Art As Experience

Anchors Aweigh, Oil Painting by Melody Phaneuf, Private Collection
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Josef Albers said that Art is not an object but an experience. It can be both, in the same way that a theatre production might be life altering to some, but to others it’s pleasant entertainment.

My own path from appreciation for the decorative to the realm of aesthetic experience began while viewing murals from Pompeii. Bob Hunter took our group of Vesper George Art School students to see the excavated walls installed at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

I recall that the scale of the room was such that the figures on the walls were life size. The subject of the murals depicted the cult of Dionysus. As I walked around the room I was conscious that the scenes seemed to blend into one another seamlessly but it wasn’t until the finale, where the emissary of Dionysus strikes the initiate that I was stunned with awe. It was only then that I understood what being “moved” by a work of art meant. My body swooned under the crack of the switch.

Determination to understand the secret of my experience drew me into many years of studying abstract relationships of imagery. Ultimately, I surmised the cause of my astonishment to be a combination of a building rhythm of arcs coupled with identification to life size figures. The effect was like a tom-tom, which culminated with a final sweeping arc of the lash in the last scene.

It is more than fair to say that the murals of Pompeii transformed my life. Until then I had seen
making art as something enjoyable, but the idea of evoking emotion, of arranging the cause of aesthetic experience became my life’s journey.

Art should at the very least, I think, ameliorate its surroundings. But the greatest art should transport us beyond ordinary experience.

Above, murals from
The Villa of Mysteries, Pompeii

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Boston Artist, Melody Phaneuf is well known for her evocative still life, landscape, and portrait paintings. Her paintings are regularly on view at The Guild of Boston Artists, 162 Newbury Street; at Fenway Studios, Boston by appointment; and North Shore Art in Gloucester from May through October. Phaneuf ‘s paintings have been exhibited at The National Arts Club in New York City, Galerie Herouet in Paris, and with Art du Monde, in Japan.

Melody The Artist Home, founded with photographer and color specialist, Martha DiMeo, features Phaneuf’s original oil paintings on tumbled marble tile murals and beverage coasters, fine art prints, and handmade note cards.

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Delighting In Still Life Painting~ Through The Artist’s Eye

The French have an idiom for expressing exuberance, “j’ai la pêche!” a delicious analogy between their energy and the juice of a ripe peach. Minimalists that Americans are, we parallel with “woo-hoo!” a bit less romantic. I admire the poetry with which the French culture is imbued and consider it a possible source of French joie de vivre. Their expression was in my mind as I composed the not-so-still life painting, J’ai La Pêche.

I begin still life arrangements with an intention. Sometimes it is to tell a story; sometimes it’s to bring awareness to the beauty of light bathing forms or revealing color. In J’ai La Pêche, the intention was to express the buoyant spirit of delight. We are not only minimalists in speech, but in our actions; feelings such as delight need validation. Absent from our language, they may soon disappear from our consciousness.

Pictures are visual language. What we see is absorbed by our mind and processed, not always consciously. We would not have evolved as a species if we didn’t read the danger signals. But we are capable of subtler discernment.

Becoming absorbed in visual delight refines our appreciation, ultimately leading us to view the world through grateful eyes. Living in appreciation is much more peaceful than roiling in anger or despair. It’s better for your health, better for the world. This is the importance of practicing delight.

What is the cause for the visual experience of delight in Jai La Pêche? Much of it has to do with the attraction of color, variety of texture, and the subject matter, but the essential force is in the gliding movement of our eyes.

It begins in the charming soup tureen, which lures with its arabesque pattern. Our eyes pick up the highlight and begin to follow the line of this little whirling dervish, swooping us into the picture plane from left to right in a graceful arc, which is intercepted by the vertical bottle on the left. The magnetic diagonal draws us to the compote jar and the single peach on the right. Here, we linger, like a rest in music, becoming satiated with the radiant color and nuance of reflected light until the draw of the dark, concave soup ladle emerges. We sense the echo of the ladle’s size and shape in the arabesque pattern and follow it with gentle figure eight movements, reaching the peaches on the left. From here, there are multiple pathways, routes back through the painting, all suggested by relationships of edges and geometry. I love for the viewer to continue discovering new aspects of my paintings.

Our eye movement is varied and pleasant, dominated by graceful, gliding movements~ en glissant, as the French say. I invite you to explore J’ai La Pêche. I hope it makes you smile.

Melody Phaneuf is a Boston Artist, working at Fenway Studios. Phaneuf is well known for her evocative still life and landscape paintings and has achieved significant acclaim for portraiture. She has exhibited at Galerie Herouet in Paris, The National Arts Club in New York City, and with Art du Monde, a traveling exposition in Japan. Phaneuf’s paintings are regularly displayed at the Guild of Boston Artists, 162 Newbury Street, Boston, MA.

