While we're still having a bit of a mild spell, the calendar says we've still got most of winter ahead of us. So we may as well develop an appreciation for it.
The above painting is by Paul Gustav Fischer, a Danish artist of Polish-Jewish descent. The city depicted is Copenhagen. And it's lively. The people appear to be walking briskly, except for the lady pushing the cart. And while you want to be wearing a nice insulated pair of boots while walking in snow like that, Fischer also captures how it can highlight nice details, like the awnings over a store.
2 comments:
It is a wonderfully evocative painting done in a time before the machine age. Of course he's showing a fairly idealized scene which is what artists who hoped to sell their work to those who could afford paintings would be bound to prefer. At that, though, it's not a dishonest portrayal of a location in 19th century Copenhagen. I like it.
I thought you might be interested in looking at some photographs captured by a Russian photographer, Prokudin-Gorsky, at the behest of Tsar Nicholas II in 1909. They really are full color images done in a process the photographer originated. I found the article years ago and bookmarked it. They're pretty amazing pictures.
Oh I'm sure there's a little commerce mixed in with the art, as there usually is. Even Picasso didn't make a full time job of painting "Guernica." But I like the overall impression it gets, what it shows, what it suggests about how you might feel in the place. Like you say, it's not dishonest.
Those pictures are very vivid and in a few cases quite beautiful. It's pretty wild to think that he was going around Russia taking color photos while the tsar was still in power. Kodak wouldn't put color film on the market until 1935. Of course I gather it was a different process as well. Anyway, nice find.
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