The ones that are pure landscapes are basically what I imagined. They seem very documentary-like; it's believable that those are real scenes, real places. The ones with people, though, seem less compelling, maybe because his people don't look quite realistic.
It's hard to conceive of doing those sketches of fast-moving live action! You must have to be able to take a mental snapshot very quickly and work from that. Maybe that's part of the air of unreality for me. Mountains and trees just stand there all day long. You don't have to invent anything. You just sketch what you see. But with people and horses running around, you have to draw more upon your own imagination to complete the picture.
Agreed. I find his landscapes very soft and beautiful and realistic. You can almost smell it. The Indian raid ones don't do much for me. You can imagine it was probably a real blur of activity and noise. It doesn't translate all that well to a painting. Interesting, isn't it, that there were artists whose whole jobs were to sketch military battles.
The ones that are pure landscapes are basically what I imagined. They seem very documentary-like; it's believable that those are real scenes, real places. The ones with people, though, seem less compelling, maybe because his people don't look quite realistic.
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to conceive of doing those sketches of fast-moving live action! You must have to be able to take a mental snapshot very quickly and work from that. Maybe that's part of the air of unreality for me. Mountains and trees just stand there all day long. You don't have to invent anything. You just sketch what you see. But with people and horses running around, you have to draw more upon your own imagination to complete the picture.
Agreed. I find his landscapes very soft and beautiful and realistic. You can almost smell it. The Indian raid ones don't do much for me. You can imagine it was probably a real blur of activity and noise. It doesn't translate all that well to a painting. Interesting, isn't it, that there were artists whose whole jobs were to sketch military battles.
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