I am continuing to explore Alexander Liberman’s book, The Artist in his Studio, and I want to share what I have been learning with you. I am intrigued by the artists’ works, but almost more by the thinking each artist brings to his work. The painter, Jacques Villon was part of a prolific artistic family. One of his brothers was Marcel Duchamp. Jacques approached his work scientifically, using a mathematical method to develop colors and layers in his paintings. I think you find his discussion of color mixing recognizable since it has become a part of color study for artists since.
Colors have different vibrations, he said. If white, considered a base, stands for one hundred, then yellow in relation to white will be eighty, vermillion twenty, ultramarine-blue seven, etcetera. I want to equalize the whole painting. To do that I must equalize all colors toward white. Suppose I have a yellow. To establish the quantity of white that I will add to it, I take the yellow, squeeze out some. With my palette knife I then divide my little mass of yellow in two equal parts. I say, I have fifty-fifty. I divide again-each one of the fifty parts into two, and get twenty-five-twenty-five. Now I have to add white. I have to add seventy-five, or three parts of white equal in size to the twenty-five quantity of yellow, in order to get seventy-five plus twenty-five equals one hundred. If I have a blue, which stands for seven, I have to add about ninety, or nine times the amount of blue in white paint.
Even transcribing these words is maddening to me, taking me back to math class where I never fared well. But I also recognize my weakness. I have terrible habits, perhaps, an unmethodical mind. I am not sure how to integrate a more purposeful approach to my painting while indulging in the active imagination of my work. I do think, however, if I could learn more from Villon, and bring what I learn into my intuitive flow, I would benefit greatly as a painter.
Villon was a cubist, and his imagery seemed to balance abstraction and representational art. Liberman was able to meet with Villon in his studio before his death and speak with him extensively. I found his words so inspiring and interesting, I have quoted liberally from Liberman’s text to share with you.
In Villon’s words, There is an inner discipline too that, in a way, controls everything. Even in the work of the abstractionists, where chance seems to dominate, there is a play of memory.
I like to concentrate on a drawing without having other preoccupations and then to organize it into a painting. Above all, I am conscious of organization. I seek to avoid confusion. A work of art is more than just a conversation, it is a discourse. One must strengthen the thought behind the painting. Organization gives a rhythm on which drawing can lean. The drawing is not confined but rather held together by the laws of organization, instead of being governed simply by taste.
Taste is a dangerous thing, especially for painting. After I have made a study drawing, I transform it by stressing rhythm. I avoid transforming because of taste, just to have it look good. If one paints just to record a bouquet of flowers, then taste is enough. But if one wants to magnify the bouquet of flowers, one must make a cathedral out of it, transform it. In art one must erect, one must go beyond painting.
My ambition is to explode the object and to make it, in exploding, reach the edges of the canvas, thus creating a new object.
In Villon, Liberman met with a great mind. These private discoveries in the studio must have felt earth shattering to Villon. A lifetime of painting shaped his work, and I sense the vastness of his effort.
In my own case, when I contemplate beginning a new painting, I feel tense and slightly anxious. It is as if I am preparing for a race, and I am not sure what my body will endure. Of course, it is not a race, and I will only be sitting or standing, but my body seems to be getting ready for some ordeal, or balancing act. Perhaps I won’t fall, but perhaps I will.
Lately I have been very careful to choose my palette in advance. Since I seem to be “sculpting” with my paints, I need to set aside the worry about color compatibility. If I ensure that my colors will work, both by adding a very little to each color from all the other colors on my palette (as suggested by Villon) and by adding 25% liquin for smooth brush work, I can relax and focus on the shapes. I am still left wondering if I am painting, or swimming, or dreaming, or running away.
It is almost scary to me that I recognize my abstracts as ‘me’. Yes, they look just like self portraits. This is my interior space, this is how I feel in the world, and how I greet the others in the space with me. Feelings of trepidation, wonder, longing and avoidance are all carefully depicted in my somewhat amorphous shapes. These are paintings about conversations, and personal histories. They reveal to me mood, emotion, and exploration. Is it not clear, to you, too, that we all paint self portraits in a way? Even as we paint the world, whether with music, or weaving, or dialogue and family making, we are painting our being in the world.
I have always been fascinated by how we use spacial terms to describe psychic states. We embody even when we are speaking of non-embodied themes. We talk about hidden layers and different planes of seeing. I think we are pictorial in our self-reflections. Even the word, reflection, for thought, summons up the image of a mirror into which we peer to understand ourselves. Are we all synesthetes at heart- simultaneously spacial and non-spacial in reflection?
The palette I am exploring now is the Dorn palette. Four colors; White, Black, Yellow Ochre and Cadmium Red. The absence of blue makes the palette warm. It also simplifies. Sometimes I’ll add Indian Yellow or Cadmium Green in the later stages. There are seemingly infinite possibilities with these few colors. My journey is the journey of a beginner, but my discoveries are rich, never the less. I find that if I listen attentively, a direction starts to become clear. Even as artists like Villon will always surpass me, the idea of painting a cathedral in a bouquet of flowers is taking hold.
My studio will be open this Saturday from 12 - 5 in conjunction with the Greater Ithaca Art Trail. You are welcome to stop by.
Monthly First Saturdays on the Greater Ithaca Art Trail are a program of the Community Arts Partnership of Tompkins County.
To see other Art Trail studios that are open, visit www.ArtTrail.com