Vincent van Gogh’s career as an artist was brief, intense, only successful long after his death, but of enormous influence. He also painted lots of trees.
plein air
A journey from early 1800s realism to Post-Impressionism, in the company of innumerable trees.
Had he been French or British, he would probably have been rated as one of the greatest painters of the 1800s.
If Constable acted as a bridge, Corot was the crossroad leading to ‘modern’ art.
Constable may seem an unlikely revolutionary, but his landscapes and their trees inspired the Barbizon School and Impressionists.
The nineteenth century saw the successful introduction of more new pigments than had the preceding two millenia.
The period 1700 to 1850 saw the introduction of the first modern pigments, such as Prussian blue and emerald green, which started to transform paintings.
In the absence of any clearly articulated theoretical statements from the core French Impressionists, there are no obvious rules or clear criteria handed down.
I parked myself right in front of Appuldurcombe House, and looked in the opposite direction, where St Martin’s Down rises above our village.
This book looks at the type of painting which was central to Impressionism – the plein air landscape – and traces its development from inception by Desportes in the latter years of the seventeenth century, through the Barbizon School, to its peak in the late nineteenth century.
The Eclectic Light Company 