Winter Landscape #9 (Fog) and Homage to 19th Century Painters

24" x 18"

oil on panel

8" x 10"

oil on canvas

These paintings comment on nineteenth century landscape painting like the Hudson River School. Painters like Thomas Cole and Asher B. Durand set out to depict the American landscape as new territory, untouched, close to God, and unique. Their outlook was optimistic, like Obama's vision for America in the face of crisis es including environmental.

Dark trees often contrast with luminous sky in these works. Foliage is very textural and heavy while the skies are smooth and light. The second painting is a smaller jpeg of the third to show the naturalistic illusion of the painting which can't be seen except by stepping back. Close up the texture reads that this is painting and illusion is secondary. A band of black defines the right edge while the left is allowed to be atmospheric, a tension that makes the eye scan back and forth.

Charles Darwin was active at about the time as the Hudson River School. The subject of Darwin, art and evolution was the focus of a recent Brian Lehrer Show. The book: The Art Instinct – Beauty, Pleasure and Human Evolution by Denis Dutton , editor of http://artsandlettersdaily.com was the impetus for the discussion and Dutton was the guest. The book's premise is that evolution, not culture, determine’s taste through natural selection. It is a Darwinian take on aesthetics. Dutton thinks that our early ancestors were imprinted with certain landscape views in their travels and that is what makes us respond to such views in art. It takes Joseph Cambell's ideas on art and Jung's collective unconscious further by connecting it with evolution. As a painter I find this fascinating but I don't plan on making any art deliberately tailored to exemplify it.

The Yale Center for British Art is featuring an exhibit on Darwin's influence on the visual arts titled "Endless Forms': Charles Darwin, Natural Science and the Visual Arts" which closes May 3, 2009.