Michael Pearce

It seems strange to post a picture that looks so similar to the previous post’s image, but the work I did today makes a substantial difference to the solidity of the figures, bringing warm shadows to the orange girl’s legs and definition to the hands and edges of the dresses. I spent an hour or two with my script brush cleaning up rough edges and rubbing subtle iron oxide glazes into areas that needed shade.

I used Ceramic White to make the top two layers of the newly painted skirt a transparent sheer white, edging them with a denser stripe to make a hem. I want to define the lowest layer a bit more, but will wait for this layer to dry before doing so. I used the same white to lighten the yellow dress to the right because I felt that it was too densely bright against the softer, more pastel colours of all the other dresses.

I want to share this extraordinary painting by Burne-Jones, the Pre-Raphaelite painter, that was in London at the Tate Britain when I was there last year. I don’t know if it’s still hanging as it was, because it was on loan from Puerto Rico, who bought it in the 1960’s. I think it lacks the stillness and poetry of his more modestly sized paintings, but it’s extraordinarily ambitious, richly detailed and profoundly beautiful, having some remarkable passages of composition within it, notably the group of figures around the body of the great English hero-king. Although this painting shows him being mourned there’s an ancient legend that Arthur sleeps in an enchanted cave, and will rise again to save England. I’d quite like to paint him one day.

The green skirt was irritating enough to deserve repainting, so it’s been replaced by a new version rendered en grisaille, bringing softness and gentleness where once there was a tweedy, rough surface. I’m considerably happier with this more balanced approach, with a design which is similar to but not a duplicate of the pink dress on the left, bringing the green girl more into harmony with the rest of the Empress’ attendants.

I’ve been very taken with this Pre-Raphaelite painting by Burne-Jones titled “The Prioress’ Tale”, illustrating a story in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. I love the composition of the painting and his use of rich colours here, although it seems that the story it illustrates is not going to be one of my favorites of Chaucer’s canon, being one of the nasty medieval “blood libel” tales that got Sarah Palin in trouble last week.

In the beautiful Kelmscott Chaucer that Burne-Jones illustrated for William Morris there’s a similar illustration of the tale by the artist in the form of a woodcut, this time showing Mary as an angelic floating figure. In both the painting and the woodcut Mary is seen placing a grain of wheat into the child’s mouth, which miraculously enabled him to continue singing her praise even after his death. In the painting the boy is standing in his grave, having had his throat cut.

This afternoon Mike Adams came by to talk with me about Scultura Marmo, our exhibit of the work of sculptor Bela Bacsi, whose marble masterpieces will be in the Kwan Fong Gallery at CLU from February 12th. No sooner had Mike left than Bela himself appeared to discuss lighting for the show. I’m very excited about the show, which is going to expose some of the secrets of marble carving Bela learned directly from Italian masters in Florence.