Look West

The Art of Bev Doolittle-

Her work encompasses the whimsical, the mystical and the spiritual, and her own unique camouflage concepts. These themes are interwoven within the complete body of her work and each reveals a different aspect of the artist herself. Her style is characterized by meticulous realism, unsparing attention to detail and an extraordinary talent for drawing. Many of her works are narrative, telling a story or capturing a moment in the world of dreams or the realm of the spirit. Her storytelling captures the imagination, compelling the viewer to bring his own understanding to the work. “Bev literally could draw as soon as she picked up a pencil,” says her mother. “Even before she went to school, she had started drawing horses and people.” Bev won her first award at age twelve in an art contest sponsored by the San Gabrial Historical Society and her first one-artist show was held when she was fourteen. Her high school art teacher suggested that she apply for the Saturday Scholarship at the Los Angeles Art Center College of Design; she won the scholarship and began serious art study even before graduating from high school. Later, she was accepted as a student at the Art Center. Much of Bev’s subject matter is provided by the out-of-doors. “I love nature,” she says, “I try to look beyond the obvious and create unique, meaningful paintings depicting our Western wilderness and it’s inhabitants.”Bev Doolittle’s art, especially her camouflage work, demands months of development, research of terrain and animal sketching. After developing the concept, she creates “thumbnail” sketches, up to as many as fifty, where she reworks the image until she has achieved her idea. Next, she works out all the questions of detail in a larger comprehensive pencil drawing. A color study follows, enabling her to determine the colors that add most to the composition. Finally, she decides the size for the original and begi ns to paint. Her technique is extremely tight and detailed and she works in a very demanding medium—transparent watercolor; it takes long weeks of intensive work to complete an original of her work Bev says, “I start with a concept and attempt to convey it though strong design coupled with detailed realism. I want people to think when they look at my paintings.” They do. Bev Doolittle’s art compels our involvement. Through the magic of her vision and our vision, she forges an interaction between us and the art, rewarding our attention with the excitement of discovery.

Christmas Day, Give or Take a Week- 1983

This mountain man has found shelter, peace, and warmth on Christmas Day. He has unloaded his horse, gathered wood, made a fire, and rigged up a makeshift cooking stick for his meal of a local game bird. He has even taken time to cut down a small tree and decorate it with his meager possessions – a locket, a pocket watch, an Indian shell necklace, and a mirror. I would imagine the mountain man’s calendar was not accurate so he may have missed Christmas altogether.

The Forest Has Eyes- 1984

“I want the view to share the emotions of the rider, and–as he does, because his life depends on it–’read’ the story in the leaves, branches, water, and stone that surround him.”–Bev Doolittle.  This piece is a perfect example of her camouflage art. Look closely around the rider you will see the faces in the rocks and trees.  It indicates that we are not alone in the wilderness, someone is always watching.

Music in the Wind-1985

More Camouflage art. A beautiful Indian maiden with intense detail to the surrounding wilderness. The maiden is probably listening to the wind whistle down through the valley, music to her ears. Notice the face behind her and the loge is the flute.

Pinto’s

This is the piece that got it all started for her. I love this piece. The horses blend in beautifully with the background.  You have to look real close to actually see how many horses are in the painting.

Sacred Ground

What spirits guard lands held holy by Blackfeet, Sioux, and Crow? In this camouflage painting, Doolittle answers the question and shows us that there are many levels to the visual experience. “I want to change the experience of seeing.”–Bev Doolittle.  The Mountain must have lived in fear when he was traveling through “Indian Country”.  Notice the images behind the rider pushing him on.

Spirit of the Grizzly

This painting represents the relationship that native Americans had with nature in a spiritual sense.  The rider is traveling wrapped in a bear blanket, yet when you look at his reflection in the water his image is that of a grizzly bear.

Photo’s by Chris-

I love to take pictures.  It has been a hobby of mine since I was a small child and I bought my first Kodak 110.  I also love Cowboy Mounted Shooting. Very few people know this but we have a club her in the interior and we are quite successful.  We actually sent four riders to the national final last year.  CMSA is a equestrian sport in which the rider and his horse ride a predetermined pattern and shoot ten balloons.  The riders and horse must wear clothing and tack that is period specific to the 1800′s. The weapons must be 45 caliber and single action revolvers. They to are period specific. Everything its timed and competition is fierce. If you want to see this fast paced sport, come out to the “Lucky 13″ ranch in Salcha on any weekend all summer long and we will be riding and shooting.  Its like barrel racing with a bang!!

