Edward Ruscha

The Standard Stations which made Edward Ruscha famous.

The photo which started it all,
Amarillo, Texas, 1962.

I suppose it nearly goes without saying that every artist is influenced by his or her environment. Where on earth do we live? That which we live in, that which we see, feel, taste, hear, and even smell all impact to some degree that which we create. Of course, past experiences outside our daily environment can also play a significant role, but even then, they tend to be filtered though the environment which created us and the environment which we, as artists, have created for ourselves. New Englanders paint seashores. Floridians paint palm trees. Midwesterners (like myself) paint covered bridges. Southerners paint stock cars; Texans paint cowboys; Californians paint swimming pools, etc. Of course, all of these are gross stereotypes, but you get the idea. Edward Ruscha (pronounced Roo-SHAY) came out of the Omaha, Nebraska, prairie environment, so he might be expected to paint using lots of horizontal lines interrupted with the occasional cow or two.

 

Gas, 1940, Edward Hopper

Nine Swimming Pools, 1968, Edward Ruscha

Born in 1937, the son of an insurance auditor, Ruscha spent most of his early years in Oklahoma City (more cows, interrupted by the occasional tornado), but moved on to California in 1956 to study at the California Institute of Art. He's still lives in southern California near Pioneer Town, a leftover western movie set location from the 1950s. And yes, he does swimming pools, though he photographs them rather than painting them. In 1968 he published them in an art book, Nine Swimming Pools and a Broken Glass. But it was not swimming pools that first made Ruscha famous, but a California icon much less glamorous--gas stations--starting with his 1964 Standard Station, Amarillo, Texas (top left) which, ironically, had nothing to do with California, but was inspired by a gas station he happened to pass in traveling back and forth through Amarillo, Texas (above, left). It's not hard to see the influence of Edward Hopper's 1940 painting, Gas (above).

Edward Ruscha recently posed before his Large Trademark with Eight Spotlights, from 1962,

Annie, 1966, Edward Ruscha,
poured maple syrup on canvas.

Edward Ruscha is usually categorized as a Pop artist, though, if so, he has certainly demonstrated his own distinctive approach to such art. That is to say, he's not New York Pop, but far more in line with the transplanted British painter of California lore, David Hockney. However, unlike Hockney, Ruscha is far less prone to paint images, but words, instead. In that regard he has much more in common with artists, Barbara Kruger and Jenny Holzer, except that Ruscha has a penchant for using very non-traditional materials with which to paint. His Annie (left) was created by pouring maple syrup on his canvas (a sweet substance for a sweet little girl). Ruscha also likes using rhyming words in his paintings, rendered with outlandish substances such as gunpowder, vinyl, blood, red wine, fruit and vegetable juices, axle grease, chocolate syrup, tomato paste, Bolognese sauce, cherry pie, coffee, caviar, daffodils, tulips, raw eggs and grass stains (what? No mustard?).

Ice at Nice Price, Edward Ruscha

Cherries on satin.

Pay Nothing Until April, 2003, Edward Ruscha.

Although Ruscha began as a painter, in more recent years he has leaned toward the more viable and versatile medium of photography and publishing to convey his highly evolved Pop messages. In that regard, Ruscha is the quintessential Postmodern artist. That is, he has the skills and the free-thinking versatility to create using whatever media, modes, and methods best suit his concepts, while at the same time maintaining links to the past. Ruscha's Pay Nothing until April (left) from 2003, expresses a cool, detached world-view in keeping with his conceptual works despite its ready-made appearance. However, the pairing of text and image, as conceived by Ruscha, is executed as a montage with a high degree of finish. Ruscha seems to be indifferent to the source material he amasses. Like many artists, he claims to operate in an automatic mode in which everything is an involuntary reflex. "Logic flies out of the window when you’re making a picture..."

Lisp, 1968, Edward Ruscha

The use of the double
negative is no accident.

Quite appropriate for a blog like this.

 

Grand Canyon Art

Grand Canyon River, 2013, T. Douglas, painted digitally.

