THE PROBLEMS WITH PAINT

I have commented recently about paintings framed under glass. The usual reason is because of the fragility of the paint surface.  (In the case of Francis Bacon it was because of the distancing/dislocating/ ambiguities caused by reflections which he liked.)

In a recent show at the Laing there were paintings in oils under glass and there were two big acrylics likewise.That by Hockney and the similar sized work by Michael Andrews. Both were painted in the last 50 years and it must be presumed that they are under glass because they are fragile.One of the problems with acrylics has been their tendency towards softening and tackiness in a warm environment.Thus they are likely to acquire embedded dirt.Historically acrylics have been something of a problem to varnish. The problem at first was compounded by  the poor quality of the varnish and by the fact that it is hard to discriminate between varnish and the paint-both having a similar vehicle.

To be fair I must say that there have been similar problems with oils where the components of the varnish may well be similar to the components of the binder/vehicle used in the painting.This makes restoring Old Master paintings a problem which requires considerable sensitivity.It has lead to controversy in many countries. The sins of restorers have been unending.The damage done in the past was extraordinary. Interfering with and experimenting on masterpieces has historically been, not exactly the norm but extremely common well into the C20.There is something about human nature which leads many to be unable to leave well alone. It happens in all areas of human activity-I'm thinking of fads in surgery: it certainly happens in the fine arts.

I suspect that the varnishes for acrylics have improved considerably over the years. Some can now be removed with mineral spirits-different from the binder so hopefully leading to less destructive interventions.

I have painted in acrylics myself but they are a mixed blessing for a landscape painter.Even in mild weather it is difficult to keep the painting from drying out.You can add retarder,you can spray your palette with water but the paint still hardens quickly.The pleasure of painting wet in wet is effectively denied to the artist working with acrylics.

Sculptured Mist

Constable, oil on paper,5 Sept 1822

Clouds are."... definite and very beautiful forms of sculptured mist..." Those are Ruskin's inimitable words from The Elements of Drawing.(His very interesting book is easily available in paperback or can be downloaded from Project Gutenberg.) For a long time I have been wanting to improve my own painting of clouds. They are so important in landscapes, and, as Constable said, the sky is the chief organ of sentiment in a landscape. Which means I believe, that it sets the mood of a painting. Ruskin held the well-founded believed that artists tend to fall into two groups when it comes to the painting of clouds.

"....ordinary artists have always fallen into one of two faults: either, in rounding the clouds, they make them as solid and hard-edged as a heap of stones tied up in a sack, or they represent them not as rounded at all, but as vague wreaths of mist or flat lights in the sky...."

 My own work has  tended towards the heap of stones tied up in a sack variety.I am in good company. At least I understood that clouds are three dimensional objects. I do not agree with Ruskin entirely: some clouds  appear only as wraith like forms and we cannot really assess their three dimensionality.Not all are like those I saw recently at Craster, where, looking to the south the overlapping layers of cloud streets were lit in a harsh light-tending towards monochrome effects producing chiaroscuro indeed.

The subject of clouds in art is the theme of John Constable's Skies: A Fusion of Art and Science (1999) by  John E Thornes who at the time of writing was a professor at Birmingham University.One of its many virtues lies in a meteorologist's expertise about weather,light and the sky.There is a section of historical analysis of the work of great painters who made clouds a feature of their art.This includes artists of the C17 such as Poussin, Claude,Rubens,the Dutchmen,and others such as Giovanni Bellini and Gainsborough.

Thornes has  studied the weather records for the time as made by observers such as, most notably, Luke Howard, and made estimates as to how much Constable's sketches tally with what is found in these records .He also looks at the weather records with the aim of helping to date those of Constable's sketches which don't have a complete autograph date. Constable sometimes only gave the day of the month and not the year. Thornes looks at the records and compares them with Constable's own annotations thus  attempting, fairly persuasively, to date the undated-a question basically of deciding between 1821 and 1822.

Thornes' criticisms of Constable are very interesting from the scientific point of view. He suggests that the sky in the delightfully fresh Wivenhoe Park seems to rear up behind the landscape. This may be the case but a painting has factors which meteorologists may not appreciate.There is such a thing as the picture plane.In another instance he remarks that the sky in Gainsborough's Mr and Mrs Andrews is suggestive of a smoke from a bonfire, and you can see what he is getting at. Constable and Gainsborough were doing what they could in the circumstances of their time, they were making and matching.

