In 1987 Mahieu traveled to Paris, France and lived in the Latin
Quarter for one month. During that time he was able to see the
great impressionist masterpieces, and to visit "the shrine" -- Monet's
home and garden in Giverny. Upon his return from France, Mahieu devoted
himself to painting exclusively en plein air -- outside, directly
from nature.
Plein Air is a French term meaning in the
open air. In art history it refers to a feeling that a painting conveys
the sensations of being in the open air. This quality was much sought
by the Impressionists, and before them the Barbizon School of landscape painters
who worked in the Forest Fontainebleau into the 1840s. Perhaps more
than any other artist Claude Monet was the quintessential plein air painter.
He was obsessed with capturing the effects of light on the landscape in
a nearly scientific way, also in capturing the atmospheric “envelope” of
the landscape. To late Nineteenth century Europeans, accustomed to
seeing landscapes painted in the artifice of a studio (an amber-brown light
pervaded the works) the (truthful) blue light of the Impressionists was
revolutionary. Due to the rapidity with which one must paint when capturing
the fleeting effects of light and atmosphere, the Impressionists were maligned
as “slap dash” and incapable of drawing or modeling form. In fact,
Monet and his contemporaries were more interested in dematerializing form
in a web of color broken down to its spectral components and optical compliments.
To be capable of painting so rapidly and with such economy of means requires
great skill and drawing capability, to say nothing of contending with the
sundry difficulties working out of doors entails.
Van Gogh and other Post-Impressionists took the color lessons of Impressionism
and applied them to works more concerned with conveying internal states
rather than external realities. As Van Gogh said: “I paint the
soul of things”. American artists began making the pilgrimage
to Monet’s home at Giverny, and plein air painting began to take
root in the States, though in the twenty to forty years after its heyday
in France. Different than the European tradition of landscape painting,
the Americans always seemed to find a sense of the Sublime in nature or:
God in Nature. Their landscapes tended to be more interested in the
mood of the landscape rather than just a scientific recording of the effects
of light. American artists also tended to use more earth tones than
their European counterparts.
James A. M. Whistler was largely responsible for the birth of the Tonalist
Movement in American painting. He used color “arrangements” and was
very interested in subtle tonal variations of closely related colors.
Japanese art continued to have a profound influence on these artists, just
as it did on the Impressionists. Aestheticism reigned in these works.
John Henry Twachtman of New England combined both Whistler’s tonalism and
Monet’s impressionist brushwork and palette to create haunting landscapes
and, especially, snow scenes. Some of Twacthman’s landscapes are
so closely related in hue and tone that the imagery is barely discernible.
The physical and ethereal worlds truly seem to merge.
My work draws on all of these traditions. If I had to be pigeonholed
I would call myself a “Plein Air Expressionist”. Though my
work appears to be Impressionist, and indeed, it adheres closely to the
doctrine of painting directly from Nature -- it is much more concerned with
the mood of the landscape. Sometimes I will use a highly keyed Impressionist
palette when the mood of the landscape and the color of the day require
it. On other days I will use a Tonalist technique where one hue is mixed with
every color on the palette. This creates a moody unity to the
painting and allows one to focus more intently on the value (light and dark)
structure of the painting rather than the spectral hues. My recent
work RIVER BEND --
STORMY SKIES is an example of this style. Created in one sitting,
it is a perfect example of the expressive alla prima (at the first
touch, with no reworking) brush work that accompanies pure plein
air works. Hopefully, this work will make you want to “turn up
your coat collar” as Manet said of one of Monet’s wintry scenes.
-- Brian Mahieu
October 2003
