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Posted on 7/31/2024 4:02:44 PM
By Donald Fox
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“Ceci n’est pas une pipe” (“This is not a pipe”) is the inscription written beneath a painting of a pipe, one of Rene Magritte’s most famous images, La Trahison des Images or The Treachery of Images. Executed in 1928, Magritte was making a simple observation that the representation of something is not the thing itself. This should be obvious, but many people do not make that distinction with words, images, or other symbols. At one level Magritte was also being satirical, for there are many who judge a painting solely by its verisimilitude to the thing observed that is translated into paint.
In English classes, if I ask for the definition of a noun, generally I will hear several people say, “a person, place, or thing.” They are always surprised when I say that is incorrect, and they protest that that is exactly what they were taught. Perhaps, but maybe they didn’t listen well enough. A noun is a word that names a person, place, or thing. The noun is the name of something and not the thing itself. One might argue here that this is just a matter of semantics, and he would be absolutely correct. It is about semantics and how we can easily fool ourselves into thinking that we know something directly when all we really know is a perception of it.
Several issues are at play. One is that we use language to interpret our experience of the world. We explain things to ourselves by describing them with words, but words themselves are symbols of things. Already we are removed from direct experience by the filter of words. Secondly, our perceptions also are interpretations of sensations that are closest to direct experience. Sensations, however, have no meaning without the understanding provided us by our brains that interpret the sensations, give them context, and create meaning for us. A perception, then, is a representation of some aspect of the world experienced as a sensation. That sensation, whether visual, tactile, or auditory, is also a kind of filter because it is transmitted information via nerve impulses. Time and distance are involved between the stimulus, the bodily response, transmittal to the brain, processing by the brain, transmittal back to the site of stimulation, and appropriate reaction.
But that pipe is physical! It can be touched and felt; it is solid and is used for a specific purpose. Well, as Magritte pointed out, you can’t smoke his pipe. It’s only a picture. A painting is also physical and also only a picture. It can be seen but usually should no tbe touched. Touching is definitely frowned upon in museums and galleries. So what does this mean for artists? That problem each artist has to figure out for him or herself, and the answer is at the core of what every artist believes to be true about his or her artistic experience.
Posted on 1/5/2020 4:48:54 PM
By Donald Fox
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The fifth day of the new year and so far I have not made any paintings. Instead, my time and thoughts have been occupied with completion tasks, preparations for returning to work (school), planning for work on the house, dealing with health issues, strategizing for taxes, and, always, thinking about art, which these days includes thinking constantly about the state of the world. It is said that art is always an expression of its time, and in hindsight, perhaps we tend to simplify the influences that have affected this or that artist, place some neatly within their respective period, some represented as ongoingly relevant, some pushed aside as less important, and a few rediscovered as the shifting lens of history compels one generation to understand its present by reconsidering its past. Present and past are always bound together in a work of art.
On one level, an artwork is a chronicle of its subject but also of its own making. Landscapes portray particular times and places unless fantasized or otherwise imaginatively manipulated. In some cases, the landscape is simply the means by which the artist exhibits his or her style of representation, his or her emotional response, or his/her attitude or philosophy. A finished work lives in the present moment of whichever viewer acknowledges its existence. The work’s origin may be tied to another time period, but it always surpasses that and the artist who created it. It is continually renewed by a new audience and new interpretations. But isn’t this what we do on a daily basis? We think we have continuity when we actually create anew from memory and whatever icons we previously made into substantive form.
Posted on 12/1/2019 5:34:13 PM
By Donald Fox
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Pinwheel Window
One of three paintings completed this long weekend. Could be said it's my way of giving thanks.
Posted on 8/25/2019 4:01:27 PM
By Donald Fox
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Presidential portraits have become a tradition since the very first one was created for George Washington in the late 1700s. Most of the official portraits are housed in the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC, and some of these also have copies in various government buildings or are loaned to the White House to incumbent presidents who might request a portrait of a past favorite predecessor. Gilbert Stuart painted several portraits of Washington including the head and shoulders version that is often reproduced as well as the life-sized portrait known as the Lansdowne portrait in the National Portrait Gallery. He also painted three copies of this portrait one of which hangs permanently in the White House.
The original painting, like many other official portraits, has a decidedly political story. It was commissioned by Senator William Bingham and was given as a gift to Lord Lansdowne (William Petty), the British Prime Minister at the end of the Revolutionary War. He helped negotiate an end to that conflict and honored Washington for his leadership and integrity. Washington supported a treaty that resolved claims against England from the war, and the portrait supposedly represents Washington’s position. The portrait resided in England, was later sold after Lansdowne’s death, was loaned to a Centennial Exposition held in Philadelphia in 1876, was returned to England, went through several owners, was loaned permanently to the National Portrait Gallery in 1968, and was purchased for the Gallery in 2001.
The painting is roughly eight feet tall and five feet wide. Washington stands in the pose of an orator, he holds a sheathed dress sword in his left hand, and he extends his right arm in a gesture as though making a point. He is formally dressed in black and stands within a setting that looks like a corner of a Roman building with large columns behind him. Draped curtains reveal blue sky and storm clouds on the left and a rainbow on the right. Furnishings and books represent governmental power, democracy, the American Revolution, Constitutional law, and Washington’s leadership. These historical references make this a strong political statement of both Washington’s place as a war hero and as the new republic’s elected leader as well as the underpinnings of the new republic’s democratic freedom. It is like a painted essay honoring the relatively new nation and one of its primary founders.
By contrast, President Barack Obama’s official portrait seems decidedly apolitical. It was painted by African American painter Kehinde Wiley, known for his large-scale portraits incorporating ethnic references into highly colorful, hyper realistic portrayals of his subjects. This painting is seven feet high by four and a half feet wide. What is most interesting is the presentation of the president (who was recently out of office at the time of the painting’s completion). [As a side note, Bill Clinton’s official portrait was the first painted by an African American artist, Simmie Knox.]
President Obama is seated in a formal side chair. Roughly one third of the official presidential portraits portray the president seated. Another half dozen portraits are bust poses against a dark background where it’s impossible to tell if the figure is seated or standing. With only a few exceptions, the poses are quite formal – notable exceptions are Reagan, who is partly seated against a column base in a relaxed pose, and Clinton, who stands with one hand resting on a table, the other in his pocket, and his legs, though not fully shown, are crossed (almost like a GQ pose). President Obama is dressed in a suit with white shirt but no necktie. He is leaning forward with lower arms crossed and resting on his thighs. He looks out at the viewer as if in earnest conversation with him or her. His facial expression is serious, relaxed, but focused on the audience. What is most unusual is the surrounding ground, an allover design of leaves with three type of flowers (chrysanthemums, the official flower of Chicago; jasmine representing Hawaii; and Africa blue lilies that reference Obama’s Kenyan father). There is no ground plane; it is suggested only by the perspective of the chair legs and Obama’s feet. But, there is no distinction between any floor and background space. The flowers and leaves create an allover pattern with some leaves overlapping parts of the chair and the figure. The overall image is photo-realistically painted, but the image is almost surreal compared to the Washington portrait. President Obama is very environmentally aware and supported environmental policies while in office (and continues to do so) unlike his successor.
The contrast between these two portraits illustrates the huge changes between the nation’s early years and the often enigmatic circumstances of modern times. There is nothing ambivalent in Washington’s stance or gesture, and the setting is rife with symbolic meaning. The Obama portrait, intriguing as it is in its unconventionality, still does not detract from the president’s charismatic presence nor the strength and grace with which he faced the most daunting challenges. Perhaps there is an underlying message from the artist that we should all pay more attention to surrounding nature rather than continuously wall ourselves off from it – or from each other.
