Changing the world one bad sunset painting at a time.

Picture this: You see a portrait of a war veteran and it is clumsily  drawn, the colors feel flat and cold. The flag hangs like a kitchen rag and the pose is as uninspired as a yearbook's. It doesn't even resemble the subject.

Now imagine a portrait of Donald Trump where the artists has managed to miraculously dissipate all of the  arrogance and idiocy into a masterpiece of lush tones, an elegant poise and even a hint of a brain behind the constipated squint.  -(Just in case you were wondering, nah, it hasn't been done.)

This is not 'tremendous' at all . But how to make a good painting out of such poor subject matter.

Which one would the 'good' painting be? Should the soldier's portraitist be immune from criticism for his efforts to memorialize a hero? Should today's Zorn be criticized for elevating a gasbag into a statesman? (Like I mentioned, there's no examples of this particular feat).

Of course the answer is simple, the quality of the art is quite independent of the message it conveys.

"Three Prostitutes" Otto Dix 1925 Love this!

I  often wonder how art can help heal the world; what does it mean to make "important art?  We constantly read about 'significant' works and paintings that challenge the status-quo.  Are they? Did they? As much as I look I come out empty. It would appear  that art has never 'created' the necessary change but only reflected it back and commented on it, sometimes acutely.

 I've avoided this subject for very good reasons.  People are fanatic enough already about oil mediums.  Political and social issues are a whole other ball game because they involve the artist as a person and a citizen, not just as creator of works. And just in case it might sound as if I am censoring or trying to say something 'important', rest assured I am not.  Most artists I know aspire to something great and it is the process of perfecting  one's  expression that  keeps artists  trying and failing, not the results per se and -definitely-  not how amazing some of those artists  believe these results to be.

Jan Kasparec.

No matter how lofty the message, artistic excellence is about the 'how', not the 'what'.  I'm not only talking about technique even though it matters more than some would like to acknowledge.  And I am not dismissing "conceptual art" offhand either...but again, it is not the idea but how it is delivered.  How many horrid paintings of sunsets have you seen lately? How many godawful baby portraits?

This communicates Buddhism and environmental awareness.

Are there any bigger 'messages' today than the growing inequality of the world's wealth and the reality of environmental degradation?  Everything else either pales in comparison or is a direct consequence of these global maladies. If History is any guide the planet will find balance again by its own means of disease and mass extermination. So how do you make art with that?  Is it really the artist's job to even try to tackle things like these?

There's no right answer, of course. Some would say the artist must tackle what she is concerned about as a citizen only. "Just shut up and sing" as they say. Or even turn his lofty head AWAY form it and choose to ignore or even deny the issues. At least until the apocalypse withers his garden and burns the studio.
 

*My point is  that art is probably not  the right medium to affect change but a perfect means to express it.

*My second more important point is that artistic merit is indifferent to how urgent or radical the message is and a worthy message cannot insure a work of art from being awful. (Fortunately, evil messages have suffered the same lack of insurance or more.)

*The 'importance' of art often starts and ends with its importance to the artist. It only grows from there to wards the viewer, the community, the market and the world at large. 

Painting exalting racial purity (Nazi period)

Let's look at some 'big issue' paintings.

I know a few artists that paint homeless people. They mostly do in an effort to convey the dignity inherent in people that normally would not be portrayed at all, anywhere, and much less be able to pay for the luxury.  Not your run-of-the mill "pretty" subject matter. And easy to sentimentalize to boot. I like all of the following works. I especially like the one of the multiple boards stuck together because it makes the homeless the authors and they were paid for their words.  The Bastien Lepage is just phenomenally well painted and it has charm for miles. Fit for a chocolate box though. It also has a message but I'd say it is more of a literary type, heartfelt as it is.  The Jose Ribera is just powerful, unflinching and probably the superior piece.

