WhitbeckNotes

Welcome to the Winter 2010 Edition of Whitbeck Notes:

Happy New Year and welcome to the Winter Notes of 2010. I hope all is well and that the changing of the years was a happy and healthy one. With time flying by so fast, I realized that I had better get to the Winter Notes before it was time for the Spring ones ! Every winter I write about the hermit-like reclusivness I feel when in the studio, and this winter is no different.

It is a good balance, like the changing of the seasons, between show season and studio time. To really appreciate the beauty of spring you would have had to go through the trials of winter, and so there is great enjoyment in the quiet of my warm studio as I paint the days away.

In my studio, in a larger majority than anything else, are books. There are museum exhibit catalogues , (the jewel in my crown), art history books, nature books, books on New England antiques, books on various artists and history books just to name a few. These are my inspiration and my outlet into the mysterious past.

These last few months I have been reading a lot of 15th and 16th Century European history books, wanting to put the art and artists that I am so fond of into their historical context. I want to know the world of Titian, Tintoretto and Veronese, I want to know the Antwerp and Bruges that those northern renaissance artists knew, I want to see the Germany that Durer lived in. With all of this reading I found myself tempted by other side roads and passages , slipping further back into history. 1600's, 1500's 1400's.........

It is so much more satisfying when viewing a painting and at the same time knowing the political, economical and social world that is embedded in it's very paint and fibers. The artist would have certainly been affected by what was going on in the world around him. I feel like I can now look at Durer's pen and ink drawing of Antwerp harbor from 1520 with new eyes. I see the beginnings of a growing town as it slowly emerges into one of the north significant sities of the North. I see the sailing boats and the wharf and know that one of the figures there might be the city offical whose frustrating job it was to find a mooring for all these vessels, I see the the buildings on the other side of the river Scheld and know that is Flanders (Vlaamse Hoofd), and that Antwept was in it's own region of Brabant, which earlier in history were at odds with one another. I know that beyond the roofs and the brick walls there lies the fish market bustling with international businessmen and local merchants selling and buying, participating in their own little way to Antwerp's Golden Age. The black and white ink drawing of Durer's is now awash with color and life !

It is these sideroads of history, off the general highway of the normal, where you become immersed in the detail and richness of our past,. It is for me the story behind the canvas, and has become an important aspect of viewing the paintings of the artists of old.

All artists explore other themes and subjects different than what they are used to. At some point they feel a tug coming from one area or another, whether it by from landscape to still life, or still life to animal or even using another medium or style of brushwork. Somewhere along the way, the urge comes up to venture into other areas of the artistic world. Lately my pull has been towards landscape painting, large picturesque landscapes with moody skies and church spires,cows roaming through the grassy fields, and groups of trees turning into forests , then fading into the pale blue distance. These have been somewhat looser in brushwork but the focal points maintaining the fine details of my still life paintings.

Welcome to the Summer 2010 Edition of Whitbeck Notes:

The show season is well under way with eight shows already behind us. We look forward to seven more shows to finish the season with. During the course of a show I do a bit of talking to the patrons in my booth, and often the conversation hovers around the topic of " why the old Dutch style ?" and "what got you started in that type of painting?" And so for those of you who have not heard the story, I figured I would send it along in this edition of Whitbeck Notes.

Basically it all boils down to the love my wife Gale and I have for history, and her interest in the detective work of genealogy. She dug up my old Dutch roots for me and brought back to life, through court records, old letters and various other documents, the story of my forefather, Jan Tommas van Witbeck. 1650 was the year and the New World for the Europeans was already underway. The Dutch, the Swede's , the English, French, and Spanish and Portuguese had been working the coasts of North and South America since the late 1500's. My Jan Tommas, a young man, wanted to try his hand in the Dutch colonies of Nieuw Nederland, and so made his way via Amsterdam to New Amsterdam ( New York) where he spent little time before heading North up the Groot Rivier (Hudson) to the settlement of Beverwyck (Albany). Here he bought and sold land around the settlement, was a farmer and a trader and set his roots quite deeply into the soil of this new Dutch territory.

Over the hundreds of years since then the names fade, the stories recede into the shadows and all of the Dutch glory that once was a part of the Witbeck family was built upon by new lines and new faces with new stories and new places.

Fifteen years or so ago this was all unknown to me, until Gale delved into my families past, bringing out an energy that grew and evolved into many things, one of them being a keener interest in the 16th and 17th Century Dutch and Flemish art. It started with the all mighty Johannes Vermeer and his contemporary Pieter de Hooch with their intriguing interior scenes. These gave me a glimpse of what Jan Thomas' world would have looked like. And so, like a sponge, I soaked up every bit of Dutch art from that 300 year period, eventually bringing it into my own style. Paintings which fully and unabashedly embrace the richness and energy that is the old Netherlandish style.

This is the basic of it all, and so now what you see in my booth at these art shows is the result of years of painting, all evolving from this one point. Once in a while for my own pure pleasure I will paint a piece which is fully 17th Century in style. It will have in it reproductions of the raspberry-prunted Dutch Roemers, the dark background with the crumpled up Turkish Carpet and of course the handle of a knife protruding over the table edge into the viewers realm, inviting and curious.

Recently at art shows I have been putting out a new sign up book, one which includes a place for your street address . I have begun to send out postcards with show information along with the usual e-mail notification. I am inviting all those already on my e-mail list to send me an e-mail with your street address and the name of the show that I saw you at so I can add you on and send a card when I'm in your area.

Also new this season is the offering of High quality unframed prints . These will be close to the actual size and print on archival quality paper and ink. With a hard backing they are ready for framing under glass. Shortly on my website, I will show a selection of the paintings which I offer for prints.

Please check my website for more details on my upcoming shows:

Mount Gretna, PA

Longs Park, PA

Glastonbury, CT

Rittenhouse Square, Philadelphia

Armonk, New York

Bruce Museum, Greenwich, CT

Bethesda Row, Bethesda, MD

Look forward to seeing you this season and all my best,

James Whitbeck

413-695-0714

jameswhitbeck.com

jameswhitbeck@comcast.net