Archives for September 2020

Corot – The Painter in Us All –

Reflections on the Master of Land and Body – By Brian Keeler

I managed to make it to the show of the work of Jean Baptiste Camille Corot (1796-1875) at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC just before it ended in December of 2018. I drove down between the holidays at the end of December because I felt it very important to see this small collection called “Corot Women” as it presented a fine grouping of his figure painting. But also, because, I have seen the other two major shows of the French Master’s work here in America. The first Corot exhibit, “In the Light of Italy” at the NGA in 1996 was an eye opener, as it served as an introduction to plein air painting in Italy and to Corot and his followers. Then, right on the heals of this show, came the comprehensive exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum in New York at the end of 1996.

Corot was not initially a favored painter of mine, an acquired taste in other words, whose work came to be appreciated rather gradually. In the show catalog for the NGA show of women, one critic of the 19th century found Corot’s figurative painting and portraits to be lacking in cleanliness. The observer, Alfred Delvau was referring to the overuse of brown and went so far as to regard them as exhibiting a certain scurviness, which he thought most unpleasant to behold. We wonder what Delvaus’ model for clean color would be, perhaps Bougerau, Ingres, Gerome or the new impressionist. Well Corot certainly has had his detractors over the years. And I can relate to Delvau’s opinion somewhat, as I too, early on found much of his work to be lacking in verve, chroma and being perhaps too pedestrian and unimaginative.

I have since come around to be a fan for many reasons. Although, when people ask me about my influences, I often mention Corot, but with a proviso- that I admire and follow his motifs, abstraction, design, concepts and much more but- not so much his style, per se. This show at the NGA presented in three modest size rooms is an appreciable collection of portrayals of women that one could absorb nicely in a few hours or easily much less. While perusing the show, we reveled in these umber tones, monochromatic studies, and of course his silvery landscapes incorporated into the compositions. The costumes of the models, often peasants in agrarian settings, and Corot’s predilection for creating archetypes while portraying individuals was absorbed too. The idea of using the model as a point of departure to create enduring and timeless personages is part of appeal here. A passage from the catalog is apropos; “Corot’s relationship with the model, seemingly as essential trigger of his inspiration, was nonetheless ambiguous. From the 1850’s on, the notion of the model who “posed” so as to be “transposed” onto the canvas by the painter would be one of the founding ideas of modernity.” We can also see his penchant for pushing the contrast and using those dark browns in the shadows of the figures and in the facial structure, as with eye sockets and cast shadows and form shadows in general.

This NGA show was drawing me to it also because of its adding legitimacy to figure painting and painting the nude. I reveled in the official attention and scholarly ink being spilled on portrayal of the human form through this show. Corot’s figure work is supposed to comprise only about ten percent of his work, with his landscapes taking up the bulk of his ouvre.

As an artist, I am thinking of the process and interaction of model and painter. When I see these models depicted in nature I marvel at how they are incorporated into the settings. But I wonder if many were in fact done in the studio or perhaps a hybrid process. Either way these Corot nudes show a well-conceived blending of the genres of landscape and nude. There is mention of this fusing of genres in the essays for the catalog. An excerpt from Sebastien Allard’s essay is worth quoting here. “The reader in the background creates a sense of depth. Attenuating the regularity of the parallel trunks and forestalling any effect of a nude against a painted backdrop. With this composition, one of the most accomplished he ever executed, Corot attained a level of equilibrium and perfection that is a high point in the centuries-old quest to fuse the figure in its surrounding space.”

We can see why Monet revered Corot and how Monet’s nudes in dappled sunlight show a debt to the older Frenchman. I refer to Corot as a proto-impressionist, as his work anticipated the airy attention to the light of Monet. So its great to have these large figurative allegories available in the show to see how he worked these plein air studies into major works. For example, the Diana and Acteon canvas is one, and just down the museum hall in another room is a large landscape in the permanent collection of the NGA of a stream in Fontainbleau with a woman reclining while reading. It is truly a lovely piece (shown below) with the beautifully rendered trees and the woman comprising only a small portion of the canvas, to suggest the relative scale of nature to the human element. The depth and spatial relationships of the work should be appreciated too. And that glowing warm light, a palpable feeling for a French summer is experienced through this painting. Nicely overlapping major forms, like the masses of tree foliage lead us back into the atmospheric sfumato of the distance.

These women are lovely evocations of the mundane and the archetypal as he often makes allusions to classical mythology. The mundane aspect comes in to play in these everyday representations of the studio. Variations on a woman at an easel with a mandolin offer a very matter of fact portrayal of the artist’s studio. Done without sentimentality or embellishment they show matter of fact records done without any exaggerated color. In other words, they employ his characteristic limited palette of umbers. But they do however offer an allusion of sorts to suggest the nature of music and painting and the relationships and corollaries between the two.

