By Daniel Kany
Sunday Portland Press Herald: November 1, 2009
Across Back Cove, oil on canvas, 10 x 80 inches
When you take a photograph of a painting, you distort it. The edges of the frame are supposed to be straight, but they inevitably bulge from the center. Think about standing right next to a telephone pole: as you look up or down, the lines converge. The widest part is the closest point to you. Your brain knows they are straight lines, but your eye actually sees nothing but curves.
That is the essential reality of single-point perspective.
Robert Solotaire (1930-2008) was a painter whose work was largely defined by his complex engagement with perspective. His paintings are precisely rendered, and seem calculated. They tend to be removed from the human aspects of the linear elements of cities and structures.
In his hands, however, perspective was a creative, flexible and subtle tool. Gleason Fine Art is now showing a strong body of 31 works from the last two decades of his life.
When we see such technical and precise painting, we tend to assume the goal of the artist was measured accuracy. Realist painting is a difficult and worthy goal, after all, and it can only be achieved with skill and patience.
Solotaire had all the skill and patience he needed. But the goals, content and wit of his paintings are far more subtle than simple realism. At their best, Solotaire’s paintings revel in the disconnect between perception and cognition; that is, between the way our eyes see things and the way our brains see things.
The exhibition splits itself with clarity. One side of the room is all cityscapes, while the other side contains only industrial scenes. This telling division reveals some important insights to understanding and enjoying Solotaire’s work.
Solotaire was not afraid to make reserved paintings. They don’t tell stories. They tend toward gray skies, even light- and gray-blue water. The paint and colors are dry: although oil, they often emulate gouache techniques of architectural rendering. These are quiet paintings – seemingly simple, but noiselessly poetic.
If you see this show, I suggest you check out the smallest paintings first. Solotaire could really handle a brush, which is most obvious on an intimate scale. This is also true of his works on paper. “Weirton Remembered” combines explosive brushwork and almost giddy rhythms. It is an image of a factory and some houses, but it is hard to see as anything other than a well-painted composition. It is a terrific painting.
Formalism, in my opinion, is the core of Solotaire’s art: the composition of the painting and how the viewer sees it. I think he saw fascinating images in the world and wanted to paint them. This is readily apparent in works such as “Crane V” or “Parachute Jump” – no people, no story, no technology worship, just a fascination with line, value, composition, visual motion and image. These engineered steel structures read easily as exciting, even joyous, paintings.
Solotaire’s portraits of places – his images of
Portland or buildings in New York – are more difficult to fully comprehend, largely because of the viewer’s inclination to insert narrative content into the work. His 10- by 80-inch panorama of
Portland, “Across Back Cove,” is a monumental painting that doesn’t skimp on the details. Yet, almost bizarrely, it is a paragon of calm observation. The artist – a trickster perhaps – has masterfully hidden overt references to perspective systems (you would expect a painting of this orientation to have several). The more you look, the more you see that Solotaire had a very quirky and rather brilliant vision of painting. Solotaire, who passed away a year ago after spending the last 30 years of his life in
Maine, was well liked and widely admired. While I think that his paintings are very intelligent, well-rendered and even important,
I cannot say that everyone will enjoy this show. If the paintings draw you in, you are in for a treat. If, on the other hand, aesthetic coolness is not your thing, the work might leave you cold.
Parachute Jump, oil on canvas
