Judy Cassab

Klimt Head with Nude , 2005, Judy Cassab

In today's world, virtually every area of human endeavor has at least one major award for outstanding achievement. A few, like the Academy Awards (Oscars), the Grammys, and the Tony awards we're somewhat familiar with. Most such awards go largely unnoticed except in the trade magazines associated with that profession. That's largely the case with art as well. In the United States we have the Carnegie Prize. In England, the rough equivalent is the often controversial Turner Prize (Tate Museum), while in other countries there's the Kathe Kollwitz Prize, (Berlin), the Praemium Imperiale (Japan), Prix de Rome (Belgium and Netherlands), and the Lescarbot Award in Canada, to name just a few. In Australia, for painters at least, being accepted into the Archibald Prize competition is the approximate equivalent of an Oscar nomination in the U.S. Winning the prize puts an artist at the very top of the Australian art world. Winning it twice practically turns an artist into something of a national treasure. Judy Cassab won the Archibald twice (1961 and 1968), the only woman to ever do so. Quite apart from her obvious painting skills, sheer persistence pays off too. She was accepted into the competition virtually every year for forty-one years. (She lived to be ninety-five.)

Portraiture with an expressionistic style--new to Australia at the time.

Judy Cassab was born in 1920, in Vienna, Austria. She studied in Prague at the Budapest Academy before obtaining forged papers and 'going underground' to escape the persecution of Hungarian Jews. After the war, she and her husband were reunited and went to Australia. However, Cassab quickly discovered she could not make a living by painting. So, she took up teaching even though she hardly spoke English. She found inspiration for a fairly abstract style of painting in the landscape of the Northern Territory, to which she repeatedly returned. Gradually, she became friends with artists such as Jeffrey Smart, Stanislaus Rapotec and Desiderius Orban. It was her portrait of Rapotec with which she won the 1961 Archibald Prize, becoming the first woman in twenty years to do so. She won again with a portrait of her friend and fellow artist, Margo Lewers, in 1968. The Art Gallery of New South Wales describes these portraits as "...strong paintings which were considered to be the first serious attempts among Archibald entries to bring portraiture into the modern idiom."

In the latter years of her life, Cassab painted few portraits,
favoring mostly nudes (top) and abstract landscapes.

The Archibald Prize for Portraiture has been running annually from 1921 to present In total, 89 prizes have been awarded. A number of artists have won several times, those 89 Archibald Portrait Prizes having been awarded to 53 artists. The competition rules require that all portraits entered be by Australian artists of notable Australians. Many entries have included scientists, educators, writers, and Politians. For the last twenty years, portraits of figures from fine arts (painters painting painters) or entertainment fields have dominated the winning pool.

The Artist's Grandmother. 1932,
Judy Cassab

An artist's family portraits are quite often their best, with Cassab's being no exception as seen in those of her son and grandson (above). One of the artist's earliest works is a drawing of her grandmother (left) dating from 1932, done when she Judy was about twelve years old. She brought it with her from Austria. It hung on the wall of her room at the nursing home where she died in November of 2015.

Desert Shapes with Cave, 1985, Judy Cassab



Not all of Cassab's
paintings were
portraits of abstracts.

 

Felice Casorati

Girl on Red Carpet, 1912, Felice Casorati

One of the fascinating parts of writing about other artists is in discovering through their work that they have struggled with some of the same technical problems that I have. Several years ago I visited the ancient tourist town of Taormina in Sicily. Over the years, many artists have visited and painted scenes from the area, usually centering on the ancient Greek/Roman amphitheater and its scenic relationship to Mount Etna in the distance. But one of the most distinctive features of this more than two-thousand-year-old town is it's main square, sprawling about half-way up the cliffs overlooking the Mediterranean. The square's stone pavement is done in a checkerboard pattern of low contrast blue-gray and pale yellow. I shot numerous digital images then later stitched them together to form a Postmodern source photo from which to paint my hands and arms holding a small, digital camera taking a picture of the square (below). The Italian artist, Felice Casorati probably never visited Taormina, but in painting his Girl on Red Carpet (above) he encountered the same problem in 1912 as I did exactly a hundred years later--perspective.

