My Art Teacher, Monsieur Picasso

Art washes away from the soul the dust of life.   - Picasso

Since my teenage years I have been a fan of Pablo Picasso’s art. According to most art critics, Picasso was a genius of Twentieth Century art. Along with Georges Braque, he invented cubism, a revolutionary way of seeing. Picasso fully developed the concept of multiple perspectives. His artwork paved the way for non-representational art and collage. Artists who came after him explored and developed the use of the grid; rough, energized brushwork; strong color combinations; an emphasis on surface and shallow space; and the use of abstract notations.  He did nearly everything in art, except go totally abstract.

Unlike some of his contemporaries who pushed their art to full abstraction, Picasso kept his work tied to subject matter. Picasso could have titled his abstract painting of 1948 “Composition with Line and Circle” and joined the abstract artists, but he connected the painting to his physical reality with the title, “The Kitchen”. Some viewers claim to see Spanish tiles, bird cages, plates, stove hotplates, and more in the painting.

                                       “The Kitchen” by Pablo Picasso

Although many of Picasso's paintings and drawings appear nearly abstract, he resisted pure abstraction as a painter. “There is no abstract art,” he said. “One must always begin with something.” (Herschel Browning Chip. 1968, p. 270) Had Picasso spent time with the abstract paintings of Mark Rothko, he would have said they were about color. Rothko might have agreed. “There is no such thing as a good painting about nothing,” Rothko claimed.

                                                    “Orange and Tan” by Mark Rothko

I think Picasso rejected total abstraction for other reasons. He would have rejected abstract artwork which claimed to have a spiritual basis, such as the works of Hilma af Klint, Wassily Kandinsky, or Arthur Dove. While he thought that art had magic, he denied the existence of God. Sometimes, however, his statements contradicted his denial. He told Matisse that in times of trouble, it was good to have God on one’s side. And once, according to Olivier Picasso, he told Helene Parmelin, “If a painting is really good, it is because it has been touched by the hand of God.” Whatever his true beliefs about God, Picasso had no doubts about his own power to create.

I suspect Picasso rejected abstraction because it was outside the focus of his art. Pure abstraction had no purpose for him as a painter because abstraction would eliminate the subject of his art, which was mostly about himself and his mental and emotional responses to his circumstances. He had a grand sense of his importance. Picasso told one of his mistresses, "When I was a child my mother said to me, 'If you are a soldier, you will become a general. If you are a monk, you will become the Pope.' Instead, I was a painter, and became Picasso." ("Life with Picasso", by François Gilot. 1964, p. 60)

For Picasso, abstract art is mere decoration when it is unmoored from subject matter. In his words, “I have a horror of so-called abstract painting.…When one sticks colors next to each other and traces lines in space that don’t correspond to anything, the result is decoration.” Unlike Picasso, I admire the abstract paintings of many artists; however, I agree with Picasso that in the hands of lesser artists, abstract art can seem lifeless. 

In my early years I had several art teachers. I couldn't study in the Louvre Museum like the renown painters of France, but I poured over reproductions in books and frequented the galleries and museums of Seattle. Picasso was one of my favorites. I carefully studied his work and read biographies. Through the years as I learned more about his life, I had to separate my admiration for his art from my dismay at his cruel treatment of friends, and especially the women in his life.  

When Francoise Gilot first met Picasso, he was sixty-two and she was twenty-one. She gave birth to two of his children, Claude and Paloma. After ten years she left him, the only one of his many mistresses to do so.  Her book "Life with Picasso" appears to be an honest account of life with a brilliant artist and sometimes an abusive, self-absorbed man. Picasso unsuccessfully tried to suppress its publication.  I recommend her book. (Sorry, Pablo.)

Sometimes Picasso failed to be his best with others. Most people have failed a family member, a spouse, or a friend at some point, and depending on who is telling the story people who are generally good can be made to appear very bad. Picasso’s grandson, Olivier Widmaier Picasso, in his book, “Picasso: An Intimate Portrait” offers a sympathetic viewpoint of his famous grandfather. I enjoyed the book and recommend it as a counterbalance to more severe critics of Picasso’s character.

