Monday, October 24, 2016

Mønsted Up Close

Christie's in New York City is currently showing an auction preview of 19th century European painting. 

Peder Mørk Mønsted (Danish, 1859-1941)
A View of Hornbæk, 1916, oil on canvas, 18 ¾ x 34 in. (47.6 x 86.4 cm.)

It includes this painting by Mønsted, which looks tight and photographic from a distance. But up close, it's a different story.


It's not fussily rendered at all. It's a good example of loose and rapid handling, rather than painstaking definition. 

The grass textures are suggested by dragging the brush lightly over the canvas, first with the brush thinly loaded with paint, and later with thick, generous impastos. 


For these tree saplings and thick grasses, he laid down that soft base layer of blended strokes and added thin light and dark strokes on top, with a few white sparkle dots on top. 

The dark strokes seem to be painted over dry paint, so if he painted this on location, I would guess it was a three or four day painting.


For the figures and the fenceposts, his treatment is rather soft and understated. The combined effect of this variety of handling adds to an overall impression of naturalism.

The close-up details here are rather large image files hosted by Google Photo. Please let me know if the page loads OK for you and if you like the files this large.
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Christie's 19th Century European Art preview will go on through October 25th. The auction will take place on October 26 in New York at Rockefeller Plaza.

13 comments:

Steven Zapata said...

Great post! Page loaded as fast as ever, photos expanded immediately. Hi res is definitely the preference for looking at details. Non-details, too, actually.

Tom Hart said...

I second the vote for this kind of size/resolution image (when possible). It's a really timely post for me too, as I'm working on a landscape currently. I was trying to decide what he used for those impasto touches. Some look like knife work, possibly - ?

Del Rio said...

Hi James. Larg files worked great. Very effective in showing exactly what text explains. Keep it up. Randy

Dave said...

The page loaded and the images were just fine. I love the close-ups.

David B. Ellis said...

I love close-ups. Living in a small rural town I don't get to examine the brushwork of great paintings very often. This is the next best thing. Especially for someone who has to struggle against that fussy impulse in his own work.

Shane said...

Love this sort of thing! Great post. What kind of brush do you think he used. It doesn't really look like a flat in some of the strokes in the third image.

By the way, the images appeared bigger and brighter in my email.

Pyracantha said...

This Danish scene looks so sunlit, quiet, and peaceful but if it was painted i n 1916, World War I was raging just a hundred or so miles away.

Robyn said...

Page and images opened up quickly for me. Extra bright and sharp, too, great for examining these details.

Pilgrim said...

Loaded fine for me. Amazing contradt between far and close up. Interesting comment from Pyracantha.

jimserrettstudio said...

lovely...

rock995 said...

Most of us have fast computers these days and fast connections so a large file is great for seeing detail. Had you not put it such a large file I would have never seen this man's technique so clearly. Thanks for posting!

Tryggvi Edwald said...

(from Vienna, Austria)
The large images loaded instantaneously and are excellent for showing the painting detail.
Very much appreciated, as all your other postings and generous advice.

J.Z.TORRE said...

Do we like the image files this large? Hell yes!