Abstraction was a reaction to artists’ fulfillment of the pursuit of  the  Aristotle’s  aesthetic, “Art as the successful  the imitation of nature”.  Until the mid-19th century western painting was preoccupied with imitative art , art which mimicked  a 3-dimensionally  staged space  unified and filled with flora, architecture, characters, weather and objects as perceived by vision, especially a vision  mediated by  a fixed, single, immobile, all-focusing eye. It’s not how we see, it’s how we think we see. Painting as imitation was a marriage of symbolic representation(mapping, categorizing and itemizing) to a  memory  of space, texture, color and value.  Photography helped reinforce the myth of the all focusing  eye.  But, we don’t see like a camera sees. Our natural focal area deteriorates markedly outside of a very small circle of focus in the center of our vision.  We scan and build our imagery in our brain.   From materials to  palette, from design to motif,  from painting  tools to narrative content our cultural memory plays the determining  role in making art.  As we reassess our needs we also reassess our identities, our  memories  and, our markets.  We constantly update ourselves. We reprioritize the cultural purpose of  everything from the role of breakfast  food to role of music or painting.  New goals and purposes for painting were required because, by the mid 19th century painting had sufficiently proved it could imitate photography and vice versa.    Western artists  began their redefinition artistic intention by borrowing the decorative aesthetics of  other cultures from Africa to Asia and,  by examining  the biology of vision and the operation of the brain as it generated a vision of the world.  By the end of the 19th century In Vienna there was a new drive to reveal realities beneath the surface as Eric Kandel explains in his new book , Age of Insight.  In Paris, artists pursued the nature of biological vision as experienced in a single glance in full sunlight;  these were the impressionists.   As an artist, I started where the mid-19th century artists started. I tried to imitate the drama of nature as inspired by  19th landscape painters. And, like those artists I eventually  turned to the nature of biological vision  as a source of inspiration but, coupled to techniques, traditions and  forms from art history. This was Cezanne’s quest.   Today  we know more about biological vision.  Today we have more colors and new technologies.  I am applying this added knowledge and technology to Cezanne’s agenda as you will see in the following examples.  In example one,  I have a traditional-styled seascape with a low horizon and large sky  which I painted 8 years earlier. Through my use of large squeegees, brushes and  a reliance on the foreshortening power of linear perspective  I  modified this painting to become example 2 .

example 1.

example2.

In example 3, I have reversed the proportional relationship of sky to land. The motif is a tide-pool I painted 8 years ago.  In example 4,  I modified the painting considerably using the traditional zigzag pattern within a compressed and foreshortened layout and, let a linear perspective arrangement of shapes gather in the lower half of the painting  pushing them beneath the receding zigzag above.

example 3.

example 4.

In example 5 I have taken one of my older rather dull landscapes of  a Tuscan hillside which ( in example 6) I have broken  down in a geometry of  surface and recession. I heightened the contrast in both color and value, deepened the space using a  concentrated medley of converging recessional shapes, and unified the composition with a simpler  design.

example 5.

example 6.

Finally, If you have an interest in painting in plein air with me this summer. I have two multi-day workshops. The first is from June 26-30( $725. Tuesday-Friday) painting a variety of forest, river and garden settings in the Brandywine River Valley in Pennsylvania. Stay in an 18th century village. We visit the Wyeth collection in the Brandywine River Museum and local Gardens like Longwood. Interested? call Silvermine School of Art at 203 966 6668.