He is not the first to point out that the records in the Constable sketches were not transferred to his major works.So that the changing sky in Landscape : Noon which we know as The  Haywain is something which Constable constructed from memory. He wants some meteorological drama and gets it by composing a cloud scene.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough to any artist--or art historian interested in the subject of clouds in general or Constable in particular.

Pochades-or not

Craster Concrete IV

This is a pochade. It fits my definition of the term  because it is a small painting.In art history you particularly come across the term pochade with reference to those little panels which Seurat painted in connection with the Bathers and the Grande Jatte. Monet uses he term pochade in his letters of the 1870s and 1880s.His idea of a pochade is always a painting larger than a Seurat panel.According to John House*, Monet's pochades can measure as much as 73X92 cms in the case of the very well known painting of La Grenouillère in the National Gallery, London.Perhaps this is what Monet would have called a large pochade-he does use the term.And he also uses the term esquisse-almost interchangeably.But it jars considerably when I see someone referring to pochades by Constable-with reference to the same-size sketches for his six-footers.But this is what you find on the very inadequate entry on Wikipedia. 

No, the word is French and must relate to poche=pocket. The work is small, so it could fit in your pocket.

There is a group on Flickr devoted to pochades and there you can see works by Tadeusz Deregowski who does tiny pochades which must be about the size of a hand.He makes an individual box for each work.You can see his website here.They are really enjoyable and very freely painted.A good pochade will be small but these do not look like small paintings.

*Monet: Nature into Art"by John House;Yale,1986. See especially chapter 6.

See For Yourself

Study of Rocks at Glenfinlas: John Ruskin

The art shelves of our public libraries are laden with  how-to-do-it books which are there to enthuse the amateur artist. In the UK, typically they deal with watercolour painting. This is the medium with which so many  beginners choose to begin their struggles. It may not be a wise choice because it is a very difficult medium to handle successfully.More tractable media such as oil or acrylic are seen as more expensive or more "advanced". It is also more awkward to transport oil paintings to and from class.I expect that these books are aimed at the evening class market and the timid neophyte.They typically have titles similar to the following: Landscape in Half an Hour, or Landcape Free and Easy-I made those up. Landscape painting is not easy and never was, nor will be:not for Cotman,Cézanne,or Constable.You might  think that  the 10.000 hour rule would be more to the point here.If anyone offers to teach you the secrets of creating art be very wary. Tricks of the trade,if they exist, will only help you to imitate someone else.If you must imitate someone, as one does a little when starting out, then pick someone who produced good work. (it is unlikely that they will have written a how-to-do-it manual.)

I have looked at a few how-to-do-it books recently and my rough conclusion is that you will get somewhat better quality from an American author than an English one. Also, you are likely to find that if this author is established he probably (They are frequently he) trained as an illustrator and cannot escape his training.That is not a recommendation.

The technical side of painting is not excessively complicated.There is much information-and disinformation, available on the web if you need to know how to prepare for painting.You might want something which explained colour mixing and I would hope that any text would say something about at least one kind of colour system such as Munsell. It is very difficult describing and talking about colour but artists at any level should have some ability to make reasoned descriptions of the colours and the contrasts  they see.

The work illustrated in these texts is usually mediocre in the extreme.I don't think that I have seen one which I really liked.If you want to copy someone else's schemata look at the acknowledged masters and start from there.Copying has its place. The process of observation and recording is complex.We have our own idea even if we cannot execute it.This can be modified by study of other artists and of course by our own observation.If you must copy, then choose an artist of quality.But you will make no progress without putting in time to observe and literally, see for yourself.

So, are there any books which I would recommend? You could do worse than start at the very beginning with Ruskin's The Elements of Drawing.Ruskin had a lot more imagination than most who teach beginners in watercolour.His exercises are written in a friendly and thoughtfully practical manner which show that he had given time to thinking about the way to begin and been able to visualise someone starting out.He tells you how to set up a simple scene to draw and begin from there.But be warned,it isn't something you can pickup overnight.Nevertheless,as he says,it is easier to learn than piano playing. You can get a free copy of this book from Project Gutenberg  or an exceedingly cheap text for Kindle. If buying the book I would recommend the Dover reprint with introduction by Lawrence Campbell.

