Portraits v. Landscape v. Still Life?

[Karin Wells]

I have an unresearched theory about many of us realistic painters....and here it is....

It seems to me that there are three general categories of realism; Portraiture, Landscape and Still Life. Most of the artists that I have met are pretty good in two of these categories - seldom all three.

I do both portraits and still life, but can't produce a decent landscape painting no matter how hard I try unless it is in the background of a portrait or still life - no kidding. Every now and then I try a landscape but find it difficult at best...this past year I have only painted one that I am not ashamed of....ouch.

Has anyone else observed this seemingly odd phenomenon?

[Jim Riley]

Karin,

Very interesting that you should raise this question. Part of New Years eve after our grandchildren left was spent leafing through some art materials and wondering to myself why I had not made any attempt since art school to do much still life painting. Besides portrait in oil, watercolor and pastel, I have painted watercolor landscapes and bouquets of flowers but no true still lifes. Southwest Art did a series on Still Life and I am determined to outline some projects. I also wondered why I have not painted landscapes in oil and pledged also to do this in 2002.

There may have been a few impressionists who did all three but I will have to do some homework to find that this is so.

My favorite portrait and landcape combo painter is Sargent but I don't recall any still life's by him. I have also been impressed by Sir William Russell Flint who did wonderful figures and landscapes in watercolor but I could not find a still life by him either.

The artist that quickly cames to mind when I saw your post was Richard Schmid who was also part of my reading list on that eve and is equally skilled at figure, portrait, still life and landscape painting. The landscapes include harbors, city scenes, country, woods, etc. in different seasons, weather, and moods.

Early in my art training I found oil to be the medium that I had the most affinity for and relied on it for portrait and figure painting development. At my first job as a greeting card artist I had to develop my skills as a watercolorist and eventually did fairly well at florals and landscapes in this media. Perhaps this is a circuitous route to saying that you might want to try doing landscapes in another medium. The break from subject and media could help you get past whatever it is that blocks your progress.
I have often wondered if the thinking process, technique, and directness of watercolor as might be found in Homer and Sargent paintings enhanced their skill at oil painting.

[Michele Rushworth]

Funny you should mention it. I can do portraits and still life but I've rarely (if ever) produced a successful landscape!

[Chris Saper]

Hi Karin, Jim, Michele,

I am laughing as I read this post, as I love to paint portrait and still life, and have never painted a decent landscape for my life...

People always say, "Oh if you can paint a portrait you can paint anything!" Ha. I think landscape is so very difficult to do well, and that there is really a lot to know, in order to incorporate it into a painting. (Carlson's Guide to Landcape Painting, what an excellent book!) I also find the compositional decisions unending...should I put this tree here, or to the right, how big, how small. At least for a portrait painter, there's only one right place for the nose, and one right shape. It's either right or it's wrong, period.

I have taken a couple of landscape classes, and I am so intriqued by the different temperaments. The landscape guys whistle, listen to the birds, hang out with their dogs, while the portrait painters are INTENSELY doing EVERYTHING.

The landscape painters seem to be having more fun!
Matt Smith, who is a terrific plein air painter from Arizona, laughs at us and insists that portraits are for painters who are afraid to go outside. I laugh too, since the last time I went outside, by the time I got set up, my canvas had a large, and I mean large, dried bird dropping right in the center. Try as I did to turp it into an "underpainting" the day just continued in a sort of surreal fashion. (I LIKE my studio.)

By the same token, the very compositional issues that drive me crazy in landscape, fascinate and please me in still life.

Burt Silverman comes right to mind when I think of a painter who excels in everything. By the way, Dan Gerhartz is another artist(taught by Richard Schmid) who moves easily and beautifully among all three genres.

Chris

[Michael Fournier]

Well My opinion is that if you can paint you can paint anything.
Now that said I also feel that you excel where your interest are.
If you are drawn to painting landscapes you will do enough of them to get good at it.
If you love to paint portraits then you will learn what it takes to paint a good one.
If you like still lifes then you will do enough to do that well.

I like to paint figures and portraits because that is where my interests are I find the human form infinitely fascinating but I do landscapes that include figures and I do still lifes as additions to a figure painting after all how often do you sit in a empty room with nothing around you?

So why paint people in a empty void paint them in real settings which will include a still life since most of us have things lying around on tables and put flowers in vases or have have lamps around. And unless you live far out in the middle of nowhere then you will see people in your landscape as you sit there painting so why not include them in the painting.

After all if life was like many landscapes (void of humans) it would look like a ghost town.
Not to say that all landscapes must have a figure in them but I personally find it that it makes a painting much more interesting and more like life if it does.

The real question is why worry about it??
Paint what make your work a great painting not a great portrait or a great landscape or a great still life.