Also in Picasso’s favor,  it could be said that in his formative years Picasso and his circle of friends and fellow artists were rebelling against prevailing standards in art and against the values of their parents and the prevailing social expectations. They partied all night and slept in late. They talked political anarchy, used opium, swapped partners, and produced experimental music, poetry, plays and paintings. I can overlook some of the youthful excesses of Picasso’s early years in Paris, which were similar to the Hippie excesses in the late 60s; however, Picasso’s intentionally cruel humiliation of his friends and lovers cannot be excused.

Nevertheless, every serious artist since Picasso eventually must come to terms with his art in some manner.  I summed up what I learned from Picasso in two paintings of my twenties. (Needless to say, they are not the equal of a Picasso painting.) The two paintings are very different from the paintings I make today, but I've kept them because I'm sentimental about them.

My painting “Cavalier”, influenced by my interest in Picasso, attends to the formal elements of art, but it’s also a portrait. The figure and face is comprised of triangles and semicircles on a horizontal and vertical grid, but the aristocratic disdain of a cavalier is expressed in the painting, too. The largest triangle in the composition runs from its base at the bottom of the painting through the face, with the apex of the triangle between the eyes at the brow of the cavalier. The compositional device of the triangle is borrowed from Renaissance painters. Raphael typically used it to compose his timeless paintings of the Madonna and Child.  In the “Cavalier” the Renaissance illusion of depth is absent. In keeping with the modernist canon, the “Cavalier” is flat and two-dimensional. The three-quarter view of the face combined with a profile is full-on Picasso.  

                                            “The Cavalier” by Nick Payne. Acrylic. 3 feet x 4 feet.

Picasso’s rearrangement of the face and body was initially shocking and disturbing, but psychologically it made sense. Our memory of people is a jumble of images from multiple viewpoints in various times and places. True enough, our memories of family, friends, and acquaintances don't look like Picasso paintings, but Picasso wasn’t replicating the jumble of images and multiple viewpoints as they exist in the mind. He artistically represented the multiple images of visual experience by synthesizing them into a single, flattened image. His use of color was somewhat dissonant like the revolutionary music he knew from designing sets for modern ballets. Space was usually shallow, or not represented in his paintings. To the three dimensions of height, width, and depth of a painting, it could be said that he added the dimension of time, which was implied in his multiple viewpoints.

                                        “Portrait of a Woman” by Pablo Picasso

Picasso developed a new visual syntax; yet, no artist works outside of history. Picasso, like many artists of his time, was aware of the use of multiple perspectives in Cézanne’s paintings. For example, if you study the painting below you’ll notice tilted planes and subtle shifts in perspective, as if Cézanne changed position and viewpoints when painting.

                                     “Still Life with Basket of Fruit” by Paul Cézanne

Notice the tilt toward the picture plane of some pots and the upward sweep of the floor. Trace with your eye the top of the table from left to right. The left side is closer. The right side is further away, as if the artist moved forward and backward and up and down while sketching and painting different sections. The large basket of fruit impossibly rests on the rear of the table.

                     “Cubist Portrait of Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler” by Pablo Picasso

In this portrait of Picasso's art dealer, the hands and features of the face are visible, but most of the image is broken into multiple viewpoints and forms. Color is suppressed. As a portrait, the painting is almost unreadable.

Cubism developed the idea of multiple viewpoints to an extreme. Some cubist paintings are so abstract that we need the title to tell us the paintings represent real objects of our world. However, beyond the tenuous connection to real life objects, cubism is solidly rooted in form. (Form and color are the two building blocks used to construct a painting.) “Cubism is...an art dealing primarily with forms, and when a form is realized it is there to live its own life.” ("Picasso Speaks". The Arts, vol. 3.

