FRANCE PAINTING GALLERY

FRANCE PAINTING GALLERY

Here is a collection of paintings from travels in France. I've been especially struck by how the broad-leafed trees and flowers, and dappled light through the trees, are conducive to the patchy, short brush strokes that Impressionist painters used..

691.   Jardin de Luxembourg, Paris. Paris is full of beautiful and often famous parks. I picked a site early one Saturday morning and painted while I watched people being to gather on a lovely fall day. (2008). (Copyright William K. Hartmann).

687. Au Lapin Agile, Montmartre, Paris. The café of the “Agile Rabbit” was a famous gathering place of artists who lived on and near the hill of Montmartre in the mid-late 1800s in Paris. Habitués ranged from Renoir to Picasso. I painted from across the street until a tremendous lighting flash and clap of thunder signaled an oncoming storm. (2008). (Copyright William K. Hartmann).

676. Fontainebleu Forest, France. This area was made famous by Paris impressionist painters after train service was introduced in the 1800s, allowing easy travel to the picturesque area. The views shows a typical meadow of birches and heather, which lie among pines.   (2007). (Copyright William K. Hartmann).

632.   Ruins of a Roman Theater in Lyon. Lyon, in southern France, was a well-known city in Roman and early Christian times. The ruins of this theater are on a hillside overlooking the city, whose modern office buildings, stark by contrast, can be glimpsed in the distance. (2005). (Copyright William K. Hartmann).

657. Frankel’s family home, Binic, Brittany. The motif is the garden doorway of a home in the coastal French town of Binic. (2006; see #655). (Copyright William K. Hartmann).

655.   Sandstones and Heather at Cap d'Erquy, Brittany. The view is looking inland at a marvelous natural Zen garden on a windy clifftop along the French Atlantic coast. The ocean was immediately behind me. The site was shown to me during a group stroll led by French writer, Charles Frankel. (2006). (Copyright William K. Hartmann).

626. Notre Dame, Paris. This view of the back side of the cathedral, and its island in the Seine, is from the quai along the river’s left bank.   It’s fun to paint in Paris; people treat you as if painting is an cool, interesting, and reasonable thing to do! (2005). (Copyright William K. Hartmann).

625.   The Ghost of Henry Miller in the Villa Seurat. Paris is full of brochures about the haunts of Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, and other famous American expatriate writers of the 1920s. One day I realized I couldn’t find anything about the exuberant and notorious Henry Miller. Checking his books and several biographies, I located one of the most important of his many Paris addresses in a tiny dead-end street called Villa Seurat – an artsy neighborhood full of small art-nouveau-influenced houses. During his famous affair with the writer Anaïs Nin in the 1930s, (see her published diaries!), she rented him an apartment in the creme-colored building on the left. Here he finished the notorious Tropic of Cancer, a novel that is somewhat boring today until you realize that Henry and his friends were creating a blog-type novel that simply recounted their day to day experiences.    (2005). (Copyright William K. Hartmann).

580. April in Paris. I colonized a concrete pediment in a park along the Seine, just west of the Eiffel Tower, and painted there on two different days to finish this. I was inspired by the enormous scale of the tower rising just beyond the trees buildings along the parkside boulevard. (2003). (Copyright William K. Hartmann).

356.5. Fayence, France. Fayence is a small hilltop village not far inland from Cannes.   This springtime view is from fields below the town. Coming from a desert, I was impressed: the flowering trees are just as the Impressionists painted them! (1992). (Copyright William K. Hartmann).

054. Valle sur Issire, near Lyon. Painted after a scientific meeting in Lyon, this shows fields in the Alpine area of southern France. (1976). (Copyright William K. Hartmann).

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691. Jardin de Luxembourg, Paris. Paris is full of beautiful and often famous parks. I picked a site early one Saturday morning and painted while I watched people being to gather on a lovely fall day. (2008). (Copyright William K. Hartmann).	687. Au Lapin Agile, Montmartre, Paris. The café of the “Agile Rabbit” was a famous gathering place of artists who lived on and near the hill of Montmartre in the mid-late 1800s in Paris. Habitués ranged from Renoir to Picasso. I painted from across the street until a tremendous lighting flash and clap of thunder signaled an oncoming storm. (2008). (Copyright William K. Hartmann).


676. Fontainebleu Forest, France. This area was made famous by Paris impressionist painters after train service was introduced in the 1800s, allowing easy travel to the picturesque area. The views shows a typical meadow of birches and heather, which lie among pines. (2007). (Copyright William K. Hartmann).	632. Ruins of a Roman Theater in Lyon. Lyon, in southern France, was a well-known city in Roman and early Christian times. The ruins of this theater are on a hillside overlooking the city, whose modern office buildings, stark by contrast, can be glimpsed in the distance. (2005). (Copyright William K. Hartmann).


657. Frankel’s family home, Binic, Brittany. The motif is the garden doorway of a home in the coastal French town of Binic. (2006; see #655). (Copyright William K. Hartmann).	655. Sandstones and Heather at Cap d'Erquy, Brittany. The view is looking inland at a marvelous natural Zen garden on a windy clifftop along the French Atlantic coast. The ocean was immediately behind me. The site was shown to me during a group stroll led by French writer, Charles Frankel. (2006). (Copyright William K. Hartmann).


580. April in Paris. I colonized a concrete pediment in a park along the Seine, just west of the Eiffel Tower, and painted there on two different days to finish this. I was inspired by the enormous scale of the tower rising just beyond the trees buildings along the parkside boulevard. (2003). (Copyright William K. Hartmann).	356.5. Fayence, France. Fayence is a small hilltop village not far inland from Cannes. This springtime view is from fields below the town. Coming from a desert, I was impressed: the flowering trees are just as the Impressionists painted them! (1992). (Copyright William K. Hartmann).

054. Valle sur Issire, near Lyon. Painted after a scientific meeting in Lyon, this shows fields in the Alpine area of southern France. (1976). (Copyright William K. Hartmann).