A little drive south: Urussanga

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 Urussanga

 

 

 

Urussanga, Rua Pref. Lucas Bez Batti - availabble

 oil on card, 24 x 28.3 cm

 

 
 

 

Urussanga, Rua Pref. Lucas Bez Batti- detail

 

 

 

Urussanga, Avenue, Praça Anita Garibaldi

 oil on card, 22 x 24.3 cm - unavailable

 

Urussanga, Avenue, Praça Anita Garibaldi- detail

 

Urussanga is one of those well-maintained interior towns that you don't hear much about. It's got some lovely old (for Brazil) architecture and feels very safe. It's friendly.

The day became overcast. I like empty urban spaces and I like a certain dream-style city art- as in Sironi and the city paintings of Whistler. 

Hence:

 

Urussanga, R. Pref. Jacinto de Brida, oil on card, 29.7 x 27.5 cm - unavailable

 

 

 

 

Urussanga, R. Pref. Jacinto de Brida- detail

 

 

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Getting out of Florianopolis was very good for me, and I'll try to do some other road trips in the next months -  it's so costly at the moment to fly anywhere that this is the best way to give me the change of scene that I need for inspiration.

 

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New York, conclusions

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Arch, Washington Square, June 2017   AVAILABLE

 oil on card, 17 x 18.8 cm

This is rather a jigsaw puzzle painting isn't it? It`s the third  time I've painted this arch.

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Conclusions

New York- the complete set from 2017

 The set is strong and simple but I will not probably revisit New York for a few years. I need time to forget New York, so that when I do return it`s qualities surprise me again.

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This is my list made before leaving for New York and my reflections-

1. CIMA  (Centre for Italian Modern Art) in Broome Street, Manhattan. De Chirico show and talk. 

     

This talk in the CIMAs elegant setting was excellent, and provided a chance to discuss and make        sense of de Chirico`s late (and very questionable)  paintings. I am still not convinced by them, they seem to serve only to illustrate the confidence of his earlier work, but the talk was informative. 

2. Go to the Metropolitan Museum

This magnificent, sprawling collection, should require no introduction. I was particularly impressed by Dutch 14th century portraits this time, and also enjoyed the following (I have not listed media or sizes- this information can be found on the Met`s excellent website):

 Whistler, Cremorne Gardens No. 2, 1870-80

Whistler, as ever a curious artist, often seems ambivalent about his own presence. He knows, perhaps, that his own egoism is somewhat untasteful.

Fur Traders Descending the Missouri, George Bingham. 1845

The Arrival in Bethlehem

 Attributed to Master LC (Netherlandish, active second quarter 16th century)

I admired the grandeur of the artists vision, the sinuous lines used to lead the eye across and into the landscape and to create three dimensions.

 Pierre Bonnard, Garden, 1935

Georges Braque The Studio (Vase before a Window) - detail, 1939

What I liked here, in the V patterns on the chair seat was the confident spontanaity with which I perceived Braque to be enjoying creating patterns using tonal variations of colour.

Georges Braque, The Studio (Vase before a Window), 1939

 Georges Braque, Boats on the Beach at L'Estaque, 1906

 I similarly enjoyed the sense of paint being cheerfully dabbed to depict the town- the corresponding pleasure and delight in both the scene and  method.

 Henri Matisse, The goldfish Bowl, 1921  22

 The ease in this picture and the metaphor of the goldfish, the art object serving to the viewer as the goldfish serve to the inhabitants of the room.

  Leon Bakst, Design for the Set of the Ballet 'Narcisse', premiered at the Théatre de Monte Carlo, 1911

Leon Bakst Design for a Stage Set for the Ballet 'Le Donne de Buon Umore’ (The Good Humored Ladies), premiered in Rome, April 12, 1917

There was a display of work by the ballet scenographer- scenes with such sensual presence.

I enjoyed the dance between abstraction and depiction in these Chinese ceramics, the use of colour and their pleasure giving objectives

 Jean Dubuffet Woman Grinding Coffee, 1945

His work could be contrived but I don`t think it is, there is too much basic enjoyment of the paint effects.

Stuart Davis, Jefferson Market, New York, 1930

I don`t think this picture (above) works compositionally but it is interesting to speculate why.

Marsden Hartley, Cemetary New Mexico, 1925

I find a lot of Marsden Hartley`s work awkward and unresolved. This painting by contrast make a grand and certain impression on me.

3.The Whitney Museum

The Biennial (mainly junk) was on. In this context the the permanent collection`s set of works by  Calder contrast with wit and grace. I did not note down their titles.

I also enjoyed paintings by James Castle, which have great intensity. The architecture of the museum is very nice, but the place is expensive to visit and mostly not very rewarding. 

The view from the Whitney.

 Calder

Calder

4. Painting in Chinatown

I produced three fine pictures here, (in fact they were from Two Bridges). The grandeur of the bug Deco blocks contrasts so well with the squalour and filth below.

5. American Folk Art Museum

This one I failed to tick off.

