Welcome
I can't agree entirely with Picasso's statement regarding painting and aesthetics. Plutarch, I gather, believed as I do that painting is indeed an aesthetic operation, all about truth and beauty. Pablo hit the nail on the head, though, when he talked about the magic of painting and its ability to give form to our terrors and our desires. Our ancestors in caves understood this magic as well as any of the artists whose works we flock to see in museums around the globe today.I sometimes wonder: If Leonardo daVinci were alive today, would he paint? My guess is that he'd probably do all sorts of things, but that yes, he would paint. Artists in the modern world can work in many mediums, but so long as human beings walk the earth there will be those among us who choose to paint because the medium is so effective in helping us to intrepret the universe and our place in it. When I paint, I'm trying to get to the essence of my subject, be it a model's beauty, a street scene's vitality, or the sense of peace that a still life arrangement can impart. I paint because I want to make something that is in some way beautiful, even if the subject is ugly or mundane. In posting my images here I am in fact exposing them to all comers and all critics. Just as artists feel compelled to paint, we also feel compelled to show our work. Here are my paintings - I think they speak for themselves, and I hope you like them.MarkPainting isn't an aesthetic operation; it's a form of magic designed as a moderator between this strange hostile world and us,a way of seizing the power by giving form to our terrors as well as our desires. - Picasso
Painting is silent poetry, and poetry painting that speaks. - Plutarch
Painting, n. The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing them to the critic. - Ambrose Bierce
Self Portrait - Christmas 2009
Sunflowers
Collateral Damage
Orsay
2011 -
Oil on canvas, 36" x 18"
Mark Robertson © 2010 All Rights Reserved
Albrecht & Eve
2012
Oil on Canvas, 36" x 18
Sheila's Dancers 1
2010
Oil on Canvas, 36" x 6"
Sheila's Dancers 2
2010
Oil on Canvas, 36" x 6"
Drake - Initial State
Recent Work - Drake
Summer 2010
Oil on Canvas, 18" x 36"
Mark Robertson © 2010 All Rights Reserved
Mark Robertson © 2012 All Rights Reserved
Drake - in process
Drake, done
I was looking through my photos, searching for a subject for a painting when I found some photos of ducks and thought "this is what I want". I thought a minute longer and realized I'd seen this subject painted. I was thinking of a work by Joseph Crawhall that I've seen hanging in the National Gallery of Scotland. Here's a link:
Portrait of Rita M. in the Conservatory Garden
2010
Oil on Canvas, 48" x 24"
Mark Robertson © 2010 All Rights Reserved
Recent Works: Click on title to see full painting.
Mark Robertson © 2010 All Rights Reserved
Mark Robertson © 2011 All Rights Reserved
Initial State
Work in Process
Final Painting
I've got pads filled with drawings (pencil, pen, pastel and watercolor), many from nights spent at Bob Coane's downtown studios, some from Central Park and other places. I've decided to go through these pads and selectively photograph them for inclusion on this site. Consider this a way of leafing through my drawing pads. Most of these drawings are short sketches rather than finished drawings. Many of the studio drawings, for example, were very short poses - often two or five minutes. I'm not a great draftsman, but some of these I like. I've put a number of pastel drawings and sketches on my page with studio paintings, where I think they belong.
Click on the thumbnail to enlarge the image.
Orsay Detail - Cat in the Window
Beech Tree
Nude 1
Flowers
Reclining Nude 1
Sitting Nude 1
Leaves
Nude 2
Reclining Nude 4
Standing Nude 1
Study for
Fruit of the Vine
A Face, from Durer
Face, two aspects
Reclining Female, 3
Face, two views
Reclining Female 8
Profile 2
Reclining Female 7
Reclining Male 1
Tree 2
Seated Nude 5
Woman in Red Woman at the Opera
(Copied from I don't know who)
Tree 7
Seated Male
Female upper body
Reclining Female 6
Woman
Reclining Female 11
Face, 3.5
Model 3.1
Model 3.2
Aviva 3.1
Aviva 3.2
Mark Robertson © 2010, 2011 All Rights Reserved
Reclining nude 3.3
Face
Back 3.2
Seated Male 3.2
Standing Female 3.3
Sitting Male 3.1
Sitting Nude 3.3
Standing Male 3.2
Face profile 3.7
Face 3.7
Face 3.6
Male lower body
One-minute drill 3.1
Reclining nude 3.5
Seated Male 3.3
Bananas
Lamp post
Aviva 2
Male torso, left
Nude 2.2
Sitting Nude 2
Reclining Female 2
Reclining Female 9
Seated Male 2
Tree 6
Tree 5
RF 10
Mark Robertson © 2010, 2011 All Rights Reserved
I decided in late 2011 that I wanted to paint Eve. Not Adam, necessarily, but definitely Eve. I started a grissaile image of a model from a book that I bought last year, added some color and then didn't really know how to proceed. The canvas sat there while I thought about Eve. When I think of Eve I inevitably think of Albrecht Durer and Lucas Cranach, two painters whose images of Eve are embedded deep in the genealogy of Western Culture. Eventually I decided to add Albrecht Durer to the painting, taking my image of him from his 1500 self portrait. While my Eve retained a modern aspect, I adapted the background from Durer's 1507 painting of Eve. That painting, along with its companion panel of Adam, is in the Prado, a museum I would love to visit before I die.
Durer finished the last of his three self portraits when he was just 28 years old. He was a deeply spiritual man who used his skills not only in religious paintings but also in celebration of Nature's beauty. He was a genius who worked in pen and pencil, oils, watercolors, woodcuts and etchings. His oil paintings are spectacular - the self portraits are amazing for a person not yet 30 years old, and his Portrait of a Young Venetian Woman is wonderful, with the sharpness that I expect from northern European paintings as well as some of the modeling and coloring more common in Italy at the time. His A Young Hare and Wing of a Roller are two of the most astounding watercolors I have ever seen.
Here's a link to Durer's self portrait::
Here's a link to Durer's Eve (& Adam):
