In Tintoretto's Miracle of the Slave, there is a large central green robed and turbaned figure holding the evidence of a 'failed hammer assault', which forms the lower half of a compositional S shape - the top half being St.Mark who appears flying in and hovering above the slave as a symbol of the miracle unseen by the crowd. This green robed figure with a turban on is one half of a very clever "pictorial trick";
Read MoreCézanne and the truth of looking
Cézanne’s breakthrough came from his gradual understanding of his own focal points. Every artist usually starts to focus from about 1 ft away from their faces outwards. Cézanne seemed to notice that inside this fielder vision becomes much more unstable due to the phenomena known as saccading, the tiny movements of the eyes as they switch between focal points.
Read MoreThe Nature of the Space
In figurative art, a landscape creates a spatial distance through its very remit with the surface often used to bring it back into a closer engagement. A portrait or figure immediately creates a more human even intimate sense of space, however it can also distract as it can be “too recognisable”.
Read MoreA thought on Content
I have a strong memory of seeing Botticelli’s annunciation in the Uffizi Gallery last summer. Firstly the pleasure gained in having a long look uninterrupted by crowds, who preferred to congregate around the greatest hits of Venus and Primavera.
Read MoreCONTROL
Only the “concrete” can be controlled, never the “abstract”…
Read MoreNovels and Paintings
Although I do not see art as a language, I used to see a poem as the closest in accord to a painting. However, now I think of a novel, not a story as such, but a novel, as being closest in relation to a painting. Having said that they’re still essentially different.
Digital implications
It is important when I work digitally to not fall into a trap of trying to recreate this in paint.
Read MoreFinished or Complete
Think of a work of art in 3 layers, strata or zones even. Running from top to bottom:
The top layer is the seen one, the final outcome, the actual work of art and its content and your experience of it.
Read MoreReflections on Morris Louis
As a student Morris Louis’s work was my main inspiration or perhaps motivation: to make paintings which somehow got to his work whilst being of myself, my feelings and emotions. it was hard to do as they are so particular - being driven also by their process.
Read MoreSynthesis and Time
All art is a synthesis of our experiences of life. This synthesis can be wilfully made from observed elements as in the case of abstraction, or it can be informed in more symbiotic non-predetermined ways as in working in the abstract.
Read MoreSpeaking of time
Listening to an episode of PG Woodhouse’s “Jeeves and Wooster” on the radio the other day, I was struck by a particular turn of phrase spoke by one of the characters: “Throw your mind back to that occasion” It suddenly made me think how differently that sentiment would be said today: “do you remember?”
Read MoreCezanne at Tate Modern
The first painting that meets your eyes, when you enter the major Cézanne exhibition at Tate Modern, is “The Basket of Apples” from 1893, a notable still-life filled with the usual props: the wine bottle, the tipped-up basket laden with oranges and apples which spill out over an undulating tablecloth draped over a wooden table and a dish with a carefully stacked tower of what seem to be bread rolls or perhaps savoiardi, set to one side for balance. The immediate feature that caught my eye in this painting, was a pink line, the line of a stripe on the tablecloth; we have a tea towel at home that it reminded me of - a familiar fragment of domesticity. This line, it’s nothing special really, a soft daub of paint, a simple brushstroke…a simple coloured line.
Read MoreGetting from A to B
There is no recipe, no dependable procedure to ensure a successful painting gets made each time, or even one that could be called “complete” as painting, let alone good. Even if one could be teased out by a summarised retracing of one’s steps back from a - perceived - successful painting and an adapting of the procedures that got the work from an A starting point to B consolidation one, it is futile because this B is now part of the past and we must not repeat it. A new ‘B’ needs to be found; one which reveals a new treasure, a new discovery and because of this newness, a new route needs also to be found; a new focus on noticing what is happening must occur in the making, a new intent to make things happen, and a new set of habits that should unfold as the next painting takes shape.
RAPHAEL IN THE NATIONAL GALLERY
Raphael is such a technically advanced and skilled artist and I particularly respond to the nuances he gets in his surfaces, for example: adding marble dust to pigments to differentiate between fabric and flesh, or the way he under-paints layers using complementary or triadic colour relationships. He is a well to go to, to learn about painting.
Read MoreAnalysing expressiveness in music (and painting?)
I accompanied my youngest to a piano masterclass in Trinity Conservatoire, London. The pianist Nigel Clayton expertly deconstructed performances of students; drilling down to the minutiae of playing: the weight of the fingers, the roll of the hand, the touch, pulling at the keys “claw-like” to invoke a nuanced difference in a dynamic to a subsequent -identical three note- motif. It was mesmerising and I hung on his every word. The analogies came thick and fast - always illuminating the effect desired - the movement of Federer whilst waiting for a serve, for example. All the way through the sessions (each lasting ½ hour with a talented student), I kept wondering how this has any comparison with painting. The attention to such a high level of mechanical, emotional and, yes, technical detail that made me think. I believe there is such an accord and painting can only learn from it. There can be so much more available to the expressive reach of the painter.
The impulse of the hand
“Titian is the least mannered and consequently the most varied of artists. Mannered talents have but one bias; one usage only. They are more apt to follow the impulse of the hand that to control it. Those that are less mannered must be more varied, for they continually respond to genuine emotion” These words were written by Eugène Delacroix in 1857…
Read MoreWORKING DIGITALLY
I have been recovering from long covid over the past month. This left me feeling very run down and only able to work in shorter bursts. I decided to stop working in the studio and to concentrate on drawings - smaller things that can be worked on with an intensity without the ensuing exhaustion. I used pen on an A5 landscape book and have been making numerous studies of paintings that I either enjoy or have certain elements in them that I like:
Read MoreRODIN AT TATE MODERN
…I found myself mesmerised by the small scale works featuring pairs of figures in various interlocking poses.
Read MoreForces
The certainty coming from the look of the paint as it spreads or soaks is the immediate tell that it could be right. This is a centrifugal force. The inherent direction of the actions which apply the paint are lateral forces - this is drawing. If the summative force is a centrifugal one, the work has its truth. Decisions are lateral, results are centrifugal.
Corners in a painting contain forces: these can be: accumulative -coming out from each side; subtractive- moving in from each side: directional - following on from one side to another. Forces in a painting are perceptional and can be created by changes of detail (“visual information” available to the eye - note; not detailS as in smaller, defined parts of forms). These details induce sensations of movement. Detail can manifest itself as colour changes: hue, tone and temperature; facture changes: density, saturation and perceived or actual surface; scale changes: relational, elements, contrasts.
Brancaster Chronicles
It was nice to be asked to start the new online version of The Brancaster Chronicles. Paired with sculptor Tim Scott, artists involved will show work online for discussion at two week intervals. I am showing 4 recent paintings and 3 images of ink drawings (one of the images features 8 works on paper). Working on the inks has enabled me to work in a different way from my colour work. There is a dialogue (how could there not be?) but the challenge is a different one: working with tone and contrast. A single spot of ink (or paint) has intrigued me. Can it be a significant element in a work?
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