Just as Vermeer and Canaletto adopted the technology of the camera obscura as an aid in imitating appearances  so have painters begun to colonize photography with the most antique technology of all, paint. I will be using  Adobe’s Photo Elements to illustrate how paintings can invade photography.  Before I present evidence of this new invasion of paint into photos  let’s consider the design structure of the paintings which I will use as my saboteurs into photography.  They are two abstract paintings in oil on aluminum     (36×36 each). The first  painting employs a serpentine or zig zag pattern which appears to unfold in a flawed set of rhyming zig zags back into the picture.  The sensation of space is generated not only by the gradually diminishing size of the unfolding shape but,  principally because the background color transitions  are complementary to the abstract shape and, the color/value transitions are edgeless.  Slow transitions of value or color,  (fields of color or value shift with no edges) always signal the brain that it is looking at deep space.  Edges  identify things,  flatten shapes  and provide occupants for space ( example 1).  Examples 2 and 3 are the same image as  it evolved. In example 2 I thought the background overwhelmed the vertical fan shapes so, in example three you can see I have expanded the area of the fan shapes as well as the shapes on the plane advancing toward the you/beholder.  I also darkened  the background to push the fan shapes forward and,  to provide more contrast. The darker background allows the lighter fan shapes to appear larger and more dynamic.

example 1.

example2.

example3.

Now, the invasion begins. I have in example 4, a photo of New York’s Times Square near the M&M  electronic billboards. In example 5 I have substituted the above abstract paintings of mine  in  place of  selected electronic billboards .  Using the  “Transform/Skew” operation in Photo Elements I was able to  contort my paintings into the proper perspective angle, angles which mimic  those of the pre-existing signs.   In this example I also blurred the faces of  two of the figures in the bottom so you would study more of the imagery above and not their expressions. In example 6, I present a photograph of the interior of Grand Central Station. In example 7,  I again “transform/skewed”  my painting(image in example 1) into a distorted perspective which would allow it to lie upon Grand Central Station’s  floor. I reduced the painting’s  opacity to further help integrate the image into the floor.  I cloned out  the painting’s edge lines where they fell upon figures and, sustained the line elsewhere to help reinforce the feeling of a  barely visible sight line.  Now the works have become painting/photo hybrids.

example4.

example5.

example6.

example7.

In conclusion, I wish to invite anyone interested in learning how to paint “Water”, its sensations of translucence, motions ( from tumbling streams to crashing waves to languid undulations), reflections,  and  shadow effects to  join me this Saturday May 12,2012 at the Silvermine Art Center in New Canaan, Ct.  for a one day workshop from 10 AM to 3PM. Call Silvermine School of Art at 203 966 6668 ext. 2.

New York’s Museum of Modern Art once devoted an entire exhibition demonstrating how the compositional traditions of painters were passed on to photographers. Early photographers  made images on the basis of paintings they had seen. It was the their vocabulary.  Eventually painting and photography would share an innovative mutually influenced relationship.  Today the border has almost dissolved between the photography and painting.  In 1861, only  a decade after the death of J.M.W.Turner  and  22 years after the invention of photography, the French photographer E. Colliau took this shot of a French country village ( example 1). His composition shows the influence of landscape painters like Turner.  The idea of a frame within a frame, a scene within a scene, a window within a window.  The painting itself being the first window; the framed alley being the second  (example 2, Turner’s  early career oil painting).  While Turner’s painting has more narrative complexity,  more atmosphere,   and better design unity through the use of reflection,  and more subtle constructions taking you infinitely back into a the life of the city the comparison is still clear as you see in Colliau’s mimicry of Turner’s  motif.

example 1.

example 2.

Turner’s prediction that  photography would become ubiquitous  with future artists has proved to be true.  What he could not have anticipated is the enormity of technological advances in the uses of photography in relationship to painting.  Today an artist, like me or you, can take an image and manipulate it to appear painterly in Photoshop. Or better yet,  we can marry the two mediums  directly.  In the following examples observe  how  the photo image is manipulated  through the application of  oil painting  to its surface.  I am able to do this because 3M makes a transparency film which is receptive to paint and,  may be run through a Canon Pixma ( or other brand) inkjet printer. Here are two examples . First,  you see the original photo which is followed by the same image only overpainted with oils. Note that  some elements of the original image are preserved  but, the image itself has mutated significantly. The first example is a photo I presented in an earlier blog which  then receives  the oil paint manipulation.

example 3.

example 4.

The next examples are  a photo of a stream followed by the same image after over-painting with oils. Note the direction, speed and identity of the image is profoundly altered but, it is still possible to trace the influence of the original photo.

example 5.

example 6.

