Landscape Painting - Narrative

It's autumn here in New Zealand. Getting colder and darker everyday now. 

I'm still getting used to the season flip from the US and the fact that theres not going to be a halloween in two weeks.

Today I want to chat about "narrative" in art. I am not an expert on art terms or art history being self taught. So my ideas about narrative may be different from the orthodox view. To define the term narrative as it relates to landscape painting, I mean, contextualized artifacts that create stories.

I avoid narrative in my painting. That means I do not put people in my landscapes or even things like houses, fences, fence posts, cows, sheep etc.

My Studio "just painted" area

I've no issue with artists that use these elements in their work. In fact I know first hand that they're handy for solving many compositional problems. For me, those benefits are outweighed by the attention these focal points draw and more importantly the narrative that is generated when they are present.

For example, if I paint a young girl with a basket into a scene of a field. Many questions about her and her situation are created. Where is she going? Is she happy? What's in the basket? Do her parent's own the field? 

Or if I paint an old barn in that field, you could ask, who works there? Is there anybody in that barn now? When was the last time anyone used that barn and so on.

On the other hand if I just paint a field with some trees and maybe a brook and an interesting sky. I've created a space that can be filled by the viewer of the painting without creating context. There is nothing between them and the emotive space that I've created for them to occupy. They are free to expand their consciousness into it and in so doing, relax and feel good.

Thats my goal and intention as a landscape painter if the truth be told. 

I wish for the viewers of my paintings to feel good but thats just the beginning of what I'm after. As they go deeper into the painting they might begin to wonder why we are all alive anyway and why is life so beautiful? 

Or they could begin to experience that feeling of stillness one has at that moment after the sun's just passed over the horizon and you find yourself deep in the seeming timelessness of the gloaming. A space between light and darkness and between life and death.

I should mention that my idol George Inness often painted figures into his works. Not only was he able to do this without the sort of repercussions I've mentioned, but his best painting easily achieve all the things that I wish for my paintings to do as well. 

All I can say is that Inness was a genius and that the rest of us must just do the best we can.

Cheers,

A bit about todays picture. This was taken today with my iphone at my studio in the Quarry Arts Center Whangarei, New Zealand. The area of my studio pictured is to the right of where I paint and I set things there to dry and also keep recent things there to look at. 

Looking at one's work is nearly as important as painting it. I generally feel close to the work I've just painted. The word "enamored" comes to mind. However, more and more thats been replaced with a more critical mindset.

 I'm determined now more than ever to push each painting to the limit of what I can accomplish at this time. That means, more color, more contrast, more light, more darkness and no muddy half hearted scenes will be tolerated.

The work you do..

Hey all.

Been awhile since we've blogged together. 

I've been painting my ass off and the insights and inspirations are coming on intensely these days. So I've not as much energy for blogging. 

Fear not though as I will never completely cease this blog. As long as I am breathing anyway.

Onto todays topic. 

The work you do as an artist is vital to the health and well being of our culture and the universe at large. It is more than a commodity of whatever value it is ascribed. It is an expression of the universe that must occur.

"Along the Path" by M Francis McCarthy

I'm aware that this may strike some as airy fairy but none of us has all the answers. This blog is one place you can find a few that I've gleaned and hopefully they'll resonate if not, no worries. 

The identified self (often referred to as "ego) has a multitude of valuable uses for us as people. Without it we could not exist. 

However the ego makes poor art.

And yet even poor art needs to be created. And destroyed as well. As cliche as it sounds both are equally accurate statements.

If thats true, why should we try to create "good" art?

We should because it feels like the right thing to do at a core level of our beings. If your attitude as an artist is in alignment with the will of the universe, great art will be the by product. 

It is the individuated self that blocks this process in an attempt to do a job it was not created to do. That job is to CREATE and that is the work of the actual self not the ego.

We get in our own way. 

Often we are our own worst critics as well. As we paint we kill the baby as it's being born in our attempt to control the result or conform to misguided internal expectations.

This is why I'm reminding you that your job as an artist is valuable and important work. Even if you must struggle to let the great art come out. Rest assured that it's important or at least connected to something important.

Cheers,

A bit about "Along the Path". This is one of the high points of my old way of working and actually the culmination of many years of perfecting my old painting method. 

The reference was a photo I'd taken out here in Northland New Zealand. I've cleaved quite close to it too. There is a lot of imagination in the colors and fracture though and it's straddling my old and new way of working for that reason.

Lately I've been reworking canvas' from imagination. I'm freely improving or enhancing many paintings I've done that had issues usually related to using photo reference. I've blogged about this process and it's unfolding still as self imposed restrictions are abandoned in favor of Art.

"Along the Path has a few of those issues but I'm letting it be as it's a nice painting as is and also represents the end and the peak of an old way of working.