paintings with fluorescent pigments of the microcosm and macrocosm

Leonardo

Paintings with Fluorescent Pigments of the Microcosm and MacrocosmAuthor(s): Richard BowmanSource: Leonardo, Vol. 6, No. 4 (Autumn, 1973), pp. 289-292Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1572843 .

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Leonardo, Vol. 6, pp. 289-292. Pergamon Press 1973. Printed in Great Britain

PAINTINGS WITH

FLUORESCENT PIGMENTS

OF THE MICROCOSM

AND MACROCOSM

Richard Bowman* Abstract-The author discusses his paintings from 1943 to the present. During that time he has been applying his concepts of energy phenomena in all of nature, from the microcosm to the macrocosm, with particular emphasis on notions gainedfrom atomic physics. He was one of the first artists to usefluorescent pigments, beginning in 1950.

He stands firmly against the cold cerebral approach to art through technology and his outspoken criticism of the fads and fashions aspect of American art of the past decade is well known in the San Francisco Bay region of California.

I

I consider that a person can truly be called an artist if he has had at least one significant original visual conception abstracted from his reactions to the society of his time or to nature. Furthermore, he must have achieved a mastery of his chosen medium. Evidently, a work of fine art must be seen in order to be appreciated, for the experience cannot be conveyed by means of words.

Most of the paintings that are made by those who call themselves artists and are so recognized by the art 'establishments' show little if any originality of conception. They are merely replications of works by a few pioneering masters or they are made to curry favor with those who sponsor various art fads. For example, I believe Cezanne was a pioneering artist and that his work will long be valued because his concern with les petits sensations (vibrations) that he saw and felt when looking at nature was introduced effectively into his landscapes. Of course, his keen vision was only one part of his genius.

I am very critical of American art of the past decade, since many of those who made it seem to have followed the formula for the planned obsoles- cence of consumer goods. 'Schools' of, for example, Pop, Funk, Minimal and Hard-edge painting have been much publicized, only to be succeeded by other short-lived brands. I feel that few artists who attach themselves to these ephemeral manifestations do so with real conviction. Other aspects of the art of this period that I find objectionable are its nihilism and

* Artist living at 178 Springdale Way, Redwood City, Calif. 94062, U.S.A. (Received 7 February 1973.)

Dada overtones. I shall now discuss the develop- ment of my own work as a painter during the past thirty years which has followed quite a different course.

II

Modern science and advanced technology offer to the contemporary artist in industrialized countries a rich spectrum of subject matter and of techniques to be selected for exploration. Our century is recognized as one in which the accumulation of knowledge of nature and its application for good and evil purposes surpasses anything that humanity has experienced in the past. The splitting of the atom, space exploration and rapid forms of transportation and of communication are but a few of the new developments to which society must become ad- justed. While I shall tend to stress intellectual concepts in discussing my work (and I feel that they are fundamental in significant works of art), I approach the making of my paintings essentially from an emotional point of view [1, 2].

After completing my basic art training at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1942, I was awarded a travel fellowship and painted for one year in Mexico. It was there that I began what I call my 'Rock and Sun' series, which I continued between 1943-1950 (Figs. 1 and 2).

Actually, I had no a priori plan for the series. It simply began with a watercolor of Lake Patzcuaro with a dark chain of mountains behind in the lights of a brilliant sunset. The idea of expressing visually the energy of the Sun and of radioactive

19 289



Richard Bowman

Fig. 1. 'Rock Formation in Sunlight', oil on canvas, 29 x 42 in., 1943.

minerals evolved during the weeks that followed. I completed the first oil painting of the series in July, 1943. A few months later I wrote the following statement to describe the concept underlying the series: 'To the human eye and brain, the rock appears to be one of the most stable of objects. But is it ? Is it not here and now in an atomic state ? Therein we may say that it is kinetic at the same time that it is stable.'

After living in Chicago for four years, the clean atmosphere and the brilliant Mexican sunshine was a moving experience. The intensity of daylight in Mexico was the strongest I had ever known. Also Mexico presented to me rugged mountains, the first I had ever seen.

