Constable and Bomberg

Constable & Bomberg | Constable in depth | Bomberg in depth

Techniques and layers

Constable

Underpainting

The first point to make is that Constable makes obvious use of a coloured ground on which to base the rest of the painting. This can be clearly seen in area A. 

This underlying layer creates a colour from which all the subsequent layers of paint can jump off. It becomes a constant value which sets the tone or the mood of the painting and allows the other colours to be used in a system to create a balanced structure. In the most basic and easy version of this technique, a painter could use a blue colour as a basic underlying colour or as a ‘ground’ as this is called.

Blue is a cool colour and this would help to create a cool framework for all the other colours in the painting. This is like the ‘home key’ in a musical structure that allows notes to be formed into chords around its central structure or key. Constable uses a a cool pink in this painting to add to his plan to create an early evening setting. 

Scumbling

Dragging dry brushstrokes over this ground in big simple strokes allows him to create a rough and textured background. 

This can be seen in ares A and B. This technique is called ‘scumbling’. Often old master artists like Rembrandt would have used big stuff brushes, rags tied round sticks or wooden scrapers to apply scumbled paint. Constable has used a larger brush which is stiff and dry with paint. The paint he has used is also stiff and drying out so that there is an uneven and patchy application of grey blue paint over the pink under painting. Again, this can be seen in areas A and B. 

There is also some scraping back as well to take some paint away that has been applied int his area. All of the marks are loose and vague. This is because Constable is painting in a background element which helps to set the scene but which doesn’t require any detailed work.

A range of marks

Applying big and loose strokes like this also has the benefit of establishing the bottom end of a range of marks in the painting. These marks are the largest and the others will differ in scale by comparison. 

Having a set of different marks in the painting helps to give scale and focus to the painting and creates interest for the viewer. If everything is presented in the same way, all the way through, it can give the picture an unrelenting feeling of ‘sameness’ all over. It also makes it difficult to see the difference between background and foreground, unimportant and point of focus elements. In this way, Constable has used the previous layer as clear starting point or support for the next layer. 

This shows thoroughness and planning. The painting is a clearly thought-through structure of marks and colours applied with care. Each element is placed and worked through into the others that surround or which lay underneath. The biggest marks are those in the background at A and B, these are then followed by the brushed in wet barks of the clouds at C. 

Here, Constable has thickened the paint somewhat but used it in a very wet condition with a large to medium brush and applied gentle dabs and curved gestures. He has then used a smaller brush, at area D to make the same paint appear further off in deeper space.

Wet on wet

Constable used the technique of applying ‘wet on wet’ paint in the area E. Wet on wet means applying wet, runny paint over a surface that is still wet and hasn’t dried fully. 

The strokes sit on top of the wet background. The shadow on the grass looks as though it has been applied over wet paint with a brush which is already loaded with slick wet paint and applied in one swift, confident gesture. This is also known as 'one touch painting'. 

This technique is so called because the paint is applied once in a lively and spontaneous fashion. The same techniques have been applied at area F but with a variation, the paint is applied in thinner layers her so that it mixes in colour with the underlying layers which show through. 

This creates a blending effect and suggests that the land is illuminated and suffusing into the colour of the evening sunset which halos the sun.

Dry on dry

As we have seen, Constable is able to contrast this wet on wet work against the dry on dry of the blue grey sky area. This contrast creates interest for the viewer in the variety of techniques.

Tonal interest

To create a focal point and a comparative sense of drama and excitement against the very atmospheric background, Constable uses strong contrasts of light and dark in individual strokes applied with small wet brushes and thicker paint. The details are then the incident of the people and feature as the small wet on wet strokes of contrasting tones at area G and H. 

This helps to provide focus as it contrasts with the unfocused or background areas which are made with simpler and larger shapes. These background shapes are mid toned and softened with blurred edges. This creates the 'suffused' backdrop and makes the foreground elements all the more focussed and purposeful. 

The Sun which is near to the highest value in the picture in terms of tonal brightness - not quite as bright as the small people in the foreground but a strong value in that it is a single mass of light tone, is the overall focal point of the picture which draws in the eye of the viewer but which retains its softened and out of focus character. 

It becomes a transcendental element which floats in the picture as something timeless and constant.

