Knowing when a painting has reached its full potential, its maximum effect, and proceeding to paint on it further will diminish its more spontaneous elements is a subtle matter of discernment. One must strike a balance between “finishing” and completing an image. It is a sense of completion and resolution that one seeks rather than “finish”. When one begins a painting, one has a deep intuition as to what form the image will take and only a partial vision of its final form. The whole process of painting is bringing together these visions to a point where their visual impact can be felt to its fullest- containing in a clear statement both the emotional climax as well as the visual. To finish a piece beyond this point leads to decadence. There must always remain an element that is “raw” and open.

Charles Baudelaire felt that a painting must not be completed to the extent that there is no opening for the imagination to enter. He based this idea of “lacuna” on the designs found in Persian carpets. The elaborate motifs of Persian carpet designs appear like a closed pattern but on further examination it is revealed that the design contains an opening like a maze on which the imagination can enter and travel within. Baudelaire felt that painting should contain this element of incompleteness allowing the viewer’s own imagination to enter. But not only does the viewer need access to the image they must also be allowed to add to its completeness. The viewer enters on his own journey- the artist as guide; Virgil conducting Dante through the underworld.

What is this “lacuna” or gap? What does it look like? One element, I think, rests with the story. When one reflects on Dante’s Inferno, so much is revealed in the story but we have a sense that there is so much more to the story than that which has been told. Virgil seems to reveal and explain only what is necessary for Dante to commence his journey of self- discovery. We only have a partial view of the underworld. Only what the guide shows us. It is like a voyage. When we travel upon the sea, we experience an intimate relationship between ourselves and the sea.  We can know much this way but we have only a partial concept of the vastness that is the sea. There is much that lies below the surface that we can only imagine.

A second element is that of “touch”. Baudelaire states, “It is obvious that the larger the picture,the broader must be its touch; but it is better that the individual touches should not be materially fused, for they will fuse naturally at a distance determined by the law of sympathy which has brought them together. Color will thus achieve a greater energy and freshness.” (Baudelaire, The life and Work of Eugene Delacroix, p.48)  Robert Henri was known for leaving areas of his paintings “unfinished”. Hands just sketched in. But in many ways he adhered to Baudelaire’s ideas. Henri believed that one should only carry a painting to the point where it fully expresses one’s intention. Beyond this, one can kill the life and vitality inherent in the piece and the expressive force the artist  used to achieve this end.

The Sufi poet, Rumi describes the imagination as a  delicate instrument, “We are lutes, no more, no less. If the sound box is stuffed full of anything, no music… Be emptier and cry like reed instruments cry. Emptier, write secrets with the reed pen.” ( Rumi, Fasting, The Essential Rumi, Barks,p.69) Emptiness calls to be filled- whether by the imagination of the artist or viewer- it is a yearning, a seeking that   taps into a ‘emotional consciousness flickering’ below the surface in each one of us. (statement in quotes by Garrick Ohlsson, pianist, referring to the power of Chopin’s music).

Often, when I begin a new painting, I ask myself- reflecting on my subject, whether it be a model or a portrait subject- ‘what binds us ?’. What is the  dynamic link between us? – a link either residing intimately within the artist and  finding its reflection in the model or an empathy that lies between individuals, both sharing an experience or interaction in the present. Identifying this element is critical. It is not something that can be added at a later time. The vitality of this initial interaction between souls must be in the initial stages of developing the image.

Artists of the renaissance referred to this initial vitality as furia. They felt there was a correlation between the movement of the body and the movement of the soul. One could not create something that had life unless it contained furia. And in order to have furia one needed to feel deeply, to have an intimate understanding of one’s subject. There needed to be  a dynamic relationship that was seeking form. How do I view the model before me? Is he or she just something I observe in a passive manner? Or is she a reflection of myself? Or is she an engaging individual in her own right? These questions are critical to shaping the image. It reveals acutely who one is and how one views the world.