The Lansdowne Portrait by Gilbert Stuart President Barack Obama by Kehinde Wiley
Posted on 7/2/2019
By Donald Fox
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An older acquaintance once told me that the only thing he regretted about growing older was the loss of good friends. Many of us live our lives in segments where we may spend certain years in an area doing a specific job but at some point move to a new location and job. Just as we didn’t maintain connection with all high school or college friends (some maybe not at all), we lose contact with friends or colleagues that we may have spent years knowing.
The nature of life, of course, is change. But when friends or family die, nothing remains except memory or what they might have created. Living in the present often means letting go of those past connections – easier perhaps for those we know are still out there somewhere; less easy with those permanently lost. We mourn that loss but also find the strength to move on often carrying forward the memory of those past.
Such is the case in the world of art and antiquities. This was brought to light dramatically by the recent devastating fire in Notre Dame Cathedral. Now I will never be able to see what it once was. My memory will only be those photos and slide from art history classes, the frequent references made in the course “Religion and Art” I took as an undergraduate, and the many writings and paintings that have referenced that monument.
I can also never visit the World Trade Towers – a very different architectural expression – but also significant in both its uniqueness of creation and its demise. I could also say the same for the giant Buddha statues in Afghanistan that were blown up by the Taliban.
Historic buildings are razed frequently to make way for new construction. Sometimes a few are preserved. Some art and public sculpture disappear without notice or with great controversy. Magnificent works are destroyed or greatly altered by the ravages of time or by acts of destructive war. For example, more than 250 of Camille Pissarro’s paintings were used as canvas mats to cover muddy ground by occupying troops during the Franco-Prussian War.
Conservators go to extraordinary lengths to preserve historical artworks, especially ones created by master artists. The creative process is, thankfully, fluid and continuous like a river of knowledge and beauty flowing forward from the past. It records where we have been and intimates visions of the future. Individual works may not be lasting, but there always will be something that references it (as artists and cultures influence each other) if not take its place.
Posted on 9/21/2017
By Donald Fox
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While cleaning out my studio in preparation for repairs, I have come across several portfolios of drawings and small paintings on paper done in the early seventies just prior to and during the time I was in graduate school. Many of the works I have no memory of, but I can see how they relate to others that I do remember as well as to what followed. Groups of drawings, some pastel, some brush and ink, and others in charcoal are surprisingly consistent as groups for the stylistic approach used in each. Most of the pastels were created using a cross-hatching technique with an impressionistic use of color especially contrasting complements. This makes for a unified textural surface while also suggesting tapestry-like effects of short, woven strokes of color. Many of the images are simple arrangements as in this example: the lower portion of the drawing is the surface of a table viewed from the front whose back edge makes a horizontal cut across the surface; the top portion of a ladder-back chair protrudes above the table edge and is set off by a plain colored wall backdrop – essentially two simple shapes with the chair back being the most complex shape within the picture frame.
Many of these drawings show an interest in abstract design and spatial arrangement that has time and again defined my work though images and surface treatment may have varied through the years. Another design theme, if you will, is angular linear elements moving into the picture space. These might be natural forms like tree branches, groups of rocks, or other landscape features that serve to move the viewer’s eye around the picture space and into the distance. Many figure studies have placed the figure in similar manner so that arms or legs created the same kind of spatial movement within the composition. I still remember the struggles, especially with the figure, of dealing with proportion and accuracy in notation, but it is interesting to see that a burgeoning sense of design is evident in these drawings as well.
The process of learning is not the same for everyone though psychologists have identified basic learning styles that can be enhanced and strengthened through practice and repeated use. It is the individual journey that varies more than anything. Life throws its challenges, and we all make decisions about what to do and how to proceed. The evidence manifests in different ways for each of us. For artists, the evidence is in the creative works that serve as chronological markers and tangible achievements. For me, I find it useful to remember that there is learning available in these past experiences just as in those moving forward.
Posted on 9/17/2017 7:50:33 PM
By Donald Fox
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The Windows and Doors series of paintings that officially began in 2014 had, like other work series, a precursor executed some years before. Ideas for specific works or series of works are buzzing around all the time. Some first appear as drawings, some full-fledged paintings, and some are notes in a journal or playful designs created as collages, photos, or computer images originally made as one-offs that later spur interest in further exploration. Paintings have also derived from dream images and sometimes paintings that are actually painted first in dreams. Pretty much anything visual is fair game for creative exploration.
Back in the early nineties I made several designs using an old computer paint program I no longer have. One of these designs was made into an oil painting several years later after I continued to think about that original design and how it might translate into oils. The painting was made about 1995 and then put aside for another series of works in impressionistic landscape mode that captured my attention. I revisited the painting from time to time but was not interested in pursuing more images of like kind although part of the concept, the window, continued to intrigue me.
Stylistically, the hard-edged abstraction of that computer drawing was not something I wanted to develop even though I had made nearly one hundred small-scale colored paper collages with hard-edge designs in the seventies with the intention of developing them into large-scale paintings. These were geometric designs with overlapping rectangles that moved into the picture space at varied angles. When I started that series, the hard-edges morphed into free-form shapes that were gestural and expressionistic.
This journey of art is like a continual hike in the woods where paths cross, diverge, disappear, reappear, and sometimes have no relational form at all. There are surprises, discoveries, remembrances, romances, and seductions, and somehow everything makes sense in an overall context because the memories connect even when the experiences do not. Those windows, then, that first appeared in the painting I called Window Bytes re-emerged in the Windows and Doors series that stylistically combined several applications and techniques from past works in both realistic and abstractionist modes. As the journey continues, there will be other connections between old friends and new ones.
Posted on 7/30/2017 7:08:02 PM
By Donald Fox
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SunScreen oil on canvas 40" x 30"
This painting is connected to two other specific paintings in the Windows and Doors series: Brick Window and Open Door Policy. Compare this with the other two to see relationships and variations.
Posted on 7/22/2017 2:15:03 PM
By Donald Fox
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The torrid heat of day has slowly given way to evening breeze. The wet, humid blanket of air has folded in upon itself, stored for tomorrow’s rounds of sun and storms, a normal southeastern summer day. Long leaf pines begin to whisper as wind sways these elegant giants like so many metronomes counting the rhythms of emerging stars that wink at bats carousing through the deepening dark. The dust of the Milky Way echoes like a faraway curtain the moon’s silver glow as it rises slowly above the pines, mimosas, silent streets, and deeply silhouetted houses whose occupants mostly slumber and dream. In the distance the steady rolling sea hums and drums against the shore, pulled forward and back by the moon in its restless journey, its cool light skimming over that rumbling sea like a flickering shell tossed absently across the waters of time.
Night Moon Window oil on mounted paper 11.5" x 15.25"
Posted on 7/7/2017 6:23:15 PM
By Donald Fox
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Several randomly selected pieces from late 2014 to the present.
Windows and Doors #4 Window Box
Night Window
Windows and Doors #4 was painted in September of 2013. It is 25" x 32" on stretched canvas. Window Box is from January of 2016, is 24" x 18" also on canvas. Night Window is 24" x 36" and was painted on canvas in April 2017. Works evolve while also sometimes referencing the past. We move forward in life and carry our memories with us as we go.
Posted on 6/24/2017 8:04:16 PM
By Donald Fox
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I have often thought of the painting process as one where there is a give and take between me as the painter and the painting itself. Sometimes I describe the process as a dialog between the work and me. I have an idea that is transmitted to the canvas, and then in a sense the painting tells me what needs to be done next. I take that action, make that statement, and the painting responds with a new request. Obviously, the painting does not literally speak, but there is a kind of conversation in that whatever I do requires an additional response. This back and forth continues until the painting is complete. I could say until the painting tells me that it is finished.
