Shape Shifting, 13 x 13 x 1 inches, white floater frame.
Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us
-Impressionism lecture attendee
Berthe Morisot, Summer's Day, (1879), National Gallery of Art, London.
Last week I presented a lecture about Impressionist Art at a local library. Several audience members mentioned how much they enjoyed learning about what inspires artists, a sub-topic of my lecture.
As they spoke, my painting Shape Shifting came to mind. I painted the waves to imply movement, the way the colors are unblended and drawn in a variety of angles that suggests choppy waters. I wanted to capture the feeling of being at the ocean on a breezy day, not the perfect summer weather of a postcard, but the ever-changing skies that promise a coming summer storm: fast and powerful, to be replaced with stunning rainbows and parting clouds.
Where did I get the inspiration to paint the waves this way? From one of my favorite Impressionist artists, Berthe Morisot, whose use of abstract brush strokes and unblended colors is a precursor for early 20th century modernism.
Her painting Summer’s Day illustrates this point. Her suggestion of choppy waves in the pond forces one woman to hang onto the boat’s railing, while the other woman holds tight to her umbrella. The angle of the boat reenforces the angle of the waves and leads our eye toward the distant shore, in this case a Paris park. I’ve outlined these compositional choices below in red. While my painting does not look like hers, its knowing about her work that influenced my own compositional choices.
Artists get inspiration from a variety of sources: ocean waves, other artists, natural surroundings, contemporary world news, and so on. For me, being at the seashore on a blustery summer day and attempting to capture this emotion in my painting was influenced by the work of Berthe Morisot, one of my favorite Impressionist artists.
