The American Scene; Art of Watercolor

Good morning. This is Howard Vincent, viewing the arts for the American scene for Illinois Institute of Technology. I thought that this morning, being a morning of which color is implied in Easter morning, you've been busy coloring Easter eggs, that we might take up as one of the significant arts, the art of watercolor. And it is an old art. And one which you perhaps don't think about very often, although many of you may practice it. The watercolor that I have here may not look for you like the water color because it has been varnished for preservation, but it is a study of Maine Gothic by a Chicago painter who lives in Maine in the summertime, Fritz Richter. Fritz Richter is a very talented man. We're lucky to have him here today. What of his chief talents is as a water colorist, but he is a professor of the languages at Illinois Institute of Technology. He's president of the German Literary Society of Chicago. He is a distinguished author in

scholarly field, modern German literature. He writes a column for a Minneapolis newspaper. I think he does a dozen other things that he doesn't let us know. But as a water colorist, he has had a great many shows in Nebraska to Maine and in Chicago. And his paintings have sold over the years very widely. I'm happy to say that I own three of them and prize him a great deal. He has lectured a great deal on the art of watercolor and the art of painting. And so I think we better turn to him and start talking to him about this subject which he knows so much. Fritz has a water colorist and as a scholar, combining the two fields, you perhaps have done a lot in the backgrounds of watercolor. It's a rather old medium, isn't it? Well, most people don't know, but

water colors about as old as mankind. In fact, the campaign things which were discovered in the last few centuries and were painted about 25 ,000 years ago, 10 ,000 years ago, were done in watercolor. And they are preserved until today. And there was no oil involved or any other medium. Water was the medium. And as you know, I guess you saw a few of those paintings. Let's go. The ones you're thinking about especially. Yes, all of them in Spain and so on. And the amazing thing is that the watercolor had the power and force to depict those wild and ferocious scenes. Because we always think of watercolor as a peaceful little medium. Yes. Well, one reason we had your picture here. That's a strong picture. And as you say, you've wanted to show that it had the expressive power of oil. Well, you can make a strong man out

of his sissy, I guess, as possible. And have you ever seen those cave paintings? Yes. Oh, yes. That's the ones at Lasco. They're amazing. But let's look at one of them if we can get it here on the camera. This is one at Lasco. The Lasco paintings were opened up at 1942 weren't they? Yes, they discovered that. And they're among the greatest, right? It is not only that it is an old art, but it is also in particular through the cave paintings and the religious art. Because the priest of the cave painted those pictures. They were painted for a religious symbol and for a religious meaning. Now these animals here, they are connection with the others, isn't it? Well, each time they went out hunting, they asked the priest for help. And the priest painted, obviously, these animals on the wall to force the gods to have a very good hunting day. And therefore, we have only these animals there in wild array. There is no picture arrangement. They're

not ordered in array. No, no, no. It was just for that one purpose to have a good hunting day. But the effect of these priests is stunning. You go down that cave, the freshness of these. They have endured now for 40 ,000, 50 ,000, 60 ,000. I don't know my dates very well, they're years. And they are just as fresh as, in fact, they have to watch it, though, that they don't only allow certain number of people in, because it lowers the temperature in the cave. And that means the paintings begin to deteriorate. The caves have always been good friends of painting the thing of the last war. All the paintings in Germany, in Holland, France were quickly brought into caves in order to be preserved. The temperature of temperature is regular. There's not much difference between day and night. And I think there's something about the humidity that does preserve there. But watercolor has its own, its beginning with mankind and had religious beginning at the same time. Then I

think when we go further back or further or close it to our time, it also had religious function in Egyptian painting. Yes. When you think of the murals in the pyramids, they are also done in their watercolor. And they were also religious paintings in a way, because they were meant for the dead. They were meant for the dead king, no one but the painter ever saw them. And here we have watercolor. And then later on, much closer to our time, the most precious painting works for Christianity, the painting in the murals and the catacombs. Oh, we have one. Let's look at one of those catacombs paintings. They're not the Magnificent Masterpieces, but they have a sincerity. Well, we have to realize that the first Christians

were a very poor group, particularly in Rome. They were mostly servants. And this is the catacombs that were relaxed for some reason. You see, those first Christians there, they didn't have much time and they didn't want to paint the painting for eternity because they knew that the end of the world will be here soon. So all they painted was quite casually. And what they actually wanted to do is to liven up the catacombs a little bit. They gave it a right background and then they painted the various figures of Christianity. It is interesting that among those first paintings of the catacombs in watercolor, a painting of the Virgin exists, of the Lord's Supper, but none of the crucifixion. The crucifixion, which we think is a typical Christian motive, wasn't painted before about