 

Copyright, Jim Lane

Picture Taormina, 2012, Jim Lane

I have long contended that you can very well tell the caliber of an artists by whether or not he or she appears to struggle with the very logical drawing science of linear perspective. By that criteria, Felice Casorati and I appear to be of the same caliber. Look carefully at the two paintings. Normally such a patterned floor would be a matter of two sets of intersecting lines receding to vanishing points usually outside the picture frame. Most competent artists can handle that (I used to teach two-point perspective to middle-school kids). However, when the floor pattern extends nearly to the theoretical horizon (a line drawn between the two vanishing points), the draughtsmanship, not to mention the painting, becomes anything but simple, two-point, linear perspective. The images below of the two paintings help explain what I mean.

 

It's very likely the cause of such perspective problems is the
same for both paintings--the use of multiple photos. 

For the most part, Felice Casorati's other works either don't rely on the demanding drafting techniques of Realism (or perspective). As he matured, his work moved in the direction of German Expressionism and Symbolism as seen in his Gustav Klimt-like female images such as And Life Calls (or The Prayer), from 1914 (below).

 

And Life Calls (or The Prayer), 1914, Felice Casorati

A Felice Casorati woodcut print.

Casorati's Dreaming of Pomegranates (below), would also suggest an influence from England's Pre-Raphaelite move-ment. His works of the 1920s is typify, in their emphasis on geometry and formal clarity. The "return to order" tendency then prevalent in the arts, which was a reaction to WW I. Although many critics found Casorati's work cold, cerebral, and academic, he achieved international re-cognition as a leading figure in this move-ment. Often working in tempera, Casorati drew inspiration from his study of Ren-aissance masters, especially Piero della Francesca.

 

Dreaming of Pomegranates, Felice Casorati

Casorati was born in Novara (northwestern) Italy. He showed an early liking for music, but was forced to abandon his study of the piano due to a serious childhood illness. As he recuperated, Casorati became interested in art. To please his mother he studied law at the University of Padua until 1906. However, his ambition to be a painter was confirmed in 1907 when a painting of his was shown in the Venice Biennale. The works he produced in the early years of his career were naturalistic in style, but after 1912 the influence of the Symbolists, and particularly of Gustav Klimt, turned him toward a more visionary art.

 

Casorati was one of several early 20th-century Italian
artists who struggled to find their place, and Italy's
place, in the postwar art world.

Casorati was arrested in 1923 for his involvement with an anti-Fascist group, After being briefly detained, the artist subsequently avoided antagonizing the regime. Beginning in 1923, he opened his studio to the young art students of Turin, and to emerging Italian artists such as Quinto Martini and painters of the Gruppo dei Sei (Group of Six). In 1925, one of his students was Daphne Accatino, whom he married. After 1930 the severity of Casorati's earlier style softened somewhat and his palette brightened. He continued to exhibit widely, winning many awards, including the First Prize at the Venice Biennale of 1938. Felice Casorati died in Turin in 1963.
 

Felice Casorati also painted a tremendous number of
female nudes as well as still-lifes, portraits (below), and Fiats
(bottom), most of which I do not find particularly appealing.
(Okay, maybe the Fiat.)

Two Girls, Felice Casorati

Fiat, (possibly an ad), Felice Casorati

 

John F. Carlson

 

Sunlit Banks, John F. Carlson

Anyone who reads what I write in this blank space on a regular basis has probably come to realize that I have a warm place in my heart for snow scenes. The only problem with that is that the snow keeps melting. Maybe I should be more "coldhearted." I've painted quite a few such works myself and seldom see a painted "snowscape" for which I don't stop and enjoy for at least a few lingering seconds. Let me point out that such winter scenes may not be the most difficult type of landscapes to master, yet they do have their own set of pitfalls and difficulties to challenge even the experienced landscape artist. Moreover, I wouldn't consider any painter of landscapes to be highly experienced who couldn't handle any of the four season, their weather, and times of the day with a reasonable degree of ease. That would certainly be the case with one of the few past "experts" in this painting endeavor, John F. Carlson.

