Painting glow and light
What discomforts the eye in painting is similar to what discomforts the ear in music. Music is a 'transition'
experience in which time is a fixed element (beat). But the eye roves the painted surface in a manner hopefully
controlled by the painter. The painter may cleverly force a discomfort in much the same manner a jazz musician
will use a discordant note to lay emphasis on a beautiful (intoxicating) chord. What discomforts the eye can be
many things, adjacent compliments, illogical form, concave mirrors or, what I mentioned above, unfocused
edges. (Rothko used fuzzy rectangles to try and induce a extra translucent brilliance to his plain color areas - it
is an old formula).
Why a discomfort? Because the eye naturally avoids looking at bright objects so to paint one the discomfort
must be artificially induced. Painting suns and moons was usually referred to as a 'brave exercise' and avoided
by all but the most accomplished landscape artists (Turner was accomplished while VanGough experimented).
We can never paint surfaces as light as natural light so we must use device and illusion to convince the eye what
it is seeing is a light as it should be... that is the fun of illusion!Painting glow without showing the light source.
Here the principles are the same with the darks superimposed over the lights.Detail of morning glow from another painting I did for the 'Bounty' series.STUDENT ACTIVITY: Do the exercise proposed at the start of this lesson. Allow 20min.http://www.geocities.com/~jlhagan/lessons/glow_and_light.htm (2 of 3)1/13/2004 3:53:36 AM