"Where do you get your inspiration?"
by Terry Miller
Artists can be asked that question ten times a day - twenty
on a good day! The who, the why, the what, the where . . . for me personally, I
find inspiration in all sorts of places and through all sorts of visual goodies
and cues. Maybe surprising to some, since I am a rather monochromatic guy -
working in shades of black, white and grey - I often find much to be inspired
by in the more colorful works of artist friends and sometimes in wonderful
discoveries of artists I had not previously been familiar with.
Leaving myself open to those sorts of discoveries wherever
they may pop up, I first came across the work of late nineteenth century
Norwegian, Frits Thaulow, through a posting of one of his paintings on
someone's Facebook page back at the close of 2012. I was immediately struck by
the beauty of the composition - well planned, well executed - and the masterful
handling of all the elements of the painting. Now why, might you question,
would a guy who works in graphite be so - pardon the pun - drawn to such a
colorful work? Just because my work is in black and white does not mean that I
cannot learn from observing the way a colorist makes use of value and shape and
line and texture, all those key elements of a well designed and composed work
of art.
As I spent time exploring a larger body of work of this
marvelous new-to-me artist, I realized that the work posted on Facebook was
certainly not a one-off, a single 'hit', but part of a vast sea of brilliantly
executed, very lucid and evocative paintings that spoke volumes to me about
Thaulow's ability to pull me into his compositions and make me want to stay
forever. As an artist myself, that is the sort of end result I strive for in my
work - not every single piece that comes off my drawing board, but maybe every
fifth or sixth or seventh piece?
For a rather long period of time after I turned professional
as an artist twenty five years ago, I never delved into water in my
compositions; it was a texture I felt fearful of attempting in my drawings.
I've talked to many other artists who also felt, and still do to some extent,
that water is a difficult surface texture to portray in a two dimensional work
of art. After looking at dozens and dozens of paintings in which Thaulow really
focused on water as the major subject of those works, I was awed by the
simplicity of his renderings, yet how liquid, transparent and filled with
movement his waterways were.
For the sake of brevity and knowing that I could key into
and throw a spotlight upon many aspects of Thaulow's choices of subject matter
- his pure landscapes, brilliant in my estimation and the equal of any of the
more well known tonalists of the time - I'll concentrate here on the way he depicted
and focused upon water in a staring roll.
The examples below are just a tiny slice of Thaulow's world
of water; some depicting its calm, some depicting more of a rush, some focused
on watery reflections both in daylight and at night - water in all its seasons.
What has struck me the most is the simplicity of his brush work and how fluid
the paint seemed to be when applied in broad strokes, not unlike Monet in his
grand water lily canvases. In the first image, that marvelous, bright yellow
and gold rippling water with splashes of green and mauve, the water shimmers
and glows. A detail of part of the water shows bold, impressionistic brush
work.
The second full painting followed by another detail, shows
the way Thaulow mixed in all sorts of hues to depict the reflection and general
swirling character of the water, and the third pairing - the winter scene with
another detail following it - shows little scuff marks depicting subtle
movement in the otherwise rather still water.
Five more examples of his vast output of water study follow,
showing the diversity of his rendering of that single element of design and his
mastery of it. Studying such artistry has certainly offered me ideas and
insight and, even as an artist who focuses more on other aspects of nature and
the animal realm, there is much here that speaks to me and that will inevitably
cause me to approach future works on my drawing board in ways I may not have
before I was inspired by the works of Frits Thaulow.
Terry Miller is a graphite artist residing in Maryland, USA. He is a signature member of the Society of Animal Artists and on their Board of Directors.
http://www.terrymillerstudio.com/