The world is full of natural wonders. From the delicate beauty of the tiniest butterfly, to God's exquisite geological masterpieces of literally mountainous proportions. America has its share of these awe-inspiring features: "From the Mountains, to the prairies, to the oceans bright with foam." Around the world such natural features are often preserved from the equally natural greed of an uncaring mankind in National Parks. Besides inspiring awe, these parks and the wonders they preserve also inspire art. And no park, no natural wonder in any such park, has inspired so many artists as the Colorado River and its massive Grand Canyon. Artists have been painting it now for well over a hundred years. As painters go, it would, I think, not be out of line to say the Thomas Moran "owns" the Grand Canyon.

Grand Canyon, 1904, Thomas Moran

Showery Day, Grand Canyon,
Thomas Moran

Thomas Moran first visited the Grand Canyon in the early 1870s, then returned often over then next three or four decades as his paintings made the great chasm dug by the Colorado River popular with the general public. His paintings of Yellowstone Park and the Grand Canyon (above )likely had more to do with causing both places to become parks, and then major tourist attractions, than any other factor. Showery Day, Grand Canyon, (left) is one of Moran's best, unusual for its relatively rare vertical format. In more recent years, Michigan artist, Robert Perrish, along with many others, have begun painting the geological landmark from the bottom, down by the river. Perrish's Grand Morning (below), depicts one of the stream's broad, placid areas. Digital painter, T. Douglas, with his 2013 Grand Canyon River (top) gives us a stunningly enhanced peek at the astounding colors of the canyon, and the light streaming into it, often create.

Grand Morning, Robert Perrish

Grand Canyon, 1902, Maxfield Parrish

Any artist who has ever taken on the Grand Canyon will tell you that light, time of day, weather, and location, location, location, have a tremendous impact on any attempt to capture some or all of the above on canvas. Another Parrish, the more famous, Maxfield Parrish, descended upon the Grand Canyon about the same time as Moran's late work, around 1901-02. His distinctly colored version, featuring his trademark vivid cool blues and hot orange-reds, can be seen at right. Together, they render a kind of surreal ambience to the gorge. As for the other factors, the modern-day painter, Puci, illustrates the impact of lighting on a given canyon feature, which, of course, has to do with the time of day. When my wife and I visited the canyon last year, I made a special effort to be there, with my camera read, at sunset. Alas, I got lots of good pictures of the sun and sky but virtually nothing of value involving the rugged canyon itself. I was on the East side viewing the west side, which, naturally, was all in shadow. My wife, however, was at a slightly different location and was able to capture images on her cell phone camera that put mine to shame. Thus, the old real estate mantra applies--location, location, location--it's a BIG canyon.

Grand Canyon Tonal Variation 2 (left) and Grand Canyon Tonal Variation 3 (right), by Puci, illustrates the importance for the artist to be in the right place at the right time.

Although most tourists visit during the warm, comfortable months of summer (sometimes uncomfortably warm, in fact), never is the site more dramatically awe inspiring than in winter with the right light and the right covering of snow, as seen below in Clyde Aspevig's The Grand Canyon from Mather Point (below). The unpredictable spring weather did, in fact, provide snow a few days before we visited the canyon in mid-May of last year; however it all completely melted in but a few hours.

The Grand Canyon From Mather Point, Clyde Aspevig

Every year the Grand Canyon Association hosts, the Grand Canyon Celebration of Art, featuring six days of art related events followed by a three-month exhibit at the Kolb Studio on the South Rim of Park. The celebration features artists from around the country who engage in a plein air competition and exhibition. Park visitors and residents have the opportunity to watch the artists paint as they seek to represent the shifting light and shadow, amazing land forms, and vibrant colors of this vast landscape. Visitors also have the opportunity to bid on the artists' work, allowing them to take home a bit of the canyon through the art it inspires. The event takes place in mid-September each year.

Grand Canyon Celebration of Art (2013), with artists James McGrew, and M. L. Coleman.