6. TJ Maxx- get shoes and maybe clothes?

An exhausting experience,. I managed to get shoes, however.

7. Buy Art Materials from Blick

An excellent shop with a fine range of oil paints. I have materials now for the next year or so.

8. Eat American breakfast

Failed to achieve. There wasn`t a classic American diner near my place and the idea fell off the radar.

9. Eat KFC

This was even better than i imagined it would be. KFC is easily the King of Junk food.

10. Painting in Central Park

I spent two happy days in the sun here. The schools were out and the families with their children were pleasant to chat to.

11. Painting in Brooklyn.

This was my main subject, Somehow I feel that I didn`t feel as awed by the subject as i`d expected- perhaps I was here too recently and this is the downside of familiarity.

12. Bookshopping maybe.

I visited many fine bookshops including Molasses Books, Human Relations, and Spoonbill and Sugertown in Brooklyn, Sterns and X. Very enjoyable.

 My purchases included this excellent work tracing the career of the Italian painter- much less of a recluse than one might have been led to understand, and whose career was more successful than I had understood partly because of the assistance of various Fascist affiliated organisations.

 His level of production was far higher than I`d imagined. For instance, in 1941 he painted twenty four landscapes and thirty-five still lives. 

Giorgio Morandi,The Art of Silence, by Janet Abramowicz

 Yale University Press, 2004

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Annual Review: 2012: Flickr, Blogger, Facebook, Saachi, Deviantart, Art and Artists

Spines of pochade carriers

Preamble

The year went reasonably well, with trips to Tunisia, Chile, the UK, Italy, and Pernambuco in Brazil.

These trips were all too short, and all too crammed, emphasising the necessity to allow passages of emptiness and to risk boredom during the trips. Boredom, or some form of mental  irritation is necessary for creativity.

My expectations of destinations were nearly always confounded. Probably the best place to paint was for me Valparaiso, but not for the Whistlerian, nautical inspiration I had expected, but for its crumbling stucco and steep hills. Italy was good but not as good as I had hoped, failing to surprise me, surprise being the essential ingredient of inspiration. But how can you plan surprises for yourself?

The next trips to come will be to Egypt, the UK, Bolivia  and perhaps Finland.

There were a about twenty sales altogether primarily through The Union Gallery, Edinburgh, and Rose Issa Projects, London.

I experimented with larger formats: this was not entirely successful and I will return to the smaller size, which is a little smaller than a postcard.

Disappointment and frustration are normal in the pursuit of the creative arts. This is either the disappointment of abject failure, or the slow mindlessness of mediocrity.

The former at least has the virtue of announcing their arrival boldly, the second is more common, less obvious, harder to combat. I`d say the good ones make up about 20 % , then there is a massive grey area of about 60% and another 20% of abject failures.

There`s no way of avoiding either of these, no pill, or technique. You can try to come up with broad creative theories but these have their limits. What is inspiring one day becomes tired and pointless on Friday. And so on..

So, like fishing, painting is largely a game of patience: regardless the weather.,you put in the time, and  hope something good comes of it eventually, and that someone else likes it. 

Flickr

There are 612 followers, up from 545 last year. I make no special effort to find followers, though all pictures are shown in about ten groups.

Blogger

This time last year there were 59 followers: now there are 70: not as many as I had hoped. But sites such as this necessarily have a very limited public.

 Also, there have been changes to Blogger which make it harder for people simply to "click" and receive the blog automatically.

Facebook

I continue to show work here, and occasionally to sell work through this site. It is a very good site for artists to use: others image hosting sites are very specific in their publics, reaching groups of people with particular interests in art, painting or photography. Facebook sends the work into a wider network of people.

Deviantart

51 people watch me here: it`s not much of a site. It`s messy and thinks of itself as being very trendy and smart, when in fact it is simply messy and nerdy and teenage.

Saachi

 I stopped posting here: it is a waste of time as it is entirely dominated by the sort of people for whom art is a career.

If you are going to seek a career, chose something in which there is a clear career structure with reasonably objective assessments of ability: the law, medicine or academia.

If you wish to make money then stay away from the creative spheres: sell toothpaste or car tyres, something for which there is a settled constant demand, which doesn`t require careful  storage or transportation, go out of fashion, become irrelevant at the say so of some lisping pantyhose in New York,  necessitate interpretation or, worst of all, involve ego on such a massive scale.

Art and Architecture

I more or less stopped posting here as well: it didn`t seem to go anywhere

Films

I started posting little reviews again, just for the hell of it.

Thanks

I received a fair amount of encouragement and assistance, and must thank those who bought pictures and let me stay with them over the last year, and those who offered feedback, positive or otherwise.

Painting is often a fairly solitary business. Being  misanthropic, that is part of its appeal: nonetheless the expressed interest of others is always welcome.

Specifically, I thank Lise and Felix Colyer, Chris Anderson and my parents.

Urubici, boys playing football, detail.

