The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak. – Hans Hoffman
The Not-So-Simple Art of Simplification
Any good landscape painting I’ve ever done was also simple. Whether it was a plein air painting that took an hour or a large studio painting that took months, I had to find a way to translate nature’s detail and complexity into a visual statement that made sense not only to me, but to the viewer.
Landscape painters, of course, don’t have an exclusive on this process. Still life, figurative or abstract painters also simplify. But because the landscape is so vast and filled with so much information — and at times terribly disorganized — the landscapist must look more deeply and then simplify in more radical ways.
The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak. – Hans Hoffman
Learning how to simplify is not a simple thing, however. 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. Simplification is the ultimate perceptual exercise for the landscape painter. It is a process that evolves through conscious observation and practice. It requires creative distillation, extracting the most basic elements of the landscape and organizing them into a coherent whole.
Discovery Sunset by Mitchell Albala, 2001, oil on panel, 10 x 10
The painting at left demonstrates simplification in action. Complex forms, loaded with surface detail, such as the trees and grasses, are not picked over with a small brush; instead, they are reduced to their fundamental shapes and planes. Everything is rendered with an economy of brush strokes. The size of each stroke also complements the shape it is describing.
The Language of Landscape
Simplification can be likened to a special language designed for describing the landscape. Nature provides painters with so much detail and so much space that it is impossible to capture it all. The painter can never paint every leaf or blade of grass, every branch or every stone. That’s a job best left to the camera. Instead, the painter must figure out how to translate a living and complex scene into a set of simpler shapes and patterns that stand in for the original scene. We might say that landscape painters learn to “speak” and express themselves in shorter sentences and simpler phrases; perhaps even creating new words to take the place of ten others.
A painter continually searches for the lowest common denominator — the single “word” or brush stroke that will convey meaning in the most economical fashion. The symbols or marks the painter chooses can never be the actual landscape, but they can communicate the same emotion and serve as an analogy to the impression. Simplification is not just a stylistic preference, it is a visual imperative. It is not a single idea imposed at one stage of a painting, but a way of seeing the world that is fostered at every stage.
The maxim “less is more” was brought into the popular lexicon by architect Mies van der Rohe. It speaks to the integrity, beauty and soundness of a design that eliminates all but what is essential to the solution. The maxim applies just as readily to art, and particularly well to landscape painting. Landscape painting insists that artists learn to see the world in a new way — in its most basic, essential forms.
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.
Simplification is not an isolated act, but interwoven into the consciousness of landscape painting. At every step, through conception, site selection, composition, color and even technique, the landscapist’s eye is bent upon this purpose.
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Simplifying a Painting
“We all recognize the importance of editing, but that is just one of many ways to deal with simplification,” says Keiko Tanabe. “Other than deciding what to leave in and what to leave out, what else can we do?”
By Keiko Tanabe
How does one simplify a complex scene in a painting? My approach to this question starts with having a vision. I want to have a solid idea about what I want to communicate and what I want to achieve in a painting before I begin. I use this as a guide to make some of the important creative decisions including simplification. Whether your decision to simplify is planned or spontaneous, I believe it should follow your initial vision. This way the decisions can work consistently to create a more cohesive image at the end.
Some may think that simplifying means eliminating details. We all recognize the importance of editing, but that is just one of many ways to deal with simplification. Other than deciding what to leave in and what to leave out, what else can we do?
Let’s look at a painting I did at Balboa Park in San Diego as an example. I was at the main plaza of this popular park. Always crowded with visitors, this place offers a variety of views that include Spanish-Colonial-style buildings, fountains, statues, trees, potted plants, vendors, umbrellas of outdoor cafes, cars, trams, etc. I especially liked the morning light illuminating the scene, but I only had a short time to capture it. I needed to interpret the scene quickly to understand which elements to keep and which to eliminate or change, as it would be overwhelming to incorporate everything in the painting.
First I chose to crop the entire scene and focus on a view of one statue and the hustle and bustle near it. Then I decided to eliminate the objects that were not integral to the story I wished to tell, such as potted plants and street lights. Using a big brush, I laid down the first wash.
Because I made my brushstrokes as big as possible and kept the number of strokes minimal, it was done in minutes. After the first wash, I added the darks, again using minimal brushstrokes.
By squinting to identify light and dark areas, I tried to keep the value structure in the scene as simple as possible. I was also able to eliminate some of the small, unnecessary details this way.
Using a limited palette, I dropped paint onto the wet paper to create abstracted trees, and kept things simple by only including one car. In order to keep the impression of a busy scene without creating too much complexity, I painted a few of the figures realistically, and suggested the rest.
Because of my limited palette, I was able to create a simplified yet harmonious color scheme in the painting. I finished this painting in 40 minutes, needing only a simple idea and a few materials (3 brushes, less than 10 colors, and paper). Ultimately, all the decisions I made while simplifying this view were influenced by the vision I had at the beginning.
There are many ways to deal with complexity, and there is no formulaic answer to the question of how to simplify it. We can simplify design elements, composition, brushwork, subject, materials, and even the idea or concept we start a painting with. The important thing is that all of the decisions to simplify support the artist’s vision. As long as it works, we can attempt anything in order to simplify the scene.
In this PleinAir Podcast with Eric Rhoads, Keiko Tanabe tells us one of the best things she did early in her career to help her path to success, what it was like to quit her “day job” and become a full-time artist, and much more.
