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Art without religion

Painting of Gaį¹‡eśa riding on his Indian rat or bandicoot, c. 1820, courtesy British Museum

It has always baffled me that an art historian is required to learn German, French, or Italian but not to study religious history. Religious paintings comprise the bulk of art through the ages, from the shamanistic cave art of paleolithic man right up to the 18th century. That’s not just true for Christendom, but for every culture worldwide. Art is a primary way people have explored the meaning of their existence, and that is the fundamental question of religion.

I can only speak for my own culture, but my own grounding in Christianity makes reading western paintings easy. I do not need stories and symbols explained to me; even deeply buried allegorical references make sense without a lot of clarification.

Ladder of Divine Ascent, 12th century, icon, courtesy Saint Catherine’s Monastery, Egypt

(That’s also true, by the way, for paintings based on Greco-Roman myth, because we learned those stories in school. Today I wonder why they spent so much time on them, but apparently there was a lot more time in the school day back before STEM. Peter Paul Rubens had it right when he painted those fat gods and goddesses as cartoon characters.)

I’ve often wondered how students of art history read the symbols in religious art when they don’t have a grounding in the thinking underlying them. Art historians are famous for their capacity to pontificate. In the post-church era, how can their students discern what in all that blather is reasonable and what is nonsense?

Thangka Depicting Vajrabhairava, ca. 1740, courtesy Sotheby’s

Go back in time with me to my first visit to the Rubin Museum of Himalayan and central Asian art. Tibetan art is overwhelmingly religious and conservative and, I suspect, cautionary. The Tārās are, like the Greco-Roman gods, partly personifications, or representations of abstract ideas in the form of personages. Looking at the work totally divorced from its religious underpinnings, all I saw were five floors of ferocious figurines.

I suppose my response was like a non-Christian’s reading of a crucifixion painting. They can be frightening, especially in a culture as divorced from death as we are. However, crucifixion was an historical reality running from pre-Roman times to the modern world (it’s still a rare but legal form of punishment in parts of the world). To the Christian, the crucifixion of Jesus represents the absolute low point of the story, but it also points to the ultimate redemption of humanity.

My art-historian goddaughter was raised in a traditional Chinese household, so Tibetan house shrines don’t seem that strange to her. She was able to explain the rough outlines of the Tārā permutations to me. I still wouldn’t want any of it in my house, but, then again, I wouldn’t want The Martyrdom of Saint Erasmus by Dieric Bouts in my house, either.

Tiles from the courtyard of the SĆ¼leymaniye Mosque in Istanbul, Turkey, c. 1557

I’m not an art historian, just a simple painter who loves paintings. And I think it’s important that I understand those works from the viewpoint of the artist. So when I read Breaking a taboo: religion is being invited into three major museums, my first reaction was, “it’s about time.” Art should never have been divorced from its cultural underpinnings in the first place. Its absence reflects a longstanding, anti-religious bias on the part of academia.

We’ve had a century or more of sneering at religion and the faithful. Are there any art historians left who are qualified to interpret art in the language and culture in which it was made? Where’s Sister Wendy when we need her?

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My first foray into a cooperative gallery

Breaking storm, 48X30, oil on canvas, $5,579 framed. This painting of American Eagle has decided it wants to go to Port Clyde for a while.

Despite my business partner’s best efforts to keep me on a plan, I tend to make decisions off-the-cuff. This latest one was based solely on the fact that Susan Lewis Baines asked me.

Sue used to run the Kelpie Gallery in South Thomaston. She had an incredible eye for pairing paintings. More importantly, she could sell paintings, which is a trait I find highly desirable in a gallerist. So, when Sue suggested I join the Red Barn Gallery in Port Clyde, I responded, “Once more into the breach dear friend.”

There were some issues that I hadn’t quite thought through. One was how I expected to run my own gallery in Rockport-which is open five days a week-while simultaneously honoring my obligation to a cooperative. The second was how to stretch my body of work to fill both spaces without sacrificing quality. About the middle of May I took a good look at my commitments and nearly took early retirement. They include a very full schedule of workshops and classes and a pledge to turn out seven interactive painting lessons by the end of this year. There’s this blog, which does not write itself. And then, occasionally, I like to paint.

