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Okay boys and girls. Put down your pads and pencils. This is a quiz! Who painted the painting below? It is 38×46.” And it is by a famous artist.

When I stumbled upon this painting I was immediately struct by the variety of color in the painting, particularly in the sky and water. There are a variety of blues and violets and on the warm side there are reds, oranges, and yellows. They are all nicely balanced and, mind you, these colors aren’t obvious. On the other hand, the painting looks rough even awkward, especially the treatment of the foreground. Nevertheless, this painter, I thought, is doing things that suggest that he or she is no slouch. Any ideas? Here are some hints.

• Well, this painter said that what he did was simply respond to “sensations” and that the subject was merely “a prompt.”
• He emphasized “sincerity” and scoffed at artists searching for “success” saying that, “If [a painter] is concerned with success, he works with just the one idea; pleasing people and selling. He loses the support of his own conscience and is dependent on how others are feeling. He neglects his gifts and eventually loses them.”
• He is not a big fan of explanations of pictures, saying, “Listen: do you want to paint? Well, start by having your tongue cut out because from now on you should express yourselves only with the brush!”
• He was a big fan of independence saying, “If you work for others, you never get anywhere.”
• He was down on students thinking “technique” held answers and he believed that painting for competition was “farcical.”
• He wasn’t big on marketing either saying that “To make a sale, you invent lies that have somehow vanished into thin air by the time the deal is done.” He loath much of contemporary art (of his day) saying that the problem with it was that the artists didn’t have “to feel.” In the end, he said, “…you have to surrender to nature and take what comes; you take it whole….You have to let yourself be….you have to put some faith in your own gifts and surrender yourself to the promptings of nature, to nature’s inspiration.”
• When he was 47, this artist was concerned with the more delicate nuances of light and atmosphere and so he made a visit to Giverny to visit Monet. A friend of our mystery artist said he “swears only by Claude Monet.”

The painter with these strong beliefs, the painter who did the painting above when he was 29 is Henri Matisse. I think Matisse’s beliefs and approach to painting is particularly interesting, given the fact that he eventually found his own way and moved on to do remarkably different pictures. But his training, the emphasis on surrendering to nature and on feelings, his disdain for technique and marketing or a success-driven approach and his embrace of independence and thinking of the subject matter merely as a prompt – all these things combined to give Matisse the strength to find himself. These things were not incidental to whom he became; they were foundational.  

The banana taped to a wall by one artist, sold for $120,000 and then was eaten by a second artist. Must the first artist, then, replace the original banana with a phony second banana? Who would be so foolish to ask this question? Duchamp’s snow shovel, a ready-made (which is to say there is no artist who touches or is touched and who feels in the process of creating the work), as with his urinal, turned out to be multiple shovels and urinals. Ditto with Hirst’s stuffed shark, which matters not, because it is about the concept, the smart men say.

Interestingly, this accomplishes several things.

Artists, who see their making of art as an activity of human expression or of a process of becoming and who would never sell their soul, are eliminated. Artists like Koons (an idea man as he calls himself) take the place of artists like Van Gogh, Cèzanne, Kollowitz, and Monet who inveighed against the “bourgeoisie,” scoffing at the attempts of the speculator to get “their hooks” into them, as the cautious Cèzanne would often say. And so studios become factories, factories become studios, assistants become workers commanded to follow Frederick Taylor’s time-motion-studies until they are then dumped and replaced by robots.

Speculators invest “deeply” in newly discovered idea-men and women – now Executive Artists – and with them coordinate the production and exhibition of their work with museums and luxury fashion manufacturers, in the interest of maximizing profits. Agents in the know gush over art fairs and auction house-spectacles that follow, circuses all. Billionaire collectors are absolved of their crimes. They are Art Men and Women, after all, the better people. And that blister returns where a rose used to be.

The banana also provides a way for the bourgeoisie to elevate the art system’s most important concept. Average people will say they don’t get it and the ultimate truth is made clear once again. The people on top get it; they deserve to be there where they are. The people on the bottom know nothing and thus they too deserve their place in the hierarchy. All is well. The hierarchy is just.