The artist needs to be more than a passive observer. He must have an intentionality that is deep and forthright. For myself, the model is a dynamic self-reflection specific to myself yet containing an aspect that is universal and shared between myself and the subject. There is the specificity of the individual linked or bound to the universal. There is a duality. It is me and yet not me. There is also something of the other, the individual, creating a relationship that goes beyond this specific moment that we share and binding us to the larger world. This charged interaction lives through the image revealing something hidden from both sides. The artist and the model share this in such a way that opens a lacuna for another to enter – that being the viewer at some future date. This correlation between my empathy toward my subject and the inherent vitality of the image cannot be denied. It is this inner movement that carries the image beyond the desires of the artist and gives to the image an efficacy in the world.

One of the most difficult things about beginning a painting is being able to envision what it will look like when it is complete. This envisioning the painting beforehand is critical and is often overlooked. But how can one even begin if one does not know the path one is to take? Monet said (I believe it was Monet), “don’t paint anything if you cannot imagine it first as a painting”. One needs to see in the mind’s eye the image in as much detail as possible- what it will look like; how the color will flow; what will be the focal point and how the painting process will reveal this; how the melody of color and form will heighten the emotional content; how the composition will bring this all together to create a lasting impression. One will only know if a piece is complete if it fulfills this first “vision”. Otherwise, one is apt to paint on it continuously because as moods change, both for the model as well as the artist, the sense of the painting changes. Before you know it you are lost in “the dark wood”.

There is also the question of technique. The proper technical means to achieve the desired result will be found because the image itself will call forth what it needs in order to speak . This puts technique at the service of the image and not the other way around. Technique must succumb to this envisioning process. Henri states,

“It is useless to study technique in advance of having a motive. Instead of establishing a vast stock of technical tricks, it would be far wiser to develop creative power by constant search for means particular to a motive already in mind, by studying and developing just that technique which you feel the immediate need of, and which alone will serve you for the idea or emotion which has moved you to expression. You will not only develop your power to see the means, but you will acquire power to organize the means to a purpose.” ( Robert Henri, The Art Spirit, p.220)

Possibly a new approach will be necessary in order for the image to be realized. Finish will come when the means has approached the initial “vision”. To seek technique for its own sake is a vapid exercise.

This does not mean that spontaneity is removed from the process. One always needs to be attuned to the moment for it is in the moment that we get a glimpse of what lies hidden beneath the surface. But if one provides the framework of meaning and emotion, spontaneity has the chance to dance upon that structure adding greater depth to a piece. And this is what you want- a combination of opposing forces, true to our experience of the natural world.

Locating one’s vision is sometimes,unfortunately, referred to as “what do you want to say?”, but language is limited and image usually goes beyond the verbal to contain something more deep and unspoken. Words cannot contain the thought or the feeling in quite the same way. When one has a feeling for an image, a vague sense seeking form,  by what means can the artist come to know that image more fully? In what way can he allow that image, that remains somewhat hidden, to reveal its self?

As a practice, I attempt to draw the image from my mind’s eye first. Repeating this process until the image speaks back to me that feeling I am after. Then I recreate this image using a model and whatever other means necessary, again repeatedly doing studies until the image “speaks” back to me. Then I tackle it from the angle of color and melody by painting color studies from memory until they contain the right emotion. Finally, I paint a color study of the model combining my feeling for color with the reality before me. It is this final combination that brings me close to envisioning what my piece will look like when it is complete. The french academies of the 19th century referred to these final studies as etudes. It is a vision or summation of the final painting, containing all the elements and emotional content that the final piece will entail. It is the “spirit” of the image seeking its final fulfillment. In many ways these etudes of the 19th century have a greater impact to our modern sensibilities than the later Salon pieces because the forza is immediate and finish is reduced to a minimum. In the end , it is the furia and intentionality that we seek to translate in a visual form- making it tactile and leaving an impression that will reside in the memory. [ Furia- the living quality, the height of invention( David Summers, Michelangelo and the Language of Art,p.63)]