Finally, I wish to extend  my personal invitation to you to come to my next lecture at the Silvermine Art Center in New Canaan, Ct.  on Sunday May 6, 2012 at 5 PM.  The subject:  “How To Stimulate Your Creativity and, How To Sell It”  is based on recent research in the fields of  psychology, economics, art history, and neuro-science.

Art historians have wrestled with the difference between  the art of mimesis ( imitation of nature) and decorative or ornamental  expressions( what had been called primitive art until the mid 20th century).  Decorative art included such categories as, historic  weavings, beadwork, pottery ornamentation, and body painting. These works were not trying to imitate the single  point of view of an eyewitness. These artists were not aiming for atmospheric perspective, linear perspective, color recession, or  any of the mimetic criteria Europe had developed since the ancient Greeks.  They were making artful arrangements; ritually styled compositions, patterns and symbols rooted in cultural traditions.  Their  patterns engage us with arresting tempos of variegated colors, shapes and symbols.  Such traditions can be usefully exploited by study and borrowing,  whether it be from the Kwakiutls of the Pacific Northwest  ( see example 1, painting on wood inside Kwakiutl Raven Mask,1900) or  Tibetan Buddhist  mandalas.  Here we can observe the careful extended use of symmetry,  echoing patterns, and elegant simplified pictographic and ornamenting shapes.  I borrowed the  emphasis on balance and pattern, and then I merged it to European traditions of mimesis. This activity helps an artist find new directions and stimulates the imagination.

example 1.  

In the following examples I will show you paintings of mine which I developed by moving  away from mimesis (the Western pursuit of the imitation of nature as seen through  a window) and  pursuing  principles of  pattern  and balance found in ornamental art . As you will see,  I continued my own traditional (mimetic) use of  the picture plane as a place for  spatial and faux texture effects.  In these examples, my abstractions become  hybrids, part mimesis and part ornament. The ornamental part can be seen in my reliance on a  flat and balanced  pattern.  In my first example ( example 3) of  figures moving through space in Grand Central Station, I have already begun to move away from easy legibility. Next, I use the experience of seeing layers of paper posters peeled off  a wall ( example 4). I superimpose this flat idea onto the illusionistic space of the painting.  The resulting image is both flatter and more abstract yet, it still retains the feeling of a picture versus an ornament.

example 3.

example 4.

In the next example I begin with a  forest scene already reduced and abstracted into an atmosphere of color and floating shapes (example  5).   I then place dark ( blue/black) paint over the upper area of the painting and a warmer brown paint  over the lower area.  The blue/black not only acts as a value contrast but also, as a color contrast to the lighter mottled yellow field underneath. The  dark yellow/dark brown   which I painted over the lower section acts as a foil to the lighter purplish color now lying underneath.  Next, I considered gestural patterns which would cross the entire picture plane.  My stroke  gestures were  continuous like, an unfolding  bracelet (ornament) twisting across a darkened field.  The dark areas can be seen as flat shapes or, as dark deep space  (ornamental flat space vs. illusionistic  natural space). Example 5 is so thoroughly changed by re-painting  that  the resulting image (example 6 ) allows only traces of the original work to show through.

example 5.

example 6.

In my last example I began with a painting of  a pond with its reflections and floating  material(example 7). I added warm dark brown reds to a painting whose dark colors were deep cool blues. Again, I aimed for  contrast through color. The complex surface area of example 7 offered texture and color for my later reveals in the final centrally balanced abstraction  as now seen in example 8.  The painting was so radically transformed it may be hard to notice traces of  example 7 hiding beneath the final result  of example 8.

example 7.

example 8.  .