Robert Paul Wolff, an American philosopher and violist, had an interesting insight as to how the “formal constraints” of a given art form may actually facilitate an artist’s rich, vital, and transcendent expressions:

One of my principal aesthetic pleasures is the contemplation of the work of an artist who simultaneously embraces and transcends the formal constraints of an art form.  Consider, as an example, the fugue.  The rules of musical composition governing the writing of a fugue are severe indeed, stipulating as they do the sequence of voices or lines, the interval at which each enters, and so forth.  In the hands of a journeyman composer, these restraints are all too evident, and conspire to produce a work that is tedious and predictable.  But not when Bach writes a fugue. Bach plays with the rules, teases them, inverts them, all the while conforming to them rigorously.  The result is a beauty that seems both spontaneous, free form, utterly expressive, and yet is a perfect instantiation of the inviolable rules of the fugue. 

Reclining Nude by William Schultz, 18×24 in (46×61 cm)­­­

I knew and worked with Bill Schultz for decades. What I wish to show you is an example of how, as a traditional painter, he both simultaneously embraced and transcended the formal constraints of the method he used.  Those of you who have worked with me would know  that he broke down  the painting process into five stages. What concerns us here are only the four oil painting stages which may be summarized as the oscillation between two line and two color stages. In the first line stage, structure is established and is followed by the scumbling of veils of color which establish the sense of atmospheric color, the color that bathes everything in the subject and, therefore,  provides a harmony.  This is the “underpainting” and in the process of scumbling “breath on glass” like veils, the initial set of structural lines is lost. Thus, a set of darker lines are required to re-establish structure. This darker set of lines then propel the work forward into the second color stage where the painter builds with a variety of strokes of color to express the specificity of color to which she is invited to respond.

Schultz, in the painting seen above, demonstrates that the function of the method is not to churn out a tedious and predictable picture of the subject. The stages are not an assembly line. Instead, they break the sensory experience of the painter into pieces. Each piece functions as a prompt. The task of the painter is to put the pieces back together in a way that freshly realizes – makes clear – who she is. It is, fundamentally, a process of becoming. The painting happens along the way.

The painting was done in a class which meant it had to be done in one sitting, in less than three hours. So the challenge for Schultz was how to move among the parts, maintain control, and respond to, in each stage, those visual sensations that moved him. Here’s what I see him doing: his theme will be tonality or atmospheric color, so subtle as to be very nearly invisible to most ordinary observers and to most painters. He will do this in three ways: 1) he will begin by tinting the canvas the color and value of the color in the room; 2) he will play down line and the vivid painting of specific color, 3) and play up the underpainting, or the scumbling of overlapping veils of color that he sees as constitutive of the space in which the model reclines.

In each of the three images above (click to enlarge), you can see Schultz doing what I’ve just described. Notice how extensively just the tinted canvas shows through, it is just about everywhere. Much of the painted areas has been done by means of scumbling, that is, not specific brushstrokes. He is playing down the specificity of color one would normally see in a loose painting and he is playing up the sense that we are peering through veils. In Image 2, we see that he has left in place the construction line on the right side of the thigh, sensitively found in some places and lost in others. In other words, he is choosing to allow all the stages or sensual pieces to remain visible. Also, in Image 2, we see his use of gray strokes of color at the knee and calf. Here he is using the painting stage, delicately, to augment the sense of atmospheric color.

Note, too, in Image 3, where we begin to see a variety of color (yellowish, pinkish, orangish at the top, cobalt in the brushwork, turquoise at the bottom), only the cobalt blue is actually painted and all the while, in that same specific area that is painted with obvious brushstrokes, the ground (atmospheric color) is present.

In the above set of images (click to enlarge), we see a range of painterly strokes with varied color. These are where the actual painting, or building with color, is strongest. The ever-present ground – quiet as it is, interestingly, acts as a foil to and gives his brushwork greater purchase. Not surprisingly, these more strongly painted areas are balanced by stronger line, not line that describes, however. The dark lines under the torso, around the bicep, shoulder and neck characterize and give weight to the form.  The nod to atmosphere is made manifest even in his vigorous brushwork: the blues in the hair and face, the very light emerald green just below the shoulder, the warmer green around the torso and breast clearly are not local color but atmospheric color. The space in which the model reclines, not just the model, has been given life.