In communication theory, one model is called the transactional model where two parties engaged in communication are both sender and receiver simultaneously. Rather than one person speaking (the sender) and the other listening (the receiver), both are communication as sender and receiver at the same time. This makes sense when considering that conversations involve both verbal and nonverbal cues. The sender of a verbal message is also receiving the nonverbal communications of the receiver as well as verbal responses of agreement or disagreement. This model matches my idea of the painting process where I receive the immediate feedback from the painting as I am painting it.
This new work reflects this transactional concept, which is why I’ve titled it Transactional Frame.
Transactional Frame oil with collage on canvas 24" x 36"
Posted on 6/21/2017 6:13:19 PM
By Donald Fox
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This third and final stage of the painting now entitled Pane Division because it reminds me of something organic that is dividing like a cell might divide to create two entities from one. The process of a painting developing over time is as mysterious as any creative process in nature. We might dismiss that idea thinking that there is a certain logic to the way an artist proceeds in creating his/her work, but that only allows for the logical part of the process to be explained. There also is the initial inspiration and the inspiration that follows that as the artist is continually inspired stroke after stroke, each adjustment and change laying the basis for the next decision and the next. A work of art may end at a place significantly different from that first envisioned within the mind’s eye. Or, the work may be fully conceived, and the constructive process moves step after step until the vision is realized. There is no right or wrong here; works may proceed and grow either way.
As I said yesterday, this is the sixth painting so far in this variation on the windows and doors theme. Other paintings besides these have incorporated autobiographical elements in the form of previously worked pieces: drawings, paintings, discarded experiments, color swatches or other preliminary study pieces. In fact, over the past three years, more paintings than not have included elements from earlier work. I’m also incorporating visual ideas from work created from the late seventies through the early nineties, a period when I explored many abstract concepts in a variety of media. Symbolically this also makes these works windows on the past much like overlaying present time perceptions with previous memories.
Pane Division oil with collage on linen 24" x 30"
Posted on 6/20/2017
By Donald Fox
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I began working on a painting yesterday that includes collaged paper from print experiments I did almost twenty years ago. Drawing paper was painted with acrylic in light blue and light green. When this was dry I used a fabric mesh placed on a copy machine glass as the image to be copied onto the painted paper that was passed through the machine. This made a print of black mesh punctuated as though by the shapes of leaves on top of the painted ground. During a two-year period I made hundreds of experimental prints on various kinds of papers that had been painted on, drawn on, or otherwise manipulated and then Xeroxed images on top of them. Some of these were incorporated into collages or paintings or handmade paper works, and many of them have subsequently been destroyed. This one, however, I collaged the paper torn into unequal halves onto linen canvas and taped the edges to ensure they stayed flat while drying. The remainder of the canvas I painted with black acrylic gesso covering the tape so that its imprint would remain as negative lines after the tape was removed. After the gesso and glue had dried, I began working oil with brushes and knives for textural effects.
This is the sixth painting so far in this variation on the windows and doors theme. Other paintings besides these have incorporated autobiographical elements in the form of previously worked pieces: drawings, paintings, discarded experiments, color swatches or other preliminary study pieces. Symbolically this also makes them windows on the past much like overlaying present time perceptions with past memories. These first stages will be further developed, and the process will be documented as it progresses. So far there are two stages as illustrated below. Once set into motion, these kinds of paintings grow organically as I perceive the process.
Stage 1 Stage 2
Posted on 6/14/2017 5:38:01 PM
By Donald Fox
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Off Kilter acrylic with collage 40" x 30"
The question often comes up among students, how do you know when a painting is finished? It would seem that this is an easy question to answer, perhaps even one with obvious answers like everything has been filled in or there are no more blank spaces on the canvas, but those suggest completing a painting is like mowing the yard (all the grass has been cut) or wrapping a present (it’s all covered up). A painter might state that there’s nothing more to say visually. Many experienced painters have responded that the painting feels complete or possibly that nothing draws attention to itself (and therefore nothing would need to be fixed).
Painting is a complex process, and though young painters are in a hurry to complete a painting, they often stop too soon largely because they lack critical judgment. This skill is one that usually develops slowly from many hours of painting (more like years), or as some have expressed it, it takes lots of brush mileage. There is no shortcut here, for all the tasks that painters do require heightened concentration and artistic awareness: creating balance, color harmony, right design, expressiveness, and the merging of visual idea with manipulation of the medium. Hand, eye, and mind work together for effective resolutions in painting. The task is by no means the product of luck and rarely is it a start to finish without interruption race to completion. Many experienced painters have second or third or fourth thoughts about paintings before they are considered complete. Some paintings get reworked more than once before being determined finished.
Today I had an insight about a recently completed painting, and with a few minor adjustments I made subtle changes in composition that added depth and meaning not present in the previously thought completed stage. When I showed the result to my wife, she identified the two areas of change but also noted areas she had not noticed before. The additions had actually strengthened other parts of the work. I wasn’t displeased with the earlier version, but I felt that if I lived with it for a few days, I would find something else to adjust. That voice of experience paid off. Here’s the completed version.
Posted on 6/3/2017 10:58:23 PM
By Donald Fox
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Pyramid Window oil with collage on canvas 24" x 36"
Posted on 5/28/2017 2:12:21 PM
By Donald Fox
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The latest addition to the current series of Windows and Doors is Nature’s Window, a 40” x 30” oil and collage on linen. Aside from the extended metaphor governing all variations in the series, this painting also includes allusions that are part of others in the series. Without giving away too many thoughts and thereby imposing restrictions on viewers as to how this or any other painting should be interpreted, I will say that Cubism has been a recurring influence in much of my art since the seventies though I would not describe my paintings as cubistic. Surface pattern and shifting spatial ideas could just as easily allude to oriental brush painting. In short, any artist absorbs that which interests him or her, and these ideas get reshuffled into the visual language through which the artist expresses feeling and thought. Such is the case here.
Posted on 5/23/2017 5:16:00 PM
By Donald Fox
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There are many things in life that call for consistency. Many other things have no such restriction, and these one may approach with variety and creative flair. Some people chafe when tasked with following rules while others may actually feel liberated by having specific guidelines and parameters within which to work. In the sciences and in medicine, it is obvious that consistency is important; it can actually save a life. As consumers, we would expect when buying certain types of products for them to be the same every time we purchase them. We’d certainly expect that of pharmaceuticals. We’d also like for the quality of foods to be maintained just as we’d expect of most services. These examples may seem obvious, but I’m sure any of us could think of dozens of examples of items or activities that we’d want to be consistent each time we make use of them. I want my computer to work the same each time I use it, and I want easy and quick access to the internet whenever I need to search for information.
I approach the making of art in a similar manner. Each time I expect to perform at the highest level of creative expression, to work skillfully, and to create a superior product. Making drawings or paintings is much different from doodling or other mindless activity or the sporadic intuitive expression. Paradoxically, making art is also an endeavor where I want to have no restrictions on what I can or can’t do. I don’t want anything inhibiting that creative expression. I understand, however, that I am also performing much like a concert pianist or other musician or performance artist. I have trained for many years to be able to do what I do, and even when experimenting, I utilize skills, knowledge, and insight. These things give me more possibility rather than function as restrictions. What would be restrictive (as I have found in the past) is to not have the necessary knowledge or skill to be able to create something new and exciting and have it be the best possible expression of whatever emotion, idea, or inspiration I might experience in the moment. There certainly were many years of frustration when my ideas far exceeded my ability to implement them.
Multitudinous stories exist in various disciplines of the student eventually becoming the master. The process of attainment is often a long and arduous one with the student expressing impatience, arrogance, humility, frustration, anger, depression, or a host of other non-productive emotional responses, justifiable or not, during that learning process. It is different for every student, of course, in terms of process and level of attainment. Whatever that experience for the individual, consistency is one of the key factors of success. And, as is usually found, consistency leads to liberation of both imaginative and expressive power.
