Today in Umbria

 

Goat in Torre Orsina

 

 

Living and painting in Umbria.  Will start new posts soon.

 

Paintings of Italian farm animals soon.

 

 

View from stop near our house.

 

Jerry

 

Why Realism is a Dead End

There is a big difference between the  "Realism"  that many artists follow (the popular Richard Schmid, for example) and the "verismo" that I advocate.  To explain the difference is to review again the entire history of the I Macchiaioli and the sterile academic regimine they were rebelling against.  Some blogs try to make this to seem as simple as "painting stuff to look like stuff" and the end result of all this bologne are myriads of atelier realism schoools churning out thousands of "realist" painters out there with brush and knife in hand, competing to be the next Richard Schmid.

The whole point of the Risorgimento and its artistic followers was to confront "realism" with "dal vero" (after life) and the movement was as decidely anti-academic as the Risorgimento was anti-clerical.  The academics, you will remember, attacked the I Macchiaioli for a style of painting that was too different from the accepted realism of the time which celebrated very highly skilled accuracy but also "dull as death" artistic products.

On the other end of the spectrum there was Adolf Hitler who attempted to enter the Austrian Academy but was rejected twice because his application showed little knowledge of anatomy.  Hitler's paintings were lifeless academic studies of buidings sans people.  But more than that the professors of the day at the Academy were figures like Max Lieberman who were already moving beyond pedestrian realism to work like Lovis Corinth and Max Slevogt.

Adolf's painting

 

Schmid painting

 

But getting back to why realism is a dead end.  In the competition between the brush and the camera for realism, the camera won.  The I Macchiaioli were heading in a different direction than photographic accuracy..  Most had graduated with honors from the Italian academies and, like Signorini, were expert draftsmen.  They wanted to go beyond a skillful, even loose accuracy in depiction.  They sought "verismo" which meant both a liberal if not revolutionary politics but also expressions of artwork in social annd spiritual context for the times.  Both in subject matter and, more importantly actually, the manner of painting, building on the discoveries of Palizzi, the animal painter and the notion of "macchia" as defined by Vittorio Imbriani.

Constable (who could be considered an English version of the I Macchiaioli) said "I have endeavored to draw a line betwen genuine art and mannerism, but even the greatet painters have never been wholly untainted by manner."  When you look at his "Ploughing Scene in Suffolk" (1824) you see a much deeper and poetic understanding of nature than many of todays leading "realists."

 

 

Photobook:

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Shutterfly baby photo books are the perfect way to preserve your baby's precious moments.

Theory Behind "The Macchia"

"Oregon landscape: macchia-based landscape"

Jerry Ross

Please consider joining me for a 13-day plein air painting workshop in Seggiano, Italy (Tuscany). My name is Jerry Ross and I have exhibited widely in Italy and am known for my "verismo" school of painting that promotes the painting theories of the I Macchiaioli (Tuscan School) who stressed "dal vero", painting from life, and the establishment of the foundational "macchia" (stain) as the compositional structure of a painting.


The cost $2950 covers transportation to Seggiano from Rome airport and all ground transportation to Tuscan hilltowns, room and board at a Tuscan B&B, and instruction. Students are welcome at any level, using any media although instruction will be in oil paints. Daily demos will inform students of how to begin a painting using the ideas of the I Macchiaioli school. The workshop will be limited to 17 students. Groups are welcome. Details:

http://jerryrosspittore.com/Workshop/Seggiano.htm

The Italian art critic Imbriani declared "the macchia is the sine qua non of the painting, the indispensible essential which can sometimes make one forgetany other quality that may be absent, and which can never be supplied by any other."

(19th Cenury Theories of Art by Joshua C. Taylor)

"Macchia sketch: The Gianiculum Veduta"

The emphasis on the immediate visual effect of a painting gave acceptance to the bold painting styles of Rembrandt and Rubens, "the picturesque and inexplicable quality" of19th century sketches, and the observations of Leonardo and Michelangelo that looking at stains on walls could actvate the imagination and provide ideas for compositions.

"Charcoal sketch: Macchia depicting Gianiculum Hill, Rome"


There is a story regarding Filippo Palizzi who spread his unused colors on his canvas both as an underpainting but also to produce interesting patterns (stains) that could be the starting point for the next day's work.

