This past week, I went again to the Metropolitan, NYC, to see the George Bellows show. One thing that struck me this time was not only the beautiful sense of color in the paintings, but how there is an all-pervading neutral that underlies the brilliant flourishes of color. This neutral that takes up a large portion of the canvas acts as the base on which more pure colors can be shown to their full advantage.

But when I use the term neutral color, I am not referring to a true neutral, that is a color achieved by combining the complementary colors. What I am referring to is a hue that contains very low chroma. Bellows, following the lead of his mentor, Robert Henri, used a system of color theory developed by H.G. Maratta. Within this color system, there is a set of colors, referred to as hues, that are true colors of a very low chroma. These hues are created by combining, not the complements, but the secondary colors to achieve a low chroma of a primary. An example: One can achieve a blue in a low chroma by the combination of Violet + Green = Blue Hue. I can get a very beautiful low chroma blue by mixing Manganese blue violet + Viridian or (Ultramarine blue + Chinese Vermillion) +  Viridian. Both combinations can give one a beautiful, subdued blue. I noticed Bellows used this color in “North River, 1908″ and “Snow Dumpers, 1911″.

To achieve the other primaries of low chroma: Red Hue is mixed by  combining Orange + Violet. I have mixed a good low chroma red by the combination of (Chinese Vermillion + Aurelian Yellow) + Manganese Blue Violet. Bellows uses this red hue quite extensively in “Excavation at Night, 1908“  to  his “Men of the Docks, 1912″.

Yellow Hue is achieved by the combination of Orange + Green (note that this color comes quite close to yellow ochre/ raw sienna, but because it is made with stronger pigments than the earth tones it is much more powerful and is more related to its surrounding colors by containing them within itself).  A good combination is (Chinese Vermillion + Aurelian Yellow) + Viridian. Bellows uses this low chroma yellow in almost every snow painting along the Hudson. It is used for all the leafless trees and bushes, mud and rocks etc.  such as “A Morning Snow” (shown at the top), “Up the Hudson”, “Rain on the River” and “Winter Afternoon”. On this neutrality, Bellows places the brilliant blues, true yellows of the illuminated snow and the reds and oranges of illuminated bushes onto this base.

Another thing that struck me about Bellows’ paintings relates to Henri’s idea of the “super-color” which he elaborates on in the Art Spirit. Bellows, in his landscapes most especially, takes this to heart. When one looks at one of the snow scenes, one really feels the color of the light. The color of the light source is the super-color. If we imagine a sunset, that sunset illuminates a landscape with a warm red-orange color. It is why we enjoy sunsets so much- they give us a surprising view of something by transforming an ordinary tree into a flaming red torch. Bellows lays this super-color over the low chroma hues to achieve added brilliance. He also allows for these lower chroma hues to share in the super-color (If the light is primarily of a yellow color, Bellows will use a yellow hue to emphasize this super-color as well) We look at his paintings and feel we have quite an extraordinary view of the scene.

This “balance” of color between what is a more pure color with a color of lower chroma is extremely hard to achieve. But in a sense, we can only experience the brilliancy of color when it is shown against something more neutralized. A painting is its own world and it is only through these type of visual comparisons within the confines of the canvas, that we can experience a revelation.

Anyone who is truly interested in American art, must see the retrospective of George Bellows work presently at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. If you are a painter, seeing the masterly beauty of the work- from the sensuous brushstrokes to the intensity of color to the power of image -it is awesome and profound. Recently, I saw the exhibit of Robert Henri’s Irish portraits at the Everson Museum. And seeing this show close upon the heels of that magnificent show, I have gained a renewed hope of the possibilities for American painting and its future.

I feel there was such an important moment in American painting before the Armory show. American painting was strong, well crafted and modern and this was supplanted by the European Modernists arriving on the shores of America. And the profound impact that American painting could have had was undercut by the “new”, which was not directly part of our own experience as a nation. We are the children of Walt Whitman and Robert Frost, of Melville and Hawthorn, of Dickinson and Edgar Allen Poe. We are the Mythic Individualist against the backdrop of the Sublime, of Nature, seeking our existential raison d et. We are not Europeans although our roots spring from those nations.

