Parque Estadual do Rio Vermelho

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Woods, January, 2022, Parque do Rio Vermelho 

 oil on card, 27 x 26 cm- unavailable

It's nice, if one can get in the right mood, to do this sort of very straight Corot-via-Cezanne type of pastoral picture. Alas, the right mood seems to be something that just can't be forced.

 I have labelled other pictures from here Praia Mocambique, but that's rather less accurate than Parque Estadual do Rio Vermelho. 

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What is a Pochade?

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Pochades are small paintings, painted plein air, either to be used as references for larger, studio-based pictures, or as ends in themselves. The word derives from the French for pocket: poche. 

Because of the portability of the format, they are often used for painters when travelling, and manufacturers cater for this with "pochade boxes": wooden boxes to hold palettes, brushes, paints and the paintings themselves.

I do not use such a a box, however. I use a French easel as I like to stand when working, and I carry pictures around in little folders, which I refer to as carriers.

There are pochades by a diverse range of artists, typically ninetheenth and early twentieth century, when plein air painting really came into vogue. These include John Constable (in my opinion easily his liveliest pictures are pochades- you can see a supurb set in the Victoria and Albert Museum), Corot, and J.D. Fergusson (whose tiny pochade box is on display at Edinburgh's Museum of Modern Art).

Primed card ready to be used for painting. These cards are about 14 cm long.

.My pochades are in oils, and are intended as final pieces. I want live performance in art, not work tidied, made polite, in a studio. I've been working on these small pictures for about six years but it took a couple of years for me to reach a good level of technical fluency with them. 

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Rio Vermelho, nature

Rio Vermelho, nature, oil on card, 15.5 x 17 cm   -unavailable

Rio Vermelho is one of those relatively obscure parts of the island which, like Ratones,  I love to visit.

There is something mysterious about it that invites a sort of painting, derived from Corot (a French master whose work, once so famous, is falling into obscurity) and which concerns the secret.

Pastoral

Some more images from the recent "Homage to Corot" series.

Homage to Corot

A very bright day, but not too warm. I'm working on a series of pastoral photos, which will go in a Flickr set as "Homage to Corot".

Corot is one of those 19th century painters whose work has fallen by the wayside. Wildly popular in his time, its difficult to imagine it being rediscovered by the 21st century gallery going public. In truth there are a fair number of dubious quality Corots, and the work lacks intellectual complexity. And the contemporary public probably wants something much more dramatic. However, I have often found his work beguiling.

The smell of mud and the distant sun made me think of the woods round Aberdeen, where I grew up, while I was out taking photos today.