Klimt - Go With The Glow

Klimt – Attersee – Leopold Museum


I truly can loose myself in this painting. Klimt came to landscape painting late in his working life, and, although he is most widely known for his nudes, I find his landscape work mesmerizing.

He’s captured ‘forever’ in this piece by just plying blue against green against violet… so much said with so little, but said so well.



Gail Sauter - Journal: A Painter On Painting

Kokoschka: On Making Ugly Art

Kokoschka – Prometheus Triptych (left hand panel) - Courtauld Institute of Art

One thing’s for sure – when you walk into a room with a painting by Oskar Kokoschka in it, you may love it or hate it but you definitely can’t ignore it!

I leafed through my Kokoschka book today in my studio. It isn’t one that I look at often, but I can rely on his work to ‘shake things up’ for me visually. He never fails in this regard.

Today, the question he kept asking me is “do you dare to paint ugly?”

I don’t mean that his work is ugly, but it definitely is unsettling and there is a brutality about it.

So, I buckled down to explore ugliness in painting. I found it quite challenging! In fact, my mind couldn’t even get a handle on what is ugly – what colors, what shapes, what brushstrokes would I use?

Nothing worked – as I used each one, I fell in love with it and it was transformed and no longer ugly … however, it always remained different and jarring.

Now that got me to thinking … if ugly = different, then does beauty = sameness?

And what is sameness?

Boring!! Yes! Now this I understand!! This is something I can paint!

But, Kokoschka took me aside and said “No! It’s been done before”.


Gail Sauter - Journal: A Painter On Painting

Caillebotte: Compositional Merry-Go-Round

Caillebotte - Les Raboteurs des Parquet - Musee D'Orsay

This is such a simple and straight forward presentation of life – you can almost smell the varnish remover and the sweat of these guys working!

Although this painting looks like it could be found in a gallery today, it was actually done in 1875. Caillebotte was a member of the French impressionists. In fact, he funded some of their exhibitions and his purchasing of their work kept many of them afloat financially in the early days.

What I so love about his work is his daring compositions. This painting is a good example of his subtle mastery. The figure on the right directs his gaze (and therefore ours) to the center figure which is linked to the farthest left figure by a pile of shavings on the floor. Above him there is an amazing vertical stripe of turquoise blue and the bright window full of sunshine streaming into the room which leads us down to the strips of scraped floor, or we move on across to the blue wall which leads to some rubble and further on to the wine bottle - but eventually, no matter where you look, you end up with the figures again … and around and around we go.

Upcoming Exhibition
Caillebotte: From Paris to the Sea - March 27 - July 25 - Brookly Museum

Gail Sauter - Journal: A Painter On Painting

Carriera: Examining The Unexplainable

Rosalba Carriera - Self-Portrait - Gallerie dell'Accademia

Ok, ok, so maybe I can’t completely explain why this painting blows me away – here goes anyway!

I first met this painting at the tender age of 17 or so. It was reproduced in the first art book I ever possessed. The artist is Rosalba Carriera and she lived from 1675 to 1757.

First of all, I was amazed that it was painted so long ago. Second of all, I was surprised that it was done by a woman and last of all, I couldn’t believe it was done in pastel.

Three misconceptions about art blown away by one painting!

1. ‘Old art’ could be interesting (remember that I was still a teenager).
2. Women artists did exist (and therefore maybe I could be one too).
3. This wasn’t done in oils? – How could that be?

You know what? I’m still amazed by her work! Don’t you want to invite this person over for a cuppa tea and ask her about her life, her times, her painting? I do!

That is Rosalba’s magic (we’re on a first name basis by now). Yes, some of her portraits are rather fluffed up and powdered by today’s standards, but they glow with humanity – they are real and they reach us across almost 300 years to entice us and tease us … and enlighten us. Thanks, Rosalba.

Gail Sauter - Journal: A Painter On Painting

Matisse: What is art?

Matisse - Vase of Sunflowers - The Hermitage Museum

What is art? Now there’s a question worth chewing on! Personally, I think that art is what happens when a painting etc reaches beyond its frame to live in your memory. If you don’t remember it – it ain’t art! No matter who created it. Art invites the viewer to join with it in creating their own punch line for the story. In other words, not all paintings are art, they may simply be paintings...and the viewer gets to decide which is which.

I choose this particular painting today because I keep revisiting it in my mind’s eye. It’s certainly not one of Matisse’s most famous paintings – so what is it that is entrancing, mysterious, and enticing to me? In searching for the answer to this question I seek to clarify ‘what is art’. As an artist, it seems like an important question to grapple with. After all, I wouldn’t go to a dentist who didn’t understand teeth, and, perhaps most important of all, be able to talk with me about them!

So, what gives this painting its power? For starters, I love the perfectly balanced transitions within the piece – from top to bottom and side to side. Matisse has modulated the background from light to dark, his brushwork moves from active to passive, his colors move from warm to cool. It seems to be filled with color but is very restrained in the range of hues he’s selected – it has a wonderful light-filled glow and that always captivates me.

I see this painting as a precursor for his later works where the environment is of equal importance with the ‘subject’. There is just a small a hint of the patterning that will be such a strong element in his later work. His brushwork has suffused the room surrounding those flowers with ‘personality’ and is as lovingly painted and as alive as are the flowers themselves! It is more than a portrait of sunflowers, it is a portrait of a moment – and that moment is something that I can share with Matisse. It is ‘ours’ – no longer only his, not only mine…and that combination is what makes it art.

Gail Sauter - Journal: A Painter On Painting