oak painted without artificial
light
oil on board, 183mm x 130mm
artists collection
print available click here
Outdoors at night in winter with no
moonlight. Artists working at night usually use some kind of
artificial light to brighten the work surface so that it roughly
matches the brightness they see in the landscape. Here no such
light was used, so only very low ambient light was reflected on the
board. In low light the resolution power of the eye falls: so only
large brush marks are visible to the painter. Hence the big marks
in the picture. The yellow spot was a plane on the way to London
Stansted.
In a room in low light the rough paint
collapses back to the apparition I saw.
Historical : Before the
invention of electric light collectors and artists spoke of how a
painting "went out" - meaning how it looked in a room in
low light, before candles were lit. In the 1820's John Constable's
patron Archdeacon Fisher wrote to the artist that his newly
acquired White Horse (now in the Frick, New York) went out
well.
Artist Sarah Armstrong-Jones chose this
painting for The ING Discerning Eye show at The
Mall galleries, London, 2008 :
