I take for granted basic intelligence when it comes to art. Clearly,
Woman with a Guitar
cubism portrait by Georges Braque I am mistaken. What Cezanne was trying to do was return the two-dimensional integrity to the surface. Do I now have to explain what surface means???? Absurd. This is the most fundamental lesson of design in the 20th century. A surface is two-dimensional before it is 3 D--illusion is the only one way to paint. Geometry, as Cezanne understood it, was the fundamental building block of painting. The Cubists took this into another dimension, riffing (that's a Jazz term for inspired musical doodling) on Cezanne's original theme. So what's not to understand???? Duh!

I still don't get it, and to tell the truth, Robert, if I put that much Mount Ranier Horses
oil on panel
16 x 20 inches thought into every painting I wouldn't paint. Actually I don't paint at all - I just do. I sit myself in front of my canvas and I paint what looks right to me and what brings me joy and satisfaction. All this 'cones, cylinders, and ovals' discussion is for someone with too much time on their hands. I love Cezanne and I don't think I'm going to be analyzing his paintings for cones, cylinders, or ovals anytime soon. But thanks anyway for sharing Dewain's observations. I had never heard of him until now and now I know why.

What is this--Composition 101? Anybody who takes serious their art The Good Year
portrait painting and isn't just some Sunday duffer knows this stuff. All good realistic art starts out as an abstract construction. Yes, it can be intuitive if one is a natural but even then without a proper study of composition it would most likely be no more than a blind pig finding an acorn every now and then. I liked those 7 ways of looking at a composition and would add the dynamic balance bar (where a small shape balances a larger shape at the proper distance) but if people have been squinting while looking at nature or human-made imagery they would have seen these various shapes all over the place. Hard to believe one would consider oneself an artist and not go to the trouble to read about it. As if the point was to become some kind of soft tissue pantograph slavishly copying what one sees without noticing underlying patterns or intricate similarities.

I too visited several of the Cezanne sites, and concluded that it
landscape painting by Paul Cezanne was on the canvas rather than in the site that he was a pioneer. I suggest that there are three vital stylistic strategies that Cezanne came up with and used consistently: one was the 'passage' (the original French term), a process of interrupting the continuity of lines and thus leaving the eye to fill in the form that is vaporized in key places along contours; and other was the use of a limited palette that bathed the overall surface in a single unity; a third was to modulate the surface in a series of small facets of varying tonalities of the few colors used (each one as well carrying the residue of the brushwork, not only in tone but in directional energy).

In spite of the fact that I too thought the Cezanne illustrations Spring Torrent
oil
9 x 12 inches did not adequately demonstrate the concepts that were presented in the last letter, there is no doubt that the underlying scaffolding or architecture of a painting as I refer to it, not only does exists, it must exist. When a painter begins with a white canvas there is a requirement that a visual structure or armature be created upon which to hang or present the subject. Some artists do it intuitively and some do it consciously, but regardless of how it is done, every accomplished painter from Franz Kline to Andrew Wyeth employs this method of pictorial development.

I want to apologize for any of my fellow men who may be Late Light on the Canal
pastel on paper
16 x 20 inches accosting you with such remarks only because they don't understand what you're saying. That's why we're painters and others are scientists. What you said about "scaffolding" makes perfect sense. We know the importance of form and "massing" in our paintings. Without the strong patterns in our composition, our paintings are no more than a scattering of color, value and detail. There has to be structure... be it intuitive or calculated... the shapes are what hold the work together. I thought the article was so interesting I printed it out to share with my pastel class on "massing."

I am amazed that there were many folks who denied the fascinating and significant aspects of compositional construction methods that have involved geometry and sight principles, used by artists from very early painting history forward. That simply implies the lack of education. I think we are mostly too lazy today to consider the hard work and intellectual involvement in the possibilities of composing. Making work has become more about having fun, expressing oneself and trusting intuition to consider the complex thinking of the past. It is too bad that art history courses in the colleges and universities stopped teaching about the formal analysis involved in "masterpieces."

Anyone who says "you painters are nuts" clearly has done little Marciac Garden
pastel landscape or no study of the fascinating subject of composition and design within a painting, and this possibly applies to all those who wrote to you having been baffled by your letter. However, I would point those people in the direction of the works of Edgar Degas . If anyone ever used "hidden scaffolding," he most certainly did, and in fact, it is not so hidden! Look at some of his dancers and turn them upside down. You can clearly see how the angles of legs and arms and skirts echo each other. Look at his interiors and pick up lines and curves, see how the eye is held within the rectangle, and how rhythmic and well-balanced these images are. Degas' works were the first to reveal to me the language of underlying composition and design as clearly as can be. They may help those who simply do not "get it." For those still struggling, The Simple Secret to Better Painting by Greg Albert is valuable. He claims to have been inspired by the teaching of two other modern painters, Tony Couch and Tony Van Hasselt , who are also able to express themselves in a clear and accessible way. Greg Albert says that his goal is to make pictorial composition simple to understand, remember and apply. His "One rule of Composition" demystifies the subject.