450 after Christ. We have another painting from the two of St. Calictus, two, this one of Susanna among the elders. Now, that's an old motif, isn't it? Thomas Bethan and Ardaeus painted it. And right down, what's the great Italians all painted in Titian and the other areas? Oh, yes. And you see, they painted those figures, of course, very callously. And of course, these were not painters. They were just poor people who did this. And then they decorated the pictures with pageants and fish and all those symbols of that time. But all they galley, you don't find among these catacombs paintings any of these. The tragic aspect of Christianity. No, because they were ashamed of that. The first Christians did not want to hear that Christ was. You know, there's more of the east of the the resurrection sort of thing, the joy, the joy, the tribulation, and the coming of Christ soon. And then, of course, an

awful lot of Greek motives. They learned a lot of, for instance, Christ was quite often depicted as Apollo. And Apollo was the god of the sun, yet the sun in the background, so Christ brought this background to. And we have the halo left over today. The halo is really not a very Christian symbol. It is actually a Greek symbol, a pagan symbol. Now, this watercolour we have is water and what? It's water. I don't know much about the technical things. But the first three or four watercolours we have and we had in the cave paintings, and later on were mainly ingredients from animals, animals, serums, and in fact mainly reddish, reddish and certain glands contain reddish pigments. And later on, of course, when Ruby was discovered in another college, they were also mixed with water. But don't ask me too much

about the technical side. I've teachered an institute of technology. That's about enough. Well, in that early cave painting, we had all the animals. You'll have to admit the colour there was extremely complicated. It was almost impressionistic in its model effect, wasn't it? The colour was mine. That's part of the model effect. It's so impressionistic. It is impressionistic. And interesting is to me always that they try to, as you said, to show the ferocity of an animal. They are all in action. They are all running. And they are wild. And there's one thing I don't know whether we should mention. There's one second element they painted, and that was, of course, the second object of great desire, and that was the woman. And they too are. Well, after all, fertility is a... Yes, this is a fertility season right now. We have those two motives there, the animal, which you want to catch, and of course, the woman wants to get fertility in spring. And

he expresses that very vividly. Interesting in technique, for instance, is that they also try to show a shadow and give a certain concreteness to the animal and to the moment which the Egyptians, as you know, didn't do, or the Orientals never did. So what a colour has really a tremendous history when it comes to those big paintings. Of course, later on during the Renaissance, when oil painting was developed and invented, while the colour lost its job as a new oil painting. Oh, and now you're saying that oil painting, which is what we regard when you talk about painting, oil painting, oil paintings, Johnny come lately. It's a newcomer. It's one we would call one of those newly rich, you know. A whole year century, 1413. No, it during the Renaissance, 15th century. 15th century, in Holland. And with, of course, they immediately found the tremendous

power of oil for big painting, and oil became now the person that took over, if we think of it as a person, took over from the richness of the water colour. And the poor little water colour was out of job for a long time. What was the reason for that, you suppose? It is not as plastic and as impressive, of course, in big murals as oil. And for water colours, you had to have a special surface. I believe the surface had to be wet first, you didn't have to have this for oil. So water colour in the middle ages actually was out of the job when on the ground. And the interesting thing is that it didn't die. No. It didn't die. It went on working. And for centuries, water colour was used as a medium in manuscript painting. It became a little tool. Well, many of the great artists practiced it. It was a durer. Some of the

durer's most charming paintings of the watercolour. It's not the great all the other paintings. Yes, that is it. And durer is the first one we know of that when outside with the watercolour box and painted outside. The first planet is the first time plane air painting then we know it. And let's start it at that time with the Renaissance. And of course, and not only is he the first one that painted outside, but by painting outside, and I feel so sorry that people don't paint outside anymore today because they think they learn more when they stay in their studios, but actually durer by painting outside noticed one thing. He made the first scientific discovery actually that shadows are not black or gray. His shadows for the first time are blue or some of them. This is interesting because remember the impression is that they discovered the first time the shadows were purple or blue or more.

