Month: August 2013

Never Ending Nature

Do artists see nature differently than other people?   Do artists seek to replicate nature, enhance it or just see something others don’t?  Paintings more often than not have a life that is different from what one might see with the naked eye.  When artists choose nature as subject, nature changes, becomes something more. Whether landscape, still life or botanical illustration, nature through the eyes of the artist shimmers with a vivid electrical quality that might have previously escaped notice.

The website, Skinny Artists has “150 wonderful art quotes that can inspire.”  Among the quotes is one from Russian born artist, Marc Chagall.  Chagall states, “Great art picks up where nature ends.”  Chagall’s message is the goal nature artists are working for.  These artists are enhancing nature and bringing it to life in a way not usually seen by the average eye.  Nature artists seek to give notice to simple beauty that might otherwise be missed.

Botanical illustration is frequently categorized as more science than art.  Yet what botanical artists are depicting is more than simple scientific re-creation. Their illustrations give nature the intrigue that leads us to look more closely.  Margaret Mee, (1909-1988), conservationist and botanical artist, brought the Amazon Rainforest to life through her paintings of orchids and other exotic plant life she encountered on her excursions into the untouched rainforests.  The vibrancy of nature in Mee’s art sparked an interest in the rainforests that led to later efforts to protect and preserve this vast eco-system.

Today the beauty of nature through botanical art is fostered and nurtured by the American Society of Botanical Artists, (ASBA) and The Society of Botanical Artists, (SBA) in the United Kingdom and other national, international and regional organizations.  These organizations continually show us how wonderful the world of nature is when viewed through the magic of the artist’s hand.  Botanical artists are the portraitists of plant life, highlighting the beauty and uniqueness of individual horticultural species.  Botanical artists “pick up where nature ends” to open our eyes to the beauty around us.

Nature is never ending while art lives.

The following Margaret Mee painting and others can be seen at the Audubon House Gallery of Natural Art.

http://www.audubonhouse.org/Mee.aspx

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The Place of the Singing Heart

]The late Steve Jobs is much in the news these days with the movie about his life recently released.  There is no doubt that Steve Jobs changed our world.  Whatever people may think of Jobs, the person, what he did for all our lives is now unquestionable history.

Carmine Gallo wrote an excellent article in Forbes Magazine (here) about how Steve Jobs followed his heart and encouraged others to do the same.  Gallo quotes Jobs as saying, “Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me.  Going to bed at night saying, I’ve done something wonderful.  That’s what matters.”   Where would we be today if Jobs hadn’t followed his heart?

This doesn’t mean to say that Steve Jobs was always successful.  He had many missteps and failures along the way.  But he continued to do what made his heart sing and eventually he was immensely successful.  The key was to continue to do what made his heart sing.

We don’t have to have the success of Steve Jobs to be a success.  Being a success is doing what makes your heart sing, whatever that may be.  For artists, art makes our hearts sing.  But it is not always easy to jump through the fear and get to the place of the singing heart.  Taking those first steps can feel like you are about to leap off of Pike’s Peak with no clothes on.

In a wonderful blog, Rachel Jepson Wolf describes the first steps she took to write her blog.  Wolf states, “It was simultaneously, scary, thrilling and embarrassing to hit ‘publish’ on those first few posts.  But I did it anyway.”  She took those first steps because writing her blog makes her heart sing.  Wolf’s blog is here.

For visual artists, it may be putting those first few slashes of color on canvas or paper.  That first brushstroke is the hardest for me.  For you, it could be the first few steps of whatever your process is.  For some it is deciding what colors to mix.  Others may first start an under drawing or under painting.   Listen to what song your heart is singing and leap.

Artist Nicole Docimo has a delightful short video on listening to what makes your heart sing.  Her blog is here.

http://vimeo.com/23487214

In his Steve Jobs article, Carmine Gallo has an unattributed saying that states, “Don’t die with the music still in you.”  Are we listening?

Shady Grays

The autumn addition of a home décor catalog arrived last week.  Flipping through the pages revealed the new product lines to be in pale grayed down colors.  The bold headlines proclaimed color as the topic of each product line but the photographs portrayed a totally different scenario.  Linens were in dusky grayish blues and greens with subdued grayish red violets and toned down yellows.  The likely goal was to create serene spaces with pale hues.  The effect to me was one of complete depression.  These rooms all made me want to cry.  If I needed a good long cleansing cry, I would choose a grayed room.

A grayed room is not to be confused with a gray room.  A gray room can be quite striking if warm or rich grays are used, with touches of pure white or black.  Accenting the walls of a gray room with graphite drawings or artwork in silverpoint would further add to the charm.  This type of gray room could actually be serene and comforting.

But a room in which everything has been grayed down gives the impression of being stuck at dusk in neither day nor night.  A constant drizzling rain is compounding the dusk adding to the depressing feeling.  It makes sense why an author would name a book about sadomasochism after the color gray.  Living in dusky, drizzly grayed down surroundings might make someone think about pain in some form or other.

The great C. S. Lewis wrote a book titled, “The Great Divorce.”  The characters in the book are stuck in a town where it is always dusk in a drizzling rain.  It is not yet dark enough to turn on the lights but not bright enough to see well.  There is never any sun or moonlight, just the constant dusky drizzling rain.  The book deals with the key to escaping from this gray world of never having either night or day.

Perhaps I am being hard on the catalog and its products but what about those grayed linens would make me want to buy them? The entire color line gave the impression of having been washed in old dishwater.  Why would I want to put those colors in my home?  And why on earth would I want to put them in my art???

