Marco Mazzoni

Layers of pencil color delicately enhanced by the texture of the paper.

Florals and female faces--
the work of Marco Mazzoni.

Unlike a lot of painters (especially those my age), I have a great deal of respect for artists able to work masterfully with colored pencils. Although artist-quality colored pencils have been around for close to a hundred years, it has only been during the past forty years or so that they've been embraced by painters as a viable alternative to wet media. Although the finished work, especially when photographed, is virtually indistinguishable from oils or acrylics, in reality the technical skills employed in using them are much more akin to watercolors. I know, inasmuch as I've rendered portraits in colored pencil now since the early 1980s. First of all, they're almost always used on paper, the surface qualities of which have a tremendous effect on the final look of the work. Most colored pencil artists prefer a relative fine "tooth" to their paper. Second, colors are layered in over an easily erasable pencil drawing like watercolors, light colors first, then built up in the darker areas allowing a transparency that is one of the key elements of beauty, insofar as watercolors are concerned, to also prevail in he use of colored pencils. And finally, they must be framed under glass like watercolors. Unfortunately, this vital protective isolation makes them difficult to distinguish from prints. Few collectors want to spend dearly for an original colored pencil work only to have it mistaken by his or her friends as an inexpensive print. Add to that the fact that many colored pencil drawings are, in fact, sold as prints by their artists. Now, having dwelt to some extent on their background, let me introduce to you the work of an Italian colored pencil artist named Marco Mazzoni.

Marco Mazzoni--one of the most camera-shy artists I've ever pursued.
This is the only photo I could find of the man.

Marco Mazzoni was born in 1982 in Tortona, Italy. He currently lives and works in Milan. His portraits, as seen in the faces of his father (and I'm guessing) his mother (below) are isolated images floating within empty white space or simple, solid-color backgrounds. He takes a realist approach to skillfully render the facial focal point of his subjects, while employing rich, subtly layered color to mitigate what is often a somewhat harsh reality. Mazzoni jokes that after seeing his portrait, his father hates him.

The significance of the stars on the cheeks is never explained.
The female figure could also be a grandmother.

Castor and Pollux, Marco Mazzoni

Although obviously a very competent portrait artist, the vast majority of Mazzoni's work involves somewhat surreal female faces blended (literally) with various floral elements frequently obscuring the eyes or simply omitting them. Mazzoni considers the eyes to be unfair competition with the other parts of his drawn images. The effect is to represents man’s (or, more accurately, woman's) interaction with nature. The artist holds a strong interest in medicinal properties of plants and the female herbalists during 16th through the 18th Centuries of Sardinia, who conserved their culture through oral traditions. Castor and Pollux (right) as well as Mazzoni's three-part Self Esteem (below) are two of his more exemplary explorations of this theme. (Titles, and especially dates, are quite difficult to come by in pursuing Mazzoni's work.)

Self Esteem, Marco Mazzoni

Funeral for a Friend,
(colored pencil on moleskin) Marco Mazzoni

Besides his lovely "flower ladies," Marco Mazzoni is something of an animal lover as seen in his moleskin sketch books, which are often dis-played on shelves jutting out from the walls of galleries where he exhibits his draw-ings (below). Mazzoni's lily-padded frog, and especially his birds as seen in his Funeral for a Friend (left), are almost infinitely detailed, while the sketchbook suggests their having been drawn in the wild, though probably not. Mazzoni can best be summed up as a flora and fauna artist, seam-lessly blending the two in creating amazingly complex emotional and compositional dual relationships. A fairly comprehensive sampling of his other wildlife friends can be found in the montage at the bottom.

Colored pencil works are best rendered and appreciated when their size is kept to relatively modest limits. Mazzoni's moleskin sketchbooks follow that dictum, yet can, with a little judicious carpentry, also be displayed on gallery walls.

Massoni's Menagerie
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Suggestion: Turn off the sound, it's annoying.
















 

Martin Van Buren Portraits

Martin Van Buren, official White House portrait, 1858, G.P.A. Healy

Martin Van Buren's National Portrait Gallery
image is also by G.P.A. Healy based heavily
on his full-length portrait done earlier.

