Kant observed that our perception was a function of the organization of our minds. Neuroscientists have made similar observations today. Through FMRI research we can watch our brain work.  Recognizing space is a particular skill of ours. Whenever we fail to see edges and perceive only gradual transitions in value or color we conclude we are seeing space.  As Kant suggested we know through our modes of categorizing.  No category then no perception.  UFO’s fall into a category just like flowers and toys.  We say things taste like or look like or sound like some familiar category. Space perception is tricky. It’s not there. It’s an absence.  We measure absences by the distance between edges or, in music by the length of the interval between notes. In painting if we lay down an edgeless color we have made space. Rothko tried to remove objects( stuff with edges) and give the viewer the sensual experience of a space of red or yellow. He was thwarted by the inevitable  edges along the perimeter of his large canvases. Before Rothko artists like Turner or Whistler tried dissolving the specificity of edges to create an atmosphere, an emotive condition into which we can throw  imaginative guesses.  Chinese Sung Dynasty artists of a millenium past explored the relationship between something vs.nothing or absence vs. substance.  Their landscapes alternate in bands of vaporous nothing contrasting against the outlines of trees, forests, or mountains. This alternating rhythm of absence vs. substance creates a sensation of depth, of near and far. In my following examples I begin with one painting and then overlay it with another painting so that I may create more depth, not simply going back in space but also going into space. In my first example I have a collection of bamboo leaves floating at various levels. The illusion of levels is made through the effect of overlapping leaves. I also create a sense of depth by making the leaves in front larger than those in back. I further  augment the sensation of depth by layering another design translucently on top (example 2). In example 2 there appear to be shapes below a translucent surface and others above that surface. As you raise your vision the transparency slowly becomes opaquely occluded suggesting a reflection of sky.  The color is also seamlessly transitioning from one complement into another. Additionally, the patterns of sharply delineated surface shapes not only diminish in scale toward the top/back but the shapes zigzag in manner further suggesting receding space.

example 1.first layer.

example 2.second layer.

Next I begin with example 3 as my preliminary layer, an oil on aluminum which already exploits translucent glazes makes allusions to layered depth. The overall pattern recedes into darkness at the top. Example 4 overlays example 3 and reverses the light-to-dark sequence; now the transition moves from a dark-to-light, from a higher contrast dark-blue bottom area up toward a lighter area. Again the gradual transition of color and value suggest space but, the space is divided by shapes zigzagging their way toward infinity. These shapes are cutouts revealing  the previous example 3′s underlying colors and underlying progression of bright-to-dark.

example 3. warm toned underpainting.

example 4. Blue to orange overlay.

In example 5 I begin with a blurred and abstracted view of a neoclassical interior architectural space with lots of verticals interrupted by a few short chopped  horizontals. Example 5 is  then overlaid with a complementary set of blues and greens which are worked into  vertical blur seen in example 6. The motif has reversed categories as well.  Example 5′s subject was architectural space while the overlay of example 6 has a biomorphic subject, abstracted flowers.  The cutout’s in example 6 reveal parts of example 5 below with its color contrast.  Again I try to create space that moves back as well as in.  Before concluding allow me to invite you to a new exhibition of my paintings at the White Gallery in Lakeville, Ct. which begins this Saturday, June1st. and, to join our kickstarter film project now its last 3 days (details on this website).

example 5. abstracted architecture.

example 6. abstracted flowers.

The Light of  the Garden of Eden was a soft luminous yellow coming from the East, the direction of morning.  For Jan Van Eyck to Vermeer that morning light came through a window on the left side of the painting.  A Dutchman in the 1600s knew the window rested on  the Eastern wall of the room spreading the light of Morning.  The appeal of  Eden or Paradise is its garden setting.  We get our word paradise from the ancient Persians, a walled enclosure, a safe place suitable for a garden.  Past the garden the world is less beautiful and safe.  Artists across time and cultures were compelled to depict gardens.  Our contemporary  garden painting  tradition begins with French Impressionists.  Americans from Childe Hassam to John Singer Sargent followed their precedents.  Sargent makes garden painting a private affair rarely showing or selling his small garden experiments in oil and watercolor.  An obvious influence was Sargent’s friendship with Monet and his visits to Giverny.   Sargent explores gardens earlier in England as in the oil in  example 1 from 1879.  This oil garden study reveals Sargent’s interest in the  spontaneous, gestural,  bravura strokes of artists like Frans Hals and Velazquez.   He will use these strokes in his watercolors as well.  By the mid 1880s Sargent frequently makes other garden studies as you see in example 2, poppies.   Here his point of view is level with the poppies.  The background  is dark imitating the tradition of portrait artists using dark backgrounds.  Sargent travels widely in Europe and finds intimate garden subjects in Majorca in 1908. Example 3 shows Sargent’s   watercolor of gourds in Majorca.  His point of view now is quite close and looking up.  Example 4 is  a photo of mine which I took thinking of Sargent’s watercolor.   A year earlier in 1907 Sargent was touring Tuscany with  his usual retinue of friends and manservant.   He found inspiration  in the  Tuscan gardens of Collodi , the Boboli in Florence (see example 5  of Sargent’s watercolor followed by example 6 of my photo), and gardens of Frascati near Rome.  I have visited these gardens following in Sargent’s footsteps.

