MARY CASSATT: Painting Love of Mother and Children

Theme: Impressionist Painters, Painting Scenes from Domestic Life. Paintings of Mothers and Children

Paris is a cultural treasure where Artists from all over the world have come to draw some valuables. It has become a destination for the artists for many reasons: they came here to hunt some treasure; they came here to be famous; and they came here to starve and sometimes committing suicides, too. Mary Cassatt (1844 - 1926) followed the same route, but with some good luck. She was born American but settled in Paris; Mary was relatively a late entrant in the pool of the impressionist painters. She educated herself by seeing the works of other artists and by travelling to the centres where the rare artworks were stored. She was one of the rare artists who had travelled many European centres where paintings of old masters were available to see and study. She went to the countries like France, Spain, Italy, Belgium and Holland.

The Bath - By Mary Cassatt

Choice of the Subjects by Mary Cassatt: Cassatt depicted images of the social and private lives of women in her paintings. She highlighted the incidents wherein the intimate bonds between mothers and children were clearly visible. It was the time when women were not permitted to paint women wearing no clothes. Even sitting with a man was not considered desirable for woman, unless the man was her relative. Under such circumstances the subjects for painting for a woman artist like Marry Cassatt were bound to be limited.

Painting With Feminine Charm

Mary had adopted masculine methods of Painting. We can witness the vigorous skill she had applied; the neatness of Ingress and Corot, her contemporary artists, is visible in her paintings. But the feminine charm is present vividly at every inch of her canvases. Look at the above painting wherein a mother is shown bathing her small child. The mother's hold of her child and her washing the child's foot is perfectly feminine acts, the motherly acts.

Mary Cassatt mainly painted the domestic scenes showing predominantly the feminine forms. In these paintings women were depicted doing domestic works like reading, sewing, and attending children. However as an artist, Mary had not get enough fame she deserved. She had become victim of the 'gendering of visual art', perhaps. In her adopted home in Paris, Mary's work had suffered from the angle of recognition for two reasons: one she was a woman artist; and two, she was an American living in Paris. But her artistic prowess was the lamp that lighted her career. It was to her credit that on seeing her work Edgar Degas had remarked thus: ‘There is someone who feels as I do’.

Her paintings done in the initial spell were such that we can see clear influence of Spanish art and the work of other painters like Manet. She kept her palette loaded with bright colours, mainly the blues, greens and reds.

Nurse Reading to a Little Girl

She had many memorable portraits to her credit. Her portrait paintings had one peculiarity. She used to paint portraits, occupying larger portion the canvas. (Images Courtesy Wikimedia Commons)

Mary Cassatt Painting Cloth-less Women With Grace and Beauty

The painting in general and the paintings of body of a cloth-less woman in particular had remained the ‘bastion of male painters’ for a long time. It had made the art of figurative painting more or less male oriented. Paintings were done as seen from the eyes of males exclusively.

Woman Bathing -by Mary Cassatt

Many a time, on seeing these paintings, especially of the paintings depicting unclothed beauty of a female body, we tend to believe that these pieces of art are painted for satisfying the male gaze only. The artists who painted these females looked prejudiced in highlighting those parts of a female body where the males ‘invests’ their eyes much taking pleasure in looking at. But the scenario is changed a little bit now. If the paintings done by some of the modern women painters are any evidence, the story is taking a decisive turn.

Change in Perspective

In this connection the researches and writings done by Sigmund Freud have also done great help. After he taught us about the new ideas about human psychology, the art world also has undergone a change. Depiction of men and women without clothes are now not a taboo as it was past. And the women painters, too, are now entering the field of figurative paintings. Their works have become acceptable among the people. Accordingly the mindset applied while painting women wearing no clothes has changed considerably. The clan of women artists of the bygone century has proved itself more secured and enjoying greater freedom of expression.