It's time to celebrate the birthday of another American President you've probably never (or seldom) heard of. On this date in 1782, was born, the first future President born in the United States of America--Martin Van Buren. He would have been 232 years old today, December 5, 2015. He was our eighth President, serving a single term from 1837 to 1841. Van Buren was a Democrat, though any party affiliation now would bear little resemblance to political philosophy then. Today he would probably be considered a Republican and pos-sibly a rather conservative one at that. He was against the annexation of Texas into the Union and had the misfortune of ushering in an econ-omic downturn which has come to be known as the Panic of 1837. He was turned out of office by the election of William Henry Harrison, who died a month into his term. So Van Buren's real successor was Harrison's Vice President, John Tyler. Van Buren's official White House portrait (above) was painted by George Peter Alexander Healy in 1858, long after Van Buren left office but before his death in 1862. His National Portrait Gallery image (above, left) was also painted by Healy some years later.

Matthew Brady's photo portrait of Van Buren and a moderately successful digital
colorization of the image. The color version would never be mistaken for a
G.P.A. Healy painted portrait, but it better than such efforts in years past.

Martin Van Buren came to the White House shortly before the time photography came of age as a viable portrait media; but he lived long enough to be among the earliest former Presidents (along with John Quincy Adams) to be photographed well and often. His most commonly encountered photographic image was by the famed Civil War photographer Matthew Brady (above) dating from between 1855 and 1858. Although I'm not fond of the modern practice of colorizing historic photos (or movies) the computer software has come a long way in allowing improvements in the arts and sciences of the practice as seen in the two juxtaposed images above. Although the pose is different, I suspect Healy's head, face, and expression may well have been based on Brady's photograph. Even the angle is the same.

A bright, handsome, star rising from New York politics in the early 1830s.

In much the same way as they are today, a politician in the 1830s had great need of a suitably heroic (or at least self-confident) public image. The portrait artist, engravers, and later, photographers were vital importance in establishing and maintaining this political persona. Even as a young man, Van Buren seems to have been quite aware of this need as witnessed by the painted portrait by John Sartain (above, right) and the color print by Ezra Ames both from the early 1830s when he was President Andrew Jackson's right-hand man, serving as Secretary of State and later Vice President, while positioning himself politically to be Jackson's handpicked successor. The Ames Mezzoprint, image was based upon an 1840 portrait by Henry Inman (below, top-left).

Martin Van Buren as seen by Henry Inman, Shepherd Alonzo Mount, Daniel Huntington,
and Francis Alexander. You can almost watch as Van Buren grows older. The
Alexander portrait today hangs in the Red Room of the White House.

Said to be Van Buren by John Langendoerffer
the painting is likely one of Van Buren's sons.

Van Buren seems to have enjoyed posing for painters both before and after leaving the White House judging by the number of portrait images I found from quite a number of popular artist of the time. However, the portrait at left, by John Langendoerffer, said to be of the former President, painted in 1838 at the age of fifty-six, is probably one of Van Buren's four sons. Although the age and date coincide, Van Buren appears too young for that period. Also, the likeness does not measure up well against Van Buren's many other painted portraits. Nonetheless, the portrait today hangs in Washington's National Portrait Gallery. Van Buren entered the White House a widower. Hannah (below, left), his wife of twelve years, died in 1819 after having bourn him six children (five sons and one daughter). Only their four sons survived to adulthood. Angelica Singleton Van Buren (below, right), the very attractive wife of Van Buren's oldest son, Abraham, became the stand-in first lady.

Van Buren's wife, Hannah, and daughter-in-law Angelica.

Bust of Martin Van Buren,
1836-40, Hiram Powers

The carved bust in the painting of Angelica (above, right) is that of her father-in-law the President. Today it occupies an honored spot in the red room of the White House (right) opposite the 1842 portrait of his daughter-in-law by Henry Inman. Rapid City, South Dakota, calling itself the "City of Presidents" has a bronze, seated image of the eighth President by Edward Hlavka (below) that's somewhat more natural and lifelike than Powers' marble carving, though not so much as compared to the life-size wax version at Madame Tussaud's in Washington, D.C. (below, right).

Martin Van Buren by Edward Hlavka

Martin Van Buren, courtesy of
Madame Tussaud's

 

Christmas Tree Art

Every Christmas tree should accent its environment.

It's that time of the year again. This evening I put out our first Christmas lights. Normally I labor for three or four days putting string after string of mostly clear lights over the shrubbery and along the balcony of our home. My wife decided I was getting too old for such foolishness so this year she bought one of those new laser light show thingies for the front yard. It's really kind of neat, though rather static and didn't cover near the total length of the house...meaning I'll need a second unit. In a few days, I'll decorate some outside light posts and around the front door. Then comes the living room Christmas tree. I should note, we've cutting back there too. Several years ago, I also had trees in the dining room and the family room. About ten years ago, I fastened an old white tree to the front light post and decorated it with pink lights. Our son, who was about eighteen at the time, was embarrassed to death.

