Albert Bierstadt -----------------------------------------------------Auguste Renoir-----------------------------------------------------David Leverett ------------------------------------------------------How do the vastly different brush stroke types change

the overall mood of each selected landscape piece?

The three artists I chose to compare are from relatively different art movements. Renoir comes
from the art movement of Impressionism, which has long, smooth brush strokes. Bierstadt was
a main player in the Luminism, Dusseldorf School of painting, Hudson River School, and
Romanticism art movements. Leverett is mainly part of the realism art style. He also works on
murals, and with pen and ink, woodcarvings/burnings, and pastels.

----------The Comparative Study---------

Perry Devlin

The Path
Oil on Canvas

Renoir was an absolutely fantastic artist and

he knew how to catch people's attention and
emotions with his work. Renoirs soft style
when it comes to Impressionism is instantly
recognizable and incredibly beautiful.
In many of Renoir's paintings, he makes the
brushstrokes rather clear, though the
blending is also a huge part in the painting.
In his painting, The Path, to the left, he
obviously has a very clear sense of
movement to the right, thanks to the path and
the trees. The blending is also a very key
part to this painting.

In this particular painting from Renoir, the

RENOIR

brushstrokes are very long and very blended

and smooth. Renoir created a very balanced
piece by making clear objects on either side
of the painting. The contrast is high, and
the colors are vibrant.

Self Portrait
Oil on Canvas
Complete 1875

Bierstadt is the king of old-Western landscape paintings. He is a master of

realism and capturing the true beauty of the nature in the West. His color

BIERSTADT

coordination is a beautiful representation of the real life Rockys.

The Rocky Mountains, Landers Peak, 1863
Oil on Canvas
186.7 306.7 cm

Bierstadt is one of my favorite artists

when it comes to fine art. He has a very
realistic style when it comes to his
paintings. His brushstrokes are very short
yet smooth in order to give the realistic
feel to the picture.

The balance is superb in this piece. The

settlement on the right foreground and the
trees on the left add perfect balance for
the foreground, while the background is
all mountains, which is an easier form of
balance.

Bierstadt main collection of paintings consist of Western landscapes. Though he did have some other styles,
since the greater majority are of the Wild West, that is what I will focus on.
The American southwest is very beautiful , and very difficult to replicate. Somehow, though, Bierstadt
manages to capture the beauty of it perfectly.

Leveretts art style is not as realistic as Bierstadt and

Renoir, and it is most certainly the softest. Leverett
can either paint from imagination or from whatever
he wishes to paint around him. He works with many
different mediums and styles, such as oil pastels, oil
paint, pen and ink, wood carving and burning, and
much more. The paintings focus on landscapes,
automobiles, architecture/illustration, coastal life, and
abstract. We will be focused on the landscape piece
to the right.

The brushstrokes in this painting are very soft and long. Leveretts style is
incredibly soft and well colored, with smooth lines and complimenting colors.

Oil on Canvas
4 x 6
David Leverett

Leveretts excellent use of blending in this piece add to the serene vibe that the

Leverett loves to work with landscapes, and he is

painting gives off. The way that he blends keeps the realism at a strong point

obviously very good at it. He captures the soft feel

while also adding a sense of impressionism. While there isnt much movement

of sunsets very well, and successfully made the

is the piece overall, there is definitely balance in this piece. There is color

landscape very realistic, yet very soft and easy on

balance using warm and cool colors in contrast, and balance in the objects that

the eyes. The painting is very straightforward; as a

are painted.

nature painting, there isnt much meaning that can

MATISSE

go into it, if any. It is simply a beautiful painting of a

beautiful landscape.

Analysis and comparison of two different

art styles
______________________________

RENOIR VS BIERSTADT
Both of these artworks look realistic in their own way. Bierstadts
painting is indeed more photo-realistic, and it was intended to be
that way. He has great perspective and balance and fantastic
lighting. The perspective shows the immense size of the American
southwest, and without it, the painting would not be as epic as it is
now.
The Path
Oil on Canvas

The Rocky Mountains, Landers Peak, 1863

Oil on Canvas
186.7 306.7 cm

Renoir, however, has his own interpretation of realistic. His

brushstrokes are very smooth, and he uses colors that arent as crisp.
Renoirs perspective is relatively the same as Bierstadt, but his shading
isnt nearly as intense. The contrast, however, makes it seem as though
the shading is very dark. The light colors throughout the painting make
all the dark areas seem darker than they really are.

