The Painter

Most artists acknowledge many influences on their work, from their families to their home countries to mentors and masters from the past. In my case, one of mine is J.C. Leyendecker, an exceptional illustrator from a century or so ago. Leyendecker was an outstanding draftsman whose work is immediately recognizable once you know it. Today he is overshadowed by other famous illustrators--Norman Rockwell for example. I've studied Leyendecker's work and done a number of copies of his works, particularly interested in his brushwork and color palette. 

"Studies," J.C. Leyendecker

This is sourced from a Leyendecker illustration that can be found online showing an elderly painter in smock and beret, cooking a sausage over a charcoal stove. The artist is probably poor, surviving on not much. The work seems to have been intended as a wry comment on Thanksgiving and feasting. But the smock, beard, eyebrows and the figure itself were more interesting to me. Instead of an outright copy, I decided to use the master's work as a jumping off point. 

In my painting, the old painter is not cooking but instead is looking directly at us, the viewers, and holding out a loaded paintbrush. The implication intended is that we the viewers are the subject of his painting. As you can see below, my work owes a great deal to Leyendecker's but is an original idea superimposed on his.

"The Painter," oil on panel, 16x12, 2008. Private collection