Posted on 5/9/2017 6:25:27 PM
By Donald Fox
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Paintings develop generally by the painter creating contrasts among a range of colors. Since colors have basic qualities like temperature, intensity, and value, these are the areas where contrast occurs. Temperature contrasts warm and cool, intensity shows up as bright or dull, and value is the difference between light and dark. Depending on purpose, the painter may emphasize one quality over another, which can create a contrast of order. For example, a summer landscape may be built of predominantly warm tones to express the warm illumination with the exception of shaded areas that will be cooler because they are blocked from light. On a sweltering summer day, common sense tells us to stand in shaded areas because we will literally feel cooler.
Abstract painters may think a bit differently about color since they are not reproducing natural effects the way realist painters do. Color principles are the same – the same characteristics of temperature, intensity, and value – but the painter is likely thinking about contrasts for purposes other than to mimic something observed. I often begin, for example, with several complementary contrasts like red and green or blue and orange. From that I will intermix these colors to produce intermediate tones that bring colors closer together thereby lessening contrast in terms of hue. It should be noted that any complementary pair will automatically include temperature contrast since one color like red is warm and its complement green is much cooler. When intermixed, these colors also become less intense, and their values are affected as well. Neutrals like white for lightening or mixed black for darkening may be employed. Typically, I also use mixed blacks (a combination of dark complements like blue and brown, in place of orange) because I find the resultant harmonies emotionally satisfying.
If I were using both complementary pairs mentioned earlier (red-green, blue-orange), I might create blacks and neutrals by combining all four colors together. Varying the combinations can create a staggering range of colors and values along with exquisite harmonies. Such is the case with this most recent painting Window Shifts. The shifts that occur come from the interplay among the various colors.
Window Shifts, oil on panel, 27.5" x 21.5"
Posted on 4/29/2017 7:04:13 PM
By Donald Fox
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Drawing as I currently practice it is a process of exploration and experimentation for the purpose of arriving at a visual destination. That destination is always a new place that is unknown until arrived at. When I wrote yesterday about space in a painting (or drawing), I was thinking about this process as applied to painting specifically, but it is true of any two-dimensional art. The visual space becomes a metaphorical space, and that metaphorical space unlocks the two-dimensional space so that the surface becomes a kind of gateway into a realm defined by its parts: line, shape, tone, texture, color, value, contrast – and each of these abstract qualities transforms through juxtaposition into a static yet dynamic dimension, a perceived space with its own set of rules of being. The forms are static and do not move further after having been traced onto the surface. That is given. The relationships of these forms are quite dynamic, however, for there are direction, attraction or repulsion, weight, transparency, overlap, and implied movement into depth even as forms hold to the surface. This is part of the mystery of perception – not tricks to fool the eye but references to what the eye sees and the mind remembers seeing and all the associations to other instances where similar perceptions have been made. The mind understands the duality of flat space and dimensional space simultaneously perceived. It is not unlike the Oriental artist representing the whole of the universe by painting a sprig of bamboo on one side of the paper, and all the blank, unpainted space now represents the infinite. There is something and nothing, which comprise everything, yin and yang in constant motion.
Window Gallery, colored pencil, 14" x 11"
Posted on 4/22/2017 6:31:48 PM
By Donald Fox
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In the studio today working on a new painting. It’s progressing nicely but is not yet complete. There’s something special about creating work much like an unfolding narrative, each stroke a new piece of dialog between the work and me. What develops is a concoction of ideas, a kind of call and response like some of those old hymns or field hollers, a mix of memories from childhood, a flash of color seen while hiking mountain trails or casually crossing the street – it doesn’t really matter for there is no narrative here, just a collection of colors and shapes, textures tied to gesture and feeling. The painting builds like a rising song with harmony and rhythm yet does so silently. The visual statement will resonate for years to come as the expression of a moment in time, a series of moments really but all held into the web of paint that lies like skin upon the surface of its fabric. The paints, the stretchers, the cloth now transformed into the singular object that begs to be seen in order to have some meaning, to have its existence recognized. And whenever it is viewed, that song will rise again for whoever is willing to look and listen. Such is the mystery and magic of art.
Posted on 3/3/2017 7:17:00 PM
By Donald Fox
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Yayoi Kusama exhibited two of her infinity rooms and select paintings last year at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston. Currently there is a major exhibit at the Hirshorn Museum in Washington, D.C. that includes six infinity rooms. These are enclosed environmental pieces that create visually and spatially an experience of endless space that also is endlessly filled with art objects, color, and light. The following link says and shows more about Kusama and her artistic vision, which is a truly unique glimpse into alternate realities.
Kusama Infinity Room at MFAH, 2016
Posted on 2/28/2017 6:44:46 PM
By Donald Fox
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Time Passage
Movement across a two-dimensional surface is clearly directional: up or down, side to side, diagonal up or down to the left or right, circular, spiral, or irregular. A singular line will denote direction and may suggest spatial movement, more so if a drawn line is graduated dark to light or thick and full to broken and trailing off. Add heavy paint and color in a random manner and then drag through that with a flattened implement like a spatula or scraper and the texture can impose a new order based on texture, directional change, the tying together of disparate colors with the same texture (stippled, for example), and very quickly multiple spatial zones begin to emerge. This is not happenstance for effects can be predicted and shapes manipulated to create very complex spatial relationships through this combination of surface texture plus light-dark and/or color contrasts. All these elements create a whole that takes on symbolic power at best and suggestive power at the least. This is only part of the magic and mystery of painting.
Posted on 1/30/2017
By Donald Fox
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For many years science fiction writers have envisioned multiple simultaneous universes or alternate realities that coexist but in different phases or temporal planes so that none are cognizant of the others. How many of these universes could coexist is impossible to say. In more recent years some theoretical physicists have posited that multiverses are possible, and that the world that we know may have copies of itself where beings like ourselves may also exist. These alternate realities could explain certain kinds of experiences (if the worlds somehow do influence each other) like the awareness that some people have of past lives or visions of the future (one possible future) or esp or other psychic phenomena. This is interesting on a theoretical or imaginary level, and it could even explain how some people can experience the same thing but come up with quite different versions of what took place. We certainly have seen a lot of that in the news of late even to the point of calling facts alternative facts and news alternative news. This certainly sows doubt on what may be the actual reality if such a thing exists.
In our information age, however, we record most everything and can prove that something is, or was, a certain way, can’t we? The past has shown us that authoritarian regimes always attempt to control the media, create revisionist history, and manipulate the ‘truth’ to the benefit of the regime. Think of the holocaust deniers and all the versions of this or that war and so on. Shall the truth set you free? Depends on which version of the truth is being presented, doesn’t it? Many might object, though, that when there are enough facts and enough witnesses, there is only one truth because it is verifiable. It can be proven. The deniers are subsequently shown to be in error, and so we say that time will tell. History will right itself. We will learn the truth, or so it is claimed.
Whenever I work on a painting, there is always the truth of the moment. Whatever is happening in the painting is the truth at that time, but that truth is always subject to change. So we might say that there is no complete truth until the painting is completed and that final truth is in place. At that point in time there is a verifiable completion, and that is what is subject to whatever critical inquiry will follow. Any idea posed at the beginning of the painting may or may not remain in effect until the end, for the process of painting as I experience it now is where that truth is explored and revealed (created). This can be true whether the painting is realistic or abstract. How a particular scene or subject treated realistically is actually presented stylistically can change almost as much as a beginning abstract concept may change in its process of realization. Most painters know and accept this, and this is why so many speak about the art process as a process of discovery or exploration.
