| The Interpretation of Realism in the Paintings of Matthew Bates
By: Tomasso Paloscia, Art Critic for the Florentine newspaper "La Nazione". (Translated directly from the original Italian version.) June 2002 An ample view of the “Lungarno” vaguely threatened by the approaching white clouds striding by in the Summer sky, the façade of Santo Spirito Church reflected in a daring hypothesis on the roof of a parked car, fruit and flowers precisely aligned with a bottle and a glass of wine on a table covered with red, a stoup that comes out of a blurred wall to concentrate attention on the subject in the foreground…the images, perfectly made by Matthew Bates through a series of procedures which he repeats with extreme punctuality because the procedures are already codified by his philosophy and by his poetics, answering every time to the slow and meticulous elaboration of an idea suggested to him by nature, or by architecture, or by an interior which reflects a certain order: From subject-idea, let us say that the painter has intense “sight” previewing in his mind as if the painting were already finished; to wit with extreme clarity before the beginning of the transfer on to the canvas, or in other words, to paint it. The results in effect correspond
every time to that which Bates has imposed mentally for which his result
is a realism optically ordered
but also pleasing because he mixes different techniques, from the use
of digital photography, to the mark which personalizes the prospective,
to the spreading of the color used in function of the perspective values.
I would be tempted to say that, approximately, we find for certain frontal
verses a sort of hyperrealism found in the work of Richard Estes, noted
American artist of the 1970’s and rather one of the best spokespeople
of that movement in the United States which referred precisely to reality;
even though Matthew Bates, American painter as well but younger than
Estes, does not follow in a servile fashion his illustrious predecessor
who was particularly distinct to repudiate any interpretation of the
sensible reality. Bates, born in Washington, D.C. in 1970 is a young
man who however has lived in Firenze for the last twelve years after
having lived his first eighteen years with his family, and a couple of
years in San Francisco where he studied art at the Academy of Art College,
where he was directed toward abstract painting (San Francisco –he
states in a brief autobiographical note- inspired me that way). And it
surely was a useful experience to disenchant him and to stimulate the
fantasy and to affront new adventures in that by which by then he had
decided would be his path: the visual arts. By the time he arrived in
Italy, at any rate, Bates pointed toward creating a language which was
more suitable not only for his creativity but also to the different environment
which offered insistently to turn the page. From here, the new enchantment
for the views and landscapes offered by Firenze with its splendid monumental
architecture –indelible footprints of the Renaissance- with the
soft slopes of its hills, with the color that the sky assumes on its
clear days. All of this which would induce any painter and even more,
an aspirant painter to represent the world with decisively formal invention,
has undoubtedly influenced Bates, together with the base culture which
was already developed in him, to demand from his painting the means and
the ways to reproduce in his paintings the beauty that this world, in
which he was thrown into almost by magic, which has offered to him –as
Bates has said- with so much generosity, and it is the multiplication
of beautiful things that the artist exalts with a courageous palette
and with instruments; researched for the purpose of obtaining his “special
effects”, like a filmmaker would do from our time: colors: “which
give weight for the representation of rocks, brilliant varnishes to represent
reflective surfaces like glass and water, moderate mixture of primary
colors and complimentary to better convey the synthesis of the vision
of the vivacious tints. It is worth a note to point out the power of
the reds and the greens which yell out to the pleasure of the soul in
front of the spectacle offered by the panorama in itself stupendous.
And for which the representation similhyper-realistic can suggest a tradition,
to say the least impressive. |
L’interpretazione
del Realismo Nella Pittura di Matthew Bates
Tomasso Paloscia, giugno 2002 Un’ampia veduta del Lungarno vagamente minacciato dal sopraggiungere di nuvole bianche accavallate nel cielo estivo, la facciata della chiesa di Santo Spirito che si riflette in ardita ipotesi sul tetto di un’auto in sosta, frutta e fiore allineati con precisione a una bottiglia e ad un bicchiere di vino sul tavolo coperto di rosso, un’acquasantiera che viene fuori da una parete sfuocato di proposito per concentrare l’attenzione sul soggetto di primo piano…Le immagini, perfettamente eseguite da Matthew Bates attraverso una seria di procedimenti che si ripetono con estrema puntualità perché già codificati dalle sua filosofia e dalla sua poetica, rispondono ogni volta alla lenta e meticolosa elaborazione di un’idea suggerita dalla natura o dalle architetture o da un interno che rispecchi un certo ordine: dal soggetto-idea, diciamo, che il pittore ha inteso “vedere” in anteprima nella mente già come fosse un quadro finito; ossia con estrema chiarezza avanti di cominciare a riversarlo sulla tela. Cioè a dipingerlo. I risultati in effetti corrispondono
ogni volta a quelli voluti dalla impostazione mentale per cui ne consegue
un realismo otticamente ordinato
ma anche piacevole perché vi si mescolano tecniche diverse, dalla
fotografia alla elaborazione digitale, al segno che personalizza le prospettive,
alla stesura del colore usato in funzione di quei valori prospettici.
Sarei tentato di dire che, approssimativamente, ci si trovi per certi
versi dinanzi a una sorta di iperrealismo alla Estes, noto artista americano
degli anni Settanta a anzi uno dei migliori esponenti di quel movimento
impegnato negli Stati Uniti nel riferire “seccamente” la
realtà; anche se Matthew Bates, pittore americano anche lui ma
giovane delle ultime leve, non segue pedissequamente il suo illustre
predecessore che si era particolarmente distinto nel ripudiare qualsiasi
interpretazione della realtà sensibile. Bates, nato a Washington
nel 1970, è un giovane dunque che da dodici anni vive a Firenze
dopo averne trascorsi diciotto in famiglia e un paio a studiare pittura
presso l’accademia di un Art College, di San Francisco, che lo
aveva indirizzato sulla via dell’astrattismo (“San Francisco –egli
afferma in una breve nota autobiografica- mi ispirava così”).
E sarà stata certamente un’esperienza utile per disincantarlo
e stimolarne la fantasia ad affrontare nuove avventure in quello che
ormai aveva deciso sarebbe stato il suo cammino: l’arte visiva.
Una volta in Italia, ad ogni modo, ci si è messo di punta a crearsi
un linguaggio più confacente non soltanto alla propria creatività ma
anche all’ambiente diverso che gli offriva insistiti suggerimenti
a voltare pagina. |
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