Attentive Equations

Yesterday, I was finally able to return to a landscape painting begun about 4 weeks ago.The site of this painting was on an isthmus, running north to south, parallel to the shore line of the Delaware river near the town of Cochecten. The day after I had begun this painting, the river flooded and this isthmus was under water for about a week. All the river grasses, which were in the foreground of the painting were pulled down river to the south or were removed entirely. It took about two weeks for the water to recede enough that I could get back on this peninsula which temporarily had become an island. On my return to the site yesterday, I found the isthmus as I thought I might- Many grasses were washed away and the stones themselves were all pointing north, their faces buffeted by the strong currents. I was left with no option but to reconfigure this painting and re-approach it as a new experience.
It was a wintery cold day, overcast but not entirely. The clouds were shifting diagonally and allowed some of the early morning light to penetrate. There was no wind but the river was moving surprisingly fast. As I stood there, ice floes- semi-transparent, were floating past and as the day warmed I could hear the crunching of the ice hitting the near-by bridge. This was followed by a surprising loud ripping sound as large chunks of ice broke free from the shoreline. Erie and awesome sounding. A moment to reflect on nature’s independence and inherent force.
Lately, I have been reading about Monet’s series called the “Debacle” or ice floes. During the winter of 1879-1880, France experienced an extremely fridgid winter with the Sienne freezing throughout Paris as early as November. One could walk across the river everywhere. This was followed by a sudden thaw in December followed by a massive thaw on January 3rd,1880. ” The snow run-off and the cascading ice that accumulated as the Sienne’s thick layer of ice broke apart resulted in massive devastation. Monet, invigorated by this once-in-a-lifetime surge of ice floes, created a memorable sequence of paintings to capture the river in its frozen immobility as well as its surging floods and blocks of ice.” (Carole McNamara, Monet’s Vetheuil Paintings: Site, Subject,and Debacles, p.77)
I can only imagine the power of nature that Monet experienced, but even in my small way I felt the awesome beauty of the moment- alone and immersed in an elemental nature, free from any human presence. I felt transported, able to grasp in a new way this environment and hence my painting. Only in such solitary moments can one experience profoundly a new reality. Monet’s paintings reflect this separation from the world of human affairs and in this isolation one can sense only the presence of the artist- present with himself in this new experience of reality. Landscape paintings that reflect, not only the the natural elements that lie before one, but also mirror the artist’s interior world- reflecting the correspondence that lies between the artist and nature, are the most profound. The painting becomes a conduit or isthmus between the natural forces and the artist’s own interior experience of the moment. When a painting is re-formed it reflects this “new” self. Although, I lost the brooding sense I originally had in my painting, it has re-emerged with clouds parting and a clear path to an ever- flowing river- renewed hope for a new year.

This week in the Catskill Mountains, it has snowed everyday. Beautiful clean, white snow. What I love about the winter is this wonderful neutral that pervades the landscape. All those subtle tones of gray, blue- gray, violet and russet reds, appear so much more intriguing. Set against this neutral of white, those more subtle tones take on an added vibrancy. With the surrounding neutral, one can see the grays more clearly and instead of mixing a color that is completely neutralized, one can break down that neutral into several tones.

There are russet grasses along the fields and riverbanks near where I live. I love this subtle red because red in the landscape is very rare unless one is talking about a man made structure. Sometimes these grasses appear as a strong accent and at other times they vary from a strong red to a more subtle orange or an ocher color. I find that a combination of viridian  and orange gives this gold tone. And into this I can add a more distinctive red tone without it taking over because the viridian acts as a neutralizer to this red and thus creates a russet color to the grasses without it becoming too pronounced. I prefer working with these three colors rather than strictly a red/green complement. Adding this type of variety to the grasses allows one to place the grass in the composition through color temperature- warmer tones approaching the foreground and cooler tones as it recedes into the background.

The far hills, during this time of year, appear as subtle gray-blue tones to blue-violets tones. In the middle of winter when the skies are overcast, there is a close relationship in color temperature between the sky and far hills. The looming clouds hang over the hills reflecting their violet tones into the hills and the color from the hills themselves also being reflected back into the sky. This violet tone tends to pervade everything including the snow. So it is important to add any kind of variance to these violet tones that one can find. If it is all too neutral, it becomes uninteresting and there appears to be no light emanating from the canvas.

