I've discovered in recent years that I really quite like studying paintings. But it really has to be in person, and not in a book or on the Web.
I recently went down to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. for my aunt's birthday. At her suggestion we went to a traveling exhibition from the Tate of John Constable's "six footers". So called because later in his life he decided to paint his landscapes on really large canvases (and he did so on location).
I never knew that he had done full-size "sketches" - quickly done in oils - until I went to the exhibition. The Tate had found on loan or purchased all the existing sketches and put them together with the finished paintings and hung them side by side. What a great learning experience. It's a pity I'm not a painter to fully appreciate his work.
They're really quite marvelous.
Posted by artandscience at December 18, 2006 06:23 AM