Conclusion

In each of the areas identified, there is evidence of multiple stages. One stage, while it may beget the next, is never displaced or made silent. As with a string quartet, there is a conversation among the pieces or stages. And as with a jazz quartet, there is spontaneity and improvisation. Schultz did not see a woman or a bed or bedsheets. He’s not making a picture. He saw only line and color, captured, one suspects, by a sense of interactive fascination. Image 3, for example, could pass as a standalone abstract piece. In fact, the entire work could be said to have been gotten through abstraction because throughout the entire work, the process permitted Schultz to stay in the moment that the assemblage of line and color presented.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty once said about Cézanne that he wanted “to make visible how the world touches us.” I’m not sure I would go so far as to characterize Schultz’s motivation that way but, suffice it to say, when we look at his work he clearly was making visible how the world was touching him. Or to paraphrase Wolff, the result is a beauty that seems both spontaneous, free form, utterly expressive, and yet is a perfect instantiation of the inviolable rules that required him to break down his sensory experience into a structured set of stages, each with its specific steps, all the while oscillating between line and color.

I have had a gratifying and surprising time with my online class. As you may know, as students work through the stages, each may submit an image of their work online so that I may then critique it. And so I do, each and every image, providing direction, illumination of the method as best I can. And the other students see and follow along too, often commenting themselves. What is surprising is that, in some ways, the interaction is more personal than in a live workshop, maybe because others are reading the exchange and because the written word requires a degree of exactness and specificity that may be absent in a live workshop. I thought it might be useful to post some of these exchanges for you to see.

First Three Stages: Cecilia’s Hanging Flower

Cecilia: I still am heavy handed with the paint in the Construction stage, and either ends up too light or way too dark. I am still learning to control my brush strokes. In the photo the Underpainting is darker than in the real one, and perhaps it is still too dark. I have left the flower open as I find that the shadows in there feel like they are closer to the white value than to the middle value.

Jerry: Your Composition and Construction are nearly excellent; had you had a little more variety of line in your Construction, as you did in your Composition, I would have said excellent. In your underpainting, you are straying away a bit. Based upon the photo, I would say that the leaves are more dull, not so bright green, ditto with the darks in the flower. 

Composition: Bob’s Vase and Lemons

Bob: Here are the charcoal value separation lines. I whisked off the gesture lines first (some are still visible) because putting in the lightest value separation lines over top of those would be confusing. I also used my Lorraine glass, hopefully to decent effect but … thanks!

Jerry: This is good Bob but next time keep the gesture lines. If the lighter separation lines compete with the gesture lines, no problem. Also the more you do the gesture lines, the more they will be minimal.

Jerry: (Later) I was thinking about your gesture drawing – keep the photo. It was really good. It had lots of feeling. The trick is to sustain or amplify or modulate that feeling throughout the process. And as soon as you go off the tracks, if you do, start over. (In principle!!)  

Construction: Alice’s Three Pears

Jerry: Let’s just focus on the pear on the right and the same thoughts apply to the others. If I just look at your construction of that pear, it looks pretty much as an outline; i.e., there is a line around the entire pear. However, when I look at the pear itself, much of the shadow side melts into the cast shadow. Similarly the light side doesn’t separate evenly around the top. So I would say that in the construction of the pear on the right you are drawing a pear more than you are just responding to value separations.       

Alice’s final stage of the three pears is shown above.

Alice: Hi Jerry. Well, here’s the painting attempt. Thank you for your feedback and help–and I won’t do corrections this time!

Jerry: Glorious!   

Underpainting: Frances’ Daffodils

Frances: I was unsure about what color to paint the background, so stopped here. I also photo-cropped the composition which you correctly said was too much in the center. It looks much better in the 9×12 format. Should I try another one or go onto a new composition??

Jerry: Very nice. I like the airiness of it. Now, do not let the canvas come through in the middles or darks (assuming it is a white or light canvas); just the lights. Also, it is hard to tell if your colors are strokes (the green in the left pear) – if so, save that for the painting. Underpaintings are just scumbling application. Anyway, very nice. You could stop here.  

Underpainting: Christine’s Teapot and Pear

Christine: Still don’t have the variety, delicate touch, mystery, color sense that I see in yours.