Visiting the actual paintings in the museum we can love the lush paint quality in many of these figures, clothed or nude, for his brushwork and tactile nature of the paint does draw our attention – as we are enticed to look at paint for its own sake. This is to say, that the thick impasto passages or these thin washes in backgrounds can be appreciated for the technique and beauty of paint regardless of the subject depicted. For example his modeling on the nudes can be observed to be comprised of subtle brushstrokes that are left to be unblended. I frequently take the time to sketch while I am visiting museums as it allows time to take in so much more than a cursory pass through will afford.

I have made Corot’s plein air painting in Italy a source for my own motifs for many years. In the catalog for the Met show there are maps included that showed where these landscape subjects were located. So, over the years, I’ve managed to paint at the same locations as Corot used for quite a few of his canvases in the early nineteenth century. Corot’s painting of the Tiber Island in Rome titled the “Island of San Bartolomeo” is one of those exquisite little masterworks that shows a simplified geometric design and light, yet is an honest record of the scene. I have painted this view as well, although the exact same vantage that Corot used is no longer available. Still this bridge, Ponte Fabricio dating from 63 BC and the medieval buildings on the island have changed little. Therefore they offer a timeless sort of motif.

Corot’s little brushy studies of the Roman Campania and scenes in Rome, like oil sketches of the Roman Forum and other buildings have long appealed to me, and many others. The honesty and directness of the work is part of the appeal and the unadorned impressions of fleeting light are part of the ingredients that allure us. There is a little study in the Frick Museum in New York of the Arch of Constantine in Rome that appears so simple and brushy, yet exhibits a sophisticated design that betrays its apparent slapdash nature.

Another Corot Motif that I sought out after hearing from Jack Beal, the late American painter who I was taking a workshop with, told an animated account of his visiting the bridge, Ponte Augusto that Corot had painted also. Beal, while visiting the site in Italy, became livid at the incursion of factories in this upper Tiber valley over the centuries and his wrath coincided with an earthquake in this Umbrian locale. There are two paintings by Corot of this subject that have become rather iconic and emblematic to painters. Their significance is in the fact that there is a small on-site plein air of the subject and large studio canvas. They show the importance and relevance of plein air studies to his ambitious allegories.

I like Corot’s work too in part because he is not exactly a household name, although for artists and historians his work cannot be overstated in terms of significance. For example, in the NY Times review of the Met show in 1996 there is a quote form Monet included. Monet said, “There is only one master here: Corot. We are nothing compared to him, nothing.” So we get the exalted nature that Corot was regarded with to the Impressionists and many others. In the accompanying text (wall labels) and catalog essays there is much credit given to Corot in influencing modernist or premodern painters like Cezanne, Braque, Picasso and Manet. We can especially see the influence of Corot on modern figure painters like 20th century artist, Balthus. Corot’s influence is also obvious in the umber toned still lifes of Braque and in the expressions and deep modeling and even the eyes of Picasso’s female portraits.

We can see Corot admiring his predecessors, as we are in turn, being inspired by him. For example we are directed to see how some of the poses the women assume in his paintings were derived from artists like, Titian, Ingres and Leonardo.

When I visit museums and shows like these it is always fun to find avenues of the relation and relevance. Painting the figure and portrait has been a part of my career since art school but also like Corot, a lesser-known aspect of my work. His career of over fifty years allowed him to explore these themes while growing and expanding, yet maintaining a vision and pursuit of his aesthetic. So seeing an exalted artist like Corot interpret myth, landscape, the nude and genre scenes offers a sort of validation and inspiration at the same time. He is involved in the same challenges and issues that all representational painters grapple with.

BIRTH OF A PAINTING

In the hope of being helpful to those who wonder how a painting develops from start to finish, I would like to share the backstory on this little painting and some helpful resources that played a significant role in its development. 

As a former illustrator, each job for a magazine started with a story. When reading an editor’s manuscript, I answered the questions who, what, when, where, why and how to determine what visual elements were needed to illustrate the written story. There are notable and objective pieces in this planning puzzle that define the process. When I carry this process into my gallery painting, I create better paintings. I am a painter of people and their stories. The story is key.