My most recent painting, Alternate Windows, literally plays with the idea of change, possibility, shifting viewpoints, and potential interpretation psychologically, spatially, and imagistically. I’ve addressed this idea in other works like Floating Windows and Shifting Panes, but here there is also the tongue-in-cheek reference to the recent phenomenon of alternative news (alternative views). However the viewer decides to read the piece, I have no real stake in that. My experience will remain intact regardless.
Posted on 11/26/2016 7:57:32 PM
By Donald Fox
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I took a break today from a portrait commission I’ve been working on and completed this painting. This picture continues my exploration of the Windows and Doors theme, but as with most of my colored pencil drawings, this painting moves in a slightly different direction. I call it Breaking Out not so much to suggest a new direction but to play on the meandering linear movement of paint inside a frame that also appears to move out of the frame. The area of the suggested frame is within a visual space that also seems to float. The frame’s angularity holds it in place even though the place cannot be specifically defined. There are several curvilinear shapes, some extended around the canvas and that almost create a new frame, a fluid one, even pushing at the edge of the canvas itself as if to expand it. Colors merge into colors and into grey and black, or grow out of grey and black. The window frame dissolves into the space which might be seen through it. Foreground and background change position in a continuous game of what’s in front of what. My thoughts and associations are with fluidity and change and a rhythmical sense of order that is organic but not always predictable. We may discover order in nature as we observe it, but we are also governed by the order according to which we grow as natural beings. The same basic order moves us all yet we also move to our individual sense of rhythm and order, the internal beat of our metaphorical drum.
Posted on 10/15/2016 7:24:43 PM
By Donald Fox
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Edgar Degas died in 1917, which means he was still alive like his contemporaries Monet (1840-1926) and Renoir (1841-1919) while the Fauves were creating their modernist art and early Cubism was being developed, all prior to the First World War. Paul Cézanne is often mentioned as the father or modern art especially for his influence on Cubism, but a careful look at many of the next generation of artists, in particular Matisse and Picasso, will show strong influence of Degas from his monotone work to his brightly-colored pastels. Compare the treatment of eyes in many of Degas’ portraits and self-portraits, their very distinctive shape and outline, with those of both Matisse and Picasso in their portraits. Though considered modern artists, these two and others still worked in a traditional manner with lots of preparatory studies and often included references to admired predecessors like Degas or Cézanne (as Degas had done with Renaissance masters as well as his friend Manet who reached prominence before he did).
Currently at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston is a stunning exhibition of work by Degas that spans his artistic career. From the museum’s webpage:
“Degas: A New Vision offers the most significant international survey in nearly 30 years of the work of Hilaire-Germain-Edgar Degas (1834–1917). The reputation of this celebrated French artist has often focused on his ballet imagery, and yet Degas’s rich, complex, and abundant oeuvre spans the entire second half of the 19th century and the first years of the 20th… Not since the landmark international retrospective Degas in 1988 has the artist's career been fully assessed. That exhibition led to a revival of interest in Degas, with dozens of shows focusing on individual subjects of his work—the bathers, the dancers, the jockeys, the portraits—or his influence on other artists. Degas: A New Vision benefits from that scholarship, puts Degas back together again, and offers an opportunity to see the artist anew.”
The exhibition runs through January 16, 2017.
https://www.mfah.org/exhibitions/degas-new-vision/
Posted on 10/14/2016 11:09:28 PM
By Donald Fox
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We do not generally think of time as an element in painting. Unlike literary models where it takes time to follow through a narrative or to move down the linear development of a poem or the lyrical stanzas of a song, a painting is said to be taken in all at once. The visual impression is immediate. This, however, is a false notion initially suggested to separate the experience of a painting from that of a piece of sculpture where the viewer has to physically move around the piece, which inevitably takes time.
Most paintings can be taken in at a single glance unless the pieces are environmental like Monet’s water lily murals in the Orangerie or one of many James Rosenquist room-filled paintings like F-111. These the viewer has to turn in space and move in order to view their totality.
I expect many painters, though, would feel slighted and perhaps offended if viewers only gave their paintings a single glance. Paintings are intended for extended viewing, for there often is much to see whether the work may be depicting a complex narrative (as in a history painting) or whether it may be a multifaceted abstract design with many colors, shapes, and textures. Even the late mural-sized paintings of Mark Rothko, though seemingly simple in reductive design, are filled with subtlety that is best perceived through extended contemplation. Indeed, don’t most painters want viewers to linger over the painted surface and to allow both logical and emotional responses to build as the work is gradually absorbed?
The sophisticated viewer is educated in the finer points of painting and will notice brushwork, color manipulation, drawing and painting finesse on the part of the painter. This viewer understands that to comprehend a painting, the viewer must observe closely and attend to as many details as possible. This kind of careful observation takes time, and this inquisitive viewer does not want to be rushed.
Posted on 9/20/2016
By Donald Fox
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A 2011 study by The Center for Marketing and Research at the University of Massachusetts showed that 22 percent of Fortune 500 companies have a corporate blog. This compared to 45 percent of the Inc. 500 companies and roughly 80 percent of non-profits that utilized blogs for their business. Most of those blogs had specific goals such as new product development, problem solving, community building, engagement, customer satisfaction, direct sales, or building loyalty among other goals. One would expect that these percentages would continue to increase as more businesses developed new ways via the internet to connect with peers, customers, or the general public. What better way to generate good PR than to use a blog to write about corporate ideals, commitment, and service? Interestingly, though, the same research center in follow-up studies found that after a significant increase in blog use by Inc. 500 companies, 52 percent in 2013, use began to drop in 2014 to 46 percent and to drop further in 2015 to 37 percent. Among Fortune 500 companies the trend was similar: 34 percent in 2013 down to 31 percent in 2014 and down to 21 percent in 2015.
These are interesting numbers and might suggest that blogging may be less effective than once was thought by those in business. As with other forms of social media, there are bloggers who have large numbers of followers and individuals who may make good money from their blogs by funneling people into other areas of income production, specifically the purchase of goods or services, and for those with really high numbers perhaps income from advertising. Some companies use blogs, though, to serve their employees, to provide them with training, encouragement, and to build loyalty within the organization. It would be challenging to put dollar amounts on this kind of service.
Some bloggers, myself included, blog because they choose to engage with issues of importance to what they do vocationally or avocationally. The motivation is self-directed investigation of ideas and concepts or philosophical thinking about the particular subject area. The public is invited to read and comment if they choose, but the blogger is making a long term creative statement, a chronologic tracking of aesthetic queries put out daily or weekly or however often he or she chooses. The blog becomes a public notebook that is also a form of specific cultural statement from the admittedly biased perspective of that individual. But, then, isn’t any work of art doing the same thing? The artist’s likes and dislikes can be read in the work by those interested in parsing its messages. The blog may do so more directly and with less ambiguity since it is about art rather than being art. On the other hand, maybe it is simply art from another perspective – journalistic art, speculative art, social art, art that may leave a space for comment for those who dare, but at the least it is a thought-provoking piece of writing that may also entertain or challenge the reader.
Posted on 9/16/2016 6:51:57 PM
By Donald Fox
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Wine improves with age except when it doesn’t. Athletes will improve with age and experience until the body begins to lose strength and flexibility. Many scientists peak and do their best work in their younger years, but sages generally gain wisdom and insight as they age. Artists, too, are said to be revolutionary (if at all) when young and more conservative as they grow older. How many of these statements are true and how many are clichéd stereotypes?
