Featured New game: Yea or Nay?

Final thoughts on these paintings.

I am crazy about painting A. It portrays the factory in a dynamic way. While it seems dark and foreboding, it has a sense of promise to it with the light coming from behind. There is an almost expressionistic style to it. The artist was not just painting the scene. He put a lot of himself into this work. As mentioned above, I do like the frame. The wideness of it helps to set the painting off and make it seem more important. Being black, it does not detract from the overall dark painting. It makes the painting seem lighter.

I also like painting B. As others mentioned, it is a much more passive painting than A. You still get the sense that work is being done but in a more orderly fashion. There is a sense of progress with the crane off to the right. Something more is happening that we can't see. The foreground leaves me a bit flat. I never figured out what the rectangular object laying in the field is. Maybe a vehicle chassis. It could have been made more interesting with the addition of some identifiable foliage. It has always bothered me that the tallest of the smokestacks at the right is not quite vertical. The artist is competent but didn't put a lot of thought in to this painting. There is no frame for this painting.

The Pissarro painting has the same feeling for me. I do find the execution better and more interesting. The water has some life to it. The color is brighter and there is more separation of detail. Otherwise, I think painting B holds up well to it.

I also love painting C. It is very much in the tradition of the WPA paintings depicting industrial work scenes. The overall color palette is somber. The work being done is important. The execution is very good and the artist is accomplished. The scale of the canvas fits the painting. This would not be nearly as effective in a smaller format. I don't think the frame adds much to this but doesn't detract either.

 

Here is the info on these paintings:

Painting A is by listed German painter Franz Högner (1903-1979). He was an accomplished artist that worked professionally from a young age. He is the brother of artist Hugo Högner. The painting is dated 1923, so completed when he was just 20. I purchased this painting many years ago on ebay for $350.00. It remains in my collection.

Painting B is by listed Rhode Island artist, William Alden Brown (b. 1887). I believe it to be a plein air "sketch" since many of his paintings are more finished than this. It is dated 1949. I purchased this on ebay many years ago for about $130.00. I sold it last year for $350.00, also on ebay.

Painting C is by a somewhat obscure PA artist by the name of J. Ray Yokum (b. 1915). I found a few works by him done while he was in the service and some post cards based on some paintings of his depicting historical regional PA scenes. I found mention of a work held in a University collection and some works done for a town and a church. I could find no photos of these last works. I believe he had a sign and graphic art business in PA at some point.

This painting is one of a pair I purchased on ebay many years ago. I think I paid about $60.00 for it plus shipping. I purchased it with another painting by Yokum that is the same size and framed identically. The painting is of a completely different subject matter (Back side of some row houses along a creek) but compliments this well. I paid about $25.00 for it and both were shipped together. The seller said that they came from a corporate office in VA where they had hung for many years. Both paintings are dated 1958. Both remain in my collection.

 

Here is the J. Ray Yocum companion to painting C. Note that I have the name spelled wrong in the above post. Hope this didn't send anyone on a wild goose chase.

 

This painting makes me ask myself... who lives here?
I like the water's colors and reflections. Gives it a very static and quiet feel that's really nice with the buildings (tenements?). Kinda melancholy but that middle "stripe" of warm sunshine males it an oddly comforting scene.
As if the painting is saying... these people who live here are poor, but they are safe and somehow content.
That's who lives here, for me.

 

It does seem to hold a story... makes me wonder who lived there, what were their lives like, etc.

If it were a pretty picture of pretty homes, I probably wouldn't even wonder about these things. But with a scene like this, I want to know more.

 

I lost this thread for a while.
Glad it is still going.

This is a picture I like.
The colors are warm, I like the positioning of the tree, the perspective is correct and the frame does not detract from the picture.

 

The above painting is kind of hard to peg. I would call it Regionalist or an American Scene painting. Much of this movement centers on the rural environment but so many of the painters tied to this movement also painted city scenes such as this. It lacks most of the social commentary that would move it into the Social Realism genre.

Here is a painting I own that is more typical of the movement.

 

I see what you're saying, Brad. Thanks for the genre lessons.

 

Painters don't have to be pegged. Sometimes a landscape is just a landscape.

I don't think you can call a person a regionalist on the basis of a single painting. I see that last painting as heavily influenced by Thomas Hart Benton. That doesn't necessarily make the painter a regionalist.

 

Brad, I really like the painting you just posted.

