Art is an expression of desire. In the case of landscape painting
it's the soul's desire to escape the daily entrapments of the mind's concerns. The landscape is a metaphor for the soul's going forth. Emerson wrote eloquently of the liberation he found in the woods in his essay "Nature," (opens a new window) whence comes the quote on the homepage of this website. Spiritual liberation as expressed by the Transcendentalists of the mid 1800s was a strong influence on the American landscape painters of that era--the Luminists and the Hudson River School--and continues to influence contemporary American landscape painting, even while we redefine humanity's relation to the natural world we inhabit.
Through art we attempt to possess, to inhabit, to identify with or become one with a thing or a place. The ancient cave painters painted what they hungered for, the animals that provided their sustenance. In the same way, landscape painting can reflect a spiritual hunger.
Not long ago we were on an excursion in western Michigan, driving
around in the woods at sundown. We were cruising a back road which
paralleled Lake Michigan looking for a likely turn-off to the lake,
which we found before too long. The road finally ended at a small
parking lot, where stairs went up the landward side of a giant sand
dune, a common feature of Great Lakes coastlines. The stairs went
up and up. Out of breath, we reached the top of the dune and gazed
out over the great lake. The sun had just set. Soft gray and yellow
clouds covered most of the vast sky and played their colors on the
almost-still lake spread out before us in three directions. We fell
silent for a while, and when we finally spoke we said, "amazing,"
"incredible." What exactly was it that made us feel like
that? It was one of those moments when natural beauty just overtakes
you--a "transparent eyeball" moment.
It's that feeling that I am searching for
in my work. It's not a matter of trying to render the place photographically;
I try to paint the feeling of being in that place. I use the landscape
as a way to explain to myself the feeling of being.
"A man's life is nothing but an extended trek through the detours of art to recapture those one or two moments when his heart first opened."
--Camus
For me, the process of creating should have at its core a contemplative, spiritual understanding of the landscape--the transparent eyeball thing.
I live in the Detroit area, a gritty urban
hub of America's industrial rust belt. In light of that one could
say painting pastoral landscapes is escapist, and I wouldn't argue.
Lately, though, I've become interested in urban landscapes, factories,
refineries, railroad tracks, trucks and dumpsters and oil barrels.
These things can evoke feelings too. Buildings, city streets, bridges,
these are things that show up in my dreams. I'm not as certain about
the feelings such places arouse as I am with the coasts, for example.
Painting these pictures becomes an examination of those feelings.
This work doesn't attempt to be ambitious art, in the art-historical sense. Look elsewhere for PoMo Irony. Mine is not an art of strategy, of épater le bourgoisie. What I have to say functions more as an emotional response to my surroundings.
---Arthur Chartow