A delightful blog called Art-is-fun examines how color creates different effects in abstract painting making the profound point that, “color is a powerfully expressive tool!”  The blog goes on to examine the work of Joseph Albers and Mark Rothko in their groundbreaking, “color field painting.”  Albers and Rothko showed how a subtle change in color application is able to make a profound change in a painting.

For further proof of the emotional impact of color, do a simple experiment.  Go to any home décor store and check the feeling you get when seeing all the fall grayed down linens and other home furnishings.   Then check the bright and colorful Art-is-fun blog.  What feelings do you get?  Me?  I get happy just looking at the bold colors of the blog.  I will choose happy over depressed any day!  Bring on the Color and do it NOW!!!  The same goes for my art.

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Cypresses, 2001  oil on canvas, marygwynbowen, copyright, all rights reserved

Seeing is believing!

“Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.”

–Edgar Degas (1834-1917)

 

The role of many artists is to bring to life for others the subjects that move the artist.  In the bringing to life of the subject, the artist sees things others frequently miss.  The artist seeks to portray those sparks and bits of emotion that might otherwise be missed but for artistic expression and in the process create memorable art.

Edgar Degas brought to life the world of ballet in late nineteenth century Paris.  His beautiful portrayals of dancers are beloved the world over.  His sculpture, “The Little Ballerina, aged Fourteen,” is perhaps one of the better known sculptures from the Impressionist period.  But his painting of “The Absinthe Drinkers” depicts the despair and hopelessness of these people in a way that might be missed by the average person if it not for the hand of the artist.  The dancers are paintings of lightness and beauty.  The drinkers are sad and depressing yet the painting is quite beautiful.  Degas took a sad scene and made it a beautiful work of art and in the process forces us to look at the painful life of a group of people with little lightness and joy in their world.  The artist has made us see people we might have been inclined to pass by without acknowledging.

Robert Thompson of The Art of Alaska.net has an article on the website titled: “Where do you find art?”  The article points out how a beautiful photograph of snow shoes tells  a deeper story behind the photo.   The photographer has portrayed something in these simple snowshoes that leads us to want to know more about the story behind the shoes.  We might ask the question, “Why are those shoes there and where have they been?” The artist has made us see something we might otherwise not see.  And in seeing we learn an amazing story of survival against unbelievable odds.

Artist Luke Roland asks the question, “What do you see when you look at a blank canvas?”  He asks artists to think about what excites them, what do they want the world to see.  Roland directs artists “to do something worth remembering.”  The artist puts on the canvas what excites him/her.  That excitement comes through into the painting giving the art that unmistakable quality that makes the artwork “worth remembering.”  Sparks of excitement create a vision we might not otherwise have seen and now will not forget.

The great master, Edgar Degas, through his art, made us see the lyrical beauty and the behind the scenes work of ballet.  He also enlightened us to the ugly reality of absinthe drinkers.  Robert Thompson gave us snowshoes and made us see a story of survival.  Luke Roland encourages artists to go for what excites them and put it on canvas.  Artists who heed these words of experience will perhaps be able to make others “see” beauty and sadness, a story behind an artwork, and the excitement that makes art worth remembering.  Isn’t that why we paint?  We want others to see what we see.

Over 100 of Degas’ art can been seen at The Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, CA.

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For more on “The Little Dancer, aged Fourteen” here is a lecture from The Norton Simon Museum on the subject.

To Muse or Not to Muse

Opinions on whom and what is a muse abound.  There are differing opinions on the origins of muse, though all accounts attribute the muse to the ancient Greeks.  Some accounts say the muses are the nine daughters of Zeus. Others say the muses are the three daughters of Apollo.  All accounts state the muse is artistic inspiration of some form.

Many people tend to think of a muse as a woman or mistress.  Picasso is said to have had several.  Other artists frequently had the same woman appear over and over in paintings. Historians attribute the appearance of these women as the artist’s muse, mistress, lover, etc.  As the Ancient Greek muses were women, this is likely why, along with the artist’s penchant for painting certain females regularly.  But for a large number of artists, muse is place or nature.

Places associated with artists frequently become as popular as the paintings.  Monet’s Givenchy is a much sought after tourist destination.  Monet’s garden at Givenchy was his muse later in his life.  And Monet is most known for his Water Lily paintings inspired by the water lilies in the pond in his garden.   Monet’s greatest success can possibly be attributed to these paintings from his later years at the garden of his inspiration.

California artist, Rod Jones states of the muse, “you can’t necessarily pick one, they often pick you.”  He has more on the muse in a wonderful blog post titled, “Every Artist needs a Muse.”  The blog is well worth a thorough read.  This blog post can be found here. 

One of my favorite artists is Paul Cezanne.  Cezanne started out in Paris with the Impressionists and painted there for many years before returning to his native home of Aix-en-Provence where he painted many paintings of the countryside.  Cezanne’s still life and figurative paintings are quite beautiful but the landscapes come to life in a truly dramatic way.  The colors are so varied and vivid in his landscapes that it sets them quite above the others, in my opinion.  Provence was Cezanne’s muse and his greatest success came after his return to his hometown.

I agree with Rod Jones that you can’t pick muse, muse picks you, whether it is human or nature.  The issue for many artists is to pay attention when the muse makes her pick.

A slide show of Cezanne’s works is here.

The movie “In Search of Cezanne” can be found here.

The life that comes through in Cezanne’s Provence work is so vivid:

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For more on Cezanne go here and here.

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