 

*madly Googling 'Thomas Hart Benton'*

 

@GaleriaGila Would you say that most of the murals you paint have a Latino theme? Southwest theme? Any other theme? (Or is that an inappropriate question?)

 

Agree but I do think you need some kind of vocabulary to understand and discuss a work of art. I did not peg the artists but, rather, the painting. Artists can work in different genres but paintings tend to fall somewhere, if only for sake of discussion. How do we discuss them otherwise beyond likes and dislikes, or critique of technique? These paintings were not created in a vacuum without influence or history. I really think that understanding this progresses one's appreciation for art.

I don't know. Maybe people really don't want to dig that deep and is why we have not had a lot of discussion along these lines. I had an artist friend give me a little book on art appreciation when I first started collecting art. Within the first chapter was an assumption that really blew me away, as I had no grasp of art in this way. I will have to paraphrase but it went something like this:

"For some people there is no emotional reaction created by artistic endeavors. Their interests lie in cars, food, travel, or other pursuits. A painting is flat and lifeless for them. It will be very difficult to ever get them to appreciate art in the way that many do."

Now, I am not saying that anyone who has contributed here falls in to the above category. I have to think that there are degrees of appreciation and maybe I should have no expectation that people are as passionate about art as I am. I also don't think that I know all there is to know about appreciating art. One of the reasons I created this thread was to be able to see how people respond to art. It is a continual learning process for me as a student, collector, and dealer.

 

MOS... yesssss. I have a reputation for the Mexican theme (i.e., restaurants), buttttt... I also have done stuff for veterans, Italian restaurants, dentist's office, mall offices, portraits. Not an inappropriate question at all!
Annnnnd... I COULDA had a "genre"... in the mid-late 1990s, as a teenager, I sneakily painted murals on old, condemned, pitiful properties in El Paso, Texas. It was covered in the newspapers and local TV for weeks... somebody told me it made it to CNN. I couldn't rise and claim it; I would have gone to jail!
My genre woulda/coulda been... "Graffiti Impressionism"?

 

Paintings can be discussed in lots of ways that don't involve schools: technique, composition, palette, lighting, subject matter, and yes, likes and dislikes, and who knows what all else. Those are the criteria people have been using so far, and they are entirely valid. To place a painting in a school is more difficult because you have to know what differentiated this school from that and the boundaries can be pretty darn vague.

 

You could think of yourself as a regionalist. People come to you because that like your vision of that context. It doesn't mean you can't paint other things; it means that that is a significant part of your output and something for which you are known.

 

Well I'm going to have to stick to my "reaction" to the painting.

I am a "people person." I am drawn to the man. The first thing I noticed was the man's head down and slumped shoulders and the "almost matching" head down and slumped back of the horse/mule.

The colors in the painting don't look like sunset to me (not enough reddish tones), but I do wonder why "they" were headed "back to the house(?)" in the late morning/early afternoon. Perhaps he and the mule/horse were able to work only a small plot of land that day.

 

I grew up with art... mother and several other family members were professional artists, took classes, occasionally played with the idea of pursuing art as a career, even taught art to kids for a couple of years.

Despite my exposure, or maybe because of it, I've never really liked looking at art from an academic standpoint. I usually recognize genres, but don't always remember the name for the genre, and mostly resist thinking in those terms.

It seems to me that often the best art is something people do to express themselves, to make external something they envision or experience internally. Sometimes as a means to communicate with others or to earn a buck, but sometimes just simply to "hear" themselves in a visual way.

It's natural for people to look for patterns and styles and group things together, study how one thing differs from another, and give things names. We all do it as part of living, it's how human brains work. Thinking and communication would be kind of difficult without doing that.

I just don't approach artwork that way most of the time... I experience it mostly through my senses and, when it's good, on a spiritual level. I may think a little about why I like or don't like something, but rarely analyze it very much. Which is kind of ironic since I'm someone who's been told I over-analyze things more than once over the years. I guess art, nature, anything beautiful is what I turn to to get away from left-brain thinking. And my hunch is that's often true of talented artists as they produce their works, too.

 

In case it wasn't clear, I don't think there's anything wrong with people discussing art from an academic perspective. It's just not something I gravitate towards. I certainly do gravitate towards viewing works of art, though, so am really enjoying this thread.

 

I appreciate the different perspectives. I grew up in a house without any art so have had to find it on my own. I also come from a scientific analytical background so this probably explains why I approach it as I do. As a dealer, I also need to be able to communicate about art and explain it within the constructs of the art community. I hope I have not neglected a right-brain approach in the process.