Erin Hyer Master Artist Presentation part 1Leon Pourtau and His Work

Drawing II master piece part I

Erin Hyer: Leon Pourtau

Leon Portau was a French oil painting artist who was born in 1872

and died in 1898.The first image I would like to talk about is a self

portrait of his that he made in 1890. His color scheme seems to be

that like analogous because it is of neutral colors like brownish

reds, dark greens, browns and blacks.

The second image I would like to talk about is the one I saw in the

Phoenix art museum called “Provence Landscape” which was made

in 1891. It was the only piece I saw of his in the museum. As I fur-

ther researched Leon, I saw that his technique in brush strokes were

more like layers of dabs of paint. In this painting he used several

dabs of paint, all different colors, as a way to blend the colors to make up one big color. The over

all color scheme of this piece had most neutral colors but there was a small example of comple-

mentary colors in the lady and the child with them wearing red and blue. Leon was an artist in an

artistic era called post-impressionism. Impressionism was nearing its end and impressionism is

evident in Leon’s work by seeing that he likes to paint outside mostly and incorporated a lot of

sunlight. He really studied how the light in the day changed a composition.

The third image is mostly complementary colors with a red cloth and window sill and a

blue dress. Overall, I see blue and red everywhere in the painting but it is cleverly mixed with

red and blue. The image also helps to prove that Pourtau didn’t always

paint outside but he furthered his studies by studying light indoors.

The fourth image is mostly monochromatic with the color mostly being

browns. I, however, also see reds and yellows. This image also shows

that he studied further into impressionism by not only studying day

light but rather night time or dawn.

The final image I believe has a triadic color scheme with there

being dark blues, pinks (or reds), and oranges.