A highly talented athlete very likely will improve with experience. Even though physical skill may be present when young, understanding of the game comes with practice and playing time on the field. For artists, life experience is a powerful asset in the making of images. Skill in execution is important, but it is experience that gains insight into the human condition and generates ideas that are far reaching. A precocious artist like Picasso worked through many so-called periods, each of which is interesting for certain twists on traditional painting, but it was not until he was a bit older that he assimilated through experience and exposure to other cultural traditions ideas and insights into issues that would enable him to create a work like Guernica, whose subject and stylistic expression was far removed from those earlier period pieces that he did.
As a young artist, I had many ideas that fell flat because I was impatient and would not take the time to learn my craft. I was too busy being a painter but one that did not understand nor command the processes necessary to clearly express those ideas. It was like I was trying to write poetry without learning the complete alphabet first.
Not everyone’s path is the same, of course, but once I wedded skill to expression, I was able to visually express ideas of which I had not previously been aware. I used to think that I could tell others what they should do, but now I know that I can only make suggestions or point out some possibilities – the individual has to make the necessary personal choices. Insight is self-generated although one can be nudged in an important direction. A long and winding road is the perfect metaphor for the path that many artists travel. The important idea is to keep taking creative steps.
Posted on 8/3/2016
By Donald Fox
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Card Players - Paul Cezanne
Fifteen or so years ago I saw a large exhibit of paintings by Pierre Bonnard at the Dallas Museum of Fine Art. Prior to this I had seen Bonnard’s work in the Phillips Collection in Washington and in other museums but never so many examples in one place at one time. It was an incredibly moving experience to move from painting to painting and take in his rich, jewel-like coloration and the exquisite textural surfaces of those works. I can still see most of them clearly in my mind’s eye, and should I see reproductions of any of them, I am instantly reminded of details not visible on the page or the screen.
Bonnard is one of those special painters, an artist so rare and unique that no one else’s work even remotely resembles the unmistakable imagery each work presents. There are a few other artists among modern painters (late nineteenth and twentieth century ones) similarly distinctive: Van Gogh, Cezanne, Matisse, Picasso, Chagall, or Modigliani among others. I make no judgment about relative quality or significance of any of these. The point is, though, that each painter had a particular vision that made his work stand apart. Each of these artists’ paintings are first and foremost seen as paintings, as art. They are not in any way photographic or attempts to represent the world as ordinarily seen, the way it is depicted in most realistic paintings.
As the visual audience we are like the audience in a theater who always know that what is seen is artifice, a fiction, a play, a theatrical production, even though the characters may be totally believable as real human beings. We can marvel at the technique and performance of the actors, at their seeming transformation into the characters of the play, at the power of the emotions they summon and project with such passion that we, the audience, are swept up with the same feeling. Our suspension of disbelief is total, and we become immersed in the narrative as it is portrayed before us. Just so, in these paintings we enter worlds so totally true to themselves that they become alternate realities that live and breathe with the life imbued by the artists. These works may be beautiful and seductive in richness of color and form, but they are far more than mere decoration for they are filled with psychological resonance and present us with philosophical questions about perception, truth, and knowledge. Each of us as viewers is tasked with answering these questions to the best of our abilities, for we have come to understand the transformative power of art.
Posted on 7/24/2016 3:49:28 PM
By Donald Fox
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The 2006 film Children of Men presents a dystopian future 2027 in which humans have become sterile. There have been no births for nineteen years, and society is collapsing worldwide. England is one of few countries that maintain some sense of order though under military law, and potential refugees from other countries are forcibly held at bay by fences and cages or are continuously captured, deported, or killed. Even in this country, however, anarchists fight the dying order.
One section of London remains idyllic and separate, under heavy guard, where the rich and government elite live privileged and relatively safe lives. One minister is charged with overseeing art that has been salvaged from various parts of the world although the purpose is unclear since within another fifty years or so all humans will be dead. In this compound we see a damaged Michelangelo’s David with the lower left leg replaced by a metal rod that connects the knee to the foot. It is as though this sculptural symbol of the perfection of the human form doesn’t have a leg to stand on much like humanity itself. Also ironic is that humans damaged the art that is one of the icons of creative expression, and what was once universally public is now in private hands and likely already forgotten by the struggling and doomed masses that it represents.
Another piece seen briefly is Picasso’s Guernica, obviously removed at some point from the Prado. More irony is implied since this painting represents a horrific slaughter during a period of Spanish civil war, and civil war is now rampant worldwide. No references are made to how either piece came to be rescued, which would have been Herculean tasks both physically and politically.
One could debate the merits of the story and its plot and speculate on the parallels of current mass immigration of Middle Easterners throughout Europe, the potential dissolution of the European Union beginning with Brexit, and the anarchistic disruption by factions like Isis, Al Qaeda, and other groups intent on changing world order, or the potential conflict over access to water. Any of these might raise question regarding the place of art in future society. Is art a stabilizing influence or something representative of the excesses of power and wealth? Is the sacrifice made by artists to create their art in the face of challenges an act of faith or the most extreme egoism and selfishness? What is the place of art in a world where, increasingly, basic survival is the most pressing issue? Is art a motivating factor for good and among humanity’s highest aspirations, or is it an indulgence that betrays a cynical view of the growing split between the haves and the have-nots?
Just as universities and colleges have been named ivory towers for those that teach and work there, art is seen by many as a luxury, and one that few can afford. Popular entertainment and professional sports are huge self-sustaining industries that employ many people in various capacities and generate massive amounts of money. The fine arts are less so but still require huge investments to maintain symphony orchestras and major museums, most of which are privately funded. It could be argued that these are elite indulgences except that blockbuster exhibits have become increasingly popular since at least the third quarter of the twentieth century. There is evidence of broad appeal for painting and sculpture though not reaching the popularity of movies and sports. Even so, the arts factor in to a cultural mix that sustains and to some extent educates society at large. There may even be a kind of trickle-down theory for artistic expression that is as viable as that in economics. The burden on those of us who work in the arts is to become more vocal supporters and advocates for that which we love. We know its value and its potential for effecting change. We have to be educators as well in order to promote and preserve.
Posted on 7/16/2016 8:58:59 PM
By Donald Fox
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Visual art relies on a number of cues to express images with clarity, strength, and believability. Contrast is foremost in my opinion, for without contrast there would be no differentiation between one thing and another. Various kinds of contrast are utilized by artists depending on their purpose. The most used forms are light-dark contrast, color contrast, rough and smooth texture, hard and soft, and a few others as part of some of these already mentioned. For example, color contrast can be discerned according to three characteristics: light and dark, warm and cool, and bright and dull. In the language of design, light and dark is known as value. The two extremes are white and black. White is the lightest or highest value, and black is the darkest or lowest value. In between are shades of gray. Any color can be compared to a value scale and is seen as lighter, the same, or darker in value than another color. When colors or tones are equivalent or nearly equivalent in value, it is difficult to tell them apart. In short, there is no contrast.
Warm and cool color contrast is referred to as color temperature. A simple example is that blue is generally a cool color and red is generally a warm color. In paintings and colored designs, warm colors appear to advance or come forward and cool colors tend to recede into the distance. In nature, think of distant mountains that are cool bluish or purplish in color, but as one approaches them the mountains begin to reveal the true colors from which they are made. Similarly, differences between brightness and dullness in colors, referred to as intensity, can have spatial suggestion within pictures. Bright colors will appear to come forward and dull colors to recede. Any of this is relative and depends on how an artist utilizes color in compositions, but it is contrast that makes objects stand out.
A clearly defined line can appear hard as opposed to a diffused line that would appear soft. Painters will pay close attention to edges of objects and make them appear hard or soft depending on whether they want an edge to recede like the curve of a shoulder (thus the edge will be soft, blurred, or seem to be lost) or like the edge of a box that would be clearly defined, hard, and suggest angularity. Artists most interested in realism will pay close attention to edges for these can suggest the way light falls on surfaces that may be angular (hard) or rounded (soft).
