“I don’t like labels. I have to be in love with a subject to paint it, that’s all.” - Walter Stuempfig
E. L. Doctorow was Richard Ford's teacher. I’ve liked reading Ford's books, so I’ve been wanting to read some Doctorow.
I recently listened to Doctorow's The Waterworks. Mysterious and entrancing, it's, kind of, a high literature version of an old timey mystery. Sherlock Holmes or something by Mary Roberts Rinehardt meets Heart of Darkness with some Dracula thrown in.
The plot of the novel involves a cabal of robber baron types who exploit orphans, newsboys, widowed mothers and such of 19th century New York City. While I was listening, The Wall by Walter Stuempfig kept coming to my mind. Both the novel and the painting chase the fleeting nature of grime. They have the windblown paraphernalia of the down and out. There are disappearing children, corruption, and the tailings of the newspaper industry. They also have quirky, but bold compositions. Their depictions and descriptions of debris are beautiful, not so much for the scenes themselves, but for the poetry of how they are presented.
Stuempfig is one of my favorite painters. He was born in Germantown Philadelphia in 1914, and lived until 1970. He was a prolific and successful painter, and he was well known as a teacher at The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. I was introduced to Stuempfig’s work by Dan Miller. Dan was my professor at the Academy, and had some influence on my artistic development. In his own academy days, Dan was a student of Steumpfig’s.
Dan has good stories. He described his professor as a drunk. He told how Stuempfig wore beautifully tailored suits with burn holes in them where he had been careless while smoking. Stuempfig is the professor, well known within Pafa lore, for throwing a student's unsatisfactory painting out the window during a studio critique. Imagine a bad painting sailing down into this scene in The Wall. It falls past the street urchins, and lands there on the dirty sidewalk with the rest of the garbage; just some more chaff within the dingy cityscape.
Walter Steumpfig paintings use no artifice to get to the heart of the matter. His paintings can be a bit somber, and maybe unhandy. But, they are direct and honest. When necessary he let them come apart, to great effect. You see things in The Wall, but can't quite hold on to them. The figures in this painting have transparency. This kind of detail is the subtle flourish of an expert painter. Stuempfig was confident and earnest enough to make something out of nothing.
It's a tough cityscape. Crumbling blocks of sidewalk concrete. Weathered brownstones. Rough old row houses with shuttered windows. It's a landscape made of blocks. Blocks of color and tone form the composition. The painting is laid out like an off kilter Mondrian. It's an abstraction from the scene that fits perfectly well with the scene itself. The whole cityscape tilts. It’s precarious.The place seems poised to slide out of the picture plane.
Still, in this painting, there is also a lot of care. Care of the artist for his subject matter. It's earnest, if somewhat pitying or even resentful, love for the dirty city. Tom Birkner was another of my teachers. He taught me painting and drawing in college. Tom’s term for this kind of care in mark making is “marks of love.” By this he means: if it’s worth putting down in paint, it’s worth painting with care. I see this love in The Wall. At first, love within all the ruin may seem counterintuitive. But, this city scene, in all its desolation, is the object of the artist’s charge.
There is similar love in Doctorow’s The Waterworks. The novel’s narrator is a newspaper editor, but he openly ruminates on his own inability to report objectively. Doctorow found drama by juxtaposing the teller’s desire for objective integrity with the artist’s compulsion to infuse his story with emotion, passion, and deep care for his subject matter.
Doctorow peppered his narrative with odd little details. These details are nonessential to the story, but add to the enchantment of the novel. This, to me, seems similar to the painterly flourishes of Walter Steumpfig. His affect for the subject provides the passion necessary for creative action. The bit of graffiti in the center of the painting comes to mind. It’s just a scribble, but it has the grace of a master artist's hand. It feels as natural, beautiful and precise as a trigonometric curve.
I don’t remember the exact wording, but I know of an Alan Watts quote in which he talked about this type of artistry. He said a scribble by any random person is just a scribble, but when done by a master artist, even if the artist isn’t trying, the scribble feels beautiful. This kind of grace can be found throughout Stuempfig’s painting. The washes of muddy color. Subtle variations of paint handling showing well worn surfaces. The gusto with which he painted each piece of litter. They’re all marks of love.
Both The Waterworks and The Wall mirror the care of their constructions with love in their narratives. Tender love stories that run in the background of the novel. Young lovers. Old lovers who meet again after many years. Love of mother for child. Stuempfig shows it in his figures. Bits of family, or at least bits of delicate connection between people. It's subtle sweetness to offset the hard scene.
Like a great writer, Steumpfig built his scene caringly detail by detail. The details are specific, but each little piece is not an artwork in itself. It’s an accurate portrayal, but it’s not just a depiction. The bits fit together to show greater poetry. A professor at heart, Steumpfig delivered his understanding of the scene with unflinching honesty. Sometimes it’s honesty that makes a painting great. And, well, sometimes it’s honesty that inspires a teacher to up and throw his student’s crappy work out the window.
