3: Schaller's Cityscapes

[Big as it goes, sorry]

Thomas Schaller
Chambers Street — NYC (recent years but date unknown)
Watercolor on paper, w22" x h30"
From ThomasSchaller.com
https://everydayartcritique.blogspot.com/2017/10/sunset-grove.html

Yet another landscape variant, the cityscape, with a watercolor1 by Thomas Schaller.

Just a quick thing to point out for today, which is that this is the first 'landscape' with people in it. The separation between landscape and other types of work can get pretty thin, so keep in mind that it's mostly a matter of emphasis. Is the painting 'about' the people? Then it's best approached as a figurative work that includes a landscape. Is the painting 'about' the environment? Then it is probably best thought of as a landscape that includes some figures. Same goes for fusions with still life, portrait, etc.

Even then, keep in mind further that getting those genre labels straight is mostly about setting the right expectations so the audience (you) can properly enjoy the piece or consider what it's trying to do. If, for example, you go to view a work expecting e.g. a figurative painting, you'll focus on the poses, the body language between figures, how those figures fit into the whole. Everything else may become 'the background'. But if the strength of the work is actually in its handling of atmosphere, or in its color harmonies, or the depth progression, then focusing on the people is just going to distract you from the best parts of the painting, or may distort entirely what the painting is trying to 'say'.

All these poor things get just one shot at your attention, after all, and we label out of love to improve their odds of being appreciated :)


NOTES:

1. Just wanted to declare for the record that watercolor artists are hardcore. You have to be entirely in tune with what you're doing, and also relaxed enough to roll with whatever comes out, and it all has to happen in a pretty short space of time. I am personally incapable of watercolor as a freestanding endeavor because my brain just doesn't work that way; in fact, Schaller has a video demo for sale (of a setup extremely like the painting above), and I've seen it, and it was like watching a talented alien explaining how to approach New York architecture. I am fussy, and I like acrylic because it dries fast and I can just do seventeen million layers or EVEN MORE if it takes that many, and end of the day we all just have to know our natures I guess.