kip Whitcomb’s pastel, Ascension (at right), is a marked
departure from the 19th-century idea of the sublime. You’ll
find no level ground, no perch for the viewer, and no obvious
path to the distant peak. This isn’t some idealized notion of
alpine splendor—it’s the real deal. As a mountaineer, I imagine
roping up to climb the granite cliffs. As an artist, I’m drawn
in by the teardrops of light glinting off the crenulated rock
facets, by subtle color shifts that heighten the sense of space,
and by Whitcomb’s distinctive calligraphic mark-making. As
a human, I find joy in the vertical pattern of dark conifers and bright tussocks
of grass, a nexus of solitary life around which the composition radiates like a
pinwheel—a reminder that, even in the harshest terrain, life will find a way.
Though Whitcomb’s mountain landscape sprang from a specific location, and
though it displays a very real knowledge of Western geography, Ascension exists
only in the mind of the artist. It’s the summation of accumulated experience,
and for that, it’s all the more real.
The path between conception and realization, from field study to final
painting, is rarely a straight one. An idea, like a mountain, can shimmer in the
distance, tantalizing but inaccessible, there only for the intrepid to discover.
Similarly, the path to artistic maturity can also be full of twists and turns, dead
ends and new starts.FROM AN ON-THE-SCENE STUDY TO INITIAL CONCEPT
TO FINAL OUTCOME, SKIP WHITCOMB WORKS TO
CREATE PAINTINGS THAT GO BEYOND REALITY TO
DELIVER SOMETHING MORE POWERFUL AND TRUE.By Aaron Schuerr
Ascension (28x28)TRAIL
Blazing a
24 Pastel Journal AUGUST 2019