Sandy edge, 18 inch x 18 inch, oil on birchwood panel

Vertical seems to be an ephemeral property. A sandy edge molded by ice and waves will soon crumble. The jaggedness of the Great Teton Mountains will be replaced by rounded shapes demonstrated by the juxtaposed older Gros Ventre Mountains.

In much of the cosmos, there is a wealth of curved lines – the planets with their elliptical motion, our double Helix and the curvatures of our spine.

Why then is verticality inspirational with gothic and current architecture reaching into the sky?

‘What I learned when I learned to draw’ by Adam Gopnick, The New Yorker, June 27th, discusses Jacob Collins‘ approach to drawing, which involves perceptual rather than conceptual viewing. The idea is to disengage from drawing symbols – conceptual schema of an arm or a face – and draw what you actually see. What you actually see may be a funny shape, a frog or an outline of a new African state, due to the play of light and shade on the body of the model. Thus, Gopnick was guided to learn to draw by ‘searching for strange shapes to break his symbol set’.

Jacob Collins in his “traditional realist revivalism” paints nudes, still lifes and landscapes. I may understand how the artist can draw a person modeling for him or cherries in a bowl by searching for shades and shapes rather than by using conceptual symbols. But doesn’t this approach break down when landscapes are drawn that contain water?

Water does not hold still for the slow musing approach to drawing that Adam Gopnick tells us Jacob Collins uses. My question is does Collins paint water using his symbol set of water?

The speakers of the last two talks at the Glen Arbor Art Association – Michael Letts on June 9, 2011 and Rachel Meginnes on June 23, 2011 – had things in common.

Both Michael Letts and Rachel Meginnes focus on geometrical patterns – Michael paints landscapes in abstract symbols and Rachel paints geometric shapes on cloth.

Both artists professed a zen-like attitude towards, what one may consider, tedious tasks. Michael paints ‘marks’ on his large geometrical sketches achieving a fabulous 3-D effect with shadows and highlights. Rachel, to generate the orthogonal grid underlying her painting, pulls threads out of fabric, usually cotton.

It was inspiring to listen to both discussing further development of their art – Michael Letts is experimenting with new motifs and Rachel Meginnes is developing a novel technology in fiber art.

Geometry and meditation are an ancient combination, an example are Mandalas, while the quest to developing new forms of art is an individual expression rather than one based on ancient belief systems.

Cheng, Wen-ji, Embracing, 114.5 cm x 200 cm, oil on canvas, 2009

This bowl, seen from a distance across the room, looked startingly 3-D. We stepped close to admire its geometric perfection.

The photos shown here were taken with my pocket Leica (lens 1:2.0-2.8/5.1-12.8) as raw file formats and processed in Adobe Photoshop. Whenever I remembered, I snapped the title of the picture next to the painting as shown here. Back home, a friend translated the titles for me.

The following two photos were taken from a painting covering an entire wall. Seen first from a distance, we thought that it was a sculpture.

Liao, XiaoChun, New Anthem College, 346 cm x 599 cm

Approaching the huge work of art, we realized that the human figures were painted.

The close-up above gives a better impression of its detail.

Another series of 3-D pictures, as seen in the detail of one shown below, were exhibited in a darkened room. Googles for viewing these pictures were offered at the entrance to the room.

This picture below was displayed behind glass reflecting the overhead illumination which lightened up some part of it.

The following photo shows one of several moderate size paintings. All of them depicted some sort of aerial view in a highly styelized fashion.

The next two pictures were comprised of multiple vertical screens. The resulting large banners were displayed in halls at the entrance of the museum, indicating their importance in the exhibition. They are two examples of a series with similar motifs. The photos of these 6 meter wide banners, compressed here to 500 pixels, do not do justice to the strong impact they have when viewed in the museum.

Immortal Moon, 152 cm x 607 cm, Ink and colour on paper, 1973, Take A Step Back Collection, H.k.

In addition to the aerial views, the two banners also depict a favorite motif in Chinese art, namely mountains. Another picture with a mountain motif is shown below.

Mount Qomolangma, 184 cm x 182 cm, 2009

The interpretation of the following picture is left to the viewer:

The Early Chaos, Ink and colour on paper, 48.6cm x 50cm, 1985, Shuisongshi Shanfang Collection, H.k.

Then, there were a number of paintings showing Western influence. This one caught my attention because of its carefully painted details – pearls and capillaries on the skin.

Luo, Zhan-peng, 100 Strawberry Ghosts Night Walking #10, oil painting, 194 cm x 259 cm, 2010

The final painting serves to remind that we viewed the exhibition in an Asian museum:

South Carolina morning (1955; oil on canvas, 30-9/16″ x 40-1/4): A woman stands in the entrance of a building, staring in the direction of the viewer. Her lower body pushes forward while her upper body leans backwards. The voluptuous female form in a bright red dress stands in a marked contrast to the severe pale lines (I don’t remember the color of the house to be as dark brown as shown on this photo downloaded from the web) of the house and its concrete platform against an uninterrupted expanse of grassland. Repeating the V-shaped line of her cleavage between her neck and clavicles accentuates the woman’s vivid physicality. The incongruency of female physicality and arid landscape makes me gasp.

Seven AM (1948; oil on canvas, 30-3/16? x 40-1/8?): This picture shows part of a country store and path, both colored with a kaleidoscope of lovely light pastel hues – green, yellow, blue, purple, pink, lavender and turquoise. Inside the store are a wooden clock and chest, painted in rich brown hues. The straight lines of the country store stand in marked contrast to the crookedness of the tree trunks next to it. These crooked stems are painted in weak grey-brown contrasting with the rich wood colors inside the store. The foliage is a mostly dull green accentuating the luminous pastels of the country store. Together with the difference in the illumination of human habitat and woods, the incongruency of their shapes generates the mood of the picture.

Going into the exhibition, I had been much enamored of Hopper’s paintings. I had always felt, as said somewhere on the web, that Hopper’s ‘ evocative canvases confront the viewer with images of isolation and alienation…’. But after studying his paintings for a few hours today, my sense of isolation mutated into a sense of frustration that this gifted artist would play on my emotions using a formula consisting of light/dark effects and incongruencies. Given a choice between a Hopper and a Morandi, I would choose the latter.

Subjected to the first exercise from Nicolaides ‘The Natural Way to Draw’, I drew the contours of the icicles following Nicolaides instruction:

Focus your eyes on some point – any point will do – along the contour of the model. Place the point of your pencil on the paper. Imagine that your pencil is touching the model instead of the paper. Without taking your eyes of the model, wait until you are convinced that the pencil is touching that point on the model upon which your eyes are fastened. Then move your eye slowly along the contour of the model and move the pencil slowly along the paper. As you do this, keep the conviction that the pencil is actually touching the contour. Be guided more by the sense of touch than by sight. THIS MEANS THAT YOU MUST DRAW WITHOUT LOOKING AT THE PAPER, continuously looking at the model.

First, using plants as my models, I was surprised, during the exercise, at the affection I felt for their leaves. Next, I tried the trees outside the window, and then the icicles suspended from the roof.

Being, so far, more of a photographer than a draftsman, I took a snapshot of this wintry scene.