“The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.” – Hans Hoffman
At a recent workshop, several students pointed to a cottonwood tree that was gently swaying in the breeze. “How are we going to paint all those leaves?” they asked. “Don’t paint the leaves,” I answered. “Paint the large shapes of light and dark that the leaves create.” One of the fundamental truths the artist-as-translator learns is that larger, simpler shapes and masses convey the essence of a subject better than its details. In fact, if the essential practices of landscape painting were ranked in order of importance, simplification — the ability to translate nature’s complexity into fewer and more readable shapes and patterns — would be at the top of the list. As we study the different types of scenes the landscape offers, it becomes clear that, majestic and inspirational though they may be, they can have a lot of detail and appear quite disorganized. Simplification and massing bring visual order out of chaos, and create clarity from ambiguity.
The four-value exercise in Chapter 5 uses a very limited number of values. Then, by working with flat shapes, without any blending between values, the painter is forced to see the scene in terms of its most fundamental shapes and planes. Chapter 5 also presents a two-value simplification exercise and a tree demonstration.
Simplification and massing are the ultimate perceptual exercises for the landscape painter. Painting or drawing a shape is not difficult, but seeing a shape through layers of surface detail and complexity requires a practiced shift in perception — an ability to see the forest and the trees, which is not our natural tendency. As visual translator, the artist must anticipate how all the information presented by the landscape will be compiled within the painting and perceived in the mind of the viewer. This is the most important task for the landscape painter — to reduce surface story to its lowest visual common denominator and, in doing so, actually give expression to an aesthetic that transcends detail and story.
Those new to interpreting the landscape often think they are compromising when they reduce the scene to simple components. Yet, it is through simplification and the orchestration of a few major shapes that a forceful visual message is created, not through a profusion of detail. By finding and importing basic shapes and patterns into paintings, form and structure become more apparent and the painting becomes more comprehensible to the viewer. It’s easy to paint a thousand points of light with a thousand brushstrokes. It’s much more difficult — and infinitely more eloquent — to paint a thousand points of light with only one hundred strokes.
Planes: a key to massing. An understanding of planes can help painters identify shapes and masses within the landscape. A plane is simply a flat surface. Planes are easy to see on flat ground, streets, and architecture, but they can be harder to discern within the many curvilinear and irregular forms found in nature. Fortunately, planes can be detected by observing that where a plane changes, there is also value change. As you analyze a scene, you not only evaluate value and color, but you consider how each value and each color corresponds to a plane. Look carefully and see if different areas, in part or in whole, fall within a generalized plane. Later in the chapter, several exercises are presented that will help train your eye to see planes and the simplified shapes to which they correspond.
Marc Bohne, Where The Rabbits Are, 2005, oil on panel, 20 x 18 inches. Although a landscape painting may be complex and filled with many details, it is fundamentally an arrangement of simplified shapes and masses. The impact of Where The Rabbits Are is achieved in large part by dividing the composition into a few shapes of simplified values. Smaller notes, such as the various spots of color within the trees on the right, remain subordinate to (by being contained within) the larger shapes.
Additional Resources
The Not-So-Simple Art of Simplification
See more of Marc Bohne’s work at his website.
Landscape Painting: Essential Concepts and Techniques for Plein Air and Studio Practice
Chapter 5: Simplification and Massing
I just taught a short course on the elements and principles of design for an art association I’m a member of. I used several books as reference, including yours (and I gave credit.) It was hard for many of them to simplify their photo reference into four values. Several went directly to sketching full page compositions instead of small thumbnails. Some did get the idea of reducing to the four values. I hope they continue to work at this.
The four-value simplification exercise, although it looks simple in the book, is not an easy exercise. That’s because it isn’t a “direct translation” exercise. It doesn’t ask you to paint things as you see them; rather, it asks you to look more deeply and convert what is seen. There is some invention involved. Additionally, the exercise will certainly be more difficult if the photo reference isn’t good. First, it must be a black and white photo. Second, it needs to have relatively well defined and discrete value zones to begin with. The exercise isn’t to find the four value zones when there aren’t any, but to extract and simplify those zones in subjects that do have them. The biggest reason a photograph will lack discrete value zones is if the subject wasn’t photographed under a cross-light. A cross-light reveal the light side and shadow sides of the forms, which gives it volume. I talk about this in Chapter 5, Site Selection, on pages 72 to 73.
Translating value zones in greyscale was helpful. But then I started looking at Marc Bohne’s work and got completely psyched out. His use of color harmony and value along with whatever his application is (glazing?) just blows me out of the water. If I could only be 50% as good. . . Any ideas on how to develop that level of color/value sensibility?
I used Adobe Photoshop to get the four values by opening the image in Photoshop and then going to Filter > Artistic > Cutout, and selected 4 as adjustment for number of levels, edge simplicity, and edge fidelity. As I am a beginner to landscape paintings I found this very useful to train the eye to see the four basic value zones.