This is not the same as the difference between metal or cloth, for that has more to do with visual texture, another area where contrast (usually revealed by the play of light on the surface) is important. Texture is also revealed by contrast between rough and smooth. Again, this contrast is perceived by the eye according to the way light is reflected from a surface. Somewhat related to this is the contrast between reflective and non-reflective surfaces and between transparency and opacity. Sixteenth and seventeenth century Dutch still life paintings masterfully exhibit all these qualities.
Abstract painters will make just as much use of contrast as realist painters though their painterly goals may be different. With realism, there will always be contrast; otherwise, a viewer would not be able to distinguish objects or figures. A darkened room would not afford a good painterly subject for a realist. However, there have been examples of abstract paintings with a distinct lack of contrast within their boundaries. The painting will likely contrast with the surface against which it is displayed, but there is no content in the painting except for the monochrome color of the paint with which it is made. Compare Mark Rothko’s late paintings, the black paintings of Kasimir Malevich or Jasper Johns. These minimalist works are focused on something other than the traditional concerns of painters. Many will find these paintings boring and absent in value as art, for contrast has been entirely eliminated.
Posted on 7/2/2016 2:07:59 PM
By Donald Fox
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Inside can have multiple meanings including being contained within something. It can also mean being privy to certain information like having the inside dope or getting an inside scoop or being on the inside track. One could simply be inside looking out or have affiliation with a special group – “we have a man on the inside” as we might hear in a detective story or a spy novel. The inside person would have knowledge of two worlds simultaneously, and, of course, there is the element of danger, the possibility of being exposed. Add to that the idea of a window, and we can now look into something or see out of something – the location is ambiguous unless clarified. Understanding changes according to which meaning is inferred. Personal association can further complicate meaning when there is a positive spin as in knowing something special or a negative take as in feeling claustrophobic from a past experience of being trapped in an enclosed space.
Language also tends to broaden experience and understanding when we look at definitions, these sometimes being flexible and subject to change as is the case when new applications are given to base knowledge. For example, inside information can suggest a position of power or confidence. Someone with inside knowledge could be more determined or could be seen as having special advantage. These days we often think in terms of sports metaphors like inside in baseball means a pitch is close to the batter or in basketball inside is close to or under the basket. Either could be advantageous positions.
Art is ideally suited for metaphor since it is a symbolic activity, and we as audience expect and look for multiple meanings. Whether metaphor is the result of language or language is the result of minds that evolved to deal with subtlety and nuance as a survival edge is difficult to say (could there have been metaphors before there was language?). That we do think metaphorically and symbolically is important to all of our means of communication. Creative expression through art has certainly heightened our perceptual abilities just as math and science have exercised and strengthened our reasoning powers.
Posted on 6/25/2016 6:58:58 PM
By Donald Fox
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I make a lot of photographs. I used to carry a small digital SLR camera with me in the car (before I got a good cell phone) and frequently would photograph subjects while driving. I know it’s almost as bad as texting while driving, but I didn’t look through the camera; I’d just aim it the general direction of interest and shoot. Many of these photographs were useless, but quite a few yielded surprising results – slightly a-kilter, unpredictable focus, blurred or not, serendipitous framing, and other odd bits.
Sometimes I would use photographs as references for paintings. I might combine images into one composition or make variations in a photograph to improve the composition of the painting. Rarely does a photograph translate directly into a painting, but neither does an observed image. Painters always make adjustments and alterations. The language of painting, after all, is not that of photography. I know the difference between the two.
In general, though, photographs are of interest for themselves, for the images and designs they have captured. They are simply another way to collect visual images, concrete remembrances of an experience, fleeting though it may be. One group of photographs I’ve saved in a folder title “Sharing Space,” and all of them illustrate human interaction with other humans, with the world of nature, or with nature as seen by me via the camera. These photographs are another form of art, witnessed art that attests to something real though now a memory seared in black and white or color viewed on a screen or on printed paper. The latter can be published via exhibition where people come to view. The former is also published but online via art websites or social media. People also come to view that, but now the people never meet in one place, and the irony of that is in the platform that supposedly creates more connection does so in a virtual, non-tactile space.
The photos remain, however, permanent insofar as any image may be considered permanent, truthful according to the rules of engagement (lighting, field of focus, and other photographic governance). They are statements of fact that gain meaning by choice and intention. And, like all art, they are subject to interpretation. In the end, that is the only real truth.
Posted on 6/24/2016 6:21:15 PM
By Donald Fox
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Fantasy is something that doesn’t exist. That is to say, fantasy is something imagined rather than real. The concept fantasy does very much exist especially in narrative. Typically, fantasy in literature has to do with the magical – ghosts, goblins, vampires, witches, black and white magic, perhaps gods and demons – in short, all things fantastic. Fantasy is imaginative, but it is not a synonym for imagination.
Human imagination created fantasy, but imagination is far more comprehensive, some would even say it is infinite. Anything that has ever been conceived came from the imagination. It doesn’t matter if it is fantasy or myth, rational or irrational. Anything can exist in the imagination. There are no limits, and there are no guidelines. The imagination is completely unfettered unless restrained by the individual. Can imagination be nurtured, cultivated, and increased like knowledge or understanding?
I think so. When we study literature and other forms of art, we investigate the imagination of the artist and become part of that world for a time. We gain insight into the functioning of that artist’s mind while also exercising our own imaginative muscles. When we dream, we enter the world of individual imaginative consciousness and discover uplifting and sometimes frightening imaginative expressions that come from the depths of our own creative minds. The artist explores these possibilities with gusto and excitement.
Posted on 6/18/2016 9:04:37 PM
By Donald Fox
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In poetry sometimes the poet will use an extended metaphor, one that rather than shows up within a single line instead runs throughout the entire poem. Wallace Stevens’ “Man with the Blue Guitar,” for example, uses the blue guitar as a metaphor for creative expression and a symbol for art in general. It is written in song-like fashion with verse structure and language rhythms that are musical and serve to weave the metaphorical image tightly throughout the work. As the musician plays his blue guitar “things as they are” are changed just as all artists change the world to fit their perception of and experience of it and then to give that vision back in the completed work.
In a way, when any artist creates works serially he or she is using a kind of extended metaphor. That is certainly the way I think about my “Windows and Doors” series of paintings. It is a continuing process of exploring the metaphorical imagery and its possible variations. The latest of these is Floating Windows, a 40” by 30” oil on linen that I completed today.
Posted on 6/6/2016
By Donald Fox
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Classical composers have approached music from a wide variety of perspectives. Operas, for example, are narrative in structure and are a form of musical theater. There is drama and spectacle set to music. The story often is one of human emotion, and characters live and love in particular settings just as in plays except most of the dialog is sung. The music expresses the emotional range of the narrative content and is also designed to show the power and expressiveness of the human voice. Symphonies may also have a semi-narrative structure or they may musically represent something worldly like the seasons of the year. Other symphonic works may represent ideas or responses to life like Dvorak’s Symphony Number 9 (New World Symphony) or Holst’s The Planets. Whatever literary or narrative ideas a composer may use as the basis of a composition, the music is central and involves complex structural musical language to make it work. As listeners, we may key in to the subtext, but it is always the music that has the most powerful impact, for that first and foremost is what the experience of listening is about.
Painting as visual imagery is sometimes compared to music, especially abstract painting since color and shape are visually comparable to musical sound and rhythm: both are essentially abstract. They are experienced for what they are, first and foremost, not for what they may represent. Painting and music are given form and structure by the composing artist, and it is within that structure that the work is experienced and appreciated. Such is the case with my newest addition to the Windows and Doors series of compositions, Sky Window. My wife suggested the title based on her experience, and I decided to keep the name not necessarily because it in any way reminds me of sky seen through a window. As with others in this series, the reference to either window or door is the trope around which the series is built. The painting may be thought of as a window or door into a given space. How that is perceived is up to the viewer.