Bierstadt continues his beautiful collection of landscape paintings with The Rocky Mountains, Landers Peak. This painting was
obviously a real life monument in the West, and Bierstadt thought it beautiful and grand enough to paint. The painting does
have a wonderful sense of scale and the perfect amount of movement with the crowds, and serene peacefulness with the rest
The Rocky Mountains, Landers Peak, 1863
Oil on Canvas
186.7 306.7 cm

of the nature around them. While the overall color seems a bit whitewashed, with a small spectrum of color.

Bierstadts brushstrokes are sharp

and there is a high contrast in the
foreground, which adds a peaceful
yet cold feeling. While the
landscape looks very nice and
calm, one might get a really chilly
vibe from the contrast. The
foreground does also instill a
sense of hype and almost
hysteria, due to the sporadic
placement of the crowds.

The background is also a very important part of this piece when it comes to the mood. It definitely
instills a sense of scale and perspective to the piece that is very important. The fade that it has is a
nice touch of depth and size comparison, also. I believe that without the fade, the entire piece would
be less large and intense. It would all seem smaller than it meant to be.

Just like Renoirs many other paintings, this one is very smooth and easy to look at. It has a low contrast with colors on the
cooler side, with a hint of warm color from the yellow grass. The landscape he chose to portray is evidence of a very clear, cool
day with beautiful weather to compliment the beautiful landscape. Impressionism is the perfect style for this landscape; any other
style wouldnt compliment the piece, it would only take away from the natural beauty.

The Paths mood is definitely more calm and smooth, just like the brushstrokes. Everything in the painting is soft and smooth. The trees
and grass look very comfortable. The colors are also very vibrant and beautiful, and without the warm and cool colors contrasting to make
the soft overlay, the painting wouldnt seem nearly as comfortable as it does now. . The entire feel of this painting is calming and based
around beauty rather than realism.
As you can see, the entire
painting is very blended and
smooth, with both warm and
cool colors to compliment
each other. From farther
away, the brushstrokes seem
very well blended and
smooth, and while they still

While the colors are quite the

opposite, as warm and cool
colors are, it is obvious that
they work very well together
in order to make this piece
really pop.

are when you look close, you

can really tell that its the
layers that really make the
painting pop.

The Path
Oil on Canvas

Bierstadt is very straightforward with his

pieces. He paints what he sees, which is not
like most painters. Leverett also paints

Leverett and Bierstadt

___________________________________________
J

based off of landscapes, but he adds much

less realism to the painting. Its a different
style from Bierstadt, but it is equally as

Leverett has a different style than Bierstadt, much like most artists. Leverett

impressive and with the same end goal.

has a brushstroke that is very hard to detect due to his blending, while
Bierstadt has less blending, therefore a more detectable brushstroke.
Compared to Bierstadt, his style is relatively similar, except with much less
contrast. He has similar colors throughout the painting, where Bierstadt uses
a large spectrum of colors.

Oil on Canvas
4 x 6
David Leverett

The Rocky Mountains, Landers Peak,

1863
Oil on Canvas

Leveretts style is very much his own; the soft simplicity overall make a very realistic and
beautiful piece.
Oil on Canvas
4 x 6
David Leverett

Like I mentioned many times before, Leverett used

very soft brushstrokes with a very heavy influence of

Another example

blending throughout the canvas.

of blending and

The simple background also adds quite a bit

color contrast.

to the overall piece. Without the simplicity

The white sky

of the background, the entire piece would

slowly turns into

lose its style. If the background was

an orange sunset.

intricately detailed, the foreground would be

completely out of place due to the more
singular aspect of the entire piece. The
entire style of the piece would contradict
itself; with the complicated background
behind the simplistic foreground, nothing
would feel right.

As you can see here, the background isnt

very detailed. The colors are simple and
minimal, but combine together to make a
complicated piece, much like Chuck Close.

Bierstadt has very small brush strokes, most likely in order to get the most detail in the smallest areas. Each figure is very detailed,
no matter how small it is. The horses and people in the foreground look very intricate, even with the picture a little bit pixelated. The
intricate placement of his strokes changes how the overall piece is looked at. Each color and person and horse adds to the natural
feel of the piece, and gives the feeling of beauty and livelihood behind it.

