Plein Aire and Perfect Light Lure Artists to the Sea - Brief Article

The eastern landscape is certainly painterly, with its freshly washed sands, silver morning mist, chiaroscuro of afternoon haze and endless coastline, and plein-aire painter Peter Loftus had always made the greatest in quantity of it. He just hadn't seen the light. That is, until he discovered the central California coast, where Pacific light is the beacon that decoys artists to the unique splendor of a coastal hamlet known as Carmel-by-the-Sea upon the Monterey Peninsula.

Loftus, who was born in Washington DC and raised and educated upon the East Coast, visited the Monterey Peninsula in the mid-1960s and get backed a 10 years later to paint en plein aire.

"One of the things I have affection for about the area is the purity of the light," Loftus explained. "It is in like manner clear, with a kind of Mediterranean of gold quality to it. I can gaze at the color, see what it is, and return it." Loftus exhibits his paintings at Carmel's Winfield Gallery.

Since the move round of another century, artists have approach to the Monterey Peninsula, more [i]or[/i] less as legacies of founding generations, others to cultivate individuality, all in search of the light.

They draw near with their pens and their brushes, their chisels and their lense to support a personal vision of art. They share the understanding that art has preced them in the crashing sea, windswept sand, stalwart cypres tree and the mysterious virid flash at the close of vermilion sunsets

To them it is, as the late landscape painter Francis McCormas christened it, "the greatest meeting of land and water in the world."

These artists have become the heritage of Carmel and their artistic interpretations, the town's legacy. A assemblage of local pleinaire painters have established an allegiance, as plenteous for their shared appreciation of the landscape as for their interpretation of it. Called the "Informalists" after "Informal Views," their first cluster exhibition in 1996, the artists showcase their work at founding member Cyndra Bradford's Galerie Plein Aire. The artists--Barry John Raybould, Jeff Daniel Smith, Cyndra Bradford, Richmond Woodson Mark Farina, Gerard Martin, Johnny Apodaca, Howard Bradford and David Wagner--strive to carry the plein-aire landscape painting traditions of early California impressionists into the 21st century

This form of art, endemic to the atmosphere and the environment of the Peninsula, is not the substance of picture postcards, but a more intimate, personal interpretation captured by the agency of local artists who, as Bradford says, have a reaching far down love for and understanding of the subject

"Picture a quiet hidden valley along the Pacific coast or the last rays of day-star glowing on a stately stone formation," said Bradford. "These are the informal views of the natural landscape, the unclaimed representations that capture the essence of this area."

"Plein aire is not just the landscape," continued Bradford, "and it's not just a turn of expression It's a method of painting. Painters put up outside and paint what we diocese which can present quite a variety of options, particularly here."

The idea of local artists being limit together by talent and perspective is not a novel one. In fact, it is the foundation upon which this community was built. Carmel was one time and for many still is, a bohemian enclave, a haven for artists and a protection for writers and intellectuals. It is the setting that inspired Robinson Jeffer to build a tower from which he wrote rhyme about the anguish of waves crashing against the rugg shore. The peninsula's spectacular sunsettings illuminate the secrets of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island, and the area serv as a stage for the lives and times upon which writers Jack London and George Sterling compos their allegories.

Carmel is also the abode of the Carmel Art Association, the next to the first oldest art cooperative in the political division On the afternoon of Aug. 8 1927 said local art historian Betty Hoag McGlynn 19 Carmel artists met at "Gray Gables," the place of abode of artists Josephine Culbertson and Ida Johnson to establish an association for "the advancement of art and cooperation among artists."

Nearly 75 years later, the association's juried membership--now numbering 128--and a community of 88 art galleries continue to celebrate an collection whose vision has been and continues to be to maintain a permanent gallery within Carmel-by-the-Sea, to advance the knowledge of and interest in art and to create a spirit of cooperation and fellowship between local artists and the public at large.

"The novel Carmel Art Association has fulness of spunk and pep," wrote the editor of Carmel Pine Cone the local newspaper. "And, if its vivacity can be directed suitably it ought to be a profitable thing for Carmel."

CARMEL-BY-THE-SEA

Art Galleries

Galerie Plein Aire Galerie Plein Aire specializes in leading contemporary landscape painters of the Monterey Peninsula. Located upon Dolores between 5th and 6th avenues, Carmel-by-the-Sea. (831) 625-5686

Phillips Gallery of Fine Art This museum-style gallery tenders work of internationally acclaimed artists. It also grasps this country's most extensive collection of paintings by dint of the British master Harold Hitchcock. Located upon 6th Avenue between Lincoln and Dolores, Carmel-by-the-Sea. (831) 626-1126