The Wright Design

Frank Lloyd Wright is considered the most influential architect of his time,he designed about 1,000 structures, some 400 of which were built. He described his “organic architecture” as one that “proceeds, persists, creates, according to the nature of man and the  circumstances as they both change.” As a pioneer whose ideas were well ahead of his time, Wright had to fight for acceptance with every new design. This famous American architect  was the son of William C. Wright and Anna Lloyd Jones and born in  the small rural community of Richland Center, Wisconsin on June 8, 1867.

Frank Lloyd Wright

His early influences were his clergyman father’s playing of Bach and Beethoven and his mother’s gift of geometric blocks. He entered the University of Wisconsin at 15 as a special student, studying engineering because the school had no course in architecture. Wright left Madison in 1887 to work as a draftsman in Chicago.

In order to study architecture and learn the traditional, classical language, Wright, the country boy, had to go Chicago. Wright worked for several architectural offices until he finally found a job with the most cultured architect of the Mid-West, Louis Sullivan, soon becoming Sullivan’s chief assistant. That same year, in 1887, Wright completed his first major design. It is a  Queen Anne Style school the Charnley House of 1891 is a perfect representation  into his own version of Free Style Classicism.

Charnley House 1887  Chicago IL

Just before his twenty-second birthday, in 1889, Wright married Catherine Lee Tobin, the daughter of a wealthy businessman, and together with Sullivan and his other contacts she gave him the cultural background he lacked; she gave him social polish as well. They settled in the exclusive, Protestant neighborhood of Oak Park , west of the seedy part of Chicago.

While working on key buildings for Sullivan and Adler, to pay his many debts, in 1892 Wright also started to work on architecture at night, bootlegging  houses away from the office and sharpening his own eclectic mixture of Sillsbee, Queen Anne and Sullivan classicism. Sullivan disapproved, and Wright’s employment was terminated. He was not deterred, he set up his own office and would later say that this was the kick he needed to begin his historical march into the history books of design in the United States.

Frank Lloyd Wright’s own house and studio, the Frank Lloyd Wright Residence, built 1889 – 1895 and later, became the laboratory for many of his experiments in domestic architecture. Here, in an idyllic American suburb, with giant oaks, sprawling lawns and no fences, Wright built some sixty rambling homes by the year 1910 (when he forged the “Prairie Style”).  The Nathan Moore House, 1895, (rebuilt 1923 after a fire) is one of the best of this period – although Wright was later to think it one of his worst.

Wright Residence 1889 Oak Park IL

Nathan Moore House 1895 Oak Park IL

As an independent architect, Wright became the leader of a style known as the Prairie school. This is a design of houses with low-pitched roofs and extended lines that blend into the landscape typify his style of “organic architecture”. In 1904 he designed the strong, functional Larkin Building in Buffalo, N.Y., and in 1906 the Unity Temple in Oak Park.

Unity Temple 1906 Oak Park IL

Around 1900 and following his local success, Wright became immensely more ambitious and decided to take on the European avant-garde, whose work he must have known well through magazines. He fashioned a new form of horizontal streamlining – a word he claims to have invented, and then helped form a group of architects, the “Chicago Eighteen,” which soon evolved into the “New School of the Middle West.” The Prairie House, such as the William E. Martin Residence was the result of both efforts. Wright applied the same general principles of space and streamlining, used in his Prairie Houses, to public buildings. Even the “New Prairie Style” was conceived for domestic scale.

Martin Residence 1903 Chicago IL

Robie Residence 1910 Chicago IL

In 1914 Wright lost his wife and several members of his household when a servant burned down Taliesin, his home and studio in Wisconsin. Following the tragedy, he re-directed his architecture toward more solid, protective forms. Although he produced few works during the 1920s, Wright theoretically began moving in a new direction that would lead to some of his greatest works.

Fallingwater 1934 Bear Run PA

Johnson Wax Building 1934 Racine WI

Out of this grew a new style expressed in several western houses, Fallingwater was built in this period of time. While Wright was designing extravagant metaphors for millionaires trying to escape from the city, he was also trying to build inexpensive houses for the poor, in such a way as they might escape the city too.

