Heuningbekkie

Today, on Christmas Day, I went for a walk and, once again, I saw an old friend. High on a thorn bush, but at eye level, singing her little lungs out, was pretty grey heuningbekkie.

Heuningbekkie

The hummingbird is the animal representative of the bringer of sweetness, as is the artist. It is our role to find the sweetness in nature, often among the thorns, and to harvest it for its joy, releasing it as song or as a painting.

In American Indian Culture it is known as a totem animal. Your totem animal is you. It cannot be lucky to meet it; nor unlucky. It is simply a pointer from nature; this is who you are, these are your strengths, this is your nature.

It was around three years ago that the hummingbird entered my life, in the strangest way. I was feeling very cynical about Christmas, and the way we celebrate. Then a few days before Christmas, we found a hummingbird perched on our Christmas tree, in the position of the angel. Twice she came to me, first on a Christmas tree, and again on Christmas day. How unsubtle do I have to be, she says, before you get my message? I did not mention this in my blog at the time, for brevity, but I was worried about how she would get out of the house without flying into the glass of the windows. I needn’t have worried. She flew up to the glass, hovered a few centimeter or two in front of it, and navigated sideways until she found the open window.

This is the way the book, Medicine cards, refers to the hummingbird:

“If Hummingbird is your personal medicine, you love life and its joys. Your presence brings joy to others… You know instinctively where beauty resides and, near or far, you journey to your ideal… Hummingbird will no doubt give you a flash of spirit, darting here, there, and everywhere… Beauty is the target, and Hummingbird’s mission is to spread joy or to be destroyed.”

To read again, “You know instinctively where beauty resides and, near or far, you journey to your ideal… “, four days before setting out for Venice on a pilgrimage of beauty, this is very strange. Nice, yes, but rather awesome.

The lesson of the darkness.

Some years ago I was making a point to my students: that we do not see objects, but tints and tones, flares and smudges, flashes and blurs; and that in fact we have little idea of what is in front of us. Our mind is constantly exploring and interpreting a shifting visual feast, making sense and recognizing pattern. But this interpretation is not visual truth, it is vision made into words; words which rob the experience of its atmospheric glory and reduce it to a shopping list of items.

Imagine, I told them, a dark stable, bright sunlight on the walls, and inside, deep murky darkness. In the darkness we can make out some movement, light playing on dark surfaces. What we see is smoothness, sheen, and small flashes glowing and fading. That’s all. Imagine it? Now paint it.

This is what I want you to paint. The mystery of shifting light, shimmering with nervous energy. We know what is in the stable, or we think we know. But we don’t. A horse, we think – but is there one horse, or more? We do not know; and the true artist does not want to know: his subject is the mystery, the unknown, the suggestion of hidden joy.

Sadly none of my students attempted this subject. I believe they grasped the idea, but did not attempt to put it into practice. So when nobody came up with a picture, I decided to do it myself.

(I set my students a somewhat easier subject, making the same point: a simple glass of water, but as a glass of water is invisible, it can only be deduced by the way the light is reflected and refracted by it. I asked them to paint these refflections, creating vision by making sense of confusion.)

This is my painting of the horse, trying to find a balance between mystery and comprehension. Friends of mine, John and Colleen, bought the picture nine years ago, and today I visited them on their beautiful horse farm, stabling thoroughbred race horses, a farm which they have had for about three years. At the time they bought the painting, they had no idea where life was going to take them.

Love the mystery, court it, embrace it.

Ryno.

The Christmas visitor.

I have a fond and overwhelming belief, echoed in Native American philosophy, that nature talks to us. The only difficulty lies in realising that it is happening all the time, and then, in reading the mesage.

Sadly Christmas has recently lost som of its magic for me, until a few minutes ago, that is. Anne and I were talking about Christmas presents, when I hushed her, “Look, look!”

There, in our lounge, happy as a lark, perched at the very top of our Christmas tree, was a little visitor, a female sunbird, what you probably call a hummingbird. What message she had for us, I don’t know, but in that moment the joy, the delight in Christmas came flooding, flooding back.

