Too Much and Never Enough
I wish to trust the eye as a discerning element. Stand back from judgement as I draw and paint. It is purely abstract and sensory. I allow emotions to pass through, the thought process is secondary and indeed thoughts are only our creation - they can be listened to then put to one side.
In the Studio
I have been working on a painting based on a watercolour sketch of a formal garden, it has been interesting to struggle with the form becoming more solid and formal because of scale and a change in medium (sketch was in gouache now oils). I keep seeing a reoccurrence of a mirror shape in my paintings and wonder if I should be using this device more obviously as in Cecily Browns Vanity paintings.
I like to follow through a passing down of an idea or tradition in painting, specifically how an image can be modified and re discovered as it were.
e.g. Edgar Degas (1834-1917) his Salon Painting ‘War scenes from the Middle ages’1861 Paris Musee d’Orsay - then in 1868 his painting ‘Duet of Women in Interior’- deeply influenced Francis Bacon. David Sylvester interviews Bacon and discusses this in the 1987 documentary “Francis Bacon and The Brutality of Fact”. expand
Edgar Degas (1834-1917)
Medieval War scene
oil on canvas
1865
Edgar Degas
The Song Rehearsal, 1873
Francis Bacon
Portrait of George Dyer and Lucian Freud
1967
198 x 147.5 cm
see also Cecily Browns reinterpretation of Death and the Maid. expand
Beyond Impressionism is not copying nature but insisting that the artist is free to choose what is significant in nature for them and transform it into something entirely personal by means of perhaps
“A synthesis of form and colour derived from the observation of the dominant element only” Bonnard Pierre Bonnard The Late Still Lives and Interiors The Metropolitan Museum of Art
I am basing my essay on the essay written in This book.
Christov-Barakgriev , Carolyn. “A Color that is a Form of Thinking” Colori Emotions of Color in Art GAM Torino March 14-July 23, 2017, 19-22
