John G. Rand was an American portrait painter who changed the course of art history by enabling painters to leave the studio and to go outdoors.
Rand invented the paint tube. Prior to his invention, painters were confined to studios and the use of paints was cumbersome. According to Renoir, “Without colors in tubes, there would be no Cézanne, no Monet, no Pissarro, and no Impressionism.”
Outside in natural light and supplied with bright colored paint in little metal tubes, an artist could paint anywhere. Claude Monet liked to paint at the beach. We know that without doubt, because tiny grains of sand are embedded in a number of his paintings.
As anyone who hikes at Sleeping Bear Dunes knows, it doesn’t take much of a wind to move grains of dry sand. This time of year, as soon as the ice melts and sand can dry, the sugar-sized grains start to move. Sometimes sand just creeps--- it just sort of rolls along the surface.
But it doesn’t take much wind to cause what geologists call “saltation” which means jumping, On the dunes, almost all sand movement is the result of saltation.
Wind—and it doesn’t take much-- forces grains of sand to roll. When the rolling grains collide with other grains of sand, some bounce into the air. And when these grains land, they hit other grains causing chain reactions of bouncing sand grains.
If you hike the dunes when it’s windy and dry, you sometimes can see a buff-colored cloud of sand appearing to hover about a foot or so off the ground. On blustery days, you can feel the sting of sand striking your skin.
You are seeing the dunes forming or migrating. Vegetation can slow this process but it happens. Slowly. Over years, you can see the dunes change.
Very small grains in very high winds can become suspended in the air. If you paint outdoors in a brisk wind, you may well have a bit of texture in your painting.
So how did Monet get sand in his wet paint? Saltation? Maybe. Or, if the stories are true, beach winds were occasionally strong enough to blow down his easel. At least the sand didn’t get into his fresh paint. He used paint that came in little metal tubes with screw-on caps.