Bastien LePage. "Pas Meche" 1882

A board made with homeless signs purchased from the writers. Artist: Willie Baronet.

well-wishing graffiti by Skid Robot.

 Jose Ribera "Clubfooted boy or the beggar" 1642

 Let's move on to the subject of war. Without a doubt , one of the most represented subjects in History. From heroic generals to fields of strewn corpses, war paintings are everywhere. Let's  look at recent examples.   Sargent, whom nobody would accuse of being a hack, created his incredible  "Gassed" painting after briefly visiting the front  at the age of 62. It is a masterpiece of light and composition but "war" it ain't. Oh, yes, there are soldiers and wounds and dead people but Sargent might as well have painted a row of angels. It resembles more of  an heroic Hellenistic frieze than a war condemnation. He might have been affected by what he saw but really didn't set out to question the war or war mongers .

"Gassed" S.Sargent. 1919

Next is someone that goes a step beyond Sargent, may be not in technique, but in message. We have a wailing mother holding a mutilated  soldier over some oil burning fields. Oil for blood. Not a frieze, but a 'Pieta'. Clearly, the artist has some very strong opinions about this and has focused the scene eliminating other corpses and avoiding contemporary clothing on the mother figure. She is both symbolic and realistic. The American flag does not have a single stain despite being crumpled under the agonizing soldier (the painter is buying insurance here since patriotism is beyond reproach -and the last refuge of scoundrels as they say) . The work is well painted but -and you may disagree- it is a scene in a play. So poised and theatrical that I don't think it is too far off ,  indictment-wise,  from the  Sargent in leaving us cold. I love it as an illustration. No more.

Max Ginsburg. "War Pieta" 2017

Now, here it is. Even better and edited down. The horror of war. No mom coming to cry. No patriotic hints. No face to recognize. No heroic pose. Just mud and shit and this was someone who went to help (he is a red cross soldier)   and got gassed instead. I really nails the point and this painting hasn't left my head since I saw it two years ago. We are in Goya territory here as far as driving the message home.

Ardius Fidelis. Gilbert Rogers 1919

And, oh the irony, that most capitalist of artists, Mr. Bansky, going directly to the thinking cap. Two childish characters ( pst, they are really stand-ins for large corporations)  holding the hands of a Vietnamese real life child burnt by a war chemical. How much do these children-loving logos really give a flying crap?  And Bansky didn't even have to create anything but combine a few iconic images -my opinion. Is this a war painting/image? I'd say 'yes' and its offensive value is off the charts because any war, just or unjust, should leave one offended, not exalted. The funny thing is that it is a stretch to call this a painting, but few would argue that it is not art.

May be paintings are not the right way to express disent or rock the boat. More on this later.

Banksy

And what about feminism? Did pop-art endless display of vaginas, vacuum cleaners and Barbie dolls stir the masses towards  an improvement in women's status? In my opinion they might have helped reclaim art as a feminine endeavor.  Big iffy "might".

Marie Chorda. 'Great Vagina'

-If you've lived in any population (Los Angeles, for example) where there has been a racial minority (even though 'latino' populace is now a majority in LA) or native population in need of reclaiming some pride,  you've seen the murals. Some are riots of color, direct and, well, proud, but few are also good. Criticizing the quality of the mural is often tantamount to criticizing the message. You either like it or you clearly are an 'imperialist' parading Western post-colonial prejudice.  I don't care. Some of these murals are lurid messes with little merit.  It really has nothing to do with the sympathy their message might stir in the viewer. I am sure I can find some examples of well executed murals painted by the people claiming their space.

Cesar Chavez portrait in mural form. artist?

For contrast, the great Mexican muralist Diego Rivera.....well,  true,  he was not a struggling immigrant. He was also well  aware of the Western art world  and therefore had a large advantage. OK! May be not the best example of "urgency". But he could convey the anti-imperial anti-capitalist message liek nobod's business.  As I said,  I will look for examples of "good" murals made by the people they are intended to portray. There's got to be a few as the gift of art does not stop at the strawberry fields of Camarillo or the Laguna Beach mansions.

