Oil Paintings, Fine Art, Landscape Design, Garden Design, by Brian Spaeth
My paintings are based on classical, formal garden design, and I utilize the
arabesques that are inherent in these designs as compositional motifs that
draw the viewer in and through my landscapes.
I begin by building scale-models in styrofoam and cardboard and paper. They are lit to suggest the slanting rays of the late-day sun which produce the long, raking shadows which stretch across the gardens and also produce varied chromatic effects. These models are then drawn and photographed and transferred to canvas and executed in oil paint. With the advent of computers I began using 3-D software programs to construct my models which gives me a much greater flexibility in design, lighting, and perspective.
I strive to produce a sense of meditative stillness and mystery which has traditionally been a component of the experiencing of an actual formal garden. I rarely show the horizon line or any other potential scale-signifier such as a human figure. This creates an ambiguity of size and scale and adds to the mystery and otherworldliness of the compositions. I employ a pointillist brush technique which tends to break up the forms into a kind of atomized mist or haze. Color is a major component in my work and I love how different hues will run through chromatic changes as they pass from brilliant sunlight to transparent shadow and as they wrap around the contours of forms. The quality of light and the various psychological states of mind that can be suggested by it are also of great interest to me. Certain kinds of light can suggest a sense of tragedy, or perhaps a sublime spirituality.
Gardens, from their earliest incarnations, have been places that offer a respite from the tasks and hardships of life and offer a chance for the soul to expand and the mind to take flight into otherworldly realms. These are among the qualities that make formal gardens an ideal motif for my paintings.
I begin by building scale-models in styrofoam and cardboard and paper. They are lit to suggest the slanting rays of the late-day sun which produce the long, raking shadows which stretch across the gardens and also produce varied chromatic effects. These models are then drawn and photographed and transferred to canvas and executed in oil paint. With the advent of computers I began using 3-D software programs to construct my models which gives me a much greater flexibility in design, lighting, and perspective.
I strive to produce a sense of meditative stillness and mystery which has traditionally been a component of the experiencing of an actual formal garden. I rarely show the horizon line or any other potential scale-signifier such as a human figure. This creates an ambiguity of size and scale and adds to the mystery and otherworldliness of the compositions. I employ a pointillist brush technique which tends to break up the forms into a kind of atomized mist or haze. Color is a major component in my work and I love how different hues will run through chromatic changes as they pass from brilliant sunlight to transparent shadow and as they wrap around the contours of forms. The quality of light and the various psychological states of mind that can be suggested by it are also of great interest to me. Certain kinds of light can suggest a sense of tragedy, or perhaps a sublime spirituality.
Gardens, from their earliest incarnations, have been places that offer a respite from the tasks and hardships of life and offer a chance for the soul to expand and the mind to take flight into otherworldly realms. These are among the qualities that make formal gardens an ideal motif for my paintings.
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