A Little Red Goes a Long Way!
July 30, 2009
George Bellows
This is one of my all time favorite paintings. It’s at the Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, Fl. It’s a smaller painting, 14 x 17, if I remember correctly. It is typical Bellows. Thick, rich brushstrokes on top of thin, washy looking passages. It’s loosely handled and artfully simplified. It’s a classic case of “what can I do without”. And, as you can see, he did without plenty.
Not as typical of Bellows is the tonal quality of the picture. I get cold just looking at it. What little warm color there is exists in the middle ground. The background, almost entirely cool green grays, acts as a wonderful neutral foil for the smattering of warms. That’s what I love about it. Seen in person some of those colors are so neutral it’s hard to tell what color they are.
Check out that small stroke of bright red in the middle of the painting, right in front of the ship. I’m not really sure what it is, maybe some cargo on the wharf. That note makes the painting. I wish Bellows were around today so I could ask him about it.
Did he put it there because it brings out the green quality of the grays? That could be. Emile Gruppe, in his book Gruppe on Painting, says that without red we would not recognize green. His point was that color opposites are necessary. One is less meaningful without the other.
Or did he put it there because red “sells”? (I wonder if Bellows had trouble selling paintings at this point, I don’t know.) An artist friend of mine, who participates in a lot of Florida paint outs , makes it a point to put some bright red near the center of every painting. He believes it is often the difference between selling and not selling. If his theory is valid, I would surmise that it’s because most landscapes have a lot of green in them. Adding the red sets up a vibration that makes those greens look richer.
1st Ave S., St. Pete
Try it! Put some bright red in an otherwise dull picture and see if that doesn’t spruce it up.
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Thanks, so much for this post. I just was working on a painting of a bronze statue for a competition and the spot of red really did vitalize the painting. Now I need to look at my other paintings to see if they need that spot as I do have a lot of green in my plein air paintings. Thanks and I will keep checking your blog and site.