Jacob Henricus Maris (1837 – 1899) is a Dutch artist I found in a gallery in Assen (little town in Holland).
This particular image I find amazing. The day I discovered it, I’ve put it on my desktop. After that I went to sleep – and I dreamed I am there. I was in a world painted in this style – I was walking around analyzing how the light behaves. Very inspiring dream.
I’m sure it will show in my works – actually I’ll post one probably tomorrow. In any way it got me really motivated to paint outside.
Town - by Jacob Maris (1837-1899)
The sky nearly seems to glow out of that picture, wouldn’t you say? I think its his impressive use of values (a topic I think a lot about recently, I had neglected it way too long).
For one it works because he made the contrast strong – he resisted the normal feeling to make the city bright and detailed as it looks to your eye when looking straight at it. Interestingly though, he also did not make it very dark, but uses a very narrow value spectrum – that is the important trick. He only saved those darkest darks for the figure, which gives the image a focus and keeps it warm and bright.
I’m surprised this artist is not more widely known. Anyways – here are some more – enjoy and start dreaming!
Bomschuit op het Scheveningse strand - by Jacob Maris (1837-1899)
Stenen Molen - by Jacob Maris (1837-1899)
Woman Oil (not the actual title) - by Jacob Maris (1837-1899)
Take a quick look before I write more – this is a Roman painting. First in the original as you can see it on Pompeii’s walls, then as a photoshopped version, in which I combined several photos, effects to bring out the true color and some touch-ups (without adding things that weren’t there).
See it here like nowhere else! 
Wall Painting from Pompeii (Young Couple), Original Version
Wall Painting from Pompeii (Young Couple), Retouched Version
It really touches me I do admit – those people look like they could be ones neighbors. Most probably this is a portrait of a newly wed couple. Both seem to be writers as they hold papers and pencils.
Ironically the catastrophe of 79 AD that not much later delivered them most likely to a horrible death, conserved the picture. Which gives us the gift to see of one of only a handful remaining Roman paintings.
I discovered this in the BBC documentary “Sister Wendy’s: A Story Of Painting“. In which a kinda odd nun goes around in the world and talks about art. She knows a lot and has a unique view on things. Great stuff.
What struck me is the high technical quality. How few things did we learn until then? The colors of the skin are close to perfect – with a transition from yellow, to red, to violet to gray. And maybe even because it’s not photographically perfect, the figures feel full of life. The eyes are nearly magical.
It took Europe more than 1000 years to get back to that standard. And very probably this picture is just from an average artist – as if you would pick now a random painting from our time, to pass to the future. Imagine what pieces of the masters of that time are lost, never to be seen again.
This is really bad for me – I sometimes discover an artist on the net, and then surf for hours trying to find all his works. But of course, as you read about him, you’ll find more artists that are connected to him. And before you know it, you surfed all day and did nothing useful.
This one really kicked me out of my socks though (hm, does this saying only work in German? 
): Thomas Wilmer Dewing (1851 – 1938). What a shame is wikipage is though, the German one is more elaborate. I love how soft he is able to paint – and still fill the figures with detail and life. Technically really hard – I myself have a lot of trouble painting soft details, it needs much more control and deliberation. Gotta learn it though.
The Wiki talks about that he is a Tonalist – meaning he used one value and color and deviated only slightly on a picture. There are some more interesting artists following that route, like Leon Dabo (1865 – 1960). I disagree with the comment though that it is outdated, who decides that anyways? Even if modern artists use more colors, the idea to restrict the number of values is very much still used. Even if not obvious, I think it’s the secret of artists like Alex Kanevsky – the restriction of values allows him to pull this crazy stuff, while it all still seems to fit together. And is it an accident that there is a wave very much like Dabo’s on his frontpage?
 Thomas Dewing - A Reading (1897) |
 Thomas Dewing - The Hermit Thrush (1890) |
 Thomas Dewing - Lady in Yellow |
 Leon Dabo - The Seashore (1900) |
This blog of James Gurney is amazing. Not only does he paint the beautiful Dinotopia books – he also explains his processes and insights.
This latest posting – a 3 part series on “Eye Tracking and Composition” is a must read.
Part1, Part2, Part3
It’s apparently from his book “Imaginative Realism: How to Paint What Doesn’t Exist“. I’m very curious about this one – bound to be great for any artist surely.
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