Day 9: 2012 - Old artist movies

I follow a blog by James Gurney - the Gurney Journey.  He is the inventor/illustrator of "Dinotopia".  Every day, or almost every day, he has some wonderful work by new/old/used artists. This blog, which I've copied parts of straight off - giving you all the credit I can James, per your request - shows Monet and Rodin in action.  Then when I really started wasting time on my computer, clicking here, clicking there, there were other artists to be seen. 

I always think that these painters were in the 1800s and find myself amazed, each time, that they were "current" - or in our parents' time - and definitely in the time of the motion picture camera.

 Monet

(Video link) An archival film shows impressionist painter Claude Monet chatting amiably and then (at 1:06) painting his lily pads in Giverny. Monet keeps an unlit cigarette in his mouth, dangling above his beard and his spotless white suit. A white suit is an unusual color to choose for plein-air painting not only because of the risk of getting it dirty, but because it causes so much glare. 

Rodin

(Video link) Rodin cuts a different figure, looking restless, camera conscious, gnarly, and charming all at once. He only seems at home when he gets out the hammer and the chisel (at 1:25). He wears no eye protection, blinking each time he strikes with the hammer, and catching marble chips in his beard. Those chips have got to hurt when they get in your eye.

Degas

  

Degas:  This is unique footage of the great Post Impressionist painter Edgar Degas (1834-1917) as an old man walking in a Paris street early in the 1920s.

Renoir

 

Renoir:  Working on a painting.  Take a look at his incredibly rheumatoid arthritic hands and how he holds his brush.

All of this is from http://www.youtube.com/user/nickwallacesmith,  Nick Wallace Smith, who runs a YouTube blog.  His main focus is ballet with some fabulous "found" videos of the famous ballet stars from all the years.  I so enjoyed seeing Michael Baryshnikov soaring through the air again - no one could get "air" like him (except maybe Michael Jordan).

Thanks to Nick Wallace Smith, who has other archival films of artists and dancers.