Catching up with spring

Spring in coastal Georgia comes with such a rush of beauty and imperatives that there is never enough time to celebrate it all. Suddenly there are a myriad subjects to draw in silverpoint, another vast selection to paint in watercolours - and time never suffices.

It is always interesting to return to a subject that one has drawn or painted before; every artist has favourite themes to visit and revisit over time. It is astonishing how a simple flower, such as an azalea, can elicit different reactions and dictate different approaches every time it is drawn or painted. No wonder museums have such diverse collections of paintings and drawings which include and celebrate flowers. Think of the heyday of Dutch flower painting in the 17th century, when so many talented artists followed Jacques de Gheyn II's example. He was one of the earliest artists (1565-1629), who depicted wonderful tulips, roses and other flowers (not all of which bloomed at the same time) to satisfy the demands of the ever-more wealthy Dutch burghers. Since then, Manet, Fatin-Latour, Monet, Renoir, Matisse and so many others have turned to flowers for inspiration again and again.

Perhaps it is because one can see in a flower the basis for realism or pure abstraction - at the same time, really - that it is endlessly interesting as a subject. Added to which, I personally find a serenity and elegant logic to a flower that delight. However, each time, there is a surprise in how the structure works and I am often reminded of Paul Valery's statement: "Until you draw an object, you realise that you have never actually seen it." And so one rushes to catch the fleeting spring glories, to try and "see" them close up and celebrate them - again!

The energy of art

During a visit to South Carolina to see the recently-opened exhibition from the Davies Collection, National Museum Wales, Turner to Cezanne, at the Columbia Museum of Art (http://www.columbiamuseum.org), I was struck afresh at the energy and magic created by art.

Not only was the exhibit a delight, with small canvases of great interest and often great beauty, but the whole experience of seeing the show was fascinating. The exhibition galleries were thronged with excited, but well behaved school children being taken around by docents. Their energy and fresh reactions to the art were a delight to be a part of as one looked at the art more slowly than they were able to. In amongst the school groups were numerous adults, clearly enjoying and appreciating the exhibition too. Why did I find this so striking ? Well, apparently this is the the most important show the Columbia Museum of Art and its supporters have brought to the city, and despite the current economy, the response from the public has been massive. In the first week already, the museum has seen huge numbers of visitors, both local and from elsewhere.

To me, the public excitement generated by this exhibition reminds one again how art brings people together and strengthens communities. By the time my husband and I had emerged from the museum, we had talked to countless people and even exchanged addresses with new friends. Each painting in the exhibition, from France mainly, but also from England, Wales, Belgium and Holland, quietly or dramatically "spoke" of different landscapes and places, different people and their mores, diverse optics on life in general - all a wonderfully subtle and beguiling way of learning of other lands, their history and culture. Each artist, whether it was Turner, Monet, Van Gogh, Manet, Pissarro, Whistler, Renoir or Cezanne..., passionately told of their experiences and convictions, beauties and visions. People were smiling, obviously interested and learning, marvelling at different aspects of the art. In other words, the visit to the exhibition moved visitors, made them feel better and made their day special.

What a perfect prescription - go to see an art exhibition to make one feel energetic, inspired and even joyous!

The Real versus the Ideal

I have been reading about the Middle Ages to remind myself about aspects of this key transitional era in our Western history. One of the delights is to have small illustrations of contemporary illuminated manuscripts by artists such as Loyset Liédet of Bruges, who did many of the illustrations for Jean Froissart's Chronicles in the text prepared for Luis de Gruthuuse, a wealthy Flemish nobleman. In these miniatures, people are the most important part of the image, and the landscape behind is purely secondary and very idealised. For instance, the painting of the Battle of Poitiers 1356, shows an idyllic backdrop of blue mountains and peaceful scenery which contrasts sharply with the battle depicted in the foreground. The same treatment was meted out to landscapes in medieval wall paintings and tapestries; they were merely the background to human activity. Battles, religious events, societal changes were worth recording. Nature was not of much importance,

This state of affairs continued for many years, with artists paying some attention to landscapes and nature - think of Leonardo da Vinci's studies of dogs, horses, water flowing or landscapes in Tuscany... or Albrecht Dürer's studies of flowers, rabbits, countrysides. But in France, the landscape did not become an independent and valid subject for artists to paint and draw until the 1620s, when it became more of a specialised subject. Claude Lorrain was one of the pioneers in landscape painting, but his works were idealised and romantic to say the least. Interest in landscapes increased gradually until artists such as Jean-Baptiste Corot became a skilled interpreter of the landscape, even if he did do many "pot-boilers" to earn his living. By his time, landscape painting was being taught in the art academies in France, although it was a genre that was ranked pretty low on their "intellectual or moral content" scale. History painting and portraiture were still far more highly esteemed. Landscape painting, which did not require knowledge of anatomy, still had to be idealised really to win respect and admiration from connoisseurs and other artists.

