Occasionally I am asked which Artist had most influenced me in my life. A simple question you may think but not that simple to answer.
I suppose in the early days when a young guy I would have to admit to having no artistic idols or influences at all. Perhaps just a reference to odd cartoons and caricaturists in magazines might have had some bearing on how I started. Quick sketch drawings either as cartoons or simply “thumbnail” notes in a diary – yeh, yeh – I was one of these funny people who for a time at least, kept a diary. I simply drew how I drew if that makes any sense and drawing what I saw and how I saw it.
Only much later in life when having the opportunity to actually see real paintings did their style, use of colours and brush stroke technique have any conscious bearing on stuff I did. For that’s another point in that so many young people don’t practically have the opportunity to actually see paintings and certainly not paintings of what shall I say, importance. The classic artist for example, Renoir, Monet or Constable or Picasso. So often these names are by association the preserve of the rich, even though their works may hang in Public galleries, they are somehow unattainable and even the pilloried museum-like Art Galleries of the major cities seem “off-limits”, certainly to many of my generation.
Much improved these days I suppose as there is collective effort to bring this Art culture to the young, even though it’s probably financial rather than philanthropic intent it is to be welcomed.
- The Thames near Walton Bridge 1806 – William Turner
Being into photography for years, art works had no real interest to me though I always admired someone who could paint better than a colour slide – and there are a few who can do just that. Photographic painters perhaps and pictorial to a fault maybe, but highly skilled no less. I used to say, “well these guys paint what we can all see” – relating to photographs of course.
Ah – how wrong I was.
BUT and it is a big but – we all actually see quite differently for a start, be it colours or form and we often have utterly entirely different impressions of the same scene. And of course, that’s the key……………..Impressions!
And in my case as I grew older things began to alter. I began to understand more and expressed myself more in my job and at home and in my perceptions and while I also grew in confidence and knowledge and experience – my art also started to change. Taking pictures with a camera simply wasn’t enough. I had to put down my impressions of the scene before me and this included my senses – what I could see of course but also what I could hear, smell and feel. In a city for example it could be the noise or the vibrancy of people and traffic jostling and moving, the wind whistling between the tall buildings. Your brain hums with over-perspective of the heights rising upwards and away from or towering towards you. Your own built-in gyroscopic is running flat out as you have to avoid and dodge other people rushing past caught up in their own worlds – you see what I’m saying….? That’s not just a snap with a camera, frozen in time and inanimate – it’s a life experience – a LIVE event!
And what of landscapes ? – this wonderful optical vista in front of you, the panoramic widescreen of the outdoors, the smells and the sounds, the wind and movement, the continual changing light and colours as the clouds and the sunlight dapple the image constantly. The way the trees and grass bend this way and that, altering the dynamic of the entire scene as an ongoing movie epic – right there. But you’re not even even a spectator – you are IN it – part of it……….Now I realise that as an artform Photography for me has dropped way, way down the ladder of importance and compared to Art especially impressionist Art – it’s simply not on the same planet!
But as I often do – I digress…………..So who in Art terms has influenced me the most?
- The roadmenders in the Rue de Berne – Edouard Manet 1874
In answer to that I suppose it’s fair to say that the Impressionists definitely have the largest and most important influences on my current Art style. I mean it IS the art I want to do – and this is a first, as before I didn’t really have a clue as to what my “style” was and I certainly didn’t HAVE any compulsion to Do it. But I do now……….
Not just any old painter though as there are some above others that inspire me to try and emulate their “freedom” of expression.
- In the dining room – Berthe Morisot 1886 – Use of bold brush strokes defying convention with random directionality.
In fact a good number of the group of artists known as “The Impressionists” I suppose do influence my art these days and certainly their art works give me the most pleasure to view. In fact the longer I can look at their work in decent light the more I love both their individual styles and the impressionist “link” binding them together. I find it fascinating.
The most influential for me is probably Edouard Manet followed by Berthe Morisot, both of whom had this wonderful facility to create shape and form without outline, simply using brush and paint to fashion the image they wanted to portray. Morisot especially superb at this wonderful technique.
Camille Pissarro too and Alfred Sisley I find exceptionally pleasing and even the work of Willaim Turner has a beauty and style that makes me wonder. Van Gogh too has some influence though his later work tends to lose me as his application becomes maybe a little too personal for most of our and certainly my understanding.
Funnily enough one of the greatest, perhaps the greatest Impressionist of course is Monet and yet for many reasons only some of his works inspire me, others less so.
- On the Rhine 09 – Bosartis
Anyway the post is illustrated with some of their work and I leave you with them. The last one is a quick homage to Camille Pissarro or perhaps Alfred Sisley and was great fun to produce.
Other “impressionist” paints will feature every so often if future posts. I hope you enjoy them,