Diego Rivera. "The river" mural

Economic inequality is a tough one. Art is considered a luxury item so who in their right mind would paint something  that goes against the very belief in luxury? But that hasn't  stopped artists who wanted to make a name for themselves and make a splash. After all, even corporations are not always opposed to own their own critics as long as they can hang them in a lobby and not in their conscience.  The mansions of moguls are filled with images of peasants and their quaint simple lives. The offices of real estate titans often feature beautiful animal sculptures and landscapes of the West.

Anyway, nothing new here. At this point I think we get the idea.  There are many other areas of meaning like art done as therapy  which I'd love to talk about  or environmental art, native art, propaganda ... The citizen artist is allowed to be stirred by his day to day concerns and worries, could he or she do otherwise?

"And They Still  Say Fish Is Expensive!" Joaquin Sorolla. 1894

Alex Schefer. "Burning Bank of America"

 Actually, many artists have found that sending a 'message' was what their mission in life was. Many have found illustration and caricature the proper means to do so.

James Gillray. 1805. "The plumb-pudding in danger"

I am sure the painting below has some meaning -something about the story of a young artist's rise to maturity I read. It is part of a series much like Hogarth's "A Rake's Progress" or a "Book of Hours". It has nicely rendered lights and fabrics and it's finished within an inch of its life with Germanic thoroughness. The scene is a puzzle but between reading about  it to find out and just moving on I'd rather do the latter because I doubt I'd be impressed.  May be this piece is a victim of its own "cleverness" and a perfect example of that large group of artworks that belong in the ivory tower of academia art,  if not academic; enigma art,  if not enigmatic. But it wants to be an 'important' piece, it wants it so bad.  I am sure it is important for the artist, and may be that should be enough.

artist: Scott Hess

Vancouver Blues...and Reds.

Community garden at sunset, watercolor

Well. it's been a good five months already since I arrived in beautiful British Columbia. Yet another country to where our constant search for work has led us. No use pretending, it wasn't easy. Facebook might show us as 'jet setters' and moving about with ease but we've cropped a lot of grief away from those Facebook posts. 

Kitsilano Beach sunset. watercolor sketch

Many artists know that art is a solitary endeavor. Adding immigration (three times!) to it makes the whole endeavor quite a hurdle. The times of 'art martyrs' might be gone and we have paint tubes today  but that doesn't mean making art has become a breeze. Renting apartments and moving frequently makes finding a suitable  and affordable studio space almost impossible -if only because easels don't fit in planes and security deposits are hefty. Distance makes family matters take second place. Despite the price of art supplies you can't afford to buy cheap materials and every place has its quirks when it comes to shipping (Canada Post is a total headache, they've lost more mail in five months than all my US mail in twenty years). And when your family is sick and tired of hearing you moan, try  rationalizing the risks involved in becoming a full time painter  and just 'quit your job and paint'. 

"Cypress Street"

Vancouver is a city that has grown and is still growing at a breakneck pace. Real estate is pricey and construction is pervasive. Foreign and local investment are frantic. I like to compare it to a "mining town on hormones", still provincial in many aspects but bursting with technology, film and food  ventures. People that have lived here for a while have a totally different perception of it than newcomers. Surrounded by a truly beautiful landscape but close to commodities  like oil, timber and minerals, add its sensible  (albeit bland) metal-and-teal-glass urban newness, layer some decidedly favorable lip service towards "First nations", animal welfare , gays  and pot and you get quite an attractive place to retreat in a middle class bubble ...if you have the means and the marketable skills necessary. You'll get bored to hear it was "voted the city with best quality of life" x years in a row and so on. That might be but that "vote"  comes from biased sources so caution to navigators.