During the Depression, he changed his style and image yet again, leaving “Wright the outcast romantic” for his new role as “Wright the grand, social visionary.” In the late twenties he became as respectable as he had been at the turn of the century. He gave countless lectures at major universities started his Taliesin Fellowship – a visionary social workshop in itself – and in his mid-sixties adopted the persona of the quick-witted social sage. He wished to supply an impoverished America (an impoverished self for that matter) with an answer to Marxist revolution. This he called by the metaphor “Broadacre City.” Although Wright believed in capitalism, he thought that the land, the means of production as social credit – capital itself – should be distributed, not concentrated into monopolies.

On January 17th 1938 Wright appeared on the cover of Time magazine; later it would be a two cent stamp. After his early experience with the yellow press, and then his success as the respectable architect, in the thirties, he started to realize the emergent rules of a commercial society. From this date to his death in 1959 he spent as much time giving interviews, and being a celebrity, as in designing buildings. In the age of media stars – radio, film, soon TV – Wright mastered them all, and instinctively helped create the system with which we are still settled: the “star system of architectural heroes.” By 1950 Wright’s sure instinct for promotion had paid off professionally. But the media attention, the time, energy and personal involvement it demanded, executed their revenge. Most of the buildings produced in these years betray an excessive vulgarity, or overruling ambition, which the young Wright would have called ‘grandomania’, and most people today call cliche.

Frank Lloyd Wright died on April 9, 1959, in Phoenix AZ

This Blog is a personal favorite of mine. Years ago I worked in Seattle for a Property Developer in Seattle and he was a product of Frank Lloyd Wright. He told me years ago that he was a man ahead of his time, and we spent many hours discussing his work. We designed and built a five story apartment building called “The Cedars” with Frank Lloyd Wright in mind.  After reading about him in this assignment there was no way I was not going to do this blog.

The Cedars Apartments 1988 Seattle WA

I am Impressed

Those who follow art and its history understand the importance in creating a work of art that depicts real life in an artificial way. Many artists are famous for the realism that their paintings provide, and others are famous for how long it captures the imagination as it presents what excites our visual senses. Impressionism is the movement that freed art to be what it is today. It was a revolutionary art movement that started in the 19th century. The name is taken from a Claude Monet work entitled Impression, Sunrise, which prompted the coin to be termed by a critic who was actually criticizing the piece! This movement immediately sparked simultaneous movements in the field of music and literature. I am a fan of this style.  I relish the fact that these Artists were changing the art world unlike any before.  They were considered radical, they were mocked, they were told that what they were doing was inexcusable.  It was blasphemy. Change can be a good thing, and sometimes those that set the new standards don’t  always get to see the fruits of their labors.  I believe this is the case with these artists.  Did they truly understand what they were blazing a trail for other artists to follow?

Monet- Sunrise (Le Havre France-1872)

It was 19th century Paris and Impressionism gaining worldwide attention. The artists sought to duplicate on canvas what they saw with their eyes, but with a flair for imperfection in that detail was not of utmost importance. The focus was mainly on the subject matter without the painting taking on a realistic looking rendition, so as it may tease the senses. Painting is just what it is, a means to express what the artists sees and what those who view what he paints imagines.

The characteristics of impressionism are explicit brushstrokes, ordinary subject matter framed from a unique angle, and different manifestations of light on an object or area. This movement was a response to what some viewed as the restrictive art culture of the time, where there were rules set in stone and viewed as unbreakable, such as never showing brushstrokes. This is why broken brushstrokes are the key characteristic of an impressionist painting. Another way in which they revolutionized things was by going outside to compose. Up to that point artists almost exclusively did portraits and even landscapes from indoors, and by taking their work outside these artists opened up a whole new world of interaction. By removing the glass they removed a filter between themselves and the representation and their work was all the stronger for it.

“Paris Street, Rainy Day” by Gustave Caillebotte (Paris-1877)

Some of the stronger pieces from this period include: “Waterlilies” by Claude Monet, “Paris Street, Rainy Day” by Gustave Caillebotte, and “The Garden of Pontoise” by Camille Pissarro.