The above painting is painted by Mary Cassatt.The painting of a bathing woman is done with dry-point and aqua-tint in colour on paper. It is believed to be painted in the year 1890-91. She was one of the rare artists who had travelled most of the European cities. She went there to see the paintings of old masters. She had done a deep study of these paintings. Her travel included the countries likeFrance, Spain, Italy, Belgium and Holland. (Image Courtesy Wikimedia Commons)

Change in Mindset of Artists

With more women painters entering in the field of figurative painting, this art has gone through a substantial change. The female figures painted by women artists look like an honest subject of the paintings. A woman artist also would paint the breasts and other curvy parts of a woman model. But there would be a wide valley of difference in her painting them, so far as the basic attitude of judging a female body as an object is concerned.

Maternite (Maternity) -by Mary Cassatt

Paintings by Women Artists

After getting a firm hold on her brush, Mary had preferred artistic use of line over the mass of the colours. She was always open for new experiments. While seeing such paintings done by a woman artist, a viewer with artistic eyes would not find that these paintings are painted only as an object for looking at. Women artists choose cloth-less females as subjects of her artistic depiction and they remain faithful to the main road of the art without going on to the sub-lanes. While painting her models, a woman artist honours the female body by painting all the delicacies and beauties it possesses. The above painting 'Maternite (Maternity)' is painted by Marry Cassatt. (Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons)

GUSTAVE COURBET: Painting Winter Shapes

Theme: Painting Winter Scenes and shapes, Making Visually Informed about Winter Landscape.

Poor Woman of Village

There was a man of free will who did not associated with any school, institution of a style of painting; or even to the church. He wanted to be know so in his after life. He was Gustave Courbet, a French painter.

Winter In Art: We love to see the trees in winter, striped of their foliages and with exposed skeletons. The winter scenes and the shapes visible in the cold perspective have their own beauties. If we look with an artist’s mind, we can trace out rhythm in embedded in the shapes formed by the trees standing on the barren land, in the branches of trees and their twigs, on the show fallen on a distant rooftop. Gustave Courbet had seen such beauty in the winter scenes; and he had painted many landscapes, which makes the viewers visually informed bout the colourful beauty of winter scenes. (Image courtesy Wikimedia Commns)

The Artist: Gustave Gourbet (1819-1877) was a French painter who came from an affluent family; but preferred to be among the life of the common men. He had emerged as a force in modern painting. He had properties situated in the south-east France, near the beautiful and snow covered mountain peaks of Alps, nearing the Swiss border. It made Courbet to come in close touch of the nature ad his artistic soul turned this opportunities into beautifully painted landscapes paintings. On seeing his paintings, the viewers eyes would realize how the cold shawl of snow covers every inch of the earth, making it looking beautiful. Such was his perfection in the art.

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The Art: In above painting, Poor woman of the Village, Courbet has shown his artistic prowess in depicting the scenery with honesty. The snow-clad landscape and the foreground figures of a child and a village woman followed by a goat immediately put into a village scene during winter. The snow rich rooftop in seen in distance depict the harshness of the season.

If the artist does not apply symbolism in his/her painting, the art work seems lacking something. But here Gustave Courbet has depicted the hardships of life through the snow covered land and the visible poverty of the woman. But the shining sun provides us the feel of hope and happiness.

Courbet had painted several winter landscapes. In this painting Village in Winter he had depicted his favourite subject, the harshness of the nature.

Village in winter

Here he painted the homes, symbolising the security and the feel of being sheltered. The just-fallen snow indicates the vagaries of weather inflict on us. Such contradiction was not uncommon in Courbet’s paintings, it was like his signature. Here he seemed to have worked from darker shades to lighter ones, completing the chiaroscuro, using the technique of painting the darker parts with loaded shadows.

The landscape artists is not merely a photographer, recreating a scene with blobs of colours and bristles of his brushes. In a larger perspective, he tries to reveal his feelings for the piece of land he paints. Here Courbet seems to embed his patriotism and the love for the land he lived on. [Images courtesy Gustave Courbet [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

It was not surprising why Courbet tilted his brushes loaded with bright colours towards the neat realism. Though he was master in portrait making, too, he mainly painted the common places and common men and women. These people would be active in their daily life.

Gustave Courbet

His active disconnection with the main stream of artists is visible every brush stroke he put on canvas. His vibrant and honest presentation made him inviting enmity and affection, almost in the same proportion.