E. L. Doctorow was Richard Ford's teacher. I’ve liked reading Ford's books, so I’ve been wanting to read some Doctorow.
I recently listened to Doctorow's The Waterworks. Mysterious and entrancing, it's, kind of, a high literature version of an old timey mystery. Sherlock Holmes or something by Mary Roberts Rinehardt meets Heart of Darkness with some Dracula thrown in.
The plot of the novel involves a cabal of robber baron types who exploit orphans, newsboys, widowed mothers and such of 19th century New York City. While I was listening, The Wall by Walter Stuempfig kept coming to my mind. Both the novel and the painting chase the fleeting nature of grime. They have the windblown paraphernalia of the down and out. There are disappearing children, corruption, and the tailings of the newspaper industry. They also have quirky, but bold compositions. Their depictions and descriptions of debris are beautiful, not so much for the scenes themselves, but for the poetry of how they are presented.
Stuempfig is one of my favorite painters. He was born in Germantown Philadelphia in 1914, and lived until 1970. He was a prolific and successful painter, and he was well known as a teacher at The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. I was introduced to Stuempfig’s work by Dan Miller. Dan was my professor at the Academy, and had some influence on my artistic development. In his own academy days, Dan was a student of Steumpfig’s.
Dan has good stories. He described his professor as a drunk. He told how Stuempfig wore beautifully tailored suits with burn holes in them where he had been careless while smoking. Stuempfig is the professor, well known within Pafa lore, for throwing a student's unsatisfactory painting out the window during a studio critique. Imagine a bad painting sailing down into this scene in The Wall. It falls past the street urchins, and lands there on the dirty sidewalk with the rest of the garbage; just some more chaff within the dingy cityscape.
Walter Steumpfig paintings use no artifice to get to the heart of the matter. His paintings can be a bit somber, and maybe unhandy. But, they are direct and honest. When necessary he let them come apart, to great effect. You see things in The Wall, but can't quite hold on to them. The figures in this painting have transparency. This kind of detail is the subtle flourish of an expert painter. Stuempfig was confident and earnest enough to make something out of nothing.
It's a tough cityscape. Crumbling blocks of sidewalk concrete. Weathered brownstones. Rough old row houses with shuttered windows. It's a landscape made of blocks. Blocks of color and tone form the composition. The painting is laid out like an off kilter Mondrian. It's an abstraction from the scene that fits perfectly well with the scene itself. The whole cityscape tilts. It’s precarious.The place seems poised to slide out of the picture plane.
Still, in this painting, there is also a lot of care. Care of the artist for his subject matter. It's earnest, if somewhat pitying or even resentful, love for the dirty city. Tom Birkner was another of my teachers. He taught me painting and drawing in college. Tom’s term for this kind of care in mark making is “marks of love.” By this he means: if it’s worth putting down in paint, it’s worth painting with care. I see this love in The Wall. At first, love within all the ruin may seem counterintuitive. But, this city scene, in all its desolation, is the object of the artist’s charge.
There is similar love in Doctorow’s The Waterworks. The novel’s narrator is a newspaper editor, but he openly ruminates on his own inability to report objectively. Doctorow found drama by juxtaposing the teller’s desire for objective integrity with the artist’s compulsion to infuse his story with emotion, passion, and deep care for his subject matter.
Doctorow peppered his narrative with odd little details. These details are nonessential to the story, but add to the enchantment of the novel. This, to me, seems similar to the painterly flourishes of Walter Steumpfig. His affect for the subject provides the passion necessary for creative action. The bit of graffiti in the center of the painting comes to mind. It’s just a scribble, but it has the grace of a master artist's hand. It feels as natural, beautiful and precise as a trigonometric curve.
I don’t remember the exact wording, but I know of an Alan Watts quote in which he talked about this type of artistry. He said a scribble by any random person is just a scribble, but when done by a master artist, even if the artist isn’t trying, the scribble feels beautiful. This kind of grace can be found throughout Stuempfig’s painting. The washes of muddy color. Subtle variations of paint handling showing well worn surfaces. The gusto with which he painted each piece of litter. They’re all marks of love.
Both The Waterworks and The Wall mirror the care of their constructions with love in their narratives. Tender love stories that run in the background of the novel. Young lovers. Old lovers who meet again after many years. Love of mother for child. Stuempfig shows it in his figures. Bits of family, or at least bits of delicate connection between people. It's subtle sweetness to offset the hard scene.
Like a great writer, Steumpfig built his scene caringly detail by detail. The details are specific, but each little piece is not an artwork in itself. It’s an accurate portrayal, but it’s not just a depiction. The bits fit together to show greater poetry. A professor at heart, Steumpfig delivered his understanding of the scene with unflinching honesty. Sometimes it’s honesty that makes a painting great. And, well, sometimes it’s honesty that inspires a teacher to up and throw his student’s crappy work out the window.