Ernst Gombrich stressed the paradox of making and seeing a three dimensional sensation on a two dimensional plane.  He called this essential the problem of naturalism, of realism.  The solution lies understanding in how we construct  our vision, our view of our world. It lies in making a 2D construction into which we can project or  guess what we are seeing. It’s what we do in the three dimensional visual world therefore, converting the experience to two dimensions will work if we borrow some of the same mental construction principles. For example,  there is the principle of overlapping or occlusion which means that anything that blocks our view we conclude must be closer than the territory or object that is being blocked. We also learn that objects have continuity while their view is being blocked.  This is known as the Poggendorf illusion.  There are many other learned visual construction principles such as, degradation of  focus over distance and from the center of vision, diminishing size of objects over distance,  and color shifts over distance. They are also a function of  our previous experience. We access our stored memory when making a guess about the identity of someone or something or someplace. If we don’t have it on the menu of stored memory then, we won’t  guess it. And, we always make a guess. Because our experience and memory are limited our guesses are incomplete or sometimes wrong. But, we still continue to guess, nevertheless.  Our guessing works through anticipation. We expect to see  something and search for confirmation.  Without contradictory evidence we believe our guess.  Paintings work because they allow and encourage us to reasonably guess. We look at a painting and, if the overall sensation is unified in touch and  the relative quality of resolution then, we accept the painting as not offering contradictory evidence. We believe our guess.  Many a student of mine will walk up to a painting and respond by saying  “Is that a…..(fill in the blank) .” I respond by saying to them that by asking the question they have already revealed their guess and,  their guess is always right, at least until they accumulate  enough evidence to change their guess.  The role of the painting is to provide a tableau into which the viewer can enjoy throwing their guesses, making projections from their stored memory.  The painting may offer enough ambiguity to sustain the activity of guessing.  Too much ambiguity and the viewer only feels confused in the presence of threatening chaos. Too little ambiguity and the guessing is too easy. There is no reason to keep looking. Titles can lead the viewer’s guessing.  Here is an example (example 1). I have titled the painting ” Koi Swim Among  Shadows.”  I have seen people look perplexed in front of  this painting until I give them the title which provides enough mental anchorage to sustain their attention. Otherwise the painting seemed to them to be too obtuse, too chaotic to their reward looking. Take a look at example  2. I will tell you it’s origins later. You guess first.

example 1.

example 2.

Now that you’ve had time to examine example 2 you may have already made a guess, a projection from your stored memory. The image is the result of night photography of  traffic in a narrow downtown Boston street.

In Example 3.  I give you a scene of trees by Gustav Klimt  (example 3) and a later one by  Joan Mitchell (example 4). Knowing  that the Mitchell’s  work is of foliage and trees because her  title refers to the  Parisian Garden of the Tuileries, (her  title is  Le Grand Vallee VII)  helps us sustain our looking and broadens our category  of trees. She has expanded how our experience of  trees can be summoned in paint.  We will now go out and look at trees differently.

example 3.

example 4.

Finally, in my painting on aluminum in example 5,   are trees as seen when  inverted in a reflection and confused by both the subtle motions of a small vernal pool and the effects of transparency revealing other matter ( rocks? leaves?) beneath the reflections.

example 5. .

In this part 2 of  ”Colored Light” I arranged a series of transparent images. Some are seen with light  coming from the back, others  represent reverse glass painting in which the image is painted on the glass ( like stained glass) but, backed by another image or color to heighten the feeling of depth and stereopsis.  The history of reverse glass painting is old but,  the movie business reinvigorated the process in the 20th century as a technique to supply realistic and atmospheric backgrounds for impossible settings from ancient Rome (Gladiator and, Mel Brooks History of the World) to Sci-fi. Other contemporary artists have been seduced by the luminous and saturated appearance of color  painted or pressed on the reverse side of glass or Plexiglas.  For example (example 1) Gerhard Richter has pressed cibachrome between Plexiglas and Alucobond. We experience a smooth, even, glossy and high tech sensation.

example 1.