Most painters have a consistent style. The co-inventor of cubism, Georges Braque, stayed with cubism throughout his career. Picasso, however, worked in many different styles in a variety of mediums. For him, each drawing or painting called forth its own approach and style, whether nearly abstract or classically realistic. In an interview published in 1923, Picasso said,  "If the subjects I have wanted to express have suggested different ways of expression I have never hesitated to adopt them." (Cowling & Mundy 1990, p. 201)

 Monsieur Picasso was one of my favorite art teachers because his art is so rich. The lessons about structure which I learned from his paintings are still with me, and my lifelong admiration for his artwork remains.

2017 Copyright Np

Why a Painted Portrait still matters

The art of portraiture is probably older than recorded history. The surviving portraits of early European nobility we see in museums can be traced back to icons which preceded them. Going back further in history, icons were influenced by ancient Egyptian funerary portraits, according to Hans Belting, author of a scholarly book on the history of the painted image. 

The abstract style of icons was suited for spiritual portraits of the saints and Holy Family, but not for the aristocracy. As the market for portraits of the aristocracy grew, painters developed a realistic style more suited to capturing an earthly likeness. The painted portrait became more commonplace when wealthy tradesmen could afford to have their portraits painted, too. In time, the portraits intended for the family estate became prized by collectors, and some of the best ended up on the walls of museums.

 Artists still paint portraits today, but demand has mostly disappeared. The invention of the camera altered the market. A photographic portrait is quicker and cheaper. A digital camera can take hundreds of detailed likenesses in less time than a painter can make a preparatory sketch. A digital image printed on paper costs a few dollars. Yet, a market for fine art portraiture still exists. Highly skilled portrait artists using an updated, but traditional realistic style are still sought by the wealthy. The best of the professional portrait artists charge plenty for their talent. Prices range from $3,000 for a tiny portrait of the face to $250,000 for a full-sized portrait that might grace a monarch's residence. The grand portraits and more modestly-sized portraits by specialized artists will likely become treasured heirlooms passed through the generations. At the low end of the portrait art market, little known artists will paint a portrait from your supplied photo for under $200, but the results will be less desirable. Inexpensive portraits from Internet sources are the painted equivalent of the phone camera's selfie - here today, gone tomorrow.  

 A selfie, which is a likeness taken by a mobile phone camera held at arm’s length, is all about the instant. The selfie is how a person wants to look at a particular moment.  Time is one of the key differences between a selfie and a painted portrait. The selfie, which is captured in less than a second, is almost as quickly forgotten. Some people post a new photo of themselves made with their mobile phone camera several times a week on social media. With its iPhone X, Apple recognized the importance of the selfie in marketing to youth. The front-facing camera of the iPhone X is now as fully developed as its rear-facing ones.

 In contrast to a selfie, a good painted portrait captures an eternal moment.  It’s made with centuries in mind because the pigments and archival materials will last for hundreds of years. A selfie requires little skill, but a portrait painter’s skill is developed over decades. Most people think a photographic portrait is a truer likeness than a painted portrait, a perception that isn't necessarily valid. Unless the photographer is skilled, a selfie is a superficial likeness - merely a passing cloud reflected on a puddle. A painter tries to peer beneath the surface of a likeness. This claim sounds slightly pretentious, but fine art portraits seem to capture something more than facial features and the look of the moment.

Portrait of Greta Moll by Henri Matisse

A painter can approximate a likeness, alter it, or invent features to show a truth about a person. Consider Picasso's famous portrait of Gertrude Stein or Matisse's commissioned portrait of Greta Moll. Picasso and Matisse struggled over these portraits because they were inventing a new visual language and because they were aiming at a deeper truth. A photographic likeness wasn't their aim. When people said that Picasso’s portrait of Gertrude didn’t look like her, Picasso replied that she would eventually look like his portrait. And she did, so the story goes.

Greta Moll posed for ten days for Matisse. Initially Greta and her husband were pleased with the likeness. Matisse wasn't satisfied with it. He reworked the painting, simplifying it and removing the surface likeness in his effort to express Greta's character. Seeing the changes, Greta and her husband were dismayed, but they paid for the painting, lived with it, and gradually they loved it. Now Matisse’s portrait of Greta Moll is in the National Gallery of Art.

