Essays on Painting

is why it is so abstract, almost as abstract as a Matisse, this could have been
painted by an Impressionist. Renoir perhaps.
Other factors effecting the way we see things could be fog, bad light, a
migraine, concussion, drugs or alcohol, a heat haze, humidity or rain. Each
of them will effect how acuity of our eyesight. Some artists make a virtue
of this and paint fog pictures which are really very easy because everything
is reduced to a silhouette. Many paint wonderful sunsets because that way
all the foreground that have to draw tends towards a silhouette and they
don't even have to draw very well to do that.
Of course there are other factors like light and shadow, the seasonal variations,
the local colour and if you ever painted landscape you will know
how the light changes the shadows and the colour of things as well. Most
of us have looked at scene and decided to paint it, if you have not indicated
the shadows beforehand by the time you get round to them you find that
they are completely different and
are not the ones that made you
decide it was a good picture in the
first place.
PLAYING TRICKS ON
THE EYE
Here are a few drawings that
play tricks on the eye. One you
may be familiar with, familiarity
however doesn’t seem to reduce
the effect.
Three figures equal size with ext
r e m e p e r -
s p e c -
t i v e
l i n e s
drawn
b e -
h i n d
and the transition from a frame into three cylinders.
34