Harold Berglund, still life painter, On Vision, seeing
LETTERS ON THE SUBJECT OF SEEING
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To
Professor Semir Zeki I am
writing in response to your book Inner Vision - An Exploration of Art and
The Brain. Actually, I have only read reviews of the book as yet.
However, since I too have been exploring the subject for the past twenty
years, I wanted to present some of my findings for you, they being from a different
point of view. I am a
painter working primarily with still-life motives. My approach to painting is
based on the later works of Paul Cezanne, and primarily a letter from Cezanne
to Emile Bernard "... I pursue the realization of that
part of nature, which, coming into our line of vision, gives the picture. ...
we must render the image of what we see, forgetting
everything that existed before us. ... Now, being old, nearly seventy years,
the sensations of color, which give light, are the
reason for the abstractions which prevent me from either covering my canvas
or continuing the delimitation of the objects when their points of contact
are fine and delicate; from which it results that my image or picture is
incomplete. On the other hand, the planes are placed one on top of the other
from whence neo-impressionism emerged, which outlines the contours with a
black stroke, a failing which must be fought at all costs. Well, nature when
consulted gives us the means of attaining this end. ..." [Nochlin, Linda. Impressionism and Post-Impressionism
1874-1904 Sources and Documents, Prentice-Hall, Inc. 1966 p. 95 (from
John Rewald, ed. Paul Cezannes
Letters, trans. Marguerite Kay, London, Bruno Cassirer, 1941)] My
thought when I started was that my eyes are relatively young so I should be
able to render what Cezanne's old eyes failed to see. Working from real
still-life objects in indirect natural light from one source in the room, I
found that the edges of objects and planes were where the colors
were the most active while the surfaces affected color
relationships on a larger scale. Rendering the edges as accurately as
possible leads to the image completion that Cezanne's failing vision
prohibited. Also, like Cezanne, I found that the eye saw planes of color. The sizes of these planes are dependent on the
rate of color change and their shapes are
determined by the interaction of form and light. My goal is beyond illusion.
Presenting each nuance as a separate color field,
the color "logic" is made apparent for
the viewer. Most astonishing is the range and complexity of colors in a portrayal of simple objects, far more than
what a photograph can record. It shows what we are able to see if we take the
time to look and we realize the quantity of visual experience often
disregarded in everyday life. An
anecdote that made me feel a bit of success is when a woman who had seen my
paintings stopped in the super market, held up an onion and looked at it a
long time, wondering if it really had all the colors
I had painted. I hope
you find my work interesting. I am looking forward to reading your book. Sincerely, Harold
Berglund To
Professor Semir Zeki I have
just finished your book Inner Vision and found it very interesting. As
I wrote in my previous letter, I am an artist and have been working for many
years with the questions of what one sees of reality and how this can be
presented in art. There are several points in which I have a different view
from the one presented in the book and I wanted to share these with you. Your
reasoning is built to a large extent on an interpretation of the difference
between an artist "seeing with the eye" and "seeing with the
brain" where you interpret the former as a passive form of vision and
the latter as an active form. What I have learned from art history and from
work as an artist is that "seeing with the brain" is the work of
creating abstract forms and "seeing with the eye" is when the
artist creates a representation of the visual impression of reality.
"Brain" artists such as Malevich, Magritte and Picasso worked
primarily with ideas using different means to visualize their thoughts in
picture form, using pictures as a language to express intellectual or
emotional experiences of reality. Their visual sense is used to guide the
work process and to evaluate the success in achieving the expression sought
after. An "eye" artist such as Monet instead attempts to capture
the visual experience of the outer world, using analysis and theory to better
render what they see. Their vision is put to a hard test in being able to see
and reproduce color nuances. I find it hard to
conceive of "passive" seeing and painting "with the eye
alone" though there is a difference between Monet's lack of obvious color theory and Seurat's extensively theoretical
approach. But the goal of rendering in art what your vision tells you of
reality is clearly a different process from expressing a mental construction
in artistic form (though there are those who would argue that a still-life
painter is really only painting a mental construction as well!). In
working from reality, it is quite a challenge to comprehend what the visual
input actually is from what is in front of you. It is a process of analysis
and comparison that takes many years of training to be successful. I have
found, for example, that in painting a picture of a red vase, only a small
area of the canvas will be what is normally called red. Most of the vase will
be shades of "red" ranging from deep violet to purple-blue, but
also areas that are yellow as well as green. The different colors are the result of light, shadow, and reflection as
well as various effects of light on one's vision. Seeing the differences
requires being able to see each detail as part of the whole. Despite the wide
color range, the casual viewer will look at the
painting and see a red vase. In my work, I separate the colors
to make it harder to be a casual viewer. The idea
of painting to express the essence or ideal of objects is as foreign
to me as it is to many artists, I am sure. We do not
paint objects but situations, color-form
sensations, in other words, light. Objects are necessary to see light
but they are of secondary importance in this art. What I seek is a rendition
of color where objects cease to exist except for
their roll as light-revealing forms. This is, I
believe, what Monet was seeking in painting series of haystacks, cathedrals
and water lilies. What does
the viewer experience in looking at such paintings? What is the point of
capturing light on a cathedral facade in an oil painting? The work the eye
and brain does in comparing and analyzing colors in
my paintings is a challenge to the basic human ability to see and analyze color tones, a skill little used in the modern daily
life. Exercising this skill gives sensations of excitement, pleasure, and
harmony. It is an experience that no other activity gives. I hope
what I have written has been of interest and will be useful in your future
work. Sincerely, Harold Berglund |
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