Andrew Wyeth's work is a prime example of paintings that exceed the bounds of their subjects. He paints still lifes that are much more then a still life and he paints landscapes that are more then image of a place but are in fact at a moment of time in a persons life with in that place. And he has done this with and without the figures. In fact Andrew Wyeth's work is some of the greatest paintings done in the 20th century. Would they have been if he limited it to a figure painting or a still life or a landscape? I don't think so. He set out to paint a great painting and painting what he wanted without considering what it would be classified as.

[Jim Riley]

Interesting that Michael should cite Andrew Wyeth as someone who could do any of the general painting categories that Karin noted. Noone is a bigger fan of Andrew Wyeth than I and I must say that I cannot recall a still life by the artist. A narrative accompanies so many of his works and it is magic that he can do paintings that suggest that someone has come or gone from the scene and you are left with wonder about who, why, or where they have gone. The closest to still life that I can find are paintings of the tools, clothing, or general evironment of the people he knew and became part of his artistic output.

I live within an hour's drive of Chadds Ford and the Brandywine Museum and have had wonderful moments going through this Gallery devoted to the Brandywine School. To have the chance to see his working drawings and studies is very exciting and revealing. He did many and usually they were scattered on the floor of his studio, stepped upon, and later saved by his wife Betsy. In many cases they are more exciting than the finished paintings.

I think Karen's post poses a bigger question than being able to make an acceptable painting in any subject so much as whether or not we, the artist, find the same drive and need to paint in one of these styles. I can paint a house but find it hard to do that with the care and enthusiasm that I tackle a portrait.

I would bet that Andy (I always call him that) would say "I can't do a good still life." It may be another another way of recognizing that the subjects we choose to portray are not arbitrary.
This is a very interesting topic that I have never given much thought to previously.

[Michael Fournier]

I also have been to the Brandywine museum when I was in collage in Philadelphia. I was actually a bigger fan of NC Wyeth at the time. And I still am but I have grown a lot since my days as a inspiring illustrator. I live in New England and spend most of my time between Connecticut and Massachusetts so it is a long drive now.

I used Andrew Wyeth as a example of a painter that just painted not as one that painted only portraits or landscapes or still lifes. I may be stretching the term still life some but, like I said, I do not much care for staged still lifes as a subject (the bowl of fruit or a vase of flowers).

I do not know him (Andrew) personally but what I do know about him and his father and their work leads me to believe that it is more about what artist are drawn to on a personal level that tends to guide their work more then their skill at painting a subject.

[Marta Prime]

I almost did an ROFL (Rolling on floor laughing) when I read this subject! It's amazing how many Kindred Spirits there are. Karin, it's weird how you read my mind sometimes.

Long long ago, in a faraway land called Las Vegas, I started painting landscapes, you know the wet on wet kind with our lovable series artist, Bob Ross. Although I thought it fun at the time, I quickly became bored with the process, and started branching out and studying all kinds of different techniques, and gathered quite an art library. Once I came across Joseph Sheppards book I have mentioned before, I was hooked on Portraits. It was amazing how much better they looked than anything else I tried. I also did a fair amount of still life's. I have one of orange lilies in a gold vase I will never part with. I agree with Michael, if you find something you love, you usually find a way to get good at it.

My family was asking me why I didn't paint landscapes anymore, so one day I decided to do one. Good thing no one was around, it was an absoulute disaster! I grabbed a rag, dipped it in turp, and wiped the canvas clean! Whew! Maybe if I practiced them more, they'd look OK, but right now there's a big difference in quality between the two catagories for me! And I'm vain enough not to want people to see the difference!

Now here's the weird phenomenom, the backgrounds in my portraits come out fine, even the "landscape" ones. So what's the difference?

[Jim Riley]

Marta

Often we think we know where we are going with portrait or still life and proceed with great confidence to the least threatening part of the painting. The background.
I don't do many landscapes but when I do I like to spend a little more time doing thumbnails. this allows me to proceed with confidence that some of the big composition, value, and color directions are decided. And, unlike portraiture, landscapes present many items competing for interest and attention and deciding where we are going becomes critical. Nothing is more frustrating than chasing around the canvas trying to find some way to pull it all together. Sometimes making the finished painting as exciting as the thumbnail becomes the challenge. Thumbnails allow you to play and be spontaneous in a way that the "finished" painting might struggle to achieve.

[Michael Fournier]

Well this topic has made me think and I can't seem to forget it.

I was on the web at one of my favorite sites (http://www.artrenewal.org)
and ran into a article by this artist (http://www.maureenhyde.com/)
Go to the paintings page and you will see 6 landscapes, 7 still lifes and 6 figurative and portraiture examples of her work. She seems rather good at all 3 to me.