 

Fortunately for Carlson, it snows a lot in Woodstock
area of New York just west of the Hudson River.

I might ordinarily point to Carlson's Sunlit Banks (top) as being one of his best, most exceptional works. However, as attractive as it is, it's not an especially outstanding example of his work. Actually, it's quite typical. As the other examples of Carlson's winter images (above) tend to show, virtually all of his winter scenes (in fact all his landscapes) are of this high caliber. You might say that Carlson "wrote the book" on landscape painting. If so, you'd be right. In 1928, Carlson published an instructional book titled Elementary Principles of Landscape Paintings. The book was reprinted in 1953, 1958, 1970 and 1973. More recent editions have been titled Carlson's Guide to Landscape Painting.

 

The man has been dead nearly seventy years, but still
John F. Carlson's books on landscape painting remain
a sort of "bible" on the subject.

John F. Carlson was born in 1875 near Kolsebro, in Småland, (southern) Sweden. He and his family came to America in 1887 when he was twelve. His earliest training was at the Art Students League in New York City, where he studied from 1902 to 1906, primarily under Frank Vincent Dumond. Carlson later became involved in teaching at the League, primarily in the summer program in Woodstock, New York. He assisted in directing that program starting in 1909, becoming director himself in 1911. After 1918, he became director of the Broadmoor School of Art in Colorado Springs until 1923 when he founded the John F. Carlson School of Landscape Painting back in Woodstock. The school operated until 1938, becoming very influential in the genre for which Carlson is most known.

 In addition to his numerous teaching positions, Carlson was
awarded the status of Associate and later, Academician,
of the National Academy of Design.

Such was Carlson's reputation and stamina in painting outdoors in the harsh conditions of winter that in 1914, he accompanied the Amundson Polar expedition, as seen in his striking watercolor depicting the intrepid explorers (below). It must have been quite a challenge, painting with watercolor under such freezing circumstances.

 

Amundson Polar expedition, 1914, John F. Carlson

Although, being from Sweden, Carlson seems to have specialized in winter landscapes, by no means was his painting limited to North Pole watercolors of snowy meadows and streams. As his Gloucester (below) would indicate, Carlson's skills went far beyond even landscape painting to include harbor scenes and even portraits as seen in his Pink Kimono (bottom) from 1906-07, painted early in his career of his future wife, the painter Mary Goddard Carlson. They were married in 1913. John Fabian Carlson died in 1947, his wife in 1964.

Gloucester, John F. Carlson

The Pink Kimono, 1906-07,
John F. Carlson,

 

Who the #$&% Is Jackson Pollock

Teri Horton and her Pollock "masterpiece" (2006).

Usually, when I write about the art of motion pictures, I choose from the top 100 on some list of classic epics which have won multiple awards and taken home millions in profits from the box office. That's not the case with the 74-minute 1996 documentary with the intriguing title, Who the #$&% is Jackson Pollock. Unlike the Sony epic Pollock from 2000, which earned at the box office a modest profit (for a film about an artist) of about $2-million, Who the #$&% Is Jackson Pollock is not really about Jackson Pollock. It's about a spunky, seventy-three-year-old, long-haul truck driver named Teri Horton, although she is, in many ways, very much like Pollock.

 

Let's let Teri Horton begin her story in the trailer for her movie debut:

 

The entire movie is available on YouTube at: https://youtu.be/ygufyC4v2XE

For the benefit of those who, like Teri Horton, know little or nothing about Jackson Pollock, he was born in 1912 in Cody, Wyoming. He was the fifth and youngest son. At an early age, Pollock was exposed to Native Americans and their art which would later influence his work. He attended the Los Angeles Manual Arts High School where he was persuaded to take up a career in art. In 1930 along with his eldest brother, Pollock moved to New York City where he studied under Thomas Hart Breton at the Art Students League. At the yearly school exhibit, he met his future wife, Lee Krasner, a fellow artist, who was viewing his work. From 1935 to 1943, Pollock worked for the Works Project Association (WPA) Federal Arts Project (FAP). During this time Pollock was introduced to liquid paint in 1936 by Mexican muralist David Siqueiros, though he didn’t use it until his "drip" period. His early art was influenced by Picasso and Miró, as well as Surrealism and Native American art. In 1943, Jackson had his first solo exhibit. Peggy Guggenheim sponsored it and guaranteed him a salary of $150 a month.

