+Creative thoughts August 13, 2002 Dear Artist; Carl Rungius (1869-1959) was one of the best big-game painters of all time. He was also a believer in creative thought. He's the kind of artist from whom you can learn. If you're not familiar with his work I've included several of his paintings at the bottom of the current clickback. Rungius was born in Germany and moved to the USA when he was in his early twenties. From his childhood sketching animals in the Berlin Zoo to his final settling in Banff, Alberta, his was a life of hunting and painting. He went to a lot of trouble to get it right. Before the advent of the fast field telephoto camera that is so useful to wildlife painters today, he was known to build structures to prop dead moose into lifelike positions. His works are drawing driven, based on hard-won know-how of animal anatomy and his love of the outdoors. His pictures have an overall design and cohesiveness that speaks of the draftsman's touch. While his surfaces are painterly and often modern in appearance, his work shows the value of preliminary sketches and preparatory roughs. He was also no stranger to repainting unsatisfactory passages and was known to go back into a work after years of worry. In a world that was starting to think that creativity developed as you went along, Rungius was an artist who believed in thinking it out in advance. His compositions are filled with calculated lineups, radiating motifs, edge blocks, spot activation and other forms of eye-control. He was also a careful colourist. Subtle earth-tones interact with impressionist nuances and reflected light, while delicately rendered negative areas and counterpoint add abstract interest. The difficult problem of animal fur, for example, was divided and designed into zones based on nap, shine and texture. He also mastered ways to show the volume of an animal's body and revelled in the variations of individual markings. I spent an afternoon in the archives at the Glenbow Foundation in Calgary, Canada. I cruised dozens of his field sketches. These small (9" x 11") canvases sing of the meadows, the mountains, the wildlife; fresh, generous, full of light, loaded for all to see with the lofty thoughts of an artist who believed in thought. Best regards, Robert PS: "The mind paints before the brush." (James Ellis) "Strain your brain more than your eye." (Thomas Eakins) "An artist has to shift for himself and do his own thinking." (Carl Rungius) Esoterica: There's a path of creative improvisation and there's a path of creative planning. "With our thoughts we create our world." (Buddha) Is it possible to be on both paths? The following are selected correspondence arising from the above and other letters. Thanks for writing rgenn@saraphina.com

+Carl Rungius painting devices You mention that Rungius’ compositions are filled with calculated lineups, radiating motifs, edge blocks, spot activation and other forms of eye-control. I think I should be using some of these devices too but I don’t always think to work them in. Also I’m not sure what an edge block is. H. G. Huguet, Rotterdam, The Netherlands (RG note) In case you didn’t see it, there’s an analysis of Rungius’ paintings in the previous clickback, http://www.painterskeys.com/clickbacks/serendip.htm A good example of "edge block" is in the Rungius painting "A Surprise Meeting". The angled stick near the lower right corner helps to prevent the viewer’s eye from zipping off on the whitish area (the end of a log). The log end itself provides a triangular eye turner of the same tone value as the bear. Similarly, on the other side, the vertical of the tall tree on the left hand border and the echo of the shrub almost directly below help to keep the eye and mind concentrated. Edge blocks are particularly useful when compositions contain jagged or busy elements—in this case the foreground logs which he felt he needed for the illusion of depth.

+Carl Rungius art exhibition An important exhibition of Rungius works and life is currently being presented at the McMichael Museum, Kleinburg, near Toronto, Ontario, Canada, until September 2, 2002 "Call of the Wild" www.mcmichael.com Lorraine Dietrich, Quebec, Canada lorpdiet@atou.qc.ca (RG note) The show Carl Rungius: Artist and Sportsman comprises 111 canvases, twenty-two works on paper and seven sculptures in addition to archival, personal, and cultural objects drawn from the Glenbow Museum’s extensive collection. A stoppable diorama of some of Rungius works at the show can be found at http://www.mcmichael.com/cow/discover_learn_explore.html +Carl Rungius also hunting for the right friends While Rungius's early landscapes and wildlife paintings are decidedly European, his later works (in the McMichael show) have influences from the Group of Seven. While I admired the work and skill that Rungius put into his prolific work, I found that in some of the larger works, done back in the studio, the animals didn't quite seem rooted in their environment. Otherwise, it's an interesting show from both the perspective of the art and the glimpse into the life of a wildlife painter early in the last century. Rungius was also successful because he became the darling of the hunting crowd, wealthy U.S. industrialists such as the Remingtons, and became a member of the most elite hunting clubs. Elsha Leventis eleventis@yahoo.com +Creative planning I suggest that creative planning is creative improvisation, slo mo, longer term--think time lapse and slow-sequence filming. Still all film. Or classical music; there are long musical phrases and short ones, played against and with them. They are all music, and, as part of the whole, all are part of the musical masterpiece. Marina Morgan MCM@shk.bc.ca