"The macchia is the pictorial idea, just as the musical idea is given accord of sounds that the maestro calls a motif...and this organization of light and dark, this macchia, is what really moves the spectator...the macchia is...the portrayal of the first faraway impression of an object, or rather, the scene , the first and characteristic effect that is impressed on the artist's eye..." (Imbriani).


"Macchia skech in burnt siena -- underpainting for a landscape"

"To this first indeterminate, distinct impression that the painter affirms in his macchia, there succeeds another, distinct, minute, particularized. The execution, the finishing of a painting is simply a continuous coming closer to the object, which extricates and fixes that which has passed under the eyes in a dazzing procession. But, I repeat, if it lacks that first fundamental harmonious accord, the execution, the finish, no matter how great, will never succeed in moving, in evoking in the spectator any sentiment, while on the other hand, the solitary, bare macchia, without any determination of objects, is most capable of arousing such sentiment."

"Macchia sketch in oil paint"

"At first, the Macchiaioli called themselves Effettisti, probably
deriving the term from the French effet, used to describe the results of
light and shade distribution in paintings and photographs. Their
painting technique eschewed half tones; they claimed that ‘effect’ was
achieved with broad patches of color, macchie, which moved abruptly from
dark to light.

Macchia translates as spot, blot or daub. In 1862 a
Florentine critic dubbed them Macchiaioli, or spot-makers, ridiculing
them as daubers who left their paintings unfinished; the name was then
adopted by the group.

Because the theories of the Macchiaioli were not
written down until the 1870’s and 1880s, its contemporary historians,
Martelli, Signorini and Adriano Cecioni, may have shaped their
descriptions of the early movement to conform with later experiences;
thus Martelli saw Fattori’s works as ‘impressions’ after becoming
acquainted with Impressionism.

According to Martelli, the Macchia was
‘the theory of chiaroscuro and the relationship of one color with
another, whether they were found next to one another on the canvas on
the same perspective plane or … juxtaposed on the canvas but in
different perspective planes’.

Cecioni wrote: ‘Il vero [nature, as we
see it] results from macchie of color and of chiaroscuro, each one of
which has its own value, which is measured by means of relationship. In
every Macchia, this relationship has a double value: as light or dark,
and as color.’ Cecioni also spoke of the use of a black mirror, or
‘Claude glass’, to help establish color values and relationships.

Such theories and research were inspired by two 19th-century concerns, the
search to understand color through science and the revival of interest
in the Italian artistic past.


"Macchia based painting: capturing Italian campagna from train"


"Macchia based under-painting interacting with plein air oil sketching"

http://www.wiw.net/pages.php?CDpath=3_5_6_237_420

I find invaluable the plein air (fast) sketch -- the "line and mass macchia" --. One should take this sketch into the studio and work directly from the sketch and memory. Here are some recent examples from a trip to Val d' Orcia, tTuscany.

"Valiano"


"Val d' Orcia"

The Sentiment of Truth

The "scent" (or in a more sophisticated sense, "sentiment") of truth in art is instinctive and intuitive. Here a brief sketch provides elements of a nautical scene without embellishment with color. The native artists' instinct for truth is alone his or her guide.




"Mt Pisgah"

In this painting, the pastel colors of Fall provide the poetics of seasonal change and the beauty of nature when contemplated spiritually and not thought of in a utilitarian manner. Nature in her grand manner is always deeper than any representation and yet even the cursory oil sketch, if done honestly and directly, will capture some of the depth and profundity of the scene.


"Mt Baldy"

Painting from high above the scene in "veduta" tradition gives emphasis to the vast horizen and distant mountains and we seem to float above the valley below that opens out to a vastness, an expanse that delights the eye.


"Amazon Park sketch"

Sometimes the "sentiment of/for truth" (verismo or il vero) demands complexity of form wherein the scene itself is very complex with overlapping forms and directional lines. Here a large park with its paths and distant hills provides the opportunity. But working "al aperto" (in the open air), one has to work quickly as the changing light first reveals and then conceals forms that exist only for as long as the light that falls upon them.


"Garibaldi"

In portraiture as well, the sentiment for truth demands simplification of form and an economy of work that provides for a statement revealing the personality and the importance of the sitter. This is especially evident from historical figures when working from fixed photos.



"Oregon Evening Veduta"

Sometimes when the sun goes down and color gets eclipsed, one can still reveal the truth of the scene in contrasts in value in the darker areas and also above, in the illuminated sky where forms provide a structure perhaps more important as the source of the diminishing light.

