#13 George Inness 'The Storm' - 25 Days of Tonalism
Hello and welcome to Tonalist painting with M Francis McCarthy.
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| Painted after - 'The Storm' by George Inness, Study by M Francis McCarthy - Size 5x7, Oil on wood panel |
Today's painting is a study after George Inness, 'The Storm.'
Our video features the progression of this painting from its early underpainting stages on up through the final finishing brushwork. Also featured is my usual rambling narration, so please check it out.
Today, I would like to talk about the nature of visual imagery in our modern world. It wasn't that long ago that if you wanted any type of image you had to create it using charcoal, pencil or paint. In the early 1800s photography became available, although it was expensive and required some special chemicals, not to mention expertise.
Fast-forward 150 years and we find ourselves immersed and inundated with visual imagery everywhere we turn. In addition to all of the print media of the past, we have television, computers, video games and movies. As a consequence of this, people have become very accustomed to being saturated with visual imagery on a daily basis.
As I've spoken before on this blog, I worked for many years as a commercial illustrator using primarily digital media to create and execute my illustrations. I was lucky that I was on the forefront of the technology wave and was able to use my artistic talent and knowledge of programs like Photoshop to secure myself a good paying job.
For many years I was quite content to crank out images at an amazing rate utilizing pen, paper and of course my computer to finish the illustrations. I created some visually stunning work but there was inevitably something unsatisfying about creating images with a computer and printing them out on paper.
No matter how much time or effort I expended in creating an image, it always came out of a printer onto a piece of paper. Some printers are better than others and some paper is definitely better than other paper but the reproduced images is always just that, a reproduction on a piece of paper.
This insight was one of the major catalysts that drove me toward creating original oil paintings on wood panels. When I make a mark on my panel it is non-repeatable and always completely unique. The combination of myself as the artist, the oil-paint and the panel all unite to create a special and original object. While this object is two-dimensional on its face, it is really more than that, my painting is something that has been created by the human hand.
I pride myself on taking excellent photographs of my paintings and I go to great lengths to adjust and correct them. The fidelity to my original is as close as possible. There are huge swaths of the population that will never see one of my original paintings, they are interacting with a digital replica in most cases.
Even this digital replica could not have been created inside the computer. It would be utterly and completely impossible to accomplish this, not just with the present technology but it would be nearly impossible to accomplish even with future technologies yet un-invented.
As an aside, I might mention that I was chatting with a local artist recently who was putting on a show of their work that consisted entirely of reproductions. They seemed convinced that the reproductions were just as good as their originals, but if you asked me, this is self-deception and patently incorrect.
I did not argue with this artist because it is not my place to dispel their personal illusions. But I assure you that an original handmade work of art will always be uniquely and utterly compelling as an original object, especially compared to any facsimile regardless of how clever and accurate the reproduction might be.
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about my study after George Inness' 'The storm'. Of the 25 days of Tonalism studies that I have done, I would say this is one of the strongest and most attractive George Inness paintings. He is without a doubt, my favorite painter and I thoroughly enjoyed making this study after his remarkable painting.
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| Original painting 'The Storm'' by George Inness |
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| 'The Storm' by George Inness, Study by M Francis McCarthy (Detail) |
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| 'The Storm' by George Inness, Study by M Francis McCarthy (Detail 2) |