a new year, a new sketchbook; what to draw, what to see, what to know, what to remember...
thinking about, or looking at...
Edward Hopper, Sun in an empty room 1963One of Hopper's last paintings, he once said that.. maybe I am not human...what I wanted to do was to paint sunlight on the side of a house.. and he eschewed any narrative symbolism in his work (but notice how the window does not cast a shadow of its central bar on the floor - the room, the space is simplified, elevated beyond the real). Hopper also said.. we are all bound to the earth with our experience of life and the reactions of the mind, heart, and eye, and our sensations by no means consist entirely of form, color, and design. Cinematic in its abstract construction, Hopper's work has influenced many photographers and film makers, including Alfred Hitchcock apparently. See inside Hopper's sketchbook at this microsite at the Tate...
Vilhem Hammershoi, Sunbeams or Sunshine 1900, 70 x 59 cmHammershoi draws attention to sunlight through microscopic dust... at once visible and non-material, it takes on a mystical quality (collection of Ordrupgaard Museum) see highlights of an exhibition at The Royal Academy of Arts website.
Johannes Vermeer, The Kitchen Maid (or milkmaid) circa 1658Vermeer, the expert rendering of surfaces from bread to plaster, on a small scale, 45.5 x 41 cm... (in the Rijkmuseum collection; their online resource is excellent).. and a very comprehensive overview at Esssential Vermeer
detail of Vermeer's wall (with nails)
Rembrandt, Artist in his studio, 1629Rembrandt (as a young artist), the unusual perspective make him seem quite overwhelmed by the large painting ahead of him, and he finds fascination in the details of the crumbling walls of his studio... but this self portrait is in fact only 24.8 x 31.7 cm (collection of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)
detail of crumbling plaster work...In these pantings there is the quiet depiction of light and space, and the exquisite details of ordinariness, of seeing, of being, the essence of things...