Bellows was full of confidence much like Henri. Their willingness to take on the modern world in paint is profound. They did not shrink away from intense experimentation, primarily with color theories but also with compositional theories. In this way, they combined scientific knowledge with creative impulse. This certainly reflects Da Vinci’s call for the artist to embrace truth in all its manifestations- scientific as well as through experience and observation.

Having done significant research into Henri’s color theory, I was well prepared to see it in the paintings of Bellows. Bellow’s studied with Henri as well as became a close and dear friend. Henri imparted to this gifted student all that he knew and all that he was presently experimenting with. Henri infected Bellows with the same desire to tackle color in a new way. In 1909 Henri met a colorist named H.G. Maratta. Maratta developed an artist’s palette that related to the keys of a piano. This was not a new theory, but Maratta made it practical and viable for an artist to create color combinations that directly related to chords in music. Bellows is quoted in the catalog as saying he used “…a paint piano” to achieve the vitality of color in his work. But little else is said of Bellows’ complex system of composition or color theory. The last essay in the catalogue is “The Record Books of George Bellows: A Visual Diary” by Glenn Peck. In regard to Bellows’ color Peck writes,

“The annotations of color choices in the record book read much like a musical score. In Rowboat (1916), for example, has the following color chord: BP(p), OYG(p), GBB(p), RO(5), RP(5), YG(5), G(5), GB(5), B(s-3), RP(1). Evidentaly the capital letters stand for the colors blue, purple, orange, yellow, green, red, but the superscript notations are all but impossible to decipher. Still, they give us great insight into how he viewed the spectrum of colors that embodied his work.” (Ibid.,p.301)

If Bellows lacked detailed notes in his own record book, Peck should have looked in the archive of Henri, his mentor.Henri was a prodigious note taker. He shows himself as the serious educator he was through the thoroughness of these notes. He inwardly hoped that they would be preserved and provide a record for future artists to examine. There is no doubt that both Bellows and Henri shared their research into color theories as evidenced by their paintings as well as their correspondence.

It did not take me long, looking through my notes, to locate the correct reference. Rowboat was painted in 1916. So I looked in the year 1915 and 1916 to find the relationship between the theories that Henri was experimenting with and the notes for Bellow’s painting. In 1915, the artists: Charles Winter, H.G. Maratta, John Sloan, Bellows, Randall Davey and Henri met in Winter’s studio and developed,collectively ,a color chart that dealt with color intensities. So if we look at the superscript numbering in the preceeding quote, we see: p, 5, s, 3, 1. These refer to the intensity of a particular color in its pure state. The scale ran from most intense at 13 to least intense at 1. Although, Henri notes that the most practical colors were at the bottom of of the chart refered to as 1 and s (these contained a combination of colors( Maratta colors from the spectrum palette) and hues. The p superscript might refer to the term practical that Henri uses to describe the most flexible colors. [ This chart was previously published by Michael Quick for The Paintings of George Bellows,1992]

Henri notes Dec.19, 1915, a palette in the key of Y (yellow) and that the purpose of such a palette is to avoid complements in the same intensity. Henri used this palette for his painting, “Mrs. H.P. Whitney”. Henri notes again on April 3, 1916 below a palette in the key of OY, that this palette was ,”made up of notes which are ‘half-complements’ as for instance it is possible to play RO in a high intensity against Y in a low intensity or RO in a high intensity against P in a low intensity…The idea of the palette is to play these “half- complements” against each other as much as possible in the picture.” (Robert Henri Archive, Folder 590, Box 25).

When looking at the painting, Rowboat, one can observe that it seems to rely on the greens. Since the greens are emphasized in the notes, I believe it was painted in the key of G. The color moves in both directions away from the G: YG, G, GB, GBB, B. G is in 5 so the half-complements of BP(p) and RP(1) are in other intensities following the goal of this type of palette.[Note that the complement of G is R so the half-complement is on either side of that color on the spectrum palette, that being RP and RO.]

