Ron Weaver's Painting Blog

I came across this beautirul series of Corot paintings this afternoon.  Hope you enjoy them.

(Some of the reproductions are not of the best quality but some help one understand this very fine painter)

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What is it about Corot's paintings that give one such a feeling of pure straightforward honesty and beauty.  Some of it comes from what Barbara said about them yesterday.  They are so modern in the way their made.  The application of the paint shows such deep understanding about what painting is all about.  Another of his extremely rare qualities is his  immaculate tonal harmony and a unique ability to use 3 to 5 key colors that are simply beautiful in their amount and location.  Amaazing how those few colors are so sensitively and elegantly used. With lesser painters, one can feel them trying to achieve this but it's crude in comparison. 

Corot, oil/canvas

Corot, oil/canvas

Simon Shama's "Power of Art" presentation about Mark Rothko was almost enough to cause me to appreciate once again, as much as I once did, the accomplishments of the American Abstract Expressionists. Certainly I can maintain my conviction that pop culture and the pop artists that followed the Abstract Expressionists were of minor significance to the better angels guiding the planet's painters.
I might as well say it. I despise popular culture so how can I possibly celebrate it in any form.
Jack Tworkov explained to me that he (like Rothko) didn't do what they did for money. Think about it. How can one possibly express the deepest of human emotions, i.e. terror and ecstacy in paint without representational imagry? No one did it better than this group of Americans (often imigrants; Rothko, Tworkov, deKooning, etc.) What a country,eh? Offering the freedom of mind and spirit to all who desire it.
The Midwest Paint Group has returned to representational painting with the profound understanding that we have learned from all serious painting involvments including Abstract Expressionism.

p.s. Shama's intreview in the features menu of the discs is really quite revealing of what a great teacher at Columbia can offer his students.

The past few days Barbara and I have been viewing Simon Schama's "Power of Art" CD discs on a large High Definition television screen in our home in Arizona.
I recommend their quality and insight into the great language of painting. The first disc (Caravaggio, Bernini, and Rembrandt) have been wonderfully filmed and written. This morning we viewed the first of the second disc (David) and look forward to Turner and Van Gogh chapters to follow.
As an example of the fine film quality, Schama's director/film editor, went over budget in getting High Definition cameras to film Bernini's sculpture. Barbara and I have been to the Borghese Museum in Rome and experienced the great Bernini's there. And I can tell you that, despite the fact that one should not imagine that you're seeing sculpture as the sculptor did in the 3rd dimension, you can come quite close in this CD disc.
The Rembrandt, David, and Caravaggio paintings are given their due better than any art historical films I've ever seen.
The other penetrating aspect about this series is Mr. Schama's ability to tie the paintings to the intimate personal details about the artist's personal and political life. He calls a spade a spade in dealing with less than flattering elements as their lives evolve.
He has chosen 6 of the most dynamic artists (generally painters if you include the fact that Bernini painted) but I have never experienced a better and more engaging "art history" lesson. The outstanding skill and intelligence are united with the humanness (often flawed) in these great painters.
I found these discs through Netflix.

By the way, the thing about the difference between the old media, (paint or hammer and chisel) and the new or newer media is that one can feel the passion of the person who painted and carved in the thing you looking at.  It's in their hand!!  As technically brilliant as are the compter generated images of Pixar, there is no visable heart; plenty of mind but no heart.    Of course, that's why museum guards annoy me when I'm trying to get a little closer to the hand.

 

Bernini, Apollo and Daphne, Marble, Borghese Gallery, Rome

Rembrandt, The Jewish Bride, oil/canvas, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Caravaggio, The Frtune Teller, Kimbel. Art Museum, Ft. Worth, Texas

These two paintings were concluded over 20 years apart.  I believe a painter is not aware of this kind of similarity while in the process of making a painting.  However, if one is interested in the art market one may be more conscious of producing a "consistant look" which allows gallery directors and buyers to hang a hook on to do their business.  My reason for the similarity in these two paintings is not about that and I want to explain the reason and also touch on influences that affect their appearance.  (Continue reading below the painting reproductions)

