Creative Scene Investigation

 My Professor recently asked me a question: "I notice that the title is "sunrise". Interesting. A meteorological question for you. Can an ordinary person or even a professional meteorologist discern sunset from sunrise in art? And if so, how? To me, this is a 'perfect' sunset painting."

#2534 "Sunrise on the Killbear Jumping Rocks"

I am honoured to provide an answer for my Professor and friend. I have thought about these things an inordinate amount of time. Perhaps I have always had my head in the clouds and for me, that has been a good thing. Nature and the real atmosphere have been valuable classrooms for me - as much as the fine  universities I have attended. When en plein air and surrounded by the everyday world, I simply observe and questions appear. Possible explanations drift through my consciousness and play like movies in my mind. 

I have compiled the answers to those questions into a body of work that I call Creative Scene Investigation. CSI is not to be confused with the TV show of a similar title. Nobody dies. The laws of science are something that you can put your faith in. They are not subject to the whims of humans. We are not moving at the speed of light so there is no need to invoke Einstein's Special or General Relativity Theories. 

I developed and validated these CSI concepts using my own paintings - fully aware of the time, location and direction of view of  each work. I have kept detailed records from the very start of my artistic journey in 1967. It is quite a library of art that now comprises 2559 paintings. My Fine Art America site includes about 2000 of those works. 

The Group of Seven
with Barker Fairley (fourth from left),
Arts and Letters Club, Toronto, 1920.

I then validated these CSI principles on an independent sample. Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven really loved to paint en plein air and they greatly inspired my artistic ramblings as well. Tom and the Group faithfully observed, recorded and interpreted the honesty of nature that inspired them.  They included enough clues in their work that I was able to apply CSI and appreciate the subjects that caught their eye. It was as if I was standing with them and appreciating the same views of nature while they painted. 

This effort morphed into a series of presentations that I started to give in the mid 1980's. The talks went by various names and have been presented across Canada whenever and wherever there was a group who was passionate about these artists, understanding the beauty of nature and wondering "why" they painted. Googling "Tom Thomson Was a Weatherman" will turn up the details of a few of those events. I wrote a book with that title but the publishers were not interested. 

CSI involves the close examination of the art and applying the appropriate bits of science to whatever might be included in the painting. The science might come from climatology, meteorology, atmospheric optics, astronomy, biology, geology - the list goes on and continues to grow. This is not to say that it is impossible to make a mistake – it is just that it helps to really investigate and think about what the artist was contemplating. The more facts that you have that point in a particular direction, the more confident you can be about your conclusion. You could still be wrong but you will learn from that mistake as well. 

CSI tries to answer the Five questions of any good story. 

• Who is it about?
• What happened?
• When did it take place?
• Where did it take place?
• Why did it happen?

The first question pretty obvious if we know anything about the artist. CSI really dives deep into answering what, when and where which often reduces to the time of day OR which way is north? Having answered the first four questions allows us to get into the mind of the artist to better understand "why". 

The complete body of work that comprises Creative Scene Investigation is much too long for a single Blog entry but I have decided to mix in more CSI details here. CSI entries will be mixed in with my ongoing Blogs on meteorology and material that did not get published before I officially retired on Groundhog Day in 2011. One never fully retires...

Here are a few of the CSI applications that I will explain in more detail. 

The clouds and weather are my favourite place to start CSI. What is the cloud type and height? Is the atmosphere stable or unstable? Are the clouds frontlit or backlit?  What is the wind direction at cloud height from the cloud shape? What is the relative wind speed? Where is the sun? What is the time? What is the season? What is the angle of view? There are many questions and each painting might ask a few more that are not included in the summary. 

Finally, I apply a bit of knowledge from how artists typically work. If the art is a plein air work, artists tend to paint the colourful side of a subject with the sun on their back. It simply feels good. Painting looking into the sun is hard on your eyes and one is viewing the shadowed side of the subject while developing cataracts. Typically not good. The angle of a plein air artist’s view can be very much like a sundial. 

#2522 "Singleton Sheared ???? Anvil"

This may not be rocket science, brain surgery or even rocket surgery but it is science… and it is fun... Much more to come. 

Keep you paddle in the water and warmest regards... 

Phil the Forecaster Chadwick