Another thing to note would be the

Bierstadts artwork is the

color choices. He uses a lot of

most realistic of the three.

brown in his works, but they are

He has a great sense of

mixed with different colors to

scale and balance, and that

produce different shades and hues.

really adds to the grandeur

You cant fully see how crisp

of the style and accents his

Bierstadts brush strokes are in this

love for nature. In that

relative close-up, but his strokes

way, he is actually like

are very detailed and clean. The

Pablo Neruda. Both love

next most used color would be

their homeland, and both

green. green is mixed with brown,

make art because of that.

blue, and gray in order to get the

One makes poems, and the

feeling of rocky mountains and clear

other, Bierstadt, makes

waters.

amazing paintings.

The Rocky Mountains, Landers Peak

1863
Oil on Canvas
186.7 306.7 cm

Renoirs style of paintings is very soft and cotton-like. His blending technique is pretty soft and feathery, and his brushstrokes are like and
delicately placed. It gives the paintings a very comfortable feel to it, and makes it a calming piece, (almost) no matter the subject. While most of
his painting is very bright and colorful, wherever there are shadows, the shadows are very dark. The contrast of the colors is higher than most
other paintings of Bierstadt and Leverett.

The movement also makes this

painting a masterpiece. The path
leads the eyes right and up to the
trees. The trees keep the eyes for a
while, then throws them up to the
sky and back around to the left of
the piece.
Without the movement, the entire
piece wouldnt flow. The eye
wouldnt have any direction or any
real reason to look around. The
brush strokes help the eyes know
what to look for and how to see the
painting as a whole, and also as
separate areas.

The Path
Oil on Canvas

Bierstadt Other Works

Storm in the Rocky Mountains, Mt. Rosalie

Oil on Canvas
34.25 inch wide x 20.47 in high

All of these paintings, as well

as most others by Bierstadt,

The overwhelming theme is

are very crisp and realistic.

basically how beautiful the

All of them have a great

American southwest is,

balance of colors and

especially to Bierstadt. There

contrasts. The perspective

dramatic styles really

for each is very true to real

highlights the natural beauty

life and just adds to the

of the landscapes.

drama the piece already has.

Among the Sierra Nevada Mountains California

Oil on Canvas
National Museum Of American Art, Smithsonian Insti
120.00 inch wide x 72.01 inch high

The Last of the Buffalo

Oil on Canvas
35.83 inch wide x 25.98 inch high

Overall, Renoir and Leverett have the most similar style of artwork. Leverett has a soft and realistic style of artwork, and Renoir has
a very soft and pretty feel to his own. Both are equally as impressive, of course, and both are very beautiful. Leverett seems to
have put more emphasis on realism, while Renoir painted what he saw, but. with a very impressionistic curb. While looking at
Leveretts work, I feel very calm and content, because his art style is a very calming style, and I can tell that the style also comforts
him as he paints it. Both Leverett and Renoir have a similar way of looking a nature, and their paintings reflect that. Between
Bierstadt, Renoir and Leverett, the latter two definitely are the most similar.
Another thing to note is how the brushstrokes look. Leveretts
brushstrokes seem almost nonexistent. Renoirs brushstrokes look
like oil, and made up of long brushstrokes. Both give the same
Oil on Canvas
4 x 6
David Leverett

serene attitude to the painting, the only difference is the way they
achieved the result.

The Path
Oil on Canvas

Oil on Canvas
4 x 6
David Leverett

Each one of these

artworks is beautiful in
their own way, and has
their own mood
associated with it.
Renoir has a peaceful
mood, Leverett has a
soft style, which gives
the calmer tone to it,
and Bierstadt has a
very realistic, cooler

The Rocky Mountains, Landers Peak, 1863

Oil on Canvas
186.7 306.7 cm

style which gives off

the more natural feel of
the painting.
The colors used in all pieces follow the same cool colors, such
as green, as well as blue and gray The only difference is the
hue, or shade, of the color. Some greens are darker than
others, for example. There is only some use of warm colors in
each of these paintings, using mostly yellows and browns.
While the art may be different, the beauty is all equal. Each
painter has their own charm, and adds that charm to each of their
paintings. They are all different, but at they are all art.