I divide the tones I see in an overcast winter landscape into blue; blue-violet; and violet- red. Accentuating the blues at first in the initial block-in and then later over-laying in the pervading violet to violet-gray. And I tend to off-set all this violet with a subtle introduction of orange or orange-yellow. Since the sun is low in the sky in the winter, this warm color can be seen in the lower sky and subsequently, reflected in some of the snow. This adds a more compelling element visually, the warms and cools playing off of each other.

One cannot describe all that goes into every landscape, but I have indicated some of the things I find so interesting about this time of year. The blanket of the neutral white ties all of these beautiful tones together gathering them in and showing them off in a unique way. It was always George Bellows favorite time of year. He even titled one of his winterscapes of skaters in Central Park as,”Love of Winter”. If one has the endurance, in many ways it is the best time to paint out-of-doors.

During my class, I often have my painting students experiment with what Robert Henri called chords. As I have mentioned in previous blog posts, a chord is a simple triad of colors on which to build a palette for a particular painting. What is unique about a chord is that the combination of colors used resonate off one another causing a feeling of intensity or vibration between the colors. They are not complimentary, so the intensity between the colors is captivating but lies somewhat hidden. Also, as one builds the palette up from the triad, all of the additional colors added to the palette are a combination of that triad. So there is a unity and inherent harmony within the palette prior to commencing with the application of paint. The key to making this type of palette work is to allow some portion of the triad to remain in a pure state without overworking in the mixing process. I am not stating that the color should be left in a strictly pure state exclusively- i.e. like Pointillism or some forms of impressionism, but there should be a feeling of the chord within the painting.

What attracts me to this form of painting is that there is an inherent harmony within the chord, comprising of both intense colors and more subdued tones. And it is these less intense colors that act as a foil for the more intense colors creating beautiful  complimentary tones through juxtaposition. These more subdued tones, that cover a larger portion of the canvas , create the fabric on which the intense tones can vibrate.

When I first came to Robert Henri’s color theory, it was through the writing of Valerie Ann Leeds and Michael Quick for an exhibition of Henri’s portraits at the Orlando Museum of Art in 1994. Michael Quick had investigated Henri’s archive at Yale University for his extensive work on George Bellows. Bellows, a student and dear friend of Henri’s had experimented extensively with all of Henri’s chord studies. But it is one thing to be an art historian and another thing to be at the practical end of painting. Over time there was much of Quick’s theories regarding Henri’s working technique that was flawed which I subsequently found through my own work in Henri’s archive. But I do not under estimate how influential his writing has been in regard to my own direction as an artist.

I brought this up because one of Quick’s theories had to do with the mixing of the Bi colors and the Hues. He believed that they were created by mixing the more intense colors of the chord with black. One can certainly lower the intensity of a color by mixing it with black, but this type of mixing kills the liveliness of the hue. What Henri strove for was a subdued color that still had vibrancy. And within that vibrancy, the hue inter-related to the other colors on the palette. It went beyond just lowering the value of a color. The Bi color or Hue is mixed by combining two or three colors on the palette. A  certain neutrality of the hue is achieved through this process of combining the tones but it still holds within it the basis of the palette. – that being it is built directly from the triad. (This is the basic rule for chords, but like anything there are some chords that vary slightly in this regard.)

The Practical:

Chord:          OY- G- P

YYG(bi), B(hue), O(hue)

YYG(bi)- is created by combining the OY to the G. It is a bi color because there is a slight neutrality because both O and B are present- the B being part of G.

B(hue)- The combination of G and P makes a beautiful low intensity blue while still appearing to have color. The value is higher than ultramarine and appears blue in its pure state without moving toward a gray or black.

O(hue)- The combination of OY and P makes a deep O. One has to be careful with the purple because if there is too much blue in it this color will tend toward the green instead of the orange.

As you realize, I have not indicated what brand name of colors one is to use. That becomes a matter of preference for each artist. Also, the more one experiments with this process, the more one can adapt it to one’s own style of painting, choosing colors that speak of one’s own images.

Above is an example of a mock composition using this chord.

Recently, I have been reading a curious book entitled, Through the Looking Glass, Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages by Guy Deutscher. The book looks at a premise developed by the anthropologist, Lazarus Geiger, which states that various cultures in the world identify only certain colors in the spectrum and fail to identify others. By identify, I mean that the organ of sight can recognize colors visually but that particular culture has yet to name certain colors as independent from other colors. Certain tribes living in the polar region above Siberia, for example, recognize or identify specifically only three colors- White, Black and Red. There are no words for blue or green. Those colors are lumped together under the color black. And although they can recognize a color like blue, they fail to recognize its independence from the color black. Geiger goes further and states that man comes to identify colors in a certain order( Geiger’s sequence (1853) as it is commonly known) beginning with White- Black-Red-Green- Yellow-Blue. White being the first color a culture identifies and Blue being the last or sometimes never recognized color. This premise, thought at the beginning of this century to be considered a westerners myopic view of more primitive cultures, has turned out to have some validity.

