We mainly went to see the Goya exhibit, but there is always the temptation to try and take in more than we can handel. They Goya paintings were sad and made me feel as if they were half in a dream and half in a nightmare.
This painting by Sargent is always a favorite. After seeing it I always hope to do some paintings of musicians.
The Winslow Homers in Boston are also really beautiful. The way the ocean is painted is amazing and memorizing. You can really feel the movement of the sea as the waves are coming in. I get tired just looking at this fishman and his catch with no land in site.
The suggestion is always more powerful to me then the spelled out every blade of grass kind of thing.
Although I think of Albrecht Dürer's watercolor "Great Peice of Turf," might balance that aesthetic.
This painting has always impressed me. The love and care that went into studying a few square feet of earth is admirable. I think of Anne Dillard and her writings and observations in "A Pilgrim at Tinker Creek". She takes us under the earth and loves every part of it and analyzes each part. She even goes so far as to imagine sculpturing a tree with all its roots! How much material wood it take to recreate. A birch tree or a red wood for that matter. It could take one person a lifetime.
Andrew Wyeth has the same attention in his studies of nature. I compare the two here.
I also really enjoyed the Jamie Wyeth exhibit that they had there. For me Andrew Wyeth is one of the more interesting characters.
This painting stikes me as so vast. He is like a space junkie. David Hockney used the phrase to cat agonize himself and I see it fitting for Wyeth as well. Our brains can't really fathom space. When it comes to a field, the Grand Canyon or the Milky Way and beyond. It all depends on the size to of the viewer. If you are an ant the tuft of grass is your world or yard. The field Weyth painted is your world. Cezanne was Abel to paint the air that is closer to us and the air that is further away. The artist here takes nothing for granted. Jamie's paintings seem a little more illustrative at times like his grandfathers. This is fine with me. I love a good story.
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