"Agitated" by Wolf Kahn. Today I read a book called "Wolf Kahn's America".
Here are some of Wolf's writings and thoughts
regarding art. I hope you enjoy them!
They are interesting.
"My work became smaller and smaller as my courage
continued to fail" (he is referring to the period after art school)
"As is typical of young artists I identified so closely with
my idols that it became embarrasing."
The Hofmans (who later used Waugh's home to start
the art school Wolf Kahn attended) purchased the
estate of Frederick Waugh ( a great American seascape painter).
All of Frederick Waugh's possessions within the estate
were burned. "We were modern artists totally
unsentimental about the recent past, and full
of contempt for Waugh and his type of art. (I think this is strange).
John Marin, Marsden Hartley, Edward Hopper never sold
any paintings to their neighbors. But Wolf Kahn sold to
his farmer neighbors in Vermont by learning how to speak
the farmer's language and by selling the painting for half
the price of a cow.
Storms, fogs, rain showers temporarily unify the sky
with the ground.
"For an artist it can often be said that when he's looking, he's working."
There were many aristocrates who seeked artists to paint
commissions of their beautiful castle or estate home.
This is not happening any longer. Now large
corporations seek commissions but rarely.
"I fill the spaces with strong color or heavy pigment,
which brings the background spaces foreward again,
causing the near trees to appear to recede. (This is the
opposite of atmospheric perspective). By playing
between near and far he carries the picture foreward.
He seeks a "Tapestry of paint". Cares not for atmosperic perspective.
"Impressionists had the idea that painting was like
knotting a rug." (all the spots in the painting were equal).
"The idea isn't to be a copycat (of the landscape while
plein air painting) but to use nature, it chaos, its
geometry, as a jumping-off point for the imagination."
"The boat, if it is to be allowed, (in the painting) has
to have a pictorial function: allowing the eye to travel
in a certain way, balancing another element, adding
a necessary accent of tone, perhaps all of the above.
Simply to put it in because it is there is not enough reason."
He was painting with Fairfield Porter on his island
in Penobscot Bay. He was painting in the harbor,
islands, water, sky, dock, and gas tanks and pipes.
Wolf Kahn told him to leave out the gas tanks.
Fairfield Porter replied back in anger, "You don't
understand what I do at all when you speak like that.
I 'm not some esthetician who censors the landscape.
I 'm painting my field of vision. How do I know whether
the stuff you don't like is what holds the whole thing
together? Kahn says he respected him...but he
wouldn't have painted in the gas tanks.
He calls mix trees and man made structures
a juxtaposition of open elements and solid ones.
Wolf Kahn won't paint in NY parks because
people feel the artist exists for their momentary
entertainment.
On Maine water: Does the blue or gray of the
water look cold enough (in the painting)?
He wants no hint of Caribbean color. (paints ocean
cool blue or purples...no blue greens or greens.)
Wolf Kahn likes to paint in parking lots of restaurants.
There are advantages: food, restrooms,
no carrying equipment, his car hides him from people.
He painted a marsh scene plein air (outdoors).
Then in his studio he continued to paint
painting using this plein air marsh painting.
He simplified the shapes down to only divisions
of water, sand, and sky. No details were left.
He had escaped the demands of exact description.
Advice to a landscape painter: Approach
nature with out an agenda. Be innocent.
He believes we need to escape from
previously created art. 80% of all art
is from previous art.
Follow Cocteau's dictum: "one should always
go further than one should go. Make colors go
further. This makes the painting a celebration
of light. This may be a single color. Or it
can be the relationship between two colors."
Wolf Kahn's favorite landscape colors are
Gamblin's Radiant Violet and Holbein Lemon
Yellow Pale. The reason is when he visited the
local art store, these were the only two
colors he had not tried. (What a coincidence these
two colors purple and yellow are complementary
colors).
"Don't be conventional in perspective.
Look for disorder, unkept, broken."
"Keep order and predictablility at bay."
If he doesn't like the colors, he will say,
"I am a meteorologist, so I am free to
change the weather."
In paintings: "One should only lie so
much or else everything looks false.
You must have good justification for
lying."
"To do advanced work, one needs the support
of an ordered, burgeois existence."
He dislikes driving, he is at danger on the
road, because he is always looking for subject matter.
Fallen trees amongst standing trees
provides nice contrast in paintings.
The fallen trees are 90 degree
difference needed for the strong
contrast in visual experiences.
He thinks about other meanings?
Castration anxiety? The felled tree
is psychologically charged.
"It is a spectacular sunset, it causes
me to go overboard; I lose all sense
of decorum and wallow in coloristic
blatancy; otherwise known as kitsch.
The disadvantage of painting a sunset
is to be surrounded by people with
special needs. (someone who needs
a special drink to enjoy sunset).
He claims the sunrise is best
because you are alone.
"Living at the ocean gave me a
taste for painting emptiness.
Just large divisions of space.
Where all color is related by
atmosphere alone, where minute
textural differences mean everything."
But he prefers extreme density of the
woods, when I am forced to deal with
possibility that too much is happening
in the visual field, rather than too little.
He was invited to paint blue bonnet fields in Texas.
He was very proud to be able to use just one
color of blue and color in the whole painting.
He writes Julian Onderdonk's painting of
blue bonnets had 50 different colors and tones.
He only used one color to be successful.
"Julian Onderdonk got nowhere as close to
reality of that immense blueness as I did.
Let this serve as an example that modern
art not only complicates but also simplifies
things." (Note to self: Do not put down another painter
when writing my book)
"I am able to derive benefit from the American landscape
wherever I go, thus avoiding the enticements of
conventional beauty."
"Bud light" 5x7 watercolor donated.
