Cover
Cover
Main | Introduction
| Roses in the Dusk
Irises in Spring | Interlude
of Ambiguity | Irises and Pears
Thumbnail Gallery
To be a painter, it is almost essential to love paint. Perhaps Michelangelo
could dispense with this, but few others could. A painter must love the
idea of paint, its ways of moving, drying, changing, its existance as a
thing apart. Like a pianist, a painter must create art by having their creative
energies flow through their hands. The cellist encompasses the music, and
the conductor has his entire body to determine the expression to the audience.
The sculptor
enshrouds, the print maker
presses. But the painter must wield the brush. The painter must then love
the physicality of the paint, from the ethereal watercalourist, through
the almost bas-relief art thick application - the working method must match
the physicality of the paint itself.
Cezanne is clearly one of the powerful influences at work, directly or indirectly, on this painter. The Irises and Pears sill-life resembles the works of the 1880's and 1890's of this painter. Since it is painted concurrently with many other works, it is clearly as much a part of the livin style that she is seeking as the more individualized works. The same physicality of paint found in his works, where the brush strokes take on a structural weight of their own, becomeing post, lintel and stud of the painting, is found in hers. This is a powerful tension. The artifice of the painter is never far from us, and yet it is this artifice which allows us to forget that this is a painting.
One thing to notice here is the brush work
produces colour effects in paint. This is clearly different from the almost
metalic colours which dominate the other paintings looked at - and it is
achieved through the use of brush work which is less fractal and less coherence
generating, but is not arbitrary more merely for effect.
Here is a detail from the curtain work. Notice the use of indeterminate
This effect was well known even longer ago than one hundred years, and its use here creates a link to the very beginings of modern painting. This linkage is affirmed by the treatment of the pears themselves.
One could find a dozen examples by Cezzane, and unfortunately I don't
have permission to use any of them. The Web Museum has a fine collection
of Cezzanne's
Still Life works. A comparison is useful. Though the tactics are Cezzanne's
the compositional form and ends are clearly Kazanskaya's own. Her vision
is simpler, more centrally focused, and filled with clarity. There is also
a greater suggestion of vision. In Cezzanne, the indeterminant nature of
a work comes from the painter looking at the object for a long time, and
seeing it from many angles. Thus 
Cezzanne is an
early modern in that he is attempting to present the whole object as it
appears in his mind. There is no multiple persepective here, and as we saw
from the wall example in the previous painting, the indeterminancy comes
from the ephemeral effect of instaneous sight transposed to static painting.
One place where the difference between Cezzanne and Kazanskaya is most evident is in the large arrays of almost mezzotint like lines that create the background. Paint is made to perform like amy other media, like crayon in the upper right, like chalk in the suggestion of purity in the vase, like pastel in the pears. Notice the texturing on the leaves, the striping, the almost print like effect of the colours in the flowers. The stroks are not VanGogh-esque slashes, but rhythmic, almost dance like in their orderly rioting. There is a clear contrast between that which is in focus, and that which is suggested, out of focus or filled in by memory. Again the suggestion of real seeing, as opposed to staring or gazing determines the structure of the painting. Stanislavski talks about how there is a center to the action, and that an actors motions and place is dictated by their distance from that center. Note the clarity of the flowers against the fuzzy half seen effects of the pears., and the still more suggested and ephemeral shadows.
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