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Closing day for this exhibit at the Pasadena Museum of California Art. I’m glad I got there! The number of Payne artworks in the several rooms is plentiful and straightforwardly arranged to reveal Payne’s progression. He believed in “seeking the sublime”, and found it it nature.
His favorite mountain range was the Sierra Nevada, because of the coloration - not just granitic in origin like European Alps, the Sierra Nevada displays dynamic volcanic activity. Mineral ledges have eroded to view, and the slopes are precipitous and mountain lakes rest below in scoured out glacial depressions.
His favorite area was around Big Pine - a part of the Sierra I haven’t visited much.
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He also went to Canyon De Chelly, a place John and I went to this April. It’s really satisfying to view these paintings because I love these places deeply and with great reverence.
He thought seascapes were the measure of an artist - perhaps I agree, and I loved some of his. His later work, in Europe, of Swiss Alps and Italian boats I found less engaging. He had changed his style for the European mountain pictures, using a heavier impasto on the skies broken by pink fractured triangles, producing a matte, dulled effect. The boats I just found repetitive - a device for dealing with composition, but still a figurative one. I wonder if he had experimented with abstraction, what would have happened to his paintings. Probably too late - he had painted vigorously for many years by that time.
I do know I’ll have to go back and try some more landscapes and some work in the Sierras myself before I’m done here. I’m already planning a trip to Big PIne!
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