In whatever one does there must be a relationship between the eye and the heart.

Henri Cartier-Besson

The Masters

Georgia O'Keefe, a renowed American painter
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Dali, THE Surrealism Master
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EMILY CARR, a Great Canadian Artist

A while ago I received a greeting card that was an image of Emily Carr’s painting, Red Cedar.  I put it aside knowing that one day I would talk to you about this great Canadian artist.

I remember that long ago I have seen some of her works within an exhibition of the Group of Seven at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Without being officially one of them she has been painting with them for few years. The forest was a source of inspiration for her, Vancouver totems too.  Her colours are rich and deep; her forms, imposing, without much details. The tranquility of the immensity reaches us.

She is acknowledged as one of Canada's greatest artists. To discover the life and art of painter Emily Carr, click here.

In Québec the big trees are different. At the gallery we present those of the artist Claude Le Blanc; to have a look, click here.

August 12, 2011

Comments

Rouge Cabaret - The Terrifying and Beautiful World of Otto Dix
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Memories of Provence
by Hachiro Kanno
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Golden Age of Couture: Paris and London, 1947-1957
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J.W. Waterhouse: Garden of Enchantment
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Picasso Cézanne at the Musée Granet in Aix-en-Provence
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Visit at the Salvador Dali Museum
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Napoléon at the museum
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Warhol Live
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Yves Saint-Laurent, the artist
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Cuba at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
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Renoir Landscapes
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Bottero and Laramée at the museum
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MARC-AURÈLE FORTIN at the
Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec

At the end of April we visited the exhibition Marc-Aurèle Fortin, The Experience of Colour at the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, in Québec city. Marc-Aurèle Fortin, an internationally renowned painter, a painter of the Québec modernity. One of OUR great painters. A hundred or so paintings etchings and drawings produced between 1909 and 1949 were featured.

Who haven't seen one of Fortin's paintings with the huge, leafy elm trees that fill the major part of the canvas? From Sainte-Rose to île d'Orléans, Charlevoix, Gaspésie or Saguenay, he painted Québec countryside like no one else.

I discovered his watercolours, pastels and etchings. I learned that he was the first one to partition off the objects, that his luminous, brilliant colours were kind of a revolution at the time; that Fortin was technically inventive, experimenting with methods of watercolour, oil painting and mixed media and that his work was at one time treated as decorative work, even crafts.

I had not often seen his beautiful rural or urban (what should I say) scenes of Hochelaga neighbourhood. Rural or urban, or both as he wanted to show the transition Montréal was going through, from a rural area to an industrial city. He was painting the rural activity in the foreground and the industrial one in the background. He was also fascinated with the building of the Jacques-Cartier Bridge that he represented in so many different occasions.

I didn't know either that Fortin studied in Chicago and that it marked his entire work. As an example, Edward J. Timmons, under who he studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, had always told him that he should privileged an imposing main subject that will attract the eye in his paintings; Fortin's passion for the tall elms came from there; these elms also became the trademark that has given the Québec identity to his work.

A pleasant getaway in Québec city and, as usual, a nice discovery of some details of the wonderful world of art.

April 28, 2011

The Visual Art World

Original or Reproduction?
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Figurative or Abstract Art?
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The Mediums
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Encaustic Painting
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Art Price and Artist Value
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The Diffusion of Visual Art in Provence
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The Artists' Techniques
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Do you need to insure your art works and how?

Just like any other belongings, art works should be insured. You might have only a few paintings, sculptures and luxury article and your current insurance policy might be sufficient. Speak to your insurance broker in order to make sure that your coverage is adequate.

But if you have been collecting for a while or if you have inherited family possessions, it is recommended to have these evaluated by an expert. Some works can be worth much more today than at their acquisition time.

A collector who buys one or two pieces of art every year asked me recently to evaluate his collection. He was astonished with the results. His paintings and sculptures had doubled and even tripled in value over the years and he had never adjusted his insurance coverage! The document, a written evaluation and photographs, I provided him with allowed him to discuss a proper protection for his cultural estate with his insurance broker.

Contact us in order to have your art collection evaluated. It is a service we offer but that few people know about.

Decoration

Trends in Decoration
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Framing Posters
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One painting, two mouldings
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Where in the House
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The art of framing
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Can we mix styles?
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I redecorated my home, where should I hang my artworks?
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Formats, colours, and walls
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Trends 2009 in Framing
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Colours and Tendencies

I heard on Radio Canada radio an interview with the sociologist Mariette Julien on colours and tendencies.

Following is a summary of her explanations. 

There is a book of colours. This book is useful, among other things, to determine the colour of the clothes and the cars or in decoration and for the furniture.

However, this book is not the only explanation in the choice of colours. Often the colours will be dictated by our daily experience.

There is also a whole symbolic system attached to the colours. For example, blue is naturally associated with the sky and the water. Therefore, for us, it means freedom, travel and the sea. Blue is a calming colour associated to male.  On the other hand, red is associated to the risk, the passion, the erotism. Red stimulates the emotions and even increases heart pulsations. Red is a colour that excites.

There is no good fortune in the choice of colours, it follows the social trends.

Here’s the evolution of the colour during the past decades.

1950 – Powder blue and candy pink were appropriate to the time while a large number of kids were born, the baby boomers. 

1960 – The flashy and vibrant primary colours represented tender childhood and joys of life.

1970 – The time of the counter-culture. Oranges and browns were dominating this period of debates and questioning; that was the hippie subculture.

1980 – The return to individualism with fluo colours that were everywhere.

1990 – The end of the millennium and the fear of changes. The mauve and the crimson were dominant. In fact those colours called “without hope” are associated with spirituality. The black was also very present.

2000 – White and silver were very in style, synonymous with revival, purity and celebrity. Apple green representing youth. Fuchsia, a mix of red and pink, for femininity and erotism. 

2005 – The oil crisis encouraged us to care about water, aqua was then in fashion. Dark blue took over black. The beige was popular because it represented nudity at a time of ever-increasing sex.

2011 – What we shall wait and see in the future! Red comes back in style. Red is also associated to the war. The reference colour for nature will be the green in all tones. The grey and the beige, colours of modesty and authenticity, will also be very popular. The human value will be more on being than on seeming.

Here is my conclusion: the sensitivity of the artists is such that they often precede the tendencies.

October 9, 2010

Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec

National Gallery of Canada

Salvador Dali Museum