Theme · Modern Life
Tools for Painting Outdoors
Railways, paint in metal tubes and folding easels made it practical to paint a whole picture outdoors.
With them a painter could carry a full kit to the motif and work there for hours. These tools did not create Impressionism, but they made its outdoor practice far easier.
- Rail: a morning train took a painter and kit from Paris to a country motif.
- Tube paint: John G. Rand's collapsible tin tube of 1841 replaced leaky pigs’ bladders.
- Easels and brushes: folding easels, and flat brushes that laid broad strokes quickly, helped painters keep pace with light.
See
Image: Wikimedia Commons · Public domain