Early works followed Constable or his teacher Michallon, and excelled in anatomy. His trees became more gestural, with daubs and marks as he led the start of Impressionism.
Pissarro
Difficult to cultivate, as it can’t self-pollinate and doesn’t breed ‘true’, it has still become a major food crop around the world. From blossom to market in paintings.
Before about 1870, no one questioned that cast shadows should appear grey, without any change in colour. The Impressionists disagreed.
Walnuts providing food, fine wood, and a drying oil used as an alternative to linseed; almonds that may have a high cyanide content, but are still eaten. Paintings from Piero to Bonnard.
How to distinguish sweet from horse chestnuts in paintings from Sisley, Pissarro, CĂ©zanne, Carl Larsson, Vincent van Gogh, Egon Schiele and others. And all about conkers.
You have a brief window of 30-60 minutes to capture the lighting, shade and shadows, when you’re lucky. How practice and skill overcame one of the great challenges.
Humans have lived with trees since our origins, and trees feature in many paintings. This explains the importance of sketching them from life, and shows examples of different species and contrasting artists from Rubens and van Ruisdael to van Gogh and CĂ©zanne.
Paintings by West, Linnell, De Nittis, Fanner, Maitland, Manet, Menzel, Prendergast and Pissarro, of London’s Royal Parks, and the Tuileries in Paris.
Technically challenging for painstaking Divisionist techniques, those who chose to depict reflections used studies to help, and Seurat was generally optically faithful. But the best of all was Théo van Rysselberghe.
As a sign of those in domestic service, and the poor when working on the land, worn by those in the kitchen, even the men, and protecting their bodies when at work.
The Eclectic Light Company 