Courbet had mastery over painting the landscapes. He tried recreating many historical and important places he had seen or lived nearby. The painting of Chateau de Chillon, a one thousand year erection, is one of such paintings.

Chateau de Chillon

This place and the monumental edifice had always been an inspiration for the artists, as it is considered as a jewel of architectural design. Writers have wrote about it and the painters have painted it. so did Courbet. (Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons)

LANDSCAPE ARTISTS: Painting the Order and Harmony in Nature

Theme: Artists, serching for harmony and order in nature with their poetic licence.

"Brahmaputra" --by Nicholas Roerich Tempera on Canvas size 36.5 x 96.5 cm.

The Art of Nicholas Roerich

A painting is the produce of an ordered efforts put into by an artist. And thus it is bound to possess some sort of order within it. Thus when we look at a painting, we fist see the form, the shapes of the things painted, the situations the artists had desired to create, and the relevant moment of the time when the incidence that became the cause for the paintings had occurred. A good painting, done with targeted goals might contain most of these aspects that a lover of the art would like to see in a painting.

I find the above painting a meditative one; I believe that the artist must be feeling the mood of being meditating himself. The constant gaze to such a painting can be therapeutic, too. Keeping the form so simple, the artist has staged a drama with the help of rich blue colour and its cool application. That has made the painting a piece for more consideration. While working with colours, the artist is seized by his or her inherent drive, the instinctive force, and led to the performance on hand. If that is so, then this painting is one of its finest example.

The Artist : For an artist a painting, the fruit of his/her labour, is much more than a painted surface. Through the medium of colours, an artist tries infusing order of the nature in a painting. It is the order that the nature has in it, intrinsically embedded within. Thus when we look at a painting, we would find the objects the artist has painted, the form, the physical outlines of the things and situations. These are obviously the medium: the shapes of the things painted; the situations the artists had created. In fact these are the alphabet an artist uses to convey his or her feeling. (Images Courtesy Wikimedia Commons)

Song of Shambhala. Thang La Painter Nicholas Roerich, Tempera on Canvas. Size 76.2 x 137.2 cm

The writers and poets have poetic licence from the almighty God. The artists have this type of licence of using their artistic freedom, too. While acting upon this special authority, poetic licence, the painters impose the forms in their paintings. They do so by making the altered state of the forms.

However the trend of imposing such transformed forms has never remained static. It has gone of constant change since the days of ancient artists’ work to the modern stock of the artistic outputs. And that is the reason why the forms on the canvasses have always kept changing; the shapes of the objects painted have transformed themselves as per the wishes of a particular artist like Picasso and Van Gogh. (Images courtesy Wikemedia Commons)

How to Communicate Through Forms: The painters ideas about the forms, as they perceived them, are quite complex. It varies with the experience of each and every artist. Their method of communication is unique in nature, so far as the great painters are concerned. Some believe the defined lines of the objects of painting a foremost necessity, say the renaissance painters; and some regard the requirement of the definite lines not so important, say the modern artists including those of the impressionists’ clan. Every artist of known calibre has tried revealing the intrinsic value of his/her aesthetic experiences through their paintings done in the forms of his/her choices.

Paintings of Himalayan Mountain "Mount of Five Treasures (Two Worlds)". From "Holy Mountains" series. 1933. Tempera on canvas. 47 x 79 cm" - Nicholas Roerich

Kang-chen-dzod-nga – Five Treasures of Great Snows. And why is this sublime mountain so called? Because it contains a store of the five most precious things in the world. What things are there – gold, diamonds, rubies? By no means. The old East values other treasures. It is said that there will come a time when famine will overcome the whole world. At that time a man will appear who will unlock the giant gate of these vast treasuries and nurture all mankind. Certainly you understand that this man will nourish humanity not physically, but with spiritual food. - Nicholas Roerich. (Images courtesy Wikimedia Commons)

The job of an artist is a complex one in a sense. The painter’s work, and the purpose for which he or she paints, is somehow to remake the mental images he or she has made on seeing a scene or the objects. The artist’s desire is to share his or her experience through the art that would churn out a note of recognition in the viewers’ eyes. Thus the work of art constructs a bridge between the viewers and the artist, communicating the inner traffic of an artist’s mind to the art lovers’ eyes. Thus the piece of art that was merely an image in the artist’s mind, the painting that was only a child of intuition, becomes available to those who value the same.