Today there is a trend to print giclees on acrylic to arrest a viewer’s attention in an ever more competitive market for novelty. Here is how the process from photo, to painting on glass, to rear illumination can work in a variety of forms. I begin with two photos. One taken into the sun along a shore of sea grass ( example 2). The other taken into the sun along the streets of Florence (example 5). With the sea grass example I placed a clean sheet of glass over a reversed version of the photo ( just as the movie studios might have done) and proceeded to paint selected areas, omitting others, and inventing where personally compelled to do so.  I left small spaces unpainted to allow a background image, color or light to fill those spaces in later as you can see in my examples  3, and 4 . In example 3, I have placed a graduated dark blue field  behind and alongside the reversed-painted glass image. The dark blue  backing appears to ground the image. In example 4. I backed the same painted glass plate with gold leaf.  Where light reflects off the gold the background appears more uniformly light but, where the light does not keenly reflect the back ground appears dark…almost dark brown.  What you can’t see in this blog is that as you change your angle on the image the illumination from the background appears to shift as well.

example 2.

example 3.

example 4.

From this second photo (Streets of Florence example 5) I began by printing the photo on translucent vellum after a previous experiment on Mylar failed.  The ink remains wet on this surface for up to a six weeks and therefore, can continue to be manipulated. I blended and rubbed off areas of the wet photo ink (See example 6). Next, I printed the same photo on 3Ms’s  multipurpose transparence film. The ink dries quickly here.  I painted directly on the photo obliterating parts of the image  and being guided by others(example7). I then placed both images against my own window so they would behave as stained glass works . Those are the images you see here (examples 6 and 7).

example 5.photo only

example 6. reverse lit vellum with erased ink

example 7. reverse lit with oil paint on transparency

In my final example. I took a Times Square photo which I placed as a template under another sheet of glass and again, I painted with oils on the glass. I took a reverse image of the same photo and pressed my wet glass painting into the photo.  This is the image that resulted. You are looking at the glass, the oil paint is on the reverse side.

example 8. .

In this blog I will show you how artists strained to simulate in paint  the effects of the glory of color informed by light, the effects of stained glass.   The use of  gold leaf  helped painters to give more a variable, animated and brilliant light to their work.  But, the sensation of light and color was incomparable to effects of stained glass.  Stained glass has been with us since antiquity. Mediaeval  stained glass artists relied on cooking cobalt with sand and lime ash to get blue glass and, cooking  manganese in the mixture to get red and purple glass.  Yellow came later by adding silver oxide to the pot which which also lead artists to green stained glass. Oddly, the cobalt blue (expensive and rare)  would end up in pigment only after the blue glass was ground up to become smalt, a degraded and less potent blue than that made from many other pigments from lapis lazuli to azurite. The early Mediaeval stained glass was dull and  barely translucent due to impurities in early glass making compared with the luminous brilliance of later Gothic stained glass.  Finally, artists would fuse ( with heat) painted oil enamels to the stained glass to create details in their windows.  Here is an example of the later improved  glass with blue, yellow, red stained glass from the mid 12th century, St Denis’ chapel of St. Peregrinus. example1.

example 1.

In later centuries artists from Matisse to Richter have tried their hand at stained glass, forever attracted to colors formed by light. Andy Goldsworthy went further in 1980 by slapping water into sunlight until a rainbow could be captured. example2.

example 2.

German 19th century artists would try reverse-glass painting observing  that the glass surface seemed to impart a sheen that evenly deepened the color giving the effect of light-fed color. This process would be borrowed by Hollywood in the 20th century for their own version of reverse -glass painting which would serve as background scenery. More on this subject in a later blog. Transparent color oil glazing would provide another analog to color infused by light.  By 1600 artists like Breenburgh ( example 3) were unifying the light of their paintings with red and yellow glazes. The resulting effect of translucent light pleased them and their clients. In example 4 you can see the effect of watercolor glazing by John Singer Sargent. He has glazed the pool with a duller color to suppress the colors beneath the water. The problem with translucent pigment glazes is they always subtract  a bit of light. The darker the glaze the greater the loss of reflected light from the painting.  A blue overlaid by a yellow glaze goes darker and greener even though a fraction of the blue sensation can still linger. Here is a color mixing grid by Johannes Itten ( example 5) . Notice that the colors are most saturated ( strongest  and purest hue) in the corners. As the colors are mixed ( an effect felt by transparent glazing ) you observe the colors become  less intense, more opaque.

example 3.

example 4.

example 5.

