[HN Gopher] Tonight with the Impressionists
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       Tonight with the Impressionists
        
       Author : adrianhon
       Score  : 31 points
       Date   : 2024-06-21 00:58 UTC (2 days ago)
        
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       | davedx wrote:
       | I visited a small museum near where I live the other day (The
       | Kroller-Muller Museum, in the Netherlands), the founder happened
       | to pick up quite a few Van Gogh paintings over her collecting,
       | including one of my favourites (Terrasse du Cafe le Soir), but
       | also a lot of other incredible works by him. One of the things
       | that stood out to me is how the oil is so thickly layered in some
       | paintings. It's most obvious in Cypresses and Two Women -- the
       | painting is so rich with oil paint (so I guess it was done in a
       | period when he could afford plenty of materials) the trees all
       | have a ridged texture to them.
       | 
       | It's just another dimension to his art, but it really grabbed me.
       | It's not something that would be easy to replicate in a VR
       | exhibition, I don't think.
        
         | card_zero wrote:
         | Impasto. The wiki article has a Van Gogh as the main picture.
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impasto
         | 
         | I never really liked it, but I might just have been subjected
         | to a lot of amateurish pretentious use of the technique. It
         | kind of screams "I am a painter", but you need to back that up
         | with something or it's just annoying and closer to "I am making
         | a mess". Possibly good training for cake decoration after you
         | give up art and take up baking.
        
           | mbivert wrote:
           | If it can help appreciate impastos better:
           | 
           | First, most paintings are created to be looked at _from a
           | distance_ , and not from up-close. In particular to this
           | effect, painters regularly step back when working.
           | 
           | Second, regarding impastos, the wikipedia article is quite
           | expeditious:
           | 
           | > it makes the light reflect in a particular way, giving the
           | artist additional control over the play of light in the
           | painting
           | 
           | Here's a practical example:
           | 
           | https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/70/Duparc-v.
           | ..
           | 
           | https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2b/Longcham.
           | ..
           | 
           | Because the painting is lit from above (it's almost always
           | the case), the portion of the impasto facing toward the
           | light, receives more light than anything else in the
           | painting: it's one way to "paint" "whiter than white", very
           | convenient to create highlights.
           | 
           | It's in particular noticeable on the nose of the previous
           | painting. Noses are a bit greasy, and will thus reflect more
           | light.
           | 
           | On the other side of the impasto, a little shadow can be
           | casted. It can be used to echo the form being depicted. This
           | is being used, for example on her right lower eyelid, where
           | there's a little cast shadow (and a highlight).
           | 
           | It's some sort of a tiny bas-relief.
           | 
           | But all those impastos from up-close look weird, unnatural.
           | "Gross" even, in this particular case...
        
             | card_zero wrote:
             | Oh OK, that's quite cunning, and relevant to the article,
             | where Monet is painting a sunset but the scene in front of
             | him is copied from the painting, and so the sun emits no
             | light and has no glare and hangs in the sky like a
             | levitating egg yolk. Perhaps impasto on the sun could help
             | there (perhaps it does, on the real painting).
        
       | gergo_barany wrote:
       | I was in Paris in March and had a ticket for this. I was at the
       | museum an hour before my booked time slot. The square in front of
       | the entrance was one gigantic queue, and when I asked at the
       | front I was told that they were still processing people who had
       | booked a time slot an hour before that. I decided not to stand
       | around in the rain for two hours for a very dubious chance to get
       | what I had paid for. There are no refunds for any reason ever, of
       | course.
       | 
       | It's a shame because when I lived in Paris the Musee d'Orsay was
       | one of my favorites. Apparently management changed sometime in
       | the last few years, and ticket sales are higher than ever. But
       | only because it has turned into yet another tourist trap.
        
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