FINDING THE STORY

Pursuing Grace was inspired in the spring of 2018 by a visit my wife, Ellen, and I made to several historic Spanish churches along the High Road to Taos, New Mexico. During our stop at the Las Trampas Church, we met a young man from Argentina who was on a spiritual pilgrimage to these historic Spanish churches. It was during our encounter with this young man that this painting’s story was conceived in my mind. The story that was developing in my mind was of a Latina woman on a spiritual pilgrimage in a historical Spanish church setting. In this case the story and the setting image came together almost simultaneously. The right model for this setting was my next priority.

THE PHOTO REFERENCE

We came home from the trip on the High Road to Taos with a wonderful collection of photos of old Spanish churches to choose from. In early 2019 we were on a day-visit to a community in Mexico. Mid morning we met an expressive Mexican woman selling table cloths and jewelry. As we walked near her she engaged my wife in her desire to sell her products. I wasn’t on a mission that day to find a model for my painting story, but, as an artist, I am constantly noticing people who would be great painting subjects. You might call this my artist’s obsession. This moment was no exception. I saw in her features a common beauty, not glamour, but a universal attractiveness. My mind went directly to the painting I was planning. This was a moment not to waste. Several yards away from the encounter with this woman, I stopped to persuade my wife to go back and support me in my attempt to ask permission to take photos of her. We agreed to go with my instincts.

My wife and I went back and introduced ourselves to the shopkeepers, Maria (not her real name) and her husband. It took humble effort, but after showing photos of some of my work and explaining my intentions, Maria and her husband switched from skeptical resistance to gracious permission. 

With only my iPhone to work with, Maria modeled for me on the side of the street next to her shop. Without any special props, I focused on designing the natural light and shadow shapes created by her gesture and facial expressions. Not wanting to overstay our welcome, photos were taken from every perspective in about 15 minutes.  When we finished, Maria kindly and proudly introduced us to her grandparents who were working with her that day. We purchase one of her tablecloths and paid her generously for her time. Maria is the model for Pursuing Grace and two other paintings in the series: Embraced By The Light and Found By Grace. All three paintings have sold.

THE COMPOSITION AND DESIGN 

Once the story is in place and the photo references are secured, I develop the composition and design of the painting. Composition consists of proportioning the different elements within the painting’s desired format. In this case, the painting format is 12×9. Design is a visual plan to tell the story effectively through the dominant element and subordinate elements, placement, angles, edges and values. In addition to the negative shapes of sky and areas around the figure in my painting, there are two distinct images in Pursuing Grace: the woman in the foreground and the church silhouette in the background. 

One of my favorite paintings is the one shown above by Eugène Burnand 1850-1921, a Swiss painter and illustrator from Moudon, Switzerland. It has been my long-standing goal to create a painting that would emulate the motion, light, spirit, and simple beauty of this painting. So I embraced this opportunity! This painting was my inspiration for the design of Pursuing Grace. I wanted to recreate its special qualities, including the spiritual determination of Peter and John. 

INFLUENCIAL ARTISTS IN MY PAINTING STYLE

The personal encouragement of three artists is represented in this and other paintings of mine. Richard Whitney, an American painter from Vermont, awakened me to the poetic beauty of edges and silhouettes. In his book, Painting the Visual Impression, he elaborates on edges: soft, sharp, lost and found. Artists Bonita Roberts and Carolyn Anderson pushed me over the edge in the subject of beautiful edges with their impressionistic approach to painting. In Pursuing Grace, the figure’s edges and the silhouette of Las Trampas church are a direct response to the teaching and encouragement of these three wonderful artists. 

IN CONCLUSION

Pursuing Grace sold at the Mountain Oyster Club Contemporary Western Art Show on November 24, 2019. Knowing that several collectors put their name in the hat to buy the painting was encouraging. Hearing artists and collectors convey its beauty to me was confirming. It is always my goal to paint a better picture with a meaningful story. For me, this painting suggests there is joyful progress in that direction. 

NOTE: In 2019 my wife and I had the opportunity to visit Maria and her family again and give her a print of Pursuing Grace.

ARTIST RESOURSES

Fine Artists To Study: Richard Whitney, Bonita Roberts, and Carolyn Anderson.

Illustrators To Study: Howard Pyle, Harvey Dunn, and N. C. Wyeth.

Painting The Visual Impression by Richard Whitney

Vincent Van Gogh in the city of Arles, David Hockney in California, and Claude Monet’s extensive working excursions to the French and Italian Riviera are just a few examples of many artists who, let’s face it, were in desperate need for more sun.  Van Gogh’s moody self-portraits, dark landscapes with barren or lamenting trees and paintings of furrowed faces of poverty stricken, sickly coalminers in Belgium, transmuted into a sunny and a color-saturated spectacle of exaltation during his time in the Provence.

