The Bay Tree

The Bay Tree followed my rediscovery of Henri Fantin-Latour on a visit to the Victoria and Albert Museum. I still find his painting quite baffling in that he starts with a clichéd subject like a vase of flowers, which he virtually reconstructs as impasto oil paint on a bleak monochrome canvas background.

What appears as an imitation of the subject is actually a delicate relief of oil painted marks. Like all great illusionists, this magic is undiminished by revealing how the trick is done

The Bay Tree, Oil on canvas, 48 cm X 33 cm (2002)

As both the V&A and The National Gallery in London seem ashamed to display their twelve Fantin-Latours, the best way to see how he did it is to visit the Fine Art Museum of San Francisco's web site: http://www.famsf.org/ where a miraculous enlarging procedure called "Zoom" brings you so close you can see the canvas - and wonder at the virtuosity of the brushwork.

These painted shapes are getting closer to recreating what I want from the garden, using gestural marks, but I'm still unable to apply these on canvas without the safety net of a repaintable ground.

Comments or questions regarding this site? mailto:john.hicks@waitrose.com

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