+"Carl Rungius, Big Game Painter" It’s amazing how attitudes have changed in just a few years. If you read the considerable printed material on Rungius, such as the beautiful limited edition book Carl Rungius, Big Game Painter, Fifty Years with Brush and Rifle, by William Schaldach, you’ll see that he was into shootin’ as much as paintin’. Page after page describes his shooting prowess. He seems to have little to say about his art. How many artists do you know nowadays who carry a gun with them at all times? To the best of my knowledge there’s just one picture of him with a camera—toward the end of his life. Dennis Freed, NY

+Pencil saves wasted paint For the artist who wishes to produce large-scale works that may stand the test of time—preparatory roughs are still a must. Elements of composition and pattern should be worked out in advance. Different gambits can be looked at and measured for their potential. The pencil saves wasting paint. You’re right—jumping in is not always the way to go. However, the small field sketch is another matter and should be accomplished with as little preconceived thought as possible. Rungius did both. Joe Blodgett jblodgett10@hotmail.com +Mark Rothko spiritual depth I was somewhat confused by your letter about Mark Rothko. You said that it remains to be seen if history will judge him in positive terms. Well, it seems to me that he has already been judged as an important painter in the 20th century; he is already in many of the art history books and I doubt that he will be removed at this point in time as he is in there for a reason - he was an innovator and created a new style of art. Like it or not, artists are often judged by the new ideas that they bring into the art world. You also said that he was a tormented soul, as if this had some bearing on the quality of his work. First of all, being an artist is a difficult business and I am not surprised that many crack under the pressure, secondly where would the art world be without the tortured art of Van Gogh, Goya, Pollock or even Degas and Monet for that matter? There are so many artists who lived difficult lives (simply because they were artists and not dentists and doctors and lawyers) and their art shows that pain which is accompanied by spiritual growth which is a natural by-product from surviving the pain. Does the fact that an artist is depressed or sad make him any less of an artist? I think not, in fact it may make him an even better artist because he has a heightened sensitivity to the world around him. He may also have a sensitivity to the pain that other humans experience and thus may treat others with compassion. Indeed, would it not be a better world if we could have compassion for other's pain? I do not buy art simply because it is pretty. It has to have some spiritual depth. It has to say something. That is an intangible thing that just can't be found through intelligence alone, it requires some sacrifice from the soul. Anonymous (RG note) The letter and responses about Mark Rothko are at http://www.painterskeys.com/clickbacks/rothko.htm +Small is beautiful I'd love to get into the discussion of affordable art. You mentioned 8 x 10's a while back, and how they bought you a Bentley. The mention of the Bentley distracted everyone, and we all went on a Bentley trip of sorts, and nobody picked up on the fact that you made and sold a lot of affordable art in order to buy a Bentley in the first place. So I'd really like to get back to that. Please tell us more about 8 x 10s--like how fast you do them, if there's any special trick to making a composition that small, what percentage roughly of your work is on the affordable end, whether you get burned out on making affordable art, stuff like that. Just anything you can think of on the subject. Theresa Bayer, Austin, TX USA claylark@earthlink.net (RG note) I didn’t think of it as "affordable art" at the time—but now that you mention it I guess it was. We have a tradition in Canada of rendering our huge landscapes on small panels. Portable easels and panel boxes are practical in the bush. Also I have to say at the time I loved the size and proportion for its own sake. The small size forces you to simplify and avoid extraneous detail. In other words you get the big picture in a little space. About twenty years ago I lost interest in the 8 x 10 size and have gradually moved to larger sizes. Over the last few years my smallest is really about 11 x 14 and I can feel 12 x 16 coming on. Strange. With regard to speed, yes, small is faster and this is partly because there is less of a commitment. Many duds have gone straight to the campfire. There are occasional gems, however, and this makes it all worthwhile. As the lady said: "It’s better to have a small diamond than a large piece of glass." The most sketches of the 8 x 10 variety I’ve done in a day was twelve. That was sitting on the fantail of our anchored boat while every one else was away fishing. The boat swung around with the tide and provided a rich variety of shoreline motifs to prime the pump. I find there’s no "burning out" really; sometimes forcing yourself into a particular size and high productivity marathon really wakes up the art spirit. However, working in an ever-changing range of sizes is good for the soul too. +Me and my art

