Waiting For The Snow,

Waiting For The Snow

  oil on linen panel

  8" x 10"

"Who speaks of art speaks of poetry.

There is no art without a poetic 

aim. There is a species of emotion

particular to painting. There is

an effect that results from a certain

arrangement of colours, of lights,

of shadows."

Edouard Vuillard

I have always loved the paintings of Edouard Vuillard - the Phillips Collection here in Washington DC, has several very nice examples and I would always make a point of examining them whenever I visited. They are enchanting or at least that's the best word I can conjure. Then to discover the quote above - the idea of poetry of painting is simply an affirmation of what I've always felt about sources of painting.

Have you ever considered the question, if you could choose - 'who, from all of human history, would you like to have a pleasant meal and conversation with?'  

My answer is often Degas, because of his reputation for sharp wit and 

so much I would like to ask him about his work.

Another would be my Dad. Since his passing I think of him almost every day and there so many things I wish, when I had the chance, I had asked him about his wonderful life. 

Another would be Abraham Lincoln - Lincoln's stories and jokes 
and wisdom would amaze.

But sometimes, Edouard Vuillard would be my choice - quiet, retiring, diffident Vuillard, whose paintings are built of a thousand careful considerations. We would most likely have to indulge in many glasses of wine and near the end of the evening, with his mother and sister and maybe his secret love, Misia in attendance, we would come to a time when the ladies leave us. Then, with our cigars lit, Vuillard and I would go into the front room and consider a painting of his. Perhaps, with a wise, fleeting smile, he would begin to reveal his approach to the poetry of his painting, to the careful arrangement 'of colours, of light, of shadow.'  That would be magic - to hear him discuss the "species of emotion 

particular to painting." A night to remember.