Rocks and Streams

Rocks and water have an historic and complementary relationship. They are in conflict, or contrast, or resistence with each other. One presents a notion of stability; the other motion. One presents a promise of fertility, life and impermanence; the other, eternal order, permanence ( rock to tomb). We notate and depict rocks with universal iconic models.  An amateur painter’s clouds and rocks devolve into repetitive rounded forms, like groups of potatoes. Artists’ early solution to avoid this human predilection for making potatoes out of rocks was to delineate staggered, angled shapes rhyming with in larger shapes.  This was the solution of ancient Greeks, Byzantines, Medieaval manuscript illustrators and Persian painters. (see example  by Sultan-Mohammed 1.)  But, the solution to describing plausible rocks was not so easily found. In the 1600s the rock and tree forms still maintained an iconic kinship with Persian and Byzantine painting.  You can see this in the hilly, rocky landscape of Jacob Van Ruisdael’s here (example 2) By the close of the 1700s, artists like Valenciennes were studying nature’s forms more closely and directly. He made small outdoor studies of  cities, geological formations and more. Valenciennes, a traditional French painter, still concocted his exhibition landscapes in the studio but, he advised his students like Michallon to go out and examine nature then, return to the studio to build paintings informed by their direct observations of nature.  Michallon taught Corot and, Corot like Michallon headed into the landscape ( of the Roman countryside) to make small studies in oil. (see example of Michallon study)  His palette is limited beginning with ochres and iron oxide browns like burnt sienna and umber.  This palette was an Italian tradition. The warmer red/yellow/brown would be used more at the bottom of the study to draw the territory forward and, to suggest earth and rock versus water which was colored more green (blue/green, the code for water).  Running Water is more reflective than trees or rocks and so it is described brighter and whiter. The water is more plastic than rock. This quality of water’s plasticity obliges an artist to suggest and join it to water’s other qualities of  reflectivity and translucence.  Artists like Michallon did this by scumbling lights, dissolving and breaking light edges within the water area and, brush-dragging the lights in a pattern suggestive of the movement of the water.  Later John Ruskin,  expanded the palette as you see in this watercolor example  .  Ruskin’s rocks are carefully delineated and variegated in color suggesting close observation as was his advice to all artists.  His water area appears less articulated than the rocks, and he uses deeper colors ( blue, again as the code for water).  Later, John Singer Sargent referred to the way we focus our attention by blurring the background and the interstitial spaces between the rocks. Sargent’s rocks are separated from the water by their acute edges, their lighter values and varied colors.  Submerged rocks have a reduced brightness ( see example) Notice Sargent’s palette follows Ruskin’s.  My next examples are two of my quick plein air sketches done on the side of a stream in Manchester, Vermont.  The first is a quick sketch using the palette of a 16th or 17th century artist in watercolor or ink.  In this watercolor quick sketch I use only two colors, ultramarine blue and transparent red oxide.  Like Michallon of the 1800s  and like Sultan-Mohammed(see first example) of the 1500s I use the serpentine shaped movement of the water to bind my design together. I also use the ascending/descending idea of the motion of the water as it meanders in steps back into the darker distant space of the painting.  My next example is of the same setting.  I stretched the composition to make a more horizontal painting.  I continued to rely on the forward boulder as a foil or  brake to the advancing water. I made the forward boulder into pointer toward the distant mystery area.   The rocks diminish in perspective scale in the picture just as the steps of the falls ascend and diminish back into the distance.  I changed the feeling of the light by changing the palette to yellows and greens.   My last sketch is an oil on paper demonstration which directly but, not consciously quoted Michallon.  I realized my quotation after my design  was made. Here the iron oxide and dark blue contrast is more pronounced and the shapes of the tumbled rocks are clearly gestures with geometric intentions.