Texture in images
Texture in painting is an important part of the picture. I have looked at a few examples, to think about what impression or feelings it creates in me.
Giovanni Bellini, Madonna of the Meadow. (1500) 67.30 X 86.40 cm, Oil and tempera on wood
No visible brush strokes, all shapes clearly defined, primary blue and red but nuanced by light and shadow. A diamond in a triangle composition. There is a feeling of texture, air, light, ground, skin, hair. It is like a vision, a dream.
John Constable, Seascape Study with Rain Cloud (1827 measures 22.2 by 31.1 centimeters.
I, the onlooker, am defining this image, I participate. The image shifts between looking like a painted surface and a landscape.
The brushstrokes of the rainfall and the sun ray are almost like symbols and signs. Masterly simple and powerfully created.
Vincent Van Gogh, Wiev of La Crau
“Van Gogh was very fond of the view from Montmajour, a hill near Arles (FR). He called the large drawings he made there ‘the best I’ve done with my pen’.
Japanese art was a major source of inspiration for Van Gogh. For this view of La Crau, for instance, he drew on the hatched prints and drawings of the Japanese. He used a wide variety of strokes, dots and crosses to emphasize the flatness of the landscape.”
Citation from: Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
Neo-impessionism
Theo van Rysselberghe, Portrait of Alice
Rysselberghe´s pointillism portrait shows lights and shadows as colors, and creates a surface where I almost feel particles dissolving or coagulescing into a form, reminding me that we all are made of light and atoms. The repetition of dots tend to “freeze” the image, but the luminous colors saves the spirit of the painting.
Charles T. Angrand, The Western Railway at its Exit from Paris
Angrand have used a variety of brush strokes, it makes the painting interesting to look at. Those very beautiful colors and drawn lines are welcoming me into the scene. It is realistic and not realistic at the same time, making the image shift between painted surface and my own ideas of reality.