Starr Cummin Bright

True to Nature: Open-Air Painting in Europe, 1780–1870

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André Giroux’s Santa Trinità dei Monti in the Snow

Currently the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. is hosting a very interesting show of plein air paintings. The show consists of 90 paintings by about 70 different artists, all painting between 1780 and 1870. I found this show particularly appealing because I could study some very good paintings, as well as directly compare different styles and techniques. As a bonus, I discovered two examples where different artists painted the same scene, though not at the same time.

Two almost universal techniques in this collection were the starting of the painting with a pencil drawing, something one sees more with watercolor, and a thin application of purple paint for distant mountains.

In contrast to the widespread difficulty many of the artists had with trees and clouds, one Constable cloud study demonstrates a successful technique for handling clouds. He used a fairly stiff brush with minimal paint, only loading up the brush enough to create a few highlights. This gives the clouds a soft-edged feeling.

Clouds are water vapor which is least dense along the cloud edge, where there is a temperature boundary and, thus, a condensation boundary. What we see as a cloud is the reflection of light off the water droplets. I recognized that a similar technique which was applied to trees, or more specifically their foliage, was also successful, but for a different reason. Leaves themselves have a hard edge, but as a mass there is no continuous line at their edge. Instead, foliage edge is a series of short little lines. The similarity of foliage with clouds is the variation of the density of the mass.

The three outstanding gems in the show were Constable’s cloud study, Augustus Egg’s courtyard painting – because of its handling of leaves – and André Giroux’s Santa Trinità dei Monti in the Snow. In the latter painting Giroux catches the light’s effect on the rooftop snow. He must’ve either been very lucky and have already started the painting before it snowed, or done a very good, quick study drawing, because the moment captured had to have been very fleeting. Either way, Santa Trinità dei Monti in the Snow is the best of these top three paintings.

Turner at the Mystic Seaport Museum

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Venice: San Giorgio Maggiore – Early Morning,” 1819

At the Mystic Seaport Museum are some 90 of Turner’s watercolors from the Tate in London. Chronologically, the paintings run from the mid 1790’s to the 1840’s. Given the chronological span of the show, it seemed a great opportunity to see how his style evolved over the years.

While I didn’t see what I expected, I found this a rare chance to study Turner’s technique. The show starts in the mid 1790’s with very realistic watercolors which would be instantly recognizable as British, from the late 1700’s. Turner soon evolved into a looser style, painting mostly landscapes or seascapes. Once he hit his stride, he really didn’t change very much. In fact there two paintings 30 years apart which are virtually identical, except for their size. Throughout, he used only three colors – blue, red, yellow – and did not mix them, relying on tonality for strength.

Compositionally, he stuck with a limited number of formulas.  Landscapes were mostly composed of tonal wedges used to create a sense of depth. A sprinkling of vertical masses, as in canyons or alleys, appeared occasionally. A sweeping half circle reminiscent of the letter C or its mirror image was used compositionally in both land and seascapes. *(See below.) Seascapes also made use of a horizontal composition. Whatever the composition, tonality was always a touch stone.

I should mention here an under-appreciated aspect of Turner – he derived a steady income as an illustrator. Only a few of his watercolor illustrations made the show. They have a strong connection compositionally and tonally with the larger paintings in the show. The difference in the illustrations is their size (book sized) and having some real, linear detail worked in. I was left wondering whether his work as an illustrator gave him such a commanding sense of tonality. Remember the adage – color gets the credit but tone does that work. Engraved illustrations were printed with the same black ink as the type in the book, so tonality was of the utmost importance.

Although I did not find the stylist progression I had expected, this extensive selection brought home both Turner’s mastery of tone and his limited, but strong use of color. The connection between the watercolors shown and the great canvases that spring to mind when we think of Turner is threefold – tonality, limited, but clear color, and thin washes of those colors.

 

Coffee Shop Dog

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There is an expectancy in dogs who are left outside a shop that their owner will return imminently, and, hopefully, with a treat.  No matter where we travel we see examples of these patient dogs, especially outside coffee shops.  Our daughter’s dog may look like a Labrador, but she is really a mix breed who came from the streets of Suesca, Columbia.

 

She is lithe, fast in her lope and good-natured, though like all the models in the Bright family, she becomes a little recalcitrant about posing after a while.

A Hound’s Feet

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A comment on a recent Facebook post reminded Clayton about the sculpture he did of Ben Hardaway. Happy Thought was Ben’s favorite horse at the time, however, Ben thought that he looked a little big for her. Instead, Ben chose to be on Rhythm for the sculpture Clayton did with five of his favorite hounds.

While Clayton was working on the hound part of the sculpture he had a conversation with Ben about hounds’ feet. Clayton commented on my preference for a hound with a foot more like that of a fox or greyhound. He felt their longer foot seemed better suited to loping and running, than the more cat-footed hound preferred by so many huntsmen.  Ben, who must have had north of 60 couples at the time, pulled from the kennel a hound which was very nondescript in every way except its feet. He declared the hound had the best feet in the pack.  A fox or a greyhound would have been proud.