More on Constable and this work >>

In this painting, 'Sunset, The Bay, North Devon', Bomberg makes extensive use of the wet on wet technique. For example, he uses it in area A where wet stripes of paint are applied in clean colours that are then allowed to blend through a strong physical application and some blending on the surface. 

Bomberg appears to have used a base colour as well but this is difficult to see as there is so much application of thick and wet paint over the top. I would guess that the ground was a dark blue colour and that the light tones have been worked over this raw starting point, followed by a complex sequence of working with mid tones and the unifying colour of red/ brown.

Pressing hard with wet on wet

The viewer gets the impression that Bomberg has pressed the brush quite hard to make the colours blend on the surface and to run into one another as a 'live mix'. 

For example, at area A, the yellow value seems to flare into white as though the Sunday was breaking through clouds directly. In reality this effect is achieved by blending the yellow and white with one slow application. 

This is also one touch painting as if the strokes were repeated over again, they would become mudded and the freshness and clean lines of the different colours would be lost as the strokes would pick up traces of each of the colours with every repeated application.

Live blending and overlapping

As the viewer's eyes move along towards the centre of the painting from area A, the light blue strip of water seems to pick up an underlying colour value which is actually a mix of the dark purple at area D and the alizarin crimson which has been live blended from area A. 

In this way there are two live blends run in country directions. the is a small sense of a join at area I. Bomberg has taken a very simple idea of one touch painting and wet on wet to create strong visual effects and reworked it as an increasingly complex set of different takes on the same idea, like a set of variations on a simple theme in a piece of music. 

For example, at area H, what appears to be a live blend of orange and red is cut off with a sharp contour into the lighter blue above, despite this apparent evidence of the order of painting, the orange streaks sit in front of the light blue and create a sense of depth and pace within the painting. 

Another example is the effect in the sky at area B. Here the lighter strokes are brushed in with sloppy wet paint over thicker and darker paint. 

The right edge of this lighter area pokes in towards the centre of the picture and in front of the surrounding area and yet underneath a darker stroke has been applied travelling in the opposite direction as its mirror. 

This overalls the lighter stroke above it and sits nearer to the viewer and with a darker background, in front of the very light toned area A.

Pairs of light and dark values

At area F, the sky is set in two clear tonal values of light and ark and these are both formed through wet on wet but this time stated as impasto with thicker and clearly readable dabs of thick paint. A dark blue sites in front of a purple made largely from Alizarin Crimson mixed with a headend light blue. 

This light blue is an emaciated or lifeless version of the heavy dark version that sits in front. At area G on the other side of the canvas, the same comparison is made but this time the tonal values are much closer together so that the dark value has lost a lot of its strength as it is brushed over the crimson, which is also darker and stronger (as well seeing formed in a bigger block) so that its value is stronger in comparison to the so called 'dark value' of the blue.

One main colour in different spaces

In area E, the underlying value of brick red or cadmium red mixed with some Burned Sienna is left as an impression under the purple of the clouds. It appears to be a strong colour that sits behind or smeared out of focus by the purple. Elsewhere this colour is a clear and visible element such as in the foreground at area C.

Strokes to pull the foreground in front of everything else

The foreground is composed with this and solid strokes but these have also been applied in dry on dry strokes and in a much larger and unbroken scale to create a sense of larger and heavier elements coming towards the viewer. On the extreme left of the canvas below area H, there is a complex arrangement of wet strokes in thick meridian green mixed with white paint. 

This looks comparatively unresolved and roughly applied as a wet version of the stocks at area C

Drawing without lines

Although Bomberg hasn't drawn any lines around the objects or different parts of the picture there is considerable skill on show to make the space through the drawn application of shapes than their edges. 

For example, the strongest and brightest tones win the sky represented by yellow and white are pushed into the background and the design of the painting is held in place but the small yellow and white edging at the top right edge of the painting above area J. 

This creates the sense of a large brightly lit orange coloured backdrop which exists behind the clouds, it ties the image together with areas A and D to make a continues space as background and to allow the other spaces in the painting to be developed as a structure.

Authenticity

All painting is a ie in this mesne that it has to be a complex structure and carefully composed set of values and resonances in the way that none of Shakespeare's characters speak simple and raw words but produce memorable phrases of considerable merit which have been artfully put into their maths by the writer. 

What Bomberg achieves in this painting is the result of appearing to present us with a simple and direct representation of what he saw, raw and authentic and true to his experience. 

