Constable’s painterly sketches were never intended to be seen by the public, but JMW Turner’s later works are rich in marks, scratches and radical in appearance.
brushstrokes
Brushstrokes and painterly marks in the portraits of Gainsborough, Reynolds, Angelica Kauffmann, Jacques-Louis David and James Tissot.
El Greco’s uniquely painterly brushstrokes, the oil sketches and studies of Rubens, and Rembrandt, the first major artist to intentionally leave brushstrokes in prominent passages.
From Dosso Dossi in around 1530, through Titian and Veronese in 1580, brushstrokes became more visible in fabrics, hair, and other passages.
The start of the journey from the fine details of Jan van Eyck and those in the Northern Renaissance to the Impressionists, with close-ups of Bellini, del Piombo and Parmigianino’s paintings.
Rembrandt’s Jewish Bride; Gérôme’s Carpet Merchant; Sargent’s Arab Woman; Cézanne’s Forest Scene. Each at different levels of detail.
Were Turner’s and Cézanne’s late paintings becoming more abstract? What distinguishes representational painting from abstract?
First shown in the Salon at the age of only 18, Vincent van Gogh spotted his talent. Not only was it cut short, but his paintings are vanishing.
His rough and gestural style turned his dark tales into the stuff of nightmares.
We still associate brushmarks with sketchiness, speed of painting, spontaneity, bravura, and panache – and smooth paint surfaces, assembled from multiple layers and glazes, as being heartless mechanical essays in technique.
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