Maxfield Parrish (1870-1966) was one of the most popular artists during the Golden Age of Illustration. During the 1920s, it has been estimated that a quarter of all American households displayed a Parrish print on their walls. His other-worldly landscapes of ancient gnarled trees, tumbling waterfalls, azure skies, or nursery rhymes were painted with a dreamlike clarity. Parrish's art is characterized by vibrant colors; the color Parrish blue was named after him. He achieved such luminous color through glazing. This process involves applying alternating bright layers of translucent glaze separated by varnish over a base rendering.
One of his techniques set the stage for future commercial illustrators working with constant deadlines. Some models were clothed in geometric patterns, enabling him to accurately capture the distortion and draping. Though a "grid system" produced similar accuracies before photography, Parrish would take photos of projected objects, cut the prints out and place them onto his canvas, then cover them with clear glaze. The American painter Norman Rockwell considered Parrish his idol.
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