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Category: Winterthur

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Is it still plein air?

When do your touch-ups cross a line and make your work a studio painting?
Autumn, by Carol L. Douglas
Earlier this season, a reader asked me what I do with work that doesn’t sell at plein air events. Most artists use this work to sell elsewhere. Occasionally, however, we’ll bring home stuff that’s so site-specific it has no place in our current inventory.
Earlier this month, I painted a Moorish tent at Winterthur. It was one of about twenty garden follies they’d set up for the season. The pink, orange and turquoise confection flapped proudly in front of a blazing panorama of trees. However, nobody else seemed as amused as me; the painting garnered nary a second look.
To make the change, I had to remove the brush marks from the folly. First, I carefully applied a small amount of mineral spirits, taking care that they didn’t run.
Yesterday, I excised the tent from the painting. I didn’t replace it with another focal point; I just let the landscape find its own structure.
It was necessary to get rid of the brushwork on the tent and the summerhouse so that they didn’t eventually appear in the surface as pentimenti. Because this painting is only a few weeks old, I was able to soften the paint with mineral spirits, and then carefully scrape down the top layer until it was flat. 
Gently, gently. You just want to take down the ridges.
It wasn’t necessary to remove all the paint, just the ridges. If you do this, be careful to confine the mineral spirits to the area you want to correct. It will soften both good and bad passages indiscriminately. And don’t press while scraping; you’ll distort the canvas.
Bye-bye, Moorish tent!
Then it was a matter of mixing some new green to fill in the area. If you aren’t careful at this point, you’ll end up repainting half your canvas trying to get the color right. You aren’t mixing a wall paint, so you’ll need to mix a few tightly-analogous colors. Then make sure you use a similar brush to the one you used originally.
This painting probably has about fifty added brushstrokes from the original. Is it still plein airfor the purposes of jurying? I used no additional reference, and the modification, although striking, was small. I think it counts, but I’m interested in what other people have to say.
Penobscot, by Carol L. Douglas
The second painting I changed was one done in Santa Fe in April. At the time, I realized that a few brushstrokes would convert this to Penobscot Bay. It has been curing too long to open the surface and flatten it. It didn’t need that, in fact. It does not have one single bit of solid paint over the old painting; every change was made by glazing. Again, there was no reference used and very little paint. However, the subject has changed completely. Is it still plein air? I don’t think so because the finished work has no basis in reality.
Sunset, by Carol L. Douglas
The third painting I included because it has had absolutely nothing done to it. I painted it with Poppy Balser on a brilliant, cold evening at Rockport harbor last month and tossed it on the pile to be finished later. Pulling it out, I realized it needs nothing. It’s bright and fresh and perfect as is.
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Painting at Winterthur

In the end, we each need only as many chairs as we have friends.
Folly, by Carol L. Douglas. 24X18

Plein Air Brandywine Valley is unusual in that the sales part is three days long. Usually, we paint at these events and then there’s a short auction or sale. Boom, we’re done and go home. This long sale period harks back to my days at art fairs, where we each had a tent and stood around wishing we’d brought our bocce kit.

But at least we don’t have to set our displays up. Tonight at seven we’ll appear at Winterthur, faces washed and the grime cleaned out from under our fingernails, to meet the public.
In case you think I was making things up, here is the Moorish tent folly and summerhouse from my painting. 
Winterthur bills itself as “an American country estate.” It’s a classic, aping the great landed estates of Europe. Primarily distinguished by its size, it has 175 rooms and 1600 acres (in its current, downsized, form). It has some fantastic specimen trees, all grown to luxurious maturity.
Whipping along its lanes in a chauffeured golf cart, I am reminded of an aphorism spuriously credited to one of the Barons Rothschild: “No garden, no matter how small, should have less than a hundred-acre woodlot.”
Home Farm, by Carol L. Douglas. This may not be the real home farm to this estate, but it’s one of many that du Pont collected and preserved to create Winterthur.
Winterthur was the life’s work of Henry Francis Du Pont. His father—also a Henry—graduated first in his class from West Point and served in the Senate. His grandfather—another Henry—was head of the du Pont conglomerate during the Civil War. A steadfast supporter of Lincoln, he held pro-slavery Delaware in the Union and refused to sell gunpowder to the south. His great-grandfather was, of course, the legendary E. I. du Pont.
That family genius seemed to bypass young Henry Francis. He was a horticulturist and collector of early American furniture and decorative arts. “I know that I am stupid,” he wrote his father while at school at Groton. He frequently described himself as “a farmer.” His father encouraged his interest in the breeding of Frisian cattle, thinking it more useful than buying a yacht.
I framed work on Bruce McMillan‘s car, since the Prius hood isn’t designed to set things on and the interior was too messy.
In the absence of commercial zeal, young Henry became an expert on American furnishings and interiors, gradually turning his home into a museum of American art and antiques. Many rooms were rescued from historic structures. The collection spans two centuries, from 1640 to 1840, and also includes a preposterously large library on the subject.
Painting along the Brandywine. Photo courtesy of Bruce McMillan.
I’m always melancholy when visiting these historic homes. They’re where unimaginable wealth meets limited imagination. I’m glad Henry Francis du Pont preserved this collection of farms (especially considering the growth in Delaware in recent decades). I’m happy, too, that he salvaged these historic interiors for future generations. But, in the end, we each need only as many chairs as we have friends.