There is some music for this - it's Glenn Gould playing JS Bach's Goldberg Variations. I hadn't played it for a while, but I put it on while laying down the initial placings. I listened to it a few more times during subsequent work sessions, and my last touches on this painting were placed just as the final Aria repeat finished. Which was very affecting.
The source images for this little painting – via google streetview – are from a short stretch of road called Ruigendijk on the island of Texel, off the Netherlands coast. I'd played around with this sky and location years ago, but this time finally got around to making something worthwhile. The sky is virtually unchanged – just the small top right cumulus shifted left a bit - but the landscape uses features from several viewpoints, copied and pasted, flipped and stitched, and generally juggled about to make something that works.
This is definitely a painting of two halves. In the sky, the paint is soft, and finely faded and blurred. On the landscape it's much more energetic (for me!), and the brush marks, streaks, and scratches are largely left alone to do their thing - I think I was trying to convey the energy of the wind coming in across the North Sea. While this one didn't quite paint itself, it was very compliant indeed, and I think I'm quite pleased with how it went.
A little more about the Goldberg variations. They were commissioned by an insomniac Russian ambassador to the court of Saxony, and were written for his harpsichordist – Goldberg - to play when the gentleman couldn't sleep. The whole story is best read here. I have to say that they suit the piano a lot more than their original instrument. I'm sure that Herr Bach would have used the piano had he been able, but unfortunately he had yet to see and play one. Glenn Gould recorded these variations twice – in 1955 and 1981. This is the second, magnificent, 1981 recording. If you can hear humming, it's Gould himself – he had a compulsion to hum along, and no engineer was successful in blocking that out. It's about fifty or so minutes long, and is basically thirty very different treatments of the opening theme. It's worth listening to in full at some point, though preferably not on scratchy vinyl interrupted by the odd youtube advert. I'm pretty sure this recording is on Spotify and Amazon etc.
Finally, exhibition news. The last panel painting has just been finished, so now it's make sure, or rather hope, that everything's dry enough to varnish a week or so before they leave the house for the gallery. The exhibition goes 'public' on Saturday the 30th October, till the close of Saturday 20th November. It's already up on the 'Exhibitions' page now – with fellow landscapist Tom Mabon. There won't be a formal all-comers Preview – with wine and much back-slapping (or should that be the other way around?) - but I'll try to make a point of being about the gallery on the Saturday, or in the 'New Town Fox' eatery across the road - nice cake there if I remember rightly. Again, the show will be at the Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh, and here's their website with all the details you might need.
Oh, and if you're coming along, remember to bring a face covering...
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