September 20, 2010

A New Painting: "Arch"

Arch, egg tempera on calfskin parchment, 5 1/2 x 4 inches


Expanses of greenish yellow and yellowish red establish the main structure of this painting, as flat, tilting planes. The original colors were more pure and intense, but I decided to try to make a color relationship that tended toward the harmonious rather than the raucous; the red and yellow are still fairly bright, but much subdued. I like the curves of this painting: the yellow arch over black, the round raised cylinder with its button of red, like a clowning exclamation.

I've included a detail to show the paint handling more clearly; keep in mind that it's above life size.


7 comments:

  1. it's easy to forget size here - this feels so much larger than it is. it's a good strong addition to the series (and I like how it relates to the top right image on your page.)

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  2. hi rappel, glad you like this one. also, I've long realized, because of doing slide lectures, that small simple paintings look much larger in reproduction than larger, more complex ones; I assume it's to do with internal scale. It's one of the inevitable frustrations of mechanical reproduction.

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  3. Wonderful and strange color relationships - unnameable colors which
    makes the painting as object stronger. Beautiful harmony!
    I wish I had painted it. Do you ever feel that about a painting by another
    artist? True possession, I guess. I often feel that about your paintings,
    Altoon. Now you know.

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  4. I love how it underscores the beautiful abstract shapes of the mechanism while being entirely representational.

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  5. oh yes, Myrna, I've loved some paintings so much that I want to paint just like that; my move toward abstraction is evidence of my love of minimalism. I'm humbled that you feel that way about this painting.

    Alessandra, thanks so much for the comment; I'm especially pleased that you highlight a main aim of this body of work: finding the abstraction within a real object.

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