Jane Capellaro janecapellaro@hotmail.com

"Nine angel Vortex"

þ Please feel free to comment on anyone’s remarks. If you add your email address right after your name at the end of your letter, we will include it. If you wish to write incognito we will honor that too. All unused letters are carefully archived for possible future use. We generally include ten or so letters in each "clickback" so you can expect about the same amount of reading. Readers really appreciate it when you tell us approximately where you are located. It would also be great if you could include where we might find some of your work on the net. We edit most letters for clarity and brevity. We are able to translate letters from most languages. Please address your letters to rgenn@saraphina.com You may be interested to know that artists from every state in the USA, every province in Canada, and at least 105 countries worldwide have visited these pages since January 1, 2002. That includes David Glover of Hollywood, California jayear@adelphia.net who writes: "A photographer was setting up Georges Braques for a portrait shot to accompany an article on him.   Just when the shooter had the composition and sitter just right, the artist got up and excused himself.  He quickly returned with a crimson silk foullard which he artfully stuffed into his breast pocket.  He apologized for the interruption with ‘I think every picture should have a little spot of red somewhere in it!’" (RG note) Some email addresses have been changed, bounced back, or have somehow been lost in the last while. The following artists are ones to whom we are currently not able to send the twice-weekly letter. If you know any of these artists please alert them as to the reason they are not receiving. Krista Gregory, Marcia Lavery, Adriel Ippolito, Larry Wagner, Claudia Markovich, Denise Enslen, Marlene Craig, Patricia Hamilton, Roger Lyons, Linda Cobb, Maureen Hemsworth, Mary Lou Kelley, Sally Haig, Margo Petterson, Crystal Star, Mary Folks, Ben Davis, Susan Foster, Mirium Pearson, Patricia Bass, Chuck Herman, Cam Anderson, Michael Pratt, Julie Rodriguez Jones, Jane Reeves, Ellen McCormick Martens, Nuria Montoya, Molly Powers, Pauline Braun, Robert Harris, Lol Mackie, Shai Manuel-Coggins, Marc Robert North, Joan Adams, Mish Kopack, Rachel Lucas, Suzanne Daetwyler- Zihlmann, Stephanie Norris, Deborah Gregory, Susan Lynes, Mari Jimeno, Merris Custer, Anne Honeyman, Unni Krishnan, Debra Norton, Diane Carr, Linda DuPas, Judi Bagnato, Marlene Mckenna, David Wagner. They may wish to re-subscribe with their new addresses. Thanks. They can re-subscribe at subscribe@saraphina.com The Twice-Weekly Letters are in Russian at http://painterskeys.narod.ru/ The Twice-Weekly Letters are in French at http://www.painterskeys.com/fr/ If you would like to see selected, illustrated responses to the last letter "Strokes of pleasure" please go to http://www.painterskeys.com/clickbacks/strokesp.htm If you think a friend or fellow artist may find value in the Twice Weekly Letter or in the correspondence arising from it, please feel free to copy. This does not mean that they will automatically be subscribed to the twice-weekly letter. They have to do it voluntarily and can find out about it at http://www.painterskeys.com