American Impressionism. Part 3
WALKER G. BUCKNER, JR.
Walker G. Buckner, Jr., earned degrees in law and business before beginning his study of art in 1977 at New York City’s Art Students League and the National Academy of Design. He is now a full-time professional artist, maintaining studios in Boston and Sheffield, Massachusetts.
Feeling a bit uncomfortable about describing his technique as he worked at Weir Farm, Buckner said, “It’s hard to say very much about painting. The expression of painting is a communication without language. It should do its work without a lot of chatter. The important thing in looking at paintings is to be open so the unexpected and unfamiliar aren’t shut out. It sometimes takes a long time to see what’s happening in a picture.”
Despite his words of caution, Buckner offered some insightful comments about his concerns as an artist: “Obviously, over time a painter acquires ways of solving problems. However, it also seems important to keep the process open, subject to accident and discovery. For me, the worst thing is to have a set way of going about it.
“I know I respond to light,” he continued. “I’m concerned with the way outdoor light lands on objects, the way shadow shapes are formed, the way color sits inside shadows. Sunlight seems to hold objects in place, to slow time down, extend the moment; it gives objects a solidity.
“I try to abstract the subject into its strongest forms,” Buckner went on to say. “Although I’m painting actual objects (chairs, boats, etc.), the painting process is one of transforming them. I think the pictures should be about paint, about light and shadow, about form and color. They’re not about the narrative of the subject. I like having a color on the surface when I start to paint. I like a gritty, lively, rough surface of brushstrokes. I like pushing the paint around. If the image is weak, I like to let it dry and then attack it fresh, not fix it. I like to drag wet paint over dry paint. I sometimes let marks on earlier layers show through, sometimes obliterate them.”
Buckner and Peggy Root (another Weir Farm outing participant) are the parents of small children and, for health reasons, have gotten into the habit of wearing disposable vinyl gloves while painting. At the farm, Buckner used both rough- and smooth-surfaced canvases primed with lead white oil paint. He worked with a combination of oils and alkyds, sometimes using Liquin alkyd medium to speed up their drying time.
“I’ve noticed that each of my paintings seems to have a kind of color harmony particular to it,” the artist observed. “This seems to be important to me. The color relationships are something I feel. I have no conscious rules.”
THOMAS S. BUECHNER
The cover story on Thomas S. Buechner that appeared in the October 1992 issue of American Artist gave a detailed description of the artist’s palette of fast-drying alkyd colors and the lightweight Multimedia Art-board on which he paints. He brought those supplies with him to Weir Farm in the minivan that often serves as his mobile studio. On the chilly first morning of the outing, Buechner was found standing under the rear hatch door of the van, listening to opera music through the car stereo, drinking coffee from a thermos, holding a brush in a hand covered with a fingerless glove, and painting a view of the Weir studio.
He uses the resin-based alkyd paints because they dry more quickly than oils and become impervious to solvents once they are dry. These characteristics are a real advantage for an artist who wants to avoid the muddy colors that can develop when applying layers of slow-drying oils. In addition, alkyds make it easier for Buechner to pack up paintings and travel to new locations; an alkyd painting normally dries completely within twenty-four hours while an oil painting can remain wet for days.
As the former director of both The Brooklyn Museum in New York City and the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, New York, Buechner is well informed about landscape painting. He offered these comments about the experience of painting at Weir Farm:
“Being interested in all kinds of techniques, I originally saw this outing as a chance to leave my own predilection for strong light and shade to investigate Weir’s late, pale palette. But it was no use. This strange place, so long an artist’s place, is a haunting anachronism. The stone walls, once laboriously built to enclose, no longer have gates; the entrance to the carriage house is blocked by a tree, and another tree prevents light from entering the studio window. These subjects seemed so poignant I found myself abandoning a deliberate technical approach and simply trying to convey the passage of time as I saw it here.”
GERARD DOUDERA
Gerard Doudera is the first painter to have been designated a visiting artist at Weir Farm (photographer Gretchen Garner was the 1991-1992 visiting artist). As such, he has been able to use the facilities there while painting the landscape.
Doudera, a professor emeritus of art at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, is well known throughout New England for his large paintings of ponds, wooded fields, and figures. “He seems to revel in the seductive power of nature which he presents to us like a delectable feast,” wrote art historian Joyce Brodsky in the catalog for a 1990 retrospective exhibition of Doudera’s work at the university’s William Benton Museum of Art. “Doudera’s strength lies in his refusal to be sentimental about the natural world, but to see it as that source of nourishment that feeds the sensuous parts of our nature.”
During the Weir Farm outing, the artist said he often works on large canvases when painting outdoors because he “likes being surrounded by canvas” and because he “finds it easier to develop a sense of deep space in a painting that’s large.” But the large scale forces him to take steps to keep the canvas from becoming a sail that carries his painting supplies away in the gusting wind. He must also prevent the sunlight from filtering through it and distorting his view of the developing picture. “I sometimes have to nail my canvas to a tree or anchor the easel with tent stakes and wires,” Doudera explained. There was only a slight wind blowing on the days of the outing, so a heavy rock placed in the metal tray of his French easel was enough to secure it.
The palette he used at Weir Farm included titanium white, viridian, cerulean blue, cobalt blue, ultramarine blue, cadmium red deep, cadmium red light, cadmium orange, cadmium yellow, yellow ochre, raw sienna, and Naples yellow. It took Doudera several days to complete his large painting, but his considerable experience in working outdoors helped him adjust to the changing conditions.
About the Author
Д-Стайл занимаемся разработкой дизайн интерьера, планировка и дизайн квартир в Москве.
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