Jerry: You’re getting better. Leave more open for the lights…the entire left side of the tea pot and more of the pear on the left side. The front part of the spout and the top of the handle. Squint way down. Don’t see objects. Reduce everything to 3 values, leave all lights open. You are scumbling into the lights on the tea pot. Leave them OPEN. Remember, you will get your chance to do the lights. It’s the very last step. You have to be patient and allow the white of the canvas to work for you.  

Painting: Mike’s Flowers

Mike: Final effort. More Vincent than Claude but I do feel there is a bit of life there. After reading that Turner once tied himself to a mast to experience a storm I realize I don’t have that dedication. If I’m out and about I prefer to wander around and explore rather than stay in one place and paint. How I managed to stay still on your wonderful course I don’t know, perhaps due to the teacher. As the summer proceeds here I’ll do a Monet and paint my garden.

Jerry: Nice painting! I like the way you handled the grass in the back. Also, I think you handled well, what is a complicated set up. I think you could have hit the lights in the flowers a little more. And the vases may be too rich and deep in color. They were in the shade and there are probably more shady colors. Little veils of color that have nothing to do with the ceramic vases themselves. Try to see the chunk of air between you and the vases. Not easy, I know.  

Painting: Frances’ Irises

Jerry: Gorgeous, Frances.

Something to think about going forward: re-read the intro where I talk about descriptive painting vs expressive painting. Flowers are challenging in this way (http://www.fresia.com/philosophy/on-painting-flowers/) – their beauty is “horribly obvious” …. Everyone gets the beauty of flowers so the question then becomes, what do you see that others, non-visual artists, don’t see. A painting of flowers ought not be about the flowers as much as an expression of the subtle colors – or whatever – that move you.

Technical considerations: when you left the lights open in the flowers in the underpainting stage – allow the white canvas to show through in parts, in the painting stage, so that they vibrate with the little pieces of blue or purple – ie, broken color. Open your strokes more so that one can see past the surface layer of the painting stage. In the area of the stems, find the grays or pinks (for example) amid the greens/yellows – using strokes that go against the form (horizontally in this case).

The next step is the hardest – how to get past the facts? How to find notes of rich color amid the atmospheric color. How not to finish so that the painting is brimming with suggestion. How to paint, not the flowers, but the atmosphere between you and the flowers. You are entering advanced territory. I’m impressed with how well you were able to manage a complex subject. Brava!

Frances: Excellent article on painting flowers. Letting go into the world of sensations vs. the world of description feels like Alice going through the looking glass!!

Jerry: Indeed! It really is a paradigm shift.  

Paradigm Shift

My job as a teacher is to break the painting process down into its constitutive parts and to lay bare those parts to illuminate the order and relationship of the parts for the students. So teaching has the unfortunate aspect of making an organic process seem mechanical. The required paradigm shift that I mention is this: as one paints, one needs to transition to a realm of wonder and excitement. It’s about expression, not production. Moreover, we are too busy with pleasure to look for results, too anxious to feel the excitement of a new beginning, often, to finish the painting we are working on. Finishing, as are all the other external measures, is like having to make your bed as a kid. If you want to be a painter, learn to dash out of the room before your mother catches you. Your life depends on it. And so does your art.

I thought I would review the new film on Van Gogh, directed by Julian Schnabel, famed painter and filmmaker. This isn’t really a film review, however. I know nothing about film editing, screenplays, photography, acting and the like. This is more an account of the things in the film that annoyed me, first as an easel painter, and second as someone who is troubled by the way dangerous, strong-willed thinkers throughout history have been, at times, made safe and palatable by presenting them as mentally off in some serious way. Take Charlie Clements, for example. He was tossed in the looney bin because as a physician, a Captain, and pilot, his sudden refusal to fly missions in Vietnam was evidence to certain responsible types that he was obviously unbalanced. But let me start with the lower order annoyance, Schnabel’s easel-painting transgressions. When I was a kid in the 50s, I was obsessed with baseball and would react in horror when, on the big silver screen, my heroes were played by actors who could barely throw a ball. It just ruined the whole thing. Well, there was a lot of that in this film, too. Are the practices of easel painting really gone with the wind?