Example 1. Sargent  corner garden, oil.

Example 2.  Sargent oil, poppies.

Example 3. Majorca gourds, watercolor.

Example 4. My photo

Example 5. Sargent Watercolor in Boboli.

Example 6. My Boboli photo.

On a recent  May Morning I wandered about our own garden, my wife Rebecca Hoefer is the gardener  here.  I discovered the light of Eden was all about.  It provided a luminous backlight to some fading daffodils on the edge of our forest, example 7.  Here is how I proceeded step-by-step through another garden painting and later, I’ll show you how I  tried to abstract my experience.   I begin with  a series of photos. You see two versions on the left in my first step, example 8.  I apply ultramarine blue on a 36×36 piece of white 3mm Dibond anodized aluminum.   I move to example  9, which represents step 2.  Here I applied gamboge yellow  to the upper area and blended it with the edges of the ultramarine blue.  In example 10, step 3,  you see  my brush which is a 6″ soft synthetic nylon flat . I generate a texture by lifting the paint as I pat the flat side of this brush in multiple directions across the surface. In example 11, step  4, I have outlined shapes with my finger and a Bounty paper towel.  In example 12, step  5, you see further  outlining of shapes.  Example 13 represents step 6.   This is as far as the painting has come.   I added semi-opaque whitish pink glazing to upper right light area.  In example 13a I added further glazes.

example 7.  aging daffodils.

example  8. step I, ultramarine blue.

example 9. step 2, yellow and blue.

example 10 .step 3, texturing.

example 11. step 4, shapes.

example 12. step 5 more shapes.

example 13. step 6.

example 13a. after glazing.

After  more garden paintings ( see examples 14 and 15) trying different proximities to my subject but, all seen from about the height of a Robin’s eye I  consider abstracting the subject.  I try  monochromatically abstracting a  distilled daffodil shape.  Next, I try the process again in  color with squeegees and brushes while over-painting an older image (example 16).  As a demonstration for my  experimental class  ”Extending Your Reach” at the Silvermine School of Art (Silvermineart.org) I used brushes and squeegees  on an 18×18″ sheet of aluminum.  I  again over-paint  a previous image whose colors suited my needs.  The squeegee reveals the under-painting’s textures and colors.

example 14. Flora II,36×36.

example 14a. Flora II after glazes

example 15. Flora III,36×36.

example  16. Abstracted Daffodil.

example 18. Class Demonstration.

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For centuries artists  like tourists have  visited prescribed locations to find inspiration, to document their journey,  and to insure a ready market for their artworks.  Artists like tourists tend to rely on standard viewpoints whether the subject is  Niagara Falls or the Coliseum.   Historically, guide books  presented prescribed routes for tourists and artists alike.  Artists saw earlier artist’s work  and considered it a challenge to try to outdo them using the same motif. When John Singer Sargent arrived in Venice in 1880 he brought  a new point of view  with him.  In the previous 18th century artists had painted  big vistas, big views across the Piazza San Marco or the entrance to the Grand Canal. These were the sort of images  that Canaletto, Guardi and Turner painted. Although, Turner also painted intimate interiors and stairways.  By the 1870′s a photographer, Naya, had discovered more personal intimate vignettes of Venice, its personal nooks and crannies. This new micro view of Venice would be adopted by Whistler and Sargent and,  became the new style for capturing the life of Venice.  Artists and collectors adopted it as the new fashionable point of view.  Like earlier artists, Whistler and Sargent often made small quick sketches before committing to larger watercolors or oils, especially the oils.  Both artists were encumbered with the notion that oils were more important and serious in the hierarchy of artist materials.  We still feel  that bias today.  Today, if you were to visit the Brooklyn Museum you would find a large show of Sargent’s travel oils and watercolors. You might notice that smaller were watercolors appeared as quick and spontaneous sketches while others were larger and more careful  and, the oils  were clearly more labored.  It’s difficult to generate the spontaneity of a small, quick watercolor or oil  sketch in a larger oil. Turner tried, Cezanne tried, Sargent tried and I too have repeatedly tried this.  In example 1 you see one of  Sargent’s small quick watercolor sketches of the church of the Gesuati along  the Guidecca shore. Example 2 shows Sargent slowing down to find more architectural accuracy in his larger watercolor of the same subject but,  from a different point of view.  In example 3 I have a small quick (8″x12″)  oil sketch of the interior of Grand Central  Station which you can contrast with my larger oil on steel (36×60) in example 4.  The point of view is the same but the palette, organization, and layered atmosphere have been further developed.

