Albert Bierstadt

Happy Birthday to Albert Bierstadt(and my brother John Walter Crittenden as well)! Born in 1830, German-American Albert Bierstadt was a painter of the American West. The beautiful light and attention to detail of his paintings is a characteristic reminiscent of today’s Thomas Kinkade. Oregon Trail depicts a familiar subject of the covered wagon, in a rugged forest setting.

Gustav Dore

Happy Birthday Gustav Dore! French born (1832) Dore was foremost a book illustrator who produced hundreds of Biblical illustrations (as well as others). His medium was primarily woodcuts, however he also sculpted stone. The Agony in the Garden is a prime example of his powerful style. Remember, this is a woodcut! This means it was carved from wood (with the blackest black being the highest point in the cut and the white, the lowest) and printed. Amazing!!

Bernard Leach

Happy Birthday Bernard Leach! Leach is known as the “dean of English potters” although he was born in Hong Kong in 1887. After being educated in the English school system, he returned to Japan and studied with a master potter. His forms are simple and void of unnecessary decoration. He did not subscribe to the “art for art’s sake” mantra, instead believed ceramics should be functional and accessible to the average man.

Marsden Hartley

Happy Birthday Marsden Hartley! American, born in 1887, was a painter and member of the “Stieglitz Circle”, a group of Modernist painters, who painted primarily abstracted landscapes. His painterly, colorful style is well represented in Mountain Lake-Autumn. This painting can be compared to Cezanne’s Le Mount Sainte Victoire.

Painterly (Ger.-malerisch) is a term referring to feeling of form rather than outlining, with use of color patches, extreme lights and darks, and thick use of the paint. Background and foreground seem to merge with one another in spots. In Renaissance painting, Rembrandt would be considered painterly, while Michelangelo decidedly not. The technique became quite popular with the Impressionists.

Hartley                                                                                                                                        Cezanne

Jack Levine

Happy Birthday Jack Levine! American, Levine was born in 1915, a Social Realist painter and printmaker who disliked the corrupted hypocritical aspects of society. His work consisted of mainly satires on society, political, and Biblical excerpts. His editorial style is described as painterly, influenced by Rubens as well as Soutine. Welcome Home expresses his aversion to success and authority with the unfavorable depiction of an American General. Note the exaggerated heads and features, creating a cartoonish feel to the scene. In 1989 Levine was the subject of a documentary film Feast of Pure Reason.

Ernst Barlach

Happy Birthday Ernst Barlach! German sculptor Ernst Barlach was born in 1870 on this day. Akin to Gauguin, Barlach discovers inspiration from the peasants of Russia (as Gauguin does from islanders of the Pacific) believing man to be at the mercy of outside forces. His sculptures seem to emerge from massive blocks of wood or bronze. The Avenger, is a prime example of action dictated by an invisible force. Barlach sculpted this work at the beginning of World War I (when he was a German national) and is said to represent the unstoppable might of the German army. A wooden version of the bronze, as well as other war memorials sculpted by the artist, were confiscated by the Nazis in the late 1930’s, believed to be “offensive to the National sensibility”.

Alfred Stieglitz

Happy New Year...and
Happy Birthday Alfred Stieglitz! This American photographer was born in 1864. Stieglitz, believing photography could become a major art form, published the quarterly Camera Work. Long time partner of Georgia O’Keefe, Alfred Stieglitz devoted his life to recording exact characteristics of situations through the camera. An excellent example of this innovative modernist photography is The Steerage.