China, Brass & Peaches - Stage 5

The leaves are now blocked in, and I've also done a fair amount of modeling on them. As I say, I prefer to work wet-into-wet because of the nifty blending possibilities. That is, I think, a large part of the reason I fell in love with oils to begin with, way back in my freshman year of college.

I've also developed the area where the two planes of the tabletop meet. All the major players are in place, now, and so it is a matter of maximizing the extent to which all to relate to one another and to the space... letting them sing together. This is, to me, a more free and poetic stage.

In painting any real object there comes some point where you stop looking at the object and begin more to look at the painting, at the expressive potential of it's internal rhythms and harmonies, balance and relationships. This is where you leave off recording the physical description of a peach and begin to get across a little how you feel about it. This is, however - from where I sit - a largely unconscious shift, and it should remain that way as much as possible. Even talking about it here begins to sound like art school bullcrap to me. This shift happens naturally and probably happens hundreds of times during the process of a painting.

The thing is, good art has never been about "expressing yourself". Maybe a little Chesterton will help here;

"Do not enjoy yourself. Enjoy dances and theaters and joy-rides and champagne and oysters; enjoy jazz and cocktails and night-clubs if you can enjoy nothing better; enjoy bigamy and burglary and any crime in the calendar, in preference to the other alternative; but never learn to enjoy yourself."

Art has always involved expression to some extent, but the great artists - the memorable ones, the ones that will last - have always been about expressing some concept other than and greater than themselves, some ideal or obsession that drove them. In this process, these artists also expressed themselves, because IT IS IMPOSSIBLE NOT TO.

"Look at the means which a man employs, consider his motives, observe his pleasures. A man simply cannot conceal himself!" - Confucius

Self expression in art is an unavoidable organic by-product, and the more it is consciously considered and weighed, probed and analyzed, the more it is written out in manifestos, the more dull and pretentious it becomes. If you want to express yourself, just paint whatever most naturally comes to mind to paint, whatever interests you most, and try to forget yourself. My gosh, forgetting oneself - losing oneself - in artistic labor is one of the chief joys of the whole thing.

Look at icon writing. The whole battle there is to try and take the artist's personality and natural preferences out of the process, to make the image transcend his or her merely personal or cultural idiosyncrasies... and yet, these stylistic tendencies can creep in over time, in spite of everything.

If one paints or draws or sculpts (or dances or plays music, etc...) in any significant amount over a period of time, one will express oneself and will develop some kind of personal style. It can't be avoided. Not that conscious choices and intentional thought don't play any role at all... especially when one begins to feel stuck, or senses a breakthrough of some sort coming on, it can be helpful to ask questions and spend some time looking for answers. Often, some outside input (critique) can be of great help.

But on the whole, the point of art has never been the artist. The first caveman that painted a wild horse on the wall of his cave was -for the moment, anyway - not obsessed with himself, but with the challenge of depicting a wild horse in all its wild horsey-ness.

Comments

[William Luse]

It is, of course, just beautiful.

[Adam D]

It's coming along swimmingly, Tim! Thanks for showing off its stages; always something I love to see an artist do.

If you wouldn't mind addressing something about your aesthetic and style, especially with still-life paintings, that's always puzzled me, which it looks like you lean to here as well (though we won't know for sure til it's done) -- it's your corners. The painting doesn't seem to work all the way out there in a lot of your work. In fact, we often see the very ground poking through all the corners where you leave the paint thin. Even in this unfinished piece your brush strokes move in a circular direction around the still life objects, thinning to the corners leaving a vignetted effect.

This is actually a major distraction for me though I don't begrudge you it. I would appreciate what thought you have that leads to such an approach. Personally, I'm always thinking as much about how things relate to the canvas edge as much as to how they relate internally, and vignetting is an approach that reads to me as basically ignoring the edges, which pulls me out of the overall ability to be completely absorbed into the piece.

[Tim J.]

There are really two aspects to your critique, Adam; the vignette and the directional brush marks.

The vignette is a common convention in traditional still life painting, utilized somewhat by many painters from Caravaggio to Rembrandt, so I'm sure I picked it up from exposure to sources like that. In art school vignetting was roundly derided as a crutch, but I wonder how much of that was really due to it's being associated with traditional (old fashioned)techniques and subjects. Vignetting is one way to relate to the edge... partucularly in straight-on tabletop still lifes where the front edge of the table is in view. Without a *little* softening of that line as it moves toward the outer edge, it could easily lead the eye right out of the picture, as well as create a very defined rectangle at the bottom of the piece that might be problematic.

There are other ways to deal with those issues, but I will argue that the vignette is one legitimate approach. The objects in this particular still life are all basically curvelinear, so I think the presence of an unrelieved straight edge spanning the width of the painting might have been somewhat jarring in contrast.

I am, however thinking along the lines of taking my still lifes in a more contemporary direction in terms of point of view, arrangement, composition, and so forth, and that will involve more direct interaction with the edges, objects passing out of the picture plane, etc...

I confess the directional brush marks are a habit that I picked up without thinking much about it. From time to time I have used a bunched rag to texture a wet toned ground (just dabbing, not wiping) and this gives a nice textural effect without the directional marks. Anyway, I will think more about the pros and cons of the swirling effect in the future. Sorry you found it a distraction! I haven't heard that particular criticism before, but I'm sure your response is not unique.

[Adam D]

I'd be surprised if you heard it much as a criticism ... I'm pretty confident that the way it distracts myself is a personal idiosyncrasy. Your paintings are really stellar and your work is definitely an inspiration to me to keep painting, especially to revisit still life work which I haven't done in years.

Thanks for sharing so much with this painting, I'm looking forward to seeing its completion.

[John Herreid]

I like the vignette approach myself. On a kind of similar note, my favorite portrait paintings by Frans Hals are the ones that leave much of the clothing and background loose and just blocked in, with the face in greater detail. It's a method that brings the eye in.

[Tim J.]

"I'd be surprised if you heard it much as a criticism ..."

I make a distinction between a critique and a criticism, Adam. An honest response is always welcome. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.