example 1. quick Sargent sketch.

example 2. the more studied Sargent.

example 3 my small quick oil sketch.

example 4. my  larger oil.

Points of view reveal differences in cultural and aesthetic values.  Canaletto generally paints large panoramic views of Venice.  This example (no. 5) shows an artist who still likes the big view but, found interest in a microcosm  of mystery within the painting.  Here Canaletto looks down the canal of the Mendicanti (rio dei Mendicanti).  The canal is not long,  only a couple hundred yards but, Canaletto makes it look large.  He is standing on a bridge with his back to the Northern Lagoon.  If he were to stop working and look to his right he could see where Sargent would  paint his Gesuati  Church watercolors a century later.  Francesco Guardi, a younger  contemporary of Canaletto’s,  painted the same canal but, from the opposite direction (example 6).  The bridge you see in Guardi’s painting is the one Canaletto stood upon while making his view.  Guardi  has also made the canal wider.  Taking an opposing  and lower point of view changed how Guardi  treated the scene.  In Canaletto’s painting observe  that I have  made two blue circles. One surrounds the backside of a church on the campo of St. John and St Paul and the other surrounds a bridge in the distance which services that campo.  John Singer Sargent will paint this same canal  but,  from the opposite direction of Canaletto.  In his watercolor we face the front of the church and have a closer view of the bridge.  Sargent’s point of view is from low on the water from within a gondola ( example 7).   In example 8 you see Guardi’s painting of  the same campo as Sargent. You can even make out  Sargent’s bridge on the far left.   Months before Sargent arrives Whistler would walk through this campo and over this bridge to the next canal where he makes pastels and an etching.

example 5. Canaletto.

example 6. Guardi.

example 7. Sargent.

example 8.  Guardi.

In between the century separating Guardi’s and Canaletto’s paintings from Whistler and Sargent is Richard Parkes Bonington.  He visits this same campo earlier in the 19th century and decides to look up to  paint the  monument in the square.  You can spot this same monument in Guardi’s painting.  Bonington’s  back is to the canal.  Here is a small sample of  artists all visiting the same location all looking to place their personal stamp on the experience by selecting a different point of view.

example 9. R.P.Bonington.

In my final set of examples I have a few of views of Times Square ( examples 9,10).  Like Canaletto and Guardi , I paint my subject from opposing points of view.  I also shift  the location of the vortex of light by changing my point of view.  Slight shifts in elevation or orientation create a different compositions.  These   and other works of mine  are  on view at Susan Powell Fine Art  at 679 Post Road in Madison, Connecticut    (tel. 230 318 0616). An exhibition of my work opens there on Friday at 6 PM   May 17. Like Guardi and Turner I did not let the facts of the topography interfere with my arrangement of the composition.  In example 11, I have a point of view not available to Canaletto or Sargent. I am riding high above Manhattan with a more modern point of view from airliner.

example 9. looking uptown, vortex left.

example 10. looking downtown, vortex right.

example 11. High over Manhattan.