Axiom: Truth must be captured spontaneously in the moment when "everything-is-happening-at-once"

Some corollaries:

1. If the sentiment of truth is realized, a work is "finished" at the moment that tuth is captured, even in sketch mode.
2. Further embellishment, at this point, may actually diminish the truth value of the work although conventional wisdom, often wrongly, insists on covering all areas of the canvas.

The structure of autumn and its chiaroscuro

"Amazon Park"

The canvases discussed in this post were painted yesterday in one marathon session outside in what was a glorious, sunny autumn day.


"Rattlesnake Road"

The countryside in autumn is a special challenge and, at the same time, a delight to be there painting. I chose a variety of locations, vistas really, that provided an element of linear perspective and, well...nature provided the light and the color.

The riot of colors can best be captured, in my opinion, with spots of color set down immediately or as quickly as is possible, assuming, of course, that the linear perspective lines, assumed or explicit, are guidelines that create a great space, an opening as it were, with depth and distance.


"Mt. Baldy"

I prefer to perch high above the scene, like a bird on a mountain branch, to see if I can capture at least the feeling of a great expanse, a distant valley, or the thin slivers of light illuminating the horizon. Sometimes this is a great effort, the nearby tree formations are concealing their true structure, the light changing rapidly, playing hide and seek.

One has to retreat and concentrate on light, always how the light plays over the visual field. Or go back to the darks and state and restate the structure that might not be as strong, in reality, to make this a good picture. The need to exaggerate and punch the darks harder or the need to scrape them away several times until one discovers their true identity.



"Amazon Park"

Sometimes if I concentrate on the larger shapes and their shadows, I get more productive faster. I force myself to begin with a large area of color, the horizen all the way to the bottom of the canvas, and then to try to find, within that dark, the largest shapes, differentiated only by a dab here and there for their cast shadows.




"Amazon Park"


Another consideration is structure that encompasses the entire scene. Take an enormous park view with winding paths and distant hills. Here the structure is very complex and breaks down into many separate zones of color and shape.



"Amazon Park"


Remember that the sky is the primary illumination of a landscape setting its mood and tempo. The sky brightness and its shapes also sets up a beat or synchopation of shapes, a vibration if you will, that carries through the scene.

The colors must remain luminous and expressive despite the overall concern with structure and accuracy. Here the bright sunlight and blue sky give an upbeat appearance and an attempt is made to capture the light of a "glorious day" in the autumn. Poetry takes over from fact and becomes fact, becomes the feeling and the situation, the scene understood in this manner is not something that can be captured in a camera, but only through the lens of the artistic temperment transferred to arm and hand and brush. Even the photograph would still have to be translated again, through paint and interpreted via paint, at least this my way of seeing things.

The painter, setting all of this down as quickly and as spontaneous as possible, is the witness and recorder of natural beauty and in capturing it as it surrounds and encapsulates the viewer, is both at the same time an impossible and a necessary task that can be accomplished by working directly from nature.


"Amazon Park"

Drawing is the Key to Success

Sometimes drawing will be your key to successful plein air painting. Spending time making thumb nail sketches is an important part of the overall process. the idea is to quickly produce a drawing that has compositional strength and structure. If your drawing is too weak or lacking in statement, then just draw another with the goal of simplicity. The simple and direct statement is always preferable to complexity and a lack of simple, large shapes that give the composition anchor points, eye movement, and harmonies.



This shows the relative size of the thumbnail sketch. Here a small 4 x 6 inch bound sketchbook is used.



Note that simpler is better. Try to be as minimalist as possible. Pay attention to the pressure of the pencil on the paper to vary the values.










Paint Directly From the Sketch: Here is a tip. Since the sketch has helped you "discover" your composition and value rangle, why not paint directly from the sketch? You can rely on memory, photographs, or, if you are sketching on location with paints ready, when you start to paint, lay down your composition by copying the sketch! You can glance at the scene but try to gtet the gesture of the sketch onto your canvas first!











Try to keep the sketches calligraphic and poetic. Be lyrical and try to convey both mass and line in your macchia sketch.

now for some laughs:





Plan for "American Verismo" T-shirt. Might have to make the Cinghiale look more fierce and fonts much nicer. But this is an idea waiting for instantiation.