Paintings from Chicago- Part 2- in the Loop

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Chicago, view up West Congress Parkway   Available through NO 31 Gallery
 oil on card, 21.5 x 17.2 cm

The Loop is a showcase of huge modern and modernist buildings. Sometimes this is very visually impressive, when the light glints off glass or creates vast shadows

 I was moved on from on working long a canal walkway as the area belongs to some financial corporation. I had that feeling about a lot of Chicago, as if there wasn`t an intimate relation between inhabitants and owners. There is no street life. The shops on ground level aren`t interesting, just the usual dull chains. There are immense corporate sculptures by Miro and Picasso. It's interesting how the magnification of their works robs them of curiousity. They just become something to fill a void and signify something like "success" or "wealth"  . 

There is a giant, bullying Trump building- there are various other monstrosities each higher than the last. Grandeur is expressed in glass and metal- older buildings use stone, with enlarged pseudo renaissance motifs, or Art Deco. The tendency to massiveness functions well at a distance but close up the effect is often simultaneously intimidating and bland. 

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Paintings from Chicago- Part 1- out of the Loop

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Wicker Park, overground railway, oil on card, 20.5 x 23.6 cm

unavailable

The paintings from Chicago divide into Loop, West Loop and non-Loop.

Chicago is constructed on a plain extending from Lake and based on a grid system of great regularity with large blocks. It has a fine overground railway system and there are magnificent old factories and warehouses- I`d love to work more with them if I`m ever back in the city. These large, usually cubic, buildings, stark in the sun, are ideal for developing a simplified style based on flat planes of colour. 

Chicago, Western Avenue, railway crossings and warehouses

 oil on card, 18 x 16 cm -   available

This, above, represents the bolder style -much influenced by Sironi and I am very pleased with it.

View down from an apartment on Madison, oil on card, 23.2 x 20 cm

Japanese Garden, Lincoln Park, oil on card, 18 x 22.5 cm - unavailable

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Paintings from New York- Manhattan

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 Chelsea, New York, Jewelry Store, oil on card, 18.5 x 17 cm  unavailable

These cubic buildings, on corners in Manhattan are very satisfying to paint. Painting a set of them is would be an enjoyable project. Perhaps next time I`m in New York  I`ll stay in Manhattan to be able to really concentrate on this. 

I have been to New York four times now. It wears its meanings on its face. This is what I first liked about it, this frankness,expressed in bold architecture, grand bridges and  gigantic museums. This is what attracts me as a painter.

In New York a rich neighborhood is very obviously rich. Your don`t need to de-code people in N.Y.  as you do with the (much) more subtle British class system, in which a rich man might dress in simple clothes and drive a bashed up mini (the American idea of wealth is a poor man`s idea of wealth- ostentation, bigness, obvious luxury symbols). 

Contrariwise, of course, you can get to know it fairly quickly and as you do you  find it less and less curious. And, as Kenneth Clark points out Civilization, it is much better at a distance than close- at a distance it is grand, but up close the lack of human scale considerations taken by architects can make one weary. 

In the great steeplechase of best cities- London N.Y. or Paris,  Paris has moved to the fore- it offers more long term pleasures.

 New York- on Lexington, oil on card, 17 x 19.5 cm - available

Washington Square Park- the arch, oil on card, 17 x 18 cm  SOLD

This is the third time I have painted the arch- this picture is larger and more simplified than the others. Arches are extremely satisfying to paint- and the simpler they are, the better.

 In Central Park, oil on card, 19 x 17.3 cm - unavailable

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Paintings from New York - Queens

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Queens, Newtown Avenue
 oil on card 19.5 x 25.7 cm SOLD

This was painted on a sad street that provides the only diagonal crossing the grid of streets, and seems to be lost in time.

 Actually, Queens overall itself seems to be stuck in about 1977, with innumerable old shops with somewhat forlorn facias and decaying blocks. 

But it has is very nice for Greek things- delis, restaurants, cafes. 

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This January...Peru- around Arequipa, carriers

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Map from The Rough Guide to Peru (2012)

Peru- A fourth trip- around Arequipa.

