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Thank you all for responding!
I think you all mentioned major themes I was exploring in this. But you came up with some specific metaphors that I hadn't thought of. Maybe they were at the back of my mind, but not articulated. For me, there is nothing so deadly to creativity than thinking out every last detail intellectually before starting to paint. I only knew it had to be a certain way, in a certain setting, and then the idea developed intuitively as I was working it out and even while I was painting it.
Allan, your description of youth vs. middle age is very much what I was thinking of when I first started thinking about this. In fact, it is behind the whole painting. Although I hear my female friends talk about mid-life, there is something peculiar to a man's life which I wanted to express here. Maybe it is a set of emotions, subtly (or not so subtly) different from women's feelings.
Molly, it is interesting to hear your viewpoint. I was aware of the symbolism of the lighthouse when I thought of it as a setting, but the actual words "light" and "enlightenment" did not occur to me. I was thinking of elevated perspectives and the tower as a symbol of masculinity. But what you say is absolutely true and very interesting. It is also a positive spin on the youth-midlife theme. Do women experience midlife differently? I feel very much as you describe, and that makes me wonder whether the overlaying of my experiences on my brother's experiences produces another "layer," so to speak.
SB, thank you for the link. No words needed. (I wonder why I talk so much!)
Mary Ann, thank you! If someone wants to keep looking at a painting, that makes me very happy.
Thomasin, thanks for all you said. I like your thoughts. The layers of glass were both fun and challenging to use because they had several different functions:
1) linking layers by allowing one to see through them
2) separating layers
3) reflecting things inside and outside
As usual you brought up some good points about the painting process. Although the painting is quite large and looks more painterly in real life, you are right that it is more "controlled" than usual. I think I felt this way from the beginning of the process, because the lighthouse was so difficult to get right with all its angles, windows, reflections, and just the general perspective of a ten-sided tower. I was also very conscious of correcting for distortion. Perspective issues are very important to me and it bugs me when something looks a little off. (It doesn't have to be painted meticulously, it just has to be correctly spaced and structurally correct.) There were so many elements to put together from disparate sources that the actual process of painting i.e. the brushstrokes, the feeling, etc., broke into sections more than being an entire whole, as it would have been if I were looking at a complete scene and responding to it. In other words, the things you are referring to happened while i was painting the two figures and the area immediately around them, and the water and scene behind him, etc., because that is the way I worked on the painting. I was aware that the whole panting had a more controlled feeling than usual. This "riding without a bit" is something I have been working on for years. I would not want to suddenly let go, but rather let go gradually. If I am to do more portraits that have these complex elements I'll be working towards this goal.
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