Vincent van Gogh Dutch, 1853-1890 A Peasant Woman Digging in Front of Her Cottage, c. 1885 Oil on canvas

I just liked the "attitude" of the rotund peasant doing manual labor. The artist had quite an eye for texture as he reproduced the extensive thatch roof.

Vincent van Gogh Dutch, 1853-1890 Terrace and Observation Deck at the Moulin de Blute-Fin, Montmartre,1887 Oil on canvas, mounted on pressboard

At first I thought this painting captured winter, but it must be sand -I like the concavity. I like the extending crooked lamps and the couples gazing at the view. The seated solitary figure looks away from the view, perhaps unable to enjoy it because this person has no one to share it with? Could it be an expression of Van Gogh's own loneliness?

This painting dates from the winter of 188 roughly a year after Vincent van Gogh arrived in Paris to join his brother, the art dealer Theo van Gogh. It is one of a group of landscapes featuring the Butte Montmartre, a short climb from the apartment Oil the rue Lepic where Vincent and Theo lived. Montmartre was dotted with reminders of its quickly receding rural past -abandoned quarries, kitchen gardens, and three surviving windmills, including the Moulin de Blute-Fin. The nonfunctional mill had become a tourist attraction, affording spectacular panoramic views over Paris from the observation tower erected beside it.

Claude Monet French, 1840-1926 Cliff Walk at Pourville, 1882 Oil on Canvas

Monet was one of the most committed artist's in France at this time to record the transient effects of light and atmosphere. This aim led Monet and his peers to develop the techniques of Impressionism, which is the practice in painting of depicting the natural appearances of objects by means of dabs or strokes of primary unmixed colors in order to simulate actual reflected light. I give you a close-up to see the dabs.

This picture (right) was famously made use of in the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986). One of the young men stares at the painting, focusing on the little girl, until she becomes just a pattern of dots.

Georges Seurat French, 1859-1891 A Sunday on La Grande Jatte,1884, 1884-86 Oil on canvas

In his best-known and largest painting, Georges Seurat depicted people relaxing in a suburban park on an island in the Seine River called La Grande Jane. Seurat's use of this highly systematic and "scientific" technique, subsequently called Pointillism, distinguished his art from the more intuitive approach to painting used by the Impressionists. Although Seurat embraced the subject matter of modern life preferred by artists such as Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, he went beyond their concern for capturing the accidental and instantaneous qualities of light in nature. Some contemporary critics, however, found his figures to be less a nod to earlier art history than a commentary on the posturing and artificiality of modern Parisian society. Seurat made the final changes to La Grande Jatte in 1889. He restretched the canvas in order to add a painted border of red, orange, and blue dots that provides a visual transition between the interior of the painting and his specially designed white frame, which is reproduced here.

As you can see, this is a big painting (left). Look just above at the rightmost picture. I isn't the same as the big one, it's a little version of the final painting. This small oil on a thin wood panel is one of 24 painted studies Georges Seurat made while conceiving the large, celebrated painting A Sunday on La Grande Jatte. Although at first glance, the panel seems close to the larger canvas, its figures have little to do with the final Composition.

 

 

 

Of course, there is other art in the Art Institute of Chicago other than paintings. Here from Turin, Italy circa 1735 is a Side Chair made of mahogany with maple and mahogany inlay (leftmost). The cabinet (rightmost) (1756/66) is made from mahogany, ebony, and holly. You know, you just don't see enough quality holly furniture ...

Berthe Morisot French, 1841-1885 Woman at Her Toilette, 1875/80 Oil on canvas

This was one of numerous canvases where the artist showed well-to-do women dressing and readying themselves for public. I like the effect that although the color of the extensive background nearly matches the woman's dress, the dress stands out because it's bathed in light. For us guys, there is something appealing about a woman seeming to offer her neck - for a kiss maybe. She's not doing that purposely here, but that's the overall effect, anyway. Try it sometime and validate my theory ...

Pierre-Auguste Renoir French, 1841-1919 Near the Lake,1879/80 Oil on canvas

Pierre-Auguste Renoir used his friends as models to celebrate the pleasures of leisure and companionship away from the city center. This painting looks forward to Renoir's most celebrated masterpiece, The Luncheon of the Boating Party (188o-81; Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.) To me, everything "natural" seems well defined, the people are kind of wispy, like they are transient. Oh yes, please smoke ... an early product placement?

Pierre-Auguste Renoir French, 1841-1919 Two Sisters (On the Terrace), 1881 Oil on canvas

Pierre-Auguste Renoir painted this homage to springtime, youth, and beauty on the terrace of the Fournaise family's restaurant on the Seine River at Chatou. The boating woman in this painting wear the blue flannel dress favored by women boaters at the time. The models were not actually sisters, the title of the painting was made up by the artist's business agent. I just like all the color, that in springtime the girls are at least as if not more colorful than nature.