In an effort to recreate the purity of color of  Gothic stained glass and their radical luminosity . I have taken a couple of my paintings and glazed them with pure color using unmixed glazes( oil and pigment only) of carmine, vermillion and ultramarine blue as overlays on the two following paintings.  Initially, example 6 was glazed with gamboge yellow then selectively deleted. The unifying effect of the initial yellow glaze is a tradition that reaches back to the 17th Century Spanish artist, Murillo. I present  the paintings has they evolved, before and after pure  red/blue color glazes. In example 7, notice  the pattern of blue and red glazes has created a second design pattern  with the red area being continuous and the blue areas being separated or broken.

example 6, before red/blue  glazing.

example 7, after glazing.

In  the previous and following example I have chosen the topic of water and water-life because, we are mentally predisposed to think of water as a reflective and transparent surface capable of  offering us opaque and transparent effects.  In this last example I wish to mentally prime you with the subject, “Koi Swimming  Beneath Shadows and Reflections”.  A title will direct our mental associations when looking into an ambiguous territory. I rely upon the symbolic  color values of blue and green because, they are associated with water and reflected sky and, I rely upon red and yellow because,  they are associated with life and sunlight(fire).  The initial stage was devoid of blue. The second stage was more opaque. The final stage, while darker appears to offer more depth of color. The time difference between the initial stage,  March 2009 and the final stage, March 2012 shows that I used  time to reflect upon alternate possibilities for the painting.  In the interim the painting was exhibited in all three forms and,  went  two years without my attending to it. This of course, mocks the clichéd question, “How long did you take to paint that?”

example 8.

example 9.

example 10.  .

When Leonardo  made his quick sketches of Tuscany and the Mountains North of Milan he recognized that mountains appeared more elevated if they stood beside a plain. Depth builds height.  He also saw that illusory panoramic  space demanded a feeling of infinity. From his studies of linear perspective he understood the value of vanishing points along the sight line in conjuring deep space.  That a flat sheet with a few scratched lines could summon a feeling of immensity, of vast and an varied space was a delight to both the artist and the viewer.( see example 1a).  This sensation of  infinite space has long been a principle attraction of both painting and drawing from the uncertain shadowy depths in a still-life to the uncertain edges of the horizon in a landscape.  Depth of space in the picture plane can not only extend  back but also, extend up and down. Sung Dynasty painters of 1000 years ago also created sensations of space from an  elevated perspective with infinite distance. The example I provide here is by a 12th century follower of Fan Kuan .( see example 1b).  When the sensation of depth is down and,  when through the vocabulary of foreshortening the downward aspect feels perilous  and nearby the viewer will experience a vertiginous thrill.  Wayne Thiebaud and Yvonne Jacquette are two contemporary artists pursuing these sensations manipulating our perceptions through distortions in mapping , linear perspective, and color and value contrasts( example 1c. of a painting by Wayne Thiebaud, “Ridge Valley Farm”, 1998).

example 1a.

example 1b.

example 1c.

Max Dunlop and I colluded again this week to discover the two forms of panoramic infinity, extraordinary depth below and extraordinary depth to the horizon.  As per the peculiar rules of our collaborations we each start on a painting then swap the painting we began  for one started by the other artist.  These examples are the result of this curious swapping.  We both pursued an aesthetic which intends for the viewer to experience these works as illusions of space as well as just the evidence the paint’s textured manipulations on a reflective metallic surface.  The viewer can alternate perceptions between the sensation of  the illusion of landscape with its perspectival performance and the sensation of variously manipulated gestures in the  paint. We use our hands, rags(paper towels), spray bottles of turpentine, various viscosities of oil paint, and a variety of brushes from 6″ to 1″ in width. The palette is limited to ultramarine blue, transparent red oxide and white. The photographs we manipulated were taken by Max on his honeymoon in the Badlands of South Dakota.

