Woods in Winter II

This is a 12x12 pastel version of the previous drawing. A while back when I was looking at the landscapes of Gustav Klimt, it seems that about every landscape painting he did was square. They were large, but square.

On a related topic, recently I encountered the idea that landscape derives from the body, as in painting landscapes is a subconscious way of painting the body. A writer on Richard Diebenkorn suggested this about his paintings where you can actually see the transition. Klimt, if you are familiar with his non-landscape work, is another great example, though in his case he moves directly from the body to landscape. I found the idea again in another book, Painting as an Art by Richard Wollheim, in the section where he talks about the great Thomas Jones. I will have more to write about this in the future (I have to read the book!). Thomas Jones, by the way, was a genius for about a year or so, 1782-83, when he painted the most beautiful, small cityscapes of Rome, from his rooftop. He was one of the first plein air painters.

Don't ask me what painting winter landscapes has to do with the body.

Barnstorming

I am barnstorming, but always at the same barns in the same town.

Recently, I mentioned the book on Gustav Klimt's landscapes.  When painting outdoors, he would often use binoculars or a telescope to view his landscape.   This gave him unusual vantage points.  It's similar to today's practice of using a digital image, which one can enlargen and trim on a computer.  

This weekend my wife showed me a cartoon by Dave Coverly, which appeared in Parade, an insert usually found in the Sunday papers.  It shows an artist working at his easel painting a still life.  He is looking at a table to his left, which holds his laptop.  The laptop has an image of a still life!  

Unsettling and unsettled landscape

This weekend the weather was unsettling and unsettled, never resolving into rain, or sunshine, or grayness, or immense clouds, or blue sky. I spent the time gathering materials for future pastels. This is a quick view looking north near Five Corners. The big mountain is called the Dome.

I have been reading the book Gustav Klimt: Landscapes, in which Verena Perlhefter writes, "The fields, the river, the mountains are not 'landscape' of their own accord; they only become so when one confronts them, for no practical reason, in order to feel at one with nature. Those aspects that appeared useful or useless and were rejected as being hostile were transported into greatness, sublimity, and beauty--transferred aesthetically into a landscape." We may sometimes forget that once the outer landscape had no correlation with the inner landscape. For me, my inner landscape is dependent upon the outer landscape.