Sunday, March 10, 2013

Charles Burchfield

I first learned about Charles Burchfield at a rare painting/photography exhibition at the Fraenkel Gallery last September. In these paintings, nature has an intelligence and agency all its own: it twitches, sways and hums. Like the Group of Seven (see preceding post), Burchfield uses painting to enhance his spiritual connection to nature. As the title of the work pictured below suggests, it is God that inhabits every forest and field, animating them. Burchfield not only depicts landscapes aflame with bright, verdant beauty, but forceful, chaotic scenes as well. There is appeal in the power of nature and its ability to promote growth or destruction.

Charles Burchfield, Glory to God, 1949
Charles Burchfield, Glory of Spring (Radiant Spring), 1950
Charles Burchfield, North Wind in March, 1960
Charles Burchfield, Dandelion Seeds Heads and the Moon, 1961-1965
Charles Burchfield, Night Scene, 1935
Charles Burchfield, An April Mood, 1946-1955

Landscape Mega Post

Swedish artist, Marcus Ivarsson used an old encyclopedia as inspiration for these landscapes. The archaic monuments/volcanic forms are reminiscent of the clay miniature works of Charles Simonds.

Marcus Ivarsson, Hills album art, 2011

Marcus Ivarsson, Hills album art, 2011
Marcus Ivarsson, Hills album art, 2011
Marcus Ivarsson, Hills album art, 2011
I have been reading Hundreds and Thousands, the journal of painter and Canadian legend, Emily Carr. In her writings, Carr gives detailed descriptions of her travels, the quality of the clouds and air, and the work of other painters in her circle, particularly that of the Group of Seven (not to be confused with the Indian Group of Seven). She described these men as having creating "a world stripped of earthiness, shorn of fretting details, purged, purified; a naked soul, pure and unashamed. . . "(Carr, Emily. Hundreds and Thousands: The Journals of an Artist. Toronto: Irwin Publishing. 1966).

A. Y. Jackson, Hills at Great Bear Lake, 1953
Frank Johnston, The Fire Marshall, 1920
Franklin Carmichael, A Northern Silver Mine, 1930
Frank Johnston, Patterned Hillside, 1918
Tom Thomson, The West Wind, 1917
Franklin Carmichael, Bisset Farm, 1933
Lawren Harris, Icebergs, Davis Strait, 1930
Lawren Harris, Afternoon Sun, Lake Superior, 1924
Lawren Harris, Algoma Hill, 1920
Lawren Harris, Mount Robson from the North-East, 1929
Lawren Harris, Mount Thule, Bylot Island, 1930


While the Group of Seven was busy celebrating the pristine natural glory of their homeland, the majority of Llyn Foulkes' art focuses on its demise and destruction. There is no doubt we are in a different era. The works pictured below do not depict Los Angeles as a burning valley of trash, but they are distinctly barren and dead.

Llyn Foulkes, Post Card, 1964
Llyn Foulkes, Ghost Hill, 1984 
Llyn Foulkes, Rabyn's Rock, 1984
Llyn Foulkes, Top of Topanga, 1984

A couple of sculptures by Sam Richardson.

Sam Richardson, There's and Extended Cloud Over that Mountain, 1969
Sam Richardson, That's a Small Island with Snow and Frozen Water, circa 1970-1975

Monday, February 25, 2013

Mars Rocks

 Photo credit: Garry Hayes, Death Valley, CA

Desert landscapes have so much to say about color. Isolated from a variety of distracting elements, all that is recognizable are repeating color relationships. You can look at a hillside, and all you see are endless clusters of red, green and yellow. 

Photo credit: Mike Green, Ubehebe Crater, Death Valley, CA

Lynn Radeka, Black Rocks, Death Valley, CA, 1978.

The surface of Mars

Still Lives


Irving Penn, Still Life with Onion Skin, N.Y., 1947

Irving Penn, Still Life with Grape and Moth, N.Y., 1976

Irving Penn, 18 Pieces with Medicine Bottle, N.Y., 1980

These still lives do not assume an audience. The compositions are balanced, simple and make you feel like you've just come across a little marking of someone. I sense the same presence in this floor mosaic. A childlike process, meant only for personal amusement. 


Herakleitos, after a work by Sosos, Asaroton (Unswept Floor); 2nd century CE