I’m glad I didn’t panic. For one thing, the other Red Barn Gallery members are very nice people. They are bending over backwards to help me balance all the things on my very precarious plate. For another thing, Port Clyde is a lovely, unspoiled bit of coastal Maine. It’s refreshing to spend time there, watching the ferry toing-and-froing from Monhegan. And last but certainly not least, I realize I can paint gazing out the gallery windows when it’s my turn to gallery-sit. The views are wonderful.

I never miss Sue Baines more than when I have to hang my own work. But it’s done, and very nautical, if I may say so myself.

I did, however, sneak the setup in during stolen time. My long-suffering husband rode to Port Clyde with me on Father’s Day to help me hoist my paintings up the stairs. It was an all-afternoon affair, and I reneged on buying him dinner afterwards. We were both just too tired.

But it’s done, and I think it looks grand.

If you’re going to be anywhere in the Port Clyde area on Friday, please join us for our opening:

Red Barn Art Gallery

Opening reception, Friday, June 23, 5-7 PM

5 Cold Storage Road, Port Clyde Rd, St George, ME 04860

Regular hours: June and July – Thursday-Monday – 10:30am-4, Sunday 12-4
August – Daily – 10:30am-4, Sunday 12-4
September 8th-10th and 15th-17th – 10:30am-4

Open Late on most Thursdays

207 372-2230

Email here.

If you want to visit me in Rockport:

Carol L. Douglas Studio and Gallery

394 Commercial Street, Rockport, ME 04856

Regular hours:

Tuesday-Saturday, Noon-5.

585-201-1558

Email here.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

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Monday Morning Art School: the power of symmetry

Painting by Sandra Hildreth

We all ‘know’ not to plunk our subject square in the middle of our composition, don’t we? Last week I mentioned the great outdoorswoman Sandra Hildreth, and in return, she sent me this photo of something she’d painted recently. It’s a great example of the power of selective symmetry and of Carol’s first rule of composition: Don’t Be Boring.

In addition to being the driving force behind the Adirondack Plein Air Festival, Sandy taught high school art for 34 years. She knows her way around a paintbrush and a pochade box.

First, let her describe how symmetry shouldn’t be done: “The artist might put her mountain right in the middle of the composition, and it ends up shaped like a simple triangle. The forest on either side is the same shape and color, and then there is a foreground of solid green.” That’s indeed how it often goes down. It’s a recipe for static boredom.

Sandy consciously chose to put her mountain square in the middle of her picture, “but then I focused on everything that was not symmetrical. I looked for every shape and color change,Ā and made sure nothing on the left and right matched. I’m not suggesting I painted a masterpiece, but I painted a simple view and made it visually interesting.”

There’s power in the tension between the dominant massif and the forest and clouds that wouldn’t have been there had she chosen the obvious solution, which would be to move the massif to one side.

Bracken Fern, 12X9, oil on canvasboard, $869 framed includes shipping in continental US.

“The other possibility is what my high school students usually did: choose the simplest composition possible.” By that she means centering everything. “That’s easy to draw, but boring.”

“How do you teach people to open their minds to diversity and asymmetry rather than make everything smooth and equal?” she asked me.

One of the first things people say about artists is that we “see things differently,” usually as a preface to the hoary old canard, “it must be nice to be born with talent.”

Spring Greens, 8X10, oil on canvasboard, $522 unframed includes shipping in continental US.

I can’t speak for Sandy, but I was lucky enough to have parents who encouraged my drawing, and a father who knew how to draw and taught me. I’m pretty sure that most successful artists start off with conventional aesthetics. Then they grind that middling viewpoint away through hundreds of hours of drawing. All that observation trains them to observe closely, to see the minute differences that elevate a real mountain above a boring old triangle.

Apple Blossom Time, 9×12, oil on canvasboard, $696 unframed includes shipping in continental US.

That’s why I’m such a fanatic about making my students draw, draw, and draw some more-and then reflect on those drawings. I know it’s unfashionable to tell people they cannot paint without drawing chops, but it’s an unfortunate truth. I’m not talking about the ability to copy a photo, but the ability to see an object in three dimensions and reduce it to two on paper. Good artists see planes and shapes and that is what gives a painting dimension. How do you learn that? Practice, my friend, is worth more than the best drawing teacher in the world. But if you’re completely baffled, you can start with this book.

