Something Beautiful

The Hermitage Drawings of Edward Hau

I've loved the drawings by Edward Petrovich Hau of the Hermitage and Winter Palace ever since I first discovered them more than ten years ago. It's been several years since I last looked at them but, having done so last night, I find that they still retain their charm.

Hau made this set of 111 watercolors of the Royal living quarters during the 1850s-1870s. They can be viewed at two different sites:

Complete set of 111 drawings (official Hermitage site)

Complete set. This site has far the superior presentation.

Feeling skeptical? Try just this one painting of the Antechamber of the Tsesarevich Alexander Nikolayevich. (Be sure to check out the zoom.)

Trois crayons (Watteau)

I love the trois crayons (red, black and white chalk) drawings of French artist Antoine Watteau. Here's his Seated Young Woman at the Morgan Library. 

Life of the People (exhibition)

Several years ago I came across the online exhibition Life of the People: Realist Prints and Drawings. I loved it then, and love it still. So, probably, will you. :-)

Carlyle and Cat

I found this years ago, and I still love it -- Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881), by Helen Allingham.

Road in Etten

Road in Etten, 1881, by Vincent Van Gogh (chalk, pencil, pastel, watercolor)

Drawings (MIA)

I'd like to focus in for a few days on the Drawings and Prints department of the Minnesota Institute of Arts.

There are twenty-two drawings in crayon.

I like several of these, but my favorite would have to be Double House, Gloucester, ca. 1925, by Edward Hopper.

Drawings and prints

There are so many wonderful artists represented in the Drawings and Prints department of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

It's possible to view them according to medium as well. Among the watercolors alone are such fine works as The Interior of a Barn, ca. 1837, by William Henry Hunt, and Royalty at Home, 1885, by Rosa Bonheur.

Peony (drawing)

This is really quite marvelous -- Peony, c. 1800, by an unknown artist (charcoal heightened with white and red chalk, green wove).

Hiroshige

The Norton Simon Museum is possessed of a beautiful collection of artworks. And now they have a fine viewer, too, that enables you to get up quite close to the work. I used it to look at these fine works by Japanese woodblock artist Ando Hiroshige

Mira calligraphiae monumenta (Getty Museum)

These are very well done, although perhaps a little strange to the modern sensibility -- seven sets of facing pages from the Mira calligraphiae monumenta, c. 1595, by Joris Hoefnagel (watercolors, gold paint, silver paint, ink on parchment and paper).

You can read about Herr Hoefnagel here.