But it happened already before, only he had no followers in painting. I mean, the watercolour painting. All his followers were in action and so on and they didn't continue. What I wanted to say is that the watercolour continued on the middle ages for manuscript painting and those poor artists on the middle ages had to do nothing else as you know as painting the same old scenes again of that time of crucifixion and so on. Make prayer books, translations of certain worlds and breathe from Rome. And that got very boring. And here at the same time when that's connected with watercolour, strange thing happened to the central Europe. The first Irish monks came. And they helped also painting

and tinting those manuscripts with watercolour and the Irish monks brought the very strange symbol along which the people on the continent didn't know that was the spiral. And suddenly all these manuscripts, I don't think we have all these manuscripts, all the initials had spirals and in those spirals. And here's the artist in those monks. In those spirals, they put their own ideas. They put little naughty scenes in there. The first birds, then snakes and then little girls didn't yet. Yes, all the terms. There's a prayer book for a King Wenzel of Bohemia and it is full of nice little illustrations of the Bible. But in those little spirals you find his favorite little thing. Now you're putting your finger on something very important about watercolour trits and that is the, it has a, it's closer to one. I mean, it's a more intimate kind of it. It's not,

we've talked about Sissy, that was the wrong word. It's an intimate, more intimate kind of art. One expresses oneself more directly and quickly, doesn't he? Well, it is an art, as you already said, the first time we went out painting the earth of watercolour. It is a painting medium for going outside because you don't have to worry about the sticky oil, the flies won't stick on it, and all this miserable stuff. But then because it seems so simple, of course, it always has been in the course of centuries the medium of the sunbeapente. Yeah, yeah. For instance, at the same time, while the monks were painting their manuscripts, in all towns of England in particular, groups developed, and they painted watercolour, watercolour, pictures, and particularly started out with, you know, everyone, every family in the Middle Ages and still today had a family book, in which they put everything in that happened, the family, including

trips. And that family book, they took a long, and they took watercolour long, and you find in those books the most wonderful scenes of families, of Rome, and so on, in watercolour. So, with the dilettant, on the other hand, we want to call him so, the sunbeapente, the continued watercolour painting, which went out of fashion with the big paint. I'm trying to think in the 18th century, the great painters are not watercolourists, do you think you don't ever think of Watteau, or Fragronard, or Boucher, or any of them. But to cover the 19th century, you have a lot of watercolour. Well, there was, again, a big break in watercolour painting as you just indicated, and that was with the invention of the printing pass. When the printing pass was invented, normal manuscript painting. And that killed it completely, and it is, and that you should give credit for to the dilettant or sunbeapente, he continued it. And then we come,

at the P .A., the 19th century. I'll tell you why. You had the great movement, of course, the center of art in the 19th century, was really France, and with David and Ang. The great classical painters, you know, were the great massive canvases, Gro, Jericho, well, not Jericho, so much. And they were pursuing a line which was a dead end, and they were like, reaction, naturalism was beginning, or realism was beginning, it was having its origins. And one of the most naturalistic methods is, you say, get outdoors. In the first P .A., in the early 19th century, got outdoors, and they did these watercolours. You have mea, you have Delacroix, even. Delacroix was his great bravura oil paintings, his most charming, his most delightful painting, is almost never seen in the watercolour. You did hundreds of them. The reason for going out there with watercolour, of course, was that they heard about new scientific discoveries. Yes, well, that's a little bit later. That's about 1850. It follows along. Before

that time, I would say, we have particularly good watercolour painting in England. Oh, yes, China. They influenced the France. They influenced the French, and why did they have that in England? Because in England, with its atmospheric air, fog, and so on, there's in -betweenness. The lenses are beautiful to watercolour paint. A watercolour wash suits the painting. You cannot do that in Sicily, so why? No, not so sharp. No, everything has contours. But up in England, with that in -betweenness, there's haziness. It is, of course, oh, Holland, too, northern Germany. Well, this is interesting. What we're saying in effect is that the English painters, Constable Turnins on, started this in watercolour, but they influenced the Great French in oil, as well. They influenced them both. They influenced them, and they were the ones who actually continued to do it independently. They found different

shadows. We have various, we have almost shadows as with Saison, although we don't have many. And then, if you think, for instance, of another Englishman, he was really Dutch when he lived in England, painted the wind. He was the first one who died at that time, already, about 1700, who dared to leave out spots. The first time, on the first time on watercolour paintings, white spots, which one used because it didn't interest him. And on the other hand, he had the feeling he wanted to have this whole thing loose and open. And here, we have already some scientific discoveries, I was going to say modern painting, before modern painting. This all fits in with Chevrolet's experiments in light and so on, and then the Adelequois experiences in oil and light, and all leading to impressionism, as you say, in the new handling of light. And the watercolour does it most readily. Isn't there also something else about watercolour? It's the quickness of the medium. That is, you