Plein air painters, in particular, sometimes make a fetish of working fast with little preparation. It shows in the results. All the bravura brushwork in the world can’t hold up a poor composition.

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Is this the age of bravura brushwork?

Fogbank, oil on archival canvasboard, 14X18, $1594 framed includes shipping in continental US

The pinnacle of baroque music composition was in the persons of Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel. Both were so late in their genre that they nearly missed the bus. Since the term baroque music didn’t come into systematic usage until the 20th century, I’ve often wondered what Bach and Handel thought they were playing at. I doubt they thought of themselves as being in the same compartment as Henry Purcell or Johann Pachelbel, although this is how Baroque music is usually described to us amateurs.

In 19th and 20th century painting, we see much finer divisions, from the realism of Gustave Courbet to the transitional work of Ɖdouard Manet through the flowering of Impressionism and then the post-Impressionist modernists. A ridiculous amount has been written about what these dead artists were doing, thinking and eating. However, we still can’t know what they saw as their place in the continuum of art history. Or even if they cared about that.

Larky Morning at Rockport Harbor, 11X14, on birch board, unframed, $869 includes shipping in continental US.

In the 20th century, we saw a kaleidoscope of isms: Fauvism, Futurism, Abstraction, Bauhaus, Orphism, Expressionism, Symbolism, Modernism, Synchromism, Suprematism, Constructivism, Dadaism, Surrealism, Regionalism, Precisionism, Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, Photorealism and probably twenty more that I’ve forgotten. I didn’t list them just to bore you to death, simply to note the absurdity of so many labels. It’s possible that all those isms can be rebranded in the future as one topic: Experimentism.

A large section of the field has returned to realism, and is painting it in a style that could be loosely called post-Impressionism. Does that negate the work of the whole 20th century? Hardly, but it does leave us with the question of what we’re doing now.

In my few decades of teaching painting, I’ve noticed one request over and over: “I want to develop looser brushwork.” That tells me it’s important.

Brilliant Summer Day, 6X8, oil on archival canvasboard, $435, includes shipping in continental US.

Contemporary viewers are immediately captivated by bravura brushwork; it’s a sign of self-confidence and competence in an age beset by anxiety and doubt.

Mark-making can be loose and gestural or very controlled. On one hand, it’s the most personal aspect of painting. At the same time, it’s also highly technical. Much of what is called ‘style’ comes down to what brushes we choose and what marks we make with them. I wrote about that here.

It is never an accident; it comes from practice. It also rests on a firm foundation of proper preparation. Flailing around to fix things that should have been resolved in the drawing or underpainting will negate the freshness and decisiveness of good brushwork. Continuous modification, glazing, changing color, etc., make for diffident marks.

Seafoam, 9X12, oil on archival canvasboard, $869 framed.

There are many painters whose brushwork I admire, but there’s little point in trying to copy them in my own work. Brushwork is as personal as handwriting. It’s where the artist expresses-or suppresses-his feelings. There’s value in attempting to copy passages by great painters, but don’t try to paint like Sargent or Van Gogh or Rembrandt; use what you learn to create your own mature style.

Style is the difference between our internal vision and what we’re capable of. We often don’t like our own brushwork when we lay it down; I think that’s because it’s too personal. Don’t continuously massage your brushstrokes hoping to make them more stylish. If the passage is accurate in color, line and precision, move on. Future generations may think it’s wonderful.

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Scouting locations

Inlet, 8X10, $652 framed, includes shipping within continental US

On Sunday I hosted a paint-out for my old friends in Greater Rochester Plein Air Painters. That should have been simple, since I taught plein air painting there for many years. I’ve been gone nearly a decade now, and things change.

Despite my knowledge, I found long-distance location scouting surprisingly difficult. Views and ownership change, as does our taste in subjects. I decided to play it safe with a boat dock along the Erie Canal. It had the advantage of being next to an Abbott’s Frozen Custard, but to be perfectly honest, it was boring.

That niggling detail is why your local plein air group insists you take turns hosting paint-outs. And it’s why plein air workshops are not as simple as workshops taught in buildings.

