Medieval Art and Sublime Landscape Painting
As I have been doing research for Weather Report Suite I've realized that the seasons, weather, and landscapes described in this song are as much key "characters" as any of the other characters are and thus should be a major component of the composition rather than an afterthought. This got me thinking about landscape painting as a whole, but especially the intersection of landscape and pastoral art with biblical art, in particular, Breughel the Elder's paintings and "sublime" landscape paintings such as those by Caspar David Friedrich and The Hudson River School of landscape painters.
As it might be becoming apparent, in addition to being a Deadhead I'm also a huge art history geek. It shouldn't surprise anyone that I spend an inordinate amount of time watching art history documentaries on YouTube. While watching a documentary about Brueghel the Elder recently, it occurred to me how similar Brueghel's work was to the image I had in my head for WRS, especially in regards to the mid and backgrounds. Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1525? - 1569) was a hugely influential painter and printmaker during the Dutch and Flemish Renaissance most well known for his landscape paintings and peasant scenes. He worked in a period where western art was transitioning from "religious only" painting to broader subjects, and his tackling of base subjects such as the daily lives of the peasantry elevated such subjects from the pages of illustrated manuscripts (monks frequently doodled such things in manuscripts they were working on) to the realm of "fine art".
His magnum opus Six Seasons for a Dining Room is of particular interest to me in the context of WRS as it checks all the topical boxes: the cycle of the seasons, folks going about their business, and dramatic landscapes. Six Seasons for a Dining Room is a series of paintings in the popular medieval and Renaissance style of the "Labours of Months'' which depict rural people at everyday tasks throughout the months as a nod to the "natural" (i.e. God-given) order of the world, but in this case, depicting the six seasons culturally acknowledged in the Netherlands at the time: Early Spring, Spring, Early Summer, Late Summer, Autumn, and Winter. Upon closer consideration, it is apparent that WRS is essentially a musical "Labours of the Months" and thus is well suited to be rendered in a style reminiscent of this format, and similar to Six Seasons in a Dining room in particular because of its condensed format (seasons rather than months). This work is also a perfect example of how to arrange figures within a larger landscape to convey a narrative without having them dominate the composition; something I'm going to especially take note of for the Let it Grow component.
The Haymakers-Pieter Brughel the Elder (1565), depicting rural farming activities in Early Summer.
The Hunters in the Snow -Pieter Brueghel the Elder, depicting Winter (1565).
Brueghel’s work is inspiring as to how to divvy up and arrange each narrative element within the composition, but to get a feel for how to actually render those landscapes I took a deep dive into landscape painting, in particular Romantic landscapes, the Hudson River school, and the idea of the “sublime”.
Romanticism (1800 to 1850) was an art, music, literary, and intellectual movement characterized by an emphasis on emotion, philosophy, and the nostalgia-induced idealization and idolization of Nature and a “simpler” (i.e. Medieval or Pagan) way of life. Its emphasis on emotion as the only genuine source of aesthetic inspiration extended to its landscape paintings most notably in the work of Caspar David Friedrich whose work explored a philosophical concept most easily experienced through Nature: sublimity.
Something that is sublime is something that is so overwhelmingly beautiful and grand as to not only induce reverence but fear. It's the feeling that astronauts get from staring back at our “pale blue dot”, feeling people have gotten for centuries staring out at the vastness of the sea from shore or the endless rolling hills from the mountaintop, and the feeling of intense terrifying wonder at the mere existence of reality you can get halfway through an acid trip. It is being filled simultaneously with joy at the power, beauty, and scale of Nature while simultaneously being humbled by your smallness in comparison, and is the most primordial spiritual feeling aside from fear of Death. This sounds a lot like many Grateful Dead songs, especially Weather Report Suite.
Friedrich’s work showcased the sublime wonderfully by setting small figures juxtaposed by the vastness of the landscapes he was painting, with overarching themes of the “triumph of Nature over man’s accomplishments” in the form of ruins in various states of decay, but, like all things Romantic, it is only the idealized form of Nature that we are being awed with. These landscapes are not real places, but fictitious stand-ins for a philosophical point, so stylized that a Friedrich painting can be identified by its very “Friedichian” trees.
Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog - Caspar David Friedrich (1818)
Man and Woman Contemplating the Moon-Caspar David Friedrich (1824)
Monastery Ruins in the Snow-Caspar David Friedrich (1824)
In contrast to this idealized stylization was a growing pushback towards realism in art seen in landscape painting first in the Barbizon School of French painters and then in the Hudson River School. The Hudson River School (school here just referring to a group of artists working in a similar vein and mentoring each other, not an actual school) was the first art movement to originate independently in the US and was typified by work still focusing on sublimity but through the 19th Century American lens: vast rugged landscapes coexisting harmoniously with pastoral scenes of settler life. While fantastical (often with myological components) these landscapes were rooted in realism. Artists following this movement painted or sketched plein air (outdoors on location) to see for themselves the details they were committing to canvas. Asher Brown Durand, a founder of the movement, was a proponent of plein air painting and was of the opinion that every tree, bush, and rock one painted should be painted so as to be clearly identifiable as the kind of tree, bush, or rock it was. One need not idealize Nature to convey the sublime, one only needs to accurately replicate what Nature was already doing. Frederic Edwin Church took this full circle (as I too likely will) and used onsite sketches and plein air studies to create detailed and " accurate" composite landscapes which act as the idealized model of a location or region.
The Oxbow (The Connecticut River near Northampton) --Thomas Cole (1836)
The First Harvest in the Wilderness-Asher Brown Durand (1855)
Cotopaxi--Frederic Edwin Church (1855)
Studying the work of artists before you is a time-honored and critical part of developing as an artist and creating innovative work. Finding what worked for them and how you can incorporate (or not) that into your own work. Looking at Brueghel’s work gives one an idea of how to successfully incorporate busy pastoral scenes into dramatic landscapes, and studying the methods of the Romantics and the Hudson River School gives one insight into how to use the landscape to convey emotion and meaning. The overarching theme of sublimity in these works also ties back to the underlying themes of the cyclical nature of reality and our place in the grand scheme of things that is outlined in Weather Report Suite (and really large portions of the Grateful Dead catalog)
As I progress through brainstorming to sketching and producing studies for the Weather Report Suite painting I see myself digging particularly into the methodology of the Hudson River School. Not only are the works produced by artists within this movement visually inspiring, the aggrandizement of nature through keen attention to detail is in line with my natural proclivities as a painter (like the field of calla lilies in The Bus Came By being from a photo of a field of calla lilies actually in Big Sur), and is only achievable through on-site study. I see some plein air sketching or watercolor studies in my future.
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