Under the light of an umbrella

At the Water Passage (1923)

The photographer Léonard Misonne (1870–1943) was a figurehead of the pictorialist movement in Belgium. He acquired a lasting reputation for landscapes, bucolic and timeless, a genre he would exploit throughout his life.

Bad Weather (1909)

Brussels Train Station (1938)

In the Lime Kilns (1942)

Marché aux fleurs, Grand Place, Bruxelles (1936)

Memory of London (1899)

Pluie à Namur, Belgique (1937)

Rue Royale (1933)

Ruts (1932)

Sheep (1905)

Sur la glace (1908)

Sur le barrage (1908)

The Beautiful Inland Waterway (1909)

The Oaks (1912)

Untitled (1934)

The images are characterized by a masterly treatment of light and atmospheric conditions, as summed up in Léonard Misonne's credo Le sujet n'est rien, la lumière est tout / The subject is nothing, light is everything.

While the subject matter remained more or less constant over half a century of activity, Léonard Misonne's chosen medium evolved towards more manipulated processes—from carbon printing until 1910-15, by way of bromoil until 1930-35, up to a final phase using mediobrome.

En plein air

The seasons of Kevin Menck.

 Atlantic Beach Tidal Pool (2010) 

 Aubries Field (2010)

 Cheatham WMA at Dozier's (2011)

 DC Lighthouse Beach (2009) 

 Delaware, Broadkill (2009) 

 Grey Day on Swan Creek (2012)

 Harpeth River Sycamore II (2012) 

 James Island Park (2011) 

 Ken Roberts Cutbank (2009)

 Pine Trees, Floyd Rd (2010)

 Pooles Knob Snow (2010) 

 Radnor C (2009) 

 Radnor Fall II (2010)

 Radnor Freeze Out II (2010)

 Sage Field (2011)

 Saunders Cutbank (2009)

 Snow Pines (2011)

 Sycamore (2011)

Warner Park Creek Snow (2010)

Kevin Menck is a painter from Nashville, Tennessee, USA. His artistic journey began as a graphic designer and a self-employed illustrator. In 2003 he slowly started to gravitate to fine art, specifically landscape painting from life, en plein air. Being an avid outdoorsman for years, he has a deep respect for the outdoors.

« I remember sitting in a duck blind or deer stand and trying to figure out how to capture what I was seeing on canvas. To get that atmosphere, to make a cold day look cold and hot days hot. I want the viewer to look at it and know what it actually was to be there.

I am not sure I do this because of my love of art or of my love of the land. They have become indivisible for me. One in the same.»

– Kevin Menck


his blog
his web site

Willows on Harpeth (2011)

Major parrots

Mostly known for his literary nonsense in poetry and prose, Edward Lear (1812–1888) was an English artist, author and poet. Enjoy some of his wonderful parrot paintings, from Illustrations of the Family of Psittacidae, or Parrots (1832), containing 42 large-format ornithological illustrations, published before he was 20 years old. The volume is remarkable for its folio size and for content focused on a single family of birds. Edward Lear painted live parrots at the London Zoo and some in private collections. Click the (large) images for beautifully detailed feathers.

 Macrocercus aracanga. Red and yellow maccaw. 

 Macrocercus ararauna. Blue and yellow maccaw. 

 Macrocercus hyacinthinus. Hyacinthine maccaw.

 Palæornis columboides. Pigeon parrakeet.

 Palæornis cucullatus. Hooded parrakeet.

 Palæornis melanura. Black-tailed parrakeet.

 Palæornis novæ-hollandiæ. New Holland parrakeet.

 Platycercus barnardi. Barnard's parrakeet.

 Platycercus brownii. Brown's parrakeet.

 Platycercus erythropterus. Crimson-winged parrakeet.

 Platycercus pileatus. Red-capped parrakeet.

 Platycercus stanleyii. Stanley parrakeet.

 Platycercus unicolor. Uniform parrakeet.

 Psittacara leptorhyncha. Long-billed parrakeet-maccaw.

 Psittacara patagonica. Patagonian parrakeet-maccaw. 

 Psittacula kuhlii. Kuhl's parrakeet.

Trichoglossus matoni. Maton's parrakeet.