Quebec Brook, oil on canvasboard, 12X16, $1449 framed, includes shipping in continental US. This location was scouted by that consummate outdoorswoman, Sandra Hildreth.

When you’re responsible for choosing the locations

There’s no remote-location scouting when planning a workshop. The teacher or the monitor must visit sites, secure permission, and create a schedule.

I first conceived my Berkshires workshop in the dead of winter. That’s the worst time to scout locations in New England. Covered in snow, with the trees bare, the landscape looks nothing like it will in the ‘wall of green’ of summer. That’s assuming you can even get down some of these tracks without a dogsled.

I wasn’t flying completely blind; I know western Massachusetts. But what is suitable for an individual to paint and what is appropriate for a group are two very different things. More people magnify the problems as well as the joys. If you’re planning a plein air workshop or paint out, you need:

  • A mix of locations ranging from long views to water to architecture.
  • Ample parking.
  • Spots within a reasonable driving distance of a central location, in a manner that won’t take out the springs of cars. North Adams, as lovely as it is, is just too far from Lenox. October Mountain State Forest may be close, but even my SUV struggled on its rutted dirt tracks.
  • Park-and-paint that’s not too far from the road, but safely away from traffic.
  • A nearby outhouse is a plus.
  • A plan for a rainy day.
  • A place to buy coffee or lunch. If that’s not possible, students must be forewarned to bring food with them.
Mountain Fog, 12X9, $696 unframed, includes shipping in continental US. This is another location that was scouted by Sandra Hildreth.

When all these requirements have been met, one then crosses that stickiest of all wickets-permissions. A dozen or so painters can clog up the works on a small property. Permission can be as simple as, “let me know what day you’re planning on coming” to the labyrinthine permitting requirements of the national park system, which I negotiate every year for my Schoodic workshop.

I got up very early on Tuesday morning and collected my assistant in Albany, NY. We visited Shaker historic sites and drove up into the clouds in the Pittsfield State Forest. We looked at rail-trail sites in the city of Pittsfield and snaked around rutted tracks in forest lands.

Vineyard,” 30X40, oil on canvas, $5072 framed, includes shipping in continental US.

There were a few disappointments. Beautiful and welcoming Mass Audubon’s Pleasant Valley will be hosting kids’ camps during the week we’re there, so it’s a no-go. On the other hand, they directed me to the lovely Canoe Meadows in Pittsfield. All’s well that ends well!

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Monday Morning Art School: What sells?

Hall’s Market, 16×20 oil on linen, Bjƶrn Runquist

I have a tome somewhere that ‘proves’ that blue landscapes are the buying public’s favorite. Apparently, they weren’t the only social scientists who addressed the question. “Some Russian consortium declared after ‘much study’ that a 12×16 with a water view, a dog and something red will outsell all others,” Bjƶrn Runquist told me. “How’s that for precision?”

Natalia Andreeva read the exact opposite thing. “When I was a student and read way more books, one of them said that people do not like blue paintings; green or red are the colors to go with. Most importantly the work should carry a positive cheerful message. Any grim or highly-edgy subject is good for being noticed but not for selling.”

In Light, 14X18, oil on linen, Natalia Andreeva

I asked ChatGPT, which told me that neutrals and earth tones are popular. That’s so last year. So, I moved on and asked a group of professional artists what, in their experience, sells. I’ve edited their responses for length.

Day’s End in a New Season, 24×36, oil on canvas, Colin Page

Colin Page: Some galleries tell me rules for what subjects they think don’t sell: snow scenes, boats out of the water, paintings with too much yellow. I suppose landscapes/seascapes have the broadest appeal, but I don’t find it matters for sales potential if the painting is good enough.

Churchy, 6X6, oil on canvas, Bobbi Heath

Bobbi Heath: It must have meaning for them. Thus, the popularity of pet portraits. Since I mostly sell landscapes, and usually the sun shines in my paintings, I buy the hypothesis about blue. But maybe it’s really about sky and water. My most popular paintings are of boats. But boats are close to my heart, so perhaps I paint them with more feeling.

Sage, 12X16, multimedia, Ryan Kohler

Ryan Kohler: I have subjects to paint that are in my wheelhouse, almost like bread-and-butter images: boots, boats, NYC, landscape, architecture, and critters. But then there are my ‘fun’ categories too that don’t really sell well (or at all) but I still love doing.