Given the fact that the Grand Canyon's Native-American population justifiably maintains both a literal and symbolic ownership of the land, its perhaps most appropriate that their painted images of the canyon bear the greatest claim to authenticity, as seen in the work of famed Navajo artist R.C. Gorman's canyon depiction (below), which eschews objective imaging in favor of a more spiritual approach. Now, having shown you the work of many of the best Grand Canyon artists to ever wield a brush, let me now reluctantly display my own Postmodern version painted shortly after we returned from vacation. Titled A Visit to the Grand Canyon (bottom), the painting calls to mind the canyon's climactic moment near the end of the movie, Thelma and Louise, when the leading ladies, Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis, pursued by local law enforcement, opt to take a dive in their 1967 Thunderbird...over the edge.

Grand Canyon, Navajo artist, R.C. Gorman

Copyright, Jim Lane

A Visit to the Grand Canyon, 2014, Jim Lane.

 

Phillip Otto Runge

Peter Walks on Water, 1806, Phillip Otto Runge

Anyone who has ever had an art class can usually recall the three primary colors and their place on the classic color wheel, forming a triangle within a circle. These are augmented by the three secondary colors to form a second triangle, overlying the first, rotated sixty degrees. Combined,they form a six-pointed star. That, even for the novice, is relatively simple. It begins to get more complicated as one begins to fill in all the transitional colors of the rainbow falling between each of the appropriate star points. However, things really get complex when the artists begins to add tints and shades to his or her theoretical chart. Tints indicate the presence of white, which lightens the value of each color. Black, lowers the value of each color to form shades. (Not to be confused by intensity of various colors.) An accurate presentation of all this is simply impossible on a flat, two-dimensional wheel chart. The German Romantic painter, around 1809, Phillip Otto Runge, was the first (or among the first) to realize this fact. Instead of a wheel, he came to realize that a sphere was the best shape by which to demonstrate the three primary and three secondary colors plus the addition of white or black to each one.

Drawing Hands, 1798, Phillip Otto Runge

Self-portrait in a Blue Shirt,
1805, Philipp Otto Runge

Phillip Runge was born in 1777. He was the ninth of eleven children born into a family of Wolgast, shipbuilders (Western Pomerania, a Swedish enclave in the northeast corner of present-day Germany). Had he not been a rather sickly child, Runge might well have joined the family business. Inasmuch as he often missed school, his mother taught him the art of scissor-cut silhouettes. Thus bitten by the "art bug", while serving as an apprentice in his older brother's shipbuilding company, Runge also took art classes at the Copenhagen Academy. Runge's Drawing Hands (above) from 1798, demonstrates his early drawing skills. With the continued financial support of his brother, Runge moved to Dresden where he encountered fellow students, Casper David Frederick, and his future wife, Pauline Bassenge (below), whom he married three years later. About the same time, Runge met the German poet, critic, and scientist, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe with whom he collaborated in his color studies during the remainder of his life.

Self-portrait of the Artist (right) Together with His Wife, Pauline, and his brother, Johann Daniel Runge (left), Philipp Otto Runge

Despite the fact Runge is best known as a color theorist, he was also a consummate, highly individualized, portrait artist. However, most of his surviving work centers around his family--his parents (below, left) and his wife and son (below, right). Yes, despite appearances, the child is a boy. His Peter Walks on Water (top) dates from these early years.

The Artist's Parents, 1806,
Philipp Otto Runge

The Artist's Wife and Son,
1807, Philipp Otto Runge

Runge's color theories grew naturally from his experiences in using color. Although other artists had demonstrated primary and secondary color relationships using triangles, wheels, and other graphic devices, Runge simply started where they left off, visualizing the color wheel as a sort of "equator" disk horizontally dissecting a globe over which he positioned tints (using white) on the "northern" hemisphere and shades (using black) on the "southern" half as demonstrated by his illustration (below) from Farben-Kugel (color sphere), a groundbreaking treatise on the subject published in 1810.

