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Category: Paul

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Seeing and re-seeing

Painting what you know, vs. what’s actually there.

Spruces and pines on the Barnum Brook Trail, by Carol L. Douglas

Yesterday I was visited by a filmmaker from Wisconsin. Patrick Walters is in Rockport for a workshop at Maine Media Workshops being taught by my pal Terri Lea Smith. I didn’t catch his name when he texted, so I didn’t look him up beforehand. That meant I had no preconceptions and did no prep.
I thought he was looking for background shots for a film, “b-roll” as he called it. He would photograph a few things in my studio, ask me some cursory questions and move on. Instead, we talked for nearly an hour.  What seems to fascinate him is the question of seeing, or re-seeing, the familiar, as he termed it.
The first thing that ought to go out the window in plein air is slavish fidelity to reality. Painters can aggressively edit subjects on the fly in a way that traditional photography (in contrast to Photoshop) can’t. Walters asked me how we do that.
Sunset near Clark Island, by Carol L. Douglas
The easiest way is through the discipline of drawing. It’s where you can experiment without wasting hours on a painting that won’t work. Drawing saves time, and it helps you narrow your focus. All of the important design work in a painting is contained in the drawing. The better you know your subject, the better you’ll paint it.
We spoke about seeing what you know, rather than what is actually there. Art students are told early on to stop drawing “an eye” or “a hand” and actually try to draw what’s in front of them, but that’s an easy lesson to forget. Walters told me about painter Bo Bartlett’s experiences with vision, chronicled in the movie SEE. As Bartlett’s vision ebbed temporarily, he substituted what he expected for what was actually there.
A lobster pound at Tenants Harbor, by Carol L. Douglas
For years, Rockport harbor was home to a red lobster boat called Becca & Meagan. Many artists have painted or photographed it over the years, including me. One summer, I held my class at the harbor. A new watercolor student chose our red lobster boat as her subject. “You’ve got the hull wrong,” I told her, and corrected it. She, in her own turn, drew it back the way she saw it. We seesawed back and forth through most of the class, both of us getting frustrated. Finally, she interrupted me and insisted that I look again. I realized Becca & Meagan had been hauled and replaced by Kenny Dodge’s new red lobster boat, Hemingway. What I ‘knew’ had overwritten what I was seeing.
Familiarity helps us telegraph our drawing, but it does have pitfalls. Still, I think it nets the best pictures. The value of my road trips is not necessarily in the high finish of the work, because it isn’t finished at all. Rather it’s in learning new ways to see, to represent atmospherics, and to measure distances.
Anticipation, by Carol L. Douglas
Paul CĂ©zanne painted Mont Sainte-Victoire more than 60 times. His familiarity with the mountain meant he didn’t have to waste time exploring its contours. He was free to experiment with mark-making and composition instead.
His Mont Sainte-Victoire paintings also demonstrate the flexibility artists have to manipulate their subject. From his vantage point on Les Lauves, he could see the Croix de Provence, which stands 19 meters tall on the highest visible ridge. It’s been there for a long time and is a notable landmark in the region. CĂ©zanne edited it out. Doing so allowed him to focus on the mass of the mountain itself.
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Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!

A 16th century fountain after the traditional Artemis of the Ephesians, in Tivoli.
In the Book of Acts, Luke records an incident where Ephesus rioted against Paul’s preaching. It gives us a great snapshot of Roman religious practice in the first century AD:
“He says that gods made by human hands are no gods at all. There is danger not only that our trade will lose its good name, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be discredited; and the goddess herself, who is worshiped throughout the province of Asia and the world, will be robbed of her divine majesty.”
When they heard this, they were furious and began shouting: “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” Soon the whole city was in an uproar
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The city clerk quieted the crowd and said: “Fellow Ephesians, doesn’t all the world know that the city of Ephesus is the guardian of the temple of the great Artemis and of her image, which fell from heaven? (Acts 19:23-41)
A first-century AD copy of the original wooden cult-figure of Artemis, now destroyed. No bow and arrows for this girl.
The rioters were not calling her “great” merely because of her position; it was part of her proper name, distinguishing her from all other deities called Diana or Artemis. 
Artemis of Ephesus most likely descends from a pre-Hellenic fertility image whose origins are obscured by time. Thus the breasts. But the Greeks were syncretic thinkers, so it’s no surprise that they rolled the heavy, fertile goddess into the lithe hunter and thought nothing of it.
Artemis of Ephesus was a big wheel in cult circles. Her temple was one of the Seven Wonders of the World, and she was served by a whole coterie of servants, including a hereditary priestess, female slaves, eunuch priests, and young virgins. (Of passing interest is the fact that Kallimachos asserted that Ephesus was founded by Amazons, a story that might have some garbled resonance in the importance of Artemis’ cult there.)
Ephesian coin of Artemis, this time with her deer.
Luke’s account is the only written classical source for Artemis having fallen from the sky. However, “the image that fell from the sky” is a traditional appellation for Zeus’s offspring. In some cases, it might mean that the worshipped object was a meteorite, but since contemporary sources describe the lost Artemis as wooden, that seems unlikely. This figure was destroyed by flood in the eighth century AD. The images we have are copies. Perhaps their makers were among the very rioters Luke described in Acts.

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2014 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!

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Wrestling with God

The Vision After the Sermon (Jacob wrestling with the Angel),Paul Gauguin, 1888, Scottish National Gallery.


I asked my trusty assistant, Sandy Quang, to fill in for me today:

I recently watched a documentary about Oswald Chambers. Chambers was essentially Jacob from Genesis 32-22-32. Chambers had experienced failure in his career as an artist, and one night he went alone to pray in a cave. Like Jacob, Chambers wrestled with God. The moment they went to pray and wrestle with God was the moment of their transition. Following the path of God and following their desire’s yielded different results. Following their own desires had left them cornered, but prayer allowed them to have a change of heart.

Jacob Wrestling with the Angel, Gustave Doré, 1855, wood engraving.
As an art historian, I often see images of Jacob wrestling with an angel and not a man. The first painting that comes to mind is Paul Gauguin’s vibrant “Vision after the Sermon”, and the second is a solemn engraving by Gustave DorĂ© entitled “Jacob Wrestling with the Angel”. Gauguin’s painting is brightly colored, depicted as a spectacle. Breton village women are gathered watching the struggle. As for DorĂ©  the story is depicted as a personal struggle on a cliff, heightening the sense of danger that comes with the struggle. DorĂ© seems to be closer to the truth in his depiction: the quietness of the surrounding in which one ought to wrestle with God. Despite the different portrayal of the subjects, the story of struggle and change rings true. For Jacob, his wrestle with God resulted in a new name, Israel. For Chambers, his wrestle with God resulted in a new career path.
(Sandy Quang)

Join me in October, 2013 at Lakewatch Manor—which is selling out fast—or let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in 2014. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!