Lots of Lines

The suburban backyard series also includes drawings.  This one is approximately 12 x 9 inches.

In the biography of the Polish painter Josef Czapski by Eric Karpeles, one encounters the story of Degas and the poet Mallarme.  Degas complained that he had too many ideas for a sonnet he was working on.  Mallarme replied: "But Degas, it's not with ideas that you make verses, but with words."  Czapski, upon hearing this story again, responded with the famous words that Ingres urged upon Degas: "Make lines, lots of lines!"

How Long?

This awning is located at the intersection of Rue Barillerie and Rue Jules Gilly in Nice old town.  I'm painting broadly in a small space, 6x8 inches, to capture the essence.  Oil on gessobord.

In the book Almost Nothing: The 20th-Century Art and Life of Josef Czapski by Eric Karpeles, the author writes: "Every painting, no matter how slowly or rapidly realized, is always an outpouring of the artist's whole painting history up to that moment.  This is the answer to the perennial query put to all painters, 'How long did it take you to do that?'"