But melody has to do with the flow of passages- of color, form and line, within the image; the rhythmical construction of the parts; the proper measure and modulation that taken together creates a wholeness and a certain effect of feeling or emotion. In music movement is ever progressing. It cannot be held. Painting is more difficult because it is held but must also comprise the entire symphony at once. There must be movement throughout and simultaneously it must also have a “suspended moment” held at its greatest point of expression- creating a heightened sense of emotion. This combination of opposing forces is what gives an image “life”- a reflection of nature itself. Creating a strong juxtaposition of color and form, an arrangement  that flows like nature, is the task of the artist.

In Boisbaudran’s study on The Training of the Memory in Art, he points out that when he asked his students to produce from memory a certain arrangement of lines or an object or a face, he found that the student’s ability to remember a face was greater. Their ability to reproduce a face from memory with more exactitude than an inanimate object or an abstract arrangement of lines, he attributed to our innate sense of  what it is to be human. Our inherent sense of  the faces’  specific arrangement automatically touches our memory. Certain arrangements of color and form impact the  memory with greater intensity than do others.

Melody presents memory with an order that not only appeals to our sense of being human but also ties that order to an emotion. This is what is so appealing in great music-from the prelude to the climax to the resolution- it touches our emotions and holds us suspended. If one takes this and then adds an image to it, how much more will the psyche and the emotions be effected and therefore hold it in memory. How much more will the memory be engaged and therefore our entire being? One will have the capacity to recall  the image with ease because it has touched a deeper center within us. Melody of color and form, its rhythmic movement and climax, together creates an indelible image capable of residing in the memory as a force of transformation.

The word “analogy” is used quite often by artists and poets to describe comparable relationships between images, objects and ideas. It also includes those relationships that exist between colors, lines and tones. In the 19th century this concept of equivalency or likeness of relations was in the air. It shows up in the work of Charles Baudelaire as “correspondence”, Eugene Chevreul as “‘complementaries”, Robert Henri as “analogies” and Alfred Stieglitz as “equivalents”. The “golden section”, “dynamic symmetry” and “rebatement” also fall into this realm of ideas. This search for phenomena that supports the artists own experience of balance and harmony in nature mirrors something that lies within the imagination of the artist. The  imagination seeks its counterpart in one’s experience in the world. It seeks to give what appears fleeting some permanence. Ibn’Arabi calls this place of meeting the “isthmus”- the place where the imagination meets the world as an image in a mirror, one reflecting the other in an analogical way. The artist intuits these real relationships between what lies within and the world without and he seeks phenomena to verify his feelings.

Because of this inherent need of the artist to find  an insight into the greater forces at work behind his fascination with visual phenomena, there is a constant dialogue that takes place between the artist and his own work as well as a dialogue among other artists and writers. Georges Seurat in his published letter to Maurice Beaubourg, August 28,1890 states that, “Art is harmony. Harmony is the analogy of contrary elements and the analogy of similar elements of tone, color and line, considered according to their dominants and under the influence of light, in gay, calm, or sad combinations. The contraries are: For tone, one more clear (luminous) for one more dark; For color, the complementaries, that is to say a certain red opposed to its complementary (green), ect.; For line, those forming a right angle.” (Joshua Taylor, Nineteenth- Century Theories of Art, p.541) Seurat’s fascination with analogical relationships, in regard to color especially, lead to the movement of Neo- impressionism. Robert Henri refers to these ideas as valuable stating he has read Signac’s book on Neo-Impressionism in french and there is much to glean from it. (Henri, The Art Spirit, p.60)  Although Henri never fully accepts the Neo-Impressionist idea of a full division of color, he obviously is in tune to Seurat’s idea of ” contraries”. Henri’s attraction to Seraut rests particularly with color. He has previously explored H.G. Marratta’s analogical relationship between color and musical chords and Denman Ross’s color and value analogies in regard to planes. It is not surprising that Seurat’s concept of “contraries” intrigues him.

