Through History
Working from the historical forms of Giorgione, Titian, Rembrandt and van Gogh led me to my own landscapes. I went on to employ bold gestures to convey the power and thrill of Yosemite, Milos, England’s Lake District and San Francisco’s Land’s End. My largest watercolors are 90in wide and present the viewer with the frank actuality and thrill of nature.
I employed Rembrandt’s Woman Bathing as part of a conflagration. The juxtaposition signified the end of an era of gentle eroticism and sexual liberation. It also commemorated the tragic death of the much loved model Katy Allen and reflected the end of my youth. I titled the painting after a proverb by Blake:
“The Soul of Sweet Delight, Can Never Be Defiled.”
The Rembrandt figure led me to an over-all renewal by returning to my history of art studies, which had been my major at Yale. I have always loved the forms and delicacy in the idylls of Giorgione and Titian. The backgrounds of their paintings are rendered “alla prima”—employing loose and spontaneous brushwork that prefigures impressionist paintings centuries hence. These influential historic artists opened the door for me to paint landscape and the figure in my own way.