We were delighted, and I took this photograph of our little friend.

The following quote is from the book, “Medicine Cards”:

“If Hummingbird is your personal medicine, you love life and its joys. Your presence brings joy to others… You know instinctively where beauty resides and, near or far, you journey to your ideal… Hummingbird will no doubt give you a flash of spirit, darting here, there, and everywhere… Beauty is the target, and Hummingbird’s mission is to spread joy or to be destroyed.”

The painting behind her is by my good friend, George Botha.

Now I can wish you all a joyful and meaningful Christmas and, if you are lucky, no happy-happy stuff.

Ryno.

The dangerous women of Gustav Klimt.

Gustav Klimt loved women, but he loved them dangerous. His life was filled with gorgeous women, one of whom was his long time lover, Emilie Floge.

The story goes that at any time he would have as many as 4 models in his studio, indulging in the most sensual behaviour, while he drew and drew (apart from the fact that he had 14 children, all of them iligitimate).

This painting, “Judith and Holofernes” shows the ultimate femme fatale, one who would not just break your heart, but who would have your head!

What it is that attracts men to such danger is a mystery, but then men have always loved courting danger. And perhaps it is the idea of the hunt, of taming the tigress… always to have her in all her beauty, but never to take her for granted.

You can see my own version of this theme at http://artistvision.org/rynoswartpages/gallery.html

Ryno.

Norman Rockwell, photo-addict.

The following quote by one of America’s great illustrators illustrates the danger of copying photographs:

The artist most in conflict over this issue was Norman Rockwell, acutely sensitive to the moral implications of the camera’s presence in the studio. Urged by his art director to incorporate new angles and poses into his work, Rockwell saw no alternative but to resort to the camera, the only means by which he could record more complex positions from unorthodox viewpoints. But the transition wasn’t easy.

“It was quite a wrench. I felt like a traitor to my profession, but I set my teeth and plunged in. At first I used photographs only occasionally, trying to hang onto at least the shreds of self-respect. But it was like taking a touch of morphine now and then. Pretty soon, before I knew it, I was an addict. A guilty, shamefaced addict, but an addict nevertheless.”

This comment comes from one of the most talented people of the 20th Century.

Where a man of his talent became addicted to photo-copying, the artist (who pretend to be “GOOD artists!”) of today go directly to photocopying without even attempting honest drawing/painting. The only way to avoid becoming addicted to easy and painless “art”, is to just say no. If it could destroy Norman Rockwell, imagine what it can do to weak individuals, who love the thought that they are somehow “good artists”.

Ryno.

Hercules

What is the subject of this picture by Antonio Pollaiuollo?

Is this just a man, a Greek hero, fighting against a many headed snake, a simple illustration of a simple legend? or does it have meaning – is it a true myth? Is Hercules you and I? And is this meaning of consequence to us today?

Here is how John Ruskin approached it (breaking it into smaller sections to be able to comment on it):

—————–
“… the first plain fact about myth−making is one which has been most strangely lost sight of,−−that you cannot make a myth unless you have something to make it of.”

“A myth, in its simplest definition, is a story with a meaning attached to it other than it seems to have at first; and the fact that it has such a meaning is generally marked by some of its circumstances being extraordinary, or, in the common use of the word, unnatural.

“Thus if I tell you that Hercules killed a water−serpent in the lake of Lerna, and if I mean, and you understand, nothing more than that fact, the story, whether true or false, is not a myth.

“But if by telling you this, I mean that Hercules purified the stagnation of many streams from deadly miasmata [Miasma= Greek for 'pollution'], my story, however simple, is a true myth; only, as, if I left it in that simplicity, you would probably look for nothing beyond, it will be wise in me to surprise your attention by adding some singular circumstance; for instance, that the water−snake had several heads, which revived as fast as they were killed, and which poisoned even the foot that trod upon them as they slept.

The water serpent (if we accept Ruskin’s interpretation) is pollution, and the area of Lerna was a notorious and dangerous marsh. Pollution, then as now, is a human creation, and as fast as we can clean it up, we produce more; more in quantity, and more vicious in quality.