Weeping Woman by Pablo Picasso

Being remembered is an important purpose of a portrait. One of Picasso’s most famous portraits of his mistress, Dora Marr, was probably not pleasing to her. Picasso claimed she was constantly weeping so he painted her with tears. It may not be the way she would want to be remembered, but the portrait of Dora Marr is world famous, and worth millions. The painting may be insensitive to his mistress, but it is a striking, memorable work of art.

Unlike Dora Marr, Gertrude Stein liked Picasso's portrait of her. Once seen, the portrait is unforgettable.

Gertrude Stein by Pablo Picasso

If being remembered is one of the purposes of a portrait, a portrait that merely flatters is forgettable. Fakery isn't memorable. A good likeness is not about flattery. In producing a portrait that pleases, a photographer and a painter are more successful when they have an emotional link to the model that is expressed in the portrait. How we feel about someone alters their physical appearance. I call the heart's sympathetic transformation of physical appearances the screen of affection. A simple example of a screen of affection through which we see others might be a description of the changes in someone's appearance between the heat of a romance, and when that romance has become cold. Same person, but in the heat of romance a person is particularly attractive; in the ashes of the relationship, the person's appearance might be repellent.

My most satisfying portraits are made with a screen of affection. I'm interested in a likeness that includes a warm inner truth seen through my regard for the person.  I have a screen of affection for family members and friends, so I find it easier to paint someone I know well. I can’t imagine painting a decent portrait of a stranger from a photograph sent to me as an email attachment.

Painting portraits for money can be stressful under the best of circumstances.  I've painted commissioned portraits, but I don't like feeling anxious over whether the results will please, and because of my anxiety, compromising what I want to do. I don't accept commissions anymore. Now I paint a likeness of person because it might be part of a series of paintings that has a purpose for me other than portraiture - such as the Color Personified Series or the Lake Padden Series. I might achieve a good likeness, but portraiture is not my objective. Sometimes I am motivated to paint a portrait because something about a person fascinates me.  I might also paint a portrait because I love the person. The latter reason explains my portraits of my daughters Elisa, Claire, and my recent portrait of Christine.

A high-quality, painted portrait still matters.  Artists with talent for portraiture can create an image which is more than likeness, whether pleasing or not.  It will cost more than a photograph, but a painted portrait made with archival materials is an heirloom that will last for centuries. Who knows? The portrait could end up on a museum wall where it will be appreciated by thousands of visitors.

2017 Copyright Np

Moments

THE EXPERIENCE OF TIME IN VISUAL IMAGES

As a topic, how we experience time in visual images might be an art history essay or a small book. But my aim here is modest. I am ignoring time as a theme in works of art. Videos are beyond the scope of this short article.  I am interested in understanding why time, which seems to be an intrinsic element in a photograph or a painting, is perceived differently in the two disciplines.

Images in photography and painting could be placed on an imaginary spectrum, which ranges from a particular moment - a millisecond of time - to an expanded moment, which may stretch toward eternity.  At one end of the spectrum are images so precisely rooted in the moment that they almost stop time. At the other end of the spectrum are images which seem nearly timeless. Let’s consider a couple examples of images at the extreme ends of the spectrum.

When I look at an icon, I experience an otherworldly timelessness.  Iconography is incredibly time-intensive. Painting an icon with multiple layers of pure, hand-prepared pigments, and gilding it with 24-carat gold, require many exacting hours of labor. Iconographers use a symbolic language of color and form to represent Christ, the mother of Jesus (Theotokos), or the saints - all of whom have transcended time.  Minimal shadows are cast from an inner light, but not from the sun of this world. Strong lines define the image, further emphasizing its existence in another dimension. The priest's consecration of the image, and the veneration of the faithful seal the image’s timelessness. With the passage of centuries, the paint will certainly fade and crumble, but for the faithful, the image exists in eternity.