Symbolist Landscape

To Edinburgh with an old friend to see the exhibition of Symbolist Landscape painting at the National Gallery which ends 13 Oct 2012.  Edinburgh is where you go to see small, high quality and thoughtful exhibitions. I would go a long way to see a Hodler landscape - and there are two in this show: two Hammershøis and various other intensly interesting Scandinavian works. There were also an Angrand and a major Signac.There is a good Signac in Glasgow by the way. This show is built around some choice loans  The most obvious is the Vision after the Sermon, the daddy of all symbolist landscapes.It will be shown at all three venues, which include Amsterdam and Helsinki. Edinburgh has two other Gauguins - one of them in this show.

 So what is symbolist landscape painting? It is painting which seems to convey a meaning other than pure description - if there ever was such a thing.It may be concerned with mood - the state of the soul for example. It follows that to a post-romantic sensibility almost any landscape painting may qualify.The Gauguin blends both in a highly decorative way (he would not have refused the term). Human beings often do not figure largely in these works but their presence may be hinted at; for example by a light behind a curtain (Le Sidaner) In this exhibition Ring's painting

Lundbye's Bench at Lake Arresø shows a wooden seat under a tree - a seat frequented by a major landscapist. Van Gogh would have understood the symbolism - the empty chair-shades of Dickens/Fildes etc. But the subject is portrayed in an extremely naturalistic way and the symbolism is underplayed.That the idea of symbolist landscape can accomodate (if it can) Ring and Maurice Denis just shows how fluid a concept it is.  It is one of the finest depictions of winter light that I know - the harsh clear light, possibly of March. It is a small jewel and in exquisite condition. Needless to say the Ordrupgaard website claims Ring, entirely reasonably, as a master of realism....which only goes to show that classification of paintings is in the mind of the beholder. Quite few of these works will be familiar from standard works on Scandinavian art. Prince Eugen's painting must be well travelled. So too the Jansson. You have to wonder how much the existence of an illustration predicts the choice of a work for exhibition - and/or the existence of appropriate custom made cases for transport.

Matisse's lumbering Luxe, Calme et Volupté is illustrated in the catalogue (not the slightest chance of it going on tour). As a subject it is no more radical than a work by Puvis, by whom there was one work present. I still find it strange that Puvis was so important to progressive artists of the 80s and 90s but that is the case.

 There were many interesting groupings - a Whistler next to the Angrand next to the Signac in one room.This is because of the then contemporary fad of giving or grouping works with musical titles or associations. In another a Munch next to the Jansson next to a Hodler.And speaking of Jansson, when will we have an exhibition here? Paris  had one in 1999 and the Musée d'Orsay acquired their Jansson in 2000.

The miserable grey green in the main hall - sorry, the Royal Bank of Scotland Room-may have harmonised with the paintings such as Prince Eugen's treescape but only deadened it.

The serene and fastidious  solemnity of Hammershøi's painting of the  Amalienborg certainly had a dreamy quality.

One treasure was the group of small temperas by Čiurlionis. These were abstracted designs based on memories of travel - including various lights seen and the sparks which steam trains emit from their fireboxes. I liked them very much for their spontaneity. I'm not sure if I would like his bigger, more elaborate works so much.Those seem to anticipate aspects of futurism and art deco in some ways but are themselves sui generis.What a pity they are not shown in the catalogue.You can see them here -though the colour seems a little exaggerated.

Regarding Hodler we must congratulate Edinburgh on being able to produce an example for this  exhibition. I don't think there are any Hodlers in Helsinki or Amsterdam.The acquisition of this one for Edinburgh must be due to the imagination of Douglas Hall, the founder keeper of the SNGMA. Just to check things out I looked at the Tate website and of course they do not have a Hodler. Indeed the SNGMA website makes the reasonable claim that it is almost certainly the only Hodler in the UK. Nor does Tate have a Signac either.The Signac landscape at the National Gallery is a loan. A black mark for Rothenstein/Reid/Bowness era. So too for Serota who has been around a long time though working within Thatcherite budgets. Nowadays a Hodler  would be placed with the National Gallery in London. Very few major galleries can get one but there are three Hodlers in the Musée d'Orsay and the Tate never really got started.No Angrand in the National Gallery or Tate.