Jack the Dripper, ca. 1952.

The retired truck driver, Teri Horton, is the perfect lead for the documentary produced by Don Hewitt, Steven Hewitt, and Michael Lynne, directed by Harry Moses. If she hadn't existed, they would have had to invent her. Moreover, having had no experience in acting or motion pictures other than playing herself, Horton "carries" the picture superbly. She's nothing if not colorful in the best salty, truck-driving sense of the word while at the same time being quite believable. Moreover, she also believes in her own brand of fairy tales with happy endings. Ironically, Jackson Pollock is not her favorite artist. She'd more the Norman Rockwell type.

Teri Horton--she may not look the part, but she plays her
retired truck driver role to the hilt.

In trying to sell her unauthenticated Pollock, Teri Horton first turned to the effete world of Pollock collectors, who did a lot of salivating at the prospect of obtaining a Jackson Pollock for a "mere" $50-million, without a signature on the painting or irrefutable provenance, they wouldn't touch it. Turning next to so-called Pollock "experts" didn't help much though some were inclined to back her claim to fame. Others had doubts, and in the art authenticating business, even small doubts count for a lot. Inevitably, that left only scientific forensic examinations of the painting itself, its structure, its canvas, its paint, it's technique, its aging, and any peculiarities tying it to the artist and his other authenticated pieces.



Teri Horton's biggest hurdle involves the fact that Pollock's work
had so often been copied, even during his short, tragic, professional lifetime. The total number of authenticated works has been put at just over one-hundred. Their prices range from the tens of millions upward to a recent sale for $140-million. That kind of money brings forgeries and copies like termites out of the woodwork, casting doubt on even lesser-known authentic pieces.

Thomas Hoving, former director of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York,

About the same time, their came the filmmakers who quickly brought Horton and her serendipitous find to public attentions with guest spots with Leno on The Tonight show, as well as appearances with David Letterman and Montel Williams. As this smart, hard-bitten woman with an eighth-grade education pursuing her quest, the documentary por-trays the debate between con-noisseurship and science as a culture war. Among the connoisseurs who insist that a refined eye is the ultimate judge of authenticity is Thomas Hoving, the former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, exuding contempt and superciliousness. He is the most outspoken in his rejection. Shown the painting, he dismisses it as “pretty, superficial, and frivolous.”

A comparison of the real thing with questionable wanna-be.

Horton insists that forensic, scientific facts prove her Pollock's authenticity. Key to this claim was fingerprint analysis by Montreal art restorer, Peter Paul Biró. Biro, a self-satisfied forensic specialist from Canada found a fingerprint on the back of Ms. Horton’s painting, which he matched to fingerprints found on a Pollock painting in Berlin and in Pollock’s former studio in East Hampton, N.Y. By the end of the film, you are left with the unpleasant sense that the art world snobs have drawn their wagons into a circle to keep out hicks like Teri. Horton and her experts These smooth-talking "connoisseurs" gladly take on the role as guardians of an insular world that enriches itself through a kind of legal insider trading, and are deeply threatened by the intrusions of forensic science. The movie calls into question the ultimate reliance on provenance, in which a history of a painting’s ownership is the sole criteria used for certification.

Become an art expert. Examine Teri Horton's Pollock closely.
What's your verdict? Is it real or is it ugly? 

To give equal time to the "snooty" Thomas Hoving, who pooh-poohed fake-busting on only scientific grounds, he had this to say following his lengthy examination of Teri Horton's Pollock: "It is too neat and too sweet, using soigné colors that Pollock never used. Some lines are perfectly straight--it’s hard to drip straight lines. The canvas is commercially sized, which means that paint does not come through the back of the canvas. All real Pollocks are in-sized and his paint patterns can easily be seen from the back. Also, the thing is painted with acrylics. Pollock never used acrylics." Hoving goes on to add that his impression suggests that the painting was never intended to be a fake Pollock but what he terms a "decorator piece" commissioned in the 1950s as inexpensive status symbols. By the way, recent indications are the Ms. Horton has not yet found a buyer wealthy enough for her painting.


