The Ocean; The Middle East

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The Ocean, oil on card, 14.8 x  11.5cm     available

Painted down on Beiramar Avenue.

It was the sort of shimmering weather that Ardizzone loved to paint- an aesthetic lineage that spins delightfully back through Whistler to Velázquez and Titian (there is that wonderful nautical Titian,  Perseus and Andromeda in the glorious Wallace Collection- I used to enjoy going there in my lunch hours and feeling doomed).

What I like about the Wallace Collection is that I don't get the feeling there that the curators are trying to teach me anything: wheras if I go to, say to any of the Tates, I feel bombarded with notices, explanations, often horribly written and very partial.

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I am thinking about a Middle East trip for late January or February. I'd like to go to Syria again but the state there has murdered to many people there recently that this would probably be unwise.

A Broken Wave

 Broken Wave, oil on card, 9.1 x 11.5 cm (damaged/ discarded)

 

A Whistlerian piece, hopelessly difficult to photograph.

There is a point when painting where instincts have to take over.

 

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London: Chelsea and Kensington: five paintings

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Distant view of Kensington Palace, oil on card, about 10 x 11 cm  NOT FOR SALE

I love this side of London, it's spacious, clean and elegant. I love the way it slopes down to the river. It feels calm and orderly. I stayed with my beautiful friends Lise and Felix in Notting Hill Gate: the weather was perfect.

If these pictures are popular and there is clearly a market, then I should like to return to London to do a larger run.

I always think that I am in "Whsitler territory" when I wander down to Chelsea.

 Kensington Palace from near the Pond, oil on card, 10 x 12 cm  SOLD

 Battersea Bridge, oil on card, 10 x 12 cm   AVAILABLE

St Columba's Church, Chelsea, oil on card, 10 x 12 cm  AVAILABLE

Campden Hill Gardens, Notting Hill, oil on Card, 10 x 12 cm - discarded

Four of these pochades in their little carriers




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Symphony in grey: condominium; a new series; Whistler and music

Symphony in grey: condominium, oil on card, 11 x 15.3cm SOLD

This is a more elaborate version of the type, with quite complex poured concrete forms. It is on Madre Benevenuto, in Trindade.  As yet it is unoccupied, but I can't imagine it being more colourful when it is.

This is the first of a Whistlerian series of ten, all standard postcard size.

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I found it amusing to read this about Whistler:

"Whistler used musical terms in his paintings' titles: symphonies, arrangements, harmonies, nocturnes. According to his friend and fellow artist Mortimer Menpes, however, Whistler "had no sense of music, absolutely none." Whistler himself stated that "it is an accident that I happened upon terms used in music." He was, though, familiar with philosophical arguments maintaining that music was the highest art form, since it escaped the concrete imagery produced by language. By appropriating music, Whistler suggested that the people, places, and things in his paintings were unimportant accidents. The only part that really mattered was the effectiveness with which he organized color and line into a harmonious and therefore beautiful whole."

This is a quotation from some concert programme notes written by Kenneth Myers, and published on the Smithsonian's website: http://www.asia.si.edu/podcasts/related/jokubaviciute/progNotes.asp

 
 

Warships and containers, Itajai

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Warships, Itajai, oil on card, 12.3 x 9.5 cm  - available

This picture above has damp spots

I spent yesterday in Itajai, wandering about-

Containers, Itajai, oil on card, 6.7 x 8.8 cm-discarded

Itajai a container port to the north of Florianopolis, somewhat nondescript, and like many container ports large areas are hidden by giant walls. It has, however, got a spendid river- giant container vessels float unhurriedly down it, mountain of coloured containers line the shores. I took the one real ferry to the far bank and painted these warship: I saw three docked here.

It drizzled and rained much of the day. Actually, it has been raining incredibly hard down here, the water coming down so fast you'd get soaked in seconds. I predict flooding down here in Santa Catarina.

Foggy bay

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Foggy Bay, Florianópolis oil on card, 11.8 x 9.5 cm - - available

Painted from the technology park: quite Whisterian, much rain.

View of Florianopolis from near the cemetery

View of Florianopolis from near the cemetery, oil on card, 12 x 10.6 cm

A somewhat messy picture: I wanted to go to the sea but it was impossible. I shall try to do some nocturnal painting from the car during the week.

I've never painted nocturnes though I've often wanted to. I don't know why painting at night from the car never occurred to me before.

Road, Itacorubi

Road, Itacorubi, oil on card, 12.2 x 9.5 cm

A beautiful day for painting: I've been looking at paintings by Whistler and Turner, admiring the magical way paint is used as an expressive element in itself. Painting the sea is especially enjoyable as a vehicle for this.

I"ve feeling very positive about these little pictures as if, finally, I have turned some sort of "corner".

Nocturnes

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The Garden City - Nocturne (details) I shall publish the whole print later this week.

 I think of these with piano music in mind- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vkse1g9ibnM

 There is a beautiful tradition of night pictures which I'd like to tap into.

 

 

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