My husband and I were grabbing a bite in a local pub last week. I looked out the window and thought.. "I know that tree!" I think the complete thought is "I know that tree in that context with water behind it and its relationship to the other pines around it." Then remembered that I had made this watercolor sketch of it from another angle last summer. I find it a great joy that images can be imprinted on my brain in this way. The memory/relationship/association comes forward and I get a chance to explore a memory, usually involving other senses besides sight. This memory and imprint was only a year old, but I have had images/memories jump forward from decades ago because something I see bumps a dusty corner of my brain. I wrote about a few other examples here, here, and here... the first involving a 300 year old house near the home of my youth, another involving a color palette one of my students used in her still life and a John Alexander White painting, and another involving some quiet snowy trees and a favorite childhood book. When cognitive threads connect, I rejoice.
How about you?
Recently, I challenged my painting class with an exercise in neutrals. They listen to me expound on hierarchies to consider when beginning a painting. Observe and note the lightest light, darkest dark, softest and hardest edge, warmest and coolest notes, and the richest and most neutralized chroma or intensity of color. I suggested visualizing a series of thermometers, (just "tilted number lines" said my math-teacher brain) and we worked on the "chroma scale", by noting the most unadulterated color in the subject, putting a note on the canvas with the understanding that all other mixtures must be LESS rich than the richest.
Where does "Isabella and the Basil Pot" enter the picture?
One
of my students chose a beautiful neutral vase, cloth, etc. I remarked
part way through the class that her harmony and subject reminded me of a
painting I love at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, and later looked up
the painting on the MFA web site. Turns out, it is is John Alexander
White's "Isabella and the Basil Pot", a relatively large painting
hanging among the American paintings along with the Sargents.
http://www.mfa.org/collections/object/isabella-and-the-pot-of-basil-31098
(By the
way, my daughter learned at an early age that whatever we intended to
see in the MFA, Egyptian hieroglyphs, Chinese vases, musical
instruments, etc... all paths lead us past the Sargents). The
beautiful, dominant curved diagonal in White's painting is the exact
curve of the vase in my student's painting, and the neutral harmony very
similar. This powerful, 6-foot tall painting, has lodged itself in my brain.
Okay, then what about connecting threads? A month or two later, I found an interesting web site titled "Learning to See" by a UK artist who is charting his own artistic journey which involves research, practice, practice, study, practice, and sharing his finds, and practice (did I say "practice"?) and his results. http://www.learning-to-see.co.uk/dow-three-a
Some of what Paul was posting reminded me of a series of Art Education books I have collected over the years. The books were published in 1905 and are beautiful, filled with William Morris designs, and images of lovely drawings. I use the books as reference for my painting classes. I pulled one of the books off the shelf, and it fell open to "Isabella and the Pot of Basil". John Alexander White painted it in 1898. The painting was acquired by the MFA back then, an image landed in this book in 1905, and I'm referencing it over a century later. Those are some seriously durable threads. I rejoice in the serendipity of connections.
