Need of going to any outdoor location

For a long while, ever since I became serious about on location landscape, one question was always back of the mind. WHY? Why we go to any location, rather than paint in studio from photos or plain imagination? Or memory? Is this insistence due to blind following of impressionists?

Not entirely, though it has a part. Impressionists revolutionized art world, but after some time, revolution stagnates in being establishment. Like communists! So it has been a while that landscape painters, especially in India, have not questioned themselves, on the need or compulsion of going  to a location. And irony is, even the contemporary artist, who look down upon old genres like landscape, insist that going to a spot is a 'must'. So let us ask, why we go to a certain spot and why that particular spot.

Many artists and groups of landscape artists, who go regularly for on location painting, some even weekly, think a lot about bringing in variety while choosing the spots.'Lets go to some hill station; enough of these sea shores'... etc etc. It brings different challenges and questions as a study of different scenes' flora n fauna; and change of architecture style with in city. Fair enough for a beginner. But what about people who have worked for years? Those artists, who are full timers, giving full dedication to landscape; do they also think on these lines? May be not. Yet they do seek different scenes and locations, to bring about variety and induce experiment.

So the question becomes clear. The variety and experiment depend on change of spot or change of vision of the artist? When I travel thousands of miles away from my big city Mumbai, to Himalayas, am I looking for that change in my work in that location? Or going to a river bank will change my work and make it very radically different from my painting of a city road? So what is the creativity of an artist? All these years I have been firm on one principle. That landscape is not an imitation of the nature or architecture . It is an interpretation, borne out of artist's inner search and vision she has acquired over the years of thinking. In essence, the scene in front is just a reference from which the artist has to deviate 'asap' and create her own visual.

But if this need of finding different and suitable locations is justified for the sake of bringing about change and new impetus, then what is all the talk of vision and inner search was about? Is it not the artist's yearning to create his own visual world away from the one already around? 

I think answer is somewhere in the middle.

Go around the world. Not to bring change, but for just refreshing your vision. How I will paint this particular scene, which will not only show some new thought in comparison to my previous works, but also nothing like I have seen before, of this locale by any other artist!

And more importantly, when I am a somewhat prolific painter in water colours and am going to stay at one location for a long time... what new inputs I have brought in my way of thinking? Mind you, way of thinking and vision. Common refrain, of working for few continuous days, of polishing the skills, does not apply to full timers. It should not apply to them as they must be painting full time; hence their skills are already polished and not rusted obviously!

So go around I will say.... keeping in mind that search is always inside and in thoughts. What we see outside is just a reference point!

Doubt

After a long gap, i am back. And this article will be different as i am in mood to share some questions before me. Am not asking for answers or advice but seeking to know if you also get these doubts in your thoughts and while you observe art world in general.

Practically everyday a painting happens. And that may be the case with many of us. Landscape painters who paint on a very regular basis; by regular i mean nearly daily and that too actual painting not other applied stuff, would have had these doubts.

What do i paint so that i don,t repeat myself even remotely?

Those who might have read this blog fully and thoroughly, will know that my philosophy about imitation. To repeat, i hate anyone copying other artists, alive or dead. But i detest any artist copying himself. And by copying i don't mean copying or repeating a particular work many times. Those who repeat or claim to be able to repeat, are not artist at all.

So how do i guard against repeating myself?

The more 'serious' art forms; i say this with irony and sadness that we landscape painters have made it a not-so-serious art form; can take shield behind the fact that those are non representational art forms. The abstract artist, though it is obvious to viewer, will be happy with little changes to a masters visual language and create his/her own. A conceptual artist may use a same thought or concept used by others and put it forward in a different way of expression and call it original, completely ignoring the fact that concept is real soul of that art not expression of it!

But things are not so easy for a experimental landscape artist; the one who doesn't want to repeat.

Each and every type of building, road, city or forest has been painted. And for many artists, especially in India who 'follow' schools of landscape painting, the expression part is also taken care of. So a house under a tree by the road or a heritage monument in a city for that matter, are painted by numerous artists in all ways possible in their each school. So if anyone wants to keep doing that and earn a living, like a clerk does in an office, doing same job for years, then it is his /her wish.

My question is for those who don't want to do that?

How does one artist create original landscape each time? Original in all sense, fulfilling all the parameters which we have discussed before?

I don't have a clear answer. Rather can i say, that it is not possible to put it in words? But one thing is certain. If the artist is aware and even asks himself before he decides to paint something; Am i repeating myself? Have i done this before. And if he is honest, ruthless to herself like she is to others; then he/she will find the answer without putting it into words.

But she has to remember, not to give justifications. Artist even when he makes himself aware will reason it out with oneself. Will justify that this time she will use different colours or different angle or different composition! So even different paper size! Each one of us thinks himself/herself to be an artist who never copies. We even lie to oneself!

So doubt. Keep doubting about your creative thought process and execution part too. Keep doubting if this work will actually come out as original if i execute it as per my plan? And on larger time frame, keep doubting if i am doing the same stuff again and again. Keep questioning oneself if i am a slave to a certain style/ method / subject etc.

An honest and sincere doubt about one's own work, like we doubt others' work very honestly, will stop you from any kind pf repetition. But remember, honesty and sincerity is the key!