“Without atmosphere a painting is nothing.” – Rembrandt

I would have to agree with Rembrandt. Unfortunately, ever since the teaching of painting passed from the studios of master-artists to the university during the 50s and 60s (in the US), the emphasis shifted from the visual experience per se (and what it did for the painter) to “language” (and the painter’s social commentary).[i] Plein-air painting, along with easel painting generally, fell by the wayside, at least in terms of what art industry elites considered “important.” So it is not surprising that even among today’s very good plein-air painters, the sense of atmosphere, all too often, is woefully lacking. The teaching of how to see atmosphere or what to look for with regard to it is, for the most part, gone with the wind. Let me, then, provide you examples of work, both brimming with and in need of a sense of atmosphere.

 

Tonality[ii]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First, let’s clarify the term tone or tonality. Tonality refers to the sense of atmosphere achieved in a painting. As you can see in the image above, we, on planet earth, live within atmosphere, forever and always. There is no escaping it. But depending on the angle of the sun, the moisture in the air, and other conditions, the color of the tonality varies. And even in a given setting, the tonality is dynamic, which means that it is always changing. Think of tonality, then, as a color term.

Monet emphasized this extensively. He talked about “rendering the feeling” of seeing “the same light spread over everything.” “For me, a landscape does not exist in its own right,” said Monet, “since its appearance changes at every moment; but the surrounding atmosphere brings it to life – the light and the air which vary continually. For me, it is only the surrounding atmosphere which gives subjects their true value…. what I want to reproduce is what exists between the subject and me. ”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s an illustration of what it means to say that the same light is spreading over everything. In the two still lives above, I used the same apples, cloth, and leaves. The only change (apart from the composition) is the light. In the top still life, I used a warm spot light to illuminate the still life. I was not able to see the apples, etc. except by seeing them through the warm light. In the bottom still life, the light was natural north light; thus you can see a silvery light bathing everything. Bottom line: it is impossible to paint on planet earth without having to see through atmosphere. In fact, we never actually see the subject. Rather, we see the surrounding atmosphere envelop the subject.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The painting above is by Monet, of course. The haystack is practically eaten alive by atmosphere. But notice, too, that the tonality is not just one color sprinkled about. The tonality consists of “ishes,” that is, greenish, pinkish, purplish, etc. colors. They are veils of atmosphere and they are moving. This is something that a photograph simply cannot capture. Photographs are paper, not photons.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The two details above were taken from the Monet painting: the one on the left is a piece of the sky, horizon, and field. The one on the right is just the field, on the edge of the cast shadow. Notice how whether we look into the darks of the haystack, the grass within cast shadow, or the sky – the colors are similar for the simple reason that Monet had to see through “the same light spread over everything.”

 

Some Good Bad Examples[iii]

Let us take a look at the work of contemporary artists where there is no tonality. These are just tiny details of much larger work:

The above three images are details of the work of anonymous artists. They are all strong painters with a good sense of color. In the image to the left, one sees the peak of a very distant mountain, the color of which is very different from that of a closer tree line and cacti. The sky while interesting in color also feels separate from the mountain and the foreground (in terms of color). They cannot be in the same light. The painting lacks harmony and unity because it lacks tonality. In the center image, the problem is the same. The red barn does not feel as though it were in the same light that bathes the green trees and grass.

The image to the right suggests to me that the painter does have a sense of atmosphere. There is a softness that lends a kind of harmony, but it also appears to me that the painter is seeing the separate elements as separate parts. If the sky is pinkish, some of that pinkish ought to be found in the mountains and the field. If there is a blue coolness to the mountains, that same coolness ought to be evident as well in the field and the sky. In attending to these challenges, there is no formula, of course; it is simply a matter of feeling the whole and of allowing oneself to be captured by the light that is spread everywhere.

Tonality may be the most important element in plein-air painting and yet in our post-visual visual art world, it is largely absent for a host of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that painters today, as opposed to 130 years ago, see themselves as entrepreneurs.[iv] Whereas the Parisian artist of the late 19^th century may have been obsessed with “rendering” what he or she felt, the obsession of the contemporary painter is more likely to be with marketing, productivity, and sales. So what, you say? Let me then give you a glimpse into the minds of two great artists who worked 100 years ago (Matisse and Monet) and who both believe that the entrepreneurial turn tended to subvert their create power.

Matisse noted that there was a “rift between the dealer and the painter, even if they are chums. The dealer has goals of his own. He’s not on the same side as the painter.” (When have you heard that lately?) Continued Matisse: when a painter is “…concerned with success, he works with just the one idea: pleasing people and selling. He loses the support of his own conscience and is dependent on how others are feeling. He neglects his gifts and eventually loses them (emphasis added).”

I’m fully aware of the constraints that the contemporary painter, who wishes to make a living with her work, confronts. My effort here is to suggest pathways of escape from such corrosive pressures, or avenues that might enable one to cross over into another realm of being, in order that our “gifts” are not lost as we go about putting food on the table. Monet is suggestive here: “People who hold forth on my paintings conclude that I have arrived at the ultimate degree of abstraction and imagination that relates to reality. I should much prefer to have them acknowledge what is given, the total self-surrender.” Standing before nature with brush in hand in a posture of total self-surrender, I am soaring. I am honing my gifts. And marketing? Please! Don’t disturb me. You’ll break the spell. The last thing I want to be is a dumb old fish that doesn’t know it swims in water. My first priority is to strengthen my gifts and this requires an absolute dedication to the honing of the marvelous specificity of things or a total self-surrender.

