This past Wednesday, my painter friend, Meredith and I traveled to Williamstown and visited the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute http://www.clarkart.edu/ . On displayed was an exhibit entitled, "Rembrandt and Degas: Two Young Artists". As a young artist, Degas had spent three years in Italy studying and copying the masters including many of Rembrandt's self portraits. This show is intimate in number, 16 artworks in total as well as in subject matter, Degas's and Rembrandt's self portraits, in paint and print. I opted to skip the overwhelming MFA, Boston Degas Exhibition for this little show. I wasn't disappointed.
A few years ago I wrote a little essay about portraits. The piece follows :
This past winter my plein air painting friends decided to rent a studio to keep our friendship fires warm and our painting eyes and hands honed. On Thursday mornings, while the Northeast winds howled and the ice dams grew, we each drew numbered lots and took turns sitting quietly to pose for a 30 minute period as the hub for searching eyes and sketching tools. These portrait drawing sessions were an experience that included both vulnerability and veneration: the former for the sitter, the latter for the artist.
Alexej von Jawlensky (Russian, 1864-1941) was fascinated by the sensual and spiritual power of the face. About the end of WWI, he started to draw "mystic heads" or faces of the saints and entitled them poetically. By 1916, he progressed to a spiritual brand of abstraction called Meditative Art, a unique contribution to Modern Art. I too found myself drawn to the transcendent spiritual qualities of my painter friends' faces.
There is a similarity of approach to the painting of an outdoor landscape and the landscape of the human face. With lines, colors and textures, these elements express much and then more. They describe the terrain by delineating flesh into deep fissures, soft wrinkles and perhaps end with a dimple. The landscape maybe capped with a snow white crown, or covered with the rosy patch of blood vessels steamy on the surface or divided into dark and light by the vertical slope of the nose. Will the focus be on the smile or the pensive look or the inward glance towards the soul? Look deeply at this landscape. Give quiet pause. Let the eyes move across the surfaces. Travel their history.
The artist's challenge is to fill a small format with rapid chiseling paint and brush into the jewel we all are.
"Come meditate upon my face and I upon yours and then with point, line and mass express the sensual and the spiritual represented in the human face while coming to terms with the question of who we are: we are merely humans with the face like His." SJS
Every morning Terry and I packed up the golf cart with our painting gear and headed out to find a painting site. And everyday we donned our sun hats and painted in cool temps of 50 degrees and a frisky breeze of 20 mph... perfect weather to paint beautiful marsh and island scenes.
Just a note: U.S. container exports is dominated by junk. Scrap metal is our most valuable export accordingly to Metal Management-Sim, an iron recycle company. Today, China buys much of our paper waste and metal scraps. The export/import cycle goes like this: after the container ships are off-loaded with new consumer products bound for Wal-Mart and Target, these cargo ship's empty cargo bays are then filled to capacity with our scraps and waste products which in turn will be made into new consumer goods bound once again for U.S. consumers.
Yesterday, the weather in Portsmouth, NH proved a bit of a painting dare. The tenacity of some seasoned plein air painters is proven when dealing with the many weather challenges here in New England. A few of my fellow painters, Phil Bean, Mary Byrom and Barbara Carr painted the gnarly trees within the confines of the sheltered gated garden in Prescott Park. Others like me painted in the open putting their vehicle between themselves and the brisk, 30mph NE winds. My friend Marjet found a cozy spot behind the Harbor Master's shack, next to a cast away Christmas tree strung with colored lights. (Hmmm, good old Yankee frugality would have had that tree stripped clean of those light sets before disposal.) Look closely at the picture though and take note of the long log balanced as as extra weight for her French easel. It was that windy out. Not to take pre-caution like Marjet, the attached canvas acts as a canvas sail stretched high to catch the wind and the easel can go a sailin' into the wild blue yonder. But hey, there was sunshine!
My painting site of tightly, clustered homes and fish businesses in the area called Peirce Island made me think of the unique New England road signage, 'Thickly Settled'. This sign is not just a quaint descriptive phrase for the clusters of antique homes and buildings of Puritanical ancestral lineage. Drivers in Massachusetts who observe this signage must drive no more than 30 mph or risk a speeding ticket according to the official DMV driving manual. 
So slow down and enjoy the scenery. When plein air painting, I do!
This past Wednesday, my painter friend, Meredith and I traveled to Williamstown and visited the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute http://www.clarkart.edu/ . On displayed was an exhibit entitled, "Rembrandt and Degas: Two Young Artists". As a young artist, Degas had spent three years in Italy studying and copying the masters including many of Rembrandt's self portraits. This show is intimate in number, 16 artworks in total as well as in subject matter, Degas's and Rembrandt's self portraits, in paint and print. I opted to skip the overwhelming MFA, Boston Degas Exhibition for this little show. I wasn't disappointed.
