The "retina-burn" factor
 

Last year I was at a parent-teacher event at my son's high school, and I was sitting across the table from the art teacher. He had recently won several awards at area shows, so I congratulated him on his good fortune.

"Oh, it's a c--- shoot," he said.

"But," I insisted, "you won several awards. There must be some method behind choosing what you are going to enter. How do you determine what's likely to win?"

He said that a teacher of his had once told him that, when the judges go around looking at all the pieces in a show, they are usually overwhelmed by the sheer number of entries, and they don't have time to look losely at each one, so the ones they choose are the ones with "retina-burn." Retina-burn is the power a work of art has to burn itself indelibly into your visual memory.

In your opinion, what factors give a painting "retina-burn?"What stops you in your tracks, grabs you and won't let go, makes you want to possess a particular work of art?

Please post examples if you like!

Good question, Alex.

I've come back to this Vermeer many times:

Garth

What makes me stand still and then walks me across the room is an extended, but not necessarily even, value range, because therein lies the illusion of depth, both physically and psychologically.

With time and the tools, you can learn to draw and you can learn to paint, loosely, tightly, this palette or that, and that's all very interesting for a limited time, but there's too often not any lingering story there for you to step into, no "Magic Eye" images-within-the-image promise that keeps pulling you back in, placing you in the scene. Color has a shot at it, but values get it done, for me.

Having an appreciation for the interplay of values -- particularly in strong contrast near the focal point of the work -- is what distinguishes the gallery wallpaper from the piece I want to take home, what makes me think, "I want to be there," or "I want to know her." I am at this instant visualizing two paintings at two different galleries nearby, each of which has this quality. I want them both. My accountant won't let me have them. I may have to get a different numbers guy. Or more numbers.

Just from seeing what "wins" at some events, you can't discount the flash of intense color, the startling composition, this year's Pet Rock, or the outrageous motif.

Unfortunately, the best examples at hand of what I'm thinking of are landscapes and interiors, rather than portraits or figures. I'll leave the door ajar and see what wanders in. All these heavy art books I've been moving across oceans for ten years must have some useful images in them.

Ha, Garth, a funny thing happened when I looked in my mailbox: I read your post, which of course had no images, and immediately I visualized the exact Vermeer you put up here. When I went on the Forum, there it was! That one has always been my favorite. The diagonal of the red hat is so daring, but I think it's the lighting and the shine on her open mouth that really grabs me. I feel like Vermeer did something daring when he painted that portrait: he saw a vision and had to paint it, even though it was a departure from his usual color and lighting.

Steven, I think your point about visual and psychological depth is brilliant. Of course we all have different taste and different reactions to the same painting, but I can definitely relate to what you are saying. The value contrast and maybe a crisply-painted edge near the focal point is something I've been paying more attention to lately.

There are so many Sargents with this "retina-burn" factor that it's hard to pick a couple. Here's a link to my husband's all-time favorite, Asher Wertheimer. Not only does Mr. Wertheimer look like his Uncle Alan, he says it makes him feel like his Uncle Alan is about to walk out of the canvas and say hello:

http://www.jssgallery.org/Essay/Arti...998-Left2.html

My favorite of Sargent's is the Boit Children, probably because I first walked into the room where it was hanging in the Boston museum when I was a college student. I knew very little about Sargent and this absolutely took my breath away. First of all, it's really big, 87" x 87", and it has an incredible sense of atmosphere and depth. I felt like I could walk into it, or that I was being pulled into it! It fueled my ambition to someday learn how to paint atmosphere.

Interesting question and interesting responses. To me, it's partly a factor of pulling you closer to the painting. Not just a peevish, peering "gee, how did he do that transition" but "gee, I want to be next to that, I want to touch that." So in addition to values and color there's a paint quality factor - a wall presence - that distinguishes a painting from a photo. I guess for me personally this is why I don't like overly-rendered paintings where every surface has the same degree of polish.

And let's not discount the sheer joy of something that is knock your socks off beautiful. That's pretty subjective, though.

I'm with you, Garth. I go back to that Vermeer many times - literally. I grew up in the DC area and every time I go to the National Gallery I make a point to see this and the three other Vermeers they have. When I was 14, I was wandering around the NG one day, taking in all the fabulous Rembrandts(!) and I turned into this little, poorly lit room, connecting two larger galleries, and I beheld for the first time, these paintings by Vermeer. I had never heard of him. I was BLOWN AWAY....by this one in particular. I wouldn't mind owning this.

The nice thing about this painting also, is how small it is (approx 7" X 9"). So it would be easy to hide if the cops came snooping around.

More recently, this one has caused me some severe "retina-burn."

I think it's got to be something magical. I see it happening like this: You (the artist) visualize a concept in your mind, and it is so strong and compelling, you have an overwhelming feeling that the painting is going to be good. Of course you have to have the skill to pull it off, too. The painting, aside from the usual technical problems to be figured out, paints itself, and the result transcends itself, somehow. It speaks to the viewer on several levels at once. It's beautifully painted, it has depth and color and focal point, but it also says something that you can't forget.

