Patron of Painters

sign on the via Roma, Buonconvento

From Buonconvento to Rome

in situ, outside Buonconvento

On October 18^th I found myself painting, without realizing it, on the feast of the patron saint of painters, St. Luke; I was in Buonconvento visiting painter friends, and we had an afternoon of painting en plein air outside of town on an estate in the process of changing hands (historically, it had belonged to the hospital in Siena). Days later I would be in Rome at a conference at the Accademia di San Luca, honoring the head of the artists’ and architects’ academy at the turn of the eighteenth century, Carlo Fontana. Serendipities.

 

in progress, outside Buonconvento; oil on gessoed board

I left the two paintings from the afternoon outside Buonconvento with my friends, since I use a slow-drying medium, and I was too loaded down to take wet paintings to Rome. Shown here is the first and larger of the two, in progress on site; I was using the burnt siena/ochre ground as the brickwork of the wall, allowing me to focus on modeling the shadows, foliage, etc. It was a two-hour painting, something I try fairly rigorously to hold to as a parameter; my second painting was quicker still, about an hour, and while less ambitious in subject it may have been more effective as a composition. No photos of that one in progress to share…

the Acqua Paola on the Janiculum, Rome

In Rome I stayed for two weeks at the American Academy on the Janiculum Hill, near the spectacular Acqua Paola; I tackled the fountain twice, once on the day I arrived, in the afternoon, and again a week later, early in the morning. For the second I managed to finish within an hour, partly because I was working under very changeable atmospheric conditions, partly because I didn’t want to get bogged down in details (see the photo). I think this may actually become my new target, one (intense) hour forcing me to focus on big issues and avoid fussing over the details. I use a linseed/stand oil medium because I appreciate the unctuous quality of beautiful paint, although it is paradoxical that quick painting is paired with slow-drying medium. Whether the narrow window of time makes for better paintings I don’t know, but it does make me, I think, a better painter.

afternoon, Acqua Paola; oil on paper

early morning, Acqua Paola; oil on gessoed board

Watercoloring Like it Was Oils

Saturation and Transparency

What often stops me and makes me choose a scene to paint out of doors is usually a saturated, brilliantly lit scene combining architecture and landscape. In Lucca the circuit of walls offers a wealth of options, cyclical as the sun winds its way around the city over the course of the day. From below or above, the walls, their balluardi (bastions), and gates present simple, powerful architectonic forms juxtaposed to rigorously planted rings and crowns of trees.

I painted the Porta San Donato from above over the weekend, with one of the city’s bishop-saints surveying the landscape beyond. Painting between about 5:45 and 7:45pm, the late afternoon summer light was saturated, the shadows growing longer on the ground, but the upper register of the gate illuminated fairly constantly by the westerly sun.

As I’ve moved from watercolor to oils in my outdoor painting over the last decade or so, I’ve found the experience of oil has pushed my watercolors to greater density and saturation in the darks, while giving me a new appreciation of the brilliance of un-watercolored white paper. As a painter-architect, I value the constant back and forth between disciplines, and the same fertile exchange I believe exists in alternating media. These are not lessons that can be taught, but they can be learned by experimentation and repetition.

For a view from below of the same area, see last year's post here.

Painting, Actually

Actually painting out of doors

The flowering plein air phenomenon is a wonderful thing. Some ambiguity hovers around what it means to work en plein air—are you really painting out of doors, are you painting what you are seeing, are you painting what you are seeing in Valenciennes’ two-hour window of time—but there is an obvious love of the act of being on site and capturing the world. I don’t see, though, much discussion on the various websites and blogs about painterly technique, partly no doubt because, without consensus on how much one is expected to capture, there is no focused idea of how one does the capturing. So I’m posting here some details of relatively recent plein air work from Rome and Lazio that shows my brushwork, which is for me the essential aspect of what it means to paint—as opposed to render—what one sees. As Diderot said:

"The value of creating resemblance is passing; it is that of the brush which causes us first to marvel, and then makes the work eternal."

—Denis Diderot, "Salon de 1763"

(Le merite de ressembler est passager; c'est celui du pinceau qui emerveille dans le moment et qui eternise l'ouvrage.)

Over at Emulatio I’ve posted details of some studio work, to facilitate a comparison (or to suggest that I work similarly inside and out). I welcome comments on each site.

Columns Near the Theater of Marcellus, Rome

Ponte Sisto, Rome

Vignale, Civita Castellana