The two works selected from the Art Institute of Chicago were Adolphe-Joseph-Thomas Monticelli’s Still Life with Fruit and Wine Jug (1874) and Paul Gauguin’s Still Life: Wood Tankard and Metal Pitcher (1880). They are both located in the European Painting and Sculpture wing on the second floor of the Institute in Gallery 241. Although both are impressionist oil paintings of still lifes containing various fruits and a vessel on a table, they have key differences in color, mood, lighting, visual weight, and balance. Due to these differences, Monticelli’s piece appears more rich and lively while Gauguin’s piece seems dull and distant. Monticelli’s Still Life with Fruit and Wine Jug is an oil painting created on a 19 x 23 1/2 in. panel. The …show more content…
Monticelli’s quick, short brushstrokes are typical of Impressionist painting techniques, although he belonged to a generation of artists that preceded the Impressionists. His strokes are most evident in the wine jug, pear, and tablecloth. In each of the objects, it is clear that Monticelli used rapid brushstrokes and lots of dabbing motions when applying the paint to the panel in order to give an impression of how the light interacted with the object as well as its texture. For instance, in the pear, the strokes are very short and follow the curve of the pear in one direction. The uniformity of his tiny brushstrokes produces an impression that the pear is a smooth object with little interruption in its texture. Contrastingly, the orange right beside it has a different visual texture; Monticelli uses blotting and dabbing motions with his brush instead of drawing fine lines, producing a slightly bumpy, bruised texture. In fact, the change in textures in different fruits is important to keeping the still life realistic because pears do have a much different texture than oranges. Hence, Monticelli’s Impressionist painting techniques create different impressions of the fruits’ unique