Please note Dan Brown's (also seven) formula ploys
photo of Dan Brown and his book The Da Vinci Code for writing: CHECKLIST
1) Setting: Does my setting reveal a "new world" to my reader? Does it have the potential to teach?
2) In-and-out scene building: Do my scenes start late and end early? Does my plot keep moving? Can I trim excess fat from lead-ins and wrap-ups?
3) Dramatic question: Is the fundamental question driving the action a simple one? Can my plot be summed up in a single sentence?
4) Tension: Do I employ the three C's? Do my characters exist in the shadow of a ticking clock? Are they constrained by some sort of crucible? Do I make contracts with my reader... and then follow through?
5) Research: Do I know enough about my topic to write a manuscript filled with specifics? What (specifically) will my reader learn?
6) Weaving information: Is my background information "woven" into my story, or does it occur in long blocks of description?
7) Revision: Have I reworked my manuscript many times? Have others read it and offered criticism? Have I tightened dull scenes? Have I seasoned the stew?

Theorists seem to quiver over Cezanne's paintings and puff Akard Lane
pastel
24 x 30 inches them up to mythological proportions. This latest cone, cylinder, sphere overlay is reminiscent of the ideas of Dynamic Symmetry—the Greek Vase by Jay Hambidge. Many artists adopted the composition ideas in the book and it became a bit of a cult phenomenon. Paintings produced this way looked formulaic--the feeling of interior design abstracts perfect for decorating the tasteful modernist living room. Cezanne's paintings, on the other hand, are full of the quirky mannerisms of a quirky person. I believe it would be easy enough to mimic Cezanne's style. He was known to outline the forms with Prussian blue which gives his paintings an overall cool look. He was known to work from the contour "in' with square brush strokes. Thomas Wolfe in his satiric look at painting, The Painted Word , said that modern painting was more about literature than painting. If you stripped away the dense layers of verbiage, you were left with zilch. Cezanne's work has been singled out for much of this ballyhooing about theories of rods and cones etc. We ought to look at them without this theoretical baggage and appreciate them for their actual qualities.

I suppose the Golden Ratio is REALLY out of date. Yet Sword in the Stone
original illustration Sword in the Stone
illustration with imposed golden ratio it is still employed sometimes (and the current release of Corel Photo-Paint even added it as part of the bells and whistles). I suppose the Golden Ratio might fit into your "curves" ploy category, yet I find myself thinking it's actually a bit more complex than that and perhaps deserving of a category of its own. In decades of creating, I have (consciously at least) used it only once, to create a formal look to a fantasy picture. I found the system both helpful yet stilting. And in the end I moved the hilt of the sword upward so the jewel in the handle, one of the main interest point in the piece, is actually outside any grid points. Thus, my eye won out over the "rules" of the system that had inspired the layout, perhaps defeating the whole purpose of the exercise. I can say I used the Golden Mean twice in the same picture--the first and the last time.

How does anyone create? I am reminded of the movie Rain Man with Dustin Ivy Fairy
original art Hoffman. During the rolling credits at the end of the movie, the director chose to show Raymond's snapshots taken with his camera throughout the story. The pictures were never discussed or shown before this time. Subtly, used as a prop (whether intentionally or not) the pictures he takes beautifully illustrate Raymond's interest: Numbers. Pictures of street signs with numbers, license plates, addresses above doorways ... Raymond saw them as beautiful and chose them as his subject. What and how a person 'sees' and then chooses to express is as individual and as valid as anyone else's choices. On road trips, see what people notice ... especially if the people all have the same occupation ... say, artists. One will notice architecture. Another will notice the trees, the landscape. Some will see the people. Others, animals or a single blooming rose. What we notice matters. How we see the same subject might also determine how we put it onto canvas.

My heart swells and I would weep except that I need to Hollywood Love 1963
illustration
8 x 10 inches type. I so got it. In fact, I thought you must be of the angels sent to me when I receive a letter from you and it transforms my artist life. I am indeed in appreciation to powers greater than the scope of all our work. While I am a simple beginning artist and as yet have little bearing on our industry market, I know myself. The cones and cylinders and little squares that hide behind the stage of my work not only give it taste (volume, depth , texture) but those little shapes give my work hidden entrance into the energy that bears all form.