1: Sotter in Shadow

George William Sotter

Untitled, 1946

Oil on masonite panel, w26" x h22"

In private collection

REFRESHER:

Another American Impressionist, who in fact worked with Redfield in the Pennsylvania area (read more about Sotter here), and who really excelled at nighttime snow scenes (and, like Redfield, featured snow a *lot*).

All Sotter's work dealing with atmospheric shadow/dark (or even just weak light!) is pretty intriguing, but what's really funny is comparing those types of works to his work depicting broad daylight. Now me personally, I don't go around calling artworks 'good' or 'bad', because I just like seeing what makes each artist/work tick — but also this blog is literally a place to judge (so's I can learn better)¹, and in that spirit Sotter's daylight works, relatively speaking, are some garish nonsense². It's like his eyes were finely tuned to the subtleties of light-within-shade, and then he couldn't adjust back fully to light-as-light. Seriously, look at these:

 And then look at this:

I wouldn't have pegged this as the same person (even charitably taking this as a study vs more finished work). And stylistically the daylight works are more all-over-the-map generally — you've got this, work that's more creamy-painted with high saturation across the board, work gone to a wispy pastel look, all like he couldn't settle on what full-strength light looked like.

A lesson, perhaps, in deciding ultimately to work to one's strengths. 

NOTES:

1. Also also, Sotter is dead, and it's not like I'm going to touch his reputation in any way. Important factors!

2. To clarify: many of the daylight works, not all, and maybe not even most (I don't know the full extent of his oeuvre). But it sounds better said more stridently.