Granville Bridge, Watercolor sketch

As an urban plein air painter, the city itself is a little lackluster. Sure,  there are some quaint neighborhoods like Mount Pleasant and Point Grey.  The abundance of water and majestic trees is truly a sight to behold. If one manages to buy or rent a car, I am sure there are plenty of locations deserving attention.
Here are some of the problems I've found as I started painting:

"Capilano Fishermen" 9"x12"

a) Rain. It rains, for days, heavily, soggily, darkly. Days are dark and short in winter. It hasn't been too cold yet but water can get to you. Most people here wear yoga pants to the supermarket or hiking equipment to the office so there is a massive assortment of shops where you can find waterproof and hiking  clothing.

b) A high tolerance for alternative lifestyles means most of the 'tolerating' will be done by you, not the politicians,  as  you try to  avoid the  masses of panhandlers and addicts in the downtown area permanently engulfed in a cannabis fog and shouting matches while you paint.

Jericho beach 8"x10"

c) A serious lack of cultural options on the visual arts front. The city prides itself in its  public art  which falls into two categories: 90% is absolute bollocks and 10% is great. The City Gallery offerings are quite dismal. Photo exhibits of black and white photos of sad children in alleys are great, once. How many "dialogues" and "conversations" and "engagements" before someone comes up with a painting worth hanging that is not by Emily Again Carr? Don't get me started on the totems either.  I love Haida arts and motives but it's like living on a diet of truffles, truffles and truffles.

d) Not much of an art scene. Curiously, however,  I found a lot of urban sketchers and graffiti artists, some life drawing studios that are quite nice and a few plein air artists.  And by any standards there IS a lot of art done in Vancouver,  it is just done inside film studios. Commercial art galleries are a better bet  than museums. South Granville has a few  interesting galleries. My favorites so far have to be Pousette  (Francophone artists)  and Heffel  (group of seven, classic canadiana).

Mt Pleasant, watercolor sketch

e) A less than adequate public transport. Vancouver's public transport is good in relation to most American cities. Certainly it pummels Los Angeles sorry excuse for  a public transport into the ground. But I could go for hours on why it still sucks. As a painter, I find it difficult to find means to get to the places I want to go in a quick uncomplicated manner. (I have no car and car rentals are a problem when lugging lots of dirty paints).  On top of that, it seems Translink is not keeping pace with the growing urban growth and its needs. From the awful design of the buses to the constant delays I could go on but  this blog and the reader's patience would be exhausted.

f)  Art supplies. Two main chains with brick and mortar stores, Opus and De Serres. Not enough inventory of quality stuff. No linen canvases for example. No quality ready-made frames. Limited spectrum of brands in general. Mostly oriented towards the crafts market.

P.S.  Not that I care much for peoples comments but "Nice day to be painting outside" is the most common by a looong stretch. I don't know why. I rarely bump into another painter.  Its innocuous enough and sweet to hear. May be someone said it once during a school trip and now that's what you say.  Am I reading too much into this?

"Wreck beach" sold

In conclusion, painting in Vancouver has been, well, different. But not all is negative. Here are some of the GREAT things:

-Canada's great landscapes are awe inspiring even if they are hard to get to without a car or means  of transportation.  I must try a bit harder. Rain and weather pose a problem but they DO create plenty of subject matter. The colours of summer flowers, or the flaming reds of autumn are simply fantastic so you can expect changes and shifts aplenty.The sky is everything.

Monet's Heart Attack, vanDusen gardens.

-New artists I've met. Danny Ferland, Leslie Gould, Angela Muellers, MJ Sarmiento, Shawn Vandekerkhove, Marcus Wild and many others. Always great to make new friends.


-The same way that London forced my hand and I added  Emerald Green and  Black -or Payne Grey-  to my palette, I find myself squeezing a lot more Cobalt blue and mixing alizarin  in more places (always use permanent) . A definite cooling of the palette. Raw umber seems to be more appropriate  that brown oxide for deep shadows here. It has that oily color of dirty moss. Indian yellow bright spark has given way to lemon yellow.