Artists, poets and musicians chased the feeling of the sublime from the 18th century deep into the 19th century.  Edmund Burke  spelled it out.  It was the evocation of the awesome wonder of nature.  From Goethe to Turner artists and authors tried to rev up the sense of awe in the face of  dynamic and threatening nature.  Turner’s experiments in paint  pushed him toward more gesture, more ambiguity, and greater contrasts of color, texture and scale. He wandered  from England to Italy looking for subjects that could inspire his experiments.  The  Northern Coast of France, Rome, The Alps and Venice were all mined for  their scenic drama.  In Venice Turner discovered the  city , water and sky were a stage set  capable of  electrifying  light shows.  He played down the narrative and descriptive aspects of Venice and  instead,  played with the  expressive  nature of his materials  as in his watercolor sketches and then later in his oils. His designs became increasingly about high contrasts in value, high contrasts in complementary color, and simple dramatic designs with an emphasis on movement.   His influence spread quickly to artists like Thomas Moran as you can see in  examples 1 and 2. The difference between them can be seen in way Moran’s shapes and strokes are more studied, more contrived, and tidier.  Here Turner used a favorite contrast of red/yellow versus dark blue, of light versus dark.  Thomas Moran imitated the palette. Turner allows the movement of the paint to make suggestions. His work feels freer. As a result it is more dynamic.  In experimenting with watercolor  in Venice (and elsewhere) we see  Turner’s increasing reliance upon  unfolding events in the paint to help build his final image. He uses evermore contrast and evermore  design simplicity.  Take a look at his watercolors of the Venice’s Grand Canal in examples 3 and 4 or, look at this oil late oil painting of Venice (Approach To Venice,1844, example 5)  which evokes a mood through  contrasts of  yellow and violet and a reliance on the indistinctness of subjects in the shadows and light.

example 1. Turner’s Slaveship.

example 2. Thomas Moran after Turner.

example 3. Turner watercolor.

example 4. Turner watercolor.

example 5. Turner oil of Venice.

In examples 3 and 4 Turner reversed the contrast positions of light and dark. Each painting uses a simple horizontal wedge design.  In example 3 he has a wall in light framing the left side and in example 4 he has a dark wall framing that side.   Example 3 is the  same essential design he used in the “Slaveship” painting.  Like Moran , when borrowing a Turner design I simply reverse it as you see in my example 6. Turner thought in contrasts of light and dark as much as he thought in contrasting colors. He built his working color circle which he called a weighted color circle because,  the light color yellow was placed on top and the dark on the bottom.  This color circle contains three color triangles ( the top yellow triangle is quite faint)  as another guide for color/value contrast.  Delacroix and Goethe both recommended the use of the color triangle versus the color circle (see example 7).

example 6. My reversal of Turner design.

example 7. Turner’s weighted circle.

By the end of his Career Turner  further simplified design, further amplified contrasts and  further explored  the effects of paint and gesture with their abilities to suggest subjective content.  I thought I might push my experiments  with the effects of the traces of gesture and  wet paint  and allow them to offer  ambiguous content possibilities.  In examples  8, 9, 10 and 11 I follow Turner’s lead of letting the paint guide the imagination.  I let experiments in the paint reveal the picture’s content rather than superimpose a purely descriptive agenda.  I also borrow his “Flying Horizontal Wedge” design, his use of exaggerated color and value contrasts, his  broad vocabulary of strokes ( the loose footprints of a variety of strokes),  his regard for  design  with sense of motion,  his predilection for deep illusory space, and his affection for exaggerated theatrical  effects inspired  by the sublime experience of nature.  As with his late Venetian painting  I paint sea and sky but,  I introduce  a landscape which performs the role of Turner’s turbulent sea.

example 8.   Landscape and Sky in Motion.

example 9. Landscape and Sky in Collision.

example 10. Landscape with Atmosphere.

example 11. Sea and Sky.

We are accustomed to seeing natural light fall from above. We experience shadow as a phenomena that generally resides in areas beneath the light. This is our automatic expectation for the location of light and shadow.  Often artists rely on this expectation of ours to help them build a deeper space. In this watercolor of Turner’s ( example 1) notice the blue shadowed area at the bottom of the painting and the lighter area closer to the horizon.  As Turner introduces the light from above  he makes it obscure the linear clarity of the Venetian horizon.  In example 2, a contemporary example by Max Dunlop we see some of the same principles.  The  darker bottom of the picture fades away as we ascend into a pale and obscuring light as we raise our eyes to the horizon.  With these  examples in mind I modified  the information in a shoreline photo of mine. In example 3 you see my first step. I pinned a photo next to my painting surface to show you  my rearrangement.  I raised the  level of the grasses allowing the foreground to consume more of the picture’s surface. This moved the background further into space.  I reduced the number of pools of reflected water  to only one area by eliminating those in the front.  I also reduced the number of  water shapes breaking in from the left .  I let the shallow water recede through successively thinner stages. In example 4 you see my blue indication marks for where I raised the sea grass foreground . Notice the painting migrates from darker foreground to a much lighter background. In example 5  you see the image before I introduced the complementary lighter blue color  and,  I have yet to completely sequence the horizontal  bands of water which will  melt into with the distant band of water. In example 6 , the image after  the light blue complements have been introduced to water and distance.

