8 August 2021
Prosciutto!
Although many of these small studies are done anywhere between 5 - 15 minutes on average, they can give the appearance of an instantaneous snapshot as if created in a nano-second like a paper-thin slide taken from an MRI scan. This one especially reminds me of the thinnest slice of prosciutto cut from a machine at a Venetian butcher’s shop.
But naturally I think at a certain hour it's also something closer to home here at the beach, when during a leisurely stroll, a dreamy newlywed points her phone at the sky and shoots with abandon, and out of hundreds of shots caught on any given sunset walk, any one of them could reveal an instant like this image here.
Today’s digital photographer, unlike in Claude Monet’s time, is able to access a multitude of iterations from which to choose a suitable frame. When the shooting is done, the photographer can sit back in an easy chair and scan each burst carefully to decide which ones possesses the best attributes of a certain shot. Is it bold, balanced or blurred? Is it timeless or is tacky?
The painter, on the other hand, also has equal access to these possibilities in this regard, but he or she carries them in their memory so the process isn’t quite the same.
Claude Monet, while in Venice, worked from a specific schedule and he went out to paint in blocks of time usually lasting about two hours at each different motif. Mornings, he might be set up in front of the Palazzi Dario, Cantarini, or da Mula on the Grand Canal. Afternoons would find him in a gondola with his wife out on the lagoon working from the Doges Palace or San Giorgio. He was only constrained by the weather, that when foul, would keep him inside for days in a dark mood according to his wife Alice in her daily correspondence with her daughter. Already in his 60’s when he discovered Venice, he still worked like a demon for eight hours a day when he could. He painted quickly at each of his motifs while at the mercy of the weather and the light. He moved from one site to the next hoarding beauty like squirrel. Each picture was developed slowly, and like a chef regularly basting his roast ham in the oven, he worked patiently with great care on each canvas for weeks and months on end. When he took his leave of Venice, his pictures, even after so many sessions, looked fresh and spontaneous as if seized in a nanosecond. This was just part of greatness.
But these studies of mine, are executed at high speed because of the sun’s quick arc. Through some fortunate form of grace and alchemy, I’m always hoping to make quick decisions that will also allow me to grab that one ‘frame’ that captures the 15 minute session in front of this mercurial sky.
Like many painters (and photographers) whose desire is to express an instant of time, whether painted over weeks, or over several minutes, the goal is the same, it’s a blasphemous wish to immortalise a godly instant of a life. Sometimes one’s effort works out, at others it doesn’t. No problem, the joy is in the attempt.
Back in Monet’s time, photography was distrusted by many, Baudelaire, notably, was someone who feared that it would would displace the craft of what he believed to be the nobility of the painted image. But Painting has a way of navigating around humankind’s foibles and it will always somehow find a place at the head of the table. Was Baudelaire a luddite, afraid of the mechanics of all new technology? Was he fearful that photography would wipe out a vocation that had been so closely aligned with those of the poets, and close to the Greek Gods? Apparently, he wanted photography to be confined to factual documentation and practiced uniquely for scientific purposes far away from artistic ones. "Good luck with that Charles" some might have had the foresight to think at the time. And yet, for a long time it had actually been distrusted exactly for that reason; its availability. If Charles Baudelaire lived today, he'd have a smart phone and I think he'd love it.
Full Disclosure: I’m crazy about taking colour photos with my old Leica. There is nothing like it, because it’s nothing like painting in fact. Neither would it have occurred to me take a photo of the sky the other evening.
This painting was the second of two from the other evening. It reveals how the pale blue rises up to eat away the pink on top at the end of the session. Eventually, both colours dissipate quietly into the falling night. I’m not completely sure of it but it was fun making.
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