Monday, September 8, 2014

HYDRANGEA / HORTENSIA ( week 2 )





La Cucina ( detail)
James Aponovich
oil on canvas


People in Panicale garden where they can. Some are fortunate and own a private enclosed garden, others use windowsills, roof terraces or even doorways to grow the most amazing flowers.




Our friend Janelle  on her Panicale "garden stairs"


Perhaps it is the shade afforded by the ancient walls that give the plants some needed relief from the scorching summer sun. One of my favorite flowers is the Hydrangea, which Italians
 call Hortensia ( the "H" is not pronounced ). Nowhere have I seen them more luxurious than on the streets of Panicale, that is, until Elizabeth and I began growing them here in New Hampshire.




Study for Hydrangeas on the Amoskeag
James Aponovich
pencil on paper, 13" x 21"


A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT

New Hampshire is blessed with many lakes, rivers and streams. The major rivers provide the driving element that powered the mills during the Industrial Revolution. Manchester is the largest city and has always been a significant industrial center as the Merrimack River runs through it. When Beth and I were first married we lived in Manchester and our daughter, Ana, was born there.

It was in the early 19th Century that the falls, called by the Indians "Amoskeag" were dammed so power could be harvested for the mills. The Indians harvested Atlantic Salmon there, but the dam put a stop to that for two hundred years. Henry David Thoreau, during his epic journey up the Concord and Merrimack Rivers passed these mills as they were being built.

The city of Manchester, New Hampshire was built on the banks and is bisected by the Merrimack River. Simply stated, on the East  ( or left in drawing)is the commercial district, and on the West ( right) lies the residential  and religious  buildings. Much has evolved, now the city  hosts one of the great small museums of the Northeast, The Currier Museum.


POWER OF THE CENTER


Hydrangeas on the Amoskeag 
( in progress /detail )
James Aponovich
oil on canvas,  34" x 55"


The flowers you see here are cut from our garden. I first determine the grouping and then bring into the studio one flower at a time. It takes about one day to complete one flower. I paint those flowers directly onto white canvas with no underpainting. In Italian this technique is called "alla prima", or all at once.


The overall idea here is to funnel the viewers down the river so that everything converges on the center of the rectangle. To emphasize this the flowers form a loose "V" shape to counter the banks of the rivers inverted "V". The fabric will also repeat this...
repetition......repetition.


THE INVISIBLE SUBSTRUCTURE

so far, everything is about the surface, the obvious "stuff". It is what the Chinese call
"The Manifest". However, it is underneath in "The Hidden" where the real important elements exist. Let me try to explain.

The canvas is a "Golden Section" rectangle. It is  based on a numerical sequence codified by the Roman Architect Vitruvius in the First Century B.C. It actually dates back to the Greek Mathematician Pythagoras, but it is now called the Fibonacci Series.
You start with 1, then add 1 to get 2, add 2 plus 1 to get 3, 3 plus 2 to get 5, etc.
The ratio between the numbers remains the same as they get larger and larger.
1  1  2  3  5  8   13   21   34   55   89  and so on.
Remember DaVinci's naked guy with the outstretched arms (and other parts) ?
The same deal.


THE POWER OF ONE

1 plus 1, well, that is a square, one side equals one side. So, I took two squares and overlapped them until I found the sweet spot, the Golden Section Rectangle. The size of the canvas is 34" x 55". You can find these numbers along side each other in the Fibonacci Series mentioned above.




Here are the two overlapping squares and the breakdown of the numerical sequence....
So what ! you say.




O.K. Now the left square is the East side and the right square is the West side. Where they overlap is where the flowers are. Plus, if I make two smaller overlapping squares
with the two sides ( not the flower part ) it delineates where the entire horizontal  stretch of the city and river are situated. This is called composition.
Now I have to paint "the stuff" and that is the hard part.


To be continued......




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