ALEKSEY SAVRASOV

SUNDAY Feature on ART of Architecture 

Post 229

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Aleksey Savrasov (1830-1897) was one of Russia’s most remarkable ‘mood landscape painter’. He was a romancists and realist artist.

In 1844, Savrasov was enrolled in the Moscow School of Painting and Sculpture. In 1849, Savrasov was sent to Odessa in Ukraine, here he was greatly influenced by the Romanticism, the popular style of the time. In 1857, on death of his landscape teacher, Rabus, Savrasov took over as master of the landscape class.

Savrasov travelled to England, Switzerland, Copenhagen, Berlin, Dresden, Leipzig, Munich and Paris. At this point of time, many artists were turning to plein-air art, and sought to capture the ethnic essence of their countryside.

In Autumn of 1871, soon after a personal tragedy, Savrasov began to spend more time outdoors. It was during this time that Savrasov painted his greatest painting, ‘The Rooks Have Come Back’. Following the acceptance of this painting, the art style of Savrasov’s changed. He was now optimistic and began to use bright colours. He acquired a knack of forming expansive spaces through rich colours, low horizons, smaller scale architectural structures and reflection of skies in water.

Savrasov's had ingenuous ability to blend the nature with architectural imagery, while creating impressions of the local culture. He maintained the directness of expression and the lyrical quality. He meticulously made sketches and studies on the site, which were complete art works.

In 1862, Savrasov visited the World Fair in London before travelling to Denmark, France, Switzerland and Germany. This trip had an enormous impact on his art.

Savrasov said to his students, ‘Nature is always breathing, always singing, and the song it sings is full of majesty. Contemplating nature is the highest pleasure. The world is heaven, and life is a mystery -a beautiful mystery.’

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ODILON REDON

 SUNDAY Feature on ART of Architecture 

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Post 228 -by Gautam Shah

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Odilon Redon (1840-1916) was a French painter, graphic artist and ardent symbolist. Till the age of fifty, he was working substantially exclusively with charcoal drawings and lithographs. This consisted of weird subjects like strange creatures and plants, epimorphic forms. But during the 1890s he turned to colour painting and in a short while turned to bright colours.

Redon was a romantist. His works show several distinct trends. Prints explored the ‘haunted, fantastic, often macabre themes’. His colour portraits and still art, were realistic. His thematic paintings were highly symbolic. His architectural landscape art in brighter colours was well scaled, but overlooked the details. His architectural landscapes are devoid of any trees or even marginal greenery. He worked from memory.

In 1894, Redon wrote: ‘... liberated from the embarrassing concern of real details in order that it might freely serve only as the representation of conceived things.’

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JOHAN BARTHOLD JONGKIND

 

Post 227 -by Gautam Shah

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SUNDAY feature on ART of Architecture 

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Johan Barthold Jongkind (1819-1891) was a Dutch painter, but more active in France. He was a painter of marine landscapes (Netherlands and in France) and an etching artist. He had a very strong and traditional training in Dutch landscape painting, but he worked in a free manner. He is considered the forerunner of Impressionism.

Jongkind’s paintings are characterized by vigorous short and broken brushwork. He experimented with strong contrasts, shimmering light on horizontal surfaces and diverse atmospheric effects. Like the 17^th C Dutch painters, his early works had a low horizon. He shifted from dark colours to lighter tones. Édouard Manet used to call him ‘the father of modern landscape.’

Many of his works show river Seine with Notre-Dame Cathedral. He painted watercolours out-of-doors, and used the instantaneous impressions for oil paintings. He began to work extemporary and with a smaller range of pallette. 

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