Maestro— Now at the West End Gallery, Corning
Go forth under the open sky, and list
To Nature’s teachings.
–William Cullen Bryant, Thanatopsis
I am often asked, especially at show openings, which of the paintings there might be my favorite. My answer is always the same, that every piece there has some reason for being there and has something in it that creates a spark within me.
Every piece is a favorite in that it is what it should be. Finding that special quality in each piece is something I wish could be applied to people in a better way.
Of course, there are paintings that always grab my eye a little quicker than others. It might be a color or contrast or a shape or form. Or the light within it. Any number of things having to do with its surface attraction.
But that attraction only lasts so long as there is something to be found beyond the surface. It’s kind of like dealing with handsome people whose beauty is sometimes only skin deep. Their attractiveness often leaves unless they have some inner beauty as well. In painting, this inner beauty might come in the form of an emotional reaction or a sense of symbolic or personal meaning. It doesn’t even have to be an identifiable quality.
Maybe I should just use my go-to phrase for those times when I struggle to describe some nebulous quality: It might just have a sense of rightness.
That’s how this new painting, Maestro, from my current West End Gallery show strikes me. From the time it was painted, it was one of those pieces with a surface beauty that immediately grabbed my eye. But I soon sensed that it had much more going on in it.
The Red Tree quickly became a conductor standing over and leading the orchestra that is the Red Roofs. Or a teacher giving a lesson before a class. Both are maestros, masters who teach and lead by example.
Maybe moral or ethical lessons. I don’t know for sure though my first response was that the Red Tree, as a symbol of Nature, was teaching the human race the many lessons to be gleaned from Nature.
How accepting we are of these lessons is up for debate.
It’s one of those paintings that attracts me and keeps me attracted. It has that sense of rightness.
Here’s a classic from Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young from 1970. It fits the subject and also has that sense of rightness. Here’s Teach Your Children.
Redtree Times 