Christmas trees now and then.

Each country has its own style of Christmas tree.

In delving into the lively art of decorating evergreen (real or artificial) I discovered that the tradition I'd more or less taken for granted all my life was really not as old as I'd imagined. In fact, we Americans were rather late as a group in embracing it. When I was growing up, the upper-left tree in the above montage was pretty much the norm, cut in the wild, dragged home, trimmed, and maybe even held upright by a slender thread or two. Often they were only accidentally conical; and only a generous quantity of tinsel draped from its boughs saved it from being what we'd now call a Charlie Brown tree. Although Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of England (lower, left image above) using candles, lit one of the first indoor trees in England. The Germans had been dragging in the greenery for a generation or two before that, perhaps dating back as far as Martin Luther. It wasn't until the 1890s that the fad caught on in the U.S. and not until the 1920s when President Calvin Coolidge lit the first National Christmas Tree on the White House lawn. Today, Christmas trees can be found in virtually every non-Muslim country in the world (above, left). Jews calls it the Hanukah tree, decorating it with tiny menorahs and six-pointed stars.

The painting, Christmas at Rockefeller Center, at the top of the above image is by Robert Finale.

Today, virtually every city, village, and hamlet in the Christian world has its own community Christmas tree. The White House tree is still a big deal in our nation's capital, though it is challenged for superiority with a similar one on the capitol terrace overlooking the national mall. However as prominent as these lighted works of the tree trimmer's art might be, the real National Christmas tree is not in Washington but the holiday centerpiece of New York's Rockefeller Center (above). Politicians, celebrities, atheists, the homeless, and the hapless alike all show up or watch as the tree is lit on national television, in a media extravaganza second only to New Year's Eve in Times Square a few weeks later.

Whether artificial or cut, Christmas trees today have attained an unnatural perfection in shape and decoration making them a far cry from those "gracing" living rooms of the 1950s and earlier.

In our home, I tend to be the Christmas decorator. My wife helps put up the tree, but if she had her way the thing would fit on a tabletop (and a small one at that). We tend to alternate each year between to monochromatic color schemes, either gold on a green tree (above, right) or blue and silver decorations on a green tree with all gifts beneath the tree wrapped using foil paper and ribbons to match the color scheme of the tree. My sister has a big, very "fat" artificial tree (above, left) which they decorated with crocheted snowflakes resulting in a green and white color scheme. Many years ago, the first Christmas after my wife and I were married, we spent Christmas eve with my parents. My mother had finally relented to a beautifully shaped artificial tree which she decorated with blue lights and ornaments. Perhaps I was just a bit homesick, but that tree (highly unusual for 1969) still sticks in my mind as one of the most beautiful I've ever seen. One similar can be see below, left.

Whether on a green tree similar to my mother's (above, left) or on one bedecked with white poinsettia (above, right), I'm still quite partial to the cool, wintery shades of blue in decorating the yuletide centerpiece.

Daring to be different.

As happens with virtually all holiday traditions (and not just Christmas, by the way), tastes change both in the way we celebrate holidays and the accouterments in doing so. Today, though stores still sell them, and some people continue to cling to the nostalgia of multi-colored lights (and other tree decorations), I'm just enough of a non-conformist to have long since grown sick of them. I see them as simply too gaudy. With so many different and attractive monochromatic possibilities, a Christmas tree is a terrible thing to waste ones creative ingenuity by resorting to the red, yellow, green, and blue of the past. Yesterday at Walmart, I even saw brown tree ornaments, designed to accent a green and gold color scheme. Black on a white tree is seen as really chic. The key factor in choosing a tree color scheme is to keep it in line with that which already exists in the room as a whole (top). The decorated tree should complement the room, abiding on the thin line between eye-catching and overwhelming domination. The monochromatic examples below were chosen to demonstrate this rule of thumb.

Monochromatic decorative schemes are pleasant and fun,
but one also flirts with the risk of seeming bland as well.

Fortunately, most Christmas trees, even those decorated by those with more daring than taste, usually come out looking quite attractive. The key word in that line is "usually." In the belief that learning from ones own mistakes, and those of others, is as valuable as admiring ones successes, I've also assembled a rat's nest of Christmas tree fails (below) that make Charlie Brown's efforts seem really quite charming. Look and learn.



