Inspiration Fridays! Squint To See Clearly
Squint To See Clearly
I was a junior in high school when I was told by the optometrist, that I needed glasses. It was the first in a series of blows to my youthful invincibility. I lost them within a week along with my fifth set of house keys on the back of the #8 TriMet bus. Unlike the keys, the glasses were never replaced.
“The artist sees what is there and not there.” – Tony Follari
My paintings haven’t suffered from the loss of my glasses. In fact, there is a technique commonly used by us painters called “squinting down“. When you want to see the big shapes, and differences in values more clearly, you squint your eyes to get rid of the details. This gives you a much more solid sense of your forms and the overall composition.
Painting played a huge role in restoring my 2020 vision. One of the exercises commonly prescribed to strengthen your eyes is to look at something near you, and then look out as far as you can into the distance and back again. This is what an artist does. We look out into the world and then back again. Whether we’re looking at a landscape or a model, our eyes are constantly refocusing and reevaluating the world in front of us.
Monet’s Water Lilies are displayed in a figure-8. He designed the display rooms and donated the work to the French state as a symbol of peace. It was installed months after his death in 1927.
I had the opportunity to see Monet’s Water Lilies in person at the Orangerie Museum in Paris last fall. Monet developed cataracts during the last 20 years of his life, but it didn’t slow his passion for paint. In fact, his later works tended to be bolder with more vibrancy and color. He was less concerned with the details, and instead, obsessed over the quality of the atmosphere, that his paintings conveyed. “I’m going blind, and that’s too bad, really too bad. But on the other hand, how fortunate to be forced to look at nothing but heaven.”
I’ve known several painters whose paintings improved when they took their glasses off. Each of our perspectives is completely unique. The way that we see the world is unlike anybody else. That is our gift. Share your vision.