1.  Vincent’s Easel

In the image above on the left, we see Vincent unfolding a contemporary French easel that you can buy today. We know that this type of easel was developed by Roger Jullian during World War II. We know from self-portraits, Vincent used a tripod-type easel indoors (right image). And we know from photos that even 15 years after Vincent’s death, Cézanne and other plein-air types were out in the field with flimsy tripods that look like three sticks tied together. To be fair, there is one scene showing Vincent using a tripod easel but why the inattention to authenticity? Okay, thumbs down on easels.

2. Sun On The Canvas

Here’s another. Vincent is painting away with full sun striking his canvas (left image). I would wager that you can’t find a photo of a major 19^th century artist painting this way. If one does this, when the painting is brought indoors, the painting will look much too dark in the much darker indoor light. Note Sorolla in the image on the right. He’s doing what they all did, properly positioning his painting against the light, so much so that he is compelled to look back over his shoulder to paint from the angle he desires. This is basic stuff, c’mon!

3. A Frenetic Painter Holding the Brush Improperly

Given that it is obligatory to demonstrate that Vincent has a few wires crossed, when he is shown painting he is painting frenetically. Nutty painters never paint with tenderness. If that were not enough, he is pawing at the canvas (image above) as a dog would paw at a closed door. Why painters must be shown holding a brush as though they all suffered from severe arthritis is beyond me.[1]Try holding the brush as you would a pencil. The flexible wrist works wonders.

4. The Underpainting

As Vincent is pawing madly, he is doing so directly onto an open canvas (left image). Okay, Schnabel rose to fame painting plates and may not know about the virtue of a full color underpainting, but if we look at a real painting by Vincent (right image) we see that his painterly strokes have been placed over and onto an underpainting.

Not having an advisor on the set to explain these practices suggest that either 1) none exist today, or 2) Schnabel does not understand well the period in which Vincent lived. I think number 2 has more explanatory power. Better to go with clichés, which brings me to the tiresome and useful trope: Vincent is really crazy.

The Obligatory Lone Nut Theory

First, let me say, that the two primary facts that prove to modern audiences that Vincent is mad – the cutting off of his ear and his suicide – have been challenged by researchers, but I don’t want to wade into that swamp. In this film, Vincent is shown rubbing soil on his face, parading around in a straightjacket, and so on. Frankly, from what I’ve read, Cézanne was even nuttier and, as far as psychopaths are concerned, Italian Futurists and Dali make Vincent look like Gandhi, who was also mythologized, but in the other direction.

Here’s the problem and the threat: Vincent’s professed purpose in life is to show “what’s in the heart of the lowest of the low.” He paints sincerely and independently, his beliefs are clear, his convictions resolute. In other words, Vincent can’t be bought. And whom does this type of artist threaten? The gazillion of potato eaters? No. The type of artist for whom Van Gogh could be an icon – innovative, disobedient, one who has contempt for self-promotion and commercial values – threatens the people who were, both in the 1880s and today, rapidly erecting systems of private control, through private galleries and private agents, over artists’ life chances every bit as thorough as the state Salon system that just had been overthrown decades earlier by artists who refused to play the game. Who are these people? Well, according to the sane Cézanne, they are the people who want to “get their hooks into you,” the “dirty bourgeoisie.” Oops, can’t tell that story. So Schnabel takes the story in another direction.

In one of the final scenes, a priest asks questions of Vincent in order to determine whether or not to release Vincent from an asylum. Vincent admits that there doesn’t seem to be a market for his paintings and then adds, “Maybe God made me a painter for people who aren’t born yet.” This is the crux of the story that Schnabel wishes to tell: it is the story of the avant-garde artist, not understood by “the people” of his day but, in time, “the people” who don’t get art to begin with eventually catch up. It’s a cliché that justifies hierarchy and serves the interest not only of art system elites but also all artists whose work looks “horrible” too (think Schnable), but whose careers might be saved (and investments protected) by means of the success that scandal, manufactured or otherwise, could one day bring.

