Unless the composition is right, any picture, nomatter how skillfully executed, a picture by any system of aesthetics or values one can possibly employ, is only a picture that can be looked at with pleasure, and remembered with pleasure again and again. This is precisely a consequence of the simplicity and directness with which the painter's ideas are presented -- in other words, of the picture's composition.
In my painting "Dead Horse Point" - just the title alone begs the question "What happened here?" But it takes a lot more than that to hold the observer's attention. This painting is quite large (3.5'X5') because it is a very panoramic view and I wanted to give the feeling that one could walk right into it. The truth is that that windswept pine is standing on the edge of a very high precipice. It marks the edge of one of the most beautiful campgrounds I have ever visited. Thia campground is located atop a mesa which, upon entering, is as narrow as the road itself. That narrow road is where the horse rustlers in days of yore built a fence to stop the mustangs from escaping that they had rounded up from the open range. They left them there to die in full view of the confluence of the Greene and Colorado rivers. Many died attempting to reach the water in desperation. Months later the mesa was discovered scattered with the bones of all those beautiful creatures.
The sunsets were exquisite and I spent a week photographing them. Unfortunately, when I was wending my way out of the area towards Moab, I popped open the back of the camera and exposed the film. I cried like a baby for the next two hours. You won't believe how beautiful this place is unless you see it. This painting is reminiscent of my earlier style of using small brushes and large canvases and it was painted from a photograph. It is owned by a doctor in Santa Barbara and I have'nt painted like this since I first moved to Taos, but I chose this painting to illustrate good composition and perspective. Notice how the same type of terrain on the mesa below continues all the way into the distance, but the colors become cooler and hazier (caused by the atmosphere), but it satisfies the eye when it looks into the painting. It is rather like looking through a window.
"Dead Horse Point" (3.5' X 5') Oil on Canvas
