Friday, November 25, 2016

Painting Critique

Here, I was asked to find and review a painting. For the assignment, rather than search the mass amount of paintings in databases across the internet, I decided to review a print I personally owned. Here is what I wrote.

The Assignment
For my painting critique, I selected the painting Locomotion by painter, photographer and author Philip D. Hawkins. The painting is of a British steam locomotive, specifically a 4-4-0 – easily distinguishable by the two pairs of front leading wheels/bogies and two pairs of drive wheels – pulling six coaches along a paired railroad track under a series of bridges. Both the locomotive and the coaches are painted in a maroon livery. The painting itself is 20 inches by 30 inches, but came with a large 29 by 39-inch frame with a maroon surrounding canvas with gold strips, similar to the train.
At first, I briefly suspected that the painting could possibly be fake or a forgery. When I first started looking up Philip Hawkins’ artwork, I saw that a great deal – if not all of it – were paintings of British trains.

The painting itself is extremely similar to another of Hawkins’ paintings, St. Pancras Departure, which features a strikingly similar locomotive and perspective – a 4-4-0 pulling six (observable) coaches, all in maroon livery. However, there are a significant number of differences between the two paintings that indicate they are two separate images. Locomotion, for example, is clearly set in the countryside while Departure features the train just leaving a station. Second, Locomotion appears to be set farther off to the right of the train while the perspective of Departure appears more to be just shy of viewing the front of the locomotive head-on. However, the biggest significant difference between the two – other than the background and perspective – is the number plates: the number plate on Locomotion reads 1167 while the number plate in Departure reads 1097. Because of these differences, I can affirm that this is its own, real painting.

 I eventually turned up a few references to the painting, mainly being used as the basis of a 500-piece GOOD COMPANION puzzle (David). Author David Platt calls the puzzle based on the painting one of his favorites in his book Steam Trains and Jigsaw Puzzles (Platt). The main difference, as I’ve seen between the two, is that the puzzle version appears to have a more orange hue than the original (David).

In terms of painting era/type, it’s very clearly a 20th Century painting, as stated by the year ’79 written in the lower left corner next to his signature. Specifically, I think it falls most closely into the category of minimalism. I say that with some hesitation because this is a very simplified yet detailed and realistic depiction of a train that doesn’t in principle appear to stand out or make itself unique, as is the minimalist style, yet it does to me.

I would also say that the painting itself is highly reminiscent of a photograph. This makes sense to me too, since Hawkins has also worked/works as a photographer since the 1970’s (YouTube). Given that and Hawkins’ career as a technical illustrator and other paintings , I feel comfortable saying that it’s a major part of Hawkins’ style to depict the trains as realistically as possible (Quicksilver Publishing, Platt, YouTube).

In terms of the elements of painting, I think Hawkins uses them interestingly, which I think is a part of this painting’s appeal to me. In terms of Lines, the rails, bridge, wall behind the train, locomotive, tender and the coaches are all very sharp and detailed, which continues all the way down to the third or fourth coach and the farthest bridge/tunnel. Close examination shows you can see the bolts, lamps, buffers and other assorted details fairly clearly along the engine and coaches, whistle blowing, and two windows in the cab. Contrast this with the plants/vegetation and tress surrounding it, which are blurry and are sparsely detailed.

For Color, the vegetation takes on natural, almost autumn-based hues (greens, browns, oranges). Similarly, the ground, bridge and tunnel use mostly brown earthly/ground-like brown hues. The train itself and the coaches are branded in livery with red-based hues, specifically maroon or crimson (David), accented with yellow or gold-hued stripes. The wheels, front of the boiler and other assorted parts are pure black. The only instance of blue is the sky.

I have similar thoughts about Form and Texture. The trees and vegetation have a blurry, wispy quality to them. By contrast, the bridge, tunnel and wall have rough, semi-distinct shapes and stone-like/rocky textures. The train, contrasting all, has very rough, distinct shapes and metallic textures. Overall, the Elements of Painting, as Hawkins uses them, serve to make the train more distinct and eye-catching to a viewer.

I think Hawkins uses the Principles of Painting in a similar way. For Unity, I see two basic aspects of this painting that have this: the natural elements and manmade elements. As I mentioned before, the natural elements – plants and vegetation are made somewhat featureless. This contrasts with the detail Hawkins puts into the bridge and tunnel. More distinctly, the maroon livery on the train and coaches do a better job of achieving this.

On a general level, I wouldn’t suggest the painting is greatly Symmetric. The Perspective here disrupts that, so that the train is larger and closer on the lower right side of the painting while the coaches shrink into the background left middle. I would say, though, that the bridge uses space on the left side of the painting to help balance out the use of the train on the right.

I see two examples of Repetition in this. The first, and most obvious, is the designs of the coaches, even as they shrink into the background from the perspective. There are very distinct shapes of windows, wheels, and roofs of each. Second are the designs of the tracks on the ground. The bolts attaching the wood blocks to the rails and the rails themselves create a repetitious pattern that also shrinks into the background.

The chiaroscuro/lighting/shading serve to help further distinguish between the manmade and natural elements in the painting. Although we can see a bright blue sky at the top of the painting, the lighting of the plants, bridge, tunnel, and wall are somewhat dull. By contrast, the light appears to be gleaming off the boiler of the engine and the rails.

After researching and studying this painting, I looked at several other paintings by Philip Hawkins to get a further gauge on how he uses the Elements and Principles of painting. I discovered a consistency in how Hawkins uses them in this painting and several others. Disturbing The Peace and Storming Through Stechford (both viewable here), for example, showcase Hawkins adding a significant amount of detail the trains and other manmade elements while using colors but not detailing natural elements.

I like this painting for reasons that are simultaneously very simple in general and very complicated to explain. Like Hawkins as he describes in the YouTube video and many others around the world, I’ve always had a fascination with trains that I’ve never been able to place. Movies like The Great Locomotive Chase (Disney, 1956) and TV series like Thomas the Tank Engine (early seasons) were huge parts of my life as far back as I can remember. The grounding in reality – from the Great Locomotive Chase being a real Civil War era event to Rev. W. Awdry’s insistence that so much of his highly fictional series being realistic, down to the engines all being based on real-life locomotives – gave me a newfound mature respect, perspective and fascination for that interest.

By a similar vein, Hawkins credits his career in painting and illustrating to watching trains go by his house as a child (Platt, YouTube). He’s also worked that into a partial career of showing the painting process, from starting with blank canvas to showing how it evolves into a full scene (Wyse, YouTube).

 Because of this, Hawkins has lived the type of life I wish I could live. He has a passion for trains, and he made that his career and a part of his life. I can relate to that with my writing and what I would like to say to others about the writing process.

I really didn’t expect to glean as much as I did when I started to review and critique this painting. I’ve owned it (or at least this print) for many, many years and never really thought twice about it beyond simply liking it. But now, I’ve gotten to develop a greater respect and appreciation for both it and Philip D. Hawkins.


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