Snug Cove, Bowen Island

-Water. Lots of it. Lots of boats on the water.

I have quite enjoyed using "Meetup" to gather with urban sketchers and discovering new places to draw inspiration from. I also enjoy attending life drawing sessions at Basic Inquiry. So I haven't lost hope that eventually, one day, may be soon, we can settle somewhere and really have a go at this thing called art. In the meantime, may be I should just buy a laptop and get serious about digital art. This place  might be the right place for that (as the 28th day of uninterrupted rain draws to close outside my window) 



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Picasso, the unprofessional. And why it wasn't such a bad idea.

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It might come as a surprise that I write about Picasso when I might be explaining how my recent move to Vancouver went and what wonders of painterly inspiration I discovered in British Columbia.  Well, that will have to wait till I am ABLE to get to those places of inspiration since for all Vancouver's semi-adequate public transport, it is not enough to go out on a day trip to the lakes. In other words, One needs a car in order to reach what is truly unique in Canada (and the US for that matter) . 

 "Picasso, the painter and his muses" is on show at the City Gallery and I went to visit it. I am glad to report the show was well attended, crammed even. I had not thought much about it until I happened upon some lectures by Alan W. Watts that had nothing to do with Picasso but got me thinking...

Picasso. The name alone represents shorthand for twentieth century art much in the way Einstein represents “science”. And yet, Picasso carries so much baggage. Unlike Einstein’s theorems, anyone can have a go at his art and wonder about the odd position of eyes, perplexing or wanton disregard for classic draftsmanship (“But he used to paint so well…” people bemoan) and sexual exploits. Here is a  bit of what I love about Picasso: He got out of his way. He never called himself a ” professional artist”. He never “improved” except in the sense of being more himself, even if it meant changing. He embraced the material world as if it didn’t ‘matter’, a true 'materialist'. He let being a artist happen to him and not the other way around. And to hell with nirvana.

The reason I find Picasso’s paintings liberating is precisely because nothing seems forced, sweaty, shoehorned or meant to impress. Pretty much the same reasons I love Sargent’s artwork except where Sargent swims in technical prowess, Picasso  revels in mischief.  Neither man really “worked” at it in the 'proletarian' sense of  getting their “chores” done both Marxists and capitalists love so much. They excelled at being themselves. 

Katherine Besiegel, curator,  at the Vancouver Art Gallery.

The Vancouver show basically showed how Picasso hopped from muse to muse like a sun crazed bumblebee,  had many fruitful marriages and love affairs, let the women influence his art or was led to the women that matched his ideal at the moment and produced many, many portraits. In return, he seems to have been loved by the women something fierce -despite his being a fickle companion. This is all well documented so there's no point in detailing his affairs of the heart any further. The details of his sexual behavior are of no interest to me except for the bigger picture they reveal: a creature unrestrained and lustful.  Not all artists are well suited to dance with their calling and be allowed to spread themselves so abundantly...even though he was hardly unique in that respect. Klimt and Augustus  John come to mind, (100 children, really?)

 Young Picasso painted very well. He even won several awards. But , honestly, nobody would remember his "Science and Charity" painting if it wasn't for the exploits of the "future" Pablito. Let's not get tangled into history either, the sentimental pink and blue periods, his classic and cubist  forays. Let's not talk about his styles - in plural- or try to explain his rise to stardom. Everyone knows that Picasso became an art beacon only comparable and - in my opinion much superior - to Matisse and Bacon. There is an enormous amount of bibliography on his art and life available and I claim no added knowledge whatsoever.