Color Spheres, 1809, Philipp Otto Runge

The Lesson of the Nightingale,
1804-05, Philipp Otto Runge

Phillip Otto Runge might have had a greater impact on the world of art and color except for two factors. First, he died of tuberculosis in 1810 shortly after Farbenkugel was published. Thus he was denied the opportunity to refine and promote his color theories, which were taken up by the Frenchman, Michel Eugène Chevreul, and the American painter, instructor, and inventor, Albert Henry Munsell (the Munsell Color System still in use today). Quite apart from his premature death at the age of thirty-three, and the end of his color studies, as Runge's health deteriorated, he turned his attention and talents to painting those he loved most. Runge seems to have been exceptional in his ability to paint children, as seen in his The Hulsenbeck Children (below) from 1805. 

The Hülsenbeck Children, 1805. Philipp Otto Runge

When Runge died, his children were quite young. His fourth child was born after his death. The Artist's Children (below, right) allows us to follow the growth of his son, Otto Sigismund (below, left) from baby to toddler. However, as talented and astute as Runge certainly was, he was also a man of many interests including botany, as seen in his Amaryllis Formosissima (below, right) from 1808.

Otto Sigismund in the
Star Dress (the artist's
son),1805, Phillip
Otto Runge

The Artists Children, Maria Dorothea and Otto
Sigismund Runge, 1809, Phillip Otto Runge

Amaryllis Formosissima,
1808, Philipp Otto Runge

Perhaps as a result of his early association with the German Romantic painter, Casper David Fredrick, Runge has long been termed a Romantic artist, though his brief career ended before this era was to reach its height around 1830-50. Nonetheless, Runge's Great Morning (below), also painted during the final year of his life, is considered his masterpiece. In it Runge tried to express his ideas as to the harmony of the universe through the symbolism of color, form, and numbers. He considered blue, yellow, and red to be the symbols of the Christian trinity. He equated blue with God and the night. Red he saw as symbolizing the morning, and yellow represented the Holy Spirit. Runge also wrote poetry and planned a series of four paintings to be titled, The Times of the Day, intended to be seen in a building he designed himself so they might be viewed to the accompaniment of music and his poetry. Several Romantic artist during this era tried to achieve a fusion among the forms of art. Earlier, in 1803, Runge had large-format engravings made of the drawings of the Times of the Day series. These became commercially successful which prompted the painting of two versions of Morning. The others did not advance beyond drawings. Morning signaled the start of a new type of landscape painting embraced by Frederick and others--one of religion and emotion.

The Great Morning, 1809-10, Philipp Otto Runge

Illinois Art

Copyright, Jim Lane

Illinois' "lionized" art museum, the Art Institute of Chicago.

In my continuing series discovering the art of the various United States of America, today's stop is in the Prairie State of Illinois. For those not familiar with American geography, it's the state hanging from the tip of Lake Michigan, sort of attached to this "dangling" body of water by the city of Chicago. Beyond that, when one speaks of Illinois, almost inevitably it's Chicago that dominates the conversation. And likewise, when one speaks of art and the state of Illinois, the elephant in the room (or perhaps I should say, lion) is the Art Institute of Chicago. Founded almost two-hundred years ago (and refounded in the ashes of the 1871 fire) there's hardly an artist in any way connected to the state who isn't also someway connected with the AIC and its school of art. The school is, in fact, actually older than its iconic "lionized" lakefront museum (above). Unlike the 1893 relic of the Chicago World's Columbian Exposition, which today serves as little more than a façade for the museum, the school of art is housed in a stunning, convex high-rise of dark, reflective glass (below).

The Art Institute of Chicago's School of Art.

Pardon me for "playing favorites," but my favorite Illinois artist is a painter of the watercolor persuasion named David R. Becker. I've known Dave and admired his work for more than fifteen years now, yet I've never met the man in person. We both belong to an Internet group (which is only sporadically active these days). I can't think of a single Illinois artist today, working in any medium, who captures the robust power of the Windy City's dynamic presence better than Mr. Becker, as seen in his watercolor Lake Street Heading East (below). Besides painting, Dave has written two books on the subject: Watercolor Composition Made Easy, and How to Sketch with Watercolor. Moreover, if you like his work, he'll teach you how to paint like he does (he conducts workshops too--www.davidrbecker.com).

