Vilcabamba, mountains

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Vilcabamba, mountains, watercolour, A3

Vilcabamba, mountains - detail

Vilcabamba, mountains - detail

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A trip to Chile: Melipeuco, part 2, a mountain

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Melipeuco, a mountain, oil on card, 28 x 23.7 cm

(picture damaged and discarded)

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The road to Anitapolis

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 Near Anitapolis, oil on card, 15 x 17.5 cm  SOLD

 Near Anitapolis- low trees, oil on card, 18 x 16.5 cm - unavailable

The road to Anitapolis is quite stunning and merits further exploration.

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Anitapolis

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 Anitapolis- late in the afternoon, oil on card, 14 x 18 cm  SOLD

 Anitapolis- fields, oil on card, 15.5 x 13 cm  - available

 Anitapolis- a house, oil on card, 14 x 17 cm -  -unavailable

Anitapolis- trees in a field, late afternoon, oil on card, 13.5 x 17.5 cm  -unavailable

These are the fruits of a weekend trip to Anitapolis, an idylllic town nestled in the mountains and surrounded by magnificent scenery. 

The town features a charming footbridge, suspended by ropes. I found the most townspeople solicitous and kind.

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A visit to the Serra Catarinense: between Alfredo Wagner and Rancho Queimado

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 Meadow, oil on card, 14.5 x 15.5 cm   -unavailable

Mountain view, oil on card, 12.5 x 13.5 cm  AVAILABLE

Two landscapes from my drive last weekend.

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A visit to the Serra Catarinense: Alfredo Wagner

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Alfredo Wagner, afternoon, houses, oil on card, 14 x 14.5- available

 Alfredo Wagner, buildings on a hillside, oil on card, 12.5 x 14.5 cm  unavailable

Both of these were painted from my room in the excellent Saolo Hotel. The breakfast was lacking (why is the coffee in Brazilian hotels so dreadful?*) but you can't really complain for 60R$ a night.

Both paintings are a success- following the terms I have set myself- lively, bright and harmonious,, successful in their description of the sensation of the place, and optimistic. They were rapidly executed, but behind them lie many failed pictures.

 It is important in this style of painting not to contradict oneself: if the piece is about immediacy of impression and spontaneity of response, then one must avoid the temptation to correct, one must accept and work with errors or clumsy marks, incorporating them into the composition: a Chinese virtue.

*part of a larger question: why is the coffee in Brazil so dreadful? Yes, there are occasional fancy cafes where it is good. Here in Floripa there are two, established by Australians. But the standard stuff in bakeries and ordinary restaurants is  dishwater, Stock reply- because the best coffee goes for export. As with all stock replies, one wonders if: a. this is really true and, b. why would it be true? Surely separating some bags of beans for a luxury domestic market would be easy? The same arguments circulate about chocolate.

 Alfredo Wagner, bushes on a hill, oil on card, 13,4 x 11.8 cm  available

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A drive to the mountains

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 Rancho Queimado- in the mountains, oil on card, 14 x 15 cm

Aguas Mornas- logs, oil on card. 15.5 x 14.5 cm

It's slightly cooler- just about tolerable, therefore- to drive to the mountains and do some work.

 When painting you are very alone. Your're in this arena against the subject and your own worst instincts. You just have your paints and and your thoughts as weapons, and you have to be determined, or very lucky to win. Or sometimes you have to know when it's right to cede defeat and abandon the work. Clarity of mind is everything, and that's why solitude is so essential, as is the right mental state to begin: humility, courage, stoicism...

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Mountains

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I'm going to take a couple of weeks off painting and take photos of signs, buildings and other structures out on the periphery near Palhoça and Biguaçu.

Landscape, Rancho Queimado, oil on card, 20 x 18 cm   SOLD

In the meantime, here are a couple from the mountains, between Santo Amaro da Imperatriz and Rancho Queimado.

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A visit to Itapiranga

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Landscape near Itapiranga, oil on card, 16 x 18 cm -  -unavailable

The square format is not that easy for landscape subjects- probably simply for the reason that the compositional conventions for landscapes are based around a golden section rectangle, and the square format necessitates adaptations.

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A little trip to Alfredo Wagner

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 Alfredo Wagner river, oil on card, 15 x 18.5 cm -  available

 Alfredo Wagner, lane, oil on card, 14 x 14.5 cm   unavailable

 Alfredo Wagner small town nearby, oil on card 16.5 x 18 cm   SOLD

I`m ashamed to say that I can`t remember the name of this small town, and can`t find it on the map either.

 Alfredo Wagner, a residential area, oil on card 16 x 18.5 cm - unavailable

 Alfredo Wagner, houses by the river, oil on card, 13.5 x 18.5 cm    SOLD

Araucaria tree, Near Alfredo Wagner, oil on card, 17 x 17.5 cm    SOLD

Paintings from a recent  trip into the Catarinense Mountains.

