Charles Ritchie

Charles Ritchie, three sequential states of Moon and House [work in progress], 2009, watercolor and graphite on Fabriano paper, 3 1/2 x 1 1/4″. States were imaged (left to right): 15 January, 17 January, 3 February.

Intuition and Intersection

Each November the dense foliage above our old neighborhood drops to reveal the celestial dome; as a result I’m much more likely to be in tune with the heavens in winter months. Several weeks ago I saw a waning moon hanging in twilight blue-black sky and since that moment I’ve been rolling that image around in my head, especially as I work at my studio window these early mornings. As is often the case, the memory became so persistent I began a drawing of the subject, responding not only to the image, but a casual event; as I dug through a pile of drawing paper, a very tiny piece appeared.  The sheet seemed like it was made for a tiny moon in a vertical format landscape.  Three stages of the drawing, which is still in progress, can be seen above.

It’s been said that Michelangelo studied the quarried marble, trying to see the figure to be carved in the material.  I can’t say that my discovery of the right sheet of paper for this moon image came about the same way Michelangelo recognized the stone for one of his sculptures; but I am intrigued by such mental leaps that associate image with material.  I can’t say that I understand it, but at the same time, I think that Michelangelo’s recognition of possibilities inherent in a particular stone was essential to the creation of the David; or in my own modest case, the association I made between the image I was carrying in my head with a particular size and format piece of paper.  For me, the reaction feels subconscious; I instantaneously know I’ve found a solution before I’ve thought about it consciously.

As I continued to muse on that waning moon, making sketches in my journal and sustaining a variety of drawings, I looked at my astronomical calendar and realized that my early morning drawing sessions were soon going to be joined by the red star Antares, (see my previous online journal entry for 19 January 2009); to me the star’s presence signals the impending movement towards spring.  As I waited for the moon to return to the same phase I had recorded in earlier sketches, Antares joined my morning sessions and I suddenly I realized that Antares and the moon were going to cross paths.  The moon occulted Antares on the 21st of January.  It surprised and delighted me that these subjects of my interest suddenly came together.  Somehow the event made me think more strongly than ever that alignment of certain forces and our alertness to those forces is the engine for intuition.

Charles Ritchie, page from Book 131, (lower left) sketch of Waning Moon and Antares seen on consecutive days, 20 and 21 January 2009, at 5:30 am, watercolor and graphite on Arches paper, 4 x 6″.

A few days ago I took a walk along a familiar park trail, stopping as I often do on a bridge over the creek.  Looking down into the water, I saw the reflection of a great sycamore tree hanging over the creek, its uppermost branches, inverted in the water, were bathed in the red light of sunset.  At first the image seemed like a strange deja vu, echoing how my day had been spent, drawing the branches of a large tree in one of my ongoing projects.  But then I started thinking about what this image might mean to my work, what trajectory it might take, what intersection might be ahead, and how my intuition might one day connect it to something at just the right moment.

Charles Ritchie, Journal entries for 15-16 January, Book 131, featuring watercolor and graphite sketch of Antares rising, page size 4 x 6″.

Antares and an Old Moon

My first sighting of Antares this season was the early morning of 16th very low in the southeast sky shining out of the bare treetops above the white brick side of the house across the street (see on line journal entry for 23 February 2008).  A harbinger of spring.  Like looking in the yard and seeing the first snowdrop or the daffodils tips prick through.  Antares will sweep slowly west through these winter mornings and when it reaches the center of my window among the budding trees it will disappear.  The red heart of the Scorpion fades into spring foliage and reminds me my winter landscapes have to rest.  On approximately the 15th of April I’ll put them away until next year.  Antares itself is not the subject of a drawing, at least not right now.  It’s more of a timepiece.

One of the pieces that I am currently working on features an old moon coloring the twilight sky (see sketch at left below).  A deep blue morning above sparks of window lamps.  Saw the subject a month ago and I’m happy to see that same phase of the moon will come around again this week.  I’ll study it closely, especially to see the color of the dark side away from the crescent, which is such a different tone than the blue of the twilight surround.

So many pieces going now I’m getting confused but I want to stay open to all of them.  I wake and write my dreams and then just look up and pick the one that hits me first.  Don’t seem to work on the same one sequential nights; trading around so that everything stays fresh.  I’m excited about all of them and each is testing me in a different way.   I’ll just have to accept that by mid-April some will be finished and some won’t.  Let go for another year.

Out on errands yesterday I rode across the railroad bridge I looked down and there were hundreds of coal cars rumbling by, each of them filled to the brim with coal.  And each black pile was trimmed with an edge of snow.  Winter’s nowhere near over.

Charles Ritchie, Journal entries for 25-26 January, Book 131, featuring watercolor and graphite sketch of a waning moon made at 6:50 am on 22 December 2008 (left) and a contemporaneous sketch of an outdoor light (right), page size 4 x 6″.

