.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
"I paint from a distance. I decide what I am going to do from a distance. The freedom in my work is quite controlled; I don't close my eyes and hope for the best"
(J. Mitchell, quoted in M. Tucker, Joan Mitchell, exh. cat., Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1974).
Saint Martin La Garenne V is named after a region that neighbors Vetheuil, 68 kilometers from Paris, where Joan Mitchell lived and worked beginning in the 1960s. As an artist who found her true inspiration by her natural surroundings, it is not surprising she called this idyllic place in France home for so many years. It was here she would paint some of her most spectacular paintings.
"My paintings aren't about art issues They're about a feeling that comes to me from the outside, from landscape" (quoted in M. Tucker, Joan Mitchell, New York, 1974, p. 6). Rather than painting exactly what she saw, Mitchell allowed the emotions evoked by the expanse of her gardens, the beauty of the Seine, the trees, flowers and changing seasons to inform what and how she painted. "I would rather leave Nature to itself. It is quite beautiful enough as it is. I do not want to improve it...I certainly never mirror it. I would like more to paint what it leaves me with" (Ibid, p. 8). For Mitchell, the stimulus of the landscape was a vehicle for expressing a mood, state of mind or life changing experiences. With its blue, green, yellow and white tones, the color palette of the natural is clearly present in Saint Martin La Garenne V.
Using the structure of the diptych to extend the boundaries of the picture plane, Mitchell skillfully fills both canvases in with urgent intertwining and overlapping brush strokes - resulting in drips, splatters and varying thicknesses of paint. The pair of canvases evokes an airy and harmonious tranquility as intermittent fields of yellow and white introduce light into the composition. Mitchell was a pioneer in the way she utilized multiple canvases and this artistic device became fully incorporated into her practice. In Saint Martin La Garenne V the tension between the formal division of canvases and the lyrical abstraction is essential to holding the composition together allowing Mitchell to present a complete expression of her artistic statement.
In 1988, just a year after Saint Martin La Garenne V was painted, a retrospective of Mitchell's work was organized by Cornell University and travelled to institutions across the United States from Washington, D.C. to San Francisco and Buffalo. In the exhibition catalogue for this exhibition, art historian Judith Binstock highly praised Mitchell's most recent work as a culmination of her personal and professional experiences: "Although she had achieved recognition by the age of thirty, with each passing year Mitchell's painting has continue to become more profound and beautiful. Having mastered the techniques of painting and the rigors of life, she is now at the height of her expressive powers" (J. Bernstock, Joan Mitchell, New York, 1988, p. 199-202).
(J. Mitchell, quoted in M. Tucker, Joan Mitchell, exh. cat., Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1974).
Saint Martin La Garenne V is named after a region that neighbors Vetheuil, 68 kilometers from Paris, where Joan Mitchell lived and worked beginning in the 1960s. As an artist who found her true inspiration by her natural surroundings, it is not surprising she called this idyllic place in France home for so many years. It was here she would paint some of her most spectacular paintings.
"My paintings aren't about art issues They're about a feeling that comes to me from the outside, from landscape" (quoted in M. Tucker, Joan Mitchell, New York, 1974, p. 6). Rather than painting exactly what she saw, Mitchell allowed the emotions evoked by the expanse of her gardens, the beauty of the Seine, the trees, flowers and changing seasons to inform what and how she painted. "I would rather leave Nature to itself. It is quite beautiful enough as it is. I do not want to improve it...I certainly never mirror it. I would like more to paint what it leaves me with" (Ibid, p. 8). For Mitchell, the stimulus of the landscape was a vehicle for expressing a mood, state of mind or life changing experiences. With its blue, green, yellow and white tones, the color palette of the natural is clearly present in Saint Martin La Garenne V.
Using the structure of the diptych to extend the boundaries of the picture plane, Mitchell skillfully fills both canvases in with urgent intertwining and overlapping brush strokes - resulting in drips, splatters and varying thicknesses of paint. The pair of canvases evokes an airy and harmonious tranquility as intermittent fields of yellow and white introduce light into the composition. Mitchell was a pioneer in the way she utilized multiple canvases and this artistic device became fully incorporated into her practice. In Saint Martin La Garenne V the tension between the formal division of canvases and the lyrical abstraction is essential to holding the composition together allowing Mitchell to present a complete expression of her artistic statement.
In 1988, just a year after Saint Martin La Garenne V was painted, a retrospective of Mitchell's work was organized by Cornell University and travelled to institutions across the United States from Washington, D.C. to San Francisco and Buffalo. In the exhibition catalogue for this exhibition, art historian Judith Binstock highly praised Mitchell's most recent work as a culmination of her personal and professional experiences: "Although she had achieved recognition by the age of thirty, with each passing year Mitchell's painting has continue to become more profound and beautiful. Having mastered the techniques of painting and the rigors of life, she is now at the height of her expressive powers" (J. Bernstock, Joan Mitchell, New York, 1988, p. 199-202).