Imagine a background presided over by rocky mountain landscapes covered in slight mist, with a foreground enlivened by surreal characters, all woven by a soft glowing majesty as in a dream.  This could be synonymous with the works of early 20th century American painter Maxfield Parrish (1870-1966).

A product of New England, Parrish was born and raised in Philadelphia.  He graduated from Haverford College in 1892, and attended the Pennsylvania Academy from 1892 to 1894, where he took some of Howard Pyle's classes at the Drexel Institute.  He then moved to New Hampshire during his late 20's, where he rendered prominent works such as "Daybreak," "Ecstasy," and "Evening Shadows," which partly make up a collection of work spanning over four decades.  In some cases Parrish's works appeared as illustrations in several of magazines of his day, such as "Life" and "Colliers."  Parrish also had international success around 1900 when his works were used as illustrations in the classical children's books "Golden Age" and "Dream Days," by Kenneth Graham's books.

Attributes of his artistic technique included the use of glowing colors, achieved through glazing, which involves bright layers of oil set apart by varnish.  In the early part of his career, he often painted women on rocks, then later transitioned to mainly painting landscapes.  His success in book illustrations could be attributed to his passion for reading books.

Consider adding an image of soft glowing majesty from one of America's renowned painters to your home or art collection: Consider the works of Maxfield Parrish.

Selecting the right type of kitchen art is a daunting yet exciting experience. You want your kitchen to stand out and have a concise style that makes it differ from the rest of your home decor. It is a little challenging trying to find the perfect piece to put and the best spots to put it in the kitchen. Finding the perfect piece of art to hang usually is difficult because most likely, you have appliances of a certain color already in your kitchen. This could also make it easier because you now have a specific color to shop for. If you have one specific bare wall in your kitchen, or a place you want to replace with art, try these tips and styles of art to give it an artistic boost.

Old World

The old world look is beautiful for a kitchen that has soft earth tones and dim lighting. Light brown or cream walls with a cherry wood dining table and chairs is extremely flattering for this style. Kimberly Poloson is one of the many artists who create old world prints that would specifically look great in the kitchen. Some of these prints, like Old World Rooster and Vintage Bouquet I- Mini have a main image in the center of the piece, then have a intricate monochromatic boarder with patterns that help the center image pop. Including these images in your kitchen decor will add a vintage feel that will make you kitchen truly unique.

Traditional

A light and airy traditional kitchen needs some accents that bring out its color palette. If your kitchen is white with beautiful pastels, why not opt for some lovely botanical prints? Photographs and paintings of daisies, poppies, sunflowers, and water lilies are eye pleasing and would look wonderful on a blank wall near the dining table. If you already have a lot of patterns in colors in your decor, botanical prints are a great way to add more decor without clashing with what is already in your kitchen. Pauline Eble Campanelli is one great artist who creates many pieces perfect for kitchen decor. A lot of them are simple and elegant with a solo basket on the table filled with fruits or plants. These prints are one example of adding a perfect touch to an already traditional styled kitchen or transforming your kitchen's decor to traditional style.

Contemporary 

Contemporary kitchens are usually sleek and sophisticated with two main colors for the theme and a few stainless steel appliances. It may be tricky trying to figure out what art style would match with this type of kitchen‘s appeal. A great place to start looking for contemporary art for your kitchen is in contemporary food prints. These prints range from paintings of fruits, coffee, wine, spices, and much more! Contemporary food art is also a great place to start looking because within this style category you can find art to fit your theme. For example, there are many prints that are Tuscan themed, educationally themed, and more!

These are just a few ideas that bring out the styles of kitchens. Kitchen art can be as colorful or as simplistic as you choose. Remember to choose a finish like laminate, frame or canvas, that will protect your art from stains and water damage. Check out our website to browse through hundreds of art pieces to find the perfect art that compliments your kitchen decor!