"Science and Charity" Pablo Picasso. 1897

Hold on,  the big picture:  Art is what artists do because they can't help it. Artists least and last  desire is to explain away their goals on trite artist statements and making lists of awards and collectors. Most can't even explain how they do what they do or conduct a proper workshop -  much less with the added burden of traveling to  Provence,  for a week, with lots of wine involved. And what about commissions, what a drag, really. Sargent gave up commissions the minute he could at age 50, the lucky geezer. Artists DO all those things of course, some of them even have blogs and want to be called "professional" artists as if  making a living from art or  painting 8 hours a day would make someone 'better' than some  bumpkin kid in Tennessee  that just happens to create one stunner after another in his basement -with  lots of sleep in between and a job at Home Depot. What we call genius, if it is genius, can't be taught and no amount of hours, degrees or "professionalism" will compensate for  good ol' mediocrity. Otherwise schools would overflow with Mozarts and Feynmans.

Ideally, people would go to school because  they are interested in something already and they want to find out more, share how others go about it,  get to hone the skills they know they can hone. In some cases, school is where people discover what they already knew that they should pursue and pursue it if they don't get knocked off or into drugs! Professional artists make professional paintings, correct and durable and well composed. That is a looong way away from a "good" painting.  Some even take refuge into following a school, obfuscating detail, and (gasp) photo-realism.  The great news is that we can all relax, there is no getting "better", just getting to be more in tune with yourself. Toss the self-improvement books aside. There is only good, or even just sufficient, management of what's there. 

I see this in Picasso.  He didn't seem to care much about trying to get "better", better at selling, better at marriage, better at drawing, better at waking up at six AM to prime canvases...No. Picasso never  tried to "stick with it" and "put the hours". He changed styles like coats, following his bliss as they say. He was constantly at work without even knowing it.  He was lucky to be paid enormous sums for painting/sculpting/making freakin' plates. (And that's another sticking point, isn't it? His art fetched great sums even though it doesn't look like it took him that much effort to put it out there).

Before I get too ying-yang and Zen in this matter, let's look at  some long-winded explanations and  far-fetched theories that  could justify "bad" drawings? Here are a couple of attempts:

Disruption of the Western canon:  It has often been said that the Western ideal is one of individuality: Each one is the architect of his/her destiny. We can always improve our station in life, steer our lives towards comedy or tragedy.  I would argue that the true legacy of Western thought is the dissatisfaction with what is established, what has come before. Progress may be a misguided idea but it is a distinctly Western one. This has manifested itself in Western art as well. We see how we have represented ourselves as bags of skin with little connection to the surrounding space. In Eastern art, for example, everything seems to float and live in an immaterial world where the space between things is just as relevant as the things themselves. African art is so embedded in the environment it can't be understood outside of it, on the painted bodies and the ritual masks.  Naturally, Western artist of note have intuitively grasped some of these ideas in different degrees and contemporary art has little use for these distinctions. We owe a lot of that disruption to Picasso and the artists that caught on to these ideas, there are many.

Science reveals more: Picasso was a man of his time. Scientists knew already that  there is nothing truly 'solid' and they knew it through experimental means, not just as an Heraclitean notion. Even the David of Michelangelo is just a mass of tightly vibrating atoms held together by powerful electric forces. If they stopped, it would vanish in a wisp of heavy dust. In other words, the most beautiful works of art are already disembodied. Very few of  them will survive a mere three thousand years, if at all.  Picasso might reflect the knowledge of his times but is that even relevant?  Turner might have done the same before atoms were discovered with equally disembodied canvases.

Mother and Child 1921

Disclaimer: I share with many a traditional (traditionalist?)  artist my way of understanding art, I praise  the renewal of "atelier" training and  the proliferation of artists that express themselves  by using paint and knowing how to draw  instead of  offering obscure ideas and far-fetched agendas or splattering their  navel-gazing on the walls.  This is still a  minority position in the wider world of the "art market". However. I do not automatically condemn everything that came before. Picasso or otherwise.

Portrait of Francoise.