  
 Ron Weaver, The Pool, 4' x  5', acrylic/canvas, 2005 

Ron Weaver, Promeneuse de Tuilleries, 4' x 5' 7", oil/canvas, 1989

First of all, the two paintings are narative inventions based on sketches that were done at particular locations.  I have many paintings that have been done by direct observation of "nature" but these two along with many others are developed from the personal pleasure I've enjoyed in being in those actual locations  They are memories of what it felt like to experience that place.  In the current show of the Midwest Paint Group that opened at Wright State University on March 27, 2012 (March 27 - May 6 and Manchester College, September 14 - November 25, 2012), I'm showing two paintings that also express a place that impressed me.  One of those is, The  Pass (below).

Ron Weaver, The Pass, acrylic/oil, 1990

The Pass, represents my feeling of isolation and space while riding my motorcycle in Montana on my way to Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada.  The Pool and Promeneuse de Tuilleries are Arizona and Parisian locations.  But the more significant stimulation for the way those two paintings look is my accumulated memory of paintings that I admire.  For example, the measured pacing of the shapes and intervals in Piero della Francesca.  I'm sure it's a great mistake to post a painting or detail of a painting by Piero in the vicinity of my paintings but I'll do it to make my point.

Piero della Francesca, Meeting between the Queen of Sheba and Solomon (detail), fresco, Arezzo, Italy 

 

 

 

 

Through a comparison between a painting and a photograph, I want to show the visual energy that a good painter develops from an ordinary Arizona scene.
The painting is by Barbara Major-Weaver. The photograph and the painting were done in the vicinity of the Whipple Observatory near Amado, AZ.
I'm also attaching an unfinished painting by Barbara that was begun yestereday. I think it is informative about how she begins to discover the lively relationships in her finished paintings.

 

I just received another announcement from the Tucson Art Museum. Typical of their announcements, this one encourages patrons to attend a food and wine tasting event rather than presenting exhibitions of excellent quality that bring in appreciative audiences willing to pay for seeing fine work.
What are visual arts museums really about after all?
Of course, I'm not in the business of managing their accounts but I pay admission fees to enter good exhibitions and have no interest in noisy events with patrons who seem to make no demands for better shows to be viewed in the silence of seeing.
The University of Arizona Art Museum remains a much better source to see good and serious work.  For example, this Carpaccio painting often on view there.

Carpaccio, Madonna and Child with Saints,  Samuel Kress Collection, University of Arizona Museum of Art.

 

I just read an essay by Mercedes Matter that was published in the NY Times in 1973. It was posted on Kathy Moore's Facebook page (via Frank Hobbs originally).
Three major points stood out in the essay.
1. It's extremely naive and limiting to disregard the visual and intellectual achievements of centuries of work prior to this generation.
2. Art schools are short changing their students by not allowing the time to simply work. (Drawing in particular)
3. A statement made by de Kooning after viewing a show of someone who, in his impatience to "succeed" had taken easy and popular paths......"I don't see how he could have so little ambition."

Below are two paintings by Nicolas Carone, a painter at the opposite pole from de Kooning's unambitious painter.  Nick was a founding teacher at the New York Studio School along with Mercedes Matter and others.   He was one of my figure drawing teachers at Yale in 1965 along with Lester Johnson (whose work I've posted earlier).

 

Nicolas Carone, Alexis, oil on panel, 29" x 37"

Nicolas Carone, Head # 1 

(Nicolas Carone, 1917 - 2010)

 

 

 

These first 3 paintings were re-worked last week and and the last 3 are new studies from this week.

 
 
Ron Weaver, Madera Canyon Treescape 4, acrylic/canvas, 8" x 10"

Ron Weaver. Madera Canyon treescape 5, acrylic/canvas,  10" x 8"

 

Ron Weaver, Madera Canyon Bridge and Sycamores, acrylic/canvas, 10" x 8"

 

Ron Weaver, Madera Canyon Path 4, 10" x 8", acrylic/canvas

Ron Weaver, Madera Canyon vista and bridge, 8" x 10", acrylic/canvas

 

Ron Weaver, Madera Canyon treescape III, acrylic/canvas, 8" x 10"

Here are two paintings by Barbara Major-Weaver as they stand today after work in the canyon.

