[Parrish, Maxfield] Bharucha, Fershid. Buried Treasures. The Black and White work of Maxfield Parrish 1896-1905. Edited by Fershid Bharucha. Text by Rosalie Gomes. San Francisco, Pomegranate Artbooks, 1992. 22cm x 28cm. 224 unnumbered pages, 208 pages of illustrations. Original, illustrated paperback (Softcover). Excellent condition with only minor signs of wear.

Maxfield Parrish (July 25, 1870 – March 30, 1966) was an American painter and illustrator active in the first half of the twentieth century. He is known for his distinctive saturated hues and idealized neo-classical imagery.
Parrish’s art features dazzlingly luminous colors; the color Parrish blue was named in acknowledgement. He achieved the results by means of a technique called glazing where bright layers of oil color separated by varnish are applied alternately over a base rendering (Parrish usually used a blue and white monochromatic underpainting).

He would build up the depth in his paintings by photographing, enlarging, projecting and tracing half- or full-size objects or figures. Parrish then cut out and placed the images on his canvas, covering them with thick, but clear, layers of glaze. The result is realism of elegiac vivacity. His work achieves a unique three-dimensional appearance, which does not translate well to coffee table books.

The outer proportions and internal divisions of Parrish’s compositions were carefully calculated in accordance with geometric principles such as root rectangles and the golden ratio. In this Parrish was influenced by Jay Hambidge’s theory of Dynamic Symmetry.

Parrish devised many innovative techniques which no other major artist has successfully copied. A technique which Parrish used frequently involved creating a large piece of cloth with a geometric pattern in stark black-and-white (such as alternate black and white squares, or a regular pattern of black circles on a white background). A human model (often Parrish himself) would then pose for a photograph with this cloth draped naturally on his or her body in a manner which intentionally distorted the pattern. Parrish would develop a transparency of the photo, then project this onto the canvas of his current work in progress. Using black graphite on the white canvas, Parrish would painstakingly trace and fill in all the black portions of the projected photo. The result was astonishing: in the finished painting, a human figure would be seen wearing a distinctive geometrically-patterned cloth which draped realistically and accurately.
Parrish’s work defies categorization since he was part of no traditional movement or school, and developed an original and individual style. However, his work has been highly influential, and the prices for his original paintings at auction have increased. His magnum opus, Daybreak, sold in 2006 for $7.6 million USD.

The Elton John album Caribou has a Parrish background. The Moody Blues album The Present uses a variation of the Parrish painting Daybreak for its cover. In 1984, Dali’s Car, the British New Wave project of Peter Murphy and Mick Karn, used Daybreak as the cover art of their only album, The Waking Hour. The Irish musician Enya has been inspired by the works of Parrish. The cover art of her 1995 album The Memory of Trees is based on his painting The Young King of the Black Isles. A number of her music videos include Parrish imagery including Caribbean Blue. In the 1995 music video “You Are Not Alone”, Michael Jackson and his then wife Lisa Marie Presley appear semi-nude in emulation of Daybreak.

The cover of the 1985 Bloom County cartoon collection Penguin Dreams and Stranger Things comprises elements of Daybreak, The Garden of Allah, and The Lute Players. The poster for The Princess Bride was inspired by his painting titled “Daybreak”.
Kurt Vonnegut’s work The Sirens of Titan alludes to “Maxfield Parrish light” coming from treetops.

In 2001, Parrish was featured in a U.S. Post Office commemorative stamp series honoring American illustrators, including Rockwell Kent, Norman Rockwell, Frederic Remington, and 16 others.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, along with many other museums, has samples of his work. The San Diego Museum of Art toured a collection of his work in 2005. The National Museum of American Illustration claims the largest body of his oeuvre in any collection, with sixty-nine works by Parrish. Some of his works are located at the Hood Museum of Art (Hanover, New Hampshire) and the Cornish Colony Art Museum (Windsor, Vermont). (Wikipedia)

• Keywords: Art · Art & Design
• Language: English
• Inventory Number: 702BB

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