example 1. J.M.W. Turner watercolor

example 2. Max Dunlop oil on aluminum

example 3. Step one, shoreline oil with photo

example 4. Step two, with blue diagram of changes

example 5. Step three, before blue lights and distance

example 6. Step four, after blue distance

Next I will show you more  subtle effects of a barely darker foreground  as gives  the feeling of foreground  vs. distance with a more abstract subject, water.  John Singer Sargent  uses a darker shadow to cross part of the foreground in example 7. The reflected water shifts to a pastel blue as it recedes in the distance .  The middle ground  has  a  greater range of color but , the greatest highlights are found in the area above the water’s surface as in the white rocks.  In my final two examples 8 and 9 I  delicately suggest a darker foreground color  and I place more bright contrast in the middle just as Sargent did. Then, like Sargent I let the acuity of edges diminish and a pale pastel  colors blue, green, and  reduced yellow  pervade most of the distance. In example 8  I stagger a series of progressively smaller concentric circles to also direct  your attention into the distance. This is a similar solution to example #6 above except that the circles are not as flattened or attenuated as in #6. In example 9  you can find   serpentine meandering reflections breaking through often in orange and red. The serpentine design form is  used more covertly  in #8 and #9  than in the earlier example 6.

Example 7. John Singer Sargent

Example 8. Water Circles, oil

Example 9. Water Circles 2, oil

As soon as Whistler departs Venice in 1880 a young John Singer Sargent arrives. He’s in his mid-twenties. His life has been one of continuous travel. His  mother pushed his artistic development  since earliest childhood so, quick sketches on location are as normal as breakfast to him. His early formal education under the Parisian master, Carolus-Duran stressed  careful observation followed by  a quick and confident rendering.  Duran called this process the  ”au premier coup”  while the Italians called it “alla prima”, rendering your painting all at once.  Another  new criteria was to find a slice of life, ordinary life, a principle established by the Barbizon painters and the later impressionists then, quickly sketch in pencil,  watercolor,  and  oil.  The search for an impromptu slice of life was now in the 1880s aided  by the use of photography.  From French Salon painters to amateurs everyone was  relying on the effects, especially the cropping effects resulting from a photograph.  By 1911, Sargent frequently  used photography and observation to help develop his studio oils. He had lots of company from Gustave Moreau to Thomas Eakins.  Example one is a photo from 1911 probably  taken by Sargent of his sister and  friend from the side of a Venetian canal. Example two presents the later oil painting of the same year.  Notice the sister’s gondolier’s posture and the directional lighting.  By 1911 cameras were ubiquitous and easily portable.

example 1. photo

example 2. painting

Sargent had many historical examples to pick from when finding subjects in Venice.  He always had a taste for classical architecture populated by figures in motion. He enjoyed the reflective surfaces of pavements and walls.  The reflected light  in Venice was  amplified by its water.  Even in this watercolor (example 3) of  Santa Maria Della Salute, a favorite subject of  artists, we can see the effects of photography. The out  of focus foreground elements (boats and contents) serve as a dark foil to the more clearly focused architecture behind.  This  depth-of-field focal differential is an effect  revealed in photography by controlling the size of the aperture opening .  The smaller the aperture opening the greater the depth-of-field focus on elements throughout.  The larger the aperture the shallower the focus for depth-of -field.  The lens focusing  can also be a determinant.   Sargent’s camera also allows him to play with novel elevations. If he puts the camera down upon (or close to) the level of the pavement he can give us a different point of view as he shows us in this oil painting in example 4.  With photography he can also bring the foreground pavement into focus and the background  can dissolve into mystery.  Notice he uses simple single point perspective here just as Canaletto or Guardi would have done a hundred years earlier.  Also evident here is Sargent’s fascination with  glistening surfaces and chiaroscuro effects of bright spots moving out of darkness , a technique learned  under  Duran and at the Ecole des Beaux Arts.  Another example of photography influencing painting comes in example 5. Notice the foreground triangular prow of the gondola pointing us toward the vanishing point and down the canal under the Bridge of Sighs. Looking through a camera’s viewfinder Sargent would have discovered such helpful compositional devices as  others also discovered them.  You may now reconsider example three and observe how again  he uses the prow of the boat to direct our attention into the picture.  This triangular gondola prow in the foreground proved to be a favored device of Sargent’s.

