VITTORIO CARPACCIO

 

VITTORIO CARPACCIO

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SUNDAY Feature on ART of Architecture -by Gautam Shah

This post is an improvised follow-up to an earlier article on Vittore Carpaccio October 27 2019.

Vittore Carpaccio (1460-1526) was an Italian painter of the Venetian school. (‘Carpaccio’ is an Italianized form of ‘Scarpanza’ -Venetian merchant family). Nothing much is known, but he studied art under Gentile Bellini.

Carpaccio's works are remarkable for the depiction of Architecture as the setting for the scene. In spite of strong, rich and complex architecture his narrative has directness and humane touch. The architecture relies on form and the architectonic elements rather than shadows and dark-light contrasts. The religiosity of the narrated topic remains secondary in importance.

Carpaccio is called master Storyteller of Renaissance Venice. He emerged as a mature artist of originality, capturing Venice, with a sense of modernity, scenes with an innovative sense composition, and command over scenic illumination.

Carpaccio experimented with off centric vanishing point and often dual vanishing points. This could have been possible through expertise in perspective image making. 

 

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EGON SCHIELE (Sketches)

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SUNDAY Feature on ART of Architecture -by Gautam Shah 

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This post covers Sketches of the Artist 

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Egon Schiele (1890-1918), was one of the most prolific Austrian artists, who in a short life of 28 years, produced more than Three Thousand works. Schiele from young age was fond of drawing trains from his station master father’s house. At the age of 16, he moved to Vienna to study at the Academy of Fine Arts. Here, Gustav Klimt who had formed the Vienna Secession, became his mentor. But Egon moved away from Klimt’s ornate style and developed own Expressionist style.

By the early 1910s, Schiele’s work was full of an obsessive exploration of the human body, including taboo subjects far beyond conventional eroticism. His sketches are realistic where lines often run continuously. His compositions have innate spatial contours and go beyond the nominal depth related distortions. Colours only add to the magic. The architectural forms stand by themselves and do not rely on contrast, colour or background.

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DEWEY ALBINSON

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SUNDAY Feature on ART of Architecture -by Gautam Shah 

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E Dewey Albinson (1898-1971) was Minnesota-based American Artist, a son of Swedish immigrants. He first studied art at the Minneapolis School of Art (now the Minneapolis College of Art and Design) and later, studied at the Art Students League France, on scholarship.

Albinson preferred to work around Minnesota, as he found ‘the rugged peace and solitude of the Minnesota hills to be more charming’. He spent most of the 1920-30s painting the farmsteads, towns, landscapes, and mines of Minnesota.

Albinson painted with an expressionist flavour with strong contrasting colours and bold brushstrokes. He used distinctive warm colours, such as, ‘umber, cerulean (blue), brick red, pumpkin, ochre and forest green, offset with bright pastel accents’. During the visit to Europe, the cubist style of form fragmentation and geometry influenced him.

During the depression period of 1930s, he and other artist were commissioned to paint for Public Works of Art Program (PWAP), on prescribed thematic lines ‘the figurative American scene, cityscapes, pastoral scenes’ at about $84 a piece. These art pieces with subtle patriotic flavour and high cultural relevance were placed in public buildings. 

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