Happened to flip to the History Channel as it was airing Behind The Da Vinci Code tonight and came across Nicolas Poussin‘s painting Et in Arcadia ego

Pretty interesting theories about how Poussin used the 5 pointed star and that there’s an area in France where all 5 monasteries are within the exact distance and can be made up to make the Order of the Eastern Star, according to a friend, Oz Sultan, who knows more about these things than I do.

While there’s not video clip I can embed here – I did find reference to the Poussin Code

In The Shepherds of Arcadia II the angle of the staff of the shepherd on the left is significant. There is a deep score in the paint at a 75-degree angle, which shows how important it was for it to be exactly right. This angle is the same as the left hand cliff on Mt. Cardou. There are two dramatically opposed cliffs with a pyramidal formation above and between them, Initiates in the mysteries of the Languedoc used the 75-degree angle to denote the tomb of Mary Magdalene and her descendants on Mt. Cardou. Many polygons were contained in the geometry, and they could be determined by the angle of the staffs as well. The Poussin painting contains a pentagram and a Star of David hexagram, as well as a 12-pointed dodecagram. The group of shepherds with their staffs is perfectly balanced within the geometry.

The Da Vinci Code raised the church’s ire because it postulated that Mary Magdalene and Jesus were married and had children, but the Vatican has not issued pronouncements about Angels & Demons, despite a story line about a murderous secret society within the church.

U.S. actor Tom Hanks, left, Israeli actress Ayelet Zurer, centre, and British actor Ewan McGregor arrive for the world premiere of Angels and Demons in Rome on Monday. (Andrew Medichini/The Associated Press)

I worked on Into the Blue, the painting I started last week; I wasn’t sure it was done but the work I did, while I moved it further along (and maybe it is done – or I’m just sick of it – which is more or less, the same thing) makes me wonder if I had been better off to leave it alone.

In other words, I challenge the idea that continually working on paintings makes them better …. I don’t think it does in many cases.

Let’s see what you think of the two versions of the same thing – did you like the “before” or “after” version, or do you like/dislike both?

Before

Not bad, it seemed to have what it needed except for one thing in the middle, an extra dab of red – that’s what I started with today – and looke what I ended up with.

After

I advanced the painting much further – but is it really better?

I’m reminded of Delacroix’s saying that “one always has to spoil a painting a little to finish it“.

But, while I won’t paint on Into the Blue any more, I am not sure I got anything more by working on it more – in fact, I lost much of the freshness I had and replaced it with some push/pull/popping color stuff – but did I achieve any more, really? Probably not.

So people to tell me to keep on working on stuff – do more than one sitting – do several sittings … on one painting – consider this – if you can’t finish a painting in one sitting – you probably won’t be able to finish it in two, six or ten sittings.

More may some times be required, but in a lot of cases, I believe, the best is done quickly and in the beginning and the best execution is one that allows the beginning to remain as a permanent fixture of the work.

I also felt unready to start something new and realized it’s often easier to have work to go back to – that it’s not necessary to start something new all the time – and it might actually be too much pressure to expect myself to do that.

Again I questioned why I bother to have a studio if all I do there is come one a week for a couple of hours – even though it feels good being there – when I’m there. Fact is, often I choose not to be painting when I could be – often I’d rather party and go to art openings or museums and see art, and not so much be locked away, somewhere, producing it.

But without actually having a place to do it – do Art, can I really fully participate as both an artist and art blogger?

I don’t think I can.

On another note, I went back to the Metropolitan Museum last night to see the Nicolas Poussin exhibition again and it was great – I even took the audio tour this time plus I got to appreicate how Poussin constructed his paintings – his concept of “modes” of painting and how Paul Cezanne also contructed his paintings – but not in the same way.

Idea being that nature is a “dictionary” or resource – along with a story or stories to be told – Poussin told stories and composed his pictures to tell the story as best he could – he probably chose his palate different depending what “mode” his painting was intended to express (along with the times of day – of which there were 4, morning, noon, evening and night).

Cezanne’s approach was much different – he composed his paintings from everyday objects – but he constructed much as Poussin did – even if the vocabulary was entirely different along with the painting technique.

At the end of the day, both painters created works that blend emotion and intellect (who says you have to have one or the other) and while Poussin and Cezanne’s work can be appreciated visually, without knowing anything else about the painting or the ideas of the painter- in both cases, knowing what the painting is about – or what the painter is aiming for, brings a much greater dimension to both painters’ work.

Enough for one post – this could have been two or three posts had I wanted to make it so.

I went to a party last night for the 40th birthday of Spot Draves (I interviewed Spot last year at ArtNewYorkCity, Webmetricsguru and SmartMobs) in the East Village (3rd street and Avenue A, to be exact).

The party turned out to be very much an art crowd, several well connected Artists, Dealers, Writers and Producers/Publishers were there and many people who wanted to mingle.

It was a lot of fun – I stayed 3 hours, till right after midnight and left, though I could have and maybe should have stayed longer.

Made many new contacts and gave out perhaps 20 cards to people, most who didn’t have cards to give back to me but who will hopefully look up this blog and the work I do.

Into The Blue – Oil Pastel on Canvas Paper – 36″x72″ – Marshall Sponder, 2008

Anyway – before I came to Spot Draves party I was over at my studio painting for a few hours and did this work – which I suppose might not be done – but which I decided to stop (looked better than I thought it would) called “Into the Blue” (above).

Been working out a lot of feelings and was having a hard time getting started yesterday – found that painting realistically wasn’t working for me and I started with the idea of “waves” that I saw in the Gustav Courbet exhibition at the Metropolitan on Friday night

(see Friday night jaunt at the Metropolitan – best ever ).

While I had both the Corbet and Poussin show in my mind while painting this – the Courbet exhibition dominated my thoughts with the idea of “ocean waves” while Nicolas Poussin’s  uncanny sense of cobalt green’s and light olive colors, that it’s much easier to see in person, (looking at the work – Poussin’s more subtle passages of color and lightness don’t come across as well in the photos of Poussin’s landscape paintings which was the subject of the Metropolitan exhibition – but they are present if you are viewing the paintings directly on).

Someone I spoke to at Spot Draves party last night is a painter and teaches painting in New York and saw the Poussin show – he said that Poussin’s later drawings showed signs of a nervous shake – something I wasn’t aware of (maybe Nicolas Poussin got lead poisoning or something other disease that caused tremors – didn’t know about it – now I have to go back and take a closer look and the drawings and paintings). The same guy said many of those landscapes attributed to Poussin were not really by him – but I don’t know for sure if that’s true or not.

And thought about all those things as I painted – and let my feelings out – full force – Into The Blue.