How to convey a hot and hazy day in art and illustration?
Edges are soft, especially the horizon (or anything in the distance. The colour palette becomes more analogous. Highlights are high key. Blues and purples may be used to depict landscapes in the distance.
Peder Severin Krøyer (Danish painter) 1851-1909 Fisherman On The Beach At Skagen 1891‘Tangiers from the Marshes.’ (1905) Alexander Mann (African coast)The Beach at Cascais (1953) Edward Seago‘The Fishermen’s Regatta, Brittany.’ Painted in 1943 by the Scottish artist David Macbeth SutherlandPetros Malayan (Armenian painter, 1927 Baku – 1997 Tel Aviv-Jaffa) Birds’ Arrival 1967Willem Van Hasselt (Dutch, 1882-1963) Arcachon, The BasinMidsummer Theodor Kittelsen 1908‘Cessnock in Summer,’ (1938), William Crosbie (who was influenced by French Surrealists)Haze with light shining through, by artist Yakov Khaimov, 1914-1991Ramon Casas i Carbó (1866-1932) Barcelona, CataluñaAchille Laugé (French, 1861 – 1944) blossom Tree, 1893
‘Tonalism was an artistic style that emerged in the 1880s when American artists began to paint landscape forms with an overall tone of colored atmosphere or mist. Between 1880 and 1915, dark, neutral hues such as gray, brown or blue, often dominated compositions by artists associated with the style.’ (Wikipedia)
Clarice Marjoribanks Beckett (Australian artist and a key member of the Australian tonalist movement) 1887-1935. Clarice Marjoribanks BeckettClarice Marjoribanks BeckettPhilip Wilson Steer, children on the beach at Étaples (1887)Philip Wilson Steer ‘Tired Out,’ Suffolk Coast 1884Contemplation (Woman Seated Next To Birdcage) 1913 Richard Edward Miller (American 1875-1943Joaquim Sorolla (1863-1923) SpainDay of Yellow Flowers (detail), 1956 Tom Lovell (1907-1997). This illustration uses the palette of an outside hazy day.Tending the Garden 1912 Marie Duhem (French，1871-1918Vyacheslav Fedorovich Shumilov ( 1931 – 2004) Spring, 1966Richard Edward Miller (American painter) 1875-1943Spring in Italy (1890) by Isaac LevitanStonehenge (1909) by Albert Goodwin (English, 1845-1932)Sunshine and haze (1915) by Charles Courtney Curran (American, 1861-1942)Daniel Gaeber (1880 – 1958) Primavera al Villaggio, 1920. For more paintings and drawings of villages, see here.‘Early Morning, Newlyn’, Dod Procter, oil on canvas, 1926. This one is a picture of an early morning, but utilises the same hazy purple palette as some of these other paintings set later in the day.Eagle Feather illustrator Viktor BritvinVanity Fair Magazine Cover art by Jean Pages 1929Girl On A Coastal Path (1893) by Edmund Blair Leighton (British, 1853-1922)Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms by Fumiyo KounoAnna Ancher (Danish painter) 1859-1935 Young Girl With Orange UmbrellaCountry Gentleman Magazine July 1938by me
The painting below is not of a ‘hot summer day’, but is instead the haze of a winter morning. How are the colours different?
‘The Road, Winter Morning’, George Clausen, oil on canvas, 1923
FURTHER READING
Air pollution had a huge influence on Claude Monet’s creative work. Overall, the contamination of air helped him create the dreamy, misty paintings. His paintings shaped the Impressionist movement.
CONTEMPORARY FICTION SET IN AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND (2023)
On paper, things look fine. Sam Dennon recently inherited significant wealth from his uncle. As a respected architect, Sam spends his days thinking about the family needs and rich lives of his clients. But privately? Even his enduring love of amateur astronomy is on the wane. Sam has built a sustainable-architecture display home for himself but hasn’t yet moved into it, preferring to sleep in his cocoon of a campervan. Although they never announced it publicly, Sam’s wife and business partner ended their marriage years ago due to lack of intimacy, leaving Sam with the sense he is irreparably broken.
Now his beloved uncle has died. An intensifying fear manifests as health anxiety, with night terrors from a half-remembered early childhood event. To assuage the loneliness, Sam embarks on a Personal Happiness Project:
