Maxfield Parrish essays

Maxfield Parrish essays Maxfield Parrish, born Frederick Parrish, was one of the greatest illustrators of his time, ranking among top artists Van Gogh and Paul Czanne. From his day of birth July 25th 1870 in Philadelphia, to the day he died in 1966 at the age of 95 in Cornish, Parrish lived a full wealthy life without many disappointments or sorrows in what was called the Golden Age of Illustration. Parrishs works will be forever remembered as enchanting realistic paintings of fantasy and romance that hung in the homes of 1 out of 4 Americans in the 1920s. Many factors contribute to this artists success. One of the most important factors was his use of Dynamic Symmetry, a design theory based on geometric harmony and the formula a/b=(a+b)/a known as the Golden Section. In order to achieve this composition, Parrish would arrange cutouts of costumed models on to a canvas board, or sometimes project the photos onto a wall. His father, Stephan Parrish, also played a significant role in his success. Being the first artist in the family, Stephan taught his son many of the basic fundamentals of art, such as drawing and etching. This and other artists of the time got Maxfield interested in the laborious processes of painting with egg tempera, varnish and applying single coatings of color, one layer at a time. Much of Parrishs work was inspired by his role model at the time, Lord Leighton. Maxfield began his career as an architect but because of the many restraints on the creative mind and his inability to endure the Beaux-Arts training, he dropped out. After encouragement from his father and some duration at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Arts, Parrish completed his first painting. This began his practice of using one-word titles of great imagery. His first was entitled Moonrise. After followed many more including Hilltop, Stars, Enchantment, Dreaming, Contentment, Morning and by far his most famous piece, ...