Virgin and Child  (with permission of the iconographer)

On the opposite end of my imaginary spectrum are photographic images. One of the strengths of photography is the ability of the camera to capture a precise moment in time. You’re probably familiar with photographs showing a lightbulb at the moment of impact by a pellet. It's unforgettable because our brain doesn't freeze the instant of impact for us.  

Shattered Lightbulb  ( Public domain, Huffington Post)

The shattered lightbulb is an extreme example. It may not qualify as “art”, but photography is celebrated for capturing the defining moments of our lives - as in French street-photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson's "decisive moment".  Sometimes painters and sculptors share an interest with photography in capturing that defining moment. This shared interest seems to be the subject of Cartier-Bresson's famous photograph of sculptor, Alberto Giacometti.

Giacometti -photograph by Henri Cartier-Bressan (public domain)

On our imaginary spectrum, a photograph that captures the stop-action in a basketball game would be placed closer to the photo of the shattered light bulb than would a photograph of a still life.

When compared to photography’s "Kodak moment" (a clever advertising phrase that once promoted Kodachrome film) paintings seem to have an expanded moment of time that is intrinsic to how we perceive the artwork. Consider two examples of expanded time in a painting. In some of Edward Hopper’s paintings, people in hotel rooms and restaurants look like they will not move for hours.  Walls, windows, and shadows form broad, intersecting planes of stillness. Time stretches in these Hopper paintings. We know that drowned Ophelia, in John Everett Millais’ painting of a character in Hamlet, will never rise again. How we experience time in "Ophelia" is similar to the two Hopper paintings. The stillness of the figures is partly responsible for our perception of an expanded period of time, but what we know about painting may have a greater influence.

Hotel Room - Painting by Edward Hopper (public domain)

"Ophelia" - Painting by John Everett Malais (public domain)

Summer in the City - Painting by Edward Hopper (public domain)

If the paintings of Hopper and Millais were photographs instead of paintings, our sense of intrinsic time in the images would be different. I think the difference is based on our experiences in taking photographs and being photographed. Although photographs are not necessarily more “real” than paintings, our experiences with photography tell us that a photographic image (even one that is excessively photoshopped) captures an real instant in time. We know from experience that however long it takes the photographer to set up equipment and to wait patiently for the right moment, the camera can complete its work in the blink of an eye. When we view the resulting image, our experience with cameras shapes how we perceive time in the photograph.

When we look at paintings, our experience of time is not the same as with a photograph, as long as we see evidence of human touch.  A Dutch painter of the 17th Century, Johannes Vermeer, may have used a camera obscura to make his paintings; however, his brushwork is evident when viewing the original oils. Knowing that the "Milkmaid" is painted by hand influences our perception of the moment of time depicted in the painting. "Milkmaid" looks photographic, but its intrinsic moment of time lingers longer.

The Milkmaid (c.1658) - Painting by Johannes Vermeer (public domain)

The importance of the human touch in our perception of time in an image is demonstrated by photorealistic paintings. Our experience of intrinsic time in photorealistic paintings is similar to a photograph because the artists are careful not to show any sign of human touch.

Photographs of some realistic paintings, intended for display online, are so reduced in size that the hand of the artist is less evident, and the missing element of human touch alters our perception of the image. Looking at reduced images of paintings which are more or less realistic is a far different experience than standing in front of the original paintings. (I encourage people interesting in owning a reproduction to order one closer to the original size so they experience the painting the way the artist experienced it.)

An art movement of the previous century altered our sense of time in a painting by combining separate moments of time into one image. Cubism, one of the painting revolutions of the twentieth century, provided us with painterly wrinkles in time, which are perhaps truer to our psychological experience of an object, but startling to see on canvas. Our knowledge and memory of a friend’s face, for example, is constructed in our mind’s eye from views at several angles over time. Cubist painters abandoned Renaissance perspective in favor of multiple perspectives. In the relatively flat, two-dimensional space of a cubist painting, our eyes take in almost at once several combined views of objects. We see from above, below and around. Multiple view points suggest movement in space, and that movement implies time.

