The Pottery Workshop

Artist: Jean Discart (French 1856-1944)
Title: The Pottery Workshop, Tangiers (L'Atelier de Poterie, Tanger)
Medium: Oil on Panel
Size: 13 3/4 x 18 in (35 x 45.5cm)

Artist who allow the viewer a to explore a painting interest me the most. In this pottery workshop not only do we get to see the artist at work, but we get to see all sorts of wares he has created from finished pieces to those in progress.

The vase with the drooping poppy is an interesting addition, placed entirely in the center I can only assume that it means something to the artist and is a symbol whose meaning we do not know and can only guess at. Poppies can mean loyalty in faith, but it stills leaves the true intent of the message an enigma. 

 Exploring the workshop further the artist shows his ability of rendering different textures -  clay vessels a straw baskets, copper and wood are painted with great detail. 

Every section of this painting seems to be a still life in itself. In a way it also serves as a way to document the items that were common during the era that the artist had observed them while travelling to Tangiers. 

Depicting an artisan at work is a nice tribute from one artist to another and Discart did a wonderful job capturing this individual as he concentrates on the task at hand. 
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Bedouins in the Desert

Artist: Eugene Alexis Girardet (French 1853-1907)
Title: Bedouins in the Desert
Medium: Oil on canvas


This is a rather large painting and as a photographic reproduction looses a lot of it's impact. When looking at sections in detail Giradet's superb handling of the paint can be better observed. For example note how he used a very chromatic orange both on the ground and on the woman's cheek to give us a feeling of the intense heat generated by the camp fire.








Here he livens up a bland desert which usually is in muted tones by introducing blues orange and yellow. I love it when sections of a painting can almost be a painting in themselves. This landscape setting is anything but boring and catches our attention by the clever manipulation of colors.








As a fine figurative painter the figures are painted solid but not over worked. It is almost as if the artist intended to impress us with an overall feel of what a moment at a campsite of a Bedouin family would be like, rather than having us be enamored with the figures themselves.















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The Secret

The Artist: Adam Styka (1890-1959)
Title: The Secret
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Size: 35.5 x 31 1/8 inches

Adam Styka was a Polish artist who studied at the Paris Beau Art Academy. He served also in the French military and travelled in the East. His subjects are often bathed in lovely sun lit scenes and are in some way interacting and not st up in static poses.

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The Zulu Bride

Title: The Zulu Bride
Size: 16 x 20 inches
Medium: Oil on Canvas

I have been really busy with painting and creating a new web site that I have had very little tile to update the blog. I wanted to share my most recent Orientalist painting of the Zulu bride.



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Greek Slave

Artist: Jean Leon GeromeTitle: Greek Slave (1870)Medium: OilSize:
I spotted this beautifully rendered piece via Gandalf's Gallery and got very excited, since I have not seen this Gerome painting before. An unfinished painting it shows the rough drawing beneath the umber wash in. I absolutely love this stage, where it is clearly apparent that the viewer is looking at a work in progress,  yet sees the figure almost photorealistic. 
Gerome started by making a rough pencil outline and then did a very light Umber color wash in to establish the light and shadow areas of the scene. This piece looks like a study, where he clearly was more concerned with the figure rather than the background, which most likely was worked out later. ★Thank you for Visiting!★ ~ Return to Website ~ Return to Blog