Here's a sculpture, for good measure.
 

Robert Fulton, by Jean-Antoine Houdon. 1803 Wow!

Garth

So funny you should say that. My wife still laughs about the first time I saw it. I was in the adjacent gallery and caught a glimpse out of the corner of my eye. I gasped loudly and turned on my heels. I just had to sit in front of it and gawk for a while. I think I could gladly pay the admission fee just to sit in front of that one painting for a day.

Edit: For those who haven't been there. The huge vases in the painting were given to the museum by the Boit family. They stand on either side of the painting. A nice touch.

Garth,
You hit my all time favorite sculpture. His sculptures of Louise Brougniart at the Met or Getty ( I forget which) and his Voltaire in Louvre are stunning favorites.

Hi, this is an interesting thread that, pulled out something i kept at the back of my head for a long time.
For me, a couple of artworks came into my mind immediately when i read this thread:
(1)Frederick Hart's Ex Nihilo sculpture which now sits on the doorway of National Cathedral in Washington DC (i think)

(2)Nikolai Fechin's portraits

These works are amazing! Wow...even till today, i'm still thrilled by them! :o

In Robert Genn's most recent newsletter, he includes the observation:
That taps into what I was getting at earlier, about depth, and different levels of a painting.

And it called to mind a self-portrait by Rose Freymuth-Frazier, which was just mentioned yesterday in another thread. I think this one has retina burn, and that it is enchanted by the hidden.

There might be an impulse to think, yeah, but the intense red background was a gimmick to

Steven, it's the beautiful woman thing at work again. You're sucked in, you can't help it. Why do you think they're everywhere you look? They're magnetic; beauty is magnetic.

David, that's a solid choice. Gabrielle Cot haunts my dreams - so that obviously got its hooks into me.

When that big Sargent show came to Boston MFA a number of yers ago, just about everything there left me either a drooling gawper or a gibbering idiot. I had to see the whole thing about three times during its tenure there, just so I could digest it all. Talk about retina burn! My opthomalogist has never forgiven me.

This may seem to some an odd choice, but in that whole incredible show, Elsie Palmer really got to me. Her countenance was (as shown in photos of her) already compelling, but the composition and limited palette brings it all together in the most subtle, but gripping way.

Luck o' the Irish, I guess.

For a while my favorite portrait has been Vermeer's Girl with a Red Hat. Recently, however, Rembrandt's 1628 self-portrait has moved up to number one.

Garth has already posted the Vermeer, but I'm posting them both side by side because it's funny how similar the poses are.

I don't mean to be presumptuous -- though why not? The pay is the same -- but I think Alexandra was probably hoping for some very specific articulation of "why" the many images posted are appealing to their proponents.

There must be some drawing skill, some color treatment, some composition, subjects (beautiful women or crusty old men), something other than their mere appearance in a curated museum or exhibition catalog or accountant-vetted publication that causes the chosen images to stop you in your tracks and whisper "Yes" or "Oh . . . my."

What?

For some of the perennial favorite portraits I think it often comes down to just a few main characteristics:

-- Beauty of the subject
-- Compelling gaze, (looking at the viewer)
-- Strong simple value massing in the composition
-- and possibly a dash of saturated color

The portraits that would be named by many of us as our favorites (Gabrielle Cot, Rembrandt as a young man, Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring and his Girl with a Red Hat, Velazquez' Juan de Pareja, etc.) seem to have these characteristics.

Beyond perhaps a dozen paintings I can think of that would crop up on many people's Top Ten list, though, there are thousands of paintings that might "knock the socks off" only a few people. Whenever I go to a museum with another person I'm amazed by the difference in what kind of work we each think of as having "wall presence" or "retina burn".

A particular painting may have my friend riveted to the spot for ten minutes but when I look at it my reaction is just, "......hmmmm......" No response, or worse, a negative feeling.

I just don't know if there are really that many paintings that appeal to virtually everyone. We all have such different tastes and outlooks and I think we like different things as a result.

Now, please don't get the idea that I am trying to compare my work to the amazing works posted and mentioned in this thread! But this conversation did bring to mind something from my recent experiences showing my work.

Every time I am where my work is hanging, or someone calls to say they like my work, etc., they mention my Judith painting. Every time. It is not my best painting at all, but it must have that retina burn factor... the value contrasts, the red dress, the stance, and the partially hidden eyes.

The late Chet Atkins says on a video of his that I watched this morning that "tension and release" was what music was all about for him.

This may not translate, if music theory isn't familiar. It was a reference to the interplay of resolved and unresolved chords or structure. Perhaps the easiest way to convey the idea is through the do-re-mi scale. If we go up the scale and stop "too soon" -- say, do re mi fa so la ti -- something in our western ear wants the resolution offered by the final "do." But in turn, that resolution is satisfying precisely because of what came before it -- in Chet Atkins' word, the tension. Some chord structures provide tension -- the suspended, the augmented, the seventh -- and our ear awaits the complementary resolution, perhaps a major triad. But all of one or the other is either cacophony or a sedative.