The Path
Oil on Canvas

While each artists has their own style and medium and meaning to their pieces, I chose relatively similar artists.
Bierstadt is the king of the realistic western based paintings, while Renoir and Leverett are the masters of
impressionistic landscapes. Each has their own style, but they also have a similar ground to stand on: nature.
Bierstadts mood is graceful and epic in the painting to the right. It
shows his love for the American southwest and also shows how

The Last of the Buffalo

Oil on Canvas
35.83 inch wide x 25.98 inch high

dangerous it can be.

Renoir painted a landscape, but with his own, softer style. Instead
of crisp realism, he chose to make a painting that makes whoever
is looking at it feel comfortable and warm.

Leveretts style is almost a mix of

both Bierstadt and Renoirs.
His style is simultaneously

Oil on Canvas
4 x 6
David Leverett

realistic and impressionistic.

He has realistic colors and
contours, with an impressionistic
blending and lighting style.
Leverett piece is a mix between
the realism of Bierstadt and the
impressionism of Renoir.
The Path
Oil on Canvas

My Work in Relation to Renoir, Bierstadt

and Leverett

In this piece, I really wanted to take the nature

style of Bierstadt and combine it with
surrealism. Bierstadts specialty was
mountainous views from the West of the US.
The landscape is very reminiscent of the
WIld West, with the desert ground and the
lone cactus, and even the sparse foliage.
Also, this is similar to Leverett in the way the
it is a smoother painting opposed to Bierstadt
s crisp painting style. While the oil pastels
arent as smooth as Leveretts oils on canvas,
especially with the painting style of small
marking, it is definitely smooth in comparison
to Bierstadt.

Though the art style is definitely reminiscent of Leverett and Bierstadt, the color takes more from Goghs painting style. The
color use in this painting is very vibrant and come from a wide spectrum,

I wanted to have some surreal aspects of the painting, mainly due to the fact that it is made with oil pastels, and I felt
obligated to. The main direction I was going for was impressionism. The entire piece should look very good, and I was
actually going for as little meaning as possible to show that fine art can still be fine art without a deeper meaning. To
succeed with this premise, I really had to focus on the way I made this; the strokes, colors and techniques were all very
important to this piece. I was thinking that since fine art is very meaning heavy, in order to compensate for my lack of
meaning, I had to really focus on techniques and looks.

One other thing that is very interesting about

Leveretts design in this painting is the amount of
balance throughout it. In the sky, the clouds on
either side give the sense of balance, while on
the ground, the tree line and the hay-bales even
out the painting. The tree line gets thicker to the
left where there is only two hay-bales, and
thinner on the right, where there are three haybales.
The hay-bales could also be used for something
other than balance, and instead for the same
reason I used a cactus in my piece. That
reason would be for depth. Without the cactus
in my piece, the deserts depth was really hard to
see, and my answer to that was to add an object
in the foreground. That way, the shadow itself
would add some depth and help one notice how
far away the mountain really is.
Oil on Canvas
4 x 6
David Leverett
In comparison to Leveretts painting style, specifically the one to the
right, my painting is pretty similar. The main difference is how mine isnt
blended nearly as much. I did use oil pastels, which do blend, but they
dont blend like oil paint. The end result with pastels is a very textured
piece, and in this case, a very colorful one. In Leveretts painting, there
is a lot of contrast between warm and cool colors; the cool ground is
opposite of the warm sunset. There is a mid-tone contrast going
through the middle of the painting in the form of the tree-line, however,
which does water down the amount of contrast the eye notices.
Another similarity is how the ground in both pieces would be relatively
empty if not for the scattered objects everywhere.

The Path
Oil on Canvas

Just like with Leveretts design, my piece in comparison to Renoirs piece

is a little bit rougher and more textured. Renoir does have a soft piece,
just like Leverett, yet his comes off as more blurry and overall messier
b
hbLeverett
hb
than
and especially Bierstadt.
The skies in both Renoirs and my work do have similarities. While mine
is very dramatic in color and movement, Renoir is more subtle. However,
even his has movement, no matter how slight it is. My work also takes
after the less blended, more textured side of Renoir's sky. From up
close, Renoirs The Path has a more contrasted sky, where the colors are
clearly not blended, but instead use the same tactic that Chuck Close
uses on his portraits. Mine is so contrasted that even from far away it
doesnt look blended (at least not the sky).

