Left: the design is sealed with tinted medium; right: the finished image, with opaque color applied last.
This image shows a little, gift painting—from start to finish. Here is my normal way of working, no matter the subject or theme, and it owes much at the beginning stages to what I’ve learned from illustrators. Pencil lines are placed and sealed with tinted medium.
I have come to trust revisions, over time, as part of the process. This painting sat, nagging me, for almost six months. (Top is July version; bottom is December version.)
The two images below are evidence of two patterns of my creative interest. They are scans of the same painting, which revisits a site, or a remembered poetic, from many years ago. The image of the left is of the painting when I first thought it was “finished,” about a month ago. The image on the right, showing subtle modifications of tone and drawing, is of how the painting looks today. I revise almost all of my images, and I frequently revisit older images.
As a young adult the bus I took to high school passed this pair of sheds twice every day. Later, I felt compelled to capture their image in a snapshot. Even later, I used them as a source for a painting, shown below. The same pair of sheds were also reused later for surrealist purposes in another painting about 20 years ago. The image is unremarkable, really, but it has staying power in my bank of remembered and imagined spaces.
PART I:
Having studied Paul Cezanne (Fr. 1839-1906) for virtually a lifetime, the newly-opened exhibition at Art Institute of Chicago is a real treat. I visited the galleries twice thus far and attended a members lecture. Here are a few summative questions that come to my mind.
Does Cezanne qualify as a great artist? Historically, yes he does. Was Cezanne a remarkable man? No, his biography is not remarkable relative to several of his contemporaries, but his exceptional temperament was crucial to the art’s startling originality. Would Cezanne’s influence have been as great if he was not French, living near Paris at end of the 19th century? No, his iconoclastic tendencies were appreciated by other artists in Paris, the center of modernist art at turn of the century.
PART II:
Annie Morse, a museum specialist, gave a helpful lecture on the exhibit to members. Here are several takeaways from her talk: Cezanne returned to the familiar throughout his life, Cezanne returned to motifs until he had exhausted them, and heavy impasto and light transparency were counterpoints in his technique.
As I savored the exhibit on two successive days, I noticed how quiet (noise levels) the galleries were; very few people talking to each other as they moved. Also, the galleries were not packed, and I could easily move around, even being able to sketch with little interruption. My hunch is that this show will attract a loyal audience—loyal to AIC, loyal to art history, and loyal to Cezanne as an artist. The general audience for art may likely continue to be confounded by (what are perceived as) clumsy paint handlings, lack of important theme, and a general unfinished-business quality to the body of work.
PART III:
After attending Morse’s lecture and thinking about what I caught and missed on the first day, I returned on the second day. These are among the things I noticed during the second visit:
I haven’t studied the dimensions precisely, but I was struck by how many of the canvases / formats seem to have a 5:6 aspect ratio, being a little bit longer or taller than a square. This preferred format was used for landscapes, still-lifes, and portraits. Not all of them but many of them. Also, having previously been aware of an informal or casual geometry in Cezanne’s compositions, I noticed in this show how many of them incorporate a subtle or not-so-subtle horizontal banding. As Morse pointed out, Cezanne returned to objects, motifs, and sites over and over again, which once the paintings are understood more deeply in their geo-cultural context made me wonder if it might be helpful to me to think of the artist as a “regionalist.” He was provincial.
The example below appeared even more green in person. I tried to capture geometry and rhythm in my sketch.
To accompany a very recent solo exhibition, I prepared a statement and talk that tried to explain my choice of subject matter. The exhibition showed almost 50 examples of compositions created from regional, vernacular architecture. (You can see examples on my “Swatches” / gallery page.) Last week I came across a description of this kind of subject matter in a postwar American novel set in New Orleans. Here’s a sentence that repurposes the original description for the state of ruin I find in these buildings:
”It was a kind of building that had degenerated from something to nothing in particular, a kind of building that had moved into the twenty-first century carelessly and uncaringly—and with very limited funds.”
(from A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole, 1980.)
Seven years ago, this painting (left) was begun on site and completed in a different studio. I have revised the painting (right) in my current studio. Whatever was going on seven years ago ought to be respected; however, my mind seems clearer now—linear perspective errors seem to be corrected, and the light quality has become more coherent due to changed choices in color mixtures?
This revision of older paintings is tricky business, and there can be many reasons for responding differently, at a remove of time. For this particular painting I can’t claim it’s “better,” because I don’t remember what I was after, seven years ago. I can claim I’m happier with it now than if I had not revised it.
Completed 35 years ago, this large oil painting was among a series of “portraits” of fellow grad students’ studios. Before I move the canvas to climate-controlled storage, I took a new picture of it for cataloging purposes. My style has certainly evolved, through several major changes, and much of an artistic vision remains in place. Chief among latent characteristics are priorities for visual rhythm, for precise color choices, and a personal response to linear perspective.