 

Animals’ Encounters with Sculptures

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Clayton installed his bronze sculpture, Great Blue, in October.  Within two weeks the family spotted another heron nearby.  The live heron seems to like its new friend – no threat – just another presence at the pond.

We are intrigued by how live animals of the same species respond to Clayton’s sculptures.  Dogs sniffing the rear ends of  A Couple of Hounds, horses stopping stock still when they realize the Equestrienne is in front of them and not moving, and the list goes on.  Herons aren’t particularly social until mating season, and by now the live heron would have recognized this sculpture wasn’t moving, but seems to be happy to have an inert friend.

A group show of mutual admirers

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Four outstanding artists who have been friends for years and who have deep respect for each other decide to get together.  What could be a better show than that!  Clayton and Doug have collaborated on furniture numerous times.  Clayton gave his wife Starr a set of Pat’s ceramic bowls for Christmas one year and they have been in constant use since then.  Starr has purchased numerous pieces of Courtney’s jewelry over time and often citing, “It’s not just a bird; it’s a Carolina Wren!”

This will be a show for all people of various tastes.  We hope to see you at Kinloch Woodworking on the evening of Friday the 18th or Saturday the 19th.

 

Jamie Wyeth’s paintings of Phyllis –A Review

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    Phyllis Mills Wyeth: A Celebration at the Brandywine River Museum is a personal memorial to a long and close relationship. The paintings in this show demonstrate Jamie Wyeth’s command of portraiture, be it human, canine, equine or fowl, as well as his dexterity with paint.

What I find most intriguing about Jamie’s paintings is the amount of information that he can leave out without harming the purpose of the painting. At times he can be so parsimonious with his paint you would think he was a chef holding back on the salt, allowing the ingredients to speak for themselves. However, as Stealing Holly from the Irénées proves, if he needs the paint he is not afraid to use it.

Editing to clarify is not just the preserve of the publishing industry. It has a long history in the visual arts as well – Chinese sumi-e paintings and more recent Japanese wood block prints are good examples.  I have always believed their visual editing was the reason for these Asian arts popularity in the West during the late 19th century. They were a refreshment for the senses compared to that period’s academic glitter.

Back to Jamie’s portraits; spend some with them. Thirty minutes to an hour out of your year won’t be missed but the gain will be lasting. Don’t just look at them, look into them.

Stealing Holly from the Irénées

 

Turner and Constable: The Inhabited Landscape at The Clark Art Institute

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Turner

I never know what part of a show is going to resonate with me. In this case it was not really the show itself but a comparison between Turner’s painting, Rockets and Blue Lights, which is in the show and several Winslow Homer paintings in the museum’s permanent collection. The paintings are all ocean scenes with waves crashing on a beach.

As an artist who has always appreciated Homer, I was surprised how flat and stylized his waves are when compared with Turner’s energy packed monsters. Turner’s personalized painting style, despite looking very chaotic at first glance, really does convey the strength of nature. The more I investigated the Turner painting, the more powerful it became. Turner really gets to the soul of nature, whereas Homer is showing us what it looks like.

The show itself had quite a few Constable oil studies as well as drawings, all of which were worth seeing. Turner was not as well represented. Most numerous were his small, tight, watercolors done as illustrations for various publications – not at all what one thinks of in connection with Turner, but I always appreciate being reminded of all someone’s facets. Rockets and Blue Lights was Turner’s only large canvas.

There were two other, smaller, oil paintings. One was a beach scene in Turner’s exuberant style, while the other, a bridge, was in his tight illustration style. These two show the advantage of learning a skill and then applying it where one wants. The show included numerous watercolors that were not in his tight, illustration style, but none that gave off much in the way of energy.

Rockets and Blue Lights rewarded me for taking the time to stand in front of it. No ocean ever looked like what Turner painted, however, it did feel like nature displaying all its might. In the painting Turner’s figures are, both literally and figuratively, almost engulfed by the raging sea. The primary function of figures in a landscape painting is to give scale and Turner’s figures are a prime example of this.

What Do Farmers & Artists Have in Common?

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What do a farmer and an artist have in common?

Despite the appearance of an idyllic life, we both put in long and strange hours. Yesterday at 4:30 a.m., I left for The Clark Art Institute in Massachusetts to catch their show Turner and Constable: The Inhabited Landscape. (More on that in another post.) This morning, our neighbor, Jamie, started out at the same hour to spread chicken manure on our hay field.

Jamie grows organic grain for an organic chicken farm from which he collects the manure for spreading on the fields to keep them productive. The spreading had to be finished before the field started to thaw in morning sun and we were expecting the first of a number of warm days. Once the field starts to thaw, the hillsides become too slippery for the tractor.