The rage is on and it’s all about shabby chic. It’s a style that borrows from old charm with a certain degree of casual abundance, yet sophisticated and classy. It’s funky, it’s eclectic and it’s understated elegance, all in one. If you love the throwback feeling that shabby chic evokes, reminiscent of a trip to grandmother’s house where the paint on the chair is peeling and the watering can by the yard is a little rusty, you may want to use shabby chic art to help you recreate the homely lovely feeling. Pulling the effect together is easy with some if these easy tips:

Define Your Space

Want to define a space in your house? You want to keep it cozy and comfortable, inviting and relaxing? Whether it’s the kitchen or bathroom, shabby chic art can instantly pull the look together. Consider shabby chic art for the kitchen, from a simple depiction of fork and spoon to unwinding with wine to personalize the space to your taste.

What about the bathroom, a sanctuary of sorts? A place where you unwind, soak in the tub and allow yourself to forget about the cares of the world. Define this space well with an assortment of bathroom shabby chic art. Think bubbles, bath soaps and happiness – a bliss you can easily create by either using a single art piece or a group of art.

Play to Your Style

Shabby chic uses cream or pastel colors with differing layers of interesting texture to achieve the old charm. When using shabby chic art, considers the overall tone of the room. Take into consideration the color and the décor you already have. Making sure everything blends together in harmony will help to create the desired look. If you have white walls, you may want to bring some colors by choosing shabby chic art with some pomp and funk. Or go with the general color scheme. Choose art pieces that complement or contrast for effect. Placing a cleverly chosen piece of shabby chic art with a group of DIY (do it yourself) décor can be stunning and absolutely charming.

Orchestrate a Theme

Striving to pull together a theme for a room? Choosing pieces with similar theme will do it beautifully. Whether it’s world cultures, or high fashion or flowers, shabby chic art has them all covered.

Putting together a shabby chic room or house can be easy with the help of shabby chic art. For more information on how to use shabby chic art, contact us.

Vincent Van Gogh is undoubtedly one of the greatest Dutch painters after Rembrandt. Born in 1853 in the Netherlands to a minister and a bookseller’s daughter, Van Gogh dabbled with various vocations including art dealer and clergyman before deciding he wanted to become an artist at the mature age of twenty-seven. Within 10 years, before he died of a self-inflicted wound to his chest, he produced over 2,100 pieces of works, mostly watercolor and oil paintings. In his lifetime, he sold just one painting, but he became posthumously famous when his sister-in-law took it upon herself to promote his art. Now, several of his paintings are ranked the most expensive in the world. If you’ve always loved Van Gogh’s paintings, here are some categories where he distinguished himself as an artist.

Style

Although Van Gogh had some formal art training, most of it was self-taught. His bold lines and an eye given to beauty and light gave brilliance to his artwork. Inspired and moved by light and color, he was able to produce stunning pieces of work depicting flowers, landscapes, portraits and architecture. Whether it is the Starry Night or Sunflowers or Café Terrace, they all possess rich tones and hues, with a flow that only a genius can create.

Subjects

What is mundane to people became a subject of study for Van Gogh. He was able to capture the ordinary and elevate it to a higher plane by his renditions. Examples include paintings of railway station, gasworks and nursery gardens. These ordinary settings come alive with his brilliant depth of colors and his ability to create movement across the page. During his confinement in a hospital, he took to painting his surroundings. Popular pieces like cypress trees, olive grove and wheat field came from that period.

Japanese Influence 

Many artists of his time became fascinated with Japanese paintings, Van Gogh included. He first saw Japanese prints in 1885 in Antwerp and became drawn to how simplicity of lines can be so profound when rendered with ease. He became an ardent fan of Japanese prints and reproduced some of Hiroshige’s work. Blossoming Almond Tree becomes one of the best known paintings from that influence.

Now that the snowy weather is upon us, why not deck the halls with prints featuring winter landscapes? After all, they can easily be used with a variety of cool weather holidays. So you won’t have to technically swap them out with new artwork until the spring thaw. With that said, here are five winter landscape art collections that would be ideal for holiday decorating purposes: 

Winter Landscape Art Collection #1: Bill Breedon

Are you a fan of early Americana and scenes of pastoral bliss? If so, watercolor artist Bill Breedon is one man to put onto your radar. His paintings of idyllic winter landscapes are tailor made for decking the halls. This is especially the case with the prints that feature a horse drawn sleigh. You’ll be hard-pressed not to at least hum a few bars of Jingle Bells every time you pass by one. Sleigh themed prints to look for include Sleigh Bells, Sleigh Bells Too, O’er the Hills We Go, Back Home Again and Twilight Glow.  