“The Garden of Pontoise” by Camille Pissarro. (Paris 1875)

The impressionist movement is the most successful and expansive movement ever. It still holds great sway over the art world in modern times. From a certain point of view it helped to establish art as it is thought of today. Not as a craft but a method of transmitting expression no matter what the means. Even though they had certain standards of their own they adhered to the overall theme of breaking the rules is one that still fuels the forms that we find today. Impressionism changed everything.

The paintings always would look more detailed the further away one would observe. We see this today with computer graphics whereas the graphic is composed of thousands of pixels. If a small graphic was enlarged 100 times its size it would make little sense when you view the graphic up close. But stand at a distance far enough the graphic, then is recognizable for what it is.

It seems that every era has its outcast and rebels. Music had the Beatles and Elvis. Cinema has Quinton Tarrantino.  I would bet that if these individuals were looking for inspiration they may have looked to Monet.  He was a revolutionary, he was not afraid to change a style and swim upstream.  This is the reason I like Impressionism, its not the art work in particular, although it is beautiful, I like it for what it represents. Individuals who want to make a statement, and not be “status quo”.

Symphony No. 101- Franz Joseph Haydn

The Symphony No. 101 in D major is the ninth of the twelve so-called London Symphonies written by Franz Joseph  Haydn. It was written in London England 1793. It is popularly known as The Clock because of the “ticking” rhythm throughout the second movement.  It is your standard four movement Symphony.  First movement is Adagio- Presto. Second Movement is Andante, Third Movement is Allegreto, and the Fourth Movement is Vivace.

The work was premiered on 3 March, 1794, in the Hanover Square Rooms in London, as part of a concert series featuring Haydn’s work organized by his colleague and friend Johann Peter Salomon; a second performance took place a week later.  The London Audience loved the works. The work has always been very popular and continues to be played today.

Haydn was born the son of a wheelwright, he was trained as a choirboy and taken into the choir at St. Stephens Cathedral, Vienna, where he sang from around 1740 to  1750. He then worked as a freelance musician, playing the violin and keyboard instruments, accompanying for singing lessons given by the composer Porpora, who helped and encouraged him. At this time he wrote some sacred works, music for theater comedies and chamber music. Around 1759 he was appointed music director to Count Morzin. He was director of an ensemble of generally some 15-20 musicians, with responsibility for the music and the instruments, and was required to compose for his employer.  In his early years Haydn chiefly wrote instrumental music, including symphonies and other pieces for the twice-weekly concerts for the Count.  He also wrote works for the instrument played by the Count, the baryton (a kind of viol), for which he composed around 125 trios in ten years. There were also cantatas and a little church music. Around 1766 church music became more central, and so, after the opening of a new opera house at Eszterháza in 1768, he began to write opera. Some of the symphonies from circa 1770 show Haydn expanding his musical horizons from occasional, entertainment music towards larger and more original pieces.

Haydn died in 1809, after twice dictating his recollections and preparing a catalogue of his works. He was widely revered, even though by then his music was old-fashioned compared with Beethoven’s. He was immensely prolific: some of his music remains unpublished and little known. His operas have never succeeded in holding the stage. But he is regarded, with some justice, as father of the symphony and the string quartet: he saw both genres from their beginnings to a high level of sophistication and artistic expression, even if he did not originate them. He brought to them new intellectual weight, and his closely argued style of development laid the foundations for the larger structures of Beethoven and later composers

After listening to a few of the Artist’s from this period, and doing a little follow up reading I decided to chose him.  I guess you could say I feel that he did not get his just due’s in a historical perspective.  He set the standards to for Mozart and Beethoven to follow, and yet they get all the publicity in today’s classical music genre.    This piece is upbeat and easy to listen to for the less than casual classical music fan. I have to admit, Classical music has not been in my top 100 on my Ipod.

Horse Stable

Horse Stable

Gerard Ter Borch

Created in Holland (1650-1652)

Currently on view at the Getty Center-Los Angeles CA

Gerard ter Borch was one of the most skillful painters of Holland’s Golden Age, the 17th century. His father was a well-known painter who encouraged him to become an artist. When he was fifteen, Borch left home and traveled around Europe, working for the king of Spain and other wealthy art lovers. In 1650 he returned to Holland and began to paint his favorite subject–the lives and customs of affluent Dutch families.

