3 Beautiful Paintings [2]

The purpose of this short post is to add a bit more beauty to your day, and perhaps introduce you to new sources for inspiration and aesthetic pleasure.

As I’m working on two major essays, I haven’t managed to post anything of value for quite some time now. I would like to compensate for that by sharing some beautiful paintings with you.

(The River of Light, Fredric Church, 1877)

On my recent trip to Washington DC, I was introduced in person to the magnificent paintings by Fredric Chruch (1826-1900) and other Members of the Hudson River school of art. This is a landscape at its absolute finest. Church places the viewer right into his sublime scene, and it’s simply gorgeous, filled with mystery and adventure. It was a delight to see this painting in person at the National Gallery in DC.

(Carl Gustav Carus, View of Dresden at sunset, 1830s)

Carl Gustav Carus (1789-1869) was a relatively unknown German painter from the mid-19th Century. If you have read some of my previous writings, you may know that I love german romantic paintings, especially those by Casper David Fredrich. It probably won’t surprise you that Fredrich was one of Carus’s teachers. Carus was an interesting man; he wasn’t only a painter but also a psychologist, maybe this will explain the bleakness of his paintings, but perhaps this is just due to him being German. Aside from painting and psychology, he was also a physician, zoologist, entomologist, and metaphysician, and he studied and wrote about evolution. Overall he was an interesting figure. I encourage checking out and learning more about him.

(Jan van Huysum, Vase of Flowers, 1722)

Lastly, let’s finish this short post with some beautiful flowers! Jan van Huysmun (1682-1749) was the master of flower paintings. He pretty much exclusively painted only flowers to absolute perfection. So I don’t need much to add. Just enjoy the flowers.

That’s it, now go and enjoy the rest of your beautiful day.

Yonatan