It is hard for us, as westerners, to believe that one cannot look at the sky on a clear summer day and not see blue. It seems so obvious to us. But almost all of these cultures, when asked to identify the color of the sky, refer to it as white ( this is the same for people native to tropical islands as well as those native to polar regions). Rather than seeing the sky as a surface color they observe it as a depth, a vastness, with spacial relationships. The same was observed when these natives referred to the sea. They described it as black. A vast depth like the sky but also an impenetrable void. What I find intriguing about this is that meaning overtakes the surface appearance of things. Black and white are elemental forces that exist in conflict or peace with one another. There is a unity of vision and meaning. And consequently, there is a oneness  in one’s experience of the world. There is no division between the color something is and what it means.

Western culture long ago lost this unity of experience. The surface appearance of things we consider a priority. It is really our first impression of any object that we observe. What color is it? Not, what is its meaning? Were we always this way? Duetscher looks back to an example that a westerner could identify with and he finds this same experience of limited observation in regard to color with Homer. According to an analysis of Homer by Gladstone ( Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age,1858), whom Duetscher quotes,

“crude conceptions of color were derived from the elements…Colors were for Homer not facts but images: his words describing them are figurative words, borrowed from natural objects. There was no fixed terminology of color; and it laid with the genius of each true poet to choose a vocabulary for himself.”       ( Deutscher, Through the Language Glass, p.93)

Living in an age of plastic, color seems obvious to us. Everything has that contrived coloring. But imagine a time when the subtle coloring of the world, the rarity of blue objects, the neutrals and grays of clouds, the gentle, natural color of fauna is where we focused our eyes. And not only that, we felt the world to be whole. Our sensitivity to color as image might have been more acute.

Head Study

There is nothing like the power of hearing the human voice sung or chanted in a large space- solitary, beautiful, majestic and evocative, moving the heart with ease and passion. Whether it be written, spoken or visual, all art revolves around the human voice. The voice, whether figurative or literal, is the perfect instrument of deep feeling. It is the reason Lorca called for the revitalization of the form of Cante Jundo. Spoken words produce images and images produce words, either silent or spoken, in response, sending a message directly to the heart. This experience is at once shared and contained. Shared, in that, we can participate in the same experience of others and collectively be transformed    ( Lorca’s hope for his own work) ; and contained, in that, it can produce an experience of deep personal change.

The voice is nothing less than the longing of the human heart. In can manifest itself as an image, word, thought or dream. All speak of the human condition. Voice connects the person to “the soul of the world”, as Ibn Arabi has inferred. It connects him to his inmost thoughts and manifests them, with profundity, to reality. It allows man a “living” experience of the world because what he experiences within has impact beyond himself and can carry these inmost thoughts to others or even to a “silence” manifesting his own existence to himself. The human voice links man to that center, that unchanging aspect of the world or “being”.

The creation of art becomes the recognizable spiritual bond between man and existence. Art in all its forms, whether image, word or voice, is the transcript of that dialogue, that deepening of our own experience of the longings of the heart within the soul of the world.

I want to summon up all the good will, all the purity of intention that I have, because like all true artists I yearn for my poems to reach your hearts and cause the communication of love between you, forming the marvelous chain of spiritual solidarity that is the chief end of any work of art. ( Lorca, An introduction to a recital, 1933?)

One cannot even begin to pursue ones work as an artist unless one has spent time considering what Beauty is. Would there be any such thing as art unless the pursuit of what is beautiful and at the same time true wasn’t a question that is central to man? Keats often quoted, “Ode to a Grecian Urn” ends with this thought,

Beauty is truth, truth beauty,- that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

Can something be beautiful that does not also contain something true inherently residing in it? And can something which is true not also have a certain beauty within it? Are they not inherently linked? When we see beauty are we not compelled inwardly to find out all there is to know about it? For me, there is an undeniable beauty contained in the human form and I am compelled to pursue any knowledge that will increase my understanding, on many levels, of this form, ie- anatomy, human psychology, art history. This pursuit has increased my ability to love and appreciate this beauty of form. It has also increased my desire to capture such form and to recognize the unfathomable aspect of beauty.

