New Art on Line

[zi...@interport.net]

There are two posts of art on line. A lot of the stuff is by famous
old or modern masters. The one who means the most to me is John
Singleton Copley. He was the first great American painter. The
portraits, such as the boy with a squirrel which he exhibited at
London in a Royal Academy show are still wonderful to look at.
Unpretentious, simplet yewt fully understood. He, by the way, never
hada good teacher and copued in grisaille, engravings after such
artists as Titian, and used them to learn pciture making. But he never
knew that Titian's actual paintings were loose and brushy, so he
followed the tight hard edges in the engravings in his painted work.
It looks to this day, just terrific. The British loved it too. To them
it looked very "pre-Raphaelite, or early Italian.

The finest early American narrative painting is his "Watson and the
Shark". It has always seemed wonderful. His work is deceptively
simple, because under the hardened somewhat folky edges is a truly
profound understanding of picture making.

His paintings move the eye and the mind. They are constructed sao that
we move through the space on over the surfaces like a flying bird.

The hardness and lack of brushy facility means that we have to
concentrate not on the artist but on his subjects.

I am afraid I don't feel that the portraits are terribly insightful
into their subjects personality, but he does as well as the
contemporary British artists. He was, of course, until 1776 a
provincial British painter.
Gabriel