Lisa McShane Art

George Inness. Catskill Mountains. 1870. Oil on Canvas. Chicago Art Institute, Edward Butler Collection. In the American Wing in the Chicago Art Institute, first floor, there's a little room that you walk through to get to the larger gallery. On one side is the Gifford and on the other, three Inness paintings. The first day I visited I spent time on my knees in front of this painting so I could see the application of paint up close. To the right of this is an older Inness and I could see the weave of the canvas clearly under the entire painting. On this one, the weave was rarely visible beneath the thicker application of paint. The second day I sat on the bench in front of this painting and sketched it to think through the paint application, the composition and the arrangement of values in the painting. I was trying to figure out how he conveyed the atmosphere. It looks as if he painted a milky, creamy glaze over a blue background and wiped it back in areas. Naturally I took...

Sanford Gifford. Hunter Mountain, Twilight. 1866. Oil on Canvas.  Chicago Art Institute. Terra Foundation for American Art. Daniel J. Terra Collection. Just back from a spring trip to Chicago where I spent a couple of days looking at paintings in the Art Institute. Of particular interest to me were the treasures in the Terra Foundation for American Art collection. There were two in particular I spent time studying - this by Gifford and the one immediately behind it by Inness (more on that later.) It was Sanford I was following when I began paintings this winter with a burnt sienna base. He used that warm base to achieve a luminous effect in his landscapes. And of course this one has a composition that I'm drawn to. However, in my eyes Gifford's surface texture lacks interest or subtlety. While the quality of light makes them sing from a distance, up close they're flat.