An original oil painting, on stretched canvas
36x24", unframed
$3,000.00, -(plus $35.00, pack and ship)
It has rather humble subject matter for a painting this size: some old,clay flower pots,
filled with dirt and broken pot shards; an old galvanized, watering can, which has lost its
sprinkler head; some stray fabric, perhaps used as frost protection for tender plants; a
wandering vine from a philodendron plant; and some fresh fruit. However, I suppose
those objects were not the real subject of this painting. Back in the days of my youthful
enthusiasm for experimenting with composition methods, it was more about the painting
process, than it was about the subject matter.
This is the painting to which I referred in my previous post, Variation On A Cezanne
Motif. This one dates back a half dozen years or so earlier than that one, to the late
1950's or early 1960's. I don't think I was too overly conscious of Cezanne's
composition methods at the time that I painted it, but I was certainly in full harmony
with his efforts to create deep space in paintings by making the planes rotate or move
around a central point, back and forth in space, without destroying the picture plane.
Therefore I deliberately modified the shapes and planes of the various objects to further
that effort, such as tilting the bench top at an exaggerated perspective, tilting the watering
can on its axis, and literally tilting one of the flower pots. All of which combined to create
a strong directional thrust from the lower left corner to the center of the canvas, with
additional elements reinforcing the directional pulls from the lower right and both sides,
continuing that circular movement around the central pivot point.
I recall that I first made a full scale, preliminary drawing for this painting, using charcoal
and ink, just blocking-in the major elements of the painting, to get a better feel for the
direction I wanted to take the composition. That drawing must be lost or long gone.
As for the painting technique, it bares practically no resemblance to the carefully
modulated planes of Cezanne's art. This one was painted at a time when I, like so many
other artists, was enjoying the the love of paint, and the pleasure of seeing the paint itself
and the evidence of the application process, still visible in the finished painting. Although
I didn't go quite so far as to have the paint drip and run down the surface of the canvas,
the painting was handled broadly, with undisguised elements of the under-painting and
glazes still showing beneath passages of strong, loaded brush-strokes.
(click on image to enlarge)
No comments:
Post a Comment