I visited The Clark Museum, in Williamstown MA on Sunday, to see the “Like Breath on Glass” exhibit. It was so good I went back today, as it ends soon and my opportunities to get there are limited. The exhibit includes Whistler, Inness, Twachtman, Dewing, Steichen, and others. Definitely a show to pique a painter’s interest; it’s about ‘painting softly’, where texture and soft edges reign and detail and sharpness are left in the dust, along the road-side. I couldn’t take pictures in the exhibit as most of the paintings were borrowed.
But the Clark has a new collection of John Constable’s work; a bequest of Sir Edwin and Lady Manton. It was new in 2007, and I had not seen these works. My oh my; I paint like Constable; just not as well!
My photos were overall out-of-focus as the lighting level was so low my digital camera had a problem focusing:
But I was smitten on Sunday and had to return. Yes, the Inness paintings are wonderful, but the immediacy of Constable’s vision and follow-thru just sing with me. I am taken with the bold brushwork and the capturing of the moment, all plein-air (on the spot, from beginning to end) and so “real”.
Little bits of paint in this sketch of the Salisbury Cathedral are so right on the mark.
The Clark has a new building, Stone Hill Center, opened this past June, designed by Tadao Ando. Squarish; the two exhibition rooms with the Museum’s Homers and Sargents on display seemed too small for ever hosting a major event.
I did like the terrace and the shadows; the concrete-ness of the building looks old but I am sure it is meant to seem new.
On the way home I drove holding the camera out the windows and snapping away (someday they will pass a law against this!) and plan to turn some of the more successful shots into Constable’s:
Of course many of the out-of-the-window shots are fuzzy, but, hey! That’s my style! A fuzzy realist!
