Thursday, June 30, 2016

De Scott Evans: A Victorian Painter with a Tragic End

This American painter, who only survived into his 40's, has a painting in the Orlando Museum of Art.
"From the Kitchen Window": we see the detail of a 19th Century moment as the woman (mother, servant, older sister?) apparently reacts to the arrival or departure of someone outside. We are set back from the action (visually) by the length of floor space. The light is so soft, muted, pearl-like.
Even the baby is interested to see what is happening; the cat wonders too. So there is a quiet tension, somehow.

The painter worked with interiors like this, still life, portrait, etc.

Evans, along with his three daughters, was lost in the shipwreck of the SS La Bourgogne in 1898; the ship was a fairly new and fast steamer, hit in fog by a sailing vessel. Huge loss of life for the time, about 500; it was an elite ship, used by wealthy people for relatively speedy transport to and from Europe.


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