Article by Richard Waugh, from Magazin Art (Winter 2003-2004) courtesy of the publisher.
Renato Muccillo: A Study in Contrasts
“The question of what inspires me to create art is nearly impossible to answer. Art is not a question of inspiration; it’s a question of necessity. Some people communicate what they see with words; I feel my best expressions are painted.” Artist’s Statement
Very few painters achieve artistic success with painting styles as diverse as high realism, impressionism and abstractionism. Yet Renato Muccillo’s masterful use of monochromatic palettes and diffuse light that filters through his uncomplicated landscapes – causing them to fade in and out of focus while capturing the essence of the images – created a surreal atmosphere and near-hypnotic effect on the patrons who attended the White Rock Gallery’s recent group exhibition, On Solid Ground.
Born in 1965 to Italian parents who immigrated to Canada a decade earlier, Muccillo grew up in one of the many ethnic, working class neighbourhoods that give East Vancouver its distinctive cosmopolitan flair. When he was 10 years old, his sister brought him home some oils from the neighbourhood art store where she worked. To encourage Muccillo’s early development as an artist, the proprietor agreed to sell his paintings at the store in return for art supplies and cash.
A self-taught artist, Muccillo attributes his natural inclination to paint as something that developed out of necessity in order for him to communicate with his parents, who spoke very little English when he was a child. “Painting was just something I always did, something that came naturally to me,” he recalls. “For me, it has always been like another mode of communication or expression, much like a language acquired very early on in life.”
Muccillo achieved early success as an artist when an international publisher of limited edition lithographs hired him for his dramatic portrayals of wildlife in a high-realism style. He continued to paint in his detailed, high-realism style for various galleries when he moved to Kelowna in the early 1990’s. However, the meticulous detail required to paint his wildlife scenes began to drain his creative energy after a few years. “The industry was very market-driven at the time,” he recalls “and I began to feel that my artistic expression was being restricted by having to paint only those images that could sell the most lithographs.”
Having lost his inspiration for painting, Muccillo returned to Vancouver and began a self-imposed hiatus. “I had lost all my joy in painting and actually stopped for a few years,” he says. “I just couldn’t bear to be told to paint another wolf, or tiger, or loon … regardless of the royalties.” During that time, he experimented with different styles and expressions, but he was not yet ready to show his work to the public. It was not until 1997, when he attended a Group of Seven exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery, that he rediscovered his passion for painting. The Group of Seven exhibition revitalized Muccillo’s career and inspired him to experiment with pure impressionism. “In high realism,” he explains, “the tight, static images make them appear almost unreal. But I soon realized that nothing in the world really stands still.” He began to paint softer, more simplified images that concentrated more on achieving the effect of atmosphere and light through the use of colour, and then using his ability as an artist to decipher and record those effects. In the absence of detail, his objective became to take the viewer to a sense of time as opposed to a sense of place. “To achieve a sense of time,” he says, “you don’t necessarily have to see everything.”
While there are obvious representational contrasts between high realism and impressionism, Muccillo argues that from a technical perspective, the two opposing styles are surprisingly similar. “Both involve taking a literal image in front of you and playing with it,” he says. “You can take all the pieces sitting in front of you and make whatever you want from them, either a literal or an experimental representation. What I’m trying to achieve is a simple image, with my own translation of that simplicity, while trying at the same time to take the viewer into a state of tranquility or surprise. Whatever the message, I try to keep it as simple and as easy to understand as possible.”
More recently, Muccillo has started to implement the techniques of the English and European masters. He begins by underpainting a white canvas in grey scale or tinted monochrome, and then applies thin glazes of colour over the underpainting. This technique lends itself well to landscapes with heavy atmospheric qualities, especially autumn scenes. Within a few minutes, he has an accurate monochromatic foundation for the painting. He tries to keep his palette fairly simple and save most of the detailed brushwork for the focal point of the image. Like the Masters, Muccillo limits his palette to three or four colours, while striving to maintain a look of balance and harmony. “This limitation of palette wasn’t a conscious decision on the part of the English and European Masters,” he explains. “It was a necessity of the times. Pigments were limited and costly. This limitation has always intrigued me in the sense that, regardless of the absence of colour, luminosity and the effects of colour itself could still be achieved.”