example 3.Santa Maria Della Salute

example 4. pavement in St. Marks

example 5. watercolor

Whether interior  or exterior a textured and luminous pavement  with a distant mysterious atmosphere  were a steady refrain of  Sargent’s .  This view of Venice (example 6)  toward the grand piazza and Santa Maria Della Salute is all foreground  until we travel back to the high misty horizon.  He was aware of his friend Monet’s experiments with colored atmospheres and high horizons  as well  the works of  Turner and Whistler who had explored similar sensations in the same place, Venice.  Here, the  point of view is elevated, probably from a second story or higher window. I  am also  attracted to the effects of  linear perspective, luminous reflective  surfaces and a blurred or misty distance  which  I found  here, in New York . ( example 7).

example 6, grand vista 1880

example 7, NYC, oil  48×48

Again, interior or exterior Sargent was attracted to the spacial illusion provided by single point linear perspective.  He animates this space with moving figures. They are generally silhouettes with a vague suggestion for face or hands.  His figures offer  intimacy. They are closer  to us than those of Canaletto or Guardi in the 1700s. They have the feeling of a snapshot, a frozen moment in time which was an aesthetic principle celebrated at the end of the 19th century.  Example 8 is the interior Venetian example.  Example 9 is the exterior example.  Using the same compositional principles as Sargent, I wandered around Flushing Queens, New York and found  strolling figures in contre jour light, the same back lighting that Sargent used.  My examples 10, 11, 12 and 13 show some contemporary variations on Sargent’s themes.   I abstract the figurative and architectural information more than Sargent.   In example 10  moving figures dissolve into the urban distance as they do in example 11. In example  12  I introduce three point perspective  as the  street at first descends then later ascends into the distance.  In example 13  I pursue  further abstraction and image dissolution  from a single point perspective point of view.  If you are interested  in joining me in Venice  the last week of June and taking the pictures Sargent took as well as painting his scenes and those of Turner, Whistler and Canaletto then,  I invite you to call the Silvermine School of Art in New Canaan, Ct at 203 966 6668.

example 8. Interior, Sargent

example 9. Street Scene, Sargent

example 10. oil, Queens, NYC 

example 11. oil, another view

example 12, 3 point perspective view

example 13, abstracting the motion.

Venice had lost influence, power and riches by the 18th century.  English observers noted a picturesque sense of decay. What a surprise to discover a rebirth in painting at this time.  This was the century of Tiepolo, Canaletto, Guardi, Piazzetta, Piranesi and other Venetian artists of great influence and brilliance. How did their paintings reveal a new direction in art? It was not just the light of Venice, the noble antique architecture, the reflecting canals, the artistic heritage of Titian, Veronese, the Bellinis, and Tintoretto, though these were certainly essential contributors to their work.  I think the quintessential element to their work was the influence of their luminous skies amplified and reflected in their lagoons and canals.  Tiepolo and Piazzetta would bring those skies into interior spaces, filling them with whirling clouds. Tiepolo decorated ceilings with golden skies punctuated with perspectively foreshortened figures, divine, noble or mythic.  Canaletto and Guardi carried the light of the skies on to the water and the face of the reflecting architecture.  Tiepolo, Piazzetta and Guardi invested their scenery and figures with bravura emotion from bravura gestures. Canaletto was more timid, constrained by the rationality of linear perspective. All of these artists were masters of linear perspective. All depended on linear perspective to provide credible space for their theatrical imagining.  Their legacy shows us the power of central point perspective when coupled to luminosity and motion. First, consider these examples (example 1 and 2) of Canaletto’s.  Both demonstrate the emotive power of deep space with a central area of convergence. The first painting was created by Canaletto as a young man, the last painting was created three years before his death and was the work which gained him entrance into Venice’s Accademia.  With the first example we feel the air, the atmospheric conditions of Venice. Example two is merely a triumph of perspective with a unified tone.

example 1.

example 2.

