Shared Ponderings on Florals
I am delighted to share an insightful response to my last article from artist Ratindra Das. - Lynn -
I read the little article in the newsletter about flowers with interest. As you know, it is not one subject that I paint too often. However, I couldn’t help writing my feelings about it.
I heard a saying, “don’t paint the pig, paint the squeal!” This has to do with the expressiveness of a painting . An artist uses a subject as a conduit to express a theme, event, anecdote, a sense of place, etc. - or in other words the essence of a subject. By and large this is true for representational paintings.
Sometimes I suggest students think a bit about this aspect of a painting. For example, if you think about strength, massiveness and masculinity of mountains, they are not going to look like potatoes in paintings, if you think about the fragility, soft, transitory character of a flower when you paint flowers, the paintings will reveal those qualities. There is a difference between gentle murmur of a flowing stream and crashing sound of waves against rocks.
Copying photographs doesn’t do it! A photograph doesn’t lie, but it doesn’t tell the truth.Once I studied a single poppy flower for five days from a bud to full blossom and on the last day I noticed a withered one next to it fluttering in air. Every single day I drew a little. The experience was real and vivid. Never again have I drawn or photographed another poppy to paint.
Once an art critic of a nationally known newspaper took a jab at a watercolor show because subject matters were predictable and its lack of relevance in context to time. My response to that was that the essence of a subject does not change over time. There are universal qualities. Loneliness, tranquility, fear, anguish, tenderness, etc, etc. are timeless. We do not paint flowers just to paint flowers! Picasso painted ‘Guernica’ to show ugliness of war and violence - not an event. Paint flowers to express the essential qualities of flowers, or otherwise it might look lifeless and stale.
Regards,
Ratindra Das