From Eye to Heart to Hand

Terry Sullivan, The American Artist

Early Spring 50x50

In the 1950s, Donald Resnick studied with the great Austrian Expressionist Oskar Kokoschka. "He probably influenced me most," Resnick says, "in making me realize that it was possible to live my life as a complete person by being a painter. His intent in teaching was not to make people into professional artists who haul their work around to galleries. It was really to open our eyes to the miracle of life."

You must have an immediate reaction in your mind. Then you must see the

subject as a whole and record spontaneously—a direct action, not an after-thought. You observe everything simultaneously—or else—if you put the background in as an afterthought, you have nothing but a pretty pattern... You must paint from the eye to the heart to the hand." These remarks, made by Oskar Kokoschka, are from a diary that Long Island, New York, painter Donald Resnick kept of his time in Europe in the late 1950s. Resnick spent two summers studying art with the great Expressionist artist at his "School of Seeing," in Salzburg, Austria. Almost forty years later, these statements reflect much of what Resnick's art is all about-moving from observation to inspiration to creation.

Whether painting the dunes of Long Island's South Shore or the African "dust devils," or wind storms, of the Kalahari desert, Resnick begins his landscapes by observing.

"In my travels," he says, "I do a great deal of looking. I'm really storing up things and experiences, which will later become manifest in a painting. It's very mysterious how the whole process begins. Something moves me, and it remains with me." While visiting a location, Resnick might make a quick graphite sketch so he can recall the moment later. He wouldn't, however, call himself a plein air painter. "The paintings themselves," he says, "are all done in the studio. I never start a picture with a set plan. I wait for a moment of true feeling to come. It's the sensation evoked by the remembrance of the feel of a particular place-its light, space, forms, and colors. And while I paint, I try to keep that initial feeling alive. 

Resnick's work is rather large, with canvases typically ranging from 40" x 60" to 48" x 72". (He also makes square paintings. "I've been doing quite a few 50"-x-50" canvases," he says. "I like the idea of working on a square; I try to see if I can solve its particular formal problem.") For Resnick, large scale satisfies his expressive needs. "I like the sweep and movement I can get working on a larger scale. Even a 40' x 50"' canvas seems a bit small.

So, I rarely make paintings smaller than that. When I've done smaller pieces, they've taken forever. I feel cramped and that I've got to put in every little detail. With a larger painting, there's more freedom and, for me, more spontaneity and joy." 

This spontaneity—this element of "direct action"-manifests itself in the way Resnick embarks on creating a painting. It's true that he'll begin with a very loose sketch of a scene. But it's in his Rockville Centre, New York, studio, where he'll often work on several paintings at once, that the real magic begins. The sketch simply serves to inform me, he says. "And as the painting

progresses, I'm inspired by what happens on the canvas, which can often be a surprise. When I begin, I don't squeeze out a full range of colors. Often, I'll use just one color to start. But before that I'll sit here in my studio for a couple of hours. It's the hardest part of all. I just sit and look at the canvas, my colors, and my brushes. After a time, I'll see a color that feels right, squeeze it out, and begin." As he explains this point, Resnick's expression changes from one of calm contemplation to one of animation, as he mimics brushstrokes in the air with forceful arm movements. You can almost see the transformation as he describes it.

"Once I get the paint on the canvas," he continues, "the work goes very fast. Putting down one color suggests another, and I'll mix the pure colors right on the surface of the work, building up thin layers. Within an hour and a half, a 4' x 6' surface will be completely covered, and I'll feel a great sense of relief. It's really a matter of trusting my intuition."

Resnick's landscapes reveal large masses of forms and shapes, beautiful undulating fields of color, and a magnificent sense of light. One of the most deceiving elements—the texture—in his paintings is linked to this luminescence. From a distance, the surfaces seem bold and rather thickly painted. Up close, however, they are really just covered with thin strokes. In some sections, the bare canvas shows through. This sparseness, along with the absence of any varnish or medium (he only thins the paint with turpentine), results in a bold but light-filled canvas. "In the past," Resnick says, "I was concerned that I should get more paint on the canvas. But I came to the conclusion that as long as I have some thing substantial to say, I don't care how heavily it's painted. I'm not painting by the pound."

