Painting Analysis of 5 Watercolour Artists

Painting Analysis of 5 Watercolour Artists

Maria Sibylla Merian

Maria Sibylla Merian possessed the remarkable ability to master both the faculty of science and the art of illustration. Her grip on watercolours reflects the beauty of flowers. Maria Sibylla was born in Frankfurt, Germany on April 2, 1647. However, she was also acquainted with the work of other painters, such as Nicolas Robert (1614-1685), painter to the French Crown and a significant contributor to the Velins du Roi. As can be seen in the spectacular watercolours here presented, her skill was immeasurable and in execution somewhat influenced by the work of not only her father but also Robert. Merian not only concentrated upon the beauty of flowers but in the majority of her compositions included insects, an unusual consideration for a woman of the seventeenth century. However, in her publication, Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium, Maria Sibylla Merian was to confess. From her youth onward she has been concerned with the study of insects. She began with silkworms in her native city, Frankfurt am Main; then she observed the far more beautiful butterflies and moths that developed from other kinds of caterpillars. Her ability to study certain caterpillars was aided by Marrell's brother, a silk trader in Frankfurt.

The present shape reflects the typical combination of objects found in such cabinets and compositions. In all but one of the Merian works here offered, the tulip is placed at the centre of the arrangement, reflecting its relative rarity and high value during the seventeenth century. Indeed, the demand for tulips reached such a height that they became prized items in collections of exotic treasures. Bulbs were sold at auction and their blooms illustrated in tulip albums. While the price of these eventually reached unsustainable prices and caused the catastrophic crash of 1637, collectors still prized the tulip for its unpredictability. The 'broken' flowers, here pictured, were more highly prized than the plain-coloured and yet out of one thousand only one or two would appear 'feathered' or 'flamed'. The secret of how this happened was not fully understood until the 1920s when it was discovered that a virus caused the change.

Charlotte Salomon

On the tranquil beaches of the French Riviera of 1941 and 1942, with war threatening to soon engulf that part of the world, Salomon created, in the course of a single year, her major, original autobiographical work: "Leben? oder Theater?," which she subtitled "Ein Singespiel" ("A Play with Music). (Branscombe, 2001) She was 25 at the time, a young, lonely woman.

"Life? or Theatre" is said to be a different piece of art. Its shape and colour portrays a hidden philosophy of combined work. In this piece of art, the life she highlighted is her own, in more than one sense. She indicated the significance of her work, not only as a visual record of the Nazi era, but as the key to her own existence, when she said to a friend as she packed it ...