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Daybreak by Maxfield Parrish
04/07/2010
Painting of the Week
Maxfield Parrish 1870 – 1966
Born Frederick Parrish, the son of an engraver and landscape artist, Parrish became famous as a commissioned illustrator who made a comfortable living from the royalties brought in by the production of posters and calendars featuring his work. Work was also commissioned for magazines; Harpers weekly, Ladies Home Journal, Life and many more.
Daybreak was commissioned by the art publishing firm, House of Art in August 1920. It was created for the art print market and became very popular and in fact is regarded as the most popular art print of the 20th Century. The painting measures 67 x 114 cm. It employs a formal layout similar to a stage set. The two female figures were painted with the help of preparatory photographs. The models were Kitty Owen and Parrish’s daughter Jean.
Parrish’s technique needs special attention; his style was individual, yet not as original as it seems. He used a glazing technique, applying layers of thinly applied oil paint alternately separated with layers of copal varnish. The method of painting on a white ground in order to maximise the intensity of reflected light, is nothing new, as it was used by the old masters and to some extent, by William Turner, and The pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. 14th century European painters achieved similar brilliance of light through glazing several thin layers of transparent paint. It is of particular interest that Parishes use of laying one colour at a time imitates the growing development of the photo - lithographic printing process which requires the colour separation of the colours cyan, magenta, yellow together with percentages of black for shading.
Parrish states that he began by painting with a monochrome of raw umber, but then he started to use blue instead; a blue straight from the tube, not mixed with white or anything. He feared it made a good foundation for shadows. He used cobalt blue for distance and skies.
Parrish used technology; through photography, using his own glass plate camera he would then transfer the image to a positive one on the glass plate in his darkroom. With the help of a projector, he could trace on to the canvas what he wanted from the photographic image.
The means of producing the work and their finished application were of course essentially commercial, though it should not denigrate the sheer beauty of the finished images, nor should the skill required to achieve such results be underestimated.
You could argue that Parrishe’s work is 80% craft and technical skill and only 20% art, and ask why couldn’t he paint models from life? Well, I believe he probably could have done, but he was foremostly an illustrator and not a fine artist. Parrish new what effects he wanted to achieve, and he painstakingly mastered a technique which worked for him to achieve that end.
I havn’t seen any original Maxwell Parrish paintings, though from all accounts, in their own way
(excuse me purists) they can compare with the subtle splendour of a Rembrandt. When in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, I came across original Rembrandts for the first time, I found myself looking around and behind the canvas to see where the light was coming from; such was the effect of glazing combined with chiaroscuro technique. I would probably be inclined to do the same with this painting. But as for any further comparison between Parrish and Rembrandt – it has to stop there!