Book 130, Entries for 25-26 May 2008 with studies of a tree at midday and the bright star Vega reflected in the pond at night, watercolor, graphite and pen and ink on Arches paper in bound volume, page size 4 x 6″

In the Country

I hiked along a freshly asphalted lane through woods and fields past the occasional dirt driveway. Sprays of white blackberry and yellow buttercups brushed my legs. After a long walk the trees opened to a vista of red earth jumbled with roots and stumps. Recent lumbering had left acres of devastation. Beside me of hillock of stumps rose out of the wreckage. I was surprised when a sudden wind seemed to aim right at the point where I was looking. The small cyclone raked a single trunk and the bark scattered all around as if there had been a blast. I was showered in bark. A strange moment; I had to laugh out loud.

That evening I stepped out into the clear night; the sky brimming with stars. Yellow Saturn sat beside Reglus in the constellation Leo above. I made my way through the pitch black down a familiar dirt trail to the pond. Feeling the way with my feet, I turned slowly toward the frogs and other creatures clicking, creaking, and shouting in the brush. Moving closer, the sound became so intense it pelted me, shaking my bones. I looked into the pond where bright Vega sat, brilliant, undiminished in reflection. That light left the star 27 years ago, a point near the beginning of my journals. I laughed again and felt a small part of the pantomime.

Hats off to Wallace Stevens; see Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird, III.

Charles Ritchie, Study after Starry Night by Jean-François Millet, 27 April 2008, watercolor and graphite on Arches paper in bound volume, sheet size: 4 x 6″

Millet’s Falling Star

The Painting:
What a thrill to finally see Jean-François Millet’s painting Starry Night. I had known it previously only through a poor black and white reproduction. When I discovered the work hanging with the In the Forest of Fontainebleau exhibition at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, I was stunned to see its boiling darkness.

But the more I looked at the subject the more something seemed out of place. In Millet’s picture, we stand in a dark road with fields on either side. Trees are silhouetted against a glowing horizon that bleeds upward into a dark sky of accurately observed constellations. To the right, the belt and sword Orion are prominent and Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky follows at upper left. What troubled me is that another star stands just to the right of Orion’s belt, challenging Sirius. No bright star is in this location nor do bright planets tread there. What a terrible inaccuracy for Millet, an artist who prides himself on truth to observation.

In the left center are two streaks of falling stars; one with a fiery head and another, a vaporous streak. It suddenly became clear to me, that by reading a right to left sequence, we see three stages of a single falling star: the bright flash of the meteor’s encounter with earth’s atmosphere (the misplaced star in question), the flaming rock’s descent (at center), and the vaporized trail still illuminated (at left). When we consider the image this way; the metaphor is clarified; individuals are no more than a single falling star in the night. The dark road where we stand is transient and solitary.

Copying Technique:
To make my copy I stood in front of the actual painting penciling out the composition in my journal and recording an inventory of the colors I saw. Returning to the studio I painted the image in watercolor based on my notes and a reproduction that I printed from the Yale University Art Gallery web site; an image that carried far more detail than any catalogue reproduction I could find. I began my watercolor with light application of three loosely blended yellows: Winsor, Indian, and Naples, the three give a warm underpainting for the stars and the glowing horizon. I then begin to work with darker colors moving from light to dark, never wetting the pinpoints where the stars are located. This allows the white of the paper to spark through in these areas. Other colors I used in the general order I introduced them: Cerulean Blue, Lapis Lazuli, Burnt Sienna, Ultramarine Blue, Winsor Yellow/Indigo (a color that I mix to get a transparent, versatile green), Alizarin Crimson, Prussian Blue, Raw Umber Violet, and Indigo. By the way, one should take this color study with a grain of salt. Millet’s painting needs to be cleaned. Who knows what will emerge when the old varnish is stripped away.

Other Notes:
It is not known for certain whether Van Gogh saw Millet’s painting before he painted his well-known masterpiece. Millet prefigured; he was a force from earlier in the 19th century and his works influenced Vincent. Both shared an interest in rendering subjects from everyday life with deep compassion.

Serendipity placed this painting in my path considering I’ve been involved with my current, unfinished Night with Orion drawing. I admit the influence of Millet’s painting on me, however, I don’t remember being conscious that Orion and Canis Major (Sirius is the prominent star of the latter constellation) were part of Millet’s Starry Night.

Much credit goes to the wonderful article, Millet’s Shooting Stars by Martin Beech, Royal Astronomical Society, Canada, 1988. Beech’s insightful study fueled some of my questioning. Beech, however suggests that these are several meteors belonging to the Orionids, an October shower emanating from the Orion region of the sky (actually the radiant is well above the core of Orion, see here). I believe that because Orion is leaning to the right in Millet’s Starry Night, the constellation is falling into the sunset (as it does in the mid-Northern latitudes). With plenty of foliage visible, I would say this is late spring when Orion sets just after the sun.

Charles Ritchie, Study after Starry Night by Jean-François Millet (first state), 24 April 2008, watercolor and graphite on Arches paper in bound volume, sheet size: 4 x 6″

Link to Jean-François Millet (French, 1814–1875), Starry Night (Nuit Étoilée), c. 1855-1867, oil on canvas, 25 3/4 x 32″, Yale University Art Gallery.