Words can fail me

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Now I am old I've maybe lost the focus and sharpness. These paintings were done before I learnt portraiture and the figure aren't very good. However, the important thing is the idea rather than my failings as a beginner painter. Do you see I am trying to express philosophical ideas in painting. You can start with the Roman style buildings representing The Renaissance, then come to a year say before the war in Iraq when these were painted. What do you think for then and now in retrospect.

The figures are archetypes, if that is the right word.
http://s214.photobucket.com/user/Mikey_ ... 2.jpg.html

I called this second painting Reason Has No Appeal To Lust For Power.
http://s214.photobucket.com/user/Mikey_ ... ort=3&o=27

They're quite lovely... I like the symbolism with chess and the smooth colours.

Thanks Mootoo. My painting skills have increased considerably since then but I no longer seem to get ideas like this.

They're both very beautiful. Your style is pleasing, great sense of space, pleasing color palette, and you say your figures aren't good but I think they are.

You do have ideas like this, and better skills, and these are good for an early sketch.

Now do it over, because nothing good is easy. The work teaches, but only so much is possible.

Doing it right opens the door for that Cosmic Instruction.

The greats sketched, did comic book level tries, did parts on several boards, then painted over the same canvas several times. The true greats then did another with the best materials, using everything they had learned.

Writing is the same, everything is possible, just not for you. The writer must write and write to find their writers voice. Same letters and words, but without content linked with style, it is weak.

Write an idea in ten pages, strike out nine while keeping the meaning, and write it again. Keep what is you and good, strike out what is weak, and both content rich and a strong writers voice will keep coming to the surface.

What I see, your later paintings are better, and there are flairs of rich color such as the sky behind the geese, and some hint of that shows in these early works. The Rosy Fingers of Dawn, the light and color of Maxfield Parrish, Daybreak, and the flowing cloth of robes.

You took on a lot in one image, and went lazy on the Baluster Rail. It is still strong, but needs a do over to hang on a wall for a few hundred years. I see Post Empire, the rise of art, industry, knowledge, power, meets post industrial, where they still exist, but the meaning has changed.

Do it because the world will never see the view from the eyes of a Blitz Baby again.