More Examples

For those of you who wish to see more examples of tonality, I add the following images with annotations.

The above sequence depicts a pastel by Degas. When we look closely (center and right image), we see greenish, bluish, and grayish marks covering areas of the flesh and cloth. This is the air (atmosphere or tonality) that exists between Degas and the model. Can you see how it lends harmony and value to the whole?

The above images are Cèzanne. In the two images to the right, one can see more easily a warm bluish veil between Cèzanne and everything – grass, sky, flesh, cloth – as the atmosphere pervades or bathes everything.

Tonality is not a feature only of Impressionism. The above image is a detail of a painting by Sorolla. Notice the light bluish gray strokes in the leaves and the light bluish and greenish strokes in the flowers. Yes, it is subtle. But great art is in the subtlety. And yes, most people will see, in this case, only pretty flowers, not the defiant reach of the painter, seeing deeply. So it goes.

The above work is a “pastel drawing” (as opposed to a “pastel painting” in which the entire sheet of paper is covered) by Robert Brackman, my teacher’s teacher. The artist who does a pastel drawing must be very adept at tonality.

It goes like this: the paper is the atmosphere and, therefore, the subject matter must exist within the color and value of the paper. The artist chooses a passage of light, the colors of which must be translated into the harmony of the given atmosphere (the paper). Here is where it gets tricky: in order to do this, the paper, as a middle value must be integrated into the subject where there are middle values. So in parts of the headscarf and the bottom portions of each breast, for example (as shown in the left and center images above) only the paper is used (that is, left open). Notice in the image on the right, how Brackman allows the right side of the subject matter to simply melt back into the paper by using tender lines, but no color.

This is the work of a true master. As with much of the other examples above, most people will not appreciate the accomplishment. So many drawings, even by very good artists, show the artist working right to the edge of everything and it ends up looking like a cut-out glued to the paper.[v] Notice the color, too: the purple in the headscarf, the bright red ear, which when seen from a distance (look at the full image), are wonderfully and properly related. Notice too the “prismatic edges” (colorful edges) – which must be seen, not made up – that help the subject matter turn back into the paper in the passages receiving full light.

Here’s the kicker: yes, Brackman was a master tonalist (but not a tone painter) and when he first began studying painting with Robert Henri, among others, he did nothing but underpaintings for seven years! Extreme? Well, you be the judge.

Finally, let me end with this. As I just mentioned, Brackman’s study of atmosphere was undertaken in the underpainting stage. So here’s an example of an underpainting stage by yours truly:

This is the stage where one “scumbles” a very dry and thin application of color using a sweepy scrubby method. Applying the paint this way makes it possible to get the feeling of “veils of atmosphere” or as Whistler (another master of tonality) said, “It is like breath on glass.” One scumbles in the darks and the middles and leaves the lights open. It is high key because it is the first application of color on a white canvas, so one must creep toward darker colors. But the painting in this stage is complete as is, or if one chooses to go further, it invites the application of paint more thickly, one stroke at a time, building with the color, over the top of it but not totally covering. One allows the underpainting – the tonality – to come through, even in the painting stage.

 

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[i] This is what is meant when “experts” say that paintings that turn on social commentary, as opposed to visual experience, have “content.” Plein-air painting, from their point of view, is devoid of content.

[ii] The term tonality is often conflated with values. But this is an error. “Values” refers to the relative lightness or darkness of something whereas “tonality” or “tone” refers to the color of light in which the subject matter is located. While it is true that values and tonality are linked (a painting whose values are incorrect will not have a true sense of tonality), value can be demonstrated in a black and white photo, for example. Tonality cannot be demonstrated by any photo; it is the very color quality of light, shimmering, twinkling, changing – think veils – that envelops and surrounds everything.

[iii] I debated whether to scan the internet and find the work of artists which I would then label “good bad examples.” Sigh! All is fair for educational purposes. I did select little details so as to hide the identity of the artists. And for you educationally minded bloggers out there, my work is fair game!

[iv] When one reads the letters of the Impressionists, for example, one finds an endless stream of invective directed at the “bourgeoisie.” It is instructive to note that in all the literature on Impressionism that I have seen, nowhere does anyone explain this hostility carefully. It is beyond the scope of this little blog, but suffice it to say that the institutions that cohere in any given society encourage certain beliefs, relationships, and practices while discouraging others. With the rise of the bourgeoisie (whom we would call entrepreneurs) most of the Impressionists believed that the rising set of bourgeoisie (whom we would call entrepreneurs) believed that their sense of freedom and their approach to painting was being discouraged. Hence, you have painters like Matisse saying, a few years later, that the dealer and the painter are not on the same side.

[v] This is graffiti from Mexico. It’s pretty impressive. I wish I could do it. But there is no tonality.