All artists need role models, and they are all improved with instruction. Studio instruction gives an artist a platform to either react against or to refine. Canaletto’s father, a scenic designer, provided Canaletto with a model and instruction as did the artist, Carlevarijs.  Canaletto’s approach would be a refinement of the paradigm. Through refinement Canaletto would surpass the work of Carlevarijs.   Francesco Guardi, whose father was also an artist, studied with Canaletto (like Canaletto, Guardi’s brother was also an artist; family traditions are strong career influences). As any trainee in a productive studio, Guardi worked on Canaletto’s production team along with Canaletto’s nephew Bellotto and other Venetian vedusti (view painters) in training. Guardi’s response to Canaletto’s training would be reactionary. He would create expressive paintings, with a greater range of gesture, less deference to linear perspective and the illusory effects of the camera obscura. This more personal approach would cost him some patronage and account for the poverty of his final years.   Expressionism has a smaller audience than more literally transcriptive artworks.  Emotion is more challenging than simple cognition. Consider this late example (example 3) of Guardi’s of a fire in Venice.  The organization of the painting does not rely upon a single vortex of linear perspective for its theatrical power. It relies on the energy of the event, the bystanders’ emotional witnessing as they are arranged in a line across the bottom of the painting. Guardi uses linear perspective in cubing the buildings behind the flames but not as the central unifying structure. The Sky with its dark billows extends the motion of the fire.  Sky and Earth are thematically joined.

example 3.

I borrowed the idea of a horizontal band of moving figures across the bottom of the picture in my example 4.  I continue to use the linear perspective vortex as Canaletto and his school did (and Guardi did as well in other paintings) in my arrangement of architecture above the horizontal band of figures. I considered how to amplify the color effects of the electric light of NYC just as the Venetians sought to amplify the color effects of the sky in their scenes. I used layered transparent etching inks which were rolled onto white anodized aluminum and then removed or blended to give a more intense color effect, more glass-like than paint-like.  I layered three colors in sequence just as offset lithography works.  First I layered a transparent yellow, then a blue, then a red. After the layering of the inks I began my manipulations. Canaletto also occasionally used metal substrates. His choice was copper.

example 4.

The Venetians borrowed the traditions of the ideal Italian (Roman Claudian and Poussinesque) landscapes when designing their more architectural works.  Canaletto had studied art and architecture in Rome as a young man. Both Canaletto and Guardi also painted landscapes and, capriccios (fantasy landscapes) using Venetian and classical architectural forms and landscape vistas.  Example 5. offers an example of the capriccio which was the product of a team of young  painters, Canaletto, Piazzetta, and Cimbolo.  Observe how the architectural arches act as arching trees to frame the scene. I use the same standard framing design of two vertical flanks, one larger than the other when constructing my landscape in example 6.  The work again relies on layered transparent etching inks rolled on with brayers then manipulated with, fingers, brushes, and squeegees. The Sunset light of the sky colors the red forest floor and flanking trees just as the distant blue trees partake of the color of the cool sky tones.

Example 5.

example  6.

My last example shows the effect of exaggeration of the historical model of the vortex with a super attenuation of the column of distant light. When listing possibilities for reacting to a tradition as Canaletto and Guardi each did in their own way, I neglected to add a third strategy, the strategy of exaggeration.  Here in example 7, you see that linear perspective vortex exaggerated to create a feeling a greater height through pinching the distance.

example 7.

Turner’s trips to Venice were not long but they were transformative.  Questing for Light, commissions, and artistic adventure, Turner made three trips to Venice, his last in 1840. Looking at Turner’s Venetian experiments in watercolor remember that he eternally admired the atmospheric effects of Claude Lorraine. He aimed to exceed Claude’s luminous airy effects in his own work.  He confided to young John Ruskin that atmosphere was his style. His Venetian watercolors are his proof. On his last trip Turner stays longer than before and, unusual for him he brings along a different set of painting materials. He carries soft rolls of watercolor paper which (at about 9×12″) are larger than his usual pencil notebooks. He intended to make watercolor sketches and, he did. Many were made back in his hotel room, a converted palazzo.

