Renoir’s Mont Sainte-Victoire and a Lesson on Directional Brushwork

On your inspiration at present is Mont Sainte-Victoire by Pierre-Auguste Renoir.

Mont Sainte-Victoire is a mountain in France that overlooks Aix-en-Provence. When individuals consider work depicting this mountain, Paul Cézanne’s collection is the primary to come back to thoughts. However I believe Renoir’s extra colourful interpretation deserves some consideration.

This portray is a good lesson on directional brushwork and the way you should utilize it to maneuver the viewer’s eyes by and across the portray. Discover how Renoir takes us on a journey from the grass by to the bushes by to the mountains and at last to the sky. And he does this with fluid curves and swirls reasonably than static strains.

These directional strokes additionally add a way of motion and life to the portray. You possibly can really feel the grass and leaves swaying within the wind.

Just a few different observations:

• There’s a delightful distinction between heat and funky colours. It appears like they’re jousting for consideration and are evenly matched.
• There are just a few bursts of vivid orange and blue that add vibrance to the portray with out showing garish.
• The colours are restrained for the mountain. This conveys distance and atmospheric perspective.
• There’s a focus of exercise, darkish accents, and highlights across the center floor. This acts as a line separating the foreground and center floor.
• There’s an attention-grabbing sense of scale, with the bushes within the center floor being the identical measurement within the portray because the mountain within the distance (linear perspective).

Talking of landscapes, tomorrow we shall be opening enrolment for our Panorama Portray Masterclass. This would be the final cohort we take by earlier than we open it to the general public at full value. Please ​be a part of the waitlist​ if .

Completely satisfied portray!

Dan Scott

drawpaintacademy.com