ARTHUR MELVILLE

 

SUNDAY Feature on ART of Architecture -by Gautam Shah

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Arthur Melville (1858–1904) was a Scottish painter, better remembered for outstanding watercolour craft or technique. He had a revolutionary impact on watercolour art form. The colour-sense which is so notable a feature of Melville's work developed during his travels to Persia, Egypt and Turkey. He had formal art training at as a full time student at the Royal Scottish Academy School and later at Académie Julian, Paris.

He used dabs of pigment on wet paper and blotting them with a sponge (called ‘blottesque'). To convey strong Middle Eastern light, he developed a technique of using watercolour on a base of wet paper with gouache applied to it.

He had fascination for brilliant light and with it created dramatic compositions of Eastern life and Venetian scenes. He also painted several portraits in oils and a powerful and in later part of his life tried religious themes.

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TADDEO GADDI

 

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Sunday Feature on ART of Architecture by Gautam Shah

This post contains only medieval era paintings of artist Taddeo Gaddi with Architecture in Art

Taddeo Gaddi (1290-1366) was Florence based, medieval era, Italian painter and architect. He was the son of a Painter Gaddo Gaddi. He worked in the studio of famous painter and mosaicist, Giotto, for 24 years. He was also a merchant and had a business in Venice. Gaddi's son Agnolo continued the Giotto tradition, but modified it further in the direction of decorative elegance.

Taddeo Gaddi style is less heroic and more anecdotal. He was less concerned with drama and was better with compositions than his master. He works had picturesque narrative with architectural entities as backdrops. His inclusion of human figures was natural and facial expressions are more relevant. The Frescoes though less dramatic but, are universal in appeal, in spite of the complexity.

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COLIN CAMPBELL COOPER

 SUNDAY Feature on ART of Architecture -by Gautam Shah

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Colin Campbell Cooper Jr. (1856-1937) was an American Impressionist architectural landscape painter. He was an ardent traveller, and has drawn numerous skyscrapers and urban architecture scenes of New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago. He was as proficient in watercolours as he was in oils. He often created small well-detailed study in watercolour, before the full size oil painting. Cooper used both, the colour and texture with seamless transition. Cooper’s wife Emma Lampert, was herself a noted artist.

Cooper said that he was "greatly interested in the skyscraper buildings in Broad Street. It was intensely interesting to watch the freakishness disappear from those queer towering structures in the glory of the right kind of light" –  

"one of the points that most strikes me about this view up Broad Street is the dramatic contrast between the old, low type of buildings ... and the great skyscrapers. My pictures are built on these contrasts."

 

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