If anything is obvious, it is that light is fundamental to painters.  It can be utilized to elicit mood and atmosphere, communicate symbolism, or it can draw attention to certain elements and tease out form.  A painter in the Southwest has spectacularly sublime scenery and fantastic qualities of light at his or her disposal.  California hills and vineyards with many warm-toned sunsets are always deliciously mouthwatering, both for the painter and the viewer.  Artists located in Arizona can draw endlessly upon the phenomenal crimson and rusty red rocks, thanks to an abundance of sun-drenched days.  The ideal of painting magically illuminated mountains, trees or foliage on a Mediterranean roof top terrace appeals greatly to me but less exotically, I am simply a muddy painter from a cloud-cast and rainy country called The Netherlands, or Holland as it is better known.

Growing up in the most southeastern tip of Holland in the province of Limburg, neatly sandwiched between Germany and Belgium, I had never seen clogs, let alone worn them, nor had I come across rows of tulips or Delft pottery for which my country is known.  Tucked away from the famed museums of Amsterdam with works by masters such as Jacob van Ruisdael, Johannes Vermeer and Rembrandt, Limburg was and still is understated in the celebration of its local painters and art.  At the foot of the Ardennes, with its rugged terrain, Limburg is a tapestry of picturesque rolling valleys, villages with half-timbered houses and meandering brooks; quite the contrast from the coin-flat polders (low-lying tracts of water embanked by dikes) of the North.  As a child, my parents would regularly take me to play in the sandy dunes and run through heather-laced fields, mostly under ominous skies and never without a raincoat.  At that time, and for a long time after, I was hardly aware of the many local painters in our area who had painted these landscapes and surrounding towns, in all weather, in times past.

Some 25 years ago, I asked my mother about a painting of a local, dimly lit woodland with old trailers, which had been somewhat neglectfully hanging in our basement, for years.  It was made with deep blues, dark browns, and ochre, vigorously applied with a wide-bristled brush in a seeming chaos of motion, with a loose yet elegantly determined finish.  ‘It is by my uncle Josef, she replied casually.  ‘Why did he paint?’, I asked, puzzled by this vague notion of an artist, unfamiliar to the pragmatic Dutch mindset with which the past three generations were brought up.  ‘That’s what he liked to do, just like your uncle Wiel’, she said.  I then recalled standing in my uncle’s dark living room, which doubled as an artist studio.  His attire consisting of brown pants with old black shoes, a brown shirt underneath a brown apron against his olive skin, black curly hair and near black eyes.  He could hardly be seen holding his brush in that studio.  It turned out that many of my mother’s immediate and extensive family were professional artists, yet art was mostly considered an amateur or hobbyist pastime; a modest and impractical one.  One could not earn one’s bread with selling art, is what was always said.  As for myself, coming out as an artist was a gradual and lengthy process, mostly due to my attempts to mitigate the doubtful reservation of my practical-minded fellow countrymen, who still cannot come to terms with the fact that one can be a professional artist without completing an art academy. 

Like Van Gogh and Monet, I too left behind the cold, dark and damp conditions of my native soil to find this elusive source of light called the sun.  At 23, I moved to East Africa and a few years later lived in The Middle East and Southeast Asia, soaking up as many UV’s as my alabaster skin and pale canvas could handle.  Finally, I was painting those blue skies, illuminated rock formations, white towns in Portugal and the bright colors of sun-kissed exotic flora on the tropical Ryukyu Islands of Japan, only to fall back in love, once more, with the gloomy towering clouds found abundantly in the landscape paintings of the Dutch Golden Age.  Works by Louis Apol or Jan Van Goyen, to name just two, are totally irresistible to me, again.  The unsaturated color scheme resulting from a severe lack of light tickles my fancy.

There is nothing quite like a melancholic and lonely cold Winter-scene, with people and cattle huddled together and rows of solemn trees lined up like demure dominos.  Perhaps, a homecoming of early artistic influences is finding its way back into my sentiment and my work, after 20 years of transoceanic peregrinations.  I am continuously drawn to those satisfyingly messy brown greens and roasted umbers.  Admittedly, my palette has since been nonchalantly awash with muddy mixes, especially when painting those broody melancholic Dutch landscapes.

Perhaps it is no coincidence that my inability to paint thematically or with one identity should have coincided with my expatriate lifestyle.  Of course, as a born Dutch person, I will always long for those sunny, warm locations but I am also recognizing that one’s first influences are important in understanding and reconnecting with the fundament of one’s artistic soul or source.  So, I am now sitting here in my studio in Holland waiting for those drawn-out overcast days, which have not come in months.  It has been too darn sunny for too long!