1986 Burmeister Tara’s Studio
Especially for those of us who are aware of artistic traditions and historical styles, painting in the genre of landscape is a complicated undertaking. Especially for those of us making art who are aware of and responsive to the long reach of modernism, the simple pleasure of putting together a landscape painting is often compromised by our personal inventory of great precedents. (Modernism haunts us with its nagging for originality and genius.)
The so-called plein aire painters are to be envied for their priorities for technique / craft and style—for rolling up their sleeves, putting on wide-brimmed hats, exposing themselves to ambient dynamics, and just getting after it. As a kind of contemporary art movement, their concerns for tradition and style seem to be limited to a kind of mid-to-late 19th century European renaissance. We should not dismiss them .
Perhaps, some of us paint other subject matters primarily and enjoy painting landscapes as an extension of artistic well-being, or we translate our primary artistic focus to the unique challenges of the landscape? We may admire precedents in Dutch painting, French impressionism, early 20th-century movements such as Cubism and Expressionism, or American regionalism.
I try to keep in mind the many insights shared by my landscape painting mentor, Don Schmidlapp. Several hours on site or in a gallery with Don was great for clearing away the clutter in my mind. When my mind closes in on itself, a recall of Don’s insights opens it back up. I am reminded to not aim a landscape painting at anything other than what is true to the object, as I see and paint it.
In the later 1980s, I was blessed to be able to do portraits of jazz musicians living in Madison WI. Roscoe Mitchell was the most famous among my sitters, and I am still grateful for his unwarranted generosity to me. I was able to complete several paintings and drawings, of which these two were shown in galleries at the time. (They remain in my collection.)
1980s Burmeister Portraits of Roscoe Mitchell
Slightly modified angles and perspectives and moved to a different idea for color on the image of this odd structure.
Here are two images (different treatments of same shed) with first and second “finisheds.” In both of them, perspective errors in the first were corrected, and color palettes became schematic.
Below is a before-and-after comparison of a painting (Louisville ruin) that was put away—finished— months ago, and then picked up recently, and now finished again. I have come to trust how time works in my process. Not all paintings are picked up again; many are indeed finished. But many benefit from more time.
2019-2020 Burmeister Was She Beautiful? then and now
The painting below was completed over 30 years ago, as a conceptual portrait of my friend, the Madison-based saxophone player, Leo Maiberger. Leo was a very patient sitter and a mentor to my tastes in jazz. This image was part of a series of portraits of jazz musicians living in Madison. This image must have meant a lot to me because I’ve moved it many times. No more. I will destroy the canvas and archive it. The image seems like less now.
1988 Burmeister Leo the Lion
I’m not sure what spurred the effort to paint in my office while I work, but effects of coronavirus disruptions in the last several weeks seemed to have made the effort a restorative distraction. Hopper’s Chop Suey is one of my favorite paintings of all time—for its foregrounding of visual rhythms, for its muscular color and drawing, for its historical, American theme, and for its novel image quality. By performing an interpretive copy of Hopper’s painting, I also discovered its solid structure, its lack of precision with perspective, and its wonderful representation of lighted space.
Technically speaking, I stretched a scrap of linen on stretcher bars that are proportionally true to the original, I worked much more quickly with handlings than is my habit, and my palette was limited to six or seven tubes. My goal was not simulation or replication, but interpretation.
2020 Burmeister interpretive copy of Chop Suey
Vladimir Nabakov has been among, but not always, my favorite writers. When I am away from him for long periods of time, I forget what an artist he is with language (admittedly, in English translation) and observation. What struck me most about the following paragraph is the pace at which his description moves through an ordinary moment; the writer is not hurried, and his economic inventory makes quick work of an important narrative interlude. From “A Busy Man,” 1931:
“He opened the window. It was lighter without than within, but streetlamps had already started to glow. Smooth clouds blanketed the sky; and only westerward, between ochery housetops, an interspace was banded with tender brightness. Farther up the street a fiery-eyed automobile had stopped, its straight tangerine tusks plunged in the watery gray of the asphalt. A blond butcher stood on the threshold of his shop and contemplated the sky.”
Early September, overcast sky, quiet surroundings—a great morning for sketching in the company of artist friends! I am blessed to be out there in the company of Robert Andersen, Jerrold Belland, and Doug DeVinny; the four of us in lawn chairs and having art supplies at hand. And it’s a bonus when I can return home with something to show for my efforts! (Shown here is a sketch completed in fluid acrylics on toned paper.)
2019 Burmeister Rochester Cemetery
I’ve taken care of some final details, added a few minor elements, and finished the background. Hopefully there’s still enough energy in the foreground, and the composition’s central arch is not obscured.
2019 Burmeister Cacti Pair (penultimate)
The progress of this painting has been recorded at regular intervals of duration. As my paintings progress, less appears to happen during the same duration as more happened earlier. Now, my inside voice—my informed intuition?—tells me to be cautious about going too far. What is the correct balance; what is the elegance not fully conscious?
2019 Burmeister Cacti Pair (almost fine-ally)