Henri constantly searched for a real relationship between what he painted and the process of painting, itself. Painting should entail in a very real way some quality of the subject beyond the specific conditions of the light.  This is where color came to take up such a fascination for him. Color became a tool by which Henri could describe his subject in an analogical way- that color could describe the character and the emotional state of the subject far more clearly than the pure skill of rendering accurately. Although, Henri’s portraits are clearly rendered with feeling and accuracy.

In Henri’s late work- the Irish portraits painted in the last years of his life-one can see the great unity he achieves.  His subjects are simple and pure- like a Gallic ballad or a line from the poetry of W.B. Yeats. Henri honors “his people” and seeks to find the analogical means that will mirror this beauty and simplicity. His color analogies of “3 or 5 set against the complement” become the method he chooses that in a real way reflect the mystery of his Irish subjects. The emotional content of the image finds its practical and analogical relationship in a simple palette- the inner life finding its isthmus to the world.

An artist needs to foster this intuitive feeling for analogical relationships and seek the means or methods necessary to join them to one’s subject forming an image that goes beyond the mere descriptive. But Henri also adds a warning to this:

“It is useless to study technique in advance of having a motive…it would be far wiser to develop creative power by constant search for means particular to a motive already in mind, by studying and developing just that technique which you feel the immediate need of, and which alone will serve you for the idea or emotion which has moved you to expression.You will not only develop your power to see the means, but you will acquire power to organize the means to a purpose…You will become a master and organizer of means, and you will understand the value of means as no mere collector of means ever can.” (Henri, The Art Spirit, p.220)

My Students at WSA

“One cannot expect to have influence unless, one can be influenced”. As I finish teaching this semester I can’t help thinking of this quote of Carl Jung. Teaching has not only allowed me the opportunity to relay my own views on art but has provided the rare opportunity to glean bits of wisdom from my students.

Teaching art is as abstract and as practical as it gets. One is called to be a keen observer before the model, noting the rhythm, anatomy, color, value and mood of the sitter. But one is also called to say what denotes a strong painting-that feeling for color and composition that signifies something unique, something that stands apart. This delving into these serious questions of what is the nature of a great work of art and how one goes down the path to pursue it is of the utmost importance. It is much easier to say that the sternocleiedomastoid muscle connects the head to the main body of the torso, providing a rhythmic link within the figure than to say this painting is calling for such and such a color because a feeling or intuition is leading me to sense this. The teacher needs to provide the link between these two paths of knowledge- a practical knowledge as well as a knowledge that must spring from within. In a sense, the artist-teacher needs to have the capacity to point the way down both paths.  And the student needs to acknowledge the paths and then find the route that is unique to their inner self.

This interaction between student and teacher is something that is no longer given its special status. In the past, one could only gain knowledge by coming under the apprenticeship of a master whether one was pursuing a specialized craft or philosophy. Today we read a lot. But this does not provide us with the connection we feel toward an individual where the interaction can be on an unspoken level. In the presence of a person,one can intuit more than one can say.  And what is unconscious can be given an opportunity to manifest itself.  It is this special feeling the teacher has for his or her student that allows for much of the passing on of knowledge. Many times when I was a student my mentor would intuit what I would need before I could even put it into words. He would automatically be able to present before me what was in my heart. This can only be achieved in an environment of trust and companionship.

But it is not only the student who benefits. In many ways the teacher, in the very process of relaying his or her own knowledge, comes to know themselves more intimately. When one is called upon to state “this is true”, then one comes to recognize the very road map one is on- it becomes conscious as in a mirror held before oneself. This consciousness can only benefit the teacher. But in this very act of recognition within the teacher, the student can gain insight into the creative act- the honesty with one’s self that is a necessary element of the pursuit.