My take-away.  Ah, but why do I care. Here is why: Who says you have/deserve to make a living... as an artist? You have to make a living AND you are an artist. Two different things. Related as they are, they remain different.   You'll dance in the kitchen if you missed Dance School because you got pregnant at fifteen, you'll write amazing emails because you can't possibly spare the time to write a novel  and you'll  hum fabulous songs because you lost your voice in an accident. You like to eat so you work and make a living and work towards a goal knowing that the work is where you dwell as the artist.  But the artist just is, already. No stage, gallery or publisher can add or subtract, validate or deny. Mentors are a blessing, so are schools but to try to reach for someone to teach us how to be professional artists is like hiring a policeman to make sure you obey the law. They won't. The last thing they want is competition. Ridiculous, I know. You might be lucky and find a mentor or happen upon an opportunity or just decide it is too much effort and let go. Forgive yourself. Persistence tears mountains down but it also kills the fly hitting its head against the glass.  Attitude is everything until it isn't.

If you start a business to sell fertilizer because you want to make a living helping farmers, that's good and fun and necessary. But if in the process, money becomes the final goal, no matter what ecological disasters might ensue, you become Monsanto and start justifying your enslaving of farmers via your GMO crops and then you are scum. Most corporations, by virtue of their sole interest in the bottom line cut corners and produce nothing but short-term benefits while they pile up the disasters. If you decide to be a professional artist (a corporation, really) because you want to communicate wonder, do art and don't worry about the final goal, monetary success is not the measure of you, just the success of your corporation as a business. Being a professional artist is great for those who can make the business side float the same way that you'll save a lot in frames if you are skillful enough to make your own. But being an artist does not require it. Aren't you glad Picasso taught you that? So start being.

P.S. Those who try to imitate Picasso are delusional. You can only imitate the voice that guides you, that "thing" that we might call a soul and that is the closest we'll ever come to a God. 

E. Seago. Notes on an exhibition.

I have gone three times to the gorgeous Portland Gallery in London to see an Edward Seago exhibition. It must have sold well because it originally had 50 paintings but by the last day only 30 remained. I think the quality of the artwork granted the repeat trip. Seago is probably the painter that has best captured the English light.

One page of my notes.

I believe some close observation can yield a few clues as to what makes the paintings great so I came ready with notebook and all.  A broad glance is also interesting, many of Seago's paintings have more than a family resemblance. Is it a formula?  Is it a technique, a mere mannerism that just happens to be  perfectly suited for  turbulent skies, choppy waters and old farmhouses? Of course the answer is as elusive as always so, always ready to waste some valuable time in the pursuit of  such matters, I tried to jot down some of the clues.

The material aspects of the painting are simple enough. Seago always seems to paint on heavily primed  linen canvases. The priming is rough and the brush strokes are visible. The texture of the canvas is concealed by the strokes of the gesso or oil underpaint. The color of the priming, where visible. tends to be a light ocher but may be that's just aging and it was originally a creamy flake white. In one case only (the haystack, below)  the canvas had a very rough weave as if made with jute.  For the watercolors, similarly sized half sheets of cold press paper.

Haystack. Notice the very rough canvas weave on a surprisingly smooth sky.

Composition-wise,  some pieces were larger than I expected but he painted  in all sizes and formats.
Seago approached all kinds of subjects, including portraits and still life but he excelled at landscapes, specifically traditional English rural  landscapes and sea views.

More often than not, about two thirds of the canvas are covered in sky. This is one of the characteristics that make Seago such an English painter. The sky often offers more interest than anything below it, plenty of clouds and turbulence.  More about sky compositions later.

Sky brushed on the primed canvas. Thinly but forcefully glazed  paint.

Blue 'dragged' over a warm underpainting.The effect is of an evening warm glow.

A typical landscape, 2/3 sky.

One common feature in the landscape pieces is a very skillful use of 'bands'. Basically, if the viewer squints, there are distinct light/shadow bands or wedges. These are not closed but there is always a escape route between them with wisely placed element, a tree, chimney, masts...
The overall effect is that of passing clouds.