Winter Landscape Art Collection #2: John Rossini

Another artist known for painting wintry countryside scenes is John Rossini. His prints have a distinctive New England feel to them. As such, they would pair well with traditional holiday decorations and candles. Pieces from Rossini’s collection to consider bringing into your home or business include December Glow, February Night, Bringing Home the Tree, Nor’easter and Winter’s Reflections.

Winter Landscape Art Collection #3: Peter Sculthorpe

While we are on the subject of country scenes, artist Peter Sculthorpe is worthy of attention as well. He has a multitude of seasonal prints that feature Pennsylvania’s charming farms, horses and homes. They would pair well with classic decorations like evergreen boughs, wreaths and Yule logs too. His prints of note include Buckskin, Buckboard, Moon Over Hillendale, Melon Basket and The Woodsman.

Winter Landscape Art Collection #4: Camille Pissarro

Do you prefer to surround your family with pictures of snow laden cityscapes instead of farmland? Then Dutch West Indies born artist Camille Pissarro’s body of work is sure to please. Several of his paintings feature scenes from France. Prints that may appeal to your sensibilities are The Avenue de L’Opera, Paris Sunlight Winter Morning and the Chestnut Trees at Louveciennes.

Winter Landscape Art Collection #5: Utagawa Hiroshiqe

Last on our list is artist Utagawa Hiroshiqe. He created a series of woodblock and ukiyo-e style artwork prior to 1858. Understandably, much of his work focused on scenes from Japan. Winter prints to contemplate adding to your collection include Women in the Snow at Fujisawa and View of Mount Haruna in the Snow. You may want to hang them up in areas filled with Asian themed, holiday lights and sculptures.

For a closer look at these winter landscapes art prints and more, please visit FulcrumGallery.com

Is a canvas finish always the best option for art? No. When choosing the finish for art, there are a number of important aesthetic factors to consider, including colors, details, and style.

 Colors

Think about the texture of a canvas. It has fine grooves that seem to disappear at a certain distance, yet are very noticeable up-close. The distance point of this seemingly disappearance is largely related to the amount of colors in a given art work.

When art works have chunks of clearly defined colors, the texture of canvas stops leaving an impression on the eyes at a short distance. In other words, the bolder the colors, the less the canvas texture stands out. Even though some of the most amazing artworks in history were created on canvas, the recreations of these artworks often look much better when printed on high quality art paper.

Renaissance, neoclassical, and romanticism in particular have exorbitant amounts of gradient colors that blend into one another. These blended colors become muted and far less noticeable when the texture of canvas comes into play, which creates a blurred rather than a detailed image.

 Details

 Artworks with bold or simple colors and crisp details work best on canvas. Pop Art, vintage art, and photography are great examples of art that looks amazing on canvas. The bold colors and simple shapes of pop art are not lost in the texture of canvas. Similarly, the crisp details and colors of vintage art also look great on canvas, since the details are not at risk of being blurred or obscured by the texture of canvas.

 Photography also looks great on canvas because the crisp, almost perfect, details of reality are captured through the lens. When photographs are then transferred to canvas, it creates the less than perfect perception of reality that actually occurs with human vision, instead of the view of the objective lens.

Style

The colors and details of art certainly relate to style of art, but there are many artworks that are less defined by genre or artistic movement and more defined by the individual style of the artist.

Word art, for example, may or may not look best on canvas, depending on the colors, as well as the style. Curvy font, subtle shifts in color, and scroll-work would not be well-suited for canvas, while block font, bold colors, and a clean background would be well-suited for canvas.

Keep these elements in mind when choosing the medium to showcase art, and feel free to contact us about any questions you may have!