Melody The Artist Home, founded with photographer and color specialist, Martha DiMeo showcases the artist’s original paintings on tumbled marble tile murals and coasters, fine art prints, and handmade note cards. Online ordering at MelodyTheArtist.com/shop

J’ai La Pêche, is a 26 x16 Oil Painting by Melody Phaneuf. Fine art prints and handmade note cards of this still life painting are available at MelodyTheArtist.com/shop

Would you like to see the original still life painting in person?
Come visit my studio

Related Links~

• Reading Paintings
• The Psychology of Art Appreciation
• Appreciation Brings Out The Best In Everyone

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Harbor Sunset, Visual Banquet

Measure:

2 Parts Yellow
1 Part Orange
2 Parts Violet
3 Dashes Viridian
Pinch of Rose

Gently whisk the orange into the yellow. Cover the top third of a rectangular canvas and set aside the remaining mixture. Apply 2/3 of the violet to the middle third and lower right corner, cut in viridian and allow to set. Use the remaining yellow-orange to cover the raw canvas; swirl on violet. Sprinkle entire mixture with a pinch of rose. Arrange shapes so that there is a contrast of direction. Be sure that dark and light pattern in the upper third creates a rhythmic, cradling movement leading to the shapes below. Hold the key in the middle range, but spice with a major interval of twilight. Allow the surface to rise and form a firm, interwoven texture. Serve immediately.

Have you ever noticed how a delicious banquet awakens each taste bud, delighting and satisfying emerging desires for salty, spicy, sweet, sour or bitter? And texturally speaking, imagine the dullness of dining on soup, squash, applesauce and Jell-O? Bereft of mastication for any length of time, you might even consider wrestling the dog for his chew toy.

A painting should have the same considerations, variety to delight the eye and charm the spirit. Light, dark, warm, cool, round, rectangular, soft, firm, transparent, opaque, curvy, angular… There are an infinite number of condiments in Nature’s buffet. Artist and chef alike are fluent in the language of their dominant sense’s expression. They are mavens of discernment, selecting which proportion of this-to-that delectation will attract then gratify.

A delicious painting, like a favorite meal is remembered and desired again because it satiates a longing that only that particular taste titillation can fulfill. When that hunger is of the body, food fulfills; when of the soul, art nourishes.

Bon Appetite!

Harbor Sunset by Melody Phaneuf, is available in Open Edition Print and Note Cards.

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Harbor Sunset, by Melody Phaneuf, Boston, MA
Oil Painting, 28 x 22
Studio Visits (617) 236 4322

Eggs and Shells, A Study in Low Major

I love a low major key. Light emerging from darkness evokes a primal awe and lends dignity to vibrant color arrangements.

Eggs & Shells is a quiet celebration of yellow and blue. Eggs and milk carafe, combined with the eye-opening contrast of color and light make it ideal for the kitchen, a perfect “breakfast’ painting. A lively rhythm emerges from the broken-color technique despite the restraint of key.

I use this painting as a moment of contemplation in the morning. It gives me contented energy to start my day.

Eggs and Shells, Open Edition Print, Note Cards, and Custom Tile Murals at http://melodytheartist.com/shop

The Bridge, Connection to Paradise

Nowhere else can we find the delight that beauty brings. A life bereft of aesthetic pleasure is unmerciful and dulls the senses. Often surprising and elusive, an encounter with beauty elevates and inspires a gracious attitude.

Imagine my joy when, during a customary walk at Gloucester's Good Harbor Beach, dreamy light revealed such beauty of pattern. The radiant effect of blue sky delicately woven with lemon sun mirrored from the water suggested a timeless threshold. I was struck by the eternal quality of the light, the metaphor of moving water as life’s passage, and the bridge as connection to a paradisiacal world. This epiphany was inspiration for painting The Bridge, Good Harbor.

A lovely tribute to the iconic quality of the image is its popularity. Tile coasters, open edition prints, and cards are sold in Cape Ann gift stores and the Gloucester Museum, as well as our online store. It is a great pleasure to share my experience of beauty with others.

~

Artist Melody Phaneuf lives and paints in Gloucester, MA and at Fenway Studios, Boston. Phaneuf is well known for her evocative landscape and still life paintings and has achieved significant acclaim for portraiture. She has exhibited at Galerie Herouet in Paris, The National Arts Club in New York City, and with Art du Monde, a traveling exposition in Japan. Phaneuf’s paintings are regularly displayed at Northshore Arts in Gloucester and The Guild of Boston Artists, Boston, MA.

Melody The Artist Home, founded with photographer and color specialist, Martha DiMeo showcases the artist’s original paintings on tumbled marble tile murals and coasters, fine art prints, and handmade note cards. Online ordering at MelodyTheArtist.com/shop

The Bridge, Good Harbor, 28 x 20 oil painting by Melody Phaneuf is available in fine art prints and tile coasters.

follow Melody on twitter
become a facebook fan
visit Melody’s studio