The first example shows my beginning on a 48×48″ sheet of aluminum. The Second example shows the eventual and final appearance of the painting after Max’s session with the piece.

example 1.

example 2.

The third example shows  Max’s beginning on a 48×48 sheet of aluminum.  The Fourth example shows the painting’s eventual and final appearance after my session with the piece. The 5th example is a detail from the second final work.

example 3.

example 4.                                                             example 5.

My final example is a painting currently in an exhibition at Susan Powell Fine in Madison, Ct. The painting  offers the perspective from an  airplane over Manhattan with the rhythms of Mondrian, the heightened palette of Bonnard and Thiebaud  and, with references  to 16th century ornamented map making.

example 6. .

Since Ancient Egyptians we have been painting on gold leaf, the bright, inert element, eternally reflecting, never rusting.  If you want to insure perceived value in your subject simply clothe them, surround them or  present them in gold.  From India to Egypt, From China to Europe,  for  thousands of years we have used gold to amplify the vitality of  our depictions.  When walking past a reflectant surface we feel its light following our gaze, subtly illuminating our space and insisting on our reverence for its precious aura.  We look out on a three dimensional world.  And, since Mediterranean antiquity we aimed to evoke that three dimensional world on a flat surface with paint.  Gold has more reflectance than a fresco or canvas we experience a sense of lively light coming from the painting which employs gold.   Early users of the gold leaf relied on its intrinsic value to underscore the value of their subjects, gods, virgins, saints or royals. They did not fully exploit its potential to support  mimesis,  the imitation of the visible world.   In the first example you see a 6th century AD Byzantine  use of gold to flagrantly elevate is subjects.  In my second example from the 14th century , Italian artists generously  applied gold leaf to their paintings.  Backgrounds, Halos, crowns are all leafed with gold. You can read the relative value of the painting’s subjects by the size of their golden halo or, their crowns or, the extent of gold in their garments. The scene itself is elevated by its backdrop of gold. The  14th and 15th century Renaissance studio included gold leafing as a standard skill to be learned by each apprentice.  Cennino Cennini’s  widely circulated studio handbook  of 1396,”The Book Of Art” explains the process of leafing among its many instructions.  Fra Angelico, working from a monastery in Fiesole near Florence not only delicately used the gold leaf for halos, angel wings, and background but also, reinforced the value of the angel’s words announcing Mary’s divine pregnancy by serving them up in gold leaf (example 3).

example 1.   

example 2.

example 3.

Today artists use both gold leaf and other metals to animate the reflective surface of their artworks. El Anatsui’s (Ghana) curtain of  woven bits of  commercial  metal detritus reflects its colors and bright surface  a manner  suggesting  Byzantine mosaics, with each tile tilted to reflect the light at variable angles. The buckling folds in the metal quilt create shade patterns where we see the colors vary from those capturing direct light.  See example 4.

What follows is a step-by-step application of oil color to a surface of 23 karat gold leaf. The gold has been leafed onto  a sheet of aluminum.  I buy 23karat versus 18 or lesser karat because, an attraction of gold is its intrinsic sense of value and therefore,  the higher the karat the greater the  cultural associative value.  I prepare the aluminum with an easy to use water-based sizing known as  ” Wunda Size”.  Apart from its ridiculous name, this sizing is easy to apply. Simply pour a small pool  of the sizing in the middle of your surface and spread it evenly.  I use a soft rag or paper toweling.  The advantage to this size is that it will stay “open” or tacky for an extremely long period.  Next, I apply  patent gold leaf.  With patent gold leaf you do not need to worry about moving  the air-light leaves about.  Simply, press the paper sheet holding the leaf onto the pre-sized(glue) surface.  After leafing the surface I gently dust the gold with a super soft cosmetic brush which insures uniform adhesion and removes excess material.  Then, I pour a small puddle of polymer gloss varnish ( I use Golden brand) into the  center of the gold leafed area and gently smooth the varnish  over the surface.  This varnishing barely diminishes the gold’s reflectance and creates a more durable surface on which to paint. Beware;  gold leaf is exceptionally fragile. The following examples illustrate the step-by-step progression of the painting on gold leaf.

