“Autumn Frost” (1874) (18”x22”), by Impressionist painter Alfred Sisley (1830-1899), is a depiction of what French travel advisors describe as “one of the loveliest times of the year.” During the day, the weather is mild, and at night there is a chill. Painted en plein air (outdoors), the work captures the bright oranges of fallen leaves. In the foreground is a tree, its trunk and branches painted dark brown. The artist uses yellow to represent the sunlight on the side of the tree trunk. The trunk creates a parallel line that is repeated in the parallel lines of all the buildings. The tree branches reach out left and right, and into the sky, guiding the viewer’s attention to the two houses beyond the fields. A man and a woman stand in the middle ground, almost at the center of the painting. The human presence supports the idea of a beautiful day to be outdoors.
At the left side of the composition, the artist depicts the circular furrows of the plowed field. Sisley used the complementary colors of orange and blue on both sides of the painting, and the juxtaposition of colors brings out a dynamic energy. Yellow and purple rows extend from the foreground to the middle of the scene. Blue not only is used to create shadows, it also represents the Autumn frost of the title. The sky is painted light blue and the underside shadow of the clouds light orange. The sunny side of the largest house and the fence posts are painted yellow like the tree trunk. Light blue and orange are used in the depiction of the towering church. Sisley has captured a lovely autumn day in a charming French village.
“Chill October” (1870) (56’’x74’’), by English painter Sir John Everett Millais (1829-1896), was painted en plain air beside the river Tay near Perth, Scotland. It is an example of the artist’s later period when he favored a realistic style. The painting is a depiction of a boggy landscape with reeds, grasses, alder trees, and willows. Millais had a platform constructed on which to work. He described the setting: “The traveler between Perth and Dundee passes the spot where I stood. Danger on either side–the tide, which once carried away my platform, and the trains, which threatened to blow my work into the river. I painted every touch from Nature, on the canvas itself, under irritating trials of wind and rain…there was more significance and feeling in one day of a Scotch autumn than in a whole half-year of spring and summer in Italy.’’
Millais depicts the natural colors of Autumn which include black and brown, a variety of yellows, greens, and oranges. The yellow-green cloud cover creates the desired chilly effect, as does the wind blowing through the grasses and trees. Even the river is painted a yellow-green, not the usual blue. A few birds fly away.
Van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo after meeting Millais and seeing this painting, “Once I met the painter Millais on the street, just after I had been lucky enough to see several of his paintings…not the least beautiful is an Autumn landscape, Chill October.
“The Alyscamps” (1888) (36”x29”), by Paul Gauguin (1848-1903), was the first painting he made after moving in October to Arles in southern France. Gauguin and Van Gogh were both Post-Impressionist painters who carried the rainbow colors of the Impressionists to the next level. They painted this scene side-by-side. The Alyscamps was the site of a Christian cemetery dedicated by Saint Trophime, the Bishop of Arles in the 3rd Century CE. Gauguin depicts the Avenue of cypress trees and the distant dome of the Romanesque church of St Honorat. He focuses the viewer’s attention on the vibrant green landscape, the fiery orange leaves of the cypress trees, and the gray-blue area road that stretches toward the church. The colors are thickly painted in patches, the brush strokes largely visible.
Centered in the composition are two women and a man dressed in Arlesienne clothing of the time. Gauguin found the place and the people of Arles unattractive. At first, he titled this painting ironically “Three Graces with the Temple of Venus.” He later changed the to “The Alyscamps.” The road had become a lover’s lane. Gauguin’s painting depicts a bright and clear French Autumn day.
“Autumn in Murnau” (1908) is by Russian painter Vassily Kandinsky (1866-1944). A highly intellectual man, Kandinsky was a leader in the Blue Rider movement and a leader in abstract art. He studied law at the University of Moscow when he was 20 years old. After graduating, he was offered a professorial chair. He declined and went to art school, which he found easy. The influence of the new styles of Cubism and its offshoots influenced his transformation from realism to abstraction. His move to the village of Murnau in the Bavarian Alps in 1902 provided the inspiration he needed. “Autumn in Murnau” is one of his early paintings. He paints only the essential elements, and they are in bright color patches.
The bright green fields and dark blue mountains are as they appear in the Bavarian landscape. The actual colors are clear, rich, and intense. The autumn leaves are represented by bright red brush strokes on the dark green and blue tree. The mountains are painted dark blue and purple. White clouds and storm clouds cover the sky. A road leads the viewer’s eye from the foreground into the background.
During this period, Kandinsky was writing Concerning the Spiritual in Art, his treatise on abstract art and the significance of color in art. His theory of color, published in 1911, included some thoughts on the meanings of color: yellow=warm, exciting, and disturbing; green=peaceful, calm, passive; blue= heavenly, the lighter the calmer; red=restless, glowing, alive; brown=dull, hard; orange=radiant, serious, healthy; violet=morbid, sad; white=pregnant with silence, possibility; black=extinguished, immoveable; gray balance between black and white, soundless, motionless.
This photograph of Murnau, taken in August, in 1972, records the intensity of colors of the Bavarian landscape and the Alps. If the viewer has not actually seen the place represented in a painting, the painting does not seem true to life.
“Four Trees” (1918) (43”x55”) is by the Austrian Expressionist painter Egon Schiele (1890-1918). Expressionism implies the desire to express emotions and inner thoughts, often including spiritual themes. The work was painted in the Autumn of 1918. Each tree has a different number of leaves, representing the transition of autumn, and of life. The tree with the most leaves can be seen at the far right. The tree at the far left has started to shed, but it is the next tree that stands out. Almost bare, its few remaining leaves on the dark branches hang on to life.
A small ribbon of blue water flows in the foreground. Green fields with small touches of yellow, orange, and red, provide contrast to the dark red leaves. The distant hills are blotched with lighter orange, yellow, and blue. The four trees rise tall against the streaked sunset sky. The orange sun lies low on the horizon. Night is imminent. However, the whole painting seems to glow, much like a scene created in stained glass. Schiele painted in 1911 two scenes with four trees.
“Four Trees” (1918) seems to represent Schiele’s melancholy at the time. He was a young man on the way to a good career when he died of the Spanish Flu on October 31, 1918. His pregnant wife Edith died of the same cause just two days earlier. His last works were drawings of Edith.
“When one sees a tree autumnal in summer, it is an intense experience that involves one’s whole heart and being; and I should like to paint that melancholy.” (Egin Schiele)
Beverly Hall Smith was a professor of art history for 40 years. Since retiring to Chestertown with her husband Kurt in 2014, she has taught art history classes at WC-ALL and the Institute of Adult Learning, Centreville. An artist, she sometimes exhibits work at River Arts. She also paints sets for the Garfield Theater in Chestertown.
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