Water Paintings: Why Artists Keep Returning to Water Art
Put the question in front of a group of painters: What is the most difficult subject? And one of them will reply, ‘Water '. It doesn't have a shape or colour of its own, and it never stands still. But water paintings are on display in museums, and the subject has survived almost every art movement. Water art keeps drawing artists back for more, and it can never be solved. A Subject That Has No Surface An artist should have something to hold onto; most subjects give him or her that. A face is structured, a bowl of fruit or any objects are weighted, flowers have geometry. Water art has neither. It can be a mirror one day, and a window the next day! Can be transparent, opaque, black, green or white within a few feet. It's why water demands a specific type of viewing. The only way to paint water is to just paint it. What you see is what you paint: light, sky in the light, the swirling movement under the surface. When a painter learns to paint water, he learns to see more tr...
