On exhibit at Gardner Colby Gallery in Naples beginning Thursday are a handful of Edward Minoff’s breathtakingly sublime seascapes. In my last article, I described how the classically-trained artist teamed with realist icon Jacob Collins first at the Water Street Atelier and then in the Hudson River Fellowship to hone his skills of observation and presentation of landscape art, of which seascapes is a specialized subset.
From Collins and the Hudson River School painters, Minoff confirmed the importance of study. Not of books or trade journals, as important as they may be. But of the motif. “I have studied the sea for years,” Minoff writes. “In order to gain the freedom to create a composition, a thorough understanding of the subject in three dimensions is necessary.” That entails logging hours at the shore watching waves crash one after another onto the beach, and making copious notes of moments in time. Minoff uses this approach whether he’s painting a figure, a bottle of wine or the ocean.
“I attempt to dissect the anatomy of waves,” he wrote in an article published in the July/August issue of American Artist. “I look for patterns and then try to understand why I am seeing what I see.” As he told American Art Collector for the feature they did on him in their October 2009 edition (vol. 43), “I try to figure things … out. I’ll draw diagrams of my position on the land, including side views, to figure out what is being reflected. I’ll look at the angle of deflection, the angle of incidence, all of that, so when I’m painting it, I can really understand what I’m painting.”
Along with color studies painted on location “and peppered with sand,” Minoff then employs his notes and his understanding of water to invent composites in his studio. But he emphatically eschews photographs. “I use absolutely no photographs - I feel that they cannot accurately capture the true experience of spending time by the water and watching its continual flow. I am trying to recreate that experience.”
What he is trying to recreate is ambitious. “My hope is that you will feel the warmth of the light, hear the crash of the waves and smell the salty sea air as the painting fills your view,” Minoff says.
Mission accomplished. Standing before one of Minoff’s seascapes will have you reaching for your sunscreen and beach umbrella.
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