The beauty of Resnick's work recalls Kokoschka's remark that painting is not about creating pretty Datterns. The formal quality and power of the shapes is striking. In fact, a somber mood along with a rough sort of elegance pervades the canvases. It's a sense that he relates to when he looks at such modern masters as Edvard Munch (1863-1944) and Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890). "I'm moved," he says, "by the melancholy that affected them, the travails of their lives, and how they looked at nature." That quality can be recognized in the dark mass of trees in Road After Rain and in the drawing Trees and Stream, with the sense of solitude produced by its space and structure.

In his paintings, the artist creates this somber elegance by placing large patches of dark greens, blues, and purples next to lighter earth tones and by building up thin flecks and slash marks of pigment. At first, one might be tempted to say that some of the forms and shapes in his landscapes are oversimplified. After further observation, however, one realizes the work is the product of distillation, an analysis and reduction of the complexity of nature.

Besides painting in oil, Resnick also creates in graphite and pen and ink, and has recently been working on a series of etchings. These drawings and prints are also landscapes, but the small size of the finished drawings (11" x 14", 11" x 15") disguises his slow, labor-intensive mark-making process. In these works, distillation overtakes improvisation. "I do these drawings," he says, "when I want to take a rest from painting. The drawings are more controlled, and I can make them more complex by simply using a kind of crosshatching to build up volumes."

Being a landscape painter has literally taken Resnick places. He has traveled throughout Europe and the United States, especially the Northeast. In 1991, he went to southern Africa to visit his daughter, who was working with the Peace Corps in Botswana. As have many of his trav-els, this trip had a profound effect on his sensibilities. Resnick recalls, "I felt something I never felt in the U.S.: the distinct sensation of being as equally a part of and dependent on nature as the lions, elephants, and hippos among whom we camped."

In The Okavango at Shakawe, there is an exotic but subtle use of color. But there is also a sense of unbalance and pensiveness, most evident in the indistinct greenery in the center of the piece, which seems to negate the landscape's receding space. It is also apparent in the blurry tree branches that appear in the upper right-hand corner of the work. They hover ominously, resembling animals in flight ready to swoop down. It's this type of ambiguity that creates a marvelous tension in Resnick's work.

The paintings he created from his visit to Botswana culminated in a show at the Andrea Marquit Fine Arts gallery in Boston. Speaking about the exhibition, Resnick reveals how his love of the land and of landscape painting are intermingled. He says, "The philosopher Francis Bacon [1561-1626] said, 'Art depends upon men dedicated to nature' As art then needed nature for its development, nature now needs art to help it survive. The subject matter and inspiration of my painting is my love of the particular light and space of a place. Painting is my way of sharing my feelings, and if others in viewing my work experience nature in a new and vital way, and see afresh the natural works that need our protection and care, so much the better." The notions of how the land affects how we see art and how art affects our consciousness of the land are both linked in Resnick's canvases.

These notions also connect him to his former teacher, Kokoschka. "He probably influenced me the most," Resnick says, "in making me realize that it was possible to live my life as a complete person by being a painter. His intent in teaching was not to make people into professional artists who haul their work around to galleries. It was really to open our eyes to the miracle of life, to the fact that this life of ours is a gift. And in using our senses-our eyes, our heads, our hearts-we can share how it is we feel about life with others, whatever medium we choose, be it as a writer, a painter, or just as a better human being. He tried to make us aware of the gravity of life and how important it is to be 'in the moment,' to experience each thing that we look at every day. His teaching had almost nothing to do with technique. We learned how to approach things as a whole." From conception to completion, Resnick's work seems a wonderful embodiment of this sentiment.

Donald Resnick is currently collaborating with the Pulitzer Prizewinning poet Louis Simpson on a book about Long Island. The artist has participated in many exhibitions throughout the country at such galleries and museums as the Portland Museum of Art in Maine, The University of Michigan Museum of Art in Ann Arbor, and The Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. He is represented by Andrea Mar-quit Fine Arts in Boston, Odon Wagner Gallery in Toronto, Canada, and Gallery North in Setauket, New York.