Rogier van der Weyden - The Last Judgement [1446-52]

Rogier van der Weyden - The Last Judgement [1446-52], originally uploaded by Gandalf's Gallery.

Rogier van der Weyden (1399 or 1400 – June 18, 1464) was an Early Netherlandish painter. Rogier van der Weyden was born in Tournai (in present-day Belgium) as Rogier de le Pasture (Roger of the Pasture) in 1399 or 1400. Little is known about Rogier's training as a painter. The archival sources from Tournai (completely destroyed during World War II, but luckily partly transcribed in the 19th and early 20th century) are somewhat confusing and have led to different interpretations by scholars.

His vigorous, subtle, expressive painting and popular religious conceptions had considerable influence on European painting, not only in France and Germany but also in Italy and in Spain. Hans Memling was his greatest follower, although it is not proven that he was a direct pupil of Rogier. Van der Weyden had also great influence on the German painter and engraver Martin Schongauer whose prints were distributed all over Europe since the last decades of the 15th century. Indirectly Schongauer's prints helped to disseminate Van der Weyden's style.

[Oil on wood]

William Merritt Chase - The Tenth Street Studio [1880]

William Merritt Chase - The Tenth Street Studio [1880], originally uploaded by Gandalf's Gallery.

Chase (American, 1849–1916), who is almost lost in the shadows at the right, portrays himself holding his palette as if pausing from work, but he leaves it to the viewer to deduce whether the young woman with whom he chats is a model, a patron, or a friend. Her listlessness and immersion in an aesthetic interior make her seem like a precious object, a simile embraced by many artists and collectors of the period. Her association with art reflects women's roles as consumers and keepers of culture and arbiters of taste. Chase encoded his professional ambitions in the opulent décor of his Greenwich Village studio and in his painted accounts of it. Packed with works of art and souvenirs of travel, the studio showcased Chase's refinement and connection with tradition; provided a place for display, contemplation, and professional entertaining; and offered a retreat from urban confusion.

[Oil on canvas, 102.6 x 133.4 cm]

Canaletto - The Stonemason's Yard [c.1725]

Canaletto - The Stonemason's Yard [c.1725], originally uploaded by Gandalf's Gallery.

The Stonemason's Yard is considered one of Canaletto's finest works. The view is one across the Campo (small square) St. Vidal, looking over the Grand Canal to the church of S. Maria della Carità (Saint Mary of Charity). The square has been temporarily transformed into a workshop for repairing the nearby church (not seen in the picture) of St. Vidal. The blocks of Istrian stone were brought by water to the square. The campanile (bell-tower) of the church of St. Maria della Carità on the far side of the Grand Canal collapsed in 1744, after the painting was made, and was not rebuilt.

The painting is not precisely datable but the bold composition, the densely applied paint and the careful execution of the figures are characteristic of Canaletto's works of the mid- to late 1720s. The informal nature of the scene and the unusual view across the Grand Canal suggest that it was made for a local Venetian patron rather than a foreign visitor to Venice.

The National Gallery, London, exhibition entitled 'Venice: Canaletto and His Rivals' is currently running from October 13, 2010 to January 16, 2011.

[Oil on canvas, 123.8 x 162.9 cm]

Gallery Closure

Gandalf's Gallery and Gandalf's Gallery Modern will be closed for a couple of weeks while I am on holiday. May I thanks all my friends and visitors for your continued support. See you soon – Friday 19^th November.

Best wishes.

Gandalf

J Bond Francisco - The Sick Child [1893]

J Bond Francisco - The Sick Child [1893], originally uploaded by Gandalf's Gallery.

In The Sick Child the green walls and pale sheets emphasise the boy's flushed skin, and although his eyes are closed, he does not appear to rest comfortably. The silk clown dangling upside down by one leg from the boy's hand appears about to fall, as if the child himself has only a weak grip on life. J. Bond Francisco (Cincinnati, Ohio, 1863 - Los Angeles, California, 1931) exhibited this painting at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, and the image was widely reproduced and hung on the walls of doctors' offices and hospitals.

[Oil on canvas, 81.3 x 121.8 cm]

Camille Pissarro - Boulevard Monmartre in Paris [1897]

Camille Pissarro - Boulevard Monmartre in Paris [1897], originally uploaded by Gandalf's Gallery.

Like Claude Monet, Pissarro, an outstanding representative of the Impressionist movement, often painted whole series of works showing the same motif. This painting belongs to a series of views the Boulevard Montmartre, for which the artist rented a room in the Grand Hotel de Russie from which he could see all the "grands boulevards". Pissarro depicted this view at different hours of the day, in different weather conditions, creating a total of 13 paintings taken from the same viewpoint. Here the master skilfully conveyed the rich atmospheric effects, the complex colours and ethereal feeling of a gloomy day. This image of fast-moving, dynamic urban life, so convincingly captured by the artist's rapid brushwork, presents the image of a contemporary city - not in a ceremonial or official mood, but animated and alive. Such urban landscapes formed the central motif in Pissarro's work.

[Oil on canvas, 74 x 92.8 cm]

Victor Higgins - The Widower

Victor Higgins - The Widower, originally uploaded by Gandalf's Gallery.

Victor Higgins (June 28, 1884 – August 23, 1949) was an American painter and teacher born in Shelbyville, Indiana. He studied at the Art Institute in Chicago and at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. In Paris he was a pupil of Robert Henri, Rene Menard and Lucien Simon. He was an associate of the National Academy. He moved to Taos, New Mexico in 1914 and joined the Taos Society of Artists in 1915.