I’ve just started reading The Vexations of Art by Svetlana Alpers, in which she draws an analogy between the artist’s studio and the scientific laboratory, both arising at a time (17th C.) when there was a “change in emphasis from theory to practice, or from science considered primarily as the formation of natural laws to science as the making of experiments.”
English (Baconian) experimentation and Dutch descriptive painting share a perceptual or visual metaphor of knowledge of the world. Though they both represent the world, neither is transparent to it. In one case it is represented by a technology such as that of the lens, in the other by painting itself.
The predominance of the studio setting lasted at least until the Impressionists, and in many ways still reigns. It is a place where the artist can control the reality to be dealt with, can establish a desired relationship with it. This can have very powerful advantages for a painter, photographer, or any other artist. I’m thinking that I should be doing more in the studio myself.
I have done almost all my photographing outdoors, with the exception of a still life of pears, inspired by Hanneke’s drawing. The version above is a digital simulation of a print on tinted paper, which is something I still plan to experiment with. Having control of the spatial arrangement and the lighting of the pears enables me, in principle, to try out ideas that are much harder to find appropriate realizations of in the natural world.
I’d say the ideas in this particular image are not especially deep, but I’ve recently tried some unconventional landscapes that might have greater potential. I might be able to pursue these more easily and quickly if I worked on studio setups. Of course, I also love getting to know the land around me and the serendipitous opportunities that come my way. But ideas also matter; in a sense, when my practice is out in the world, the studio could be a place to develop more the theoretical side of what I do.
In an earlier comment, I mentioned Carlo Chiarenza as a photographer who ended up photographing exclusively his skillfully lit arrangements of paper and other materials that became abstract landscapes. I can’t see myself going that far, but I think I could learn a lot about photographing real landscapes by photographing artificial ones, or rather still lifes that present similar issues and possibilities. Plus I have a couple ideas for projects that are inherently studio-based (though both have significant uncontrolled elements).
If you work in a studio: why? Yes, your preferred type of art may virtually require a studio setting, but then I ask, is the preference influenced by the studio amenities? On the other hand, what determines when you work outside the studio? How do you balance, if you do both?
Interesting to see the parallels between the artists studio and the scientific laboratory. Well, both are venues for experimentation for artists (scientists are just a different breed of artists – in my view).
I work in the basement of our home. It offers me relative peace and quiet. Space to stand back; reflect at the mess I have created and surroundings for the music to flow through the space while I paint. Of course, working in the basement only limits me to works of a certain size (well, I have to maneuver the masonite down the winding stairs and that is no mean feat). I feel that if I can bring my art to a degree of maturity that will help me justify a studio space, I will start to get one after working through the approvals at home…
Yes, the basement does offer me space to perform laboratory work and turn out experiments in painting that I can either display or destroy.
Working indoors would speed up learning the technical strength and limitations of your instrument; light source, camera, notebook and computer right there.
Translating what you gained in the laboratory to photographing the outdoors, you could provide someone like Gerhard Richter with the most amazing photographs to project, trace and paint.
From the laboratory to the outdoors and back into the laboratory. Sounds like a diverse skill, multiple-author experiment as done in contemporary science.
If you work in a studio: why?
For years, pretty much all of my work has been in the studio, and there are several reasons for that.
1.) I’ve tended to work large, and on several pieces at a time. And I’ve mostly worked in materials that need to be left where they are between sessions. Whether it’s oil paint that needs to dry (or stay wet on a palette), or large panels of linoleum in-progress, it would be hugely inconvenient to try to carry everything around with me outdoors. And no point in doing so. Having a studio allows me to be productive.
2.) Most of my compositions have been invented. While I took many reference photos outdoors when I was doing representational work, ultimately I ended up composing from multiple sources. There wasn’t anything to be gained from working outdoors (except of course just the pleasure of being outside).
3.) Since I have a day job, I do a lot of my work at night.
