Stratton Road in Early Morning and Infinity

This is more to my liking in terms of the painterly qualities that I am after.

I am still working my way through John Ruskin's Modern Painters. Here's an interesting excerpt: "One...of these child instincts, I believe that few forget; the emotion, namely caused by all open ground, or line of any spacious kind against the sky, behind which there might be conceived the sea. It is an emotion more pure than that caused by the sea itself...I have ascertained it to be frequent among those who possess the most vivid sensibilities for nature; and I am certain that the modification of it, which belong to our after years, is common to all. The love, namely, of a light distance appearing over a comparatively dark horizon...It is not...by nobler form, it is not by positiveness of hue, it is not by intensity of light...that this strange distant space possesses its attractive power. But there is one thing that it has, or suggests, which no other object of sight suggests in equal degree, and that is--Infinity."

Canal View from Path

This is a view of the D&R Canal looking south across from It's Nutts restaurant.  8x10 on colourfix paper.

These words of wisdom from John Ruskin are in the section of Modern Painters where he writes about the relative importance of details in the foreground: "...to the rightly perceiving mind, there is the same infinity, the same majesty, the same power, the same unity, and the same perfection, manifest in the casting of the clay as in the scattering of the cloud, in the mouldering of the dust as in the kindling of the daystar."

Another Hopper View and Infinity

The Hopper, one of my favorite places, seen from Haley Farm.  8x10 on colourfix paper.

Another thought from John Ruskin in Modern Painters:  "The moment that we trust ourselves, we repeat ourselves, and therefore the moment we see in a work of any kind whatsoever, the expression of infinity, we may be certain that the workman has gone to nature for it; while, on the other hand, the moment we see repetition, or want of infinity, we may be certain that the workman has not gone to nature for it."

The Power of Suggestion

This 5x7 pastel  shows a small overpass on River Drive right next to the Delaware River in Washington Crossing Park.

Ruskin in Modern Painters says, "...every touch is false which does not suggest more than it represents..."  A few paragraphs later he expands on this in his delicious style, when complaining that Claude Lorrain painted a wall "in one dead void of uniform gray."  Ruskin writes: "Nature would have let you see, nay, would have compelled you to see, thousands of spots and lines, not one to be absolutely understood or accounted for, but yet all characteristic and different from each other; breaking lights on shattered stones, vague shadows from waving vegetation, irregular stains of time and weather, mouldering hollows, sparkling casements--all would have been there--none, indeed, seen as such, none comprehensible or like themselves, but all visible; little shadows, and sparkles, and scratches, making the whole space of color a transparent, palpitating, various infinity."

Bridge, Ruskin and Cubism

This is a view looking south down the Delaware River and Washington Crossing Bridge on the New Jersey side.

I don't think John Ruskin would have appreciated Cubism.  Writing about the experience of looking at a foreground while the background becomes indistinct, and vice versa, he says, "... for if we represent our near and distant objects as giving both at once that distinct image to the eye, which we receive in nature from each, when we look at them separately... we violate one of the most essential principles of nature; we represent that as seen at once which can only be seen by two separate acts of seeing, and tell a falsehood as gross as if we represented four sides of a cubic object visible together."  

Tree and Shadow

This is a tree and its shadow on Longview Terrace in Williamstown, MA.

John Ruskin writes in Modern Painters: "...there is no climate, no place, and scarcely an hour, in which nature does not exhibit color which no mortal effort can imitate or approach.  For all our artificial pigments are, even when seen under the same circumstances, dead and lightless beside her living color; the green of a growing leaf, the scarlet of a fresh flower, no art nor expedient can reach; but in addition to this, nature exhibits her hues under an intensity of sunlight which trebles their brilliancy, while the painter, deprived of this splendid aid, works still with what is actually a gray shadow compared to the force of nature's color."

Forsythia and Dirt

This is a forsythia bush, now completely gone, or completely green, in Titusville, NJ.

In Modern Painters, John Ruskin says the following about dirt: "...this ought to be noted respecting modern painters in general, that they have not a proper sense of the value of dirt; cottage children never appear but in fresh got-up caps and aprons, and white-handed beggars excite compassion in unexceptionable rags. In reality, almost all the colors of things associated with human life derive something of their expression and value from the tones of impurity, and so enhance the value of the entirely pure tints of nature herself."

Between Space

This is obviously the same theme again. I don't know why I am obsessed with spaces between houses.

I mentioned earlier that I was reading Modern Painters by John Ruskin. He writes about the "one thing wanting" in some artists: "...Love: There is no evidence of their ever having gone to nature with any thirst, or received from her such emotion as could make them, even for an instant, lose sight of themselves; there is in them neither earnestness nor humility; there is no simple or honest record of any single truth; none of the plain words nor straight efforts that men speak and make when they once feel." It's a negative way to say how he thinks a landscapist should approach his art.

Under the Trees

In the last week, I started to read a book I always wanted to read, Modern Painters by John Ruskin.   He wrote, "It is far more difficult to be simple than to be complicated; far more difficult to sacrifice skill and cease exertion in the proper place, than to expend both indiscriminately."  The above two pastels were done outside at the same location in Washington Crossing Park this weekend.  I am not satisfied with either.  However, I have learned from both exercises.   I need to apply Ruskin's advice when working outside.

Between Houses and Ruskin

On one of my standard walks, up Luce Road, across Benlise and Longview Terrace, and down Stratton Road,  I took photographs of the spaces between houses.  These spaces are intriguing because they hold mountains in the background, and add some interesting man-made geometry to the foreground/middleground.

I came across the following John Ruskin quote today when reading a review of a Gerard Manley Hopkins biography (http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/The-unspeakable-stress-of-pitch-4048):  "The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something and tell what it saw in a plain way. Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think, but thousands can think for one who can see. To see clearly is poetry, prophecy, and religion all in one."