Still Life with a Cut Lemon on a Pewter Plate, Books, and Irises, 10 x 12 inches
Still Life with a Cut Lemon on a Pewter Plate, Books, and Irises
As I continued to work on this painting, it became more refined and finished in style. This is probably due to the fact that I was enjoying getting lost in the reflections of light, on the pewter plate, the lemon rind, the handkerchief, and most of all, the glass vase. I could just lose myself in those reflections…
And this week while I was enjoying the experience of painting, I was also going back and re-reading one of my favorite art books, Oil Painting Techniques and Materials by Harold Speed
"...all artists in the past, following the direction of the inner light that has impelled them to be artists, have selected and arranged the visual facts of nature, even to the slight distortion of those facts, at the dictates of their desire for expression." (pg. 57-58)
"The study of natural appearances and the means of their representation, is the object set before the student of painting, not because art consists in the representation of nature, as appearances are called, but because the eye is the source of all our knowledge of things seen. And all the wonderful wealth of beautiful things the art of the past has left use, is the work of men whose imagination has been nourished by their observation of the things around them, however imaginative their art. Nature contains the material with which the artist works; it is, as Whistler says, the keyboard on which he plays." (pg 58-59, my emphasis)
I love these ideas... yes, as a representational artist, I strive to copy nature, but only to an extent... it is my desire to express my vision... it is the idea that informs my work, that takes over and drives my actions.