The painting above, "banded"

The compressed nature of the foreground allows for the artist to create a sense of perspective often enhanced with skillfully placed strokes indicating some roughness of terrain and vanishing lines. Subconsciously, these low lying  and casually applied strokes ground the painting enormously.  Al the paintings in this article have them so far.

Fishing village. Observe the great use of perspective grooves on the bottom.

 A great many of Seago's turbulent skies follow a sideways gradation where the darker tones gather on one side and dissolve into mass clouds as they travel to the other side of the picture.  His seascapes are greatest when the drama of the sky unfolds. Seago doesn't seem particularly concerned with reflections and water effects but his water is more than believable. As someone that has seen the Thames estuary, it can be quite accurate.  

Another left-to-right stormy sky.  Maximum contrast in the foamy bits against the hull.

 Seago doesn't do detail. There are rarely spelled-out minutiae in his paintings. His is a world of tonal virtuosity and brush handling magnificence. Many paintings do posses a 'center', a place where maximum contrast and harder edges coalesce. Curiously enough, the darkest darks and greater contrast happen on the mid-range distance, not the closest areas to the viewer. And everything else decreases in intensity around this center of attention. This does not mean there are no other contrast spots but there is clear hierarchy.
The detail of windows, branches, fences, etc is left to impressionistic brush strokes, knife scratches and impasto passages of great beauty.

Farmhouse group with maximum contrast in the center. Almost like a dark hole radiating outwards. (Detail)

Detail of a view of Venice

Detail of a view of Venice

Detail of a view of Venice

Look at the cows, just blobs but blobs so well placed and colored.

Seago's palette is quite sparse. Again, tonality reigns. In this respect he is also very "English". He does not push saturated colors or in-your-face complementaries . On the contrary, he modulates warms and cools within very narrow hue bands (closer to greys than the hues themselves). And yet, the light effects are rich and pleasing. I love how he orchestrates lights blending into shadow across one single surface, a roof, a wall. ...The effect, again, is that of passing clouds, the land subject to the skies.

I am not sure what colors Seago uses so these are some guesses from looking at the limited group of paintings: Some seem obvious, others are more mysterious. He uses an  earthy Indian red  or burnt sienna for the shadows. These are his warm reds so to speak. Also a very light ocher. Alizarin crimson is his cool red of choice. He often contrasts these  with a green.  I can't pinpoint what kind but it is close to viridian (an  quasi-turquoise cool green), may be emerald green mixed with white? (for grass highlights for example).   I would guess his purples are a mix of ultramarine and alizarin crimson. His blues evade me. A mix of black and ultramarine blue?  May be he is using a blue grey of some sort. He contrasts these grey blue with a warm dark grey that might be created using raw umber. One thing is clear, he is not shy about black.

Harbor scene with the center of interest in black and white.Also notice the blue grey and sepia cloud darks.

Seago was incredibly successful as a landscape painter and became a kind of favorite of the Royals who collected his works shunning other 'trendier' artists. His portraits are lacking sometimes. The exhibit also displayed one still life which I though was a near miss against all the master pieces. Here Seago seems to be using a landscape technique for a completely different subject. Frankly, it looks as if he was trying to get rid of some extra colors.  And the result, while not terrible, is quite jejune. This must have been a "rainy day" piece. The flowers show bravura and variety but the dull coloring obliterates the apparent profusion of blooms. Seago seems lost in the clumsy highlights on the stove , the  fussy details of the window sill, wall and cast shadow on the back wall. The crowded group of flowers has no room to breath and no volume.   Is it a bad painting? Well, for Seago, it is.

Still life, competent but no cigar.

But let's not end on that note. Seago is a master and I hope you clicked on the Portland Gallery link to see all the wonders in this exhibit. In my trip to Canada next week, his is the only catalogue  I will take with me as a reminder not only of Seago, but of the beauty of the English landscape.

Deatil. So much with so little.