The Spirit of Place

Plein air watercolor ©A. Rutherford

The spirit of place is strong in the Celtic nature.  In a land of such sublime natural beauty how could it not be?  When Christianity was introduced to the Celts, they took quite naturally to the idea of the earth as full of the sacred creative power of God.  Or as poet Gerard Manley Hopkins describes it:  

“The earth is charged with the grandeur of God . . .”

For a plein air artist, the Irish countryside is indeed heaven on earth.

One of my favorite places to paint out in the open air is the Burren region of County Clare in the west of Ireland.   On one such occasion, I was sitting alone on these rocks looking at the scene which you see in the photo below (which I also took that day) in County Clare,  with my small backpack which contained a 11x14 block of my favorite watercolor paper, a plastic palette, a margarine container to hold my water, and a bottle of water and a sack lunch.  Seasoned travelers travel light!

Click on photo to enlarge

The whole point of working from nature for me is the freedom not to be bound by “studio rules,”  to allow myself to breathe in the spirit of the place where I am working and let it speak to me.   In this instance, I might have indicated with a  few light pencil lines where I wanted the horizon to be and some diagonal lines where I wanted to roughly position the rocks.  After a minimal block-in, I just start painting, first the sky, then working my way down and across the page.   I do the first layer of everything generally/lightly in shapes or areas of local color, then with almost calligraphic brush work I add the details, like the rock fissures, the small branches of the tree, the grasses, and maybe strengthen the darks, if they need it.

Click on sketch to enlarge  ©A. Rutherford

Obviously, if I take the time to draw the scene out carefully or make a value sketch, the composition perhaps will be better, the painting stronger.  BUT the sheer exhilarating joy and excitement of “communicating” with nature for me would be lost in the laboriousness of the careful drawing . . . the immediacy of experiencing the place lost as well.   

Let me see if I can explain it better . . . For me, painting nature immediately and intuitively like this would be the same as if I were taking my hands and tracing them caressingly over a loved one’s face to explore it.

When I paint like this, I am caressing Nature’s face.  Nature is whispering back to me in nuance.  It’s like I am saying to the scene, I want to know you intimately, and it reveals itself to my spirit through my eyes and hands.

I am in the environ of the painting, and it is in me.

For me, there is great freedom and joy in painting this way.

Now it hangs matted and framed over the fireplace in my bedroom, where I can lie in my bed, look at it, and be instantly transported to that place, that day, when there was no one for as far as I could see in any direction except me and the spirit of the place.

Irish Compensation 

To make up for the lack of mosquitos, 

snakes and the song of lively insects, 

He filled this land near to groaning with faeries, 

great winged dragons and saints. 

For the leaden low-hung skies, 

He gave vast sage seas rising to meet them 

And low, lambent hills 

adrift with fainéant, cumulus clouds of sheep. 

For the fog that slept low over the land 

He seasoned the air with peat-smoke, rotted loam, salt, 

Cast it with tireless gulls, lonesome hawks 

and the throated melody of thrushes. 

So they would not be wanting for trees, 

He mantled the land with primrose, sloe, gorse and heather, 

Partitioned it with moss-stone fences, 

And jewelled it with low thickets, cairned meadows and ancient bogs, 

For the wanting of grapes, currants, cherries 

and all the fruit of wine, 

He provided gentle. honey-ambered hills 

Thick with oats, grain and barley. 

For respite from the abiding sound of wind, 

and the hissing heave of the sea 

He blessed the people with music, voice, song and poetry 

And inspired them with lyrical places: Ballymurphy, Cork, Tralee 

And to ensure the enduring, endearing solitude. 

Of this stone strewn, virid place 

He hedged it with lonely, castle garrisoned cliffs. 

There to sit and say sonnets to the sea. 

©Christopher Earle