Houses on the Hill - Painting by Pablo Picasso (public domain)

Cubist paintings altered our experience of time in an image, but they were still fixed in time. Another painting revolution of the previous century placed paintings nearly outside of time, similar to how we experience time in icons. The paintings of the famous abstract artists of the early 20th Century feel almost eternally present. Like the Byzantine iconographers of the Middle Ages, the paintings of the early abstract artists were concerned with the form and color of a spiritual dimension. Hilma af Klint, the earliest pioneer of abstraction, produced visionary paintings, which (for her) came from a metaphysical world where forms exist without beginning or end.

Svanen (Swan) -  Painting by Hilma af Klint (public domain)

Hilma af Klint's marvelous paintings were intentionally otherworldly.  In general, the closer a painting is to abstraction, the less bound in time it seems. For example, I’m fascinated by refraction of light in water. I’ve spent many hours on beaches staring at rocks under moving water, nearly hypnotized, trying to get a fix on the distorted patterns. Photography helps; nevertheless, the information in a photograph always requires many adjustments for a painting. I’ve taken multiple photographs of refracted rocks, and I’ve used a few of them to make paintings. My experience is that the closer the distorted images are to abstract patterns, the greater is the sense of expanded time in the painting, in spite of the fact that the image may show a moment of watery refraction. 

Refraction - Painting by Nick Payne  (copyright by Nick Payne)

The visibility of human touch in a painting tells us it took time. So does the knowledge that a painting is constructed over a longer period of time relative to most photographic images. Whatever the sources for a painting - reference photos, sketches, studio props, memory and imagination, or working en plein air - the creative process of painting is labor intensive. Anyone who has drawn something, even a doodle, understands that it takes time. When I look at a painting, I am aware that a painting is made by hand, and I am aware of the hours involved in constructing a painting. That awareness expands my sense of intrinsic time in the painting. 

In contrast to painting, our photographic experiences tend to bind photographs to a moment in time. We point our cell phone cameras at a subject, press a button...and we can instantly share the resulting image over the Internet. Professional photographers take more time to process their photographs using computer software, such as Lightroom or Photoshop, but their results usually preserve a specific moment in time because our experience with photography tells us that a photographic image is time bound.

However, technological advances in computer software and printing enable some photographers - the digital artists - to create images that, more often than not, also expand the sense of intrinsic time. At the beginning of this article, I imagined a two-dimensional spectrum which ranged from a particular moment to an expanded moment. With digital art, the imaginary spectrum curves in space, like a strip of paper wrapped around a sphere. Digital art and painting meet at the extremes.

Some artists mingle photography and/or digital art with painting, creating an unusual, hybrid art. The relationships between the photographic elements and painted elements in the hybrid art play with how we experience photography - which feels more time specific and "real" - compared to how we experience painting - which is not as fixed in a specific moment and which feels less real. The tension between the photographic and painted elements in Charles Villiers' painting is unsettling, a mirror of contemporary, urban society.

The Lone Walker - Painting by Charles Churchill Villiers (with permission)

Intuitively, most of us are aware that our sense of time in a photograph compared to a painting is different. There is nothing profound in that observation. In thinking about it, I've concluded that our perception of intrinsic time in a photograph or a painting is mostly determined by what we know about the two disciplines. At the beginning of this article I wrote that my aim was modest. If your appreciation of photographs, paintings, and digital art has been slightly enriched by this article, I have achieved my aim.

2016 copyright by Nick Payne

How to SEE Paintings

I have a life-long passion for art, but I'm not a critic or a famous artist, so the best I can do is to share a few comments about what I have learned over the years in looking at art.  

Am I willing to make the effort?

Answering this question is the first step in truly seeing a painting. Without a desire to know a painting more deeply, there is no path forward. However, just as appreciating and understanding a novel or film is intrinsically rewarding, so is seeing deeply into a work of art.  

Seeing requires looking long.

