View from a window or door way

Raoul Dufy, La terrace a Vernet-les-Bain 1943

In this painting Dufy shows us an interior scene with a window on the left. He takes us from the plant in the foreground, through the window to the building in the middle ground, then down the path to the background and back to the interior and the chair on the left.

I like the looseness of the drawing and painting, the use of bright complementary colours, and the subtlety of the unification of the colours. For instance the blues on the leaves of the plant and the blue on the roof of the building, on the path, on the table, and on the left through the window - things I need to improve in my work.

Gwen John, Interior with Figures (1898-1899)

This painting couldn’t be more different to the Dufy painting: the figures, the mute colours and the simplicity are so restful, the view from the window balances the composition very well, and the light source gives emphasis to the focal point of the figures.

Edward Hopper, Office in a Small City

Hopper’s painting is very interesting because of the view across the corner of the building through two windows, giving the impression that the painter is in an adjacent building looking through his own window. The man appears to have paused in his work to admire the view, and the light gives the impression that the city is in a hot country, or at least that this is a very hot day.

The painting has a feeling of space but somehow also of emptiness, despite the presence of the man, and I think it is because of the plainness of the walls, the size of the windows relative to the man, and also because there is no suggestion of window frames – just large window spaces, making the building feel unfinished, not quite real. It has a kind of cinematic feel to it.

Reference

http://www.artnet.com/artists/raoul-dufy/la-terrasse-à-vernet-les-bains-a-2yrs3phxZhHS5QTr0C17CQ2

https://www.wikiart.org/en/gwen-john/all-works#!#filterName:all-paintings-chronologically,resultType:masonry

https://www.wikiart.org/en/edward-hopper/office-in-a-small-city-1953

My Painting

This exercise was a bit of struggle as I couldn’t find a composition to inspire me. I went around my house doing a number of sketches of views through windows and doors but nothing felt right -

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I also made some sketches in public places in London, but there wasn't enough time to paint and it was difficult to take pictures, especially in a restaurant.

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In the end decided to develop my first sketch, a view from the first-floor landing of my house, because I liked the simplicity and decided to use acrylic on primed A3 paper,

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I tried to use colours to unify the composition, incorporating the Burnt Sienna of the house bricks into the foliage, and the green of the grasses into the bushes above the house on the top left. This has helped but could be better and I’ll keep practising my use of colours.

I wanted to replicate Dufy’s looseness and spontaneity and to experiment with techniques to create texture, so I used modelling paste with a fairly transparent Sennelier Bright Yellow Green to give a thicker consistency to the paint, and this did produce an interesting texture and more opaque effect which made it easier to work with. My finished piece was -

Overall, I'm reasonably pleased with the final result. I think it has a sense of depth, with the window frames in the foreground, the swale in the middle ground with tall grasses on both sides of the swale, and the house in the background.

I’m fairly happy with my attempt to replicate Dufy’s looseness, though I couldn‘t resist using a stick to get some of my lines straighter, and in terms of composition I think I should have included a flowerpot or something on the window ledge the foreground. Maybe next time.