That said, I’m currently between studios. Over the past few months I’ve been shooting reference photos, working on the computer, and doing some drawing. So we’ll see where that all leads…
David,
Thanks for telling us what you are doing.
When you paint at night, what type of light source do you use.
Moonlight.
Okay, just kidding. Usually clip-on lights with regular incandescent bulbs. In my last studio I had a bunch of them hanging from a dowel that I suspended from the ceiling. I also had a few on microphone stands that I could move around as needed (left over from my music-performing days).
David,
If you’re out shooting reference photos, it sounds like you have at least the outline of a project in mind. Or do you just photograph interesting things and perhaps some of those will become incorporated into a project?
It’s the former, but too early to really share.
Steve,
I like the simulation of the tinted paper a lot. I also like the closer composition crop of these pears. The texture on the background mingles nicely with that on the surface of the pears.
Studio work — processing digital photos on the computer — seems to be essential to any photographer’s work these days, even if the studio is a laptop.
I was painting outside today near the sea. While working, occasionally grabbing the easel before it got blow away in the wind, wishing I had brought sun screen, or hoping the sun would come out, I asked myself, why don’t I just paint from photos? I had no good answer, since working outside seems very inefficient, except that it made me happy to be there and to listen to the sounds of the landscape, to be able to look here and there and see it everywhere. I felt that I could have a dialogue with the landscape that I couldn’t imagine having working in the studio from a photo.
Working in a studio is for me a place to retreat into myself, to work form imagination.
David, last question: can one ask what medium you plan to use? In the case of your linoleums, I think of the studio as being essentially a workplace, as it is for Karl when he’s working from imagination. The notion of studio that Alpers is considering is more as “a place where things are introduced in the interest of being experienced by the painter,” i.e. something that is indeed similar to an experimental lab. That’s also waht I meant by studio work, Karl. Not the computer processing as with the tinted paper printing (that’s studio as workplace), but the arranging of the pears (in this case) and their lighting.
Of course, control of subject is not the only interesting aspect of studio; the workplace/retreat aspect and the social aspect are also important. Alpers may consider those — haven’t gotten too far yet — and she also considers studio as museum, i.e. place where art is displayed.
Steve:
I guess that it’s an example of the assertion that the least little thing can influence how a work of art comes across. This is in reference to the placement of the pears, which, to me have assumed a social distance from each other.
In this society we tend to stand an arm’s distance away from others. A crammed elevator is uncomfortable, not only for claustrophobic reasons, but because thso e occupants are obliged to invade each other’s privacy zone. Maybe I’m touchy about such things but I immediately began to size up the pears as though they were portly characters sitting on a park bench, nodding in conversation. Hard to know what an arm’s length would mean to a pear,but they seem to be getting into each other. The thought occurs of a series where the chosen objects (pears would be just fine) would be subtly placed closer or farther apart from each other on a common plane in a manner connected to human social distance.
You must have gotten these in the x-rated section of your produce aisle as they seem so darned naked. I think the effect may be in the lighting. Artful nudes are often treated with one-point illumination and a lot of chiaroscuro, to enhance sculptural properties.
This has nothing to do with laboratories. But, while ideas may not be particularly deep in these fruit, they certainly can give a person ideas.
…which brings me to a question for Steve, what were you thinking about while photographing such a great pear?
David, last question: can one ask what medium you plan to use?
Still working that out.
In the case of your linoleums, I think of the studio as being essentially a workplace..
Yes, I do too. The type of work being done dictates the type of workplace needed. And the type of workplace one has access to will affect the type of work that can be done.
Steve, your paragraph regarding Carlo Chiarenza, etc. reminded me of the article in the NYTimes on the artist Morton Bartlett. Did you read it? He made dolls, primarily female, and then photographed them.
Jay and Tree,
Like Jay, I was anthropomorphizing the pears, though considering them as fruit and as abstract solids at the same time. (Note the third pear hiding in the background.) The light was from two windows, so not point-like, but generally directional. I did want the feeling of the flesh of the pears to come through. But I didn’t have time to really experiment for long with this setup, and then I ate the pears.