Oops! The lower left "tree" is made from wine bottles.

It's hard to compete with mother nature in decorating a tree.
The best one can hope for is to help her along a little.
 

 

Castle Paintings

A View of Tantallon Castle, 1816, Alexander Nasmyth

Yesterday (the posting below) I talked about the devotees of medieval lore with the time and wherewithal to build and live in 21st century approximations of medieval castles. Today I'm going to talk about those who paint castles, and explore those works from such artists which I've found to be most eye-catching and interesting. You won't find any castles ala Walt Disney, though you will see one (below) which inspired him and his creative team. Likewise you won't see any paintings of "fantasy" castles which exist only in the imaginations of artists with the time and talent to venture upon such flights of fancy. Although such works may, in fact, be among the most beautiful, and certainly the most creative of all castle paintings, letting ones imagination run amuck suggests a certain lacking of mental discipline which makes paintings of existing castles seem dull and drab by comparison. In essence, fantasy castles steal from the paintings of existing castles certain romantic qualities which rightfully belong to those which have weathered history and the elements to remind us of past medieval times and their imagined glories. Alexander Nasmyth's A View of Tantallon Castle (above), dating from 1815, is one such example.

"Mad" King Ludwig castle and some of the painters it has inspired.

Probably the most painted castle in the world sits upon a scenic hilltop in the Black Forest area of southwest Bavaria overlooking Hohenschwangau, Germany. It's called Schloss Neuschawnstein (New Swanstone Castle), designed and built by King Ludwig II beginning in 1869 and still unfinished when he died in 1886. Today, some 1.3-million tourist visit Ludwig's real-life fantasy castle, which has inspired the fantasies of numerous writer, poets, painters, and one important creative genius not too unlike Ludwig himself--Walt Disney. The castle has appeared prominently in several movies and was the inspiration for Disneyland's Sleeping Beauty's Castle as well as later, similar structures in Disney parks around the world.

Turner's Kenilworth Castle, 1830, and American artist Thomas Cole's 1841 version.

Castle Coch, 2008, 
Welsh artist Gwynfor Roberts

Castles and their ruins have inspired artists for many centuries, from the Middle Ages to the present. The English with their many castles, past and present, dotting the island landscape like stepping stones have been quite fond of rendering such images of romantic piles of stone especially if they lie in ruins (as a great many of them do)as with J.M.W. Turner's Kenilworth Castle (above). Even contemporary artists find old English castles fascinating to paint, such as Gwynfor Roberts, 2008 Castle Coch (left). The sturdy fortress would never inspire a novel or a fairytale theme park, but there is, never-theless, a certain mystique about castles, whether in ruins or home to a queen, which few painters can resist.



Balmoral by Ardell Morton and Windsor Castle by David Drury of Surrey.

Lichtenstein Castle, Karl Illini

Speaking of queens, what would royalty be without one or two castles? England's Queen Eliz-abeth II has at least two. Artist Ardell Morton depicts the formal gardens of Balmoral Castle in Scotland while David Drury of Surrey provides us with a limited impression of the Queen's vast, Windsor Castle estate. However the English by no means have a monopoly on medieval castles as evidenced by Chenonseau Castle (below, left) which is sort of a castle with a chateau (almost) attached, and Gustave Courbet's painting of the French Chateau de Chillon (below, right) dates from 1874. And despite what certain tourist agencies in Germany would have you to believe, Schloss Neuschwanstein is not the only castle in Germany. In fact, Lichtenstein Castle (above, left) not far away has a longer history, one filled with more drama, romance, destruction, and rebuilding than virtually any other such structure in Germany, or any other European country.

Chenonseau Castle,
Loire Valley, France

Chateau de Chillon, 1874,
Gustave Courbet

Besides Germany, Ireland and Italy also have their share of medieval castles though in Italian painting they often are used simple as backdrops for history paintings rather than the focal point for the landscape paintings preferred by the French and especially the English. Castle with Italian Soldiers at the Court of Honor (below, left) by Ludovico Marchetti is typical of the Italian castle painting as compared to the picturesque landscape, Dunguaire Castle, Ireland (below, right), 2012, by contemporary landscape artist, Bill de Lange.

