And it’s Just Paint!

      I am a lover of paint and the painted surface. What the painted surface is able to express is a silent language that speaks with a voice louder than words. When standing before a painting, one can perceive this language, can even participate in the silent dialogue. The viewing of a painting becomes a conversation of sorts. 

      This month My husband and I celebrated our 40th anniversary by going to Bavaria, Germany. During our stay we visited five museums and saw firsthand over 2000 years of history expressed in paint. With bated breath I stood before masterful oil paintings I had heretofore only studied in art history textbooks. 

     One such painting was done by Rembrandt Van Rijn in 1661, and is entitled “The Resurrected Christ”. In this painting the viewer is face to face with a life size Christ who has risen from the dead.  Christ is boldly and with an expression of love and understanding facing his audience with the promise of redemption. With Rembrandt’s mastery of light and shadow on the painted surface, this portrait of Christ comes to life.

And it’s just paint!

      Rembrandt mastered the silent language of paint. Vincent Van Gogh once said of him. “ Rembrandt goes so deep into the mysterious that he says things for which there are no words in any language.”

    There is a visual depth to many old master paintings because of the classical method they used. The painting started with “dead color”, which was opaque flat paint. Once this was dry, a layer of translucent glaze was applied. While the glaze was still wet, more paint was added to the wet glaze. Once that layer was dry, another layer of glaze was added. When the viewer looks at the paining, he is looking through several layers of translucent oil glaze. Light passes through all these layers and then back to the human eye, giving the illusion of depth that is inimitable with any other medium. 

     Fast forward 244 years. Here is a detail of a painting done by Gustav Klimpt in 1905. It is a detail of the lace gown worn by his model, Margaret Stanborough -Wittgenstein.  Klimpt’s painting style was unlike that of Rembrandt and the Dutch masters. Yet the painted surface still gives the illusion of lace fabric that is so real we want to reach out and touch it. 

And it’s just paint!  Here’s the actual painting, which is on display at the Bavaria National Museum. 

     As I said, I am a lover of paint.

        Paint is what I peel from the palette to make my wearable art jewelry. I  often get a reaction from people that see my work, curiously wondering what the material is that I use. Some of the reactions are:

Are you kidding me?? It’s just paint?! 

It looks like marble.

It looks like it’s organic. 

It looks like a sunset in the woods. 

It looks like a horse’s head. 

It looks like a river flowing between two canyons. 

It looks like the birth cycle, complete with the fallopian tubes and the eggs and the embryo!

Nope, it’s just paint! 

       I make no attempt at realism, nor do I wish in any way to compare my work to that of the masters seen in museums. Far from it! In my work I look for sections of the palette that have visual harmony or interest. If it looks like a sunset or a horses head, so be it! And yes, paint and the painted surface is able to express a silent language that speaks with a voice order than words.