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Northern Light Art Gallery
Elegant, Beyond Trends and Time
About
the Art
The "French Palette, or "Look"
Several attributes distinguish the French Palette or Impressionist Style, (1) Shape-Making, (2) Color (3) Light/Shadows, and (4) subject matter.
Starting in the early 1860s, the "Impressionists" broke away from the technique of the Old Representative School. They no longer thought it necessary to draw every leaf, for instance, but that the proper shape would convey all that was intended. In addition, they painted colors the same way a human eye sees it, changing according to the light, distance, and material. Furthermore, they paid special attention to sunlight and shadows, especially as it affects color and surface texture. Concentrating on shape, color, and sunlight, the technique of the French Palette was a noticeable shift from the Academic School.
Shape, color, and sunlight also does an especially good job of capturing personality, mood, and emotion, the essence of a "successful" painting. Art," after all, is capturing the subjective aspects of a scene, not just an objective drawing. As the American painter, Robert Henri said, "That which is worthwhile in landscape painting is the expression of human emotion in it." (It's also what keeps a painting fresh and alive, year after year, decade after decade.)
As for subject matter, no longer did the Impressionists depict epic battles, royal courts, hunting, urban sophistication, religious or mythological themes as the source of their emotional content. Instead, they chose motifs from ordinary and daily life, especially people. They painted their daily pleasures and disappointments, hard work, living and dying, mostly in pastoral settings. Though "ordinary" and despite harsh reality, the sweetness, beauty, and love embedded in these lives magically showed through - proverbial "Windows to Eternity!"
These attributes are taken for granted today, but it took a good long time for the French Palette to become accepted as the next great step in painting. Englishmen and Americans were the first to start really collecting in the late 1880s, after persevering against rejection for 25 years.
Artists from Denmark were among the first to come and spend a full year in France, so they could study how to paint the shifting light and colors of passing seasons. Upon returning, they moved to the countryside where they concentrated on ordinary people leading extraordinary lives. They created their own Nature, Light, and Mood school of art, modified for the diffused light and colors in Scandinavia.
Long experienced with the French Palette, and because Danish paintings are the undiscovered gems of European painting, Northern Light Art acquires their paintings at auction in Denmark, from some of the original collectors. It also explains our signature line - Beyond Trends and Time - on account of paintings from 1900 being as fresh today as they were over 100 years ago!.
As the American painter, Robert Henri said, "That which is worthwhile in landscape painting is the expression of human emotion in it."
Biographies
Most artists are "listed." Biographies list their training and eduction, exhibitions, awards, studies abroad, museum collections and other fascinating information. We source this information through the State Museum for Artists in Copenhagen, who sponsor www.kid.dk, the online access to Weilbachs Artist Lexicon (9 volumes, 8,550 pages). Sample Biography
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Copyright 2003, Northern Light.
Updated, January 2006
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