Castle with Italian Soldiers at the Court
of Honor, Ludovico Marchetti

Dunguaire Castle, Ireland,
2012, Bill de Lange

Finally, I guess I should validate to some degree my own knowledge and expertise in painting castles by displaying my one and only venture into the genre, the famed Château Laurier (a hotel) in Ottawa, Canada (below). Strictly speaking it's not a castle but, as the name implies, a chateau; but insofar as my painting repertoire is concerned--"close enough." I call it Castle in the Sky. It dates from 1982, so obviously, it's been a while (like 33 years) since I've dabbled in anything approximating a castle painting. But I've always been quite fond of it. I'd be even more fond of it if someone would buy it.

Copyright, Jim Lane

Castle in the Sky, 1982, Jim Lane

I said at the beginning I'd not include any fantasy castles,
but I didn't rule out fictional castles. Here's Rita Foster's
Hogwarts Castle. If you look carefully, you can see Harry
peering out of the second window from the left in the
second turret from the right.

 

Contemporary Castles

Grizer's first castle (top) and his second (lower, right)
now under construction, soon to be a bed and breakfast.

The other day as I was perusing the local newspaper, I stumbled upon an article about a man and his wife from Whipple, Ohio, who were in the process of building their very own medieval castle. The first question crossing my mind was, do people still build medieval castles? Whipple is in northern Washington County some fifty or sixty miles from where we live, but in fact, part of the school district where I once taught art. My first inclination was to check to see if I recognized the names of any of the friends and family of Bill Grizer working on the project. I didn't. Grizer is the teenager who grew up wanting to live in a castle. Actually, he does already, having converted his ranch style home (top)into a fairly reasonable facsimile of a medieval castle. His second endeavor along this line is grander (to the tune of 35,000 square feet) and far more medieval. With the help of his wife, six kids, and extended family, Grizer expects to finish in 1217.

 

Architect Charles Sieger's dream castle in Miami, complete
with its own moat and probably alligators too.

As impressive as Bill Grizer's medieval dream may sound, it's relatively modest compared to what other architectural dreamers have put the minds and money to work in building medieval castles. Take, for instance, architect, Charles Sieger's "modern medieval" castle built in the center of a man-made lake near Miami (above). If you, too, yearn to live in a castle, this one can be yours for a modest $10.9-million. It comes complete with such medieval amenities as a pool with fountain and a pond, 10,124-square-feet, eight-bedrooms, and a six-car garage. When does a castle become a palace?

 

An eclectic medieval exterior, a refined late-medieval interior.

Actually, where such architectural extravaganzas are concerned, that's a very valid question. The key word in the residences we're looking at here today is "medieval." All too often such castles get lumped in with, and confused with, chateaus. Chateaus are, indeed, palaces, or close relatives at least. Castles, on the other hand, have always been basically fortresses in which the medieval wealthy took refuge to keep from being murdered in their sleep. They have tall, thick, stone walls, topped by crenellations, watchtowers (round or rectilinear), heavy arched doors, narrow slits for windows, small courtyards, and limited, quite "masculine" decorations. The chateau may retain some of those items, but never the defensive walls, moats, or alligators. The Oak Brook, Illinois, castle (above), is an eclectic mix, heavy and simple like a castle, but lacking the all-important defensive walls. Hagar the Horrible would have little difficulty sacking this one.

A fairly good example of the medieval adapted to a thoroughly modern, luxurious lifestyle.
Translated that means a mansion with medieval decorations.

Contemporary castles can pop up virtually anywhere the rich and famous find convenient to congregate, such as the small town of Versailles, in horse-country Kentucky (some five miles west of Lexington). Castle Post may once have been one man's home and castle, but today it's a ten-unit, high-end hotel with a single room starting at $195 per night. A Majestic Suite will set you back $420 per night. Or if you'd like to turn the place into your own private castle, that'll cost you $265-million. The castle features low walls, cut stone, round towers, conical roofs, and pseudo-medieval furnishings. This one is medieval, but only up to a point.



Though modest in size and lacking an all-encompassing wall, this example has many of the medieval attributes the larger attempts at castle building often lack.
Only the open porch seems out of character.

As in the case of Bill Grizer, medieval castle architecture seems to be just as popular with the modestly well-off, as with the billion-bucks set. Moreover, when the wealthy engage high-profile, high-priced medieval architects what they usually end up with is lots of compromises. In the more than five-hundred years since castles were all the rage, how we live our lives has changed drastically. Walt Disney, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Bavaria's mad King Ludwig not withstanding, castles were seldom things of great beauty (nor were they intended to be). Yet today, an ugly, highly defendable castle with thick walls rising fifty to sixty feet from the water level in the fetid moat (with or without alligators) would hardly be conducive to comfortable habitation no matter how devoted the owner might be to medieval lore. So instead, as in the case of the high-tech architectural genius (below) with his 3-D printer and way too much time on his hands, those who long for the long-past days of lords and ladies, can only pretend. Pretending is good, it keeps us from going insane.

