Galatea
When, before sunrise this morning, I saw a fine crescent moon in the east, it triggered a powerful association with Galatea, who in my mind, without rhyme or reason, was a personification of the moon.
The Greek legend tells of the great sculptor, Pygmalion, who was working on a sculpture of Galatea, so beautiful that as time passed he fell more and more deeply in love with the delicacy and strength of the forms he was forging. He was taken to much sighing and running his hands over her marble flanks.
One day when he was thus fawning, the gods on Olympus decided to bring his sculpture to life. As he was running his thumb gently over her mouth, he became aware of the trembling of her lips, and the blush on her cheeks... The story, unique among Greek legends, records that they lived together into happy old age.
This is not a mere tale, but a process that every artist has to go through, to find the living heart of his art, the pulsing of the soul which animates our best work.
He became aware of the trembling of her lips, and the blush on her cheeks... not hers, but those of the living Galatea, the model that he had been working with these many years. Looking up into her eyes, he entered into her soul, and she into his.
Those Greeks were not ones for happy endings, but in this case, they felt that it was the right way to go:
Fall in love; fall in lust; fall into hopeless adoration - what is so great about being vertical?
Blonde painting
The French, it is said, like blonde painting. That is, they like their painting to be relatively light in value, in a higher key. Similarly, I once was told, the Dutch do not like dark paintings. ("But what about Rembrandt?" I asked. "Rembrandt died in poverty..." they said.)
This is all true and good. It is also true that we prefer cheerful music, movies with happy endings, and sunny weather. Nevertheless, it takes a tragedy to touch us deeply, and a storm to inspire the awe of nature. There is nothing blonde about Beethoven.
Best, I suppose, is to submit to our nature. Those who are in touch with their dark side, dare to explore; and those of a sunny disposition, delight in the joy you bring to others.
For a painting to be deep, it does not have to be in dark colours. The simplest way to heighten the tonality of our work is to control our shadows. Make your shadows as flat as possible, as light as possible, and as rich as possible. What we should be looking for is not lightness, but resonance. A colour that is too dark, becomes murky, and a colour that is too light, becomes bleached. The ideal is for our colour, in the province of light as in the province of dark, to be pitched where they sing.
Pastel workshop
4 Days. July 29 - August 1 (Tuesday till Friday)
From 9:30 till 3 at the Simon's Town Library Hall.
This pastel workshop will be the first I have presented in a decade; a strange omission, because it is my first love. Pastel is the most direct method of painting, with the pigment in your hands, and every mark an earthy touch. For oil painters it teaches the quality of directness of stroke, and planning of chiaroscuro.
To do pastel you need at least 60 pastels; 36 hardish soft Faber Castell, and 24 genuinely soft Grumbacher or Rowney pastels. The harder pastels are for drawing onto the paper, and the softer ones for delicate skin or floral tones laid over pastel.
Monday Oil Painting (a 6-months course) starts on 21 July in Kalk Bay, working from the model.
For details, please email me at ryno@artistvision.org or phone me at (021) 786 3975.
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