Calm before the storm 1870

Jules Dupré made this painting, Calm before the storm, with oil paint on canvas. Oil paint is interesting stuff. Ground pigments are mixed with linseed or walnut oil; you can build up layers, glaze, and create effects impossible with fresco or tempera. Dupré masterfully wields the material. Look at how he’s worked in a range of tones to render the clouds above the sea. Notice the textural contrasts, thick impasto in the highlights, and thinly applied washes in the shadows. The whole painting shimmers. The brushwork becomes a record of the artist’s movement and activity. It’s an intimate, manual process, and yet also one that has become utterly conventional. Oil paint was the medium of choice for generations of academic artists. Dupré, though, was no academic. He turned this familiar material to his own purposes, in order to explore the sublime power of nature. In doing so, he brings a radical kind of handmade touch to the art of painting.