Asher Brown Durand - Kindred Spirits

Durand is noted for his 1849 painting Kindred Spirits which shows fellow Hudson River School artist Thomas Cole and poet William Cullen Bryant on the pathway in the foreground.

For me, no other painting really illustrates better, man’s curiosity with the unknown and our own keen sense of adventure.

This was painted as a tribute to Cole upon his death in 1848. The painting, donated by Bryant’s daughter Julia to the New York Public Library in 1904, was sold by the library through Sotheby’s at an auction in May 2005 to Alice Walton for a purported $35 million. The sale was conducted as a sealed, first bid auction, so the actual sales price is not known. At $35 million, however, it would be a record price paid for an American painting at the time.

The Third-Class Carriage, ca. 1863–65
Honoré-Victorin Daumier (French, 1808–1879)
Oil on canvas; 25 3/4 x 35 1/2 in. (65.4 x 90.2 cm)
H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929 (29.100.129)

This painting was and is still much celebrated by many. The painting depicts working class travelers on their way home, quite possibly migrant workers of the day. What is most striking at first glance are the gorgeous deep earth brown undertones and the beautiful free flowing use of line which appears at first spontaneous.

Giotto - Mourning of Christ scene

For a thirteenth-century painting, this fresco by Giotto was reveolutionary at the time. The painting depicting characters with their backs turned to the viewer was ground breaking. Here we see the characters mourning over the dead body of Christ and the virgin Mary embracing her son for he last time. The scale and distance of the characters and the space between them gives the viewer the impression of watching a play in motion. This is what makes Giotto’s art new in every respect. Christian art at the time had stuck with oriental themes and those in Egyptian paintings whereby the artist always shows the entire figures from head to toe. Giotto abandoned these standard rules whilst managing to show us the grief in each character through just the back of a hunching shoulder and a face turned away hanging low in grief.

REMBRANDT’S ANATOMY LESSON
OF PROFESSOR NICOLAES TULP (1632)

Vincent van Gogh writing to his brother Theo,

…Rembrandt’s Anatomy Lesson - “yes, I, too, was stunned. Do you remember the flesh tones? Earth, bare earth, especially the feet…”

“Also, there is sometimes - always, really - a contrast between the tone of the dress and that of the face”

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner The Berlin Street.

The harsh stark colours used and the boldness of the brush marks really jump out at the viewer and we can see in this painting the effects of living as a forgeiner in Berlin had on Kirchner which was a double edged sword. It offered him the inspiration he needed to stimulate his hand in painting yet at the same time one gets the feeling from the mood of his paintings that he may have felt alienated somewhat. ‘The Berlin Street’ portrays the artists experience.

The Raft of the Medusa

The Raft of the Medusa controversial at its first appearance in the Salon of 1819, attracting passionate praise and condemnation is an extremely large painting (491 × 717 cm). The painting depicts the desperate survivors of the French frigate Medusa, which gained notoriety when it struck the Bank of Arguin off the coast of Mauritania in 1816, at their first moment of apparent rescue.