My curiosity and enchantment with the discoveries in atomic physics grew during those early years. I

Fig. 2. 'Atomic Rock and Sun', oil on canvas, 54 x 48 in., 1950. (Collection of Mr. and Mrs. W. Nixon, Santa Cruz, New Mexico, U.S.A.) (Photo: Hawken, Berkeley,

Calif., U.S.A.)

followed not only accounts in newspapers and popular magazines but I also attempted to glean significant impressions of them from, for example, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, even though I have had no formal training in physics.

In August 1947, after having painted many canvases in the series using very bright contrasting colors to evoke a strong visual effect (for example, a brilliant green Sun in a bright red sky), I wrote the following fragment: 'My own preoccupation with kinetics has been a factor in my painting for the past few years and I stress the importance of kinetogenic forms in the art of our time. Not only is kinetics a dominant factor in the expression of reality of an objective nature (man's contact with external occurrences) but it can also be used in painting in a purely psychological manner to express and evoke emotions of a subjective nature.'

My first canvases in the 'Rock and Sun' series show the Sun as a flat disc and rocks as curved overlapping surfaces (Fig. 1.) By 1950 I departed from massive forms to fragmented forms (Fig. 2). I was then very conscious of the idea that energy is transmitted in tiny bits or quanta. This concept of energy transmission, whether within matter or in the form of light, has been a factor in my work for thirty years. I am aware that other artists have been influenced similarly by the findings of modern physics [3].

II

I had been painting exclusively with oil paints until 1950 when I learned that small jars of 'daylight' fluorescent lacquers were being commercially produced, materials that were intended primarily for use in advertising and decoration. I may have been the first artist to use these materials in paintings. I was attracted to the use of these lacquers because the added brilliance they possess assisted me in expressing my interpretation of the concept of energy. My interest in and use of fluorescent colors has continued without a lapse over these years. In 1956 I began to use an oil-based fluorescent paint. This product was easier to spread than the lacquer. The lacquer also suffered from a tendency to crack.

In 1965 I began using fluorescent acrylic paints made by Politec Inc., 290 Valencia Street, San Francisco, California 94103, U.S.A. The acrylics have the advantage of drying more quickly than the oils. Unfortunately, the range of daylight fluorescent colors is rather limited. Those that I use are lemon yellow, yellow-orange, orange-rose, red and cerise. The fluorescent blue available is dis- appointing; it is hardly brighter than a mixture of regular acrylic ultramarine blue and white. To produce violet, I apply a mixture of the ultramarine blue and white and glaze it over with fluorescent cerise. The yellow-green that is available does not fluoresce as strongly as the reds, oranges and yellows. Aach has described inLeonardo the properties of fluorescent pigments [4].

290



Paintings with Fluorescent Pigments of the Microcosm and Macrocosm

IV

I am a passionate admirer of Pierre Bonnard's works. This is so because I am deeply affected by his marvelous depiction of light effects. My paintings from 1950 onward, with the introduction of fluorescent colors, emphasize abstractly this deep interest. In the years 1950-1953 I completed what I call the 'Kinetograph' series (Fig. 3), (cf. color plate.) (It is regretted that it was not possible to reproduce an illustration in fluorescent printing inks.) I was stimulated by published cloud-chamber photographs obtained by physicists that show tracks of cosmic rays and nuclear particles and by impressions I gained from reading about subatomic particles and the structure of atoms. I should emphasize that these paintings are not, and were never meant to be, illustrations of physical phenomena. The paintings are simply my individual lay- man's interpretation of these phenomena and the energies involved, expressed by lines, shapes and colors on canvas.

During the years 1953-1955 my work took on a somewhat different aspect. I incorporated images of structures of matter as made visible by means of electron microscopes and views of the Earth's sur- face taken from heights of many miles by cameras carried by sounding rockets (Fig. 4). I called these paintings the 'Micromacrocosmos' series. As I pointed out above, none of the series I describe followed any particular plan but rather I progressed intuitively from one painting to another.

Between 1956 and 1965 I made about 100 paintings in the 'Kinetogenics' series with fluorescent

Fig. 4. 'Microcosmos, 2', oil on canvas, 58 x 46 in., 1954. (Photo: Photographic Department, Stanford Univer-

sity, Palo Alto, Calif., U.S.A.)