Lake Street Heading East, David R. Becker

As with many cities of its size, Chicago is justly famous for its skyline. When we were in the city last year my wife and I got to know this skyline from the inside out, while visiting the city's two tallest "skyscrapers," seen below in an AIC Millennial Park installation.

Art Institute of Chicago Lurie Garden Millennium Park

Chicago's famous skyline hasn't always been quite so "uplifting." John R. Chapin's painting of Chicago in Flames--The Rush for Lives Over Randolph Street Bridge (below) first appeared in 1871 on the pages of Harper's Weekly. Before the fire, Chicago was a tinderbox city of wood. Afterwards, it became a proving ground for structural cast iron and steel as exemplified by the present day skyline above.

The Rush for Lives Over the Randolph Street Bridge, 1871, John R. Chapin.

Michael Jarecki, photographer for the CTA,
finds the painter, Anthony Paczos, making
the most of a controlled environment.

Art in Chicago is everywhere. AIC has no monopoly despite its enormous holdings and lavish facilities. Daley Plaza has, of course, it's Picasso sculpture (below center) and in Millennial Park is an even more outlandish piece of public art, Cloud Gate (better known by locals as "the silver bean") created by the Indian-born, British artist, Anish Kapoor (below, left), which is the centerpiece of AT&T Plaza at Millennium Park. Back inside, we find Ellen Lanyon's Ogden and Lake (below, right) from 1954, which celebrates Chicago's famed "loop." Meanwhile, even when the blustery wind off Lake Michigan makes painting on location difficult, uncomfortable, or even impossible, artists go "underground" to ply their trade (left), giving a whole new definition to "public art."

The city itself is often the inspiration for the art within it.

As much as I and others tend to paint Chicago as the beginning, middle, and end of art in Illinois, there is a whole, larger-than-most, state just to the south. Mostly following the Civil War, the railroads brought the green stuff, which fed the artists, which made the art stuff for which the city is proud. Lianne Schneider's painting The Illinois Central Railroad, 1882 (below) depicts how and why a trading post on the marshy Chicago River in 1800 grew, in just seventy-five years, to be one of the largest cities in the country, and a century later, one of the largest in the world.

Illinois Central Railroad 1882, Lianne Schneider

The capital of Illinois is not Chicago. It's Springfield, better known as the "Land of Lincoln" (Chicago can have the title "Land of Obama"). Robert Marshall Root gives us Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A Douglas Debating at Charleston, Illinois, on 18th September, 1858 (below), painted in 1918. I wonder what Lincoln would think of the modern version of what he and Douglas started some 150 years ago.

Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A Douglas-Debating at Charleston, Ill,
1918, Robert Marshall-Root.

Art in the rest of Illinois--Lincoln, Illinois' Arts in the Park.

 

Renaissance Cities--Mdina, Malta

Malta's ancient capital of Mdina, now and then.



Copyright, Jim Lane

Mdina's St. Paul's Cathedral, 2001.

My wife and I first visited the island of Malta in 2001, followed again by a visit in 2013. Having spent two days on what is, actually, a relatively small island smack in the middle of the Mediterranean some fifty miles south of Sicily, I gained something of a "feel" for both the "now" and "then" of the country. In thinking about the Renaissance era as to do with Malta, it's important to realize that, though the island has one of the longest continuous histories of anywhere in the vast, inland sea, most of the important events shaping the culture, art, architecture, and people of the islands of Malta (there are several) came after the Renaissance. The nation's capital today, Valetta, was little more than a coastal fortification during the that time. The capital city (if you can stretch the definition of city a little), was the fortified hilltop near the center of the island called Mdina (top), seen pretty much as it looked at the time. It's been (and is being) extremely well preserved. No automobiles are permitted inside its medieval walls.

The Beheading of Saint John (the Baptist), 1607, Caravaggio.