This may or may not be true but what is clear is that the paintings convincing and is also carefully composed and structured with a variety of effects and tricks to make it appear real and compelling to the viewer. 

It could be argued that all painting does this, but this one retains a clear logic so that the experience and the pictorial space never become confused. 

To do this, Bomberg uses a series of clever ploys to cover the manner of its production, like a tracker erasing his tracks through the forest with a branch and leaves.

As outlined above, there is a subtle use of a range of marks and the painting or presenting of opposites to create space and to combine to give the painting an elemental/ raw feeling. Paint is easy to read in its application: live blending with pure colour, wet on wet, thick and visible strokes. Surges of colour are appleid on the surface and overlapped with other colours and strokes. 

There is a clear tonal regime set out with the highlighted sun's rays contrasting with the darks of the sky and the foreground. This darkened top and bottom banding of the picture pulls the foreground forward and creates a sombre mood - almost brooding and overcast. 

This is further heightened by the sickly pallor of the weak highlights in the clouds covering the dark tones, as though something dark and threatening were weakly covered with a feeble and insufficient covering like a lace curtain pulled over a pile of dark and sharp rocks. 

All of this combines again to create the unsettled mood and an un-composed appearance to underline the authentic and ‘uncontrived’ capturing of the moment.

What I like: Techniques and layers

Constable

From looking at the Constable painting I admire the use of the following techniques:

• Grounds - Setting the basic value of the painting as a platform for the rest to be built upon

• Range of brushstrokes - using a clear range of strokes to create interest and difference - or variety, to interest the viewer and to describe different elements

• Summary of forms: confidence, one touch, scale of marks. Constable has used a lot of confident application and elegance in his approach which can give the painting a thoughtful, reverie (dreamlike) character and which also invests his voice as the author with a poetic authority

Bomberg

From looking at the Bomberg painting I admire the use of the following techniques:

• Painting over previous work to achieve effects - Bomberg established values to destroy or overwrite them as part of the process of the painting, this is particularly effective in the use of the light screening effect in the clouds over the darker tones

• Unifying the image - Bomberg is able to unify the painting with the strong brick red colour which makes an appearance in a variety of different effects and strengths in each of the main spaces of the painting (fore, mid and background)

• Speeds of mark - Bomberg creates relief from a monotonous application of paint with quick and slow speeds of stork, he also presses softly and with pressure to create different effects to make the painting varied and convincing to the viewer

• Impasto - the passages of thick paint and direct application stand in contact to the soft layers and the thinner washes of colour that appear watery and slight by comparison

What I like: Image and Meaning

Constable

Overall, Constable is able to create a sense of balance, elegance and harmony to his structure and application of paint. As I have already observed, this can appear dreamlike and complete with nature, which the V and A museum officially record as a melancholy suggesting that there is a poetic parallel between eh suns setting light and the decline of his wife's health. 

This may or may not be true for them or indeed for Constable, however, it is also possible to read this painting as being an unbroken reverie of the gentleman artist at one with nature and the moment of the day, able to discern the beauty of a fleeting moment of fulfilment in front of him. 

It does seem likely that this could be tinged with sadness in itself, therefore the two readings are not necessarily opposed or different to any great degree, although one may regard the V & A reading as vulgar and 'taped on' or theatrical given the biographical knowledge we have of Constable's circumstances at the time of the paintings manufacture. 

Despite these objections, the absolute meaning remains an open point of conjecture.

Bomberg

We do know that bomberg produced this painting at time of difficulty. He was impoverished, alienated from the art world and in danger of losing his teaching job. He had plans to return to Spain and to start an art school there. He had been thwarted and turned back from Spain previously before the Spanish Civl War and the Second World War. The tend of modern art and the interest of the art work seemed to be moving away from his area of interest and enquiry.

Can we tell any of this from this painting? Do the leaden foreground and the heavy strokes speak to us of a heavy heart and a brooding and turgid landscape of difficulty with only the promise of sunnier better times showing through as a sickly potential prospect? Possibly, but I don't think so.

I think that Bomberg is applying paint in his on going project of development as an artist and this picture is both an individual work but also part of a larger developmental pattern or project to get painting to do what he wanted it to do. 

For me this is what sets Bomberg apart from his more successful flowers like Frank Auerbach. For Auerbach, every painting is a unique picture in isolation from every other and there can be no pattern of development. 

