Painting of the Day, December 30, 2011

By Donna Poulton

Anton J. Rasmussen, Delicate Arch (Study), 1995 oil on canvas on masonite, 36 x 48 in. Private Collection.  Credit: Painters of Utah’s Canyons and Deserts

Anton J. Rasmussen’s Delicate Arch (1995) is his most widely recognized work. Commissioned by the Salt Lake International Airport and painted on location, the towering image of Delicate Arch is 23 feet high by 18 feet wide; a size worthy of its subject.

Delicate Arch at the Salt Lake International Airport.  Credit: 3M30

Like Thomas Moran, whose landscapes were not composed for literal reference, but rather to evoke emotional impressions of a setting, Rasmussen's paintings represent: 

"… a composite of different perspectives and different rock formations, and the palette is developed out of visual sensations collected over time … Many people have commented that they’ve seen the particular view I painted ‘just that way,’ even though it would be impossible to do so.  I have decided that as one recalls the experience of visiting the southern Utah landscape, the experience is idealized … the experiences are combined in the viewer’s mind to form a single recollection of the experience."

The multi-colored clouds and spiraling activity in Delicate Arch are loud, crowding for attention. The clouds are a softer version of the repeated motifs seen in the rocks and are important elements in understanding the decay of the rock itself. Of this process Rasmussen notes that there is a lot of “rhythm and movement, the sort of things that would have carved that rock out over the many millions of years.”

Image of the Day, December 28, 2011

By Donna Poulton

"Nature is never finished."- Robert Smithson

Credit: informedmindstravel

Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty has been described by Greg Lindquist as “arguably the most famous, least experienced work in the earthworks/land art canon.” While virtually every art student studies Smithson’s ideas about entropy and the death of art, few will ever experience his actual work. Situated two hours north of Salt Lake City, the sculpture was created on the shore of the Great Salt Lake near Rozel Point. The drive to the site, over an axle-breaking dirt road, is one of many challenges for visitors trying to get a glimpse of the Jetty. A victim of the lake’s drought and flood cycle, the Spiral Jetty has spent much its 42-year existence under water. Smithson died in a plane crash three years after the Jetty was built, but the ensuing confusion and impediments created by the natural flood cycle would certainly have supported his ideas of entropy.

Credit: informedmindstravel

Credit: aur2899

Credit: aur2899

Credit: snevets.d

Painting of the Day, December 19, 2011

By Donna Poulton

Jason Rich, C.A., Back to Pasture, c. 2011, oil, 36 x 48 in. Credit: Legacygallery.com

Having grown up on a horse farm in southern Idaho, Jason Rich understands the temperament and movement of working horses. His paintings are characterized by rich impasto and he is not afraid to use luminous color and contrasts to capture the mood of the land. His loose-edged, painterly technique allows him to depict motion and action among the animals and men that often dominate his compositions. Rich has won numerous awards and is recognized as a major emerging western artist.

Painting of the Day, December 9, 2011

By Donna Poulton

"Winter is lovely to paint because…you’ve got a beautiful harmony of color relationships—the lavenders in the road. Every note of color has a relationship." - LeConte Stewart

LeConte Stewart once said he “would rather paint then eat.” He was one of Utah’s most important regional artists because of his style and because he concentrated on a narrow valley hugging the foothills of the Wasatch mountains. For more than seventy-five years he painted the urban and rural landscape of northern Utah. Preferring the outdoors to the studio, he could often be seen at the side of a road or out in a field sketching or painting. People knew that if he didn’t acknowledge you when you walked by, he didn’t want to be bothered, but if he said hello, it was a signal that he welcomed the company.

LeConte Stewart (1890-1991), Untitled, c. 1949, oil, location unknown

For more information on Stewart you might be interested in this post about a current exhibition of his work.

Image of the Day, November 22, 2011

“When as a young man of 18, I came east to study art, there were on the same train with me a group of Crow Indians on the way to Washington, D.C. Their chief was a mammoth person over six feet tall and weighing 265 pounds.  All of them were big fellows and had the dignity of a Caesar.” -- Cyrus Dallin

Cyrus Dallin working on his sculpture of Massasoit. Credit: The Springville Museum of Art

Happy 150th Birthday, Cyrus Dallin! - A native of Springville, Utah, Cyrus Dallin was regarded as one of America’s foremost realist sculptors and was one of the founding artists of the Springville Museum of Art. Born in a little log cabin in 1861, Dallin left Springville as a young man to study art in Boston and in the celebrated academies in Paris. In 1890, Dallin made his home in Massachusetts, where he produced most of his works, but made numerous trips back to visit his native Utah. Though Dallin received many prestigious commissions and awards throughout his life, he said that “my greatest honor of all is that I came from Utah."(Text courtesy of the Springville Museum of Art.)