Most visitors to an exhibit or gallery glance at a painting for a few seconds, and then move on to the next one. This is a good practice for getting an overview of an art exhibit. A walk-through is like a survey of a book in which a reader skims the table of contents and chapter headings. And then, after a walk-through, I return to paintings of interest and look long. Looking long is like reading a chapter in a novel. To really see any painting demands an investment of time. When my initial reaction to an exhibit or to a specific painting is uncertainty, I try to suspend prejudices and judgments and look longer.

I cannot see well when I am in the dark.

Our biases often prevent us from seeing or understanding better. We might take extreme positions, loving abstract art and hating realistic art. We might enjoy secular art but despise religious art. Or we might think only the works of celebrated artists are worth our attention.  If my likes and dislikes are based mostly on prejudices, I cannot see beyond them. Instead of growing, I stagnate. Sometimes, the more informed have the greater prejudices.  For example, a few critics, gallery curators, and artists so distain art that doesn’t challenge their perception of the status quo that they dismiss more traditional art with a contemptuous glance. In their view, only “cutting-edge” art is worth their time. When we hold onto our prejudices too strongly, our vision narrows and darkens. To see beyond our biases, we need to rise above them. Of course, it’s far easier to put this in words than it is to suspend or eliminate our biases.

I approach a painting as if a friend were communicating directly with me.

Most artists don’t paint solely for themselves; they paint for an audience: you and me. Approach a painting as though a friend were talking or writing to you, and sharing a highly personal experience.  Instead of words, however, a painting uses visual language. I try to look at a painting similarly to how I would want to hear a friend - with openness and acceptance.

I look for the inner life of a painting.

Matisse believed that the inner life of a painting depended on whether artists were in touch with the inner life of the natural world.  "That is the sense, so it seems to me, in which art may be said to imitate nature, namely, by the life that the creative worker infuses into the work of art. The work will then appear as fertile and as possessed of the same power to thrill, the same resplendent beauty as we find in works of nature." (Jack D. Flam, Matisse on Art. (New York, 1978), pp. 148-149.)

Matisse's view is sound. A good painting, abstract or realistic, has an inner life, or what I call presence.  An artist who can discern the inner life of nature will eventually translate that life into the form and color of a painting. In addition, whether an artwork is infused with an inner life depends on the intensity and quality of the artist’s thought. Thoughts exist. They have energy. Thoughts are things. If this is a new idea, think about how a building is constructed. A skyscraper begins in the mind. Our lives and our world are built thought-by-thought. In making a painting, I believe the thoughts of the artist are part of the physical painting somewhat like the soul is connected to a body but independent of it. 

Some paintings don’t have much presence because the artist was not engaged, or had nothing much to communicate. The paintings seem nearly lifeless. Some paintings have a strong presence, but it's the quality of presence that matters to me. Presence in a painting might awe me like a miracle, or feel like the flu. Our response to presence in a painting depends on our own inner consciousness.  Some artists, whose thoughts are overly negative and dark, may produce paintings I would find repellant, but which for others would feel irresistible. In art as in friendships, like attracts like. 

Many gifted artists have an innate capacity to infuse their art with a powerful presence. Van Gogh’s paintings, for example, have an undeniable inner life. Other artists take years to develop their capacity through training and personal transformation. Iconographers make images with a powerful spiritual presence. It’s partly learning the canon, but it’s mostly developing a spiritual integrity that matches the purpose of their art. Iconographers learn to “write” each icon with deeply-felt prayers, layer-by-layer and line-by-line.

Learn more about the art you like, and more about the art you don’t like.

Usually, the better we know our friends, the more dear they become to us. It’s an easy task to learn more about the art we like, but it’s more challenging to tackle art we don’t know or don't like. Yet, in learning more about the art we don’t initially like or know well, we will learn something new, and perhaps our new knowledge will change our minds. For instance, if you don’t like abstract art, consider reading short pieces on the Internet about the pioneer abstract artists of the twentieth century. Why did they abandon realism in painting? What did they hope to achieve? Conversely, if you think only amateurs or hopelessly out-of-fashion artists paint realistic images, try to figure out why skilled professionals might persist in using the traditional visual language of realism. This isn’t to say you need to become as knowledgeable about painting as an art historian, but being receptive and friendly to a painting, and learning a little about its style and its medium, may open your eyes to it. The reward is growth in knowledge and in seeing.