example 5.   I leafed the entire surface. Much of the gold is still directly visible here as I begin to apply translucent layers of  oil paint.

example 6.  The blue of the stream bed acts as a color complement to the yellows and oranges.

example 7. a detail of the lower left corner in example 6.

example 8. a detail  of the same corner as I proceed with the painting.

example 9.  The status of the painting at present. Notice that in the sky you can detect areas of the gold as  yellowish  hues under the paint. The translucence of  the paint has let the gold show its effect across the entire picture plane.

example 10.  Here is another example of an oil on 23karat gold leaf  on aluminum.

Johannes Itten, the Color Professor at the Bauhaus in Germany  studied simultaneous and successive contrast. His books influenced generations of modernists. He shows us  the differentiating effects of complementary colors when set against complements of equal value and equal area.  In my first example, an example straight from Itten, you see bands of yellow show  greater contrast when  placed over an area of  complementary(violet) color   than over an area of color of equal value which contains a quantity of that yellow (peach) or over an area of equal value which is not  directly complementary ( like green). See how the yellow bands appear to dissolve into the peach but, they separate from the violet areas, especially when the violet  offers a contrasting value as with the light blue-violet( mixed with white).

example 1. 

In my 2nd example you see Robert Natkin’s abstraction which depends upon a violet versus yellow contrast.  Natkin’s yellow shape moves forward toward us while the various areas of degraded gray-violet  shrink away.  He introduces a larger territory grayed yellow behind our  sharp yellow shape.  This dirty yellow field builds even more space by seeming to float in front of a neighboring blue-gray area and  a violet-gray area. Natkin tries to tuck the yellow shape back into the painting with an overlapping gray band along its bottom edge. But, we feel the yellow is trying to jump that gray fence.

example 2.

In my following  5 examples I demonstrate how to build a landscape using the yellow/violet contrasts.  When I wish to push the violet back I add other colors and white to the mixture. If I want the violet to be darker then, I keep it more saturated and less mixed.  I mix the yellows with adjacent colors of orange and  occasionally a bit of green.  For an analogous harmony I use light-blue against violet-gray as in the distant house  placed against the hillside.

example 3. is just yellow and violet at the beginning.

Where the yellow and violet overlap a muddier yellow green cast appears. This  overlap color sits in space between the foreground yellow and the background grayed violet.

example 4.  

Here the road is  brightened. Trees of violet and yellow are introduced. The pale blue house is introduced. It marries with the violet rather the yellow which helps keep it in the mid-background. It’s  position along  back edge of the descending road also places it toward the back of the picture plane.

example 5.

I introduce spots of orange which help carry the bottom of the picture forward.  I also intercut small tabs of blue gray along the distant horizon to carry the horizon further back and to separate the horizon from the forward trees.

example 6.  

At this stage the violet and yellow are offering greater complementary contrast which helps amplify the luminosity of the painting.

example 7. The palette for the preceding landscape:

Citroen yellow, vermillion, transparent red oxide,  Quinacridone violet, Scheveningen Blue Light, ultramarine blue, Gamboge and  titanium white. Mixing is illustrated. Violet mixed with white and Ultramarine blue makes a lighter opaque-violet which can be pushed down in  both value and hue or, similarly sullied by adding a bit of gamboge.

If you would like to preorder my 3 1/2 hour double DVD  on  Painting Skies then, go to  Kickstarter which is at  http://kck.st/x12ar3.  Here you acquire  this new instructional  DVD  where I provide demonstrations on  painting skies by the great English landscape painter J.M.W. Turner  as well as  17th century Dutch masters  and, contemporary  sky-painting techniques.  Visit Kickstarter for video explanation of the DVDs . There is also a link on my home page. The last example is demonstrated on the DVD

example 8.