On top of trying to navigate those murky waters, I also have the added non-benefit of switching mediums regularly. I’ve sold plenty of paintings throughout all phases. I don’t think that many folks walk into a gallery looking for an acrylic painting, or a watercolor, or a linocut print. I think they head into a gallery looking for work that speaks to them. It’s probably more about wonder and excitement than boring stuff like media and price.

New Developments, 12X9, oil on cradled birch, Casey Cheuvront

Casey Cheuvront: Out here in AZ, paintings of cactus will outsell sailboats. A painting of an iconic Prescott bar will sell in Prescott. Paintings of the yuppie barrio buildings will sell in Tucson. My friend Jan, who lives in northern CA, sells mostly seascapes.

In the past year I have sold landscapes, animal and still life, many plein air pieces, several studio works, a number of small paintings, and large paintings. Most of these were oil paintings, some were watercolor/ink. They’ve been various size ratios.

I find myself constantly surprised by what sells and what doesn’t. But good work sells, eventually. Of course, price has something to do with it. Another painter once told me “The perfect price is the intersection of what your collectors are willing to pay and what you are willing to take to let it go.”

Adjusting the Lines, 12X16, oil on panel, Poppy Balser

Poppy Balser: Looking through my paintings that have sold over the last year, they’ve been mostly boats, beach scenes, harbour scenes and a few landscapes.  But that is also what I paint the most of, because these are the subjects I most enjoy painting.

In Camden, boats sell well. In the gallery in our main agricultural region (the Annapolis valley in Nova Scotia) landscapes, farming scenes, and Bay of Fundy coastal scenes do well. In Florida beach scenes do well.

Often the ones that sell quickly and directly are often the ones I have best managed to tell a bit of a story about. And a lot of mine that sell are predominantly blue, because, well, ocean.

Natalia Andreeva: People buy what speaks to them. They may see something in your work that you did not even intend, so painting what speaks to me makes more sense than chasing mirages. There is no point to guessing; just keep working and keep looking for new venues (easier to say then do, but it’s the right way to do it).

The Storm #1, 2X8, oil on multimedia board, Mary Byrom

Mary Byrom: My big rule of thumb is I sell everything I show that is $600 and under. I sell all the small paintings that I show. All of them are landscapes, seascapes, or townscapes. Any and all landscape subjects. Oil, gouache, acrylic and watercolor.  Plein air, memory, imagination, all types.

I sell some large paintings directly to collectors. I used to sell them in one gallery that closed due to health problems. I have not found another relationship like that gallery.Ā  I was in 13 galleries. I cut back steadily to two galleries and my studio.

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Same s–t, different day

Toy Reindeer with double rainbow, oil on archival canvasboard, 6X8, $435 framed, includes shipping in continental US. It started as a still life.

“My painting group is stuck in SSDD,” a student told me. I didn’t know what that meant, so I asked my daughter.

“Same s-t, different day,” she laughed, “and boy do I know it. You see it at work, at church, in school. It’s when people do the same thing over and over and expect a different outcome.”

There are times we’re all stuck in repetitive tasks. There’s nothing to do in that situation but suck it up. The dishes and laundry don’t do themselves. And as Prince Harry’s poignant testimony this week reveals, having staff to do those things for us is no secret to happiness.

Deadwood, 30X40, oil on linen, $6231 framed, includes shipping in continental US. Sometimes you just have to go big.

But painting shouldn’t be like that. Yes, you need to practice, but if you’re feeling like you’re going around in circles, perhaps you’re stuck in SSDD too.

Take the typical paint out. They’re fun, and they can result in great work, but they’re primarily social. If you never push yourself past the three-hour field sketch, you’re not going to advance as fast as you will if you lean into the problems that bedevil you.

Of course, one person’s SSDD is another’s secure, comfortable routine. If you are happy with the results of your current painting practice, far be it from me to try to change it. However, I haven’t known too many people who think they paint perfectly. That ranges from new painters to nationally-known names. It’s a mark of a good artist to always want to be a better artist.

