Its a rare occasion when I say that I've been to an Art Museum and left feeling as though I hardly saw a thing. Today is one of those days and I believe that in this particular case its not that I don't think I saw enough quality, because quality is the only thing that I did see today. The reason I say I feel as though I didn't see much is because I only spent significant amounts of time unraveling a few paintings while there are over 35,000 masterpieces living in the Louvre.
On my solitary journey through the German, Flemish, Dutch, Belgian, etc galleries I stumbled upon the most surprising series of small landscapes by the Painter Peder Balke. In the year of 1847, Balke was commissioned by the French King to travel to Denmark (I believe) to paint the landscapes. As an individual, Balke was interested in histories of science, natural phenomena, meteorology, geography, and ethnography.
While viewing the following images, I hope you can understand why I chose to label these paintings as being a surprise coming from the year they had. A few key thoughts in my notes are:
-Hybrid Abstraction
-Varied brushwork to depict specific objects, distances, and textures as if brushwork were a language.
-The use of such direct application of paint in a period of many glazes.
-I wonder how This painters work links to Artists of his time such as Casper David Friedrich, and artists who worked after him such as Paul Cezanne.
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