When I enrolled at The Art Students
League to study painting in 1978, I knew instantly that I had finally found a
real home among all the like-minded artists and aspiring artists who frequent
this historic institution, a self-governed fellowship of artists founded in
1875. The outside world, with its petty
focus on “getting and spending” and all the trappings that go with that febrile
state of mind, was not allowed in. All
we were concerned about was making art to the best of our ability, and any judgment
passed on individuals mattered only in that rarefied creative realm. Society’s rejects were welcomed with open
arms – if they could paint and draw or were eager to learn how.
I had enough money to study full-time at the League for two glorious
years of painting and drawing day and night, with no other worldly concerns.
At the same time, already in my mid-30s, I discovered something
else that played an equally important role, if not more so, in my decision to
dedicate the rest of my life to the study and practice of painting and
drawing. I discovered a magical world
that offered up an unparalleled wealth of inspiration to this aspiring painter. I discovered the 19th Century! I discovered a ragtag band of individuals
called painters who thought like I did.
All that mattered to them was the painting on the easel. Just throw more coal in the pot-bellied stove
in the ice-cold garret and eat your potatoes. Riots in the street over government
injustices? Forget about it. Just keep painting. What was the use of getting involved, when
everything boiled down to Realpolitik anyway.
There are no antonyms for Realpolitik. Far too many talented painters from that
century and early into the next had their lives snuffed out in those senseless,
endlessly recurring cycles of riots and wars over all this getting and spending
business. But I digress.
Of course I discovered this painter’s nirvana in books,
which I rarely read, being too preoccupied with my own trivial thoughts about
my miserable existence to read the thoughts of others. For 10 years I scoured the used book stores
in Manhattan for books on the lives
of the 19th Century painters.
I already knew I was in love with their paintings. But I also wanted to know what these painters
thought about life, how they talked to each other, how they dressed, how they
looked, how they painted, how they fared in the art world, what their studios
were like, what their colleagues thought of them, what led them to become
painters, and on and on, including how they fared in family and sexual relationships
(most of them badly, I was pleased to learn; though I was sad to learn that too
many died of syphilis in those days).
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| Renoir's Lise,1868,Nationalgalerie,Berlin |
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| Renoir's Eugene Murer,1877,Metropolitan Museum of Art |
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| Self-Portrait,1897,Clark Museum |
It all began with Renoir.
I borrowed the biography written by his filmmaker son Jean Renoir from
the branch library in my neighborhood on Manhattan’s
Upper West Side. The
book was full of really good, personal information about this great painter,
just the kind of stuff I was eager to read.
I remember walking out of the library clutching the book to my chest
like a schoolgirl and reciting, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the
shadow of death I will fear no evil, for Renoir is with me.”
I made numerous forays to the many used book stores then in
existence in New York City, especially
the venerable Strand Bookstore on Broadway at 12th
Street. In
the Strand’s claustrophobic basement, which was overflowing with ancient tomes,
you could still find great buys on musty old out-of-print books on artists that
now cost a fortune if they come up for sale on the Internet. An hour or two went by swiftly as I dug
through the cornucopia. I was extremely
disappointed when I couldn’t acquire a book I wanted because I didn’t have enough
cash on hand. One such missed opportunity
was a big book on American painting techniques of the 19th Century that
I perused at Gryphon Books on Broadway near 82nd
St. That old
book was full of great tips on such matters as how to paint skies and portraits
in the manner of painters like Thomas Cole and Thomas Sully. It was priced at $12 and I just couldn’t
spring for it at the time. I told
another artist about the book, and the next time I looked it was gone.
Most of the books in my art library are these out-of-print
books and “coffee-table” picture books on artists that I admire -- the known
and lesser-known. I have a few books on
painting and drawing techniques. But the
“who, what, when, where and why” has always seemed more important to me than
the “how” when reading about painters from the past. Most of them said very little about their own
working methods anyway, and the little that was said hasn’t traveled well in
translation over the years.
Nevertheless, the books I treasure are sprinkled with succinct
comments about painting and drawing made by Gerome, Bouguereau, Monet, Sargent and
other 19th Century masters to their students and others. These remarks have offered much food for
thought while I’m painting. One remark
that often pops into my head is Sargent’s dictum to a private student that “the
thicker you paint, the more your color flows.”
I’m quite sure he is right, but I’m not able to securely visualize the
effect he is talking about. I would have
had to have seen him slap the paint on a canvas with a fully loaded brush to
know for sure. Oh, how wide is the gap
between the tantalizing words of the revered, long-departed painters and my puny
deeds.
I’m usually not interested in books that attempt to analyze the
techniques of the great artists of the past, unless the subject is
Vermeer. What a fascinating puzzle his
technique remains. It is enormous fun
to try to figure out how the artists we love “did it” when looking up close at
their paintings in a museum or gallery, but in the end we must figure out how
to do the best we can in our own work and in our own way, in my opinion.
I stopped exploring for books after about 10 years. By then the painting life had been firmly
fixed in my psyche and I was just about ready to call myself a real painter and
not an “I used to be a journalist, but now I paint” kind of fellow. I still acquire the occasional book on an
artist I admire, but not with the same passion as before. I haven’t yet kicked the habit of picking up
auction catalogs for a couple of bucks apiece when they contain wonderful
figurative and still life paintings that are new to me. The best ones always contain a lot of
worthwhile biographical information about the painters. I get furious when flea market sellers who
probably get these things for nothing from people’s garbage want a firm $10 or
more for them. Don’t they know who I
am! I am a painter, just like the guys
featured in the books you are trying to swindle me on. Such effrontery!
I hope to ramble on about some of my favorite book
acquisitions in future posts.