One of the toughest things you can do is compare work you did last month, a year ago, five years ago, twenty years ago. If there isn’t change, ask yourself why. That doesn’t mean that your new work is inherently better than your old work; it means that you’ve maintained an interest in transformation and growth.

The Late Bus, 6X8, oil on canvasboard, $435 framed, includes shipping in continental US. This painting is a complete fantasy.

How do I break out of the same old same-old?

Breaking out of the cycle of SSDD can be challenging, especially when you’ve built comfortable routines around your painting practice. But here are some specific strategies you can try:

Set new goals: Identify specific objectives that you would like to achieve. That might be a new body of work for a solo show, learning better draftsmanship, or a daily drawing practice. It could be reading a classic painting text like Alla Prima by Richard Schmid (now available for free online).

Tackle a new genre: I get it-you love landscape painting. So do I. But when I’m feeling stale, I like to drag out something different, like still lives or fantasias.

Stop making every painting session the same three hours long. Bring a big canvas and paint the same scene for a full day. Or bring five 6X8 canvases and paint five half-hour studies of the same scene. A longer painting gives you time to draw, research and compose. Quick sketches give you a change to experiment. If every painting takes you the same exact amount of time, don’t be surprised if they all look the same.

Seafoam, 9X12, oil on archival canvasboard, $869 framed includes shipping in continental US.

Try a new medium. I’m not talking about taking up gouache if you’re a watercolorist, but rather jumping off an artistic cliff. Try printmaking. ƉcorchĆ©. Sculpture. Textile art. Henri Matisse was one of the seminal figures in modern painting, but he was also a draftsman, printmaker and sculptor. When old age stopped him from painting, he created an important body of work in cut paper collage. You can never predict how one medium will influence another in your artistic development.

Rest: Sometimes, you might develop a sense of ennui not from boredom but from burnout. I’m not that great at resting myself, but there are certain tell-tale signs that I need to clock out for a while: I’m forgetful and clumsy. I may not be able to stop immediately, but I know to schedule a break as soon as I can.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

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Wildfire!

Eastern Manitoba Forest, Sandilands National Forest, Manitoba, 8X10, Carol L. Douglas, available.

Alex Schaefer paints banks in flames. I was thinking of him this week as I read about hundreds of wildfires burning across Canada. I’ve painted across both Alaska and Canada. There’s lots of evidence that the Great White North is no stranger to wildfire. You see the signs and remnants everywhere. We Americans only notice when the wind shifts and smoke is on our tongues, as it has been this week.

Last week, we got a light backwash from Nova Scotian fires here in Maine. Now it’s New York’s turn. The smell and smoke are overwhelming, according to my friends and family. My son sent me a photo of the weird brown light around his apartment. Down in Greene County where his sister works, Public Safety sent out a robocall warning people to not go outside.

Confluence, Athabasca River, Alberta, 9X12, Carol L. Douglas, available.

It’s supposed to be worse today, leading some in Greater Rochester Plein Air Painters to cancel their midweek paint-outs. I’m watching carefully, because I plan to paint with them at 1 PM on Sunday, at Bushnell’s Basin in Perinton. This will be nostalgic, for I lived most of my life within rock-skipping distance of the Erie Canal. I’m looking forward to watching its stately green flow, drawing an old metal bridge, and perhaps striking lucky with a gaily-caparisoned canal boat at rest. Mostly, though, I’m looking forward to seeing my friends.

But it won’t happen if they’re still sitting under a cloud of ash. It’s just not safe.

If you’ve ever been downwind of a wildfire, you know it isn’t pleasant. It smells more like burning trash than a bonfire; it’s acrid and sticks in your nose. It’s worth remembering that this was typical air quality for 19th century cities, It probably still is in some fast-growing Asian cities.

Wildfire damage along the Transcanada Highway, painted en plein air in 2016.

Scientists speculate that this bad air led to some of the spectacular atmospherics in the paintings of Turner, Whistler, Monet and others. That was good for art, but it was bad for the vulnerable-the elderly, infants, or people with compromised hearts or lungs. London’s pea soupers were so common that they were called London particulars. These fogs were comprised of soot and sulfur dioxide and came from the widespread burning of soft coal for both homes and industries.