To drive home the theme that “the people” are the problem, not just in the world of art but across history generally, Schnabel has Vincent pointing out that it wasn’t Pilate who killed Jesus, it was “the people” who pressed Pilate to arrange for the crucifixion. But then Schnabel makes a misstep. Vincent says that he, just like Jesus, could easily incriminate himself in the eyes of the priest, thus preventing his release if he continues to tell the priest how he thinks. “I too have to be careful with what I say to you.” This is the point where Schnabel went with Vincent the Nut Case: safe, domesticated, the Starry Night pet that even children so adore. He could have told the more dangerous, truthful story: Vincent, in solidarity with the oppressed, his focus on becoming over and above career, was the painter who, because he was able to escape a realm of commercial disenchantment, was able to slip into a realm where wonder is revitalized. But suggesting that Vincent was certifiably and heroically sane, defeated by the insanity of the emerging disenchanted commercial order, just might encourage disobedience and independence today. Problematic. However, it is the story that more than a few late-19^th century artists were telling about their own experiences at the time and that needs retelling today.

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[1]Go here to see some photos of great artists holding the brush properly (https://bit.ly/2Fr4udZ).

You’ve heard the expression, “Variety is the spice of life.”  Well, it’s the spice of painting too, both with regard to color and to line. You will note in the paintings of masters, such as my former teacher Bill Schultz, that we see in their painting stage a variety of strokes. Sometimes they are tender. Sometimes they are bold and obtrusive. Sometimes the underpainting shows through, other times not. At times we use texture. Sometimes a touch of medium. It all depends, very much like a conversation. One doesn’t speak in a monotone like those computer voices. Instead, we use emphasis, drawing out a word, or whispering, or raising our voice. Sometimes we pause. Sometimes our words flow quickly like a raging river. If our art is to be expressive, we need marks on the canvas that reflect the gamut of emotion that corresponds to the visual experience we are having.

All of the above pertains to line as well as color. Here are some examples taken from a pastel drawing by Schultz. Above is a photo taken mid-way of an underpainting of a still life (grapes, apples, leaves) using chalk pastels, on a middle value grey canson paper.

Unlike with oil painting, the process in using chalk pastels asks that we first establish a monotone or 3 value study where we scumble in the lights and darks, allowing the middle value of the paper to show through, where we see middle values – hence 3 values.

The variety of line, and thus expressive feeling, is astonishing. (Granted, with a drawing medium, it becomes easier to get these sorts of lines than with a brush.) One can see that Schultz is squinting and comparing in order to see value relationships. He is exploring, finding places where lines or separations of values are found and other places where they are lost. Another obvious take away is that this work at this point is complete. It’s art. Schultz could stop here and we could look at this work and enjoy it for the rest of our lives, noticing the variety of emphasis, movement, and value transitions.

Notice the simplification (above). He has treated the bunch of grapes as a mass, with the top plane reflecting the light. The paper peeks through on side planes of this mass, being a little darker. The same is true for the apple on the left. And to the bottom left we see something, but what? We do not know – except that whatever it is, it is reflecting light beyond its perimeter. Schultz is responding to light after all, not grapes and apples.

I love the wonderful messiness of it all. It isn’t literal. Look at how the lines are going every which way (above). These lines are not making reference to apples and leaves. Instead the apples and leaves are simply prompts triggering in Schultz an emotional response that he is expressing in line. Notice, too, how his treatment of the light on the apple isn’t confined to an outline of an apple; the light is shimmering beyond the apple.

Could he have had this experience had he been working from a photograph?

In this close up (above), we can see how masterfully Schultz is allowing the middle value of the paper to function as the middle value of the subject, the top of a leaf for example or the sides of the apple.

In the image above we see that Schultz has now begun to establish, further, an assemblage of line corresponding to places where values separate. Notice that he didn’t begin with this level of specificity, but slowly found his way into it. The process of a painting or a pastel is parallel to an image developing in a dark room or a person growing. It’s alive. It’s unfolding. It’s becoming. And because of this, it is always complete, just as a 4-year old is as complete as someone who is 80.

As the work unfolds, Schultz finds in the mass of grapes those individual grapes that separate in value, some quite insistently, others just barely. Think variety.

Notice the strong line on the left of the apple (above). Clearly the value separation there is intense. But notice also, at the base of the same apple, where there must be a middle value shadow, there is no line. Remember, we don’t use lines to indicate darks. We use lines to indicate separations of value.

Look closely at these leaves and this apple. Do they look like outlines of things? Or do they look like someone playing with line, enjoying the line, someone working in a realm where wonder is revitalized?