LANDSCAPE PAINTINGS : THE PLAY OF LIGHTS

Most of the landscape paintings present an ordered view of the nature, the Mother Earth. These paintings depict idealized places bathed in golden light or of a countryside, which bears the pleasant marks of habitations.

Weizenfelder, THE FIELD -by Ruisdael

For a painter of any style, and especially for a landscape painter, the nature of light is the principal character. The light may be fiery and intense or pale and diffuse. Among others, the skill to capture the way in which the sun and the moon illuminate the subject is important. For a landscape painter, it is paramount to consider the light-factor properly, as the light gives value and refinement to the objects the artists is going to enliven on the canvass.

Landscape painter very often uses the factor of light and darkness to implant a rhythmic pattern along with a symbolic meaning. Thus these painters use light as the powerful tools while adding value to their pieces of art. Sun being the main source of light, it is symbolically shown as masculine force, filling the world with life-giving energy. Same sun may be depicted as scorching and destructive, too.

The Mill Wijk-bij-Duurstede -by Ruisdael

The power of images to entertain and even control the minds of the viewers is a well-recognized concept. A frame of landscape painting often conveys meanings beyond those that are immediately apparent. Painters have often used the subject of landscape painting to suggest the brevity of human life against the permanence of the natural world. We can measure the futility of human endeavour comparing the same against the self-renewing natural cycles.

Capturing the acts of weather has remained a favourite subject for many artists. Extreme effects of the weather can also be used to communicate inspiring messages. Sometimes the message might not be clearly spelt in the object of painting itself; but by the masterly treatment of the subject, the painters have succeeded in creating such effects in the observers’ responses on seeing the painting. Remaining truly faithful to their subject and the art, these landscape painters have responded in a variety of ways to the challenge of depicting weather and its illusive atmospheric effect. (Images courtesy Wikimedia commons)

Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840) was a painter of Romantic landscapes. He painted the mountains and rivers of Germany with oil colours and allegory, as the allegory was his second language. His paintings depicted the various moods of nature; the night skies with subdued colours, the morning mist with bright colours, and sometimes the tree without leaves and ruined building creating the dramatic and allegorical effect in his landscape the paintings. READ FURTHER>>

The art of landscape paintings honours and celebrate the physical environment of the Mother Nature in a variety of ways. The idea of considering the countryside as a delightful and relaxing place of retreat from the chaos of the city is an old one. Rich with long pastoral areas, the mountains, rivers, lush green vegetations and the down-to-the earth people: these are the subjects that hold great importance for landscape painting. The landscape painters have painted such places turning them into the object of delights.

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LANDSCAPE PAINTINGS : Painting Romanticism With Allegory

Theme : Landscape Paintings with romantic and allegorical style

While looking at a painting you if feel that you are standing on a hill top and feeling the serene beauty of the landscape before your eyes, the painting must be done by Caper David Friedrich. It seems that he had painted everything subtle he saw and felt. Through the masterly use of dark and light colours, with their appropriate hues,

Caspar David Friedrich tried conveying the emotional and a little bit subjective response to the natural surrounding he lived within. Through his landscapes paintings, not remaining a colourful representation of the Mother Earth only, he spoke the metaphysical side of the human mind, too.

The wanderer above the sea of fog Oil On Canvas

In many of his paintings Friedrich tried showing the insignificance of humans buy putting a human figure before the vast and powerful natural forces like high mountains or deep valley of mass volume of water. But when an artist does so, his or her endeavour should be taken in right perspective considering it as an effort to make human race a part of whole universe, a part that has right to adore the natural beauty and not to abolish it.

The Art: In the above painting Wanderer above the Sea of Fog , Friedrich had shown his mastery over the art of painting landscapes and the use of dark shading and spacing the objects painted. Look at the dark, powerful, sturdy rock on which the man is standing. The rock is painted with details against the less detailed painted but vast expanse of the valley that lies in front. As the title of the painting suggest, it is narrating a landscape covered by the sea of fog; but the brightness of the colours speaks about the time that it should be morning and the fog would disappear soon.

