On Painting Flowers
Flowers are great to paint. I love painting them. But, and this is a big fat BUT, if you are not careful, they will quickly destroy the artistry within you. Let me explain.
I should alert the reader that I am writing from an Impressionist point of view. So let us recall some basic principles of Impressionism. Virtually to a person, they were explicit in their condemnation of the literal, which is to say, their paintings were not intended to be stories or social commentary (despite the gazillions of books to the contrary. The tendency is to assume that all realism is a kind of photo-journalism; hence, it must be literal. Or the converse, that if it is not literal, one must paint out of one’s head. Students of Impressionism would do well to pay more attention to what the artists themselves said. Pissarro lamented, for example, that most people only see the “subject” in his paintings. Monet talked endlessly about his need to convey his feelings. “We paint not to paint the subject,” Cèzanne reminded everyone, “but to realize sensations.”
So here’s Principle Number 1, so often articulated by Monet: Don’t see the thing before you. Or to put it another way, there are no flowers, just line and color that become prompts for us to respond to emotionally and realize feelings in the moment that our brush touches the canvas. If one loves flowers and wants to paint flowers, one is already in trouble because one will try like crazy to make a picture of flowers. So challenge Number 1, when you paint flowers don’t see flowers.
The second challenge in painting something that one is so focused on is that one is apt to neglect everything else. Principle Number 2: there is no such thing as background or tabletop or vases that play supporting roles. There are none of those things. There are no supporting roles. There is just line and color. Every square inch of a canvas ought to look as though the painter was fully involved with that square inch. Challenge Number two: everything else in the painting ought to reveal a fascination and an infatuation equal to the blasted flowers.
Principle Number Three: We are artists so do not paint what everyone else can see, ie, the obvious. Degas said that we don’t paint what we see but what we make others see. Okay, everyone can see the beauty in a sunset or a young child and, you guessed it, the “beautiful colors” in flowers. So what is an artist going to make the viewer see beyond the obvious? Challenge Number Three: say something about flowers that most people don’t see, and about that which moves you.
Let me give you some examples. First, I will show you some of my work (not the best example but it’s handy) and then I will show you some images by Monet.
The details below were taken from the featured image at the top. I chose these to show you that I was not seeing flowers as much as color and movement. In other words, I didn’t draw with the color but placed bits of various colors on the canvas as I engaged the subject emotionally, not seeing flowers, not looking for results but just enjoying my vision and moving through the process. Notice also that I have left parts of the canvas open in order to kick up that sense of light.
In these details I wanted to show that I did find other parts of the subject matter fascinating, certainly as fascinating to me as the flowers. Wait, there are no flowers! You see, and this brings us back to Challenge Number three: I am saying to the viewer, I want to make you see the beauty of the cloth and the colors of the grass and the reflections and colors in the vase: they are not separate from those red and white things in the vase. It’s all alive. It’s all dancing. And it’s all there, available to everyone. But if you think you are painting flowers, you will see none of it.
Now let’s go to a real painter and look at details of some of his work. Okay, Claude, you’re on:
It’s pretty obvious. Monet isn’t seeing flowers but realizing feelings. He’s intensely alive, which comes first, and so is his work, which then follows as a by-product of the experience.
Second, you can see even in these details how he is enamored with everything around the flowers. No supporting roles here. It’s all one thing. And it’s in virtue of his non-literal approach that he is showing us something we may not have seen had we been standing where he was: flowers are movement. They are swirling around, dancing, along with everything else.
I hope you don’t misinterpret all of this as instructions on how to paint flowers. You paint flowers the same way you would paint a nose or water or pavement on a city sidewalk. You see, painting is not about the subject matter. Painting is an activity where one lets go in her own particular way, realizing feelings that only she, as specific individual, could possibly realize given her age and experiences and needs. Yes there are techniques to learn, a craft to learn, but if you were only to get very good at those things, your work would look competent and probably boring. Painting is about learning new ways to be free and by that I mean new ways to be more you, more sincere, even if that means marching to your own drum.
Let me leave you with Monet’s thoughts that make contact to what I’m trying to suggest here:
“Paint as you see nature yourself. If you don’t see nature right with an individual feeling, you will never be a painter, and all the teaching cannot make you one [emphasis added].”
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Fabulously inspiring, motivating, and encouraging article Jerry! Thank you!
Amazing!thanks…J
Thank you!
Jerry
Thank you so much for writing this.
I am just painting flowers even though it is usually not my subject. I am soooo stuck at the moment so I read your article with great interest. I noticed that I am stuck because of me trying to PAINT FLOWERS. The flower painting that I did right before this one worked out beautifully and in retrospect I noticed that I let myself go and just not insisted on THEM being flowers.
So I will start again with this one and your article in mind.
Great!
Jerry
What you shared today is exactly what I’ve needed reminding of. I’m one of those who keeps getting lost in trying to copy nature (thinking I’m becoming a better painter) and then when it’s just another boring (& often bad) painting I say to myself, now why didn’t I just take a picture?
Thank you, Jerry! I hope to get over there and study with you soon.
I quite enjoyed this gently written article because I think you are bang on right! It inspires me to go out and paint, alas it is only 5 degrees and I will have to wait. grazie
This was certainly timely for me…I’ve been working on a flower painting lately and trying to figure out how to push it beyond just the rendition of a flower. The idea of paying as much attention to the surroundings as to the subject (subject!? What subject?) is different than what I learned about setting up priorities and focal points, but it sounds right somehow because the focus is on enjoying the moment.
Thank you for this article.
Linda
That’s great. You’ve got it. Keep in mind that everything is a relationship. We have seen, in endless “optical illusion” images, how one color/value looks totally different depending on what surrounds it. Ditto flowers, etc. It’s always the whole thing, the set of parts relating to one another. “What subject” or “what flowers” is the perfect reaction. It is only line and color which then enables us to paint fearlessly because the only real subject is us, as individuals, and what we feel. And when we let go and don’t think about where the thing is going, it’s a rush.
J
Thank you so very much for this article. I am captivated by the emotions flowers and all that surrounds them bring up in me. I am pulled, over and over, toward exploring them as an artist, getting lost in the painting as I try to express what it is that they’re trying to say to me. And … I’ve been frustrated at how little there is out there in the “real artist” world to help guide me in my journey. Most classes focus on landscape, and that’s all well and good, but there’s something about floral paintings that ask for more. I’m so tired of hearing about focal point and priorities–“but look at Monet,” I’ve been known to blurt out over and over, “he didn’t care about focal point”–and I bring in books of his paintings at Giverny to illustrate what I’m talking about. It gets lost. I’m now at a place in my development where I’m about to break through–I can feel it–but I haven’t quite yet caught up with it. So, I’ve been feeling a bit lost (in the bad way) and despondent and rebellious all at once. I’ve been craving advice from those ahead of me on this path, but it can seem as if I’m the only one on it sometimes. Thank you for turning and holding the lantern and giving me a glimpse of the light ahead. I am most appreciative, and, if I can get funding from grants and other sources that I’ve applied to, I will be attending one of your workshops. Your paintings and your very good writing speak to me in a way that goes down deep and shakes out the cobwebs of the “shoulds.” (BTW, one gallery owner told me a painting didn’t work because I’d left some of the canvas showing. I had used your method after ordering your book. I smiled. At least that time, I knew why I’d done what I’d done, and I knew it worked for what I was feeling when I painted. She took 5 other paintings, and that was fine, but I now know she and I have very different ideas of where I need to go with my art. That was an empowering feeling indeed.)
Hang in there. I think you are right. J