Press Releases
Arts: Carlin’s Real and Imaginary Landscapes on Display By JOHN KENYON Special to the Planet
I have to say at the outset that I’m an old friend of Jerry Carlin, indeed, a fellow realist and sometime “plein air” artist. Such closeness and affinity make it difficult to lash-out at the odd picture or period that I don’t really like, as I probably would faced with half a cow suspended in formaldehyde in a plate-glass tank! Fortunately I love and admire most of Jerry’s work, so am urging readers to go see some of it for themselves, especially in such an enjoyable setting.
For apart from the daunting business of parking, this modest show livens up two adjacent campus-side destinations, quite rewarding in themselves; the Musical Offering Café and CD store, and the fabulous University Press Books next door. Both are located on Bancroft Way just below Telegraph Avenue.
Three distinct bodies of work are distributed between the two settings—small realistic paintings of Tilden Park and an exploration of a North Berkeley neighborhood in the bookstore, and Jerry’s much larger Imaginary Landscapes in the café. Fortunately three out of 11 of these big semi-abstract works are hung in the back room of the bookstore, close to some little Tilden pictures, enabling us to enjoy—or ponder—the huge leap in size and character from familiar Carlin realism to more flamboyant self-expression.
But first the small works. These range from 11”x14” to 16”x20”, and in the case of the Tilden series, are, rather disarmingly, unframed. Completed on the spot, they have delightful freshness. The paint has been applied in broad vigorous strokes lush enough to make a watercolor-on-paper artist like me green with envy. And green they unashamedly are, especially the foreground meadow featured on almost every one. My own favorites are those where this grassy foreground has been tamed by, say, a left-to-right slope, and dark shadows cast by trees. “Tilden #18” is one I particularly like, with its inky blue-black pines and background hillside of brown eucalypts under a foggy sky. “Tilden # 16” and “Brazilian Room” are other well-integrated compositions.
Apart from their similarly small size—typically 16”x16”—the Berkeley suburban views on the staircase wall near the store entrance are profoundly different from the fresher more spontaneous Tilden pictures. With the exception of “Edie’s Ice Cream Parlor” of 1976, the six street scenes, all painted in 1977, amount to a love affair with four little hillside avenues just below upper Spruce Street; Michigan, Florida, Maryland and Kentucky. Separated by as much as fifteen years from his more recent Tilden series, the paint has a drier, flatter quality, indicating perhaps you can’t be quite as spontaneous when coping with jigsaw-puzzle compositions of front gardens, street trees, curving avenues, stucco houses and cars. Kept a bit somber to calm the busy compositions, the colors here are admirable. Notice for instance the dark orange vehicle in “Maryland Street.”
Carlin has a well-deserved reputation as a “plein air” painter, a term that deserves explanation. Meaning “painting in the open air” as opposed to painting in a studio, this method of working became popular only as romantic landscapes replaced heroic figure compositions, often huge, that required controlled conditions—and collaborations—of a workshop. In the mid-19th century, Camille Corot, among others, pioneered direct outdoor observation, at least by sketches, but by the time of the Impressionists and Monet in particular, it had become common to complete whole paintings “in situ.”
Strict “plein air” painting however, is not Jerry’s only passion, which brings us to the big, radically different canvases he calls Imaginary Landscapes. Patently executed in a studio, these large invented compositions are a surprise in more ways than one. Before looking at the information sheets, available at both counters, I had assumed that such joyful uninhibited pictures must be very recent work, as if Jerry had “paid his dues” and ascended into final freedom, like late Chagall. But not so, for according to the listed dates, they were painted during and slightly after the North Berkeley urban landscapes, and a little before their natural opposites, the Tilden miniatures. It’s as though John Constable interrupted his gentle Suffolk scenes to dash off “Rain, Steam and Speed” before returning to his Salisbury Cathedral series. Perhaps they reveal a yearning for looseness, inventiveness and joyous color—bold reds, frothy pinks, and strident whites, oranges, and pale greens—that the artist had denied himself during his small streetscapes period of 1977.
For what it’s worth, I like most the ones that have recognizable form, like “Farm,” “Cruise Ship,” or “Pink Mountain,” and least the scenes with figures like “City,” though individual preferences become highly subjective when all these pictures demonstrate equal technical skill. It’s your call, and even if they are not your cup of tea—or cappuccino—it’s very pleasant siting in this unpretentious space, enjoying the good food, and listening to the ever-changing classical music.
Missing from this show, and certainly missed by me, are paintings from Jerry’s fairly recent work around Tomales Bay. Larger in some cases that the small works exhibited here, these somber-but-poetic portraits of that strange “seismic” coast, structured an d enlivened by ancient pilings and abandoned walkways are memorable, beautifully resolved paintings.
Not many artist have started out in a profession as respectable and prestigious as the law. Wassily Kandinsky is perhaps the most celebrated. The English painter John Piper is another, as so also is Jerry Carlin. Those of us who value beauty at least as much as justice can rejoice that he as been able to devote the last 34 years to quite a special gift.
Jerome Carlin paintings are on exhibit at the Musical Offering Cafe and University Press Books through October. 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Monday-Friday; 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturdays; noon-5 p.m. Sundays. 2430 Bancroft Way. For more information, call 849-0211.