“The Lantern Bearers”
For today, a dreamy piece to welcome in the weekend…
“The Lantern Bearers” is a lovely and glowing oil on canvas mounted on board painting made by the American artist, Maxfield Parrish, from 1908. Parrish is one of the most well-known illustrators from the Golden Age of Illustration.
In this painting, six figures dressed up as Pierrots, which are French pantomime comic characters. They are hanging up paper lanterns onto a tree, seen silhouetted against the sky. The figures are posed on marble steps in an almost theatrical manner. The lanterns seem to glow against the evening sky, still lighter along the horizon. This piece exhibits the signature blue and gold colors, overall Utopian feeling, and sense of the fantastical for which Parrish is known.
Parrish used photography in his art. He preferred to dress up his models in period costumes, photograph them, and draw from the photograph, rather than draw from life. The original photograph he used for this painting is faithfully rendered onto the canvas, with an added touch of Parrish magic.
“The Lantern Bearers” was featured as the cover frontispiece for Collier’s Magazine on December 10, 1910. Between 1904 and 1910, Parrish had an exclusive contract with Collier’s that stated that he would only publish his illustrations with them. In 2006, the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art purchased this painting for over 4.2 million dollars.
Parrish developed many of his own techniques. To get the glowing effect, he would apply many layers of glaze and pigment over a white canvas to allow natural light to reflect even more off of the paint, reminiscent of the glazing technique used by Leonardo da Vinci. In fact, his colors were so vibrant that the paint color “Parrish blue” was named after him.
“The Lantern Bearers” is currently on display at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas in the United States.
For more on Maxfield Parrish, please visit his short biography here.
You can find more artists to learn about here.
