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Sunday, April 22, 2012

Peculiar Picture #10


I’ve become indifferent to many of the hundreds of illustrations I’ve painted over the years. Not so with this picture. In fact, I can’t tell you if it’s an illustration or a painting. It’s just one of my favorites.


I was experimenting with fast-drying acrylic paint after years of using oils. I wanted to see if I could build up glazes like Titian and Rembrandt without waiting a week for each layer of paint to dry. Clients don’t like waiting for artwork to dry.


I gessoed a panel, sanded it smooth and started painting. To my surprise, the shadow of an airplane appeared. I set down my brushes and admired my work. The picture didn’t look complete; something was missing. But what?


A year passed, with the picture being relegated to the back of my closet. One day I rediscovered it and somehow knew what it needed. In less than an hour I added the antique globe. Why? I’ve no idea. But when the globe was added to the composition it just felt right. I’ve tried over the years to explain this image in words, but I’ve always failed. When I taught at our local art college I used to joke that if a picture made perfect sense and was easily comprehended by most people, it was an illustration. If it made no sense at all but just made you feel something, anything, it was a painting. For me, this is a painting.


Maybe you have an idea what it means.

24 comments:

  1. It's much more than the contrast of the old view of the world and the new, but that's a start.

    It's a piece i wouldn't mind hanging in my library.

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  2. It is very cool....I would say it illustrates how the passanger Jet has shrunk the world and made all parts easily accessable.

    Cranky Old Man

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  3. The downward heading of the jet gives me more sinister thoughts. The globe just reinforces them. And the colors across the top and upper left look like smoke. Very simple, yet powerful.

    S

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  4. I saw it and thought of the tales I've been told of family travelling by plane, and the places Husband and I have talked of going.

    Cat

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  5. The plane is big and the globe isn't. Technology (air planes) have made travel around the world timely. Just my two cents.

    Have a terrific day. :)

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  6. A symbolic image, that can be interpreted in many ways. My first thought was not a happy one.

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  7. I don't want this to seem like a Rorschach ink blot test but to me the plane looks sinister, as if it is going to destroy the world. I think that is because when I was very small I lived near an air force base and very loud planes used to fly extremely low over the garden, just appearing out of nowhere, it seemed to me. I found them terrifying, like great birds of prey.

    Hope other people have a more cheery interpretation! :D

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  8. Well, being a card-carrying member of the Glass is Half Empty Society, my first thought was also not-cheery. The thought: "No place is safe." I agree with Lowandslow. It's the downward orientation of the jet that made me feel that way.

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  9. I notice that some of the comments are taking a "sinister" look at your illustration/painting. Prior to 9/11 I doubt that a big shadowy plane would have evoked that reaction. I first thought of the "world getting smaller" aspect as flight has become so prevalent. The technique of using acrylic paint is very cool. Hard for me-of-no-talent to see how little bottles of acrylic paint could end up looking like that. You are a talent.

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  10. It's interesting to me that it is not the plane, but its shadow you have painted, while the globe is an antique kind of globe. So for me it suggests the unknown factor of change -- that what we often see are shadows which are unknown quantities -- for example you can't tell if it's a passenger plane or a military plane. The globe is small and man-made, it is a depiction of the world as it used to be (as an antique it would not be up-to-date. We tend to look at the world as it used to be or with misconceived notions. The shadow of technology leaves everything open. Gosh -- I could go on and on -- the work is definitely 'finished' though and I like it very much.

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  11. The earth has become a small place since airplanes were built to travel distances. I love the colors in this painting as well as the story of the images.

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  12. Really, really cool. I love the colors, the juxtaposition of the new and old, one in shadow and one not...I could go on and on, but it really is a terrific piece.

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  13. My thoughts are along the lines of what The Broad wrote - and the painting could be titled something like "Five Centuries After Magellan."

    Not that you asked for a title... ;-)

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  14. I thought of how flight has made the world smaller, as some others did. But it seems a little more than that.

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  15. I don't know nearly enough about art to try analyzing it. But it looks nice.

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  16. I agree, it IS a painting! I think it could have several meanings or feelings. The one that comes to mind first is how our lives have been changed by an image much like the shadowed image of the plane, in fact the whole world has been changed.
    Another thought, like Rita mentioned, is just how "small" the world truly is with the ability to travel from one side of the globe to the other.
    Different eyes see different things...
    My eyes think it is amazing!

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  17. I really like that. I wish my dad were here to see it. He was a flight instructor in the Army Air Corps during WW II.

    Love,
    Janie

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  18. Your comments make sense to me. What is more interesting is how the painting was made.

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  19. Oddly I like it but wouldn't want to hang it in my house. There's stuff I hate hanging in my house. It just doesn't fit in my mind. The only bad reaction for an artist is indifference I suppose.

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  20. no idea...fun to look at though!

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  21. Looks great. Have plane, can travel. :)

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  22. I, too, was reminded of 9/11 as a first/gut reaction.

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  23. It is a beautiful painting....and it's about how small the world is now that we have airplane travel.....

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  24. Amazing one, Really a cool painting, now it has been like this.

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