About Me
“When you are an artist, you notice lines, colors, shapes, patterns, and textures that other people may or may not see. You appreciate the light. Art is not just what you do; it is a way of seeing, of being in this world.”
— Marcia Hart
My name is Marcia Hart. Originally from Memphis, Tennessee, I live with my husband in North Carolina. I am a Christian, who wants to use her art work to bring others joy. In addition to art and art history, other interests include web graphics and web design, music, historic preservation, research and writing, baking, and virtual travel.
I have loved art all my life. When I was a little girl, I loved drawing and painting. I used crayons, pencils, poster paint, watercolors, markers, and fingerpaints to create my art. The summer after I was in third grade, I started art classes at the Memphis Academy of Art in Memphis, Tennessee. I loved my Saturday and summer lessons so much that I never wanted to leave the building! After my parents and I left Memphis, I followed up with art classes at the Mint Museum of Art in Charlotte, NC. In elementary, junior high, and senior high school, I studied art. In college I took studio art classes and earned an art degree with a concentration in Art History.
Along the way, I have visited several art museums, including those in Charlotte, Raleigh, and Chapel Hill, NC; Atlanta, GA; Columbia, Greenville, and Charleston, SC; New York City, NY; Washington, DC; Paris and Antibes, France; Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Brussels and Bruges, Belgium.
Thank you for visiting my website! I hope that you will return soon.
Who are my favorite artists (and why)?
One of my art professors, Ms. Keating Griffiss, once told our class that it is not enough to like or dislike a work of art — that you also need to know why you either like or dislike it. My three favorite artists are Rembrandt van Rijn (Dutch, 17th-century), Claude Monet (French, 19th-century), and Auguste Renoir (French, 19th-century).
Here is why I admire their work. Rembrandt is a genius at expressing the inner personalities and emotions of his portrait subjects. He can take what otherwise would be a mundane painting and turn it into something extraordinary by his composition and his use of lighting effects (chiaroscuro). I also admire his landscapes and paintings and prints of Biblical subjects. Monet is the quintessential Impressionist painter. He was predominantly interested in the effects of light on his subject matter, often a landscape or a body of water. He did series of paintings of haystacks and of Rouen Cathedral under different lighting conditions, at various times of the day, and during different seasons. He wanted to discover how what he was seeing changed with varied lighting. Think about it…. Can you see the same level of detail in a darker room as well as you can in a lighter one? Are the colors in the darker room brighter or more subdued? Monet’s paintings often sparkle with light. Renoir, like the other Impressionist artists, was interested in color and light. Renoir had a proclivity for painting beautiful, graceful women and girls.
Above, left to right (or top to bottom):
Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669), Self-Portrait (1660), Oil on canvas — Image courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, NY
Claude Monet (1840-1926), Water Lily Pond (1900), Oil on canvas — Image courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago, IL
Auguste Renoir (1841-1919), Two Young Girls at the Piano (1892), Oil on canvas — Image courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, NY
Would you like to see where Claude Monet lived from 1883 to 1926? Please visit my Giverny page to view some photos of his home and gardens, including his famous water lily pond.