Jan French

Artist Statement

I have focused on a more or less academic study of the progenitors of the artists I most admire, the California Impressionists from the (previous) turn of the century. They were holding the ground gained by the French Impressionists in all their youthful fervor, and settling in to portray more realistically their vanishing world. Their new aesthetic tools were refined by a comprehension of classical standards, the time-honored foundations that give solidity to any art form. Those foundations developed in the human mind in a response to certain natural and timeless visual laws. Where better to find those laws in operation than in unspoiled landscape? Out there one sees pure Design, unaltered by cultural trends.
More recently I have applied that same analysis of style and technique to my own work, figuring out what “feels” right and how it happened.
Winslow Homer advised “...when you paint, try to put down exactly what you see. Whatever else you have to offer will come out anyway.” I hope to succeed in training my eye to a purer vision.