(Speak
Out) Review: "Impressions:
Paintings
by Raymond J. Steiner"
June
14 –27, National Arts Club, NYC
By TIMOTHY J.
CLARK
ART TIMES Aug 2004
Pine
(Self Portrait)
8"x10" oil |
AMERICAN LANDSCAPE
PAINTING falls into many niches that artists visit on their way to a distinct
style. Their development first of competence is of primary concern to many
budding artists. Ray Steiner clearly understands this competence and the
western language of landscape painting. Out of the nearly 100 images, several
stand out as benchmarks for quality and unique vision. The Cliffs of
Moher, an 8 x 16" oil on board, expresses a stony silence and entertains
the viewer with a range of values from white through steely grays in a masterful
manner. His organization of the surface and the rhyming of geometric shapes
reflect Steiner’s knowledge of poetry. The
autumnal color of A View of the Baltic from Rügen is a welcome
relief, a fresh yet simple canvas which moves far from the standard blue
sky, green tree paintings that are so much a part of the American landscape
tradition.
The poet/painter
Steiner borrows from the literary device of personification in Pine
Tree (Self-Portrait). It stops us and makes us look with more than
a glance to enjoy the nobility, strength and soaring quality that Steiner
executes with integrity and whimsy. Simple, straightforward appreciation
of nature sums up this show. With a respect and a need to be part of a
big American painting tradition unlike so much we see today, Steiner mocks
no one, not even a pine tree.
(Author, award-winning
painter, and faculty member of the Art Students League of New York, Timothy
J. Clark was a founding faculty member and professor at the Coastline
College in Fountain Valley, Ca., an instructor at The University of Hawaii,
and at the school at the Worcester Art Museum in Massachusetts. He maintains
studios in Capistrano Beach, CA and West Bath, Me. |
