22 Apr 2017

Perhaps another Mount Logan?

Or, perhaps another Lander's Peak?

 

Albert Bierstadt was a German-born (near Dusseldorf) painter (1830-1902).


He became part of the Hudson River School in New York, an informal group of like-minded painters who started painting along the Hudson River. Their style was based on carefully detailed paintings with romantic, almost glowing lighting, sometimes called luminism. An important interpreter of the western landscape, Bierstadt, along with Thomas Moran, is also grouped with the Rocky Mountain School. [1]
 (Wikipedia)


So here it is, a section close-up.
If it is not Bierstadt then what on earth is it???

Patching canvas hole and surface conservation ahead...


















Another of his paintings, the actual "Lander's Peak", one in the Harvard Art Collection, has been described as follows: 
This painting is based on sketches and photographs that Bierstadt compiled in the summer of 1859, when he joined a government survey expedition led by Frederic W. Lander. But the work is an imagined view rather than an accurate topographical rendering. Painted and exhibited in Bierstadt’s New York studio, it is geared to the sensibility of urban East Coast viewers. With its dramatic sunlit mountain range and verdant, uncultivated valley, the painting portrays the American West as an edenic landscape filled with hope and opportunity. It signals the promise of new beginnings, a resonant theme for a nation torn apart by civil war.
Bierstadt, one of the first American painters to explore the West, journeyed as far as the Wind River Mountains of Wyoming. Though he encountered and sketched many Native Americans on his travels, this work does not include any signs of the indigenous population.
from: http://www.harvardartmuseums.org/art/303976

12 Apr 2017

Love of print again

Of course, I re-enact the desires of my childhood.
My mother took me regularly to museums and old masters galleries - my sister tucked in a pram and I - free to gaze into the Netherlandish skies of Ruysdaels and alike.
Visits in print rooms gave the notion or precision and organization of the visual record.
Soon I realized that I feel very comfortable among the subtly yellowed vignettes, nicely matted, rigidly framed, organized by the tight webbing of drawn scenes.

Those three are just recently re-framed items, archivally backed or matted.

Henry Jackson Simpson - Loch Logan
engraving on English-made paper by JFHead
Behind - large pin-hole photograph, abandoned church in Nova Scotia, favourite photography subject.


Left - the final unveiling of the "oryginal" Frank H. Mason print
The melancholy of the St.Michel, Normandy has great appeal.
The print has yellowed, but has been given archival ecru-coloured spacer mat.


Interestingly, paper moulds are of considerable interest, paper and prints can be dated by identifying the watermarks.
Mould photo from a very informative site:
http://papermoulds.typepad.com/
Apparently, the monogram watermark was introduced ca 1930, but my print has the the whole manufacturers name embossed.
In my days of humble paper making I used synthetic mesh over plastic grid.
Some of my sheets have still survived, some were used by a friend artist to make great works with paint and ink.
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