 

Autumn Art

On the Saco, Albert Bierstadt

Now that radiant beauty of this year's autumn season lies in several blanketing layers of dull, drab, wet leaves all over our front yard, I suppose it's time to ruminate over their timely passing. Although I've definitely done my share in glorifying the season in paint on canvas over the past fifty years that I've been a man with an easel, I've done so mostly at the behest of the prevailing art market. As a landscape painter it's not my favorite season (I prefer winter scenes). Summer is too "green" for my taste and spring has always seemed to me as being too light and delicate. I guess that makes fall my second favorite time of the year from a painting standpoint (below). Judging from the incredible depth and breadth of images to be found on the Internet, other artists seem quite partial to this season with the silent "n" on the end.

The autumn leaves descend across the country.

In choosing the red, yellow, orange, and brown art and artists to highlight such work, I'm beset with way too much pretty good art and way too little distinctly outstanding creative work. I sympathize. It's extremely difficult to produce unique autumn art when there are literally thousands of other artists striving to also do so. As King Solomon claimed (erroneously, I believe) "There's nothing new under the sun." Finding the "new" can be done but, as they also say, "It ain't easy." Perhaps, to set the bar a bit lower, the autumn artist should, instead, try to render that which is "somewhat rare."

Claude Monet's two versions of autumn on the Argenteuil,
both painted in 1872

 

Autumn Leaves, 1855,
John Everett Millais

I'm not sure if I should really be surprised, but in delving into autumn art, I've discovered that the best such works are the older ones, especially dating from the 19th century; artists such as Albert Bierstadt with works like On the Saco (top), Frederic Edwin Church, John Everett Millais (left), Claude Monet (above) and perhaps most prodigiously, Thomas B. Moran (below). Notice that three of those five are American artists. It would seem that paintings of fall foliage are very much an attribute of landscape painters from the U.S. One fact that has surprised me most in researching autumn art is that there is extremely little of it before 1800. There was much in the way of summer and winter landscapes, but It was as if, until the 1850s, European painters had all decided to take a hiatus every October and November.

Thomas B. Moran's autumn landscapes

In the search for a new way of "handling" the "same old, same old" so often seen in such seasonal scenes today. I chose to look down, not up. The painting, Final Nesting Place (below) dates from 2000, and is based upon an actual photo taken in our backyard. The work is done on Masonite permitting me to extend some of the leaves beyond the frame. It is also painted about life-size, which allowed me to attach actual oak leaves to the surface. This adds a Postmodern element bridging the gap between the real world and that which merely looks real.



Copyright, Jim Lane

Final Nesting Place, 2000, Jim Lane



Quattro Stagioni-Autunno,
(Four Seasons--Fall),
1993-05 ,  Cy Twombly

Some artists, such as Cy Twombly (left), go to extremes in their search for new ways to depict (or at least, suggest) that which has been depicted in so many similar ways by so many similar painters so many similar times in the past. Some succeed. Some may go too far.

 

U.S. Air Force Academy Chapel

Designed and built in the early 1960s, the U.S. Air Force Academy
Chapel, set before a backdrop of he Rocky Mountain foothills,
compares favorably with some of the greatest worship architecture
man has ever conceived.

Few works of man are more impressive and spiritually inspiring than those designed to be places of worship. Over my lifetime I've seen several--Notre Dame de Paris, La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., the Duomo in Florence, Italy, San Marcos in Venice, and St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, to name just a few. All are impressive in their own way and in very different ways. However, none of those are more awe-inspiring than one just outside Colorado Springs, Colorado--the United States Air Force Academy Chapel (above)

 

The soaring nave of the Protestant Chapel.

