Blake Gopnik trashes official portraits in Washington Post article

[Thomas Nash]

I will have to scan some other things to show you more. There is a pattern that runs through the painting that echoes a diagram the Speaker used to illustrate a point in a paper he wrote about the future. I will share that with you when I can.

[Michele Rushworth]

What a gorgeous portrait!

I love how you combined outdoor light with natural looking color and light on the figure -- very hard to do. I see what you mean about how you had to position him facing the Mall to get the light the way you wanted on his figure, then put him in a place where the light was really only coming from behind. I never would have noticed it if you hadn't pointed it out.

I also like how you lined up the pattern of the railing with the center line of the Mall. Beautifully designed.

Too bad they wouldn't reposition the Washington Monument for you, or put a smaller one in its place for a day or so....!

By the way, are you always able to do at least one color study from life with the model?

[Thomas Nash]

At least one session painting their head from life is pretty much the minimum. I always try for as much time with the subject as I can get.

Some paintings require more live sittings than others. Many official portraits like this one are not commissioned until the subject leaves office. Had he still been the House Speaker I don't think I could've gotten the several sittings that I did.

Even with the sittings (standings) I spent more time composing the picture and working out the perspective and other aspects than I did painting the head and hands.

There is always a lot the artist can do "from life" which does not require the subject to be there. I paint backgrounds, clothes (on manikins) and lots of elements without the subject being present. It's been done that way for centuries.
An aspect of realistic painting that is not often discussed is just how much is actually made up. The more one knows about light and shade, color and form, the more they know what they "can get away with" and still have it ring true as an illusion that is feasible.

I try to get my set up as close to what I want the painting to look like as possible. Working from your imagination is as tricky as trying to use photographs. It's always easier to have the real thing in front of you. The proof is in the pudding, as they say. You might notice the yellow/orange cloth hanging to Newt's left. That was to reflect some warm light back towards him to help me envision what might happen with the sun bouncing off the Capitol. It's not real evident in the reproduction posted. It affected the shadow on his collar and the back of his hand that is raised but the rest is more subtle.

I try to understand what the light is doing in every painting situation Then I can pick and choose what I want to use.

[Thomas Nash]

While doing my homework before starting this painting I ran across Newt's paper on "The Age of Transitions" It contained a diagram with three overlapping S curves that describe the evolution of technological change. We are now living in a period with the two overlapping S curves of the information age and Nano technology. They form a box. I knew that this is something that interested the Speaker very much so I tried to find a way to incorporate it into his portrait. This is the diagram itself.

[Thomas Nash]

The old iron railing corresponds well with the earliest flat part of the industrial revolution S curve. The other parts are not so content related as they run up his arm and shoulder. The future part trails off into the clouds, a customary symbol of "the future". I had to make up the sky and clouds to conform to my idea without it appearing that I had forced some unnatural shape into the sky.

I put he Speaker's head is smack in the middle of the box because it is his concept and he is very much "into it".

[Michele Rushworth]

Isn't it interesting that paintings (yours included) often have little hidden secrets that are of importance to the subject or the patrons. In Nelson Shanks' portrait of the brother of Princess Diana, he's holding a paper with notes about what he planned to say at her funeral.

Not that I'm at all in the same league as you or Nelson Shanks (not even on the same planet!) in my upcoming portrait of the Governor there will be 21 brass nail heads going up the side of the leather chair -- since he was the 21st Governor. The tour guides at the State Capitol love that sort of stuff, apparently.

[Thomas Nash]

It's true this type of thing is partly done for fun. In some ways I'm guilty of doing what Tom Wolfe rightly mocked thirty years ago in "The Painted Word", art that requires an explanation in order to make any sense of it.

If it was the only redeeming quality of the painting that would be one thing. I figure as long as it doesn't compromise the more important aspects of the work; if you can pull it off in a natural way it's "all good".

I mentioned this pattern to the audience at the unveiling in the Capitol five years ago. Since then I've pretty much kept it to myself.

Obviously I looked at this element of the painting as a "bonus". I think it is a healthy habit artistically to try to think innovatively on every level.

One reason I bring it up now is that I found it ironic that the W.P. critic selected my painting to illustrate his distaste for official painted portraits. He feels there is no more room for innovation in traditional oil painting. I think he is wrong and also he chose a bad example to pick on if I do say so myself. Of course since he never bothered to call me, he didn't know what he didn't know.

It was so nice of the clouds and everything to align themselves so I could just "slavishly copy them". NOT.

[Claudemir Bonfim]

I already declared that I'm a fan of your work and I reaffirm it now.
I would like to see more of your procedure in portraying here.
Hope it will possible someday.

[Tom Edgerton]

A client in DC sent me the article about a week ago.

What is glaringly evident from the beginning is that no curators or critical supporters of traditional art forms were interviewed in an attempt to balance the point of view. The thrust of the article is that "everyone I talked to said this kind of art is dead." And it's a LONG article to make no more point than that.

Anyone taking a true art historian's view of the last 35 years or so can't possibly miss the resurgence of realist art in all media. And what fuels this resurgence is that the public at large for the most part prefers it.

Again, read "The Painted Word." The point that Tom Wolfe makes is that abstract art in the mid-20th Century was the invention of a handful of critics and painters in NYC, and that the whole movement was basically propped up in the critical press in spite of huge indifference on the part of the public. Duh. Today, it's the same dynamic, only the styles and content have changed.

For another really interesting and insightful piece by Wolfe on the traditional/contemporary art battle, find his article on sculptor Frederick Hart in the New York Times Sunday Magazine from a few years back.

The problem with critique is that you are making your living commenting on and interpreting the work of others that you can't do yourself. As a result, you don't have a true understanding of the process and technique, yet you have to appear to be an "expert." So a common thread in a lot of critique is a "build up/tear down" model. You claim that you were the first to "discover" an artist/musician/actor or whatever, and then subsequently you claim you're the first to know when they're "washed up." The artist can't survive on such a rollercoaster, yet many manage to anyway, because the best art survives and endures on its own merit.

Nothing will be any different here. Hang in there, everyone. This article is already lining birdcages. Our paintings will be here a hundred years from now (or more) if we make them as good as we possibly can. And Tom Nash knows this, thank God.

Best--TE

[Michele Rushworth]

...what fuels this (realist) resurgence is that the public at large for the most part prefers it.

Amen!