“… and that for every head of it that was cut off, two rose up with renewed life; and that the hero found at last that he could not kill the creature at all by cutting its heads off or crushing them, but only by burning them down;

Hercules and his nephew seared the freshly cut neck of each head, preventing new pollution. The ancient Greek myth-makers, and Ruskin, realized that just cleaning up pollution will never be a solution.

Ruskin adds:

“… Only in proportion as I mean more, I shall certainly appear more absurd in my statement; and at last when I get unendurably significant, all practical persons will agree that I was talking mere nonsense from the beginning, and never meant anything at all.

Back to the myth:

“… and that the midmost of them could not be killed even that way, but had to be buried alive.”
——————

This intrigues me. When Ruskin wrote this essay in 1869, as when the myth was developed in Ancient Greece, nobody could possibly know the significance of the central and most dangerous head of the Hydra (the most fatal form of pollution that the world would ever know), and that this head could never be destroyed, but would have to be buried alive: nuclear waste.

They were not the only ones to know – intuit – these truths. The following is from the Essene book of Revelations

“And I opened the third seal.
And I saw and beheld the Angel of the Sun.
And between her lips flowed the light of life,
And she knelt over the earth
And gave to man the Fires of Power.
And the strength of the Sun entered the heart of man,
And he took the power, and made with it a false sun,
And he spread the fires of destruction,
Burning the forests,
Laying waste the green valleys,
Leaving only charred bones of his brothers.
And I turned away in shame.”

What is happening here? What is the nature of these insights? Divine revelation? Collective subconscious? Most importantly, are these insights available to modern people, to Ruskin; to us, and if so, how can we dare to ignore them?

Where do we go to when we create?

Starlight.

Light and dark. Day and night. Chiaroscuro. Sunlight and moonlight. Starlight. Direct and reflected light.

Consider the work of two of the great masters, Rembrandt and Turner. Rembrandt’s work is dark and gloomy, with deep darkness enveloping the canvas, making us think that he has a dark personality; whereas Turner’s work is luminous, with detail on the light end of the spectrum often lost in a golden glow.
This could lead us to imagine Turner as having a sunny disposition. But when we look more closely, the opposite is true. Rembrandt delights in the province of light, in the fine texture of skin catching light, often losing anything deeper than a middle tone into a mysterious darkness; and Turner loves the shadow and the twilight, with the lights merging and dissolving. In a Turner landscape you will never find a shadow area devoid of detail and energy. Another artist who takes a similar delight in the rich colour of the shadows while also enjoying the beauty of light, is Vermeer.

All of these are recognized masters, and their preferences or weaknesses are part of their strength. But let us look at the two approaches and how they affect our own art.

Imagine the earth in space, floating free, part lit by the sun, and the rest of it in darkness. Simple to draw, and even to shade. But down here on earth, day or night affects mere than just tonality, it affects colour, energy levels, even our moods. There is never just darkness, there is reflected light, moonlight, subtle in itself, and the subtlest and most beautiful of light, starlight. We live in two domains, the domain of daylight, and the domain of the night, and our voice changes from the one to the other.

In a painting, this domain of the night is not nighttime subject matter, it is the world of shadow, so often underrated, neglected. Ask yourself, what is the colour of a red ball in the light, and what is the colour of the same red ball in the shadow? What is the colour – the exact colour – of a white enamel jug in the light, and what is it in the shade? What about skin; hair, blond, red, brunette? The answers lie in entering into this domain, to spend time in the shadows, to learn to love its subtlety, and to commit to the hard work of rendering it, at the risk of ruining our painting. It takes a long time, enormous patience, but most of all, it takes courage. It is this thoroughness that marks the great artist.

Lucky accidents

All the money in the world cannot buy you an accident.

Most especially watercolour, but, in fact, all painting, all art, thrives on what we refer to as lucky accidents, and we admire those artists who have the uncanny ability to have this kind of accident, wondering how it came that they had this seemingly unfair gift.

Turner is the great magician of paint, capable of surfaces that challenge nature in its beauty. Delacroix delights in loose splashes of paint which bring a sense of energy and natural freedom to his work. The passionate brushwork of Rembrandt reveals the very power of his character.

