cadmium

One of my all time favorite cyber haunts is
Artcyclopedia, a fabulous resource that I discovered in the throes of art school. As I was stuck in a hotel with nothing else to do today (after being forced to tour the Hershey Chocolate Factory), I decided to find an art genre that I knew nothing about. I ended up reading about Tonalism and as I scrolled through a list of occasionally familiar artists and demure landscapes, I came across a piece that was strangely nostalgic and completely unlike the others. I give you Youth, by Arthur Frank Matthews.


When I was a child, I would often get lost for hours in a (very worn, very beloved) book of Greek myths brought alive by hauntingly beautiful Mucha-esque illustrations. Matthews' deviation from staid trees and foggy landscapes brought back the earthy and fresh childhood visions of dancing driads, Persephone and her pomegranate and lavish feasts on Olympus. The Tonalist's dancing youths bespeak Waterhouse's maidens clothed in the warm springtime palette of Mucha and the masters of Art Nouveau--an excellent marriage.

I recently found my tube of white gouache, without which I am utterly powerless in the area of water media, and was immediately renewed in my resolve to start painting again.