn climate made the viewers feel fresh. Now it is collected in Moscow’s Tretyakov Art Museum. Under the blue sky, the leaves of the fall birch trees sounded like a gold foil. All the plants in the field were painted the golden yellow. The water in the river reflected the blue
indicated the upcoming natural process: leaves covered the underground, grass became yellow. So, when the viewers felt happy and joyful, they also felt regretful and sad, which people often experienced in the autumn. You see, Levitan not only depicted the beautiful golden autumn in this landscape painting, but also showed the experience and feelings that people had when appreciating the painting. So this landscape painting made people feel warm.
In the “Modern Art Exhibition” which was held in Amsterdam in October
under the shadow of Cubism, his works still showed his own unique personality. It could be said that he was the real developer of cubism, rather than the imitator. For example, he insisted on the completely positive form to show the theme and he also simplified the natural form of the objects until the pure essence was reached. Apollinaire had made this assessment for him, “Although Mondrian is strongly influenced by Picasso, Mondrian’s personality is completely owned by himself”.
Composition with Red Blue and Yellow was an abstract art painting, made in 1930 with 51 square meters. Now it is privately owned by Mr. and Mrs. Armand P. Bartos in New York. This wok was one of the representatives of Mondrian geometric abstract style.
We see, the heavy black lined controlled seven rectangles of different sizes and formed a very compact structure. What led the Mondrian painting was the bright red with large area and saturated color on the upper right. The small blue on the lower left, a little yellow on the lower right and four pieces of gray white cooperated effectively and firmly controlled the balance of red square in the painting. Here, in addition to colors, no other color; in addition to the vertical line and horizontal line, no other lines; in addition to the rectangular and square, no other shape. The smart segmentation and combination made the plane abstracted as a rhythm and dynamic image, so as to realize his geometric abstraction principle, “Taking advantage of the basic elements of painting: straight lines and right angles (horizontal and vertical), RGB (red, yellow and blue) and three non-color (white, gray, black), these limited pattern meanings and abstract symbol combined to constitute a force of nature and nature itself.”
When it comes to Mondrian, we immediately think of those rectangular with different specifications. Some art critics thought that Mondrian’s works were only applicable to advertising design, furniture, printing and decoration, not to mention the “painting”. This criticism was abstract, because it left the characteristics of the times. At that time, Mondrian did not think so. He gradually walked on the road of geometric abstract composition and followed the simple structure of cubism and futurism. He put the painting language restricted in the most basic factors: linear, rectangular, three primary colors (red, yellow, blue) and three non-color (white, gray, black) and called these paintings Neo-Plasticism. From 1917, he drew a lot of works with the similar names. Composition With Red Blue And Yellow was a typical example.
The Star Dancer on Stage by Edgar Degas was made in 1877. The dancer on stage was neither an actor, nor a social celebrity, but an ordinary dancer. The painter Edgar Degas took their dance as the medium to deliberately pursue the performance of light and color. Through the portrayal of the dancer, the painter tried to exhibit the strong light reflection effect. This work which regarded the indoor lighting as the portrayal object became the most famous work in impressionist paintings. The Arena scenery and green carpet foiled the dancer under the light and appeared illusory and magnificent, which became a beautiful world. People praised that Degas was a master for painting the dancers, but Degas said, “People call me a painter of painting dancers, but they do not know that for me, the dancers are just the media to depict the beautiful
depiction and everything else was secondary.
The Star Dancer on Stage was such a work. The ballerina closest to us was dancing with the music and her charming and exquisite body was set to complete a rotation with rising hand stretching gracefully. Under the reflection of the stage light, her dress showed the charming color changes, giving people the lightness and mystery. The ballerinas painted by Degas were diligent in art and practiced dancing very hard. But their pay was very low, and they had the risk of dismissal. In France in 19th century, ballet was an elegant art, but the actor’s status was not high. Only a few dancers could take the social honor title. In his work, Degas expressed the sincere sympathy for these dancers. So, in addition to drawing their graceful dance on stage, the painter also depicted their hard life behind the stage. These Degas masterpieces were like the mirror to show the dancers’ life.
The Scream was one of the representative works of Edvard Munch, who was the Norway impressionist painter. This painting was the famous work of expressionism. On May 3, 2012, in New York Sotheby’s Impressionist and modern art auction, the auction of The Scream in 1895 succeeded with the price of $119900000, creating the auction record.
The main body of the Edvard Munch painting was an extremely painful expression in the blood red background. The red background was coming from the explosion of Krakatau volcano in 1883. The volcano ash made the sky red. The place was Oslo Fjord looked down from Ekebeili Mountain. Some people thought that the work reflected the modern people’s anxious artistic conception puzzled by existentialism.
This series had a wide scope, took “life, love and death” as the basic themes, adopted the symbolism and metaphors and revealed people’s worries and fears at the end of the century. The Scream made in 1893 was the strongest and most stimulating one among this series, which was one of Munch important representative works. In this genre painting, Munch used the exaggerated brushwork to depict the distorted and screaming character and played most incisive to the human’s extreme depression and loneliness as well as fear facing the universe. This work had four versions, which were respectively hidden in the Munch Museum of Oslo (tempera, on paper, 83.5 x 66 cm), in the National Gallery (tempera, oil painting, pastels, on paper, 91 x 73.5 cm), another version in the Munch Museum in 1910, with tempera and oil painting on a board, and in 1895 collected by the Peter Olsen. In 1895 the painter made the work into prints and copies and began the public perception of the image. Since 1994, two versions have
they have been recovered.
When Alfred Sisley created The Bridge at Moret collected in OrsayMuseum, he supported the easel on the other side and he stood on the right side which was slightly lower than the bridge. In this way, he was able to clearly see six apertures, the overlapping roofs as well as the church’s spire from the lower left corner of the bridge. The place beyond the center of the painting about famous cities stood a
bridge at moret 1893[/caption]
In the summer of 1892, thirty-one-year-old Isaac Levitan came to the state of Teweiersik which was not far from Moscow and lived in the manor for sketching and painting. Here, for the first time he heard the touching story.
Once upon a time there was the daughter of Miller fell in love with a handsome boy who fed the horses. However, the girl’s stern grandfather knew it and got extremely angry. To break up the couple, he tried to bribe the draft board to take the boy to be a soldier. The old Russian military service was lifelong tenure. After hearing this news, the girl got desperate and came to a deep pool in the wild forest and jumped into the whirlpool through the wooded built bridge.
The story made the Isaac Levitan shocked and resonates. In the evening, he looked from the balcony of the house to the distance through the twilight and seemed to see the deep whirlpool surrounded by the dark wood. The lake appeared the crystalline waves and reflecting the clouds in the sky. The last glow incarnating the cloud top and the dark forest made people not see its danger and bottomless. A few thick skinned raw wood were placed in the lake to constitute a sincere bridge, seeming to summon you to cross the bridge to the other side. Across the bridge, the running weeds and dense forest shrubs stood quietly and silently green, like a fence isolating the external contact with the world, resulting in a secluded little world. It’s hard to imagine such a quiet place full of poetry was a devouring dream. But in this quiet atmosphere, a trace of melancholy clearly existed: because the lake contained the lover’s tears? Or because the water and the lake still dipped in the girl’s final sad song? The painter decided to draw the scene to express his grief and make the painting permeate lovers’ sorrow, the girl’s deep feeling and the natural quiet sense. In this way, a painting which moved tens of thousands of people was born, this was Levitan masterpiece By The Whirlpool.
