WATER COLOR
RENDERINGS
OF VENICE
By
PIERRE VIGNA

Introduction By

WILLIAM ROBERT POWELL


J. H. JANSEN, PUBLISHER
CLEVELAND, O.
1925

LIST OF PLATES

Cover and Tide Page Designed by
C. L. Aiken

PIERRE VIGNAL AND HIS TECHNIQUE

1855-1925

The Water Colors of Pierre Vignal rank as the foremost in contemporary French art. He uses water color in its true sense of being a transparent and not an opaque medium. There is no chinese white on his palette.

Each operation in producing a picture is final. No washes are gone over a second time. In this way he attains the maximum of transparency and his pictures are free from spots or muddy and opaque blotches of color.

The drawing of a subject is carefully done with a soft pencil and in a fine light line, so that it will not show in the picture after the color is applied. Drawing is as important in his work as color and value.

Pierre Vignal has so well mastered his art that he can visualize the finished picture, both as to color and value, before he applies any color.

His work is based on the principle that the subject should be simple, treated in a broad way and free from much detail. The reproductions in this portfolio are nearly the exact size of the original pictures, his theory being that a water color should be small, as the medium does not permit the covering of as large a surface as oil. The interest must be confined to a central point with usually one predominant dark and light value, each being in sharp contrast.

In making his pictures, M. Vignal first applies the sky, which is as important in value as in color. Thus the picture is started at the top of the paper and finished at the bottom, as the next operation consists in putting in the dominant shadows, which are usually done in one operation, and finally the highlights and darker values on the shadows. When the sky and shadows are completed the main values of the picture are established, and the highlights being thin and transparent do not change the other values.

Most of the color is mixed on the paper as the work progresses and not on the palette, thus a pleasing transparent change and variety of color is obtained which can be seen by a study of the shadows and highlights in the plates.

Some of the color is applied rather dry, some of it very wet and again the surface of the paper is moistened and the color is put on and allowed to spread through this moist surface to produce varied effects and contrasts. To quote from Leopold Honore in the Journal des Artistes:

“Whether his water colors are of Italy, The Villa D’Este, Granada, Morocco, Nimes, Avignon or Paris, they are always out-of-doors, full of truth, light and sunshine and real fascination of color. One feels and sees that everything is painted with masterly skill, without a discordant note. Everything is in a vibrating note, but always remaining harmonious.”

(Original Preface)

WILLIAM ROBERT POWELL
Former Pupil of Pierre Vignal

Venice—Ponte Del Paradiso

Venice—A Rio

Venice—Verocchio Bartolomeo Colleoni

Venice—The Rialto

Venice—The Piazzetta

Venice—Piazza San Marco

Venice—The Clock Tower

Venice—Entrance To The Palace

Venice—A Street

Venice—San Marco A Doorway

Venice—Entrance To The Ducal Palace

Venice—Canal Of The Church Of The Madonna Dei Miracoli

Venice—San Rocco

Venice—San Giorgio From The Giudecca

Venice—Riva Degli Schiavoni