Frederick Church's Olana

View of the Hudson River from Olana

Currently there is a painting series on PBS TV, "Landscapes Through Time with David Dunlap".
More about David and the Series at the link http://www.landscapesthroughtime.com/
Today's show was "Frederic Church's Olana in the Hudson River Valley, NY". In October 2012 I took a plein air workshop  given by one of the signature members of Plein Air Painter of America, It was held near  Olana (Frederic Church's Persian Style home built on a hill overlooking the Hudson River). Frederick Church's  only art education was two years study with Thomas Cole, the founder of the Hudson River School of Art.  Church was  financially successful and great at marketing his paintings. David Dunlap's series is more about the "principles" of art"  rather than "techniques", although the series covers many locations in Europe and the US where famous artists painted and  he provides a historical background, demonstrates and discusses their technique with painting sketches, and then provides some instruction in the principles in his  live painting sketch, and later, by modifying a student's  painting  that is in progress somewhere in the location that he demonstrated from. Quite a lot packed into a half hour.

In today's show, David  Dunlap stood almost where I stood when I painted  the above scene. He faced a little more to the right, leaving out the man made pond to the left that Frederic Church had constructed. His oil painting sketch included the green sloped area and the little path or road that crosses it. He also excluded the little group of trees in front of the tree line that the path goes through (principle of simplification). The group of trees was not visible in the show because of the way his easel and the camera were positioned..He also put in more sky  and took the liberty of inventing his own sky with  the clouds at a diagonal to the left and down, as a counterbalance to the  downward diagonal of the green slope. (principle of motion and  linear perspective).
During his demonstration he mentioned  da Vinci and  used the word "sfumato", which translates as "turned to mist" or "going up in smoke".  Art critics use the term to describe the hazy, mysteriously quality that was one of  da Vinci's most distinctive painting characteristics.  I also thought I heard Mr Dunlap use the "sensazione" , the continual refinement of the senses, especially sight, as the means to enliven experience. For Leonardo  da Vinci  vision was the supreme sense, and painting was therefore the greatest discipline.

In my last blog I mentioned "synchronicity", the occurrence of a series events, things... which cause you (or should cause you) to stop and think and look for some meaning. An example I recall reading once was perhaps meeting a person you had not seen in a long time, you greet and go your respective ways, and low and behold you meet a second and third time in an unplanned coincidence of  going to the same events or places..Well my synchronicity experience in this blog is that a few days ago the book "How to Think like Leonardo da Vinci " by Michael J. Gelb, was staring at me from the book shelf  to the side of the TV. I took it down and  reviewed all my underlined sections, notes in the margins, sheets of paper where I did the suggested exercises, and reread some of my favorite sections, one of which was the seven Da Vincian Principles, two of which are "sensazione" and "sfumato". Also the section in the rear with the exercise  "Explore Your Goals". This caused me to search my stack of brochures  for "The Hudson Rover School Art Trail", which I picked up when I took the above mentioned  plein air workshop. The trail covers the northern section of the Catskill Mountains and takes you to  eight sites. The first two are Thomas Cole National Historic Site and Olana (I saw some additional painting sites in David Dunlap's  show which inspired me), then  Catskill Creek, Kaaterskill Clove, Kaaterskill Falls, North South Lake, Sunset Rock,  and  Catskill Mountain House.. Three sites require hiking on a marked trail the others are easily accessible from parking lots. I just want to pack up my plein air painting gear and  go for a week, and paint the scenes that Charles Herbert Moore, Thomas Cole, Frederick Church, Asher Durand, Sanford Gifford, and Jasper Cropsey  made famous. Too much to do, to little time left. Anyone want to go?