• Copyright 2016 by Nick Payne

Why I Love Pastel

I love the fact that pastels are more permanent than other paint mediums.  Paintings made with pastels belong in any collection of art where longevity is especially valued. Unlike other paint mediums, the pigments of pastels are not saturated with a binder, which means pastels will not yellow, darken, or craze with age like other paint media. Once properly framed with archival materials under UV-resistant glass, a pastel painting will last for centuries with minimal care. Pastel paintings in museums from the 18th century, for instance, are as bright and fresh today as when they were painted.

Ars longa, vita brevis means that art will last longer than life. That's true only if proven, quality materials are used to make art. In past centuries, artists took care to ensure that buyers who purchased their work had an heirloom that could be passed on through generations. That kind of workmanship seems less valued today. One of the prevailing post-60s attitudes, which still influences artists and galleries, is that the creative process of making art matters more than its permanence. Process Art, a 60s movement emphasizing the creative act over the end-product, showcased the transience and impermanence of non-traditional materials such as cardboard, felt, and tar.  The ephemeral nature and insubstantiality of many non-traditional materials was thought to reflect the impermanence of our life and times. Unfortunately for the collector, art which uses impermanent materials poses a risk to their investment.

Writing about the famous German artist Anselm Kiefer, art critic Robert Hughes in his acclaimed book, Nothing if Not Critical, mentions Kiefer’s use of diverse materials to express his vision:

Kiefer’s work is made of tar, paper, staples, canvas, a rough foil formed by throwing a bucket of molten lead on the canvas and letting it cool there, sand epoxy, gold leaf, copper wire, wood cuts and lumps of busted ceramic. It is highly unlikely that more than a few of these paintings will survive for another fifty, or even twenty-five years - Kiefer carries a disregard for the permanence of his materials to such an extreme that the lead will not stay in place and the straw on some canvases is rotting already, although this does not seem to discourage buyers.

Does longevity of a work of art matter? Many artists say no; it’s the creative and expressive process that matters. Longevity and permanence matter to me. Sure, I value my creative process, but I also want the people who collect my work to have paintings that endure. From my perspective, permanence - to the extent possible - is part of the value of art.

In addition to the permanence of pastels, I love the versatility, immediacy, purity and brilliancy of pastels. Whether sketching outdoors - en plein air - or painting in the studio, effects are immediate. Pastels register every gesture of the artist’s arm and fingers without having to pause to allow water or oil to dry. With pastels the work goes quickly; however, there is a difference between a sketch and a painting. My complicated larger pastels may take weeks of steady work to finish.

Painting with professional pastels is as close as an artist can get to painting with pure pigment.  Some artists, recalling their early school experience with cheap pastels and limited instruction in their use, shy away from the medium. They remember dust, fragility, and frustration. Other than name “pastel”, the school product and the professional product have little in common. All objections to pastel are removed with a little instruction and the use of professional materials.

To preserve the purity of the pastels, I don’t “fix” my pastel paintings with sprays to hold the pigment in place. Instead the ground I paint upon, PastelMat, serves that purpose. Sprays are toxic. Research shows they affect the longevity of pastels.

Finished pastel paintings have an airiness and surface light unduplicated by other painting media because the tiny particles of pigment reflect from many facets  like rough-cut gems.  

Although initially a pastel painting is fragile, properly framed with Museum Glass® or Conservation Glass® and archival mat and mounting board, an original pastel painting is an heirloom that can be passed on through many generations.  

No art using pigments should be hung in direct sunlight because all pigments fade with the passage of decades.  Although the reproductions offered by Birdseye Art Studio won't last as long as an original painting, they have excellent longevity because they are produced with the best and latest technology, PLUS they are sprayed with a special varnish that resists the fading effects of ultraviolet rays. If you can't buy an original pastel painting, a high quality giclée from the Birdseye Art Studio is next best.