Tree,
No, I didn’t know of Bartlett till now. Definitely a classic studio artist. It’s unclear, but easy to believe he never photographed real people, even in the studio.
Tree:
Was your introduction of Morton Bartlett calculated considering our discussion of pears?
Steve:
That’s the beauty of photography. If you were a painter, chances are that those fruit would have rotted where they were placed.
Definitely not, Jay. Hieronymus Bosc is a different story though…
Karl,
When you say ” I felt that I could have a dialogue with the landscape that I couldn’t imagine having working in the studio from a photo.”
Your paintings are more about people and their reactions to each other and their subconcious – with the landscape in the background only – the landscape is often as an afterthought in some of your paintings..
It is surprising that you need so much of the open spaces to contemplate and refine.
What about Maxfield Parrish?
Sunil,
Very good point. Karl?
OK, especially in light of the previous post on blur: did anyone notice the out-of-focus blur towards the front of the main pear on the left? The stem of the right pear is also regressing towards blurriness, but that’s probably less objectionable to most people.
I too want to hear what Karl has to say about his landscapes — what is it visually that you get from being outside, Karl?
I work a lot in the studio because I live in a city, don’t drive, and so can’t easily get to the places I’d like to be to paint. That said, I yearn to be painting outside more. I gather something from the air and light and birds and snakes and dust and heat that carries my work in a way that the comfort of the studio can’t. Maybe I’m just a masochist….
Steve, I think you might jostle some ideas loose working for a bit in the studio — the change and different deliberation might bring you to seeing differently when you are in the field. At least for me, change is crucial, although sometimes I have to make the changes internally. But painting outside allows the changes to come a bit more naturally for me.
Steve, I hadn’t noticed the pear in the background until you pointed it out. This is an interesting parallel to your last post of the trees from your Sourdough Trail series. This says to me that whether in a studio or outdoors, we still work with the same ideas (consciously or not).
I love this pear hiding in the background, it creates a great psychological component to the composition.
Tree:
Terrific!
That’s an interesting observation, Tree. Having something unobtrusive in the background is one way of complicating the picture a bit, so that one discovers more as one looks longer, repaying the effort of engaging with it. I do like pictures that are intriguing enough to draw one in that way, even if it’s not clear why at first. I don’t always remember to think about that, though, which is probably good because I might slip into habitual ways of attempting it. Which I might be doing unconsciously, anyway…
Being familiar with the pear trio from the past blog, I admire Steve’s art of cropping.
I too want to hear what Karl has to say about his landscapes — what is it visually that you get from being outside, Karl?
June June June,
Good question. I need to write about this. I need to explain it to myself. I need to cycle an hour to get to the sea, am at the mercy of the weather — today too windy to go out there. What exactly is the benefit of painting outside? Is it simply being self-indulgent?
Karl,
It’s wonderful that we can accuse ourselves of being both masochistic (wind, sun, heat, gnats, snakes) and self-indulgent (air, light, water, breath, expansiveness) at the same time. Maybe we should claim hedonism and abnegation of self instead?
At risk of sounding sentimental and lala I must say that being outside brings me closer to subjects I love and so it’s definitely self-indulgent and hedonistic. But if someone wants to think of me as being selfless and fearless (I’m thinking of snakes again), I’m good with that.
And Steve, I also like the disappearing pear a whole lot. Is it kin to Karl’s blur in its subtle impact?
I just found three pears on our window sill.
I played with them arranging them in different ways. Our A&P toy; pears.
Oh Birgit, now you’ve got me distracted.
Our old pear tree is dropping its (hard and pockmarked) fruit on the studio roof and the car in the driveway. As an antidote to the beauty of the pears here, maybe I should concentrate on a still life of the ancient warped inedible and sometimes smooshed by tires kind.