“Get Past The Facts”
Okay, so now I’m standing on the shore of Lake Como looking at the water, mountains, and sky. My easel is set up. My palette is loaded with color. And I’m there with brush in hand, squinting at what is before me. Then what? Just what am I supposed to do?
Well, if I were doing this during my first ten years of painting, I would muster all the skill and knowledge that I possessed and I would basically make a copy of what I saw. Then I would, if I thought it were good, bring it back to my teacher[1] for a critique – anticipating kudos, of course – and I would hear him say, with a tone of disappointment, “You need to get past the facts.”
What he meant, without having to say it, was that my painting, while correct, was dead. Way too literal. I realized, as time went on, that I would have a reasonable chance of creating something that is alive if I were alive, if instead of seeing water, mountains, and sky, I saw a tangle of line and color only, as would a visual artist opening to the music of visual sensations.
So why was not I getting this simple admonition during my first ten years? Because I just didn’t hear it. I assumed that what I was doing (and suppose to do) was making a painting, in effect managing a production process, with no emotion, and guided mainly by the desire to do well by some external measure. So naturally I focused on results and the method I used, which breaks the process down into line and color, became nothing more than an assembly line. My thinking, my assumptions, my approach were fine for making a cake, let’s say, or a pair of shoes, but in terms of injecting a life into my canvas, my approach was, to put it bluntly, ass-backwards.
Getting Past the Facts
Allow me to construct the necessary paradigm shift. The painting process is not an assembly line because the point of it all is not production. Think of each step as an invitation to – as Baudelaire implored – be drunk with visual experiences, the movement of things or the veils of atmosphere in which the subject is enveloped, for example. Then each step of the process is simply a prompt to look for visual pleasure. Each step is an invitation to not just express an emotional response but to realize a larger sense of self. That’s the payoff. I can illustrate this by showing you how great artists have responded to such prompts.
In the image above, we see how Degas responds to the movement or gesture of the model. Notice that he cares not about results. There are two heads, several arms and legs. And yet the lines are varied and lyrical. I can feel his feeling. The drawing is alive because he is intensely alive as he gets lost in gesture. Does he go further? into color? No. He stops. He has realized feelings that he wishes to leave in place. Is it finished? Wrong question. He’s not making shoes. The only appropriate evaluative question for a work of art is, “Is it alive?”
The work above is by Manet. It is a painting of Monet and his wife. Look at the face and the hand of Monet. They are messy because, for Manet, there is no face or hand. Manet is squinting, not looking for results, getting past the facts. He seems to be lost in the tonality (atmosphere) or harmony of the thing. In the detail on the right we see reconstruction lines. They are done with verve and authority. Clearly these lines are not mechanical, or assembly line steps to the painting stage. They are pleasure driven. Is the work unfinished? Wrong question. It’s complete and it’s alive. It’s a realization of who Manet was precisely in that moment of intense feeling.
The work above is by John Singer Sargent. On the left is a drawing of an orchestra pit and on the right is a painting that follows. Is he copying the facts? No way! In both, he simplifies the darks, the middles, and the lights into three distinct values. He gets the orchestra pit through line, both with gesture and with value separations. He also is captured by the sense of atmosphere: the people farther away are a bit lighter and they melt into the space around them. Does he get into the painting stage much? Not at all. The variety of color is played down. Could he have gone further? No doubt, but he chooses not to. It’s not about finishing a product or about producing a picture of the facts. It’s an expression of the feelings of the artist. Therefore, it’s not a painting of an orchestra pit. It’s a Sargent.
The above painting is by Robert Henri. He has gotten well into the painting stage but a literal fact cannot be found. The faces are just barely faces. The people further back are executed in the same way as are the flowers to the left: just strokes of color. Do you suppose he was bored when he did this? Or was making a product to please someone or to sell? Or did the visual menu before him simply invite him to get high?
The above image is a detail of a painting by Joaquin Sorolla. When the method invites him to reduce everything into three values, he doesn’t see a barrel, bushes, or flowers. He sees shapes of color, which then makes it easy for him to place these colors on the canvas in a scumbling-wash type manner. The darks are greenish but notice the subtle variety of the greens: some are slightly warmer or darker. Could he have seen those subtle differences were he not delighted by them? The red flowers are just spots of color. The bright yellow flowers are not flowers but simply a mass of light. Simple. Simple. Simple. But I don’t think he could simplify like this unless he got past the facts and got into opening himself to what nature was whispering to him. If he were not moved, do you think he could have reassembled the parts of his vision in such a powerful way? If he had simply copied the facts, do you think the work would compel us, not just to look at it, but to stare?
The above landscape is by Wolf Kahn who is now in his late 80s. Given his unusual use of color, I asked him if he made it up or if it were based upon what he saw as he painted in plein-air. He said it was the latter. As with so many painters he has made it clear that his work is not driven by external concerns or career. “I don’t need a feeling of success,” he once stated. “I just need an appetite to work to feel alive.”
The floral above was done by Jacques Truphèmus. He is a living French painter who is over 90 years old. I suspect that for many of you, this painting may be a tad too messy. But if that is the case, understand that the flowers were only a prompt for him to show us the feelings he had and that he realized as he looked for color.