Turner always had an eye for a business opportunity and, his major patron for the last half of his life, a Scot, H.A.J.Munro, had requested a view of Venice.   Turner observed the continued popularity of Canaletto’s 18th Century views of Venice and the Thames. He had seen and read the “The Merchant of Venice”, Travel Guides on Italy, and Byron’s “Child Harold’s Pilgrimage.”  Turner would paraphrase Byron’s work in his titles.   Turner saw that his contemporaries, Samuel Prout, Richard Parks Bonington and Stanton all enjoyed commercial success with their Venetian subjects. He wanted part of the action. Turner ‘s watercolor papers would be white, toned, and blue and a few sheets of brown. Whistler, of course, observed Turner’s effects with the brown paper and borrowed the idea later for his own work. Turner generally used transparent watercolor and body color (opaque white) and chalk. Other poets and artists had previously discussed Venetian moonlight as its optimal illumination.  Turner generally preferred the moonlight/twilight time which could he could effectively exploit on his blue and brown paper. He also continued the Claudian tradition of backlighting – that is, looking into the setting or rising sun for dramatic chiaroscuro silhouette effects.  This time of day allowed him to ignore details within shapes and concentrate on simpler and suggested forms that were filled in with shadow. The criticisms of his work misunderstood Turner’s effects, intentions, and methods. The complaints ranged from his images being to obscure to too much color. One critic complained of messy chromomania.  Turner was a poet, not a transcriber of information.  If the piazza needed to be redesigned for purposes of his composition then, he redesigned it.  He moved Romeo and Juliet from Verona to Venice. The dramatic of effects of light and motion, the stirrings of the sky and water, the evanescence of the moment were his motivation and he discovered these qualities in his hotel room experiments.  If the light and color emerging from the paint was evocative then he left it alone to emote and he never subordinated emotional effects to the constraints of geographic information.   His tools were exaggeration, luminous diffusion, light, color, and suggestive ambiguity.

For Turner, composition was the simple substructure that would support his atmospheric adventures. Consider these three examples. They all share the same compositional structure that he slowly refines over time as he creates a more cohesive unity with the development of interlocking shapes and complementary color.  He moves his viewing position as he explores a vista across the water to the Campanile with Santa Maria Della Salute off to the left. Example 1. is a watercolor which shows a more rectangular composition with the two opposite sides not yet interconnecting, not overlapping. The campanile is in the center. In Example 2, the Campanile is moved to the left and Santa Maria della Salute has moved off stage. The composition is still a squarish rectangle but now the serpentine design with interconnecting shapes appears. Example 3, a watercolor from his last trip of 1840, shows a more horizontal composition.  This is better; the field of sky in the earlier versions had not participated in the composition.  The use of complementary color is now more pronounced, giving a more dynamic color harmony to the watercolor.  Santa Maria della Salute’s dome reappears along with an echoing dome shape just as the Campanile has an echoing tower shape.

example 1.

example 2.

example 3.

Turner knows how we are directed to look toward the light. His watercolors on the blue and brown papers exploit the unifying effects of the colored paper and offer an opportunity for Turner to add opaque light into the distance visual goal, or visual destination.  Example 4 is a work on the brown paper. We see through the dark arches of the gallery along the Piazza San Marco toward the Campanile in the bright Twilight. In Example 5 our attention is sent down a canal with linear perspective toward a narrow vertical frame of light.  The tops of the buildings poke into the light. Is it twilight, moonlight, evening light?  This ambiguous time of late or early day was a delightful puzzle in Turner’s work often offending more literal minds.

example 4.

example 5.

I have borrowed the obfuscating atmospheric effects of Turner to make my own works more luminous, more emotive, more suggestive, less literal and more likely to suggest a luminous quiver of motion. As you see here in example 6. I begin with a more clearly defined set of edges. In example 7, I have dissolved the edges to create more light, more atmosphere, more space.

example 6.

example 7.

My Venice has become New York City, Times Square.  I have traded Turner’s Venetian ships for automobiles.  I continue to rely on linear perspective dissolving into a luminous vortex as you see in example 8.  Or, consider example 9.  Like Turner I have directed my vision toward the light creating a condition for vague silhouettes, figures of uncertainty. The flanks of the composition are cloaked in vibrating obscurities.  We tunnel through the image toward the light.  We cross the reflecting streets just as Turner has us cross the quivering and reflecting water of Venice.  Often, water occupies much of Turner’s picture space.  It’s ambiguous possibilities were a rich mine for Turner’s watercolor and oil experiments.  And, borrowing from Turner’s example, I have found a location which allows me to explore my own penchant for atmospheric chromomania.

example 8.

example 9.