In this intimate relationship between teacher and student, I have gained so many bits of wisdom from the combined experience of my students, experiences I could only have come upon through meeting and connecting with them. Their experience and insight become mine also. Creating is a struggle that takes place within and without. But it is in this struggle one comes to know oneself and the world more intimately. And when two minds meet at this intersection between knowledge and creation, one’s insight can be shared and affirmed, each joyful for this new clarity.

In Robert Creeley’s essay, Reflections on Whitman in Age, he reflects on Walt Whitman’s poem, “Good-Bye My Fancy”. It is particularly the word “fancy” and Whitman’s meaning of the word that Creeley muses on. “It’s a great word in itself, the contraction of fantasy: “c.1325, ‘illusory appearance,’ from O. Fr. fantasie, from L. phantasie, from Gk. phantasia ” appearance, image, perception, imagination,’from phantazesthai ‘ picture to oneself,’ from phantos ‘visible,’ from phainesthai ‘appear,’ in late Gk. ‘ to imagine, have visions,’ related to phaos, phos ‘ light.’ Sense of whimsical notion, illusion’ pre-1400, followed by that of ‘ imagination,’ which is first attested 1539. Sense of day-dream based on desires is from 1926, as is to fantasize…”  (Creeley,”On Earth“,2006,p.65)

How the meaning of the word has changed over time. It begins as a part of one’s perceptions- filled with one’s own power to bring something into reality, into the light of day and progressively degenerates to a mere day- dream of one’s own desires. I am particularly attracted to the idea of phantazesthai- ‘to picture to one’s self.’ Taking a feeling or an intuition or a perception about the world and presenting it back to one’s self and allowing it to stand as an image before one’s self as in a mirror- to see if we recognize it- is powerful. Does its  new, visible form stand as the perennial symbol of that hidden perception? Has this image, gaining material substance, come to light with a sense of accuracy and authenticity?  This interaction between an interior perception or feeling is an essential element of the creative life.

The Sufi writer, Ibn al-’Arabi, speaks about the objective reality of the imaginal world. The imaginal world exist as an isthmus between two mirror images. One residing within the world. The other, existing beyond our present perceptions which can only be glimpsed at when one has either died or in a dream or reverie. This place of reverie brings one to the isthmus where one can look both ways, to the visible and to the hidden. The area between the two is where insight resides manifesting itself through images that have their own independent life. Through its sense of mirror image, what is internal finds its identification in an outward source, reflecting it back to one’s self. This is at the heart of ‘imagination‘.

Only through the process of  ‘picturing it to one’s self ‘ is the perception retained and given a body, an image, that can further be reflected upon by one’s self and others. The artist’s real struggle lies in this. Creeley concludes his thoughts on Whitman’s ‘fancy’ by stating that the poets job is to give an idea a body, a body that calls the present and reflections of the past together in a reverie of the moment. Memory is key- for it calls forth the impression with renewed intensity before one’s eyes. Whitman’s ‘fancy’ reveals a deeper power of mind than we care to admit about our ‘imaginings’. Creeley reveals, that ” ‘reality’ is the given imago mundi, the fantasy into which one is born. It’s where thought and sense find a way of meeting…” ( Ibid,p.65)

Color sketch, from memory

“How can I improve my ability to draw from memory?” a friend asked me. I told him I knew of a 19th century text on just that issue and Rodin himself studied with the author. It had been about ten years since I had looked at the text and it was really his own interest in drawing from memory that my friend brought it into the present. In fact he had his most difficult name on is lips, “do you mean Lecoq De Boisbaudran?’

“That is exactly who I mean,” I answered.  Boisbaudran wrote The Training of the Memory in Art and The Education of the Artist in the 1880’s which was eventually translated into English in 1911. When I had first encountered this text during my education at the Lyme Academy of Fine Art, I had been primarily interested in acquiring the ability to draw from memory. I had read everything in regard to Rodin early on in my artistic pursuits. Rodin said his study with Boisbaudran was one of the most formative experiences of his life and it shaped the way he was able to work from life and build on that experience through his memory of the model. It will be remembered that Rodin did not pose his models but allowed them freedom in the studio to walk, meditate and move unhindered. From these exercises, Rodin developed his ideas for his sculptures. This very practice did not originate with Rodin but with Boisbaudran’s method of training the artist.

