Besides the spectacular colors, something a Maxfield Parrish painting always has, there's also an attention to details that is unimaginable. In fact his art was always so much that it would not be mistaken for a photograph. The colors were simply too vivid, the settings too perfect. Just beautiful beyond belief.
There are quite a few Artists that I think are fantastic, those whose works I think are among the finest any man or woman has ever produced. And right at the top of that list stands Maxfield Parrish. On an earlier post you would have seen 
"Moonlight", my favorite Parrish painting. I have yet to find a print of this for sale anywhere. Nertz!
Take a little time to wander through any Gallery of Parrish's works. Soon you will be enthralled at the depth, vibrancy, power that the colors he produced hold. "Garden Of Allah" is one, and "Daybreak". The skies Parrish produced, the water - still or falling, or waves crashing - all evoke a living world. So many painters seem to have problems making their works seem alive, whether an abstract or otherwise. There is just something missing from what they produce. In Parrish's case it is the opposite. There is too much life! Does that make sense?
When I was younger, I was a drawing, painting kid. I can still remember being punished for drawing on a nice, white wall with a yellow crayon. I hadn't figured out that white walls were not big pieces of paper waiting for me to toddle along. And over the ensuing years I thought I would be a painter. Ask anyone in my family about the life-sized John Wayne that once adorned the door of my bedroom. I wasn't bad, as a painter. I even read up on the techniques Parrish used for his colors. (Did you know, for instance, that Maxfield Parrish didn't mix his colors? He used pure pigments, atop clear varnishes, to let light blend his colors. This in the age of oils not acrylics. Talk about time-consuming!)
Alas, I was not good enough, or driven enough, to enter the world of painting. But I had gained a tremendous appreciation for the works of Maxfield Parrish. Along with him I discovered N.C.Wyeth, whose children you may have heard somthing about. Others soon came along, as well.
(To be continued! Interested?)
3 comments:
I remember going "window antiquing" almost 20 years ago and seeing Parrish after Parrish prints in the better stores, since the generation that had bought them were starting to die off and at the time Parrish was considered "gauch, don't you know, dah-ling". They were affordable as they could be, but still out of a 20-something's range. I told myself that someday when I was established (meaning, had a real job), I would finally get a Parrish. Now, you can't find them and if you do they are way out of this 40-something's range.
Yep! And out of this 50-year-old's range. Odd how art goes in and out of fashion. But the great ones always resurface on their own.
Beautiful!..thanks for the enlightenment benning!..:)
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