torsdag, september 10, 2009

How I would like to paint - 1

Roberto Matta (1911-2002)
Paralelles de la vie
1971
198 x 292 cm. Oil on canvas.

There are many painters I envy and admire. Roberto Matta is one of them. My interest in Matta comes mainly from the way he is working with white. The light in his paintings always has a somewhat supernatural feeling about it. Rembrandt, below, is an obvious example of how tension between areas in light and in darkness can capture ones eye. It is both the light and the darkness that is important. Therefore you stay in the image, and in what it is depicting. But Matta, I think, wants you to look at the light, the dark is there to strenghten the white. He is telling a different story, which points out of the painting.


Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (1606-1669)
The Nightwatch 1642
363 × 437 cm. Oil on canvas.


I would like to be able to paint this way.