Art of the 5 L: December 2008

Monday, December 29, 2008

Eyes half closed

glorious...

hide and seek...

the forgotten little boat

There is the Teacher

light and shade

Sunday, December 28, 2008

Beauty and elegance of musical instruments

What a great joy to play this beautiful instrument

And what a bliss to be able to listen to this deep voice

Musical instruments like these take generations and generations to come to this level of elegance and refinement. Craftsmen would work hard all their life, to be able to produce such a balance, not only visually but also with the sound quality, of course.

The warmth of the wood and of the varnish, the fluid curves, the symmetry, all that will suggest an avatar of the human body, from which it has most probably been inspired. Dedicated musicians will spend their life with this instrument, practicing long hours, daily.

The wood has been very carefully selected, dried for many years before being shaped and covered with lacquer. The different woods come from trees who had grown in many forests of the world. These forests were filled, from dawn to dusk, with the thousands songs of birds, a music that might still be echoing in the soul of the instrument.

When you realize that just a little part of a tree, which has been carefully chosen for his acoustic potential, will be transformed in a superb hand-made work of art, where precision rhyme with proportion, giving something highly aesthetic, which will first conquer the heart of the musician and then the heart of millions of listeners through its voice, you can't help but wonder how much love and sense of economy has been generated.

One may feel a little sadness in thinking of the beautiful trees cut to collect their wood, but what about the music that will flow into the heart of so many human beings, plants and animals too? There is very little waste in this process, if the luthier is a man responsible and with deep knowledge of the trees.

That said, these people who have learned through years of observation, looking, listening, feeling, are quite rare nowadays. Most of this production has become an industry directed to satisfy an expanding market. Is excellence anymore the real inspiring guide? But for those who still live with such a conviction, they will understand in looking at these two musical instruments, the spirit of devotion that fills the heart of true instrument makers, and players.

L'Homme d'Art

Friday, December 26, 2008

Eyes wide open...

The beginning of our story

A fish in the sky?

Living together

Destruction

There

You see, it's your eye who make the photography, not the brand of the camera and surely not the desire to capture.

Fleeting moments, do they touch your heart?
Do they trigger some emotion?
Is it really necessary to put a frame around them?

Anyway they are already gone...

Monday, December 22, 2008

Miniature watercolors part 2

A jungle for the small, a pillow for the big...

Marvels of Maldives

Unexpected encounter in Maldives lagoon

The dancing light

Nothing else

These miniature watercolors are part of the thousands (yes...) painted during a period of roughly 15 years of traveling the world alone, and getting completely intoxicated by its captivating landscapes and the magic light on them.

One had kept a very simple and compact apparatus to produce this kind of work.
Basically two or three brushes were used.
One, anonymous (without brand) from Japan, not to big, neither to small, to paint the larges washes of color of the skies, the seas and the lands.
The other one used for the details, was the Winsor & Newton Series 7 Kolinsky Sable Brush size 000. The finest.

This Series 7 is quite famous, since the story tells that in 1866, Her Majesty Queen Victoria gave orders that Winsor & Newton should produce the very finest water colour brushes in her favourite size; the No.7. And since the reputation has never failed. If you happened to paint with it, you probably have been enchanted by its crisp point, the even and consistent flow of the color, and its durability. We tried many other fine brushes, none had these qualities to that extent.
It is really important to use the best tools and instruments when you get involved in a artistic production of high quality. It inspires you to push further, to push the envelope if one may say...

The colors were also from W&N, Artist Series. Our favorite colors were Indigo, Warm Sepia, Burnt Sienna, Payne's gray, Blue Cerulean, Sap green, French Ultramarine, Gambodge yellow, and others. Of course, we never used White. The white of the paper was left without color. Nothing else could match its brightness.
The paper was a 300g paper from France (Canson Montval, since the Arches was either too thick or too grainy for this miniature work). The sheet of paper was cut in small rectangles of 60x80 mm and also 40x65 mm. There was also another tiny size of approximately 20x30 mm, which was produced for a period of few years. These three sizes were called Micro, Mini and Maxi...
And the name of this miniature artwork was Miniatures d' Art or Md'A.
The funny thing was that the 3 letters MdA are forming the backbone of Medam, the name of its creator...

Water? Well at a point, since it was such a ritual to re-create reminiscences of the natural world, we used Evian water from he Alps, to be sure to have the purest water with no chlorine or chemical substances able to alter the quality of the paint.

The spirit of the Md'A could be seen like " producing the maximum effect while using the minimum material " and also " to paint One portrait, the portrait of our wonderful planet in all its nuances..." and also " to be able to carry one's gallery in the pocket, so one could at any time, any place, almost any circumstances, unfold and display this Artwork for a little time and then fold it again and forget about it.

In fact it was created not so much from a painter's point of view, but rather from a musician's mind. Indeed, just like a music that starts, plays, ends without leaving a trace, except a reminiscence in the mind and a feeling in the heart, these paintings (and later drawings) were to CREATE a space when necessary, but not FILL the empty space with their presence.
No encumbrance, no heavy burden, just the pure essence of the landscape and color. As a result, many thousands of people of any age, culture, social condition, or education have seen and responded to this work. Almost always with the same and same first reaction of surprise, amazement or joy ( not easy to tell) keeping the portfolio in their hands almost like if it was a new born child and saying " I have never seen anything like that, it's beautiful". And then after a while, asking " How much time does it take to paint one like this?"

Well, time has never been a valid factor in the generation of this work. Just replace the word "time' by "love". Then it becomes " How much love does it take to paint one like this?"
And that is a very tough question to answer...

L'homme d'Art