Lines on a Romney

Lady Hamilton courtesy artrenewal.org.

Quick post tonight. I painted all day up in the deep snow of Cornish New Hampshire, Willard Metcalf land, about a mile from the house where he routinely stayed a hundred years ago. Beautiful but exhausting.

Here are some lines drawn on our portrait. of Lady Ham. The lines have several qualities. They are almost all convex, that is, they are arched shapes, so as to contain the forms within them. They all also face inwards. They have a rhythmic relationship to one another. Rhythmic lines pick up and continue the movement contained in another line to which they relate. Look at the lines of the sleeve wrinkle and the two lines above and to it's right that form the open part of her blouse. They repeat one another in increasing arcs. They also wrap around the forms they describe. Then look at the lines forming the hair behind her, those lines are the opposite of the blouse lines. The lines of her hair rhythmically counterpoint the lines of the blouse and sleeve.

The rhythmic lines give the painting a lively major key feeling. Had the painting been full of angry slashing lines and sharp angles the painting would have given us a different feeling. The message of the painting is carried in the design of the lines that form it, besides in the subject matter. They work together and reinforce one another to describe how the artist feels about his subject. Or at least how he wants us to feel.