Unlike The Paths ground, mine isnt very

perceptive. One cant easily tell the depth of my
painting, and the reason for that is:
1.
Deserts make it very hard to show depth.
The generally same color and shade
doesnt show shadows very well, and the
flatness doesnt help
2.
Lack of objects makes it hard for human
eyes to compare the size of the land to
other objects, such as the mountain. Our
mind automatically goes to think that the
mountain is large, but without another
comparison, and lack of depth, its hard to
back up that claim

Both The Path and my piece Wolf-Rayet Planet show the beauty of nature, just as Bierstadt and Leverett do. The meaning behind
these paintings, to me, is just to show that beauty is everywhere. The act of painting it just proves that you see what is around you.
The way that you paint it shows how you perceive what you are seeing, and adds additional meaning to your piece. For Renoir, I
believe that he is showing how he loves where he is in the painting. It is a soft style, therefore shows that he feels comfortable
there, and maybe even nostalgic.

When it comes down to my painting and Bierstadt specifically, you

can see the inspiration I received from his work. I love mountains,
and they are one of my favorite things to paint. Bierstadt is known
for his paintings of the Wild West, which includes many mountains
(and also plains). My painting Wolf-Rayet Planet is a mix between
the mountainous and desert/plains settings that Bierstadt works with.
As you can see in my piece, the colors are much more vibrant than
in Bierstadts work. His paintings do use the colors I use, just at a
much more diluted level. While he does use blues, greens, browns
and reds, they are droned out by the blacks and whites to create the
high contrast that he uses. The main use of contrast in my piece is
the mountains shadow, and the the change from the yellow ground
to the blue sky.

Though there is much similar, there is also quite

large differences. For example, my piece is very
empty compared to Bierstadts pieces,
especially Among the Sierra Nevada Mountains
California. There are plenty of objects in
Among the Sierra Nevada Mountains California;
there are prominent mountains, trees, a lake,
and the lighting is very dramatic. In my piece,
there is really only the large mountain and the
giant stars.

I tried to take the large scale and grandeur that Bierstadt creates and
use it in my piece. That scale took shape of the mountain and the
huge blue star, which are both in the background. The foreground
does not have any large objects or forms, which adds to the intensity
in the background. Opposed to Bierstadts The Last of the Buffalo,
where the movement comes from the human and animal figures, the
movement in my piece comes solely from the suns rays.
Among the Sierra
Nevada Mountains
California

The Last of the

Buffalo

Between my piece, Wolf-Rayet Planet, and Leveretts unnamed piece,

there is one thing I forgot to mention. Leveretts piece and mine have a
rather similar sky when it comes to colors and hues, but completely
different in movement. Leveretts sky is way more linear and horizontal,
The clouds and colors fade away into the sky, while the layers of color are
obviously in the direction of left to right. As for Wolf-Rayet Planet, the
movement is the sky is circular and very wavy. The lines are made that
way in order to show the sun's rays and how they radiate throughout the
sky. Also notable is how the rays radiate in a circular direction and
opposed to straight out from the sun in a perpendicular direction.
Usually the lighting in paintings/art are very linear. For Bierstadt, Leverett,
and Renoir, this definitely the case. The light comes from one direction,
and consists mostly of white light. While my art is similar in many ways,
the lighting is not akin to theirs. he colors can be slightly similar to Leverett
s painting, but not Bierstadt or Renoirs paintings. For each of theirs, the
lighting is along a straight line, and mine, as mentioned before, is
perpendicular to the origin and radiate in a circle.

Oil on Canvas
4 x 6
David Leverett

The Rocky Mountains, Landers Peak, 1863

Oil on Canvas
186.7 306.7 cm

Bibliography

"Albert Bierstadt - The Complete Works." Albert Bierstadt - The Complete Works. Web. 19 Nov. 2015.
Leverett, David. "David Leverett Fine Art." David Leverett Fine Art. Web. 19 Nov. 2015.
<http://artforlifechange.com/>.
"Pierre Auguste Renoir - The Complete Works." Pierre Auguste Renoir - The Complete Works. Web. 19 Nov. 2015.
"WikiArt.org - the Encyclopedia of Painting." WikiArt.org - the Encyclopedia of Painting. Web. 19 Nov. 2015.