make a mark on, you can't erase when you're doing watercolour, can you very well? It's very difficult. Well, can an oil. That is why it is a medium for our fast modern time. You can, you can actually, well, for instance, let's say this, during the last war, you recall we had artists working on the battlefield nearby. They didn't use oil. No, they couldn't. It is a very brave little medium too. It goes right into the battleground, and the great paintings were done. That's one kind of bravery for it. I think the bravery of taking and making a mark on the paper, knowing that it's irrevocable, you can't change it. If you make a mistake, you've got to crumple up the paper and start again. You cannot go over this. Of course, it is a medium for people who are fast and who are kind of, well, let us say, infectious. I think that suits you a person who thinks slowly, works slowly. It's not a good radical, at least I have

never seen one. It's not for a person to think for himself. No, you cannot suddenly decide tomorrow morning at 9 o 'clock, I'll do this in the scene and then put up your easel and paint. Let you do slowly, gradually with another medium. But what they tell you, when you really are inside, build up for a certain subject and put it down quickly. It's like a finish to the charms us. We have become very fond in the last 30 or 40 years in the world, in the Western world, of the sketch. The sketches of Rembrandt, the Italian preparation, are more attractive to some people than the final paintings, because there we see the artists himself involved there. We get a sense of the actual operation. I think we have learned, I don't know whether we have learned it, but we Western is a particularly fond of fragments and anything that does not claim or is not perfect. That's why we perps like the Acropolis so much and so many other things. The best

writings of Guter, for instance, they show definitely here and there strange cracks, let's say, and yet we like them for that. We have that feeling for something that isn't finished or isn't polished, we like it better. What happens there, when you have that crack, it pulls us into it. It's a vortex. It pulls us into it. We become involved in it. We try to finish it. We try to finish it. We try to complete it psychologically or one way or the other. That is, of course, true. But on the other hand, what they call it is a medium that is sensitive. It's a medium for quick work. It's a medium to express sudden quick moves. In water -calipating, you have, of course, these very many moves, this painting here on the very gloomy day. This is erected down at the foot of my

cottage in Maine. Of course, that thing like this, you do not think about it, that you want to do it. You just go there, something happens. Those threatening rocks, the threatening sky, the threatening ocean, everything threatens you. You get a threatening letter in addition to it, and you have nothing but that feeling of being threatened. Then you paint the thing like this, but it has to be done quickly because this move doesn't stay long with you. Very soon your raison comes and threatens you out. A lot of news. You're not showing the typical rickshaw paintings and bringing these two paintings. You have shown a kind of sombre having power, which is not like your ordinary gully. Yet, it's you there. They're not most representative. Wonderful. Excellent, these paintings are. I know I have seen your place last summer that those are the rocks. Well, you know a strange thing about this painting. Someone had bought it, and my life bought it back. I wondered why she bought that painting back because she never

said much about this painting. But actually, it's a very true and very sad story. She found out later on that while I was painting that little scene, and I had that feeling of gloom, her father died. Oh, I see. And she always thinks that the association that had nothing to do with me, of course, but with her, to her, this means that particular day, and she wanted to have that back. So, let's say moods, sudden tremendous emotions are so very readily expressed in order. It's not merely the impressionism of the eye as one looks upon in the world, but the impressionism of the psyche. Yes. And that you have to have to done quickly because it doesn't stay with you. Would you say that watercolor is being practiced more today now because of Sunday painters? And also because of this recognition, this delight in the fragmentary, etc. Well, you know watercolor painting went out of style in France with the coming of Cubism. And so on because that was

a painting done at home in the studios. Artists didn't go out anymore because they had thoughts they wanted to express. The the cubist, the thought of the Cubists. And that you could of course do better. It was not the painting of emotions. I'm going to come back in again now. It came back into painting, of course, always. Yes, it was done. Think of Cézanne and the impressionists actually never died out. They always went on painting. But it came back when it's coming back. Again, with the Sunday painter, they use it a lot. It is coming back with everyone who suddenly wants to go away from thinking in painting. You know, so much of our, that's one of the characteristics of this painting. And they want to go away from it. They have a range feeling or a sudden feeling. And then they put it on paper with the medium of

the water color. So it will always be with us. And I think it will improve more through better pigments. We get these days and better paints. We get these days. It is a medium for just that. And a medium for rough times like the wall. Or when you want to paint something in action on the scene. Now, you can come with that big oil box. And what else? Well, that's a lot. That's a lot right there. Well, I think that we may have made a lot of converts to the art of the water color. At least converts to people interested in it. And I hope that you can take up painting, wouldn't you think that would be a good idea to it? Well, I mean, you look quite well that there's many people should. Yes, well, I think they will. Because sick people, they often have to take up. But I had to explain to them. This is French Wector who has just talked to us about the I don't water color. Thanks, Fritz.