 Alfredo Wagner is not a bad place to base oneself for a short trip, if coming in from Florianopolis. True, it isn`t terribly interesting in itself, but the surroundings are splendid,  with quite a fairy-tale atmosphere to me.

I like the people of the mountains. They strike me as an industrious bunch, working in their small-holdings right up to the moment Friday`s world cup match began. They have that cheerfulness you often find in hard-working people. They keep their towns tidy, and you can see the townspeople sweeping the roads in the mornings. 

They are conservative places but they are not dour. They had  the national flag on display all over the place, though I suspect many must privately regard much of the rest of Brazil with considerable disdain. I wouldn`t blame them if they did.

A Moroccan Adventure: Ouarzazate and around.

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People in the street, oil on card, 14 x 15 cm   SOLD

I spent a week in Ouarzazate, a serene place, with clear light, known for film studios, and as a gateway to the Atlas Mountains.

There seems to be no advertising at all, and few cars, which made me feel as if I were in an old Eastern European city in Communist times. The shops do not have elaborate signs or names either. This helps lend the place its peculiarly calm feeling. Here and there people sell things in the street: shoes, tools, magazines, but the streets are wide and clean, and calm. The buildings usually open flush onto to street, without gardens or porches, and are particularly boxy. Almost everything is peach coloured, including the pavements, some of which are painted thus.

Clouds, oil on card, 15 x 15.5 cm   SOLD

 Near the mosque, oil on card, 12.5 x 15.5 cm  SOLD

 A shop selling bric-a-brac, oil on card, 13.5 x 16.5  SOLD

A boy with a scooter, oil on card, 17 x 17.5 cm

This above, and the piece opening this posting were both painted from my hotel window and seem very de Chirico-an to me.

Mosque on a plain, oil on card, 13.4 x 16.4  SOLD

View of the mountains, oil on card, 12.5 x 15.5 cm   SOLD

I hired a little car (very cheap!) and drove into a mountain valley, entering through Ait Benhaddou and returning via Telhouet. This region is very dry, having suffered from droughts, and where vegetation appears it is almost surreally bright.

A distant ksar, valley near Ouarzazate, oil on card, 14 x 16 cm

Boys playing football, village near Ouarzazate, oil on card, 16.5 x 17.5 cm  SOLD

I can become sentimental at the sight of children playing football in empty patches of earth all over the world, from Brazil to North Africa: an international game, spontaneously and freely organised by children themselves, happily, without supervision, at minimal cost and one in which disputes  are usually amicably resolved. This can be taken as a rebuke against the regimented world of the British child.

A gorge, oil on card 16 x 16 cm            AVAILABLE

Valley, oil on card, 18 x 15 cm  - available

The mountains are big, the pictures are not, and I began to sense the limits of the small scale I use, which is better at intimacy than grandeur, better at the small and enclosed world of towns than vast spaces. On the other hand, this may be simply a question of personality: after All Turner succeeded with describing the epic in tiny watercolours, and it could be then that my nature is simply unsuited to grand themes.

A ksar, oil on card, 16 x 14 cm   unavailable

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These paintings are available through this art dealer, based in central London:

ROSE ISSA PROJECTS

82 Great Portland Street London W1W 7NW 

T 0207 602 7700. T 0207 323 1710

 E info@roseissa.com


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A drive to Itapiranga

Rows of houses, Itupiranga, oil on card, 16 /16 cm  SOLD

The small towns here offer, I think, a very pleasant lifestyle for those with limited ambitions- the climate is sometimes cold, but never really inhospitable. The landscape is truly idyllic. The people are friendly and and their towns are probably quite safe: children play and ride their bikes in the streets, the air is clean, and you don't see the grotesque poverty that dogs much of the rest of Brazil.
 

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I think this set is strong- varied and purposeful. The first is a little conventional perhaps, but not so much so as to be dull. Most of the time one produces work that is mediocre, necessarily so, perhaps- so is important to take satisfaction when one does occasionally get the ball over the net.

Cambirela

Cambirela, oil on card, 10 / 8 cm 

Painted a few days ago. One of a series. The orange ground works quite happily.

 

The Mountain - Cambirela

The Mountain, oil on card, 13.5 / 9.7 cm  SOLD

Here I am again near Palhoça, paraphrasing Hokusai.

Part of an occasional series: the light on the mountain shifts subtly over a session, highlighting rigdes and patches of forest: very enjoyable to just sit and observe.

The mountain, Palhoça; miniaturism

The mountain, Palhoça, oil on card, 11.7 / 14.7 cm

Palhoça is one of those towns on the periphery of Florianopolis, like so many satellite towns in other Brazilian cities, so undistinguished that is it difficult to know quite why it exists.

But there is the mountain: undeniable, like the mountains in Poussin, rendering all below to insignificance.