It is important to honor both Henri and Bellows obsession with theories. It speaks of their time as well as our own. An artist is no longer someone who shows us the beauty before our eyes, either in the miraculous or the everyday, but the artist must also show us the underlying depth of the experience- its spiritual magnitude as well as one’s intuitive connection to phenomena (color being optical). The modern artist moves freely between these two poles, uniting all that was past to this new experience of existence. The apex of which will be a total change in our experience of the world and where man will find the meaning to live as an individual and also as a representative of the soul of the world (Jung).

Clematis and Clouds

Periodically, I muse on the loss of the American sense of good craftsmanship. Today, we are so dependent on cheap goods from China or third world countries. In our homes, we have so little that is well made and was created thoughtfully and even fewer items that were made under inspiration and joy.

I recently found a biography of the artist, Virginia Lee Burton. She is best known for her writing and illustrations of children’s books. You may say- who?- but if I start listing her titles you would immediately recognize them- “Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel”; “The Little House”; “The Blue Caboose” etc. But one thing I did not realize is that Virginia Lee Burton was heavily involved in the Arts and Crafts Movement out of Boston. She became a well known designer of fabrics through her group called the Folly Cove Designs out of Gloucester Massachusetts. There she taught design classes which produced pupils who then contributed to Folly Cove Designs.

What I loved about her process was that it was entirely handmade from the artist. Burton designed and carved her own relief prints. She used linoleum blocks for the image, carved them, which sometimes took up to 80 hours and then printed them by hand multiple times on reams of fabric, or drapes, linens etc. The designs were beautiful and many times contained a bit of humor which was so a part of her personality. In the beginning she printed by standing on the block to transfer the image to the fabric. An exhausting process that I myself have experimented with recently.

The images that follow, experiment with her process. As yet I have not perfected the process and have had difficulty finding the right fabric, with as little nap as possible, that will maintain the integrity of the image. I also, used block ink that can be laundered but found that it takes quite a bit of inking to build up the surface to the point that it has sufficient ink to transfer to the fabric. I inked in this manner: I began at the bottom of the image, “Clematis and Clouds” (The color which is hard to see in the photos was a deep blue/black), and ran 2 passes side by side and then proceeded to rotate the block, using 3 passes on the long side and 2 passes on the short side. I inked all 4 sides and took a proof. As this turned out light, as I expected, I continued to build up the surface with ink. By my 5th proof, the image was coming out perfectly. I proceeded to move to the fabric. The first transfer was extremely light as I expected. In the end, I needed to complete 20 passes on the block to get the image to transfer with an intensity in the darks. That is a lot of rolls and a lot of muscle power.

I also needed to transfer the image with some force. So I used the Burton method and jumped up and down on the block to print it. As you see from the photos, I created a template to align fabric and block so as to get the image centered. In the end, I could only print 6 fabric designs in an afternoon. There were 5 proofs on paper before that and one edition print to conclude the afternoon. Two things I learned were 1. I need fabric that is 100% cotton but with very little nap( I used Aunt Martha’s flour sack towels)  2. That I need an ink that is cheaper and more durable- Burton used oil paint with white printers ink (a lot of clean up). 3. The more detail in the carving calls for more passes in the printing process.

Overall I am happy with the results and it shouldn’t take too much experimentation to arrive at a satisfactory result. In the end, even with those prints that were imperfect, there still remained within the object a sense of impassioned creativity. And this is really what makes things that are crafted well a joy to experience on a daily basis. This is what so easily becomes lost in this world of cheap goods. When I see something truly crafted, I can partake of the inspiration, the creative insight as well as the love the artist had in crafting the object. All is laid bare within the object communicating a lived experience that becomes shared, that goes beyond the singular experience of the artist. The object becomes the symbol, a meeting place, where real beauty resides.