Looking back on this text as an older and much more developed artist, I have found a new interest in it through his use of memory and color retention. As a young artist, I found that this idea seemed practically impossible to achieve. It seemed so out of reach that I scarcely remember it as being part of the course of study. But now it stands there questioning me. Is this something I have the ability to acquire? I know Henri had achieved this skill. He writes in his notebooks that he reworked some of his portraits from memory. In fact, he even began a new portrait of the model on a fresh canvas from memory- achieving a likeness as well as perfect color retention.

I have found that the use of the spectrum palette of Henri’s very useful to this end. The use of the spectrum palette involves a process of mixing pigments repeatedly to achieve the desired relationship of tones. This constant mixing and remixing joined with one’s need to compare tones aides in color memory. When I first began using this method it was very difficult and time consuming to get the proper relationships. But over time, I was able to mix more quickly as well as have an immediate sense of its proper relationship to the surrounding tones.This developed sensitivity to color relationships improved my ability to see and remember color.

Boisbaudran notes that working from the human figure, from life, aides our ability to remember. He accounts for this because one has an inherent relationship with another human being whereas an inanimate object or a landscape or an abstract shape takes less hold on our memory and therefore its shape and color is more difficult to retain. Henri’s method of working with the spectrum palette and from life increased his ability to remember. Working repeatedly in this fashion allowed him to retain a memory of color, color temperature and tone relationships. Boisbaudran has his own method of studying tones and reproducing them with exactitude, but I feel Henri’s method may in a way be closer to a broader truth about color and color relationships. With Henri, one looks at all the colors in the composition and their direct relationship to each other. There is a broad unity and harmony in this way of working and I feel in many ways easier to obtain a more exacting memory of color. One retains not only a certain tone in one’s memory but its broader relationship to the whole. And seeing the whole helps one to see the individual parts more clearly. This type of sensitivity to visual phenomena will open more avenues within the memory.

Nothing can replace working from life, but simultaneously working from memory will enable one to capture the fleeting things that we see and enjoy but always seem to be just out of our grasp. By working our memory, our awareness is increased and our sensitivity to those fleeting moments become heightened. We feel compelled through memory to capture those incidents. Sargent in many ways felt that his late mural work was his greatest achievement- the imagination joined to all those years of working from life- where the memory empowered by the imagination was given the freedom it had so long desired.

This post hopes to continue some of the ideas on color composition that I published last week. I mentioned that I had been experimenting with what I call “radiating intensities”. One can achieve a heightened sense of a particular color by presenting that color in several intensities placed next to each other. Taking a single color in full intensity and surround it with successive variations of that color by ever so slightly neutralizing it until the color itself appears as a subdued hue. This produces an effect similar to what Henri called the “super color”. This juxtaposition of several hues of the same color in close relationship to one another gives a painting  an over-riding sense or feeling of a particular color. One could say an atmosphere of a certain light.

Henri found several ways to explore this theme. Another color arrangement that he experimented with was “three set against a compliment”. He would compose a painting of an arrangement of say O-OY-Y with a complimentary accent of Blue- violet. The orange-yellow would be framed by near colors on the palette , orange and yellow. And the blue-violet would stand apart as an accent in full chroma and also as a way to neutralize its compliment and near compliments. This produces a unity  of a certain light but with a variety of similar colors. The compliment becomes the “key” to the piece- the more intense chroma of the complimentary color shining amidst the others. The near compliments presenting in effect a greater liveliness than the direct compliment. The grouping of O-OY-Y can vary in intensity and can even be entirely neutralized. But this neutralization is more effective with near compliments than direct compliments. Brilliance is achieved through a duality- OY to B V, the orange-yellow covering a larger area of the composition with greater variety of chroma and value; The blue-violet appearing in greater intensity but covering a smaller area of the composition.

