Painting by Lamplight

Painting (c) Antoine Vincent (France)

My last post found me struggling mightily to discern the right colors and values in an interior scene that featured a lighted lamp. That lamp can be quite beautiful. But the single bright bulb in a darkened room makes it very difficult to perceive the surrounding areas with any accuracy. Or at least it does for me. I remembered a great painter (was it Eugene Delacriox?) writing that when he was stumped, he would jump in the carriage
and ride to the Louvre to see how the Masters had handled similar problems. Well, I can't just hop over to the Louvre, but I can see the Masters online! There are not many obvious examples, because electric lights were not around when many of our great predecessors were painting. But I did find some fantastic paintings with artificial light sources--paintings that hold lessons for all of us. Edouard Vuillard was a master at this. His painting "The Green Lam'p" (first below) features lamps as the focal points.

"The Green Lamp"
Edouard Vuillard, 1898

"The Adoration of the Shepherds"
Rembrandt, 1646

The Rembrandt nativity (above) has light from a lantern, and I wonder--is there lantern light shining on the baby Jesus, or is he emanating divine light?? In either event, the painting is a tour de force of light and dark. By now one thing was becoming clear to me--the parts of the painting onto which light is not shining must be significantly darker than the light source--or else the light can never be bright enough.

Moving on from the painters of previous eras, I turned to some contemporary painters. I thought you would enjoy seeing some of their beautiful work. The top painting is by Antoine Vincent, a French painter living outside of Paris. He was bold enough to take on a dual light source, and with great success! Love this! Just below is a painting by Anne Blair Brown, of Nashville, TN. Wonderful discernment of values and colors.

"Reading Corner"
(c) Anne Blair Brown, 2015

Karen Lawrence, from Atlanta, is another favorite painter of interiors. Her painting below has both lamplight and natural light, but she manages to make it very successful. 

"Three Plates"
(c) Karen Lawrence

And to finish the show, here is a painting by Charlotte's own Connie Winters. This one also has natural light as well as lamplight, but the lamp is isolated on the darker side of the room.  

I notice that almost all of these paintings use a very warm color for the dark areas...something in the burnt sienna to yellow ochre range. The exceptions are the lovely paintings by Antoine Vincent, particularly the first one above. I finish with another of his paintings. Plenty of inspiration in these works by artists past and present. Long live lamplight!

"Sous la lampadiare"
(c) Antoine Vincent