“All we know on earth, says Keats, is that beauty is the source according to which Knowers incline in there love of truth; the source to which their inner compass is aligned.” (Paul Davies, Romanticism and Esoteric Tradition, p.149) Knowledge confirms and enhances what one at first recognized as beautiful and that knowledge turns back again on the seeker and brings with it an awe of that beauty. The knower becomes the intermediary between beauty and truth and engages in a dynamic dialogue with them. The knower can look to truth and find beauty and the knower can look to beauty and find truth. Beauty and truth forming a recipricol relationship independent of my knowing but one which I can readily partake in. Paul Davies expresses it well,

” If we know the beautiful when we see it, we can say we realize what Keats means by ‘all we know on earth’. If then we wish to become beautiful ourselves, if we wish to become magnetized by the beauty we acknowledge, then we not only know but also need to know… To respond to beauty is one stage, to be magnetized by it is another. (Ibid,p.150)

This need to know or make it conscious, in addition to an appreciation of beauty, allows a dynamic and procreative relationship to develop. It leads to one’s own transformation as well as allowing the knower the ability to carry that transformation to others. The artist/ poet through the expression of his work carries that transformative force to others and in the process creates an attraction to the beautiful. It is why we are so drawn to artists and their lives. We desire to be like them. Davies points out that “this different, gnostic, direct knowledge is knowledge of the human situation, and particularly a taste of its meaning and quality.” ( Ibid., p.151) Beauty informs who we are to our very depths and allows one a true participation in the human condition.

So much of our being resides in the rational and linear development of ideas rather than an associative logic or a “logic of metaphor” as expressed by Hart Crane. The imagination itself does not follow such reasoning. It cannot be compartmentalized or ordered as such. It is an independent force that goes beyond our reasoning faculty. Keats states in a letter to Benjamin Bailey in 1817, ” I am the more zealous in this affair because I have never yet been able to perceive how anything can be known for truth by consecutive reasoning.” Keats favored a “drifting imaginative logic” in his poems that relied on a fluid consciousness not entirely understood through rational means. ( Hirsch, The Demon and the Angel, p.6) Our desire to explain everything from the origin of the universe to the state of our health or why something was created in such a way, leads one down a path that is not open to an alternate experience of being.

I find, when I begin a piece, I attempt to seek out all the variables to allow the image to unfold. But Keats comes at it with a pure freedom of spirit as expressed in his statement on Negative Capability- “that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.” Keats allows an image to stand as it is-a mystery and accepts it as such without fully understanding it. He refuses to allow that rational part of himself to destroy the inherent depth and mystery of an image. He remains satisfied in his unknowing state allowing the emotional tenor of a piece to guide him.

One inherently desires to eliminate mystery, instead of nurturing the independent force that mystery is- a reflection of one’s ignorance and consequently, the vastness of being and existence. Allowing a mystery to stand opens up opportunities to receive something from the other side. This openness creates a place for that inner voice to speak not as one hopes but as it desires. The will or ego part of oneself needs to step aside.

In ancient Greece, there was a Cult to Asklepios. This cult resided at shrines of healing like Epidauros. The priests of Asklepios performed a rite over the worshiper who then slept in the temple until they received a dream. The priests of Asklepios would then interpret the dream in order to bring the healing message to the ill person. These priests acted as conduits to a greater mystery, being open to a healing that they did not necessarily understand. They allowed the dream to shape the action necessary for a cure to take place.

Alternately, Ahab is another figure that faces the great mystery- the mystery of the white whale. The white whale emerges from the depths of the sea, powerful, allusive. Ahab, instead of honoring the mystery in all its magnitude, seeks the whale out only to find that it is he himself that he has destroyed. His desire to conquer, to rationalize and impose his will upon the beast, leads to his demise. The whale remains free and aloof- independent, eloquent and charged with a force without limit. The depth emerging forth and at the same time remaining an unfathomable mystery.

study

Lately, I have been attracted to Lorca’s idea of cante jundo. Cante jundo being the Andelusian form of song sung by a single voice carrying a poetic verse. It is a voice of lament, encountering death and finding a deep spiritual bond residing between the cantor and the audience. This bond, when strong enough, produces an effect upon the soul that is deep and moving and ultimately life changing. The tenor of the voice carries the listener to a mythic place where one can meet one’s destiny and therefore, one’s self. It acts as an isthmus to an imaginative place allowing one to encounter those hidden forces that shape one’s life. And when in that space it allows one to ask the ultimate questions that need to be asked.