This energy is most desirable in art. Without it pictures can look sterile and passionless, and most of us are eager to have this quality of accidental, transcendent beauty, but the question is, how? How do we achieve that which can only happen when we don’t try to make it happen?

“Accidentally on purpose” does not cut it. It is no more than a way of faking spontaneity, and nothing can be less spontaneous than calculated falsehood.

The fact is: accidents happen all the time, and to everybody. The “spontaneous artist” is simply a person who delights in whatever nature or chance or fate brings his way. He is a person who instinctively believes that the universe is a system of good, a system of goodwill, of love. That fate conspires at every second and in every way for our happiness and our best interest.

He welcomes every chance meeting, every new path, every coincidence of word, and every disaster that befalls his work. Chaos theory postulates that chance, happenstance, luck, accident and mistake is essential for the very existence of life, and even of creation.

The main thing that sets them apart is that they believe that there is no such thing as an “unlucky accident” and no such thing as “bad luck”. Evil exists, yes, but it is the product of the will of man, not of the play of the gods. So he is happy to accept every accident of splash and streak and smear and scratch as being lucky. After learning this great truth, his touch becomes lighter, his grip on his brush looser, impasto broader, his paint mixtures fuller and more generous, and his mind more open to new thought. Accidents come more easily, and are welcomed more delightedly. Many artists, particularly in watercolour, enjoy splashing pigment onto their work, collaborating with chance.

Of course, terrible things do happen to us, and it would be shallow to pass these off as mere good luck, misunderstood. The workings of chance and fate need to be assimilated by us and then worked and molded until our life is enriched by them. Somewhat like being washed ashore on a desert island, the chance event, the accident, is just a starting point, but a glorious one.

We can all learn the habit of delight, of open joy, and there is no better place to learn it than on the safe and welcoming battleground of our canvas, where mistakes can never cause any hurt.

Ryno.

Dancing in the dark.

At Mavericks, good dancing, old fashioned decor, Cape Town was having one of its all too frequent power cuts, but I had a few hours for sketching.

Inside everybody was looking rather bored. Bored, and sulky, and pouty. It was dark and gloomy, and, with the air-conditioning gone, hot. The bar was operating with cash. Waitresses distributed some feeble little candles, which gave hardly any light, but I was entranced. The soft glow on languid female form, the few men little more than props, the furniture creating a dark nightscape. Daylight filtered through darkly patterned windows.

A group of men asked one of the women to do a table dance. With no music, no lights, bored and glum, she was clearly cheesed off, rolled her eyes behind heavy lids, but she strode over to their table on long slow limbs. All this time I was drawing, chatting quietly to one or two of the girls, but now I twisted my chair the merest touch, poised my sketchbook on my knee, and half-closing my eyes to deepen the gloom, allowed my pencil to wander about the page. As the dance developed, our eyes met once or twice, no humour, no irritation, just a deeply contained awareness of movement and atmosphere. For a time she became the day, the ancient mystery of the dancer and the dance.

The drawing was slow, grasping from this moment and from that, indicating tonal and colour notes of the darkness and the glow. I will post my sketch here, hoping to have some of the mystery, hoping that it might develop into a painting.

Good painting to you all, and glorious vision. Ryno.

The overwhelming beauty of the specific.

Beauty, I wrote in one of my sketchbooks many years ago, is in the general; truth is in the particular.

What I meant is this: that in general terms young animals are beautiful, but the full power of beauty (in the place where beauty meets truth) is only revealed when we look at one specific young animal, be it a particular young girl or boy, or one specific colt or kitten. And the fact is that this overwhelming beauty applies to ANY specific child, whether conventionally pretty or no. For it is the beauty of character that touches us.

All that we have to give is our caring attention. If we do not look we can never expect to see. Maybe this is what separates the truly great artists from the merely impressive ones. They give us the sensation, the feeling, the intimacy of real life, and of real acceptance. Another note I made to myself long ago, reads, “Where good enough ends, art begins.”

Maybe this is what I meant.

Ryno.