George Faulkner Wetherbee, The Harvest Moon, 1881

The American artist George Faulkner Wetherbee (1851 –1920) painted this 32 × 51 cm oil on canvasThe Harvest Moon in 1881; it is in the collection of the Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. At first glance the title of the painting appears appropriate, but one important feature conjures up the phrase ‘the words don’t match the picture’. Readers are invited to study the photograph of the painting to identify the incongruity before reading further. What might be apparent at first glance is that the sky has been painted using broken brushstrokes very much in the manner of the impressionists w ho were active at this time and who organized eight exhibitions in Paris between 1874 and 1886 [1]. An emerging art movement had been recognized earlier but it was Claude Monet ’s paintingImpression, Sunrise shown at the 1874 exhibition which led to the term impressionism becoming understood to refer to painting outdoors (plein air) with the use of broken and rapid brushstrokes to capture the fleeting effects of light [1]. Some impressionists used broken juxtaposed colours to recreate those effects. This combined with crude representation of shapes made paintings look rushed and unfinished; such that critics used the term impressionism in a derisory sense for some years [2].
Source: Occupational Medicine - Category: Respiratory Medicine Source Type: research