Then came the radical change in France. Pierre Henri de Valenciennes worked hard within the Academy to establish a Prix de Rome for "historical landscapes", advocating that artists paint a "portrait" of a landscape. His publication, Eléments de perspective pratique à l'usage des artistes, (Elements of Practical Perspective for Artists, 1799-1800), was a key influence for artists painting landscapes for decades. By the 1830s, Charles-François Daubigny was painting outdoors in the Fontainbleau region, soon joined by others, like Millet, in the Barbizon School, while another group was forming on the coast near Le Hâvre, led by Eugène Boudin. Monet joined him as a student, and the rest, as they say, is history. Pisarro, Sisley, Renoir, Van Gogh, Cézanne and even Degas on occasions - they all worked outdoors. Edouard Manet tried his hand too at plein air when he painted a small work, "Effect of Snow at Petit-Montrouge", in 1870, when he was on guard during the siege of Paris in the Franco-Prussian War.

These artists had all completely altered the concept and quest for beautiful painted landscapes. No longer was anything idealised. Instead the 19th century French artists, and especially those who became known as the Impressionists, turned their energies and their passion towards portraying the landscape as real, as they saw it, experienced it firsthand and interpreted it. They showed not only nature's beauties but also its intricacies and vagaries. Nature had been transformed and placed centre stage, no longer subservient to any human presence in the work of art. A huge change from the careful, tiny depictions of background idealised landscapes of medieval times....

Flowers in Art

After a week of much colder weather, the flower garden is definitely in winter mode, save for a few brave camellias now venturing to bloom again. They are one of the most beautiful aspects of Southern gardens for me, and I can never plant enough of them, particularly the whites and pale shell pinks.

Since there is so little variety outside, I have been going through flower paintings in my mind's eye. This was made all the easier as I have been thinking about medieval times, when religious texts were becoming more and more luxurious, with an increasing demand for Books of Hours by wealthy patrons. Many of these jewel-like small creations are bedecked with the most wonderful depictions of flowers, many of them with floral symbols to underline the religious truths of the texts. An introduction to some of these images, with colours glowing and flowers ranging from pinks to violets, asters, forget-me-nots, daisies or roses, shows that by 1410, artists were producing the most amazing Books of Hours for patrons such as Catherine of Cleves, Flemish or French nobility. Perhaps the most famous is Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, painted from 1412-1416 almost exclusively by the three Limbourg brothers, Paul, Henri and Jean. Interestingly, there are not many details of flowers, but even here, in one image of a Funeral Service, campanula wander amongst the text on one column. By 1500, the use of flowers in Books of Hours was widespread, as can be seen in this edition done in Rouen, France, held in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. (The illustration above is one I called Palma's Book of Hours, done in silverpoint and watercolour, as the tobacco/nicotiana opened and closed each day in a rhythm which marked off the hours for me in perfumed regularity.)

Another early devotional book, the Wilton Diptych, was created in England c. 1395-1399, for the purposes of accompanying its rich travelling owner. In one scene, pink roses adorn the angels' heads, but apparently they were originally the red Rosa Gallica, one of the earliest known rose varieties. An image of this can be found, amongst others, on a wonderful web page on the BBC. This site depicts a wide variety of flower paintings down the ages and it underlines the continuous attraction for artists of flowers, in their beautiful diversity and elegance. This is hardly surprising when one thinks that we humans have always known flowers - they have been in existence for about 120 million years. Fascinatingly, they have apparently always played a central role for humans - archaeologists have found a burial site for a man, two women, and a child, in a cave in Iraq. They were Neanderthals, living in these Pleistocene caves. On this burial site had been placed a bunch of flowers.

The Greeks placed great store on flowers, such as violets and had them in their houses and wore them in crowns at feast times. The Romans did the same and held festivals of flowers to honour the goddess, Flora. Remember the fresco uncovered in Pompeii of Flora and her flowers. Roses were the flower of the goddess of love, Venus; roses too have always been celebrated by Confucians and Buddhists.