From as early as the 13th century, the English understood that coal had a harmful effect on health, and observed smog over their towns and cities. The mists and fogs of the Thames valley contributed to its concentration over London. London particulars must have been particularly unpleasant before the city built a modern sewer system in the mid-19th century. By then, the relationship between coal smoke and respiratory disease was clear. One prolonged London particular, in January-February 1880, was estimated to have choked 2000 Londoners to death.

Clouds over Teslin Lake, Teslin, Yukon Territory, 9X12, Carol L. Douglas, available.

But still England lumbered along with soft coal fuel, until conditions in December, 1952 created the perfect storm. Extreme cold combined with an anticyclone and windless conditions formed a thick layer of smog over the city. At the time, the Great Smog of London was credited with 4,000 deaths; today we think it killed 10,000-12,000 people. The Clean Air Acts that it provoked created the modern British cities we love today, where a coating of coal tar is just an historical memory.

We assume that wildfire is less toxic, and it probably is-providing it’s burning the woods and not homes or factories. It’s still a danger to people at risk: those with cardiovascular or pulmonary disease, or infants and the elderly. So, if you’re in the way of the great plumes of smoke coming down from Canada this week, stay in your studio. There will be plenty of fine weather in the months ahead.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

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Monday Morning Art School: narrative, subject and meaning

The Blind Leading the Blind, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1568, 33.8 x 60.6 in., courtesy Museo di Capodimonte

Narrative painting is more difficult than painting a simple still-life-one needs to be able to tell a story with one’s brush.

What is a narrative painting?

Stories have a beginning, middle, or end, but a painting is by design a portrait of a moment in time. That requires sleight of hand. We either must tell a story with which everyone is familiar, as in Leonardo  da Vinci’s The Last Supper, or one in which the story can be reasoned out, like Ford Madox Brown‘s The Last of England.

The genre paintings of Pieter Brueghel the Elder illustrate moral truths. These aren’t portraits, although they might have used known models. The figures are meant to be generic. This kind of painting reached its peak with social realism in the 19th century, with paintings like Ilya Repin‘s Barge Haulers on the Volga.

Barge Haulers on the Volga, Ilya Repin, 1870, 51.7 x 110.6 inches, courtesy the Russian Museum

Narrative is an elastic category. I think everything Caspar David Friedrich ever painted could be classified as narrative. Others might see just Romantic landscapes.

When Gustave Courbet painted everyday scenes on large canvases, the scale itself was part of the story. He was saying that the common man was of equal importance to the elite, setting the traditional hierarchy of genres on its head.

However, some implied action is necessary. I wouldn’t classify my own Wreck of the SS Ethie as a narrative painting, even though it depicts the result of an historic storm. On the other hand, I’d say my Breaking Storm is. It’s taking you out of danger and into the light.

Human figures are not necessary in narrative painting. A cell phone abandoned next to a half-eaten meal might tell a story. Likewise, landscape tells stories. Melting snow, for example, has the before-and-after elements of story.

The Last of England, Ford Madox Brown, 1852/1855, 750×825 mm, courtesy Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery

How does narrative differ from subject?

A figurative painting must have a subject but can have no narrative at all. In fact, most paintings fall into this category, even when the subject has deep meaning, as in Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres‘s incredible Napoleon I on His Imperial Throne. The subject can be a person, place, or object, with or without symbolic significance, historical context, or cultural references.

There’s nothing wrong with paintings without these deep layers. Although Ɖdouard Manet is famous for meaning- and narrative-drenched large canvases of social and political importance, some of his finest works are the tiny still lives he did from his sick bed at the end of his life.

Napoleon I on His Imperial Throne, Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, 1806, 101.9 x 63.7 inches, courtesy MusĆ©e de l’ArmĆ©e

How does symbolism fit in?

Symbols and visual metaphors convey meaning. Some of them are almost universal, such as blue restroom signs. But much symbolism is culturally-specific, like those ‘language of flowers’ messages of the 19th century. Still, a thoughtful artist can think up symbols that transcend time and place. These may not be blindingly obvious, but if they arise in the context of mapping out your painting, they’re bound to have more staying power. Ultimately, symbols should express emotion, thought and intention.