The technique of working on grey-tinted canvases works best with early morning or late evening paintings. It requires Muccillo to look directly into the sun, when the effects of high contrasts and silhouetting come into play. At that point, he determines the overall atmospheric colour and temperature, and then applies a heavy glaze of the colour over the entire canvas. The result is an overall base of colour that helps to harmonize the entire painting. He then mixes a tinted version of the base colour and begins to cut in the basic shapes of the composition. This process allows him to see how the composition is coming together – without the distraction of detail – and to focus solely on the abstract form, shape, and rhythm.
Muccillo describes his style as “somewhere between pure abstractionism and pure impressionism, with an occasional hint of high realism.” He is constantly striving to perfect his skills as a painter, in any style or medium, and to understand how colour itself can have such a profound emotional effect on the viewer. However, an ongoing challenge for him is to see beyond the realm of the obvious as he experiments with abstractionism. As his artistic ability continues to evolve in concert with a path toward pure abstract thought, he is discovering that his personal opinions and insights toward his subject matter are becoming looser than and not as literal as they were earlier in his career. This transformation is evidence in many of the paintings from On Solid Ground. “During the past few years,” he explains, “I have been particularly drawn to rural and urban landscapes, to try to capture the essence of beauty of what remains of the farmlands and rivers. In contrast, the particular vulgarity of heavy industry has also captured my attention. I have been intrigued by the simultaneous offensiveness of the plumes bursting out of smoke stacks with the intense beauty of sunlit smoke.” This is another duality, like contrasts general, that appeals to him.
What ultimately appeals to Muccillo is the working environment and how it pertains to today’s society, whether it is quaint scenes of rural cattle farms or the giant steam plumes of heavy industry. “I am trying to capture the underlying visual beauty of something that would normally be considered unpalatable as far as paintable images go. Those viewing my paintings may not always realize the underlying reasons for the subject matter.” The pieces he is working on for his next exhibition also represent the efforts involved in redeveloping some of the retired industrial sites, particularly along the north arm of the Fraser River (which has also been the subject of his previous paintings) and ultimately celebrating the efforts of those responsible for making those changes. “In doing so,” he says, “I can only hope to make a lasting impression with an accurate representation of this point in history.”
Artist RENATO MUCCILLO’s landscapes have often been compared to those of Dutch masters and 19th Century English artists. However, Muccillo’s images remind us how frequently today’s landscape has been affected and appropriated by man and industry. We are mesmerized at first by the luxurious colours and near miraculous use of light but, on closer inspection, we notice the culvert, the pilings, the log booms, or the distant plume of smoke stacks. Even the farms that serve as subject matters of his paintings leave us wondering if they are viable or abandoned as there is no sign of human life—only the marks left behind by man and machine.
It is a curious relationship between the sheer beauty and effect of light as it hits, or emanates from, intrusive steam plumes. The radiance is gorgeous, the content disquieting. And yet we have grown so accustomed to these elements in our surroundings that we frequently overlook them, taking for granted what is actually there. Muccillo plays on that subtle distraction and steers our eye toward man’s impact on nature by compelling us to recognize, if not falsely sense, nature’s overwhelming beauty. To look upon one of his paintings is, at times, akin to being lured by the siren song of modernity in the context of wished-for romanticism. In the end, we are often inexplicably compelled to look upward to the sky and fix our eyes there, forgetting what we have left, or been left with, below. Perhaps it is for that reason Muccillo’s skies are what we remember most of his landscapes, long after we have walked away from them.
On the opposite end of the spectrum are Muccillo’s expressionist florals and abstracts. They are a shout of release, a slap in the eye needed to wake us from our soporific diversions while celebrating colour for the sake of colour alone. Their joyousness offer a sense of relief, and even rejoicing, in the storm of his landscapes and incredible versatility.