Fig. 5. 'Kinetogenics, 40', fluorescent oil on canvas, 47 x 73 in., 1960. (Collection of Dr. and Mrs. L. Cramer,

Whittier, Calif., U.S.A.)

oils (Fig. 5). These paints permitted me to present my ideas much more freely and their brilliance conveys a much more convincing illusion of energy, as I conceived it.

In spite of my preoccupation with the intangible aspects and ramifications of energy, I have also responded to the landscapes and the fluorescent colors in plants found in my neighborhood. While beginning a large canvas in 1960, I suddenly realized that I had depicted in the composition a group of yellow-orange California poppies. This began what I called my 'Environs' series, to which I consciously returned from time to time during the next eight years. The natural fluorescent colors of flowers such as geraniums and nasturtiums are represented in the paintings. During this time (1965-1967), I also painted my 'Synthesis' series (Fig. 6) which is reminiscent of the 'Rock and Sun' series, except that I used fluorescent pigments and the compositions

IYO'

n-' ....

n l-

Fig. 6. 'Synthesis, 6', fluorescent acrylic and collage, 45 x 48 in., 1965.

291



Richard Bowman

Fig. 7. 'Dynamorph, 58', fluorescent acrylic on canvas, 57 x 62 in., 1971.

contain simplified, symbolic forms, such as a horizontal bar to represent the Earth (as a rock).

From 1966 to the present I have extended the 'Kinetogenics' series under the designation 'Dynamorph' series (Fig. 7). In these I combine in compositions symbolic forms I had used previously with different conceptions of energy that I have been led to imagine through what I like to call my 'fierce eye' perception of nature. Of this series, Gerald Nordland, former Director of the San Fran- cisco Museum of Art, wrote: 'In the best of these new paintings one has the sense of peering inside the

structure of matter as one recalls in first seeing the electron micrographs of indescribable magnifica- tion. In all of these works one recognizes a gathering of energies and a focusing on elements which have been present but nearly invisible in earlier paintings. The vitality of the artist's formal structure is am- plified by the energy-charged quality of his pigments and the consistent sweep of the paintings' scale' [2].

REFERENCES

1. G. D. Culler, Richard Bowman, Painting and Reflections, 1943-1961, Catalog (San Francisco: San Francisco Museum of Art, 1961).

2. Gerald Nordland, Richard Bowman Paintings, 1943-1972, Catalog (Roswell, New Mexico: Roswell Museum and Art Center, 1972).

3. B. Brendel, The Influence of Atomic Physics on My Paintings, Leonardo 6, 137 (1973).

4. H. Aach, On the Use and Phenomena of Fluorescent Pigments in Paintings, Leonardo 3, 135 (1970).

Representations du microcosme et du macrocosme a l'aide de pigments fluorescents

Resume-Le propos de l'auteur est de presenter sa peinture de 1943 a aujourd'hui. Au cours de cette periode, il a applique sa conception du phenomene de l'energie a la nature toute entiere, du microcosme au macrocosme, en insistant particulierement sur les notions deja acquises par la physique atomique. Ii est l'un des premiers artistes, qui des 1950, utilisa les pigments fluorescents.

II prend position contre l'approche froide et cerebrale de l'art qui a pour fondement la technologie, et l'on connait bien dans la Baie de San Franscisco en Californie, sa franche critique des dadas et des modes qui caracterisent l'art americain de la derniere decade.

292



Top: Louis Cork Marcheschi. 'For Marcel', 1972. The 500 watt incandescent lamp is activated by electricity provided by a high-voltage high-frequency generator. (Photo:

W. Young, Minneapolis, Minn., U.S.A.) (Fig. 7, cf. page 296.)

Bottom left: Richard Bowman. 'Kinetograph, 6', oil on canvas, 40 x 60 in., 1950. (Collection of Mr. and Mrs. D. Hurt, Mountain View, California, U.S.A.) (Fig. 3, cf. page 291.)

Bottom right: Joseph A. Burns and Judith Klein Burns. View of a portion of the kinetic mural of stressedphotoelastic material and lightpolarizers. (Fig. 3, cf. page 325).

[facing p. 304]





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paintings with fluorescent pigments of the microcosm and macrocosm

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