Let me end with Monet. The image above is a detail from a painting which itself is 10 feet high and the full painting is also 30 feet long. What is it a painting of? Well, on one level I think the appropriate response would be, “What does it matter?” But for the record, it is a painting of his lily pond. Notice how Monet is combining line and color. His strokes of color (the last stage) are also gestural lines (the first stage). This makes the important point that a painting method is never an end in itself but a vehicle that empowers us and sets us free.
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[1] William J. Schultz
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Two statements resound deeply within me. (1) “The only appropriate evaluation for a work of art is, ‘Is it alive?” How simple, how profound, how useful in viewing all styles of art.
(2) “get past the fact”. . .find the life! What always impresses me about your philosophy of art is that it is relevant not only for painting but for living as well. Getting past the facts of chronology. . .”late 80s,” “over 90” . . .allows the life within to grow and to find expression.
Thanks Costanza and good point about getting past the facts (gender, race, etc too) in life. All of which makes the point that
intense or rich feelings of life and expressive freedom in everyday life and in making art are not separate. “If I can’t dance….”
Great article, Jerry. One must find the spark in the scene that inspires and, in doing so, connects the artist with the subject, leaving not just lines and color, but his/her personality , feelings, emotions and indeed vulnerability on the canvas.
The longer I practice medicine, the more I see this artistic metaphor. Textbooks, journals, seminars and the basic implements for procedures handled through technical prowess are essential, but how they are utilized, crafted, the sensitivity of how they are modulated to the individual is the true art of the profession. Experience is one’s mentor !
Hi Patrick, I think you are on to something. Everyday life and art ought to merge. We all ought to be artists in our work. But that would require that our work needs to be self-directed – which leaves out about 90% of the population. My father was a machinist in a GE factory and often times I think that if I had asked him if he had ever gotten a “thrill” or was “moved” at work, it might be an offending question – which says a lot about our way of life. But your implication that once we do become one with the subject, our powers are heightened – seems to me to be right on. As a surgeon, however, please ignore my critique of the concept “finish.”
Thanks for this article, Jerry. It’s right on the money and I’ll be reading it again. I hope this finds you both well and enjoying life.
Thanks Ceci…long time no hear. I trust you are painting like crazy!
Thanks for the insightful reminder that we all feel and express the world around us with different visual concerns.
What prompts one artist to paint a scene may be very different from another artists motivation to paint it…
Great selection of examples !
So true. The Impressionists would often refer to this too. They called this “temperament” and would emphasize the imperative that each of us must find our own, even if that meant marching to our own drummer.
As always, I am beguiled, delighted, mystified by Wolf Kahn’s subtle nuanced work. Thank you, Jerry, for the visual delights and the P2verbal insights you send us.
Thanks Joyce. I have always been moved by Kahn’s work. And while his method is different from what I was taught, in terms of stages, etc, the mentality is identical. He is a stickler for not “producing” and for the need to constantly push ourselves, all the while avoiding the trap of doing, over and over, those things we do well. He always talks about feeling “larger” and “alive.”
Jerry,
First, thanks for your feedback, it is very helpful. I agree with the other rely you received on this blog posting. The question I have for you is: does gesture and feeling the movement every stop when you are painting? During reconstruction I am going back to line, should I be concerned with form or can I just think of gesture?
Thanks Again,
Marc
Marc…regarding your first question: feeling and responding to what you see ought never to stop, but that is the challenge. Some days I’m “on” and I’m excited and lost throughout the entire process. Other days, I don’t feel much of anything and then the subject matter is separate from me, as though I were building a model airplane or something. I can appreciate that I’m making something, but it feels detached, not inspired at all and thus I don’t really see much except the obvious. Regarding your second question: gesture is used in the first two stages; in the Composition stage it is the first thing we do with charcoal and the gesture is intended to organize the entire thing on the canvas with some feeling. Once we wipe off the charcoal and begin with oil in the Construction stage we look for gesture a second time – BUT IT ISN’T A REPETITION. It’s a second conversation. We are not more intimate with the gesture and feel it more and become more confident about it. After that, we do not return to gesture. That is why it is important to get off on the right foot from the beginning. Having said that, in Reconstruction, where we place lines indicating separations of value, they can be (and ought to be) done with a gestural type feeling – as with all the marks we make on the canvas, even in the painting stage, but establishing gesture and movement, as such, is done in the first two stages only. As Henri said, “cherish your feelings.” Feelings propel the marks we make. And even more important, we realize new feelings as we make marks, which in turn help us get carried away. At least on those good days. Probably the most important concept in all of this is that it isn’t necessary to “finish” the thing. Don’t begin a painting thinking you have to go to the bitter end. That’s production. Sometimes we do because we want to say more. Other times we stop because we have said enough. All too often the thing is alive and because we are in production mode, we keep going and we end up killing what was wonderful and alive.
I can dance … and I do dance … and this made me feel like dancing all day long!
I hope you don’t mind, Jerry, but I am sharing this post with the members of my website which, as you will see, consists of all kinds of artists. Yes, this must be seen by every artist on the globe! You are tops, you are! Thank you!!
Hi Maria, Your over-the-top superlatives are fun to read! Thank you. Are you in a class, there in Cyprus?
I must add that this article is alive and describes the flow of painting at its best. Thank you.
Hi Roseanne, Nice of you to say so. Thank you!