Excerpted from Chapter 5 of Essential Concepts and Techniques for Plein Air and Studio Practice.
I never succeed in painting scenes, however beautiful, immediately upon returning from them. I must wait for a time to draw a veil over the common details. – Thomas Cole
Marc Bohne, Where The Rabbits Are, oil on panel, 20″ x 18″
Although a landscape painting may be complex and filled with many details, it is fundamentally an arrangement of simplified shapes and masses. The impact of Where The Rabbits Are is achieved in large part by dividing the composition into a few shapes of simplified values. Smaller notes, such as the various spots of color within the trees on the right, remain subordinate to (by being contained within) the larger shapes.
At a recent workshop, several students pointed to a cottonwood tree that was gently swaying in the breeze. “How are we going to paint all those leaves?” they asked. “Don’t paint the leaves,” I answered. “Paint the large shapes of light and dark that the leaves create.” One of the fundamental truths the artist-as-translator learns is that larger, simpler shapes and masses convey the essence of a subject better than its details. In fact, if the essential practices of landscape painting were ranked in order of importance, simplification — the ability to translate nature’s complexity into fewer and more readable shapes and patterns — would be at the top of the list. As we study the different types of scenes the landscape offers, it becomes clear that, majestic and inspirational though they may be, they can have a lot of detail and appear quite disorganized. Simplification and massing bring visual order out of chaos, and create clarity from ambiguity.
Less is More: Finding Order Through Simplicity
Simplification and massing are the ultimate perceptual exercises for the landscape painter. Painting or drawing a shape is not difficult, but seeing a shape through layers of surface detail and complexity requires a practiced shift in perception — an ability to see the forest and the trees, which is not our natural tendency. As visual translator, the artist must anticipate how all the information presented by the landscape will be compiled within the painting and perceived in the mind of the viewer. This is the most important task for the landscape painter — to reduce surface story to its lowest visual common denominator and, in doing so, actually give expression to an aesthetic that transcends detail and story.
Those new to interpreting the landscape often think they are compromising when they reduce the scene to simple components. Yet, it is through simplification and the orchestration of a few major shapes that a forceful visual message is created, not through a profusion of detail. By finding and importing basic shapes and patterns into paintings, form and structure become more apparent and the painting becomes more comprehensible to the viewer. It’s easy to paint a thousand points of light with a thousand brushstrokes. It’s much more difficult — and infinitely more eloquent — to paint a thousand points of light with only one hundred strokes.
PLANES: A KEY TO MASSING
An understanding of planes can help painters identify shapes and masses within the landscape. A plane is simply a flat surface. Planes are easy to see on flat ground, streets, and architecture, but they can be harder to discern within the many curvilinear and irregular forms found in nature. Fortunately, planes can be detected by observing that where a plane changes, there is also value change. As you analyze a scene, you not only evaluate value and color, but you consider how each value and each color corresponds to a plane. Look carefully and see if different areas, in part or in whole, fall within a generalized plane. Later in the chapter, several exercises are presented that will help train your eye to see planes and the simplified shapes to which they correspond.
TIP
Squint some more! As noted in the chapter on value, squinting naturally groups values together and makes distracting details disappear. Squinting is also an effective way to see basic shapes. The simplified shapes and patterns revealed by squinting are more representative of what you are actually trying to capture. If you are nearsighted, take a peek at the landscape over the top of your glasses. The blurriness has a similar coalescing effect as squinting.
Tim Horn, New Day, oil on panel, 12″ x 16″
In the tradition of Fairfield Porter, Tim Horn has a keen ability to synthesize the complexity of landscape into flat shapes and planes. Architectural forms naturally lend themselves toward being described with planes, yet Horn converts foliage in the same way, and still creates a convincing sense of form and space. Horn reduces forms to their most fundamental shapes, eliminating all but the most essential details. As different as New Day appears from Michael Stasinos’ Wintonia Hotel (page 00), both paintings rigorously maintain clear planes and value zones. Horn simply includes less detail within each shape and plane.
Additional Resources
The Not-So-Simple Art of Simplification
See more of Marc Bohne’s work at his website.
See more of Tim Horn’s work at his website