This is drawing as enchantment.

We have seen two images taken from the process of an artist responding to the visual sensations of apples and grapes. The apples and grapes function merely as a prompt, as an assemblage of sensations with which the artist engages in some way. Each of us would respond differently, uniquely, if our response was sincere and in the moment. The study above is a Schultz.

In this very last image we see a snapshot of an artist in motion. Bam! Look at that strong, unadulterated line on the side of the grape – and on the side of the apple. It works. How? Why? A kind of mystery? Or magic? Don’t know. But I’m compelled to keep looking at it. And I’m compelled to keep looking at it precisely because it is not a picture of freaking apples and grapes.

I’ll end where I began: VARIETY. We only bore our viewers when we demonstrate skill, when we make pictures of things. I suppose if one wishes to point to something, or to make reference to something, then fine, use line and color to make a skillful rendering. The problem is that, then, the artist drops out of the picture. On the other hand, in this approach, it is all about the artist expressing and becoming who he is.

I do not wish to go through all the museums or major artists we saw. Picasso’s Guernica, for example, was, for me at least, spellbinding and is something I’ll write about on another day. What I do wish to point to now are examples of the things that I find very relevant for us plein-air painters today. So let me start with one impressive fact: Sorolla, as far as I know, was and remains the world champion in painting huge paintings in plein-air.

Here’s one example (featured image above), dapper dress mandatory. Sorolla relied on models, both of the two and four-legged variety. Consequently, he used his family regularly, with many beach scenes involving his wife and children, which today, especially in the context of small book-accommodating reproductions, give his work a “chocolate-box” feeling. In person, however, one gets the feeling of how raw, obtrusive, and immediate his brushstrokes, layering, and color are – altogether apart from the subject. In the painting above, I was struck by the scale of the horse, the visceral sense of its weight, its belly seemingly swelling out of the canvas. But let me begin with his drawing.

These gestural drawings were often in preparation of works in oil. Note the fluidity and simplicity. I wish I could do that!

Sorolla’s drawings are totally playful, mind and body are fused. A freshness and immediacy is in evidence throughout. When I look at this kind of thing, I also can’t help wonder, with the appointment of Tracy Emin as Professor of Drawing at the Royal Academy of Arts for example, if the sense of mystery and magic that seems to course through Sorolla’s drawings and so much of art at the turn of the last century hasn’t been entirely purged and thus made forbidden by today’s high-flying art world gatekeepers.

In the detail to the right (click image above to enlarge), we find that in areas where the light strikes the subject, the paint is very thick or impasto, helping to kick back light to the viewer so that the paint feels like light and not like paint. Note the brushwork. Sorolla is transcending the subject or getting past the facts. The subject is merely a prompt for Sorolla to express, then realize and complete himself.

In the above (click image to enlarge), I am showing you details taken from two separate paintings inserted. Notice the layering. In the detail to the left, Sorolla has scumbled foliage over the column and left it. You can see past it into the layer below which in turn has open or raw canvas coming through.

Similarly, in the detail to the right, notice how much canvas (which is not white but a light-to-middle beige color) is left open. Whether or not one leaves areas of the canvas, ground, coming through as Sorolla does in many of his later garden paintings (which while totally complete, are really just underpaintings), the lesson is clear: do not plug up the surface with the final layer.

I can’t emphasize this enough. Allow the viewer to peer down into the layers. Be playful. We are not making pictures of things that refer back to subjects. The subject is merely a prompt to which we respond by breaking down our visual experience into sensual pieces which we then put back together. The method I teach does this for us by re-integrating the pieces as we stay in the moment continuously. The process produces the work. That is its virtue.

Okay! Put away your pads and pencils. It’s time for a surprise quiz. Below are three paintings (click image to enlarge). Who did them?

My take away is two fold:

1. Training in traditional methods trains one to see, how to manipulate color and values, how to achieve harmony, or more simply, how to paint. It is the gateway to originality.
2. Once you have mastered a traditional method (I’m not 100% certain about when actually but I’ll stick with mastered)- or at least when it genuinely feels constraining (as opposed to difficult or stress inducing), toss it out the window and create a method that is best suited to expressing your originality.

To see the answers, click here.