Copyright, Jim Lane

The dome of St. Paul's Cathedral, Mdina.

At the center of Mdina is St. Paul's Cathedral, designed by the Italian architect Lorenzo Gafa and built between 1697 and 1702 (a remarkably short time as cathedral construction goes). Actually, it was a rebuilding job replacing a Norman era cathedral destroyed in an earthquake in 1693. It's in a Baroque style which means, despite its location in the ancient capital city, it dates from well after the Renaissance. There's also a co-cathedral in Valetta designed by Maltese military architect, Girolamo Cassar, and dedicated to St. John the Baptist, which is older (1573-78), much larger, and far more ornate. Inside you can view Caravaggio's The Beheading of Saint John (above) from 1607, painted for the Knights of Malta during a time when Caravaggio was a fugitive from Rome. Incidentally, Caravaggio was forced to flee Malta the following year after yet another felonious altercation for which he has become notorious.

Malta today, the most densely populated country in the European Union,
with Valetta, the union's smallest capital.

The Island of Malta has long been blessed by its centralized location along maritime trade routes both east and west as well as north and south. It has several excellent harbors and a warm (if somewhat dry) climate reminding one of north Africa. However, these "blessings" have also turned out to be something of a curse. Archaeologist tell us that the island was first settled by Neolithic hunters and farmers about 5,200 BC. The Greeks and Phoenicians came nearly five thousand years later. They were the first to inhabit the area around present day Mdina. In the centuries that followed, there came the Carthaginians, the Romans, the Byzantines (for four centuries), the Goths, the Vandals, the Muslims, the Normans, the Germans, the French, the Spanish, Napoleon Bonaparte, and finally the English from 1814 until the country gained independence in 1964. The British painter, J.M.W. Turner contributed his impression of the Valetta's Grand Harbor (below). Today, Malta bears a great number of lingering cultural attributes resulting from 150 years of British rule (except that they drive on the right-hand side of the road).

J.M.W. Turner's depiction of The Grand Harbour (Valetta)

Jean Parisot de Valette

As might be expected due to the island's long history of foreign rulers, Malta has an even longer history of military strife. Twice it has been subject to prolonged sieges, the first by the Ottomans in 1565, the second by the Axis Powers during WW II during which the city of Valetta was heavily bombed by Mussolini's Italian (German) bombers in an attempt to neutralize its use as an Allied naval coaling station (below). Valetta was named for the French Grand Master of the Knights of Malta, Jean Parisot de Valette, who withstood the Ottoman siege, and founded the city on the northeast coast of the island. Although Valette and the Knights of Malta left an indelible mark on the island of Malta during the Renaissance, the same could be said for Napoleon, who vanquished the Knights as he stopped by to conquer the island on his way to conquering the Egyptians in 1798. Napoleon reformed the national administration with the creation of a Government Commission, created twelve municipalities, a public finance administration, abolished all feudal rights and privileges, abolished slavery, granted freedom to all Turkish and Jewish slaves, established a judicial family code, established public education, and then sailed off for Egypt leaving a substantial garrison in Malta. All this he did in just six days. Presumably he rested on the seventh day.

Bomb-damaged Kingsway (now Republic Street) in Valletta during the Siege of Malta, 1942.

The Blue Lagoon, on the island of Comino.

Quite apart from the vestiges of Caravaggio, today there is much art on the island of Malta. Native artist, Cedric Galea Pirotta, whose 2005 watercolor pen and ink wash of Medina (below), marks him as among the best works full time capturing the rich architectural details of the many cultures which have crisscrossed the island over the centuries. Malta is also famous today for its art glass industry which feeds the needs of tourists and collectors around the world (bottom). And if all this fails to intrigue you, there's also the watery grottos of the Blue Lagoon (above, left) to be found on the tiny island of Comino. (Been there, done that; I was not impressed.)

Mdina, 2005, by Maltese artist, Cedric Galea Pirotta

The fine art of Mdina Glass, founded in 1968 by
British artists, Eric Dobson and Michael Harris.