After sending me to the Morandi exhibit at the MET, my friend and mentor, Nancy Plum, introduced me to Janet Fish’s paintings. She lent me Gerrit Henry’s 1987 JANET FISH and as a present for Hanneke (Psst, don’t tell her), I bought Janet FISH PAINTINGS by Vincent Katz, a more recent version.
Below are photographs of two of JF’s paintings, first F.W.F, 1976 (72 x 56″):
Fascinating to see geometry outlined by edges! The dazzling quality of the painting appears to be due to, quoting JF:
…I started sitting the bottles on mirrors, to bounce the light back up through them and intensify it. I’d paint the set-up all day long. If the light was terrific in the bottle at one moment, that’s when it was painted. I sort of set up a watch. And I’d look at things, and whatever was exciting that happened – in this situation where everything was always in flux – was recorded in the painting. The light is never in the same place for more than a second…
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Vincent Katz likens the ‘artificiality ‘ in lighting due to capturing highlights at different time points to the artificiality in Dutch still life where flowers that bloom at different times of the year nevertheless appear in the same painting.
The next picture is Orange Cloth/Orange Poppies, 2000 (48 x 60″):
Edges are still accentuated. And, I think in this painting, there may be some dissolving of boundaries due to similarity in color of different shapes.
Has anyone thought about Morandi and Fish at the same time?
So far, I have only seen Morandi’s paintings in real life. I will attempt to see Janet Fish’ Grey Day (1978) in my town at the Kresge Art Museum Collection, Michigan State University. Nancy thinks that the painting may be archived. Thus, I will have to put in a request for special viewing after I return from Germany. More later,
Happy New Year!
Birgit,
I didn’t know of Janet Fish before. These are quite entrancing. It looks like the edges of objects are clear and sharp enough, but there is such an exuberant sparkliness everywhere that they are often lost. Particularly in the first, with the glasses, there are optical edges–boundaries between light and dark–throughout the cut and curved surfaces, which makes the object boundaries not so special or even immediately noticeable.
In Orange Cloth/Orange Poppies, I love the rhyming of curves of the glass rims, stems, ribbon, and curtains. I’m not quite sure what to make of the dark head on the round dish and the white mask center bottom. They suggest an element of vanitas in this otherwise warm and lively work, which is reinforced by the tipped dish and fallen glass.
Steve,
..optical edges–boundaries between light and dark.. generate the sparkliness?
Looking through JF’s 1987 book, I did not see any other vanitas. Historical items in two of her earlier paintings were a bust of Hercules and a female stone head and fragment showing a single breast. I will check later whether there are other vanitas in her more recent paintings in the other book already wrapped up, ready for the airport.
Birgit,
Thank you for reminding me of Janet Fish. I have long admired her work, but somehow lost the memory until you refreshed it.
I wonder if her edges aren’t a product of using a whited edge of the brush, at almost the end of the process, and rolling it, so the edge appears and disappears, as curved and cut edges will. She’s certainly a master.
I looked at a number of her paintings online, and am impressed with the compositions, which she seems to come at through color alone. And the colors sometimes seem to me to be perfect, but also eccentric in their placement (the sign of a master). She was apparently influenced by Rackstraw Downes, one of my favorite painters, and saw, as he did, that looking at various times and in various ways, can negotiate the inadequacy of the monocular, stable (so-called photographic) vision. She is more playful than Downes and her paintings are far more lively than anything I’ve seen of Downes, but there is some kind of stubborn refusal to get caught up with the fashions of the moment. I sense in Orange Cloth a truly witty comment that resonates with the head and mask and the oranges that dance around the painting. Which is more real, might be something she’s asking.
Thanks again for getting me to these on a dank Christmas night in icy, rutted, and generally miserable Portland Oregon. A good tonic.
PS: I’m tempted to copy one of her paintings (off the web) just to see if I can reproduce the linear effects that she achieves. I’m impressed by the lines and their rhythms, especially since in my experience, art tends now to be taught as all shape; lines being only boundaries. But with Fish, the line is the dominant feature; shapes seem secondary, serving only to emphasize the line. Or am I going too far?
Anyway, I might have a go at something she’s painted, just to see what happens with the brush when I try to copy her lines.
June,
I am with you, I adore J.F.’s colors and her ‘stubborn’ refusal to get caught up in the art of the time. And then, her dazzling light and reflections. My friend’s husband (now deceased) took and very much enjoyed a workshop with J.F.
Shapes and Lines: In attempting to paint water earlier this week, I largely was struggling with shapes and lines – shapes, the larger streaks of calm or ruffled water and then, all the fine lines!
I have to try that: I wonder if her edges aren’t a product of using a whited edge of the brush, at almost the end of the process, and rolling it, so the edge appears and disappears, as curved and cut edges will.
Brigit,
I have always found Janet Fish’s choice of color “difficult,” but love your use of her edges with your unity of color. Congratulations on beautiful work.
Sue Tregay
Sue,
Could you expand on what you said? It cannot be just the brightness of J. F.’s colors. Looking at your beautiful watercolors, Florals, I see that you like bright colors too.
About Janet Fish, I prefer the colors in her still lifes over those in her landscapes.