ArtExpertOnLine

   Many of you have written that you enjoy the variety of paintings presented on this blog.  So today I give you a very interesting contemporary work completed this year, 2019.   The artist is Canadian, Matthew Wong (1984-2019) and this is an oil on canvas.  I was not able to find the dimensions but in viewing other Wong paintings I believe this painting is very large.  The title is, Winter's End.    Wong is represented by the Karma Gallery in New York City.  Wong has been written up by ArtNews and  most recently by his sudden death on October 2.    Wong is basically a self taught artist.  He does have a high level of education, but not in painting or the Arts.     I find this image amazing. It seems cold and quiet, with the only sigh of life the smoke curling from the house in the exact center.  Is it morning or evening; hard to tell, but maybe the title gives us a clue.  Maybe Wong intended for this to be the end of the day as well as winter's end?    Notice Wong divided

    The Plum Garden in Kameido is a woodblock printed as part of the series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo by the Japanese master, Utagawa Hiroshige ( 1797-1858).  This series was created and first published in 1857, the last series created by Hiroshige before his death.  Hiroshige was part and most successful of the artists of the ukiyo-e school which created woodblock prints for wide scale production and distribution.   They were extremely popular, particularly in Europe with the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, who collected them, studied them, and some created their own version.   This particular work, The Plum Garden in Kameido was copied by Vincent Van Gogh in 1887.  Van Gogh's version can be seen at the Van Gogh Museum  in Amsterdam.      Anyone who has ever attempted a woodblock print, must be completely amazed by this image. The technical skill involved with the gradation of the red/pink is amazing, and it is one of the many strengths of Hiroshige.  But the mo

  In 1669 Dutch master artist, Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675) began this beautiful painting titled,  The Lacemaker.  It is an oil on canvas and the smallest painting Vermeer is known to have made, measuring only 9.6" x 8.3".  It is now in the possession of the Louvre Museum, in Paris.    According to experts, the painting was completed in 1670, and they are sure Vermeer was a very slow, meticulous artist, often using a camera obscure to create his desired visual effects.      Today, Vermeer is universally regarded as one of the greatest artists in 17th century Holland easily equal to Rembrandt and Hals.   And this lovely images proves why.    Looking at the composition, we see the object of our attention in the exact middle and all lines, moving up or down, are drawn to her hands and her work.  The basic color harmony is blue and yellow, however not exclusively.  My favorite part of this work is the scarlet red thread.  At close examination it appears almost fluid,  like h

   Henry Ossawa Tanner (1959-1837) painted this beautiful image on a return trip to his home state of Pennsylvania in 1893.  He had traveled to Paris in 1891 to study art, and soon made Paris a permanent home.  Tanner is the first African American to gain international fame as an artist.  And, this painting, his most famous, is part of the collection of the Hampton University Museum, Hampton, Virginia.  It being the oldest museum dedicated solely to African Americans and U.S. minorities.    Light is the key to this warm, sensitive image.  We can almost feel the warmth from the fireplace to our right, and most likely some sunshine lightens the back wall, casting our figures into part shade.  These shadows over the faces creates a little mystery as to their expressions, but the way Tanner has united the two, displays a deep sense of love.    The composition is wonderful.  Here we have a complementary color harmony of blue and orange, the orange often appearing as a dark brown/black.