I think the best paintings and drawings have tension and release within them. Not all hard edges but not all soft, either. There is a statement, followed by some relief from it, then a restatement. "All middle values" is all "resolution," and is as visually exciting as three-chord country is to the ear. (Please don't write, cowboys, I'm one of you.) A collage of values in an extended range but without design is all "tension," or chaos. Intensity of hue without relief (resolution) is the kind of shouting that prevents anyone from being heard. Intensity married to subtlety, the yin and yang of it, perhaps, is what completes the image.

The key is tension and release. When a painting or drawing has both, the odds favor "retina burn."

Above I implied that the pose might be responsible for the burn in the Vermeer and Rembrandt I posted. To elaborate: the cool expression (notice the slightly elevated eyebrows in each), shaded eyes and deliberate glance (the bodies are angled away which must mean that they intentionally turned their heads to look at the viewer) are seductive. The way poses are lit is visually satisfying in part because of the contrast of the indistinctness in the shadows and the glow of the lit cheek.

The paintings also satisfy other more general preferences of mine: a three-quarter view of the face, and a very optical approach to painting (emphasis on recreating the visual effect of the light).

These two images have many retina-burn factors in common, but on the other hand, one of the main reasons I like the Rembrandt is the silhouette of the dark side of his face against the light creamy background. The Vermeer doesn't have this (the opposite effect of the light side of her face against the dark background doesn't move me as much) but it does have those deliciously crisp highlights that the Rembrandt lacks. I also love Rembrandt's haze of hair. It's loosely yet delicately painted, and utterly convincing as a volumetric mass.

I wish that this thread will not end before I

Here's one of my favorites by a portrait artist I rarely see mentioned on this forum. It's John Singleton Copley's Henry Pelham or Boy With Squirrel. Copley was known for having a highly finished style and a skill for painting textures and finishes like fabric and wood surfaces. He painted this of his nephew as a demonstration of his skill but it seems that it turned into so much more than that. I think his familiarity with and affection for the subject transforms this painting; not only that, I suspect it influenced his original conception and inspiration. Whenever I look at this painting I am fascinated by this boy and his relationship with his pet squirrel. I wonder what he was like in real life. In fact he seems to come alive as I stare at the painting.

That is an amazing painting and one I'd never seen before. Thanks for posting it. I can't believe the realism in that wooden table top!

One that has always had that impact on me. Jusep de Ribera (Sp. Barroque, 1591-1652). His "San Andres" is from his series of apostles but was clearly painted from life. A fine exalmple of naturalist realism.

Carlos

I'm right with you, Michele. Alexandra, that painting is fantastic! Never seen it before, either.

Oftentimes, it is the narrative quality to a painting that drags me in - and this painting really speaks to that. This, undoubtedly, reveals the natural tendencies of the illustrator in me.

• I'm very happy that you started this thread Alex; I'm also looking to that factor.
  
  I look at the paintings which touched me and try figure out why I like them. I usually like simple compositions with a good lighting. Some paintings are so realistic that they look like photographs, and that's the problem, few photographs have touched me deep, on the other hand, I cannot look at many paintings or even at studies without having a moving feeling.
  
  Here are some of my favorite ones.

There's a lot to think about in this topic! Here's a summary so far of characteristics that produce "retina burn:"

1) Wall presence (as opposed to the image seen in a reproduction) paint quality appeal, pulling you closer and making you want to touch the painting

2) Enchantment--makes you want to know more about subject and artist

3) Compelling countenance or beauty of subject, combined with technical brilliance (composition, palette, etc.)

4) Magic quality--compelling concept skilfully realized. Result transcends itself, speaks to you on several levels

5) Simple subject with good lighting

6)Illusion of Physical and psychological depth achieved by extended value range, higher contrast near focal point.

7) Expresses soul of subject so you feel emotional connection, subject seems to come alive

8) tension and release, both in composition and in the portrayal of the person

9) Dash of saturated color

Some of these may be facets of the same thing (2 & 7, or 6 & 9, or 3 & 5. . .etc.)

MIchele, you brought up a really interesting thing about "retina burn." There are so many paintings that have wide appeal. And then there are some that resonate with only a few people, and others are not drawn to them at all. Now I am wondering what qualities are in these paintings that "everyone" is drawn to. Do they have broader spectrum wall appeal? Are they simpler? Do they have a touch of bright red somewhere ;) ? Do they elicit an emotional connection? Or do they simply have more of the above qualities?

Simplicity is a good thing because it concentrates all the energy of light and form in a single figure , if it

Thanks so much for your thoughts, Alan. I know you can be trusted to synthesize our ramblings into a wise observation.

Looking at what I was thinking earlier about the artist's concept, I think it must be very focused and skiullfully translated onto the canvas, so that the energy is concentrated into the focal point and all other elements play just the right part in enhancing, but not competing with, the focal point. Even when there are many elements, such as in a family portrait or other group portrait, there must be the same gathering of energy towards a single focal point. Something to think about!