Sargent’s paintings of Claude Monet and other artists painting, mostly in front of the motif, form a unique record of painters and their techniques.
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While others painted near Rome, a slow revolution burned in the north, with Isabey, Daubigny, and most of all Jongkind and Boudin.
A selection of sky-rich oil sketches made in the Roman Campagna during the first half of the 19th century.
He didn’t ‘sky’ like Constable, but did make innovative studies of skies on the coast. Paintings a good 30-40 years ahead of his time.
Between about 1814 and 1836, Constable painted many fine skyscapes, and in the 1820s indulged in ‘skying’, oil sketches of the sky above him.
Innovation moved to the countryside around Rome, with Joseph Vernet, and Valenciennes, who prescribed skying in his textbook on landscape painting.
Much more than just a court painter, Velázquez rose from the ranks to become the King’s friend, and ultimately died as a result of his royal duties.
His four best paintings viewed in their historical context, and consideration of the constraints that he painted under. What if?
There’s been extensive speculation over his late landscapes painted near Aix. Here’s the evidence in the paintings themselves.
Pissarro started a realist, became Impressionist, then Neo-Impressionist, before returning to human landscapes. Sisley ploughed the Impressionist furrow all the way.
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