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Further thoughts on miniaturism, and small painting- notably the observations that the act of painting small seems happily to place one in opposition to bombast -as I write, as my country idiotically flings money at that costly, grandiose, pea-brained extravagance called the Olympic Games, giving good taxpayers money on ephemeral kitsch while cutting vital assistance for people with severe disabilities.

More pertinently, have not most art lovers at some point in their pilgrimages found themselves wandering with  dulled eyes through vast chambers in European Galleries and Palaces, uncharmed by endless rows of joyless gigantic Baroque paintings, extolling this or that official virtue, lined up in great halls in European galleries and palace, to find themselves suddenly delighted by a small and intimate painted voice?

Early evening, Lagoa

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Early eveing, Lagoa, oil on card, 11.3 / 13.1 cm  AVAILABLE

Painted down in Lagoa

I tend to alternate between urban themes and nature. I fear obvious beauty...

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Two more from near Santo Amaro de Imperatriz

 Carriers, with matches for scale: there is considerable perspective distortion here, but at least it gives an impression of scale.

Animals in a field, oil on card, 14.5 / 12.5 cm  SOLD

I drove out to the splendid countryside about 20 miles from Florianopolis.

Two pictures from near Santo Amaro da Imperatriz

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A view of the mountains from Santo Amaro da Imperatriz, oil on card, 14.4 x 10.8 cm - available 

A community near Santo Amaro da Imperatriz, oil on card, 13 x 10.9 cm - unavailable

You can see in Brasil, as if from a late novel by Hamsun, communities establishing themselves from almost nothing- a tiny cluster of houses: these often have a paradiscal quality.

And, as if to confirm Hamsun's pessimism about cities, you can also see how these little communities grow into huge areas of urban squalor. Santa Catarina is free of these huge cities, fortunately.

A trip to the mountains, part 3; solitude and painting

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Chalets and a distant mountain, oil on card, 9.5 x 14 cm

Five Araucaria trees, oil on card, 14 x 9.6 cm  - available

Here is a final selection from my little trip to the interior of Santa Catarina, which I spent largely alone and painiting.

The first is very "picture postcard": beautiful places always carry the risk to landscape artists of bringing a certain kitschy obviousness to the work they do there. I cannot find a way round this: for me part of the pleasure of being a landscapist is the delight of being in a beautiful place: it gives me an excuse to go there (I believe fishermen and birdwatchers say the same thing). The only thing I can do is to try to offer a balance by also painting places which are without immediate beauty, such as industrial and suburban sites.

Landscape painting also lends a focus to solitude. And I confess I have the misanthropic tendencies common to painters and it hardly pains me to escape the herd*. Many people do not like being alone, it makes them anxious. But I think for this very reason, that it's important to be alone at times so as not to become enslaved to a social network.

I also feel, when I am alone in nature, that sense of rhapsody so forcefully conveyed in Knut Hamsun's glorious novels, especially Pan and Mysteries. Alongside rhapsody though, comes melancholy, and yearning: emotions relating somehow to an increased awareness of ones connextion with the life and death cycles of nature.

*I've never had the least sympathy with Christianity's generalised love of humanity: how can one when there there are simply too many people.

A trip to the mountains, part 2; large Brazillian cities

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View from a valley, oil on card, 14 x 9.6 cm

 

A community in a mountain valley, oil on card, 9.4 x 6.6 cm discarded

Two more paintings from one of the valleys near  Morro de Campestre. The little houses, which are often wooden and tiled, huddle at the base of  splendid mountains.

Large Brazillian cities are extremely ugly, unless they have the fortune to be sited as impressively as Rio. (Florianopolis is not beautiful -though you might hear people say it is- what is attractive about it is the closeness and variety of its natural surroundings).

The Brazillian inability, or refusal, to plan, their lack of understanding of public space and their instinct to merely improvise, or sort something out at the last minute means that anything which needs large scale co-ordination often goes terribly wrong, so that all large Brazillian cites are largely squalid, ugly monstrosities, crime infested, grafitti covered, filthy rat-holes, containing significant areas of extreme poverty and social degradation (usually, for visitiors and the rich there are showcase tourist streets and enclaves for those with private wealth to escape to - shopping malls, restaurants, posh condominiums, fancy gyms etc).

These cultural failings do not affect so negatively smaller places, and I believe there is a cultural element at play too in the Urubici area, which is that the cultures which lent the mountians their native populations are generally central European. They came there with the specific intent of creating a worthwhile life for themselves through their own labours. They do not have the negative attitudes towards work commonly seen in latin or slave populations.

Having had a British education, I aquired this sneaking admiration for people who don't want to work, but the truth is that people who are not industrious are rarely creative either, and all this means that Brazil is less interesting in terms of culture than it might be: certainly, there is not much happening here in Florianopolis.

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