My first and only visit to the air force academy chapel came while I was still in the air force, in December, 1968. The chapel was still relatively new (completed in 1962). My sister's husband was also in the air force, stationed at Lowry Air Force Base near Denver. My parents flew my brother and I to Denver to celebrate the holidays (I remember most being sick as a dog at the time). We were there for about a week. Colorado Springs is but a little over an hour's drive south of Denver; and along with the Air Force Academy, home to Pike's Peak and Garden on the Gods. The city easily merits a day or two of anyone's vacation time.

 

Three chapels in one, suggesting the massive scale of the building.

The Air Force Academy Chapel is actually not just one chapel but three (more than that if you count the Buddhist Chapel and the All-Faith Rooms). The Protestant Chapel is located on the upper level, the Catholic and Jewish Chapels are one level down (approximately ground level). The cutaway view (above) helps orient the mind's eye. The floor plans (below) serve to fill in the details.

 

The Protestant Chapel seats 1,200, the Catholic Chapel, 500,
the circular Jewish Chapel, 100.

The Cadet Chapel (as it is commonly known) was designed by Walter Netsch of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill of Chicago. Construction was accomplished by Robert E. McKee, Inc., of Santa Fe, New Mexico. Originally the design was quite controversial. Groundbreaking design always is. Since its completion, however, the chapel has become a classic. highly regarded example of modernist architecture. The Cadet Chapel was awarded the American Institute of Architects' National Twenty-five Year Award in 1996. The most striking aspect of the Chapel is its row of seventeen spires making up a tubular steel frame of 100 identical tetrahedrons, each 75 feet (23 m) long, weighing five tons, enclosing aluminum panels spaced one foot apart, thus creating gaps that are filled with 1-inch-thick colored glass. The Cadet Chapel itself is 150 feet (46 m) high, 280 feet (85 m) long, and 84 feet (26 m) wide.

 

Few churches and cathedrals are equally impressive both
on the inside and outside. The Air Force Academy Cadet
Chapels are the exception.

Above the narthex (entrance), in the rear of the Protestant Chapel, is a choir balcony and organ (below), designed by the Holtkamp Organ Company. The organ has 83 ranks and 67 stops controlling 4,334 pipes. Harold E. Wagoner designed the liturgical furnishings for both the Protestant and Catholic chapels. The focal point of the Catholic Chapel is the reredos, an abstract glass mosaic mural designed by Lumen Martin Winter composed of varying shades of blue, turquoise, rose and gray tessera to form a portrayal of the firmament. Superimposed on the mural is a depiction of the Annunciation featuring two, ten-foot (3.0 m) tall marble figures, the Virgin Mary on the left, and the Archangel Gabriel on the right. Above and between these two figures is a marble dove.

 

The pipe organ an choir loft hover over the narthex or
main entrance to the Protestant Chapel.



The chapel under construction, 1961.

All this didn't come cheap. The shell of the chapel and sur-rounding grounds cost $3.5- million in 1962 dollars ($27.5- million in today's cash). Vari-ous furnishings, pipe organs, liturgical fittings and adorn-ments of the chapel were presented as gifts from vari-ous individuals and organ-izations. In 1959, a designated Easter offering was also taken at Air Force bases around the world to help complete the interior. The Air Force Acad-emy is open to visitors through the Academy's North Gate between the hours of 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. (expect security checks). As far as I can tell, admission is free.

A winter sunset at the academy.

 

Paintings I've Not Done Yet--Venice

Copyright, Jim Lane

The Doge's Palace fronting on San Marcos Piazza with its present
day horde of invading tourists. The image was created by "stitching" together three separate photos. Given the limited depth of the area
and the broad expanse of the palace, this is an image that could be
captured in no other way...unless you drew it on location.

Copyright, Jim Lane

One of a long line of painters today
working the streets of Venice.

No one is sure quite when it was, but the Italian city we today call Venice began the day a few mainland refugees drove some sturdy post into the salty marsh of Ven-ice's small group of islands upon which to build crude family shelters. Situated on some 117 tiny islands approximately three miles from the mainland, this effort was seen as a means of evading the horde of Germanic Huns descending from the North. I've often wondered how long it may have been after that day when some Venetian artist first painted a picture of the place. Granted, the first wooden fishing huts rising above the tides on stilts likely weren't what you'd call lovely. Moreover those intrepid victims of the fall of the Roman Empire probably had little time to paint and draw for the first few hundred years. They were poor fishermen before they became wealthy traders. Yet the art of painting may go back further here than any Italian city except Rome.