The cheapest and also most enjoyable prospect to escape the summer heat here is to go back to Peru. Ecuador is remarkably costly to fly to. I also looked at Bolivia and it also is notably more expensive to get to.

So this time, I propose to re-visit several places down in the south of the country near Arequipa to and add one or two new ones. I fly to Arequipa, then bus up to Cotahuasi where the landscape- a splendid valley- beckons. I also visit Chivay and Cabanaconde to see Colca Canyon. 

Then I return to Arequipa, thence onto Juliaca and Puno.

I`ve been to Arequipa and Puno but not of the other places. It`s reassuring to include which is familiar places on the itinerary.

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Carriers

The pictures all will be the larger- c. 20 x 22 cm - size. When I work on this scale I need take fewer carriers because I can paint a maximum of two such pictures per day. The paintings take up to a week to dry and after a week I can pack them together liberating carriers for new paintings. 

The long and short of all that is that I shall need to take only about 20 carriers for five weeks travel- this saves considerably on packing space.

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Some things I liked at the Art Institute of Chicago

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James McNeill Whistler, Trouville (Grey and Green, the Silver Sea), 1865

This desolate Whistler is large and rather more striking than it perhaps appears here...

Monet, Étretat: The Beach and the Falaise d'Amont, 1885

There are a huge number of Monet's- I especially loved this one, with it's jewel-box colouring and wonderful sense of a vista.

 Beauford Delaney, American, 1901–1979, Self-Portrait, 1944

Tarsila do Amaral, City (the street), 1929

Hanns Kralik, Out My Window, 1930

Edward Hopper, Nighthawks, 1942

Chaim Soutine, Landscape at Cagnes, c. 1923

This big museum is big- very big. The impressionists- especially Monet and Cezanne, are very well represented. 

But otherwise the works do not come together to tell a coherent story. 

It seemed as if the pieces had been purchased in huge lots and then the curators left to make sense of them, which they did so by hanging furniture and paintings together. Often this is rather unsatisfactory as the furniture gets in the way of the paintings- this is particularly the case in the American section.  

The modern and contemporary sections are much more satisfactory, free of bric-a-brac.

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Some things I liked in the Met this time

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It`s always a pleasure to visit the Met but why did they have to set the entry charge so high- at 25$ for non-New Yorkers- a charge prohibitive to those who are on a limited budget and so high as to discourage the repeat visits that are necessary to know this vast collection. Surely the benefactors did not intend that the works should only be accessible to the wealthy?

That caveat aside, here are some things that struck me especially this time-

Velázquez, Portrait of a man, ca. 1630–35

Velázquez, Cardinal Camillo Astalli-Pamphili, ca. 1650

Titian, Filippo Archinto, 1550s

Hans Memling, Portrait of an old Man, 1475

These renaissance portraits struck me with their combination of perceptiveness and gentleness.

Titian, Venus and the Lute Player, 1565-70

Rubens, A Forest at Dawn with a Deer Hunt, c. 1635

The falling tree is a visual metaphor for the prospects of the deer, I suppose. 

Conversation, Vuillard, 1897-8

I found the aspect of visual puzzle above enjoyable.

Still life with Ham, Philippe Rousseau, 1870s

The handling of paint and tonal control in this still life are so assured that this painting transfixes.

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I was very taken by these detailed and elegant designed woodblock prints by Kitagawa Utamaro  from the Picture Book of Crawling Creatures,1788,  26.7 x 18.4 cm

Cone-headed Grasshopper or Locust; Praying Mantis

Spider

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Ariadne, Giorgio de Chirico,1913

View of Collioure. Henri Matisse, 1907

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Ceremomial Banner (Roto), Toraja people

 Indonesia, Sulawesi, Ronkong, late 19th century

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Bis Pole. Wood, fibre paint, Indonesia, Papua Province
 Asmat People, 1950s


This tall, fantastical Indonisal sculptures are quite delightful. Their scale and effect aren`t conveyed in the photos I could find, alas. You have to visit...

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