Sundays I go to the gym, have breakfast at Balans on Old Compton Street and then spend some time in the National Gallery looking at one painting for a long while. Any painting that catches my eye, and it's always a different one each time. This time I went into the Impressionist section, looked around and realised "Jeez, these guys could freaking draw". None of your optically-assisted stuff, sheer freehand drawing skill. This was not how I thought about them ten years ago. My reactions to the Impressionists have changed through the decades. Late teens / twenties they made these wonderful evocative paintings - well Sisley and Pissaro and some Monets. Thirties and forties I saw them as little better than talented Sunday watercolourists, shallow and pretty. This Sunday the sheer bloody skill and surety of touch hit me. Lovely pictures, evocative and technically superb - because it takes a really good technique to be loose and still get the perspective correct.
Right now there's a Gustav Caillebotte on loan from a private collection. He's the critic's and historian's Impressionist, and there's a modernity to his framing and pictures that suprises even now. Here's a glimpse...
and here's the link so you can look at it on-screen, but you really should see it live. Take, oh, twenty minutes to gaze at it. It's well worth it.
And then wonder how long he practiced doing flicks of green to suggest those wavelets on the Seine. Do I practice anything for that long? Do you? Does anybody who isn't an athlete or a musician?
And then wonder how long he practiced doing flicks of green to suggest those wavelets on the Seine. Do I practice anything for that long? Do you? Does anybody who isn't an athlete or a musician?
(Minor edit: 27/1/2023)
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