En Plein Air

Nov 26

Niagara Plein Air Artists at The Brown Homestead

We recently had the pleasure of hosting a group of local painters at The Brown Homestead - the Niagara Plein Air Artists. We don’t mind admitting that we needed group organizer Cindy Sheridan to explain their name to us.

It seems that in the early 1800’s a small discovery led to a big change in the way artists were able to work. When oil paints became readily available in tubes, artists no longer had to mix their own pigments and paint, and were liberated from working almost exclusively in studios.

*Claude Monet Painting by the Edge of a Wood* (1885) by John Singer Sargent

So began the en plein air movement, in which the artist works outdoors within the landscape they are painting. It was taken up in France during the early 1860’s by four young painters, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley and Frédéric Bazille, who felt it allowed them to better capture details of light and weather.

The four friends often journeyed together into the countryside to paint together in the open air. They, and others like them, were the predecessors to our new friends, the Niagara Plein Air Artists, who get together on Friday mornings to paint in interesting and inspirational locations around Niagara.

We enjoyed their visit and look forward to welcoming them back next year. We have been so impressed by their work that you will be seeing some of their finished paintings adorning the walls of the John Brown House soon.

And we can’t help but share some of it with you!

Niagara Plein Air Artists Facebook Group