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“Figuring out the value of shadows and how much color to put in the shadow are demands I enjoy as an artist.” -- David Meikle
Utah artist, David W. Meikle’s stylized western landscapes are tightly focused, revealing his graphic design background. His painting View of Zion Canyon is set at a vertiginous height depicting both the high walls of the canyon and the atmospheric perspective of the purple mountains in the distance.
Committed to painting outdoors rather than the comfort of his studio, contemporary artist Doug Braithwaite depicts ‘slice of life’ images from his everyday experience. Working in both the urban and rural western landscape, Doug sees form and color reference in the most unlikely places. In this image of a back alley in Park City, Utah, Braithwaite achieves deep visual layering using the natural incline of the hill, the rhythm of the structures of the old mining town, and keyed light to interpret an otherwise commonplace scene.
Sothebys (on the cover of the most recent New York action catalog) and major museums across the west. A month ago his painting Summer in the Mountains was estimated to sell at between $300,000 and $400,000 at the Santa Fe Art Auction and it sold for $632,500.
And he is now featured in a new documentary by Josh Hassel titled Sandzén: Ecstasy of Colorwhich aired on the PBS channel in Denver on 2 October 2011.
Sandzén studied in Stockholm, Sweden under Anders Zorn, and in Paris in the Atelier of Edmond-Francois Aman-Jean, who was closely associated with George Seurat. In 1894 he emigrated to Lindsborg, Kansas to teach art at Bethany College, where he stayed for the remainder of his life.
By the mid 1920s, his reputation as an artist and as an exceptional teacher was growing and Sandzén was often asked to teach summer school classes in other states such as Colorado, New Mexico, Michigan and Utah.
He wrote “All color in nature is stronger than anything one can possibly have on the palette. For instance, the shine of the moon-beam or the vividness of the newly opened flower. There can be no danger of exaggerating nature’s color.” His painting Moonrise in the Canyon, Moab, Utah, reveals the moon rising over the Colorado River with tall spires on either side of the river. He used short brush strokes for the sky and longer strokes for the rocks and water and analogous colors of red and blue for his palette.
Whenever Sandzén was asked questions about his work, his answers were always those of a thoughtful and supportive teacher. Of an artist’s work, he once wrote:
… that one should be guided in both composition and use of color by the character of the landscape. There are western motifs out here, especially in a certain light (for example, in gray weather), which are distinguished by their majestic lines as in protruding rocks, rolling prairie and winding ravines. One should, when painting such motifs, first of all emphasize the rhythm and then sum up the color impression in a few large strokes…the color arrangement, however simple it may be, should support and enforce the lines. A false arrangement of color may completely destroy the rhythm. In the atmosphere in which the intensive light vibration and ring of color produce the great power of light, which is often the situation in the dry air of the Southwest—it is clear that a color technique should be used that emphasizes the most characteristic feature of the landscape. One must then use pure colors which refract each other, but which through distance assimilate for the eye-the so-called “optical” blending—since the usual blending on the palette, the “pigmented blending” is not intensive enough and does not “vibrate.”
Heart Of The Rocky Mountains - Rocky Mountain National Park. Credit: AskArt
In the painting, Hour of Splendor, Bryce Canyon, Utah Sandzén used blue to evoke depth and tones of red and analogous colors to bring the spires forward. His loaded brush was used to sculpt the surreal landscape of Bryce Canyon. Remembering the desert, Sandzén once wrote “The great romantic wonderland of the Southwest with its rugged primitive grandeur, its scintillating light, its picturesque people. What a world of beauty waiting for interpretation in story, verse, color and line.”
…the pictographs (painted onto the rock) and petroglyphs (pecked or carved into the rock) that adorn the sheer rock faces of the desert southwest…
More than seven thousand of these masterpieces have been catalogued in Utah alone
Petroglyphs, Capital Reef National Park, Credit: John Sternenberg
Inexplicable, quixotic and enduring...gestures from the past that call upon us to stop, to linger, to ponder their mysterious beauty...
Petroglyphs in Valley of Fire State Park: Credit: Alaskan Dude
Steeped in the aromas of the desert, the hum of stillness and the immeasurable nuances of red. The singularity of the petrogylphs cannot be separated from the vast environment in which they reside....
The Canyonlands Natural History Association is at the forefront of that task…a private foundation working in concert with the national parks, lending expertise and funding to a broad variety of preservation efforts.
The CNHA is mourning the loss of Bud Turner, an ingenious and intrepid chronicler of ancient art in the southwest. As chief investigator for CNHA’s Discovery Pool project, he spearheaded a ‘spectral imaging’ campaign that has revealed fascinating glimpses into the native masterpieces…documenting and aiding in their preservation and restoration.
An Indian elder once said, “In order to understand rock art, turn your back to the images and take in the surroundings. Only then will you begin to understand the message.“
Zane Grey, the famous novelist, was an avid adventurer and always on the lookout for new material for his enormously popular romantic westerns. Grey took an expedition to Utah's Rainbow Bridge in 1913. It was a difficult trip, taking up to five days each way, and the travel over slick rock was perilous.
Upon seeing the Bridge, Grey wrote, “I saw past the vast jutting wall that had obstructed my view. A mile beyond, all was bright with the colors of sunset, and spanning the canyon in the graceful shape and beautiful hues of the rainbow was a magnificent natural bridge.”
Among the very few white women to have made the dangerous trek by horseback at that time, Smith may well be the first woman artist to have painted the famous Bridge. She was the only woman to ever work as an illustrator for Zane Grey and she went on to illustrate other books.
Oil sketch of Rainbow Bridge by Lilian Wilhelm Smith. Credit: Anthony’s Fine Art
In his book, The Rainbow Trail, Zane Grey’s character ‘Shefford’ was equally moved by the impression of moonlight on the enormous bridge:
Near at hand it [the arch] was too vast a thing for immediate comprehension. He wanted to ponder on what had formed it—to reflect upon its meaning as to age and force of nature, yet all he could do at each moment was to see. White stars hung along the dark curved line. The rim of the arch seemed to shine. The moon must be up there somewhere. The far side of the canon was now a blank, black wall. Over its towering rim showed a pale glow. It brightened. The shades in the cañon lightened then a white disk of moon peered over the dark line. The bridge turned to silver, and the gloomy, shadowy belt it had cast blanched and vanished.
Monday, November 21, 2011 at 8:51PM Tweet 
Credit: Permission from David Meikle.