Can such an effect be transferred to painting? Is there a reciprocal analogy? Can the form of a canto manifest itself through paint, through a visual image and be visceral enough to effect change in the viewer? Is the singer the artist’s own voice revealing through images the verse or poem? Will the encounter between image and viewer carry a power of change?

A canto, I read, is a song or ballad; one of the divisions of a large poem; so much as the minstrel might sing in one ‘fit’ (c. 1590). In a sense, a painting comprises of one ‘fit’. Canto fermo (c.1789-Ital.), is a simple unadorned melody of the ancient hymns and chants of the church; plainsong; hence any simple subject of like character to which counterpoint is added. A canto also comprises of a repetition of a verse that ties the song together. Would a multiplicity of form or a rhythmic repetition of gesture carry the same effect?

Presently, I am conjuring up some images centered around “nocturnal flight”. Emergence; dissolution; encounters; conflict and freedom; memory and thought; a space for reverie. A place of longing, passion and gravitas. Baudelaire states that…” it is the nature of true art- works to be inexhaustible mines of suggestion”. (Baudelaire, Wagner and Tannhauser in Paris,p.125) Can a canto (suggestive images of a dream like state) present the viewer a path to his own reverie, conjuring up an intuitive association and attentiveness to his own internal images?

Wagner states in his work, Letters on Music, ” The character of the scene and the tone of the legend together contribute to throw the mind into that dream state which soon carries it onward to full illumination, when it discovers a new concatenation of the phenomena of the world which the eyes could not perceive in the ordinary state of waking.” If a similar phenomena can occur in both music and poetry, what is the equivalent or corresponding form that a painting can take?

I have begun painting quick sketches in order to come to terms with how to depict such flight or the sensation of freedom of movement- carried away in the nocturnal world of images, memory and thoughts. I also would like the sense of the darkness to shape the image and have a character of its own, in a sense, for it to be an independent force as well, engulfing and freeing its subject. These are my thoughts as I prepare to work with a model- the model completing the triad (the artist, the preparatory work, the model) of the creative process.

Drawing the figure is immensely difficult and it is good to have several different approaches to work from in order to check the accuracy of one’s work. When a pose is especially difficult, it allows one to come to terms with it and achieve the effect one is after with a smaller degree of frustration. I always begin with the most important elements- the action and the proportion. These are a priority. This basic armature is absolutely necessary for a solid figure drawing. But from there, I allow myself freedom and variety to achieve the volume of the forms and the modeling as I see fit at that particular moment.

One strategy I use is to work from the interior forms of the figure and slowly resolve them, taking my time and allowing them to express their full volume through modeling, such as the abdominal muscles of the torso, prior to describing the outline or linear aspect of the figure. It is a method that creates the feel of sculpture- where line does not yet exist until there is a resolution of the form. Only after the form is resolved is one left with the exterior rhythm as a linear movement.

One has to look at the larger aspect of what one is after. If I allow what is within to emerge- the “interior-ness” expressing itself through exterior forms, then I must look to a greater analogical relationship to achieve what I am after. If I am searching for an “interior-ness” to be expressed than I must use a method that corresponds to that search or vision. When one looks at the work of someone like Eugene Carriere, 19th century draftsman, painter and lithographer, one feels this central movement from within. Carriere achieves a certain beauty through enveloping forms in a diffuse light. They are shadowy figures where one catches glimpses of what remains always partially hidden. And because they lack the descriptive concreteness of line, they almost take on the characteristics of a spirit. His method equates the diffusion of form with an embodiment of the spirit.

Line is the rationalization of what one perceives. It is a construct that one uses but does not exist in nature. Nature is a multiplicity of forms and masses. But when one is working in two dimensions, putting charcoal to paper, then line is a necessary element to expressing the form to its fullest. Without line, one cannot feel the solidity of the form or express a sudden contrast between the figure and the background. But by modeling the interior forms first, one can add line as one comes to know more clearly one’s intentions. Delineating the forms and masses with line can be delayed until one comes to terms with: the location of the focal point; the greatest area of contrast; those areas where a solid structure is necessary to express the form; the variety of lost and found edges; and the dynamic rhythm of line to express with intent all the emotions one is after. Only then can one express a line with grace, beauty and furia.