Posted on 5/31/2016
By Donald Fox
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Exploratory drawings are useful for visualizing ideas on paper. Drawings executed within the general framework of the Windows and Doors series begin with a framing concept. They are to some extent improvisational much like a jazz riff is created within a time signature or specific rhythm laid down by the drums or the bass. As a drawing develops, just as in many paintings, colors or lines suggest other colors or lines to follow. One thing or one action is not predicting another, rather one action will follow another as if in response to the first. Linear elements repeat or echo other linear elements. Color may do the same. There are many opportunities for visual rhyme.
As yet none of these drawings, and I’ve made well over a hundred of them, have been translated into paintings. I’m not certain that I will transcribe them directly. It might be more productive to just make large drawings on paper or canvas using appropriate implements. Paintings might develop from some of these drawings, however, but this would require developing painterly applications in place of the linear elements that dominate the drawings. So far I haven’t taken the time to develop those techniques, but I see that as a possibility in the not too distant future.
For now, here is the latest drawing in this ongoing series:
Yellow Corner, colored pencil on paper, 14” x 11”
Posted on 5/29/2016 7:50:34 PM
By Donald Fox
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Early Summer Glaze is the most recent painting, completed just yesterday. Unlike some other new paintings that incorporate collage along with oil, this one is strictly oil on canvas. It measures 30” x 36” and continues the Windows and Doors theme. These paintings in this series allow me to explore space, both two- and three-dimensional, the latter through manipulation of color and texture, while also visualizing metaphorically temporal dimensions through suggestions of different spatial zones but not those part of a continuous reality (except, of course, the reality of the painting itself). It is tempting to say more about this entire series since I do have many ideas at play, but I’m interested in viewers exploring and discovering their own experiences.
At some point, any artistic expression is about itself rather than the artist and his or her intention, about what has occurred in the process of its making, and about whatever is the result to be viewed. At that point it is out of the hands of the artist; however, I also experience myself as viewer and frequently find that these works speak to me differently each time I re-visit them.
Paintings are a lot like poems. There is a contextual meaning, which in the case of painting is visual rather than verbal, but that meaning is not necessarily fixed since the viewer is constantly in flux. Each time he or she experiences a work, that viewer is a different person, partly from previous experience of the work and however it may have affected him or her and partly from other personal life experiences that occur between viewings. For those of us that choose to interface with art on a regular basis, those experiences of art are enormously valuable and carry over into the world at large – they are not limited to the museum or gallery or living room wall. This is also true for me as an artist. Each painting affects my perception of it and of other paintings (and of myself). This is one of the very interesting aspects of working in series because each work is intended to relate to the next and to those that preceded it. I suppose it’s something like the unfolding of a plot for the novelist who doesn’t know exactly where the story is going. He or she has to follow where the characters lead to learn how it all plays out. What an exciting journey.
Posted on 5/23/2016
By Donald Fox
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A painting can begin anywhere within the boundaries of the surface that contains it. The painting is that surface upon which it is formed, for the paint or other substance used to make marks and colored shapes simply alters the appearance of the surface, builds it up as it were, but it is always the surface regardless how its texture may change or its suggestion of space may seem to deny that surface or make it invisible. Sometimes the surface does seem to disappear while asserting some otherness – the distance between close up and far away, the airiness of openness or emptiness, or the substance of multiple surfaces that are distinctly different one from another like the side of a barn, the foliage of a tree, or the skin of a human thigh. All of these are also colored shapes painted onto that self-same surface.
This latest painting in the Windows and Doors series gradually suggested the idea of equivalents as it progressed: its parts create the equation of the whole, but it is not by any means a linear equation, and, as is the case with much abstract painting, there is no direct correlation between the painted image and an exterior observed reality. Yet the abstractness of the image is specifically concrete as its parts build the complexity of the whole. The extended metaphor of the series, either window or door or both, is also abstract and concrete – an opening that can be seen through or passed through may have a physical boundary, but the opening is empty space.
What does this have to do with the experience of the painting? No more than a landscape painting has to do with the landscape from which it was painted. The painting is a construct that exists in its own right. It is generally experienced far away from its source material in an environment with controlled temperature and lighting. The painting may be contemplated for its veracity, its suggestion of light and space, for the particular technique and artistry of the artist, or for its emotional effect on the viewer (or some combination of these things). This is the nature of art. It exists as a creative statement by someone for the perusal and appreciation by someone else. Whatever emotions or thoughts are generated may originate with the work but then are filtered through and altered by the experience of the audience in response to that work. Ideas and emotions (abstractions and concretions, so to speak) are constantly at play.
Posted on 5/16/2016
By Donald Fox
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Quite a lot of contemporary art is very large scale. Paintings are created wall size or room size partly because of the challenge, partly for the freedom or bravado of the artist, and partly for the space in which the painting may be displayed. There have been large scale paintings since ancient times, mostly in the form of wall murals or other areas specific to parts of buildings. The concept of an easel painting did not even exist until about the seventeenth century, but not everything prior to that was mural scale either. We know of many building decorations from ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian cultures. Early Renaissance paintings are typically religious panels done for churches such as altar pieces. These are not very large. Ceiling and wall murals were very large scale like their predecessors, and these were largely decorative arts unlike individual paintings that sprang from the shift in economic standing of merchants and traders especially in Holland. What we might call the nouveau riche wanted pictures to decorate their walls just as wealthy nobles and royalty had been doing for centuries. This typically led to small scale pictures (portraits and the creation of still life subjects) unless there were a large group of subjects as in the case of Rembrandt’s The Night Watch (just under fifteen feet in length) or Syndics of the Draper’s Guild (nine and a half feet in length). So mid-twentieth century New York painting did not have a lock on large scale works.
What is also interesting, however, is that a lot of post-Renaissance painting up into the early twentieth century was small scale including most Impressionist works and early modernist works. There are noted examples of very large paintings during this period including romantic and classical history paintings and novelty pieces like Gericault’s The Raft of the Medusa (sixteen feet high by twenty-three and a half feet wide) or Courbet’s allegorical The Painter’s Studio (roughly twelve feet by twenty feet). Those works might make splashes at the Academy or make their way into history books and eventually reside in major museums. But, is it the scale that gives these works their power?
Unless one is an art aficionado, travels a lot and visits museums, the most likely place to see a large scale painting is in reproduction either in print or online, but definitely small scale instead of life size. The comparison of varied scale pieces in reproduction, however, is not a complete one since scale is eliminated as a factor and obvious distortion of comprehension is inevitable. A poster size reproduction of Guernica and the original twelve by twenty-five foot canvas are not comparable in experience. Is it necessary, then, to make a strong artistic impression, to choose large scale format? This certainly seems to be the way that many artists go.
I would argue otherwise. I don’t believe that easel painting is dead. Jan Vermeer may be more of a household name than Giorgio Morandi, but both artists built their reputations on relatively small scale works. Even a cursory search of the internet will bring up thousands of artists doing very good work at modest scale, i.e. as easel paintings. Mona Lisa or Lady with an Ermine are not large scale Leonardo works. His famous mural The Battle of Anghiari is lost to history, and mainly his smaller works have survived and are what he is known for as a painter (with the obvious exception of The Last Supper, a fifteen by twenty-nine foot mural).
Many examples large and small could be cited, but the point is that much can be conveyed small scale. The image becomes most important as the viewer is invited to an intimate look at whatever space or features are represented and is not overwhelmed by the larger than life scale of the piece as in the case of some murals. There can be just as much power in small works as those physically more demanding, at least in my opinion.