The early Renaissance artists loved to depict lilies in Annunciation scenes - Fra Filippo Lippi was one of the early ones in 1450, for instance. Leonardi da Vinci did the most exquisite drawings of Regale lilies. You can almost feel the weight of the flowers as he studied them and drew them in pen and ink. The Pre-Raphaelites also loved lilies - on the BBC site I mentioned earlier, there is a reproduction of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's "Annunciation" with the lilies the most graceful complement. Then there is the wondrously atmospheric John Singer Sargent painting, "Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose", done in 1885-6, with the children and beautiful tall, proud lilies in the luminous twilight.

The seventeenth century was also the heyday of Dutch flower painting, done by both men and women. One of the most successful was Rachel Ruysch, while another was Judith Leyster, who did some silverpoint drawings of tulips. Flemish-born Ambrosius Bosschaert was one of the first to specialise in flower paintings and others like Jan van Huysum and Jan Bruegel followed his footsteps with looser, often more brilliant styles. Since a lot of the Dutch flower paintings were also about Holland's wide-flung world power and dominance, as well as the flowers' beauty, the artists did not hesitate to mix up flowers from all parts of the world, which would never bloom at the same time. They composed the most astonishing mixes in their arrangements, requiring a lot of time and ingenuity to pull the complex compositions together.

France forged a different approach to flower painting. Pierre Joseph Redouté began his highly talented life as a flower painter under Queen Marie Antoinette's patronage, but the Empress Josephine hastened to continue the patronage after the Revolution. His wonderfully sensitive "portraits" of flowers and plants are so realistic one can almost smell the perfume, for instance, of his roses, and he managed also to combine careful science with astonishing art. He helped pioneer a whole sub-group of botanical artists whose numbers, today, have swelled amazingly and fruitfully throughout the world. Take a look at the American Society of Botanical Artists' website, for instance - I am proud to be a member of the burgeoning Society. (Dr. Shirley Sherwood, of London, has been one of the major supporters of this renaissance of botanical art, and now her collection is not only showing in many venues around the world, but also at Kew in a permanent, dedicated gallery.)

The second half of the 19th century produced some wonderful flower painters in France - Manet did some exquisite studies of flowers in vases, while Henri Fatin-Latour became famous for the way in which he painted roses and peonies, larkspur and other wonderful summer flowers. He would wait until the roses almost dropped their petals, so as to be able to capture that ultimate fullness of musky beauty in each petal. Monet delighted in his flower garden, culminating with the glories of Giverny and his lily pond, while Renoir and Degas were no slouches in their depictions of chrysanthemums, geraniums and other plants. Of course, everyone knows about Vincent van Gogh and his passionate sunflower paintings... he had moved far from the exquisite jewels of medieval flower painting, but left all of us the richer for both approaches. Odile Redon comes to mind too for his pastel studies of flowers that were far beyond just the botanical and yet are brilliantly evocative in their somewhat strange feel.

The twentieth century seems to have always had its lovers of flower paintings. An interesting note I saw was that 55% of all art considered "decorative" and available today is floral art. No wonder there was a reaction against flower paintings in juried shows for a long time! Nonetheless, a lot of us artists have continued to celebrate flowers in art - they are just too important to ignore, and besides, when a garden is in the depths of winter, at least one can evoke warmer times by having paintings or drawings of flowers on the walls.

(I evoked spring with my silverpoint drawing of Azaleas, while the heat of summer can be remembered in the Summer Brilliance of Cannas, which I painted in watercolour.)

Playing

I listened with fascination this morning on National Public Radio to a programme, Play, Spirit and Character, on Krista Tippett's show, Speaking of Faith, (http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org) which talked of playing and its importance in life. Stuart Brown was being interviewed. His wisdom and insights on how animals and humans need to play, in infancy, childhood and adulthood, were fascinating. It is well worth seeking out the interview on the Web.

As Stuart Brown talked about playing, I realised how important playing has always been as I tried to create art. Every time that I want to experiment, to push out boundaries, to improve as an artist, I have always regarded the experience as play. I had not measured, apparently, the vital role play has in daily life, let alone in art. Licence to do something different, unusual, amusing, distracting, lively - these are all versions one can find in the Oxford English Dictionary as definitions, amongst many, of play. Freedom too is a definition. In other words, play is an integral part of one's creativity as an artist: without it, one is liable to be stultified, stuck and dull. Oh!

Think of Manet, Monet, Cezanne, the Fauves, Matisee or Picasso, amongst so many artists - they all show a sense of play in their work, and those works usually herald changes and break-throughs in their development. To say nothing of the spirit of play that one sees among many of the most successful artists of the 20th century, many of whom definitely do not or did not take themselves or the world around them too seriously. It was good to have it reaffirmed in the radio programme today that one needs to play, every day, in all the realms of one's life, but especially in art.