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I remember from Atelier Lack that when painting a still life of fruit, you are painting that particular apple, no other apple...an apple as individual as any face you might see. When I look at Ivan Shishkin's landscape portraits, and they are portraits of landscapes, I could walk through a forest and find that tree. That tree which he has painted is unlike any other in the forest. If I might humbly offer for your consideration, that the reason so many of us grow dissatisfied with painting landscapes, is because we are not trained to see what the accomplished landscape artist sees. We see a generic tree (or cloud...) and say, "...this isn't interesting because there are no perimeters", but a landscape artist sees a tree, and a cloud, and a clump of grass that is unlike any other that has ever existed. When he paints that clump of grass, it is as individual as an eye, that cloud is as precious and fleeting as a smile.
Peggy
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