The hay from the field goes to mushroom growers who compost it into growing medium for mushrooms. We use spent mushroom soil to mulch our gardens, both flower and vegetable.

Such are the products of our neighborhood and the cycle of their production. Lucky are we who do what we enjoy, despite the sometimes strange hours.

Gainsborough Family Album; A Review

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(detail)

The benefit of looking at an unfinished painting is that one can get a peak into the mind the painter, in this case Gainsborough at the Princeton University Art Museum. Clearly visible is how he worked up a painting, starting with sketching in his composition on the canvas.

The show, Gainsborough Family Album, is just that – portraits of his extended family. There are numerous unfinished works because with family members, unlike commissions, Gainsborough could take a painting only as far as he wanted or maybe as far as he had time to. In any case, these paintings provide a great opportunity to gain an understanding of his approach to painting.

With a few lines on the canvas he would first note the composition, including a careful outline of face with placement of the eyes and nose. From that point he seems to have concentrated on the face only, adding hair and clothing notations as he felt necessary to keep the face from becoming isolated. His edges and turning points are soft bringing to mind Leonardo da Vinci. The soft gray of the ground supplies the shadows shaping the face. The ground’s tonality is not far from that of the light masses of the face. The whole painting is done with great economy of both paint and detail. The beauty is that, despite the softness of his faces, the portraits carry great character.

According to the catalog, one of the reoccurring complaints about Gainsborough’s portraits in his day was the lack of finish that he gave the sitters’ garments. In my view, had Gainsborough used a more academic finish on the clothes, they would have reminded me of an ocean roller crashing around a rock on the beach: a lot of action surrounding an immovable object. Leaving the clothes to softly flow around the face like a gently rising tide works well – unobtrusive, but present. In the portraits where he gave the garments more development, he also further developed the face, which kept both in harmony.

You can almost see Gainsborough thinking as he paints – working out new ideas and never feeling compelled to complete the painting.

Parking near the Princeton University Art Museum may be a challenge but that is a small price to pay for this show. This excellent show runs through June 9th.

J. Clayton Bright

What a Gift! by J. Clayton Bright

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At this time of year there are a lot of comments on presents. What’s fun about presents is receiving something you didn’t know you would enjoy, but once you have it, you do quite enjoy it. That concept also holds true at a good museum show. The present, in this case, is the discovery of new artist or a new work that you didn’t know before, but with which you become quite enamored once discovered.

A case in point is at the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., where there currently is a survey of Nordic art from the 18th and 19th centuries. It is a major survey of Nordic art spanning nearly 200 years. It features works by 53 artists from Denmark, Iceland, Finland, Norway, and Sweden, as well as the self-governing islands of Åland, Faroe, and Greenland.

I have a special affinity for Nordic art. I enjoy the atmospheric light, the uncluttered compositions, and the sense of calm which the paintings have. One could never mistake an 18th or 19th century Scandinavian painting for a French academic one.  Nor could they be confused with a 16th century Dutch still-life with so many fruits crammed onto a table that the table itself would need special supports to keep it from collapsing. Their restrained sense of color adds greatly to the relaxed impression with its cool/warm balance that is just that – a clear balance.

To my eye, the two greatest “presents” of the show were a 1903 self-portrait by Elin Danielson-Gambogi (1891-1919)  and Braiding Hair (1880) by Christian Krohg’s (1852-1925).

Danielson-Gambogi was sparse in her use of paint, color, line, light, even varnish. (The finished portrait has a flat, unvarnished surface enhancing its sparse coolness.) However, there is nothing sparse about the capturing of personality.  Using an unusual, low, view point the painting states quite clearly Danielson-Gambogi’s inter-strength and mood at the time.  The character statement is in fact so strong, that one has to remind oneself to look beyond it to see how the portrait was painted.  Danielson-Gambogi plays the thin paint film to great effect, particularly in her hair. Close inspection revels how she changed her dress’s shoulder to simplify the line running up her shoulder, along the side of the face, across the forehead, and down the other side.

Christian Krohg’s painting is at the other extreme. The paint is thick and lush, the atmosphere is warm, and it’s about relationships, not personality. He creates great volume in his handling of the dresses; real people are inside those dresses. The warmth of the background is offset by cool blue of the dresses, while the well-lit hand and face of the mother provide warmth in the painting. Take note of how the shape of girl’s part mirrors her mother’s hand – a neat means of tying them together with great sympathy.

The Gift of Natural Realism

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Clayton’s video, Art is a Gift, can be seen on his Facebook Page and on his Instagram account.

A sampling of Clayton’s paintings, giclée prints, etchings, and sculptures on his new shop page https://www.jclaytonbright.com/shop/  can be purchased directly. A complete array of his paintings and sculptures are also for sale under their own headings on this web site. You may always contact us at StudioJCB@aol.com