All you have to do is figure out a way to hook up your printer to a cement mixer.

 

Charles Thomson



Charles Thomson's recent work.

One of the things that never ceases to amaze me is how little practicing artist know about art history. Perhaps I should modify that a bit by saying how little they understand about the subject. Moreover, their lack of understanding is primarily an inability to see the BIG PICTURE having to do with that from which their art has grown. For instance, an artist who paints impressionist works may know a good deal about, Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, Degas, etc. but know next to nothing about Sisley, Morisot, Bazille, Hassam, Sickert, or Liebermann. On top of that, they have little or no concept as to where Impressionism fits in with those styles and movements which surround it in the vast, past parade of human creative endeavors (other than to be fairly sure that Impressionism was followed by Post-Impressionism).

Co-founder of Stuckism.

Sir Nicholas Serota Makes an Acquisitions
Decision, 2000, Charles Thomson,
the Stuckist iconic masterpiece.

All of this may seem to be of little consequence to most painters today until they come face to face with "outrageous" art--that is to say, that which outrages and challenges their often limited definition of art. Manet challenged the 19th century art definition with "art for art's sake" and his Luncheon on the Grass. During the early 20th century, Duchamp did the same with his Fountain (a urinal laid on its back). Tracey Emin's My Bed and the entire conceptual art movement challenged the 21st century definition of art. In each case there were whole groups of artists who reacted to these definitional challenges by simply retorting, "that's not art." That's the easy way out. The hard way in each century was to broaden and/or modify their definition of art. The problem with this reaction is that if the definition of art becomes infinitely broad art, then anything can become art. Defining art becomes meaningless if virtually any object or tableau, isolated to the antiseptic environment of a whitewashed art gallery, constitutes fine art. Minimalism proved to be the dying breath of Modern Art. It could easily be claimed that Conceptual Art represents the same death knell for Postmodern Art. Around 1999, two painters in England were among the first to foresee this dead end. Rather than make plans to attend the funeral, they began a crusade to, in effect, cure what ailed Postmodern art. Their names were Billy Childish  and Charles Thomson. Someone called this crusade "Stuckism." The name stuck.

An Artist and His Model, (a tribute to
Picasso), Charles Thomson

Having dealt with the Stuckists in some detail before, I don't propose to do so again here except to say that Charles Thomson is a very nice man and he has been one of the few I've ever written about who has taken the time to comment personally on my comments. He's also one of the few working artists I know who truly understands the history of art in the broadest sense as he discusses in the video above. He understands that for an artist to carve out a position at the highest levels in the art world, he or she must also carve out their place in art history. Stuckism allowed Thomson to do that, by fostering a group of other artists sympathetic to his ideals, then to take on some of the biggest names and strongest powers in the London art world, including gallery magnate Charles Saatchi, the Tate Museum, and its Turner Prize competition. The crusade he and Machine began allowed Thomson to combat the poisonous rise of Conceptual Art to mainstream status while proposing an alternative, a rediscovery of figural art, not as a style, but as a broad, rich, area of content aimed at preventing the premature death of Postmodern Art. In the process, almost as a byproduct, he has made a name for himself and his art, not for a place in any museum, but on the blank walls of those, like himself, wishing to save art from itself. An Artist and His Model (above, right) is typical of Thomson's black-outline period marking his style up through about 2013 when he began to paint in a more abstract, more colorful, more painterly manner (top).

Thomson curated the Stuckists Punk Victorian Show, Walker Gallery, Liverpool, 2004.

Thomson, born in 1953, is no longer a young man on the make. He often finds himself torn between promoting Stuckism and pursuing his own work--painting and promoting Charles Thomson. He does not paint in a Stuckist style. The fact that he paints mostly figures (people and animals), combined with his leadership of those artists, not just in England, but around the world, who paint similar content for similar reasons, is what makes Charles Thomson a Stuckist. In today's art world, how and what he paints, is largely secondary. Art history embraces leaders. The same is true of art galleries, art collectors, and eventually, art museums (perhaps, one day, even the Tate).

Thomson at work in his studio, ca. 2003.

An ironic, iconic motto to live by.