Day Thirty Seven: Landscape by Edward Mitchell Bannister
Hello and welcome to day 37 of 100 days of Tonalism.
Today's study is 'Landscape' by Edward Mitchell Bannister.
This is the second painting by Edward Mitchell Bannister that we have done in this series. Edward is a painter that I just recently discovered when I was doing research for my Tonalist project. He is an amazing painter and should I do another series of Tonalist studies at some point in the future, I will be sure to include more of his work.
Because Edward was an African American painter during the Civil War there has been a resurgence of interest in his work that started with the 60's civil rights movement. I will be reading some biographical information about him on today's video, so if you're interested in learning about him, please check that out.
Over the last several weeks we've been discussing aspects of Tonalism that differed from the movements in landscape painting that preceded it. Today I would like to discuss brushwork. There have been many artists since the great Masters that excelled at expressive and gestural brushwork. The school of landscape painting that was popular in the United States prior to Tonalism was the Hudson River School. While there was some brush expression in the rendering of small details, most Hudson River School paintings exhibited a smooth unified surface. This was in accordance with trends going back for hundreds of years.
Starting with the Barbizon School in France and artists like Turner and Constable, more expressive brushwork began to flourish and become accepted by the mid 19th Century. Prior to this time, many artists would execute studies outdoors in preparation for their more finished studio work. By its nature, plein air painting requires you to work in a rapid manner just to accurately capture the changing moods of nature.
With the advent of the Barbizon School, painters began to bring more expressive brush handling to their finished studio works and not just their plein air studies. Tonalist painters in America as a reaction to the Barbizon movement also embraced expressive, fractured brushwork.
The chief value of more gestural brushwork, is the way it allows the viewer of the painting to supply the absent detail with their own perceptual imagination. This idea may seem counterintuitive at first. This is one of the main reasons that you will see amateur artists overwork and over detail their paintings, in a mistaken belief, that they need to provide as much information as possible for their painting to function as a work of art.
Looser, more expressive brushwork also contributes to an increased compositional flow in the painting. Many of the top Tonalist artists evidenced a progression in their work from early years of being very tight and controlled to almost complete abstraction (in some cases) towards the end of their careers.
In my journey as a landscape painter I have made a similar progression and at times a regression. Brushwork is one of the main places where you can see the interplay between the conscious and unconscious actions that are utilized by every painter and my work is no exception to this.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'Landscape' by Edward Mitchell Bannister, Edwards original is not square. I basically stretched the heck out of the sky to make it fit into a square format. You don't see that many square landscape paintings. I myself fell into it in a sort of accidental way because one of the first group shows that I participated in prefered it as a format for work to be exhibited.
The thing I like about paintings with the square proportion, is that it leaves more room for an expressive sky. In many cases when I know that I want to paint a landscape in a square format, I will basically lay it out the same as I would a rectangle but I will leave a lot more room at the top.
This is a painting that I empathize with quite a lot. I feel a kindred spirit with Edward in his approach to landscape painting. He strikes a good balance between simplification and detail as well as a certain stylization of his tree shapes that resonates with me. He's a true Barbizon painter.
To see more of my work, visit my site here.
 |
| Painted after - Landscape by Edward Mitchell Bannister, Study by M Francis McCarthy - Size 5x5, Oil on wood panel |
Today's study is 'Landscape' by Edward Mitchell Bannister.
This is the second painting by Edward Mitchell Bannister that we have done in this series. Edward is a painter that I just recently discovered when I was doing research for my Tonalist project. He is an amazing painter and should I do another series of Tonalist studies at some point in the future, I will be sure to include more of his work.
Because Edward was an African American painter during the Civil War there has been a resurgence of interest in his work that started with the 60's civil rights movement. I will be reading some biographical information about him on today's video, so if you're interested in learning about him, please check that out.
Over the last several weeks we've been discussing aspects of Tonalism that differed from the movements in landscape painting that preceded it. Today I would like to discuss brushwork. There have been many artists since the great Masters that excelled at expressive and gestural brushwork. The school of landscape painting that was popular in the United States prior to Tonalism was the Hudson River School. While there was some brush expression in the rendering of small details, most Hudson River School paintings exhibited a smooth unified surface. This was in accordance with trends going back for hundreds of years.
Starting with the Barbizon School in France and artists like Turner and Constable, more expressive brushwork began to flourish and become accepted by the mid 19th Century. Prior to this time, many artists would execute studies outdoors in preparation for their more finished studio work. By its nature, plein air painting requires you to work in a rapid manner just to accurately capture the changing moods of nature.
With the advent of the Barbizon School, painters began to bring more expressive brush handling to their finished studio works and not just their plein air studies. Tonalist painters in America as a reaction to the Barbizon movement also embraced expressive, fractured brushwork.
The chief value of more gestural brushwork, is the way it allows the viewer of the painting to supply the absent detail with their own perceptual imagination. This idea may seem counterintuitive at first. This is one of the main reasons that you will see amateur artists overwork and over detail their paintings, in a mistaken belief, that they need to provide as much information as possible for their painting to function as a work of art.
Looser, more expressive brushwork also contributes to an increased compositional flow in the painting. Many of the top Tonalist artists evidenced a progression in their work from early years of being very tight and controlled to almost complete abstraction (in some cases) towards the end of their careers.
In my journey as a landscape painter I have made a similar progression and at times a regression. Brushwork is one of the main places where you can see the interplay between the conscious and unconscious actions that are utilized by every painter and my work is no exception to this.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'Landscape' by Edward Mitchell Bannister, Edwards original is not square. I basically stretched the heck out of the sky to make it fit into a square format. You don't see that many square landscape paintings. I myself fell into it in a sort of accidental way because one of the first group shows that I participated in prefered it as a format for work to be exhibited.
The thing I like about paintings with the square proportion, is that it leaves more room for an expressive sky. In many cases when I know that I want to paint a landscape in a square format, I will basically lay it out the same as I would a rectangle but I will leave a lot more room at the top.
This is a painting that I empathize with quite a lot. I feel a kindred spirit with Edward in his approach to landscape painting. He strikes a good balance between simplification and detail as well as a certain stylization of his tree shapes that resonates with me. He's a true Barbizon painter.
To see more of my work, visit my site here.
 |
| Original painting, Landscape by Edward Mitchell Bannister |