In fact, at Auerbach's recent retrospective at Tate Britain, paintings were deliberately hung in a random order over his career and he made the patin explicitly that there was no form of development or progress. This is quite the opposite with bomberg who moved through a series of styles and within individual lines of painting pushed forward techniques and ways of working, trying to future his project.

This painting seems to be a good example of him trying to construct a one of painting which also fits into a larger programme by sowing something new and by adding that achievement to his artistic programme. The subtly of the strokes that create immediate effects as described above play an artful game and stand in for a supposedly raw, almost incoherent response to nature, like someone trying to smear paint over the canvas, trying to make immediate impression of what they saw before them. 

If there is a metaphysical narrative (Bomberg was a jew and jew's are forbidden to make graven images of God's work) or personal symbolism of failure and difficulty then it escapes me in the same degree that the careful thought and execution of the painting seem admirable.

Authenticity of expression through direct expression

Subtle effects to create immediate and readily understood experience

What I can use: Techniques and layers

Constable

Wet on wet

I will definitely use the wet on wet techniques Constable establishes in the middle ground in the foreground both with the landscape and with the people. I like the idea of using a small part in combinations of dark and light time to create contrast in lightness and darkness as a focal point. 

A few slow strokes made with a very fine brush are effective here and I will use this technique in my paintings. 

In addition, I would like to use the fully loaded and slick handling of paint for the foreground grass and earth areas the constable puts in with greens and blue-green. The quickly applied and broken texture of this pain gives the painter physicality and pulls the area to the foreground. This is a technique which has can definitely use to help establish space in my work.

Bomberg

Directness of expression

I find the directness of expression that Bomberg uses very appealing. I like the way that he stages marks as "raw" and "authentic". 

This is manufactured through an immediacy and security of touch. He paints quickly and deftly but also firmly and accurately and I think that this reliance on "one touch" painting using thick paint and impasto techniques is very appealing.

It takes confidence to use one touch painting with a positive effect, since the temptation is always to reapply and correct each brushstroke, but I think with practice this Lisa much more pleasing results which apply meaning of the painting in a compelling and convincing fashion. 

If the painter looks confident and sure, then the viewer finds that confidence reassuring and plausible. To understand this, we only need to think how painting which is hesitant and I am confident in its application of paint draws attention to his/ her own lack of conviction is overly sketchy broken marks which suggest the artist lacking certainty and drawing attention to the production of the picture rather than letting the elements work together to present the image.

What I intend to do next

Using layering of paint

• I will use coloured grounds to begin the paintings

• I will experiment with different applications of grounds to either form the context for the painting or to create visual effects which interact with subsequent layers

Impasto techniques

• I want to experiment with different thicknesses of paint

• I want to use paint as wet and runny or as thick, broken and stiff, stringy applications

Adding contrasting applications of paint - marks and thick and thin paint

• Both Constable and Bomberg use different thicknesses of pain to create different visual effects and contrast

• Different thicknesses of paint can extend the range of mark making and the visual effect of application

• Contrasting thickness against thin paint can create an ordered structure which allows the painting to be constructed coherently

Gesture and image

• I am interested in the relative roles of applying paint through gestural techniques, approaching "action painting"

• I am also interested in the way that techniques can be employed to create a convincing visual effects, such as the level sky and highlighted areas in the Bomberg painting, or the foreground wet on wet earth areas in the constable painting

Manufacture the image

• I want to consider how to manufacture an image from the processes that I use

• I want to think how looser and have more free application of paint can maintain an image and yet at the same time draw the viewer's attention to the mark making, colours physical properties of paint that have been applied in its construction

Manufacture the painting

• A great deal of the time that I will spend working on my images next in sketchbooks, on paper and then as paintings, will be investigating different manufacturing processes

• I want to think about the colour values of the painting with one colour overlaying another either translucency, or visibly because it has been applied in patches which are still visible above below other layers

Making the process of painting explicit and allowing it to have a life of its own at different stages in the evolution

• I want to be responsive to the organic development of each individual image and sequential development over a series of images

• I want to think about how each image and stages of the image offer opportunities to make painting decisions about what to do next

• This is something which all of this day, but this is something about which I think I need to be focused: it needs to be a main topic of these next drawings and paintings since I am still exploring and deciding how the painting will look, and what it is scope might be. That is to say, I am as yet still finding out what I want to paint and how I want to go about painting it.