News
ALEX ROSENKREUZ: Standing on the Shoulders of Giants
“Alex Rosenkreuz: Recent Works” exhibit will open in the Nancy M. Woodward Gallery on July 22nd,
giving York County an opportunity to share in his passion for artistic giants from Rembrandt to Singer
Sargent. His paintings are a study and an homage to legendary artists who came before him.
Sixteenth Century painters, Rembrandt and Vermeer inspire Rosenkreuz’s classical still lifes through
their dramatic play of lights and darks. He is roused by Rembrandt’s magical transformation of a face
in the dark to a lantern glowing from within. Vermeer’s vision of a single point of light that illuminates
just one flower in a vase stirs his imagination.
From the Wanderers, Rosenkreuz is inspired by Shishkin, Levitan, Repin, and Polenov. These masters
of landscape concentrated on aerial effects between sky and clouds, sunset and water, forests and hills.
Their work energizes Rosenkreuz as he paints the Susquehanna River and surrounding areas.
The influence of neoclassical portrait and figure painters: Bouguereau, Zorn, and Singer Sargent is evident
in Rosenkreuz’s own paintings. From Bouguereau he studies the subtle varieties of flesh tones.
He strives for Zorn’s brilliant positioning of the human form in nature, and Singer Sargent’s brave brush strokes.
To study master painters is both a challenge and an honor, and, a bit like standing on the shoulders of giants.
It is a passion that Rosenkreuz translates into color and contrast, brushstroke by brushstroke - careful not
to get lost in the details.
- Jessica Lee
York Art Association