Barbara Major-Weaver, Madera Canyon Sycamores, oil/canvas, 14" x 11"

 

Barbara Major-Weaver, Madera Canyon Sycamores 1, oil/canvas, 16" x 20"

 

Mission San Xavier del Bac, Tucson AZ.

I rode my motorcycle to the San Xavier del Bac Mission today. It’s façade is pictured here.

I deserved the break from the stress of carefully packing and shipping 2 large paintings and a drawing to Wright State University for the Midwest Paint Group’s exhibition of “Realism and it’s Discontents” opening on March 27, 2012. I deserved something enjoyable after paying the exorbitant price for the shipping and insurance since the package was too oversized for Fed Ex.

This is the first post I’ve made that is not about painting. I simply had such a good time I wanted to write about it.

Two events made the 2 hour excursion particularly delightful. First, my license to drive (and ride) was reinstated recently and also cataract surgery on both of my eyes has made all that I see quite vivid. Can you imagine what it’s like to be unable to go where and when you please? Not driving is un-American, isn’t it?

The road from my home to the mission has been newly paved so the 40 minute ride on that stretch was smooth and sweet. Quite as grand as the back country roads in Maine where Barbara and I spend our Summers. The great difference between midcoast Maine and the Sonoran Desert however is the dry hard earth on all sides of this road that allows only mesquite, creosote, and cactus to thrive. When riding, I’ve always feel like I was caressing a massive sculpture because I’m so much in the landscape and a part to it’s surface as it twists, turns, rises, and drops as I power up or coast through hills and curves.

There was no one on the road but me except for occasional fellow bikers coming South (I counted 3 today) and it’s always a pleasure to acknowledge the fellow celebrant with the traditional below the hip and left handed wave that says……Hey, ain’t this grand!!

My old Honda GoldWing that I bought new 30 years ago was humming along just as well as the day I got it.

If you’re a romantic (and I am), in this relative solitude you may speculate about the way of life of the Apache, Pima, and Tohono O’Odem people who certainly lived right where I was passing (and I did) . And the closer I get to the mission, I think of the Jesuit Priests who built San Xavier who some call the ”White Dove of the Desert”. Easy to see why by it’s appearance.

In fact, the Mission is located on the Tohono O’Odem reservation. And a few miles up the road in Tucson, Wyatt Earp shot and killed some of his enemies in a manner that wasn’t technically legal.

A few road signs warn of “Do Not Enter when Flooded”, and “Open Range”, and “Watch Out for Animals”

But since the Monsoon rains ended months ago, and since the cattle are big and dark against the bright landscape, and since I only see Javilina at dusk and dawn, I keep up my 50 mph pace. I pass Helmet Peak which was given that name due to it’s appearance as a Conquistador’s helmet. To climb it’s steep face to approach to the summit would be impossible except for expert rock climbers. But still, I imagine myself on the way up.

I entered the reservation half way to the mission and soon was riding along beside a dark butte on my left. The butte was covered with huge Saguaro cactus. What a color emerged with the mix of the chocolate mountain and pea soup green Saguaros.

At the north end of the butte the first houses of the Tohono O’Odem began to appear. Often adobe and just as often cinder block with an occasional ramada on the dusty property to protect them from the 110+ temperatures of the Sonoran summer.

Soon I came to the side road that approaches the mission from West to East. The speed bumps slowed me enough to appreciate the several thousand white crosses that covered the fenced off desert on my left. I was moved by the sense of tribal community from that moment and it continued throughout the vicinity of the tribal school and the tribe’s commitment to the mission that they have restored immaculately along with Italian fresco painters. I saw the mission about 15 years ago for the first time and the quality of the restoration is overwhelming.

It was refreshing to enter into the cool interior having just passed through those huge carved wooden doors

There must have been 50 people within and they were quite respectful toward where they were and what they were looking at.  This was very unlike my visit to the Taos Church (that O'Keefe painted) where I witnessed a crowd of tourists disrupting a Mass.  They were oblivious about the purpose of the church to the celbrants.

Here, within the White Dove of the Desert, one woman was on both knees in front of the main altar.