In Chevreul’s theories on complimentary colors, Chevreul states that when  compliments are placed next to each other they have the effect of neutralizing one another. But when they are placed near each other with space placed in between they have the effect of intensifying one another. Near colors ( such as red, red-orange, orange)  placed side by side also have the effect of intensifying each other. It is these two theories that Henri takes advantage of. “Three set against the compliment” combines both phenomena. As Henri creates an area radiating with hues of a certain color creating a beautiful and harmonious feeling of light and space, he then adds the compliment, placing it in an area that contains a near compliment or a neutralized hue of the compliment itself. There is brilliance in this effect from two views- that of the juxtaposition of compliments in several hues and also that of combining grave colors and bright colors.

Henri’s challenge to all of us is to study continuously and to seek the nature of the phenomena we profess to know. Although the spirit of a painting will always be paramount to Henri, he sought in a way artist’s have since the Renaissance- by combining  the scientific study of natural phenomena ( anatomy, methods and materials) with the study of visual phenomena ( perspective, color, light). These things placed in the crucible that is the artist become alchemically transformed by his spirit.

Copy of Robert Henri's "Johnny Manning"

Sometimes one of the most difficult things about painting is separating the subject before you from what is necessary to a successful painting. Color composition is one of those aspects that needs to be considered almost apart from the subject and needs to be considered early on in the painting process. One has to remember that the painting is paramount and it is the image alone that remains. The artist needs to consider the painting in terms of music, orchestrating color in such a way as to increase the emotive effect.

Planning the color composition is about designating the color of the basic areas of the image – their position, value and size and their overall relationship to each other. Robert Henri spent a lot of time early in his career, about 1908-1910, experimenting with the size of an area of color and what its intensity should be. He found that a painting appeared more luminous when combining grave colors with bright colors and that the grave colors should cover a larger area than the intense colors- a burning brightness amid a more subdued ever varying color range. This gave his paintings an immediate sense of light and life. By subdued areas I do not mean they were composed of blacks and neutrals but of the main components of the palette but in a lower intensity. And by bright areas, I mean a pure color, unadulterated, was used in the smallest area of the composition. This varying of intensities of the basic triadic palette allowed the colors to vibrate off  one another  in a harmonious fashion and still remain visible ( one can see the triad throughout the painting maintaining its sense of a chord as Henri referred to it).

Once the basic areas of color are decided, one needs to be on the look out for any area in the composition where color relationships can be intensified or heightened- such as near compliments; neutrals composed of the triad placed to juxtapose and intensify a compliment; colored edges, where luminous edges come in contact with a dark, etc…  Seeking and selecting areas to heighten corresponding color relationships will add life and depth to a composition allowing the image to take hold in the mind of the viewer. We are only attentive to what is brought before our eyes in a forceful manner giving one a heightened experience to remember and recall repeatedly.

Lately, I have been experimenting with what I call “radiating intensities”. One can achieve a heightened sense of a particular color by presenting that color in several intensities placed next to each other.Taking a single color in full intensity and surround it with successive variations of that color by ever so slightly neutralizing it until the color itself appears as a subdued hue. This radiating effect gives the image an overall glow of that single color – the color is felt everywhere, although it can only be directly observed at its intense center. Through this process one can achieve a sense of depth in the composition.

In Henri’s  late work , he uses all of these elements of color but in a simplified fashion. In his late Irish portraits of children, one can see how he uses a background of radiating halos to describe the space behind the head. Sometimes they are “radiating intensities” and other times they are a combination of hues and bi-colors of the main triadic palette. But space is created more with color than value- with a more intense chroma less depth is described and subsequently with less chroma a greater spatial depth is felt. Color was Henri’s passion. During his career he explored many color compositional methods but his late work returns to its source. Henri designates areas of color as before but with a more mature understanding of its power to reveal the emotional state of his subject.