Jean-Paul Riopelle to abstract expressionism), in which he used myriad tumultuous cubes and triangles of multicolored elements, facetted with a palette knife, spatula, or trowel, on often large canvases to create powerful atmospheres. The presence of long filaments of paint in his painting from 1948 through the early 1950s has often been seen as resulting from a dripping technique like that of Jackson Pollock. Rather, the creation of such effects came from the act of throwing, with a palette knife or brush, large quantities of paint onto the stretched canvas (positioned vertically). Riopelle's voluminous impasto became just as important as color. His
Portrait of the Artist Holding a Thistle of God. In 1805, Goethe saw a copy of this portrait in the museum at Leipzig and described it as of "inestimable value." According to Lawrence Gowing, who calls this "the most French of all his pictures", the "Portrait of the Artist Holding a Thistle" is singular among Dürer's paintings as "the touch is freer and color more iridescent than in any other picture one remembers". Portrait of the Artist Holding a Thistle Portrait of the Artist Holding a Thistle (or "Eryngium") is an oil painting on parchment pasted on canvas by German artist Albrecht Dürer. Painted in 1493, it