Copyright, Jim Lane

Venice's famed Grand Canal meanders between the city's two
main island forming the letter "S." This was a beautiful, bright
sunny day, but the colors were nothing like those many artists
have used to capture its romantic essence.

Copyright, Jim Lane

The San Marcos
Campanile (bell
tower) stands tall
directly across the
square from the
church and the
Doge's Palace.

Although it's hard to say when someone first painted the canals of Venice, it's not so hard to date the first of the millions (billions?) of photographs taken of the city (roughly since 1850). I may not have painted the city at the time but I was certainly among the massive number who have tried to capture Venice's amazing charms through a camera lens. Whether artist or photographer, a visitor to Venice would be derelict in his or her duty not to bring back images of the Grand Canal (above), San Marcos Campanile (left), the Rialto Bridge, the Doge's Palace (top), the Basilica of San Marcos itself, and perhaps San Giorgio Maggiore (directly across the main channel from San Marcos). Of these, I missed only the Rialto Bridge. The Campanile was composed of two photos, the break coming near the white area at the top (well worth the nine euros to ride to the top). To my way of thinking the view from San Marcos encompassing San Giorgio Maggiore with its bell tower, monastery, and church designed by the famous Italian architectural scholar, Andrea Palladio (below), is the most impressive view to be found in the city, which is no small accolade since there has long been a massive stone church for virtually every island in the city. San Giorgio's bell tower is just slightly shorter than its nearly identical twin across the channel. (This scene I have painted--bottom).



Copyright, Jim Lane

San Giorgio Maggiore, just a short canoe gondola ride across the
channel from San Marcos.

Looking back across the channel from the island of Maggiore, San Marcos and the heart of Venice is too cluttered with ten centuries of willy-nilly architecture to be considered attractive by photographers. Only the most talented artists can revive its latent beauty and lingering charm. This one, single, fact may well be what stuns and disappoints photographers most. I wouldn't call the city "ugly" (my wife has), but it's not the same Venice as Canaletto and his consummate crew of creative cohorts painted five hundred years ago.

Copyright, Jim Lane

Venice from Maggiore--overpriced sidewalk restaurants,
water taxis, billboards, and highly esteemed architecture.
 

Copyright, Jim Lane

The canal entrance to the
Hotel All' Angelo where we
stayed three nights. San
Marcos was five minutes
away.

If the Venice that was and the Venice that is, seems somewhat unsettling, the interior of the Doge's Palace with its open-sky court-yard and monumental ceremonial steps more than makes up for it. In large part the same could be said for many of the other examples of Classic and Baroque arch-itectural landmarks within the city (but not the drab, dark, colorlessness of the Byzantine San Marcos Basilica). Again and again, as you click away with your virtually limitless digital cameras, you have the feeling of stepping back in time. It's only when you pay your hotel bill (left) that you realize, despite what you see, you're really still in the 21st-century.

Copyright, Jim Lane

The Porta della Carta, 1438–1442, Giovanni Bon and
Bartolomeo Bon. The grand stairway built to serve as

the ceremonial entrance to the building. It now presides

over the exit.

 

-------------------------------------

As the twelfth group in this series, like the others, these photos are available free of charge for use by painters as source material for their own work on an individual basis. Simply e-mail me with a request to do so at jimlane@jimlanart.com and indicate which photo you would like to use as well as your full name (no nicknames) and geographic location. If you have a website, include the URL. And please, when finished, e-mail me a photo of your painting. These images are not for publication as photos (except on a royalty basis) nor are they in the public domain.

 



Copyright, Jim Lane

Two gondoliers. In focusing on the monumental, don't
miss the local color

Copyright, Jim Lane

Intruder of the Seas, 2014, Jim Lane
(One of my most recent paintings and
the one, and only, painting of Venice.)