Monumental Statements About Our World
by M. Stephen Doherty
Former
Editor-in-Chief of American Artist magazine and current Editor of PleinAir
In 1857, the great
Hudson River School painter Frederic E. Church unveiled his 40” x 90” painting
of Niagara Falls. The fascination with and publicity about the painting brought
out more than 100,000 people who each paid twenty-five cents to see what was
then considered a colossal masterwork. That enthusiastic public response was
not accidental or unexpected.
From the very
beginning of his celebrated career, Church attracted attention to his work by
creating large, blockbuster sized landscape paintings of exotic, unknown, and
captivatingly dramatic locations. Some of those depictions were reports of what
the artist actually discovered on location, and other paintings were
imaginative compilations of the plant material, animals, volcanos, rivers,
waterfalls, and people the artist sketched and painted when he made trips to
Central and South America, Cuba, and Mexico. The challenges he set for himself
in terms of both the physical and creative aspects of these projects were
monumental.
Church was not the
only great American artist who built his career on attention-getting,
large-scale paintings. Albert Bierstadt filled massive canvases with dramatic
storms, skyscraper sized waterfalls, and remote mountain landscapes; and some
of the best wildlife artists of the 20th century, including Carl Rungius,
created large, curved dioramas for natural history museums by referring to
studies created on location in Africa, South America, Europe, and the United
States.
The challenge of
painting massive canvases didn’t originate with American artists. Long before,
European masters like Rubens, Tintoretto, Delacroix, and Monet proved their
talents and physical capabilities by filling cathedrals, palaces, and castles
with series of large-scale paintings. Their murals, frescoes, mosaics, and
canvases celebrated successful battles, conquests by a monarch, miracles
performed by a saint, or wonders of the natural world. And while they brought
attention to the events depicted in the works of art, they also elicited wide
respect for the talented artists who accomplished such amazing artistic feats.
The challenges that
brought out the best in artists of the past continue to inspire artists who
have something important to say through their major works. One of today’s most
gifted and dedicated American artists is preparing to celebrate the wildlife
species in Africa on an unprecedented scale. Brian Jarvi has spent the past
fourteen years realizing a dream grounded in his childhood fascination with
collections of local animal species and informed by his lifelong studies of
Africa. He will complete a series of seven large-scale, interlocking panels and
related supporting studies that summarizes his understanding of life on the
continent and his hopes for the future. Together, these thoroughly researched
images will achieve the scale and impact of the monumental work of art executed
by Church, Bierstadt, Rungius, or other historic masters.
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| Brian Jarvi and Masai Chief |
When Jarvi discusses
his project, from its inception to its ultimate completion, it is clear he is a
man of intellect, passion, talent, and perfection. “I’ve been studying,
breathing, watching, eating, drawing and painting African images ever since my
first trip to the continent in 1989,” he explains. “I’ve made a total of twelve
trips there, each lasting from ten days to a full month, and I’ve hired drivers
and Land Rovers to get me out into the field where I could learn about the
animals, the people, and the environment. Sometimes, I went in search of
specific locations and behaviors, and mostly I opened myself up to anything I
could learn and experience. All of that comes into play as I conceive of
drawings and paintings in response to what I have learned and what concerns me
in terms of the fragile state of animals and their environment.”
The artwork resulting
from this 25 year devotion to Africa falls into two general categories, both of
which are in evidence in the exhibition of work related to the African
Menagerie project. Some pieces are perceptive portraits of specific people,
animals, and locations; and others are dramatic stories about the lives of
those portrait subjects. That is, Jarvi creates images of individual tribesmen,
lions, rhinos, leopards, and antelope as if he were painting commissioned
portraits of African dignitaries. There is as much respect, love, and
understanding of his subjects as there would be if he were painting portraits
of family members or neighbors. He reveals both the unique personality and
likeness of his subjects with such perceptive skill that viewers feel as if
they have just been introduced to a living, breathing, resident of the earth.
While studying and
portraying these individuals, Jarvi begins to develop concepts for paintings
that might summarize his ideas and emotions and, at the same time, will engage
viewers of his paintings in a broader story. In most cases, these concepts are
only vaguely connected to a real event or image. It’s more likely that the
story takes shape in Jarvi’s imagination, prompted by his thorough knowledge of
Africa, his talents as an artist, and his gifts as a communicator.
For example, the
painting Last Gladiators
began as an idea that gradually took a definite shape as Jarvi combed through
thousands of his own photographs, read through reference books, tried out
dozens of compositional schemes, and created monochromatic studies of animals.
Those studies were wiped out, repainted, wiped out again, and continuously
adjusted until Jarvi knew he had a basic image that had pictorial impact and
was accurate in terms of the elephants’
anatomy, perspective, and attitude. Only then did he go through the long process
of bringing the image to life with layers of oil colors.
Sometimes the concept for a painting
comes from an image buried deep in Jarvi’s memory, as when he created Overlord. “About 25 years ago I saw a leopard
perched in a tree with sunlight filtering through the lush vegetation,” Jarvi recalls.
“It was such a captivating scene that it stuck with me for all those years even
though it only lasted a few moments. I
started making sketches of how I might recreate those moments that said so much
to me about the African environment and the life of the animal. I dug back to
find some of the slides I had taken at the time, played with some oil sketches,
and gradually developed an image that captured the impact and meaning of those
distant memories.
“I spend every day thinking about my
paintings, those that are in progress and those that are years from being
realized, and I am always absorbed in the lifelong process of understanding the
subjects I paint,” Jarvi says. “For example, I look through the schedule of
television programs, the list of forthcoming books, and the newly produced
documentaries to find those that might in some way relate to Africa. If the
material is particularly informative, I review it over and over again until I
have gained as much knowledge and inspiration from it as possible.”
Jarvi says that sketching with oil colors
is actually a better way for him to evaluate a potential painting composition
than working with graphite, charcoal, or pastel. “I like to flesh out an idea
by painting in a dry brush manner using a soft brush and oil color pulled
straight from a tube,” he says. “For me, that’s closer to the way I will
eventually develop a painting than if I were to make a linear sketch or value
studies in charcoal. Moreover, I can keep wiping off and reapplying one earth
color until the sketch accurately captures the concept that has been whirling
around in my head. I use the same technique when I move to a big panel and
start developing the final painting because I like seeing the composition
without color. It’s a way of testing the design and the accuracy of the
depiction before I consider the colors.
“I’m never willing to
stop when a painting is ‘good enough,’” Jarvi says in explaining his creative
process. “Some paintings take me years to finish because I keep thinking of ways
I can improve them. That’s especially true when I’m dealing with the drama of
Africa wildlife because I have so much respect for the animals and for the
people who view and collect my work. When I finally sign a painting, I expect
to feel as though I have been living with live animals and learning everything
I can about the way those specific creatures move, respond to situations,
interact with each other, and exist within a changing environment. And if I
have done that, I hope viewers of my finished paintings will have the same
sense of connectedness, understanding, appreciation, and respect.
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| Preliminary Concept Rendering for Brian Jarvi's African Menagerie: The Inquisition |
