Painting of the Day, January 14, 2012

By Donna Poulton

Credit: Painters of Utah’s Canyons and Deserts A landscape artist who worked primarily on the East Coast, Maurice Freedman’s first trip west was in the 1930s when he travelled to Taos, New Mexico in his Model A Ford. After one such trip Maurice told his son that “…nature’s power gives me hope.”

On another trip Freedman and his wife, artist Louise Freedman, drove through Utah and stopped to paint Bryce Canyon. Freedman titled his Bryce painting, Navajo Kingdom. He told his son that “The rocks are Indian Castles—sentinels overseeing, guarding and protecting their land and people.” The painting's palate of reds, browns and even the blues seem warm and flat—washed out from the mid-day sun.  The spire tops suggest the battlements and parapets of medieval castles and the heat reflects red in the clouds overhead.  The guile of the saturated landscape, devoid of tones, shades and values is exposed with Freedman’s minimal treatment of the spires and the flattened mid-day colors.