The Horse Stable shows a scene in the life of a prosperous merchant-class family in 17th century Holland. At that time, well-to-do people cherished their horses and other domesticated animals. Besides being useful, the animals were outward signs of wealth, just as fancy cars are today. Most of Gerard ter Borch’s paintings, like The Horse Stable, are small and show two or three standing figures doing something together. He was good at showing the psychological interaction between his subjects, leaving you asking yourself, “What are they thinking or talking about?”

This picture shows dappled gray horse feeding in it’s stall while the owner brushes it’s coat. I noticed that the horse is not tied, so it must be very well behaved, (the man is between the horse and the wall, very dangerous with a skittish horse) A horse blanket and bridle hang from a pole in the foreground indicating  that he probably used the horse throughout the day and has not put the blanket and bridal away yet. Other barnyard utensils, a pitchfork, broom, and pail, are in the picture and that gives me the impression that the man’s day is not quite over.  He still might have to clean the stall out before the day in complete. The man’s wife, a well dressed woman appears at the door to the barn, and in my mind is reminding the man that it is time for dinner, maybe she is wondering how his day went, or if it is really late, maybe even time for bed. Light from the open doorway illuminates the animal, the painting’s center of attention. Domestic animals like this carefully groomed horse would have been valued possessions of their prosperous owners during the 1600s in Holland. Clues such as the orderly and well-built stable and the woman’s handsome dress and jewelry indicate that this was a well-to-do middle-class household.

I personally love horses. They are allot of work, but well worth every minute of it.  There have been a few evenings when my wife has had to come out and remind me what time it is. The minute I stumbled across this piece of work, I had to write this blog on it.

Gerard ter Borch’s paintings are noted for their subtlety of composition, close attention to detail, and delicate color. In Horse Stable he used a palette of warm browns and grays, brightened by the red accents of the man’s hat, the woman’s skirt, and the bricks on the left-hand wall.

The Tempest

I chose this painting The Tempest by Italian master Giorgione. Experts estimate is was created between 1506 and 1508. Originally it was commissioned by the Venetian noble Gabriele Vendramin , in Venice.  Today the painting is housed in the Gallerie dell’Accademia of Venice Italy.

The Tempest caught my eye because of the soldier. One thing that is never mentioned in the history books, is the amount of years soldiers had to spend away from their families.  I see a soldier  who  has been away from his family for a long period of time.  He is looking across the stream at this women and her child, and is missing his family tremendously.  The  storm clouds and lightning in the distance indicate what may be coming…War. The rubble indicates destruction. If you notice the pillars, they are broken, which is a classic symbol of death. One may also note the stork on the rooftop on the right. Storks sometimes represent the love of parents for their children.

To the experts around the world there is no contemporary textual explanation for the Tempest, and ultimately, no definitive reading or interpretation. To some it represents the flight to Egypt, to others, a scene from classical mythology (Paris and Onone) or from an ancient Greek pastoral novel. According to the Italian scholar Salvatore Settis, the desert city would represent Paradise. The two characters could be Adam and Eve with their son Cain. The lightning,  in ancient Greek and Hebrew times, could  represent God who has just ousted them from Eden. Others have proposed a moral allegorical reading, or concluded that Giorgione had no particular subject in mind.

I feel my interpretation could be just as accurate as theirs.

The Tempest has been called the first landscape in the history of Western painting. The subject of this painting is unclear, but its artistic mastery is apparent. Humanism is very clear.  The multitude of symbols in The Tempest offer many interpretations, but none is wholly satisfying. Theories that the painting is about duality (city and country, male and female) have been dismissed since radiology has shown that in the earlier stages of the painting the soldier to the left was a seated female nude. Skeptics wonder why Giorgione made the changes to the finished product.

Giorgione was the first to discard detail and substitute breadth and boldness in the treatment of nature and architecture; and he was the first to recognize that the painter’s chief aim is decorative effect. He never subordinated line and color to architecture, nor an artistic effect to a sentimental presentation. He possessed the typical artistic temperament, and this, with his vigor and gaiety, made him the true poet-painter, a “lyrical genius” (Morelli). He is well called the “joyous herald of the Renaissance.

Hello

Hello everyone.  Good luck with the course.  I am looking forward to reading some of your blogs.  I am sure that there will be some thoughtful insight. I have been married to my lovely wife for 23 wonderful years and I would not change a thing.