"You have a sculptor's eye for painting."
A friend told me that several years ago when looking at one of my artistic attempts. It was not meant as a compliment.
I thought of that comment on Tuesday evening. Jiggs and I were sitting on the stoop of the gate leading to the beach behind the house.
The evening was gray. Not emotionally. In fact, it was a joyous evening.
Small familiy groups swimming in the sea. Boardshorted boys skimming along the beach and launching themselves over the crest of waves. Counter-balanced by young women walking the beach, looking as if they were spending the week at a Nazarene church camp.
And dogs. Chasing sticks. Sniffing. Running.
Like a George C. Cohan production -- all of that joy played out against a somber sea and sky constructed of a hundred shades of gray. The combination was a perfect blend of serenity.
When Georges Seraut decided to paint bourgeois Parisians enjoying a Sunday afternoon on à l'Île de la Grande Jatte, he concentrated on how to bring order to the whole -- through design, composition, tension, balance, light, and harmony. And he made it work.
If I had an artistic hand, I could have produced something that would have Incorporated the principles. But even without my sculptor's eye, I could not have done justice to the scene.
Instead, I put down my Lincoln biography and simply watched what I would never capture on canvas play itself out in grays and joys.
It truly was a practically perfect evening.
A friend told me that several years ago when looking at one of my artistic attempts. It was not meant as a compliment.
I thought of that comment on Tuesday evening. Jiggs and I were sitting on the stoop of the gate leading to the beach behind the house.
The evening was gray. Not emotionally. In fact, it was a joyous evening.
Small familiy groups swimming in the sea. Boardshorted boys skimming along the beach and launching themselves over the crest of waves. Counter-balanced by young women walking the beach, looking as if they were spending the week at a Nazarene church camp.
And dogs. Chasing sticks. Sniffing. Running.
Like a George C. Cohan production -- all of that joy played out against a somber sea and sky constructed of a hundred shades of gray. The combination was a perfect blend of serenity.
When Georges Seraut decided to paint bourgeois Parisians enjoying a Sunday afternoon on à l'Île de la Grande Jatte, he concentrated on how to bring order to the whole -- through design, composition, tension, balance, light, and harmony. And he made it work.
If I had an artistic hand, I could have produced something that would have Incorporated the principles. But even without my sculptor's eye, I could not have done justice to the scene.
Instead, I put down my Lincoln biography and simply watched what I would never capture on canvas play itself out in grays and joys.
It truly was a practically perfect evening.
