Richard Von White - Philosophical Background - Masters

Masters

The style of art found in paintings by Von is primarily influenced by three masters. Pablo Picasso, Paul Gauguin and Georgia O'Keeffe. This is seen through a strong relationship some aspects of the styles of these three masters of the visual arts. In Von's work there is a similarity in the flat shapes, hard edged colors of Pablo Picasso, as well as a similarity in the inventiveness of their abstraction. There are also similarities in Pablo Picasso's distortions of female body in some of his work with some of Von's work.

It was said that when Paul Gauguin first went to Thati he was amazed at the colours he was painting with, so much brighter due to the strong tropical light as opposed to France where he was formally. The tropical light and bright colors are also a strong feature of the works of Von. Incidentally the breadfruit and Otaheite apple of Jamaica, once indigenous to Tahiti were shipped to Jamaica by captain William Bligh. The sailors of captain Bligh were mesmorised by the most beautiful of women, the women of Tahiti. Paul Gauguin was also inspired by these beauties. Beautiful women are likewise an inspiration to Von and the study of the female form.

Georia O'Keeffe shows an open spatial awareness, and positive link with nature and her surroundings. This can be attributed to the time she spent living in New Mexico. This connection to nature and open spatial arrangement of work can been seen in Von's work as he has also been influenced by O'Keeffe.

From a broad overview, historically the post impressionists are Cezanne, Gauguin, and Vincent van Gogh. Post impressionism later lead to Fauvism. Three note worthy artists of this movement include Matisse, Derain and Dufy. All of modern art has its roots in impressionism, which is similar to how all of modern music has its roots in blues and jazz out which came rock n roll. The innovators of impressionism were Monet, Renoir, Degas, and Toulouse-Lautrec. After post impressionism the most direct continuity was cubism which was invented by Braque, Pabolo Picasso, and Juan Gris. After cubism the most direct move came with the first purely abstract painters of the twenty first century such as Kandinsky, eventually leading to an international abstract art movement including artists such as Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. All of the visual arts are interlinked and connected. Von has studied all the masters and has been in some way influenced by them all. With all these movements that took place in the history of art, Von was born on an island and has interpreted everything in his own way from the time of the impressionists to the present, and invented his own style of painting trying to break new ground and be original in his own way. This style is termed tropical modernism ie von Tropic Mod.