The Artists: Friedrich’s landscape paintings are like pure aesthetic statements. He did a re-evaluation of the natural world; like we can see the same in the paintings of Turner and John Constable. He believed that an artist should paint only what he could see within him and not only the things he could see before him. Following his beliefs, Friedrich painted somewinter landscapes where in the land was painted in which the land was painted barren and desolate, like representing death or mourning.

The Style of Painting: Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840) was a painter of Romantic landscapes. He painted the mountains and rivers of Germany with oil colours and allegory, as the allegory was his second language.

Morning in the Giant Mountains, by Caspar David Friedrich

His paintings depicted the various moods of nature; the night skies with subdued colours, the morning mist with bright colours, and sometimes the tree without leavesand ruined building creating the dramatic and allegorical effect in his landscape the paintings. Here in these articles given with befitting images, an honest endeavour is done to provide some clue and guidance about how to paint a landscape. These articles would try throwing light on the various aspect of the theme: the pencil drawings, watercolours, and oil painting landscapes.

The landscape is the art of painting the greeneries on the earth mainly: the trees, the meadows, the valley, rain and the snow fall. But there had been master painters who had painted the Mother Earth in her every shade, in every form. The greenery is the cover on the earth, the beautiful clothes. And barren earth looks like a woman in her natural beauty. But the artists have embedded beauty in such barren form of the earth, too.

Those who have painted deserts and bare mountains of land mass without green cover of the grass might have find their work more challenging. Here they would have fewer subjects to depict the concept of beauty. But if the above painting done by the master painter Caspar David Friedrich is any evidence, these artists have never found any difficulty in painting the barren land, and uncovered areas of the land. One would hardly find the words spacious enough to describe the artistic prowess Friedrich possessed. His painting brush had enough power to embed the symbolic meanings into the paintings.

Images courtesy By Friedrich, Caspar David [public domain], from Wikimedia Commons, a

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By Friedrich, Caspar David (scanned from book) [public domain], from Wikimedia Commons ]

If we look in the landscapes of the mountains in foreground, we get the detailed view. We can see that there is no presence of any vegetation in this area under painting. When we run our eyes to the distant mountains having lesser detail, there, too, we fail to find the green substances. So this painting is the painting of the barren mountains. But it has its own beauty.

Romantic Landscape Paintings: Putting Love in Colors

Theme: Landcape Paintings are the Best Examples of The Pantings of Romanticism.

Carl Anton Joseph

The landscape paintings throw us on vastness of land and sea. The flowing rivers make us to believe that the nature would provide for our food for ever; and the upright mountain challenge us to be brave and innovative. When the artists, a pinter takes a brush in his or her hand and stands before a blank canvass with an idea to depict these natural object; the idea in his or her mind is to reflect the our attitudes towards the natural world, the beauty of Mother Earth.

The colours the artists spread on canvass or a piece of paper animate the picture that has formed in the psychic of the artists. We should take it granted that the final outcome is not the photograph of what the eyes of the artists has visualised. It is the artist memory what was before his or her eyes blended with artistic imagination.When the painters who were contaminated with the artistic germs of romanticism blended their art and the romanticism movement, the result was bound to be unique in every sense of understanding.

The above painting is by Carl Anton Joseph (1797 - 1850), a German landscape painter, who belonged to the circle of artists around the Ludwig I, the king of Bavari Carl Anton Joseph painted large landscape paintings for the king. Carl Anton Joseph’s landscape paintings are is best known for mythical landscapes. The colours of the painting are wet with romanticism and the vision perspective of the painting a little bit chaotic one.

The soul of the painting forces us to believe us that we are standing in the midst of the real landscape. But the organization of the objects led us to believe that the whole landscape is tilted in one side, going outward from the spot we are standing. It is because an artists, while painting such a romantic scene, tends to believe that his or her entire self is being poured out.

Image Courtesy Wikimedia Commons