wearing out current fashions

 

Evening Prayer Brunswick heads, 5 November 2019, oil on canvas board, 30 X 25 cm

Evening Prayer Brunswick heads, 5 November 2019, oil on canvas board, 30 X 25 cm

Evening Prayer Brunswick heads, 5 November 2019, oil on canvas board, 30 X 25 cm

I recently came across these three studies, all of which were done in November 2019. I was surprised, and even though they were uploaded without any thought I can see now they are in the right order of when they were painted.

On top is the one with a lemon yellow sky and a squiggle of pink clouds over the horizon line. Hovering over that is a pale band of Prussian Blue while below it, like a cellar, is the deep purple sea, and all this beckons the first moments of magnificence when day seeps into night. 

The second one shows the pink band expanding higher up into the sky as the deepening purple sea turns darker and more menacing.

The third one reveals the aftermath when the sea has returned back to blue-green and the sky mellows out into a gentle latticework of muted hues left over like smoke when a match has gone out. 

I can imagine that they may seem too simple, too understated, less interesting, and maybe too boring for viewers, but hey! They please me, and that's what matters most. And its not because I made them, it's because I thing they work. They are believable, and that is really what it's all about whether one paints in allegory, metaphor, or the photo-realism so fashionable in many epochs, sadly. 

Do they live enough beyond the moment? Do they live beyond the morrow? Will they surprise me next week?, or next year? Critically speaking, this is what concerns me the most. Do paintings have enough truth in them to live on beyond the current fashions of the moment? 

I myself, may find them uninteresting (or heaven forbid) boring next year, but if they still possess some truth, they will live on, no matter how much my taste changes over time. If they work truthfully, they will always be immune to current fashions. I was tying to figure out which one I preferred the most, but weirdly, I like them all equally.