The meaning of meaning

The meaning in a painting is a close dance between the artist’s intention and the viewer’s perception. Essentially, it’s what boils down in the stew of narrative, subject and symbolism. Meaning is contextual; how we read Napoleon I on his Imperial Throne today is far different from when Ingres painted him at the height of his power.

Above all, each viewer brings their own experiences, perspectives, and emotions to a painting. In addition to Ingres’ technical mastery, I see the deep frivolity of wrapping a deeply-flawed man in the symbols of Christ’s earthly reign. Others, from a different background, will see different things.

Meaning is not always straightforward or easily decipherable, nor should it be. Great art leaves room for interpretation and invite viewers to engage with their work in a personal and subjective manner. The beauty of art lies in its ability to provoke thought and emotion and spark meaningful conversations, allowing each of us to find our own messages within.

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That sweet spot between art and nature

We’ve been hiking Beech Hill for so many years that you’d think our feet could navigate on their own. Apparently, that’s not true. On a glorious day in mid-April, my husband stepped wrong and wrenched his back. That has meant pain for him and small inconveniences for me. For one thing, he keeps our pace. Without him, I’m just ambling along listening to birdsong.

Doug also carries paintings down from their second-story storage unit. I’m no good at lifting. But eventually I got it done, and I’m happy with the results.

As I unwrapped the work, I found myself saying over and over, “this is my favorite painting.” That’s a great thing, because it means that, right now, I like my own work. Serious painters know that this isn’t always the case. We can get very angsty about our painting at times.

Wreck of the SS Ethie, oil on canvas, 18X24, $2318 framed. This is one of the few non-plein air pieces in this show.

Plein air is where my heart is

Most of the work in this show is plein air. That’s no surprise, since plein air immerses both the artist and viewer into the spirit of the place it was painted.

“My clients don’t care whether I painted it en plein air or not,” a friend once observed. I’m not sure that’s true. Plein air feels different than studio painting, since it involves fast analysis of light, shadows, texture and color. I’m not dissing the studio painting; I’ve done plenty of them. But for the client who loves the outdoors, who wants to sit in that sweet spot between art and nature, plein air is going to resonate more strongly.

The best of plein air should carry a whiff of the painting experience. There is a vast difference between painting ferns at Paul Smith’s College, NY, and painting shadows in Sedona, AZ.

The Logging Truck, 16X20, oil on canvas, was painted en plein air on the side of a precipitous incline, with, yes, logging trucks barreling past at regular intervals. This is one of my favorite favorites.

This year’s show is almost completely Maine. The exceptions are a seascape from Parrsboro, NS and a harbor scene from Iona in Scotland. There are no paintings from Patagonia, Alaska, Texas, New Mexico, or Arizona, as much fun as I’ve loved painting in those places. I’ll get back to them later.

Place and painting have a complicated relationship. You don’t need to go far to find a beautiful subject. For most of us, there’s a painting waiting right outside the back door. (If you live where there’s not, I’d suggest you move for your mental health.) On the other hand, painting in other places changes your perception. If you’re any good, the light, shapes, rocks, trees, and houses will all be different.

For years I’ve pondered the relationship between God and man as expressed in the environment. (I once did a whole body of work on the subject, in fact.) There’s an old foundation in Erickson Field Preserve. It was a very small farmhouse; its barn foundation is on the other side. At this point the trail is the old farm track, and there are three small meadows strung along it like tiny pearls. In them are a few old domesticated apple trees and their wild descendants in the woods. There are lilacs, lily-of-the-valley, goutweed, narcissus, daylilies and more still thriving long after their humans have departed. I need to paint this story eventually.

Drying Sails, 9X12, oil on canvasboard, $869 framed.

But for now, I’m a gallerist. This weekend is also the first annual Rockport Donut Festival. Stop by on your way past.

Next weekend, unfortunately, I’ll be closed on Saturday and Tuesday. I’m traveling to Rochester for a memorial service and stopping on my way back to nail down the sites for my Berkshires workshop in August.

Carol L. Douglas Studio and Gallery
394 Commercial Street
Rockport, ME 04856
585-201-1558 Sunday: closed
Monday: closed
Tuesday: Noon-5
Wednesday: Noon-5
Thursday: Noon-5
Friday: Noon-5
Saturday: Noon-5
Or by appointment.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025: