Winter painting club

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
The barren mountains are safely in the distance, forming even a protective ring around the human habitations.
 

sus

Well-known member
Never occurred to me before that one of the appealing things about that Brueghel is that the hunters entering stage left are (I think) arriving home, down into the safety of the valley, the potential warmth of the buildings. That's a very potent, comforting feeling in winter - arriving home to the warm hearth.
Totally—they get a little preview at the inn on the hill, their destination finally within sight.
 

sus

Well-known member
Inb4 "Spendy they're trying to capture our eyes' impressions." If that's what people look like to you you need prescription glasses.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Well, as I understand it, Monet was trying to capture the first fleeting impression a scene made on him before his brain caught up to his eyes. Although of course people don't look blurry like that to the focused eye, I think a large, bustling crowd like the one in that painting does first strike you as rather blurry and confused and amorphous.

Of course, the other explanation is that (despite painting portraits in his early career) Monet wasn't really interested in painting people. He painted some Parisian scenes, always with blurry crowds, but his interest was always more in the quality of light and atmosphere of a scene than in its 'concrete' realities. He found his true calling when he got out into the countryside and began painting trees, rivers, lilies, etc.

Worth pointing out also that the people in Brueghel's painting are just as stylised as in Monet. Those further from us than the hunters up front are pretty much all black silhouettes. People can of course be very indistinct from a distance but are they ever black silhouettes?
 

version

Well-known member
Well, as I understand it, Monet was trying to capture the first fleeting impression a scene made on him before his brain caught up to his eyes. Although of course people don't look blurry like that to the focused eye, I think a large, bustling crowd like the one in that painting does first strike you as rather blurry and confused and amorphous.
krabs.jpg
 
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sus

Well-known member
Well, as I understand it, Monet was trying to capture the first fleeting impression a scene made on him before his brain caught up to his eyes. Although of course people don't look blurry like that to the focused eye, I think a large, bustling crowd like the one in that painting does first strike you as rather blurry and confused and amorphous.

Of course, the other explanation is that (despite painting portraits in his early career) Monet wasn't really interested in painting people. He painted some Parisian scenes, always with blurry crowds, but his interest was always more in the quality of light and atmosphere of a scene than in its 'concrete' realities. He found his true calling when he got out into the countryside and began painting trees, rivers, lilies, etc.

Worth pointing out also that the people in Brueghel's painting are just as stylised as in Monet. Those further from us than the hunters up front are pretty much all black silhouettes. People can of course be very indistinct from a distance but are they ever black silhouettes?
Thank you for the thoughtful reply to my shitposting. All excellent points.

Yr alright Corpse! You should seriouspost more around here!
 

sus

Well-known member
Let's move this thread to what it always wanted to become: Best Joanna Newsom tracks for hibernating to.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I'm marooned in the countryside at the moment. This Ravilious painting captures what winter looks like out here. Brown, grey, stark, muddy. Wretched, essentially.

View attachment 5464

Funny how there's a narrow band of colour that most of us find pleasing and exciting and acceptable. Snow brightens things up. If snow was grey or brown we'd probably not be as enthralled by it, don't you think?
 

WashYourHands

Cat Malogen
Quality thread @146 I.Q. Magical thinker and some incredible picks @Corpsey

Side note about Bruegel, at uni during landscape studies snorefests he was cited a bunch (thank god) along the lines of taskscapes (see anthropologist Tim Ingold). My vision is still pretty good, but the tutor was one of the last generation to use o.h.p’s, so none of the details showed up. Now you can zoom right in.

The kids inherited a bunch of our old Richard Scarry books, which usually have a winter/snow theme in for all the wee creatures

D3958D54-426E-4337-96CC-1682F0BBD8DD.jpegFFB150D2-6244-4F8E-B4DA-4B3710AE5291.jpeg
 

sufi

lala
Never occurred to me before that one of the appealing things about that Brueghel is that the hunters entering stage left are (I think) arriving home, down into the safety of the valley, the potential warmth of the buildings. That's a very potent, comforting feeling in winter - arriving home to the warm hearth.
i never thought of that either, looks like they didnt get much, and the pub sign is busted?
 
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sufi

lala
zooming in on this now, it looks like it's a sanitised version where the poor innocents have been replaced with sheep or cheeses which are getting massacred instead :love:
the breughels are the best by far in this thread. the first one is so twee it's a poster not a painting. the second one i don't really see how it's winter, it's some rocks. that impressionist one is good too.
 
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