The Arts - Uniquely His Own

A Select Look at Santa Fe Arts, Crafts, Tastes and Styles

The Arts
Uniquely His Own
Robert A. Johnson has the rare ability to capture simple moments in life with a skill reminiscent of the old masters.

By Kent Whipple

The oil paintings of Robert A. Johnson reach the viewer at the point where the visual meets the emotional. Although his subject matter varies from still lifes and landscapes to figures and portraits, his paintings invoke an emotional serenity in the viewer.

While his materials and techniques are classical, Johnson's bold brushwork, fresh and luminous paint, when combined with an expert draftman's eye, give his work a transcendent quality that is uniquely his own.

"When I find something that makes my pulse quicken, whether it is a landscape, a person, flowers, whatever it is - I grab that feeling and try to put it in the painting," the artists says.

"I try to be open and sensitive to what is around me. I draw the inspiration for my paintings from all around me - a certain flower, or a certain object or person; whatever is aesthetically pleasing or has an interesting characteristic that will set my blood going, " he explains.

"It is important to be to be honest to what is in front of me when I paint. Without my personal excitement, the painting will be tepid, and if it is tepid to me, it will be tepid to the viewer. I have been amazed at how well the public can pick up on that.

"When the feeling starts to go, I take a break, go for a walk, or put the painting aside for a couple of days until that excitement comes back.

"Every painting that I do is a response to the beauty of the subject, the canvas, and the materials," Johnson says. His art echoes the classical respect for strong skillful drawing and the foundation of good painting. "I believe that drawing is the most important element in the foundation of the realistic art. I have pursued drawing vigorously, no unusually putting in 12 to 14 hour days working at it," he says.

The Art Student's League of New York played an important part in helping Johnson develop his draftsmanship skills. "I first studied briefly with the late Robert Beverly Hale, probably the greatest instructor ever in anatomy and drawing, and later with Michael Burban, his successor at the Art Student's League," the artist recalls.

"I have always loved to draw. I remember in elementary school I was always drawing. I used to trade sketches for marbles and other toys. Drawing is the foundation of a lot of good art, if not all of it. It helps train your eye, to develop the ability to see the proportional relationship," he believes.

"I try to observe the essential parts of what is in front of me, and then capture it on canvas. I only work from life. I do all my landscapes on-sight. It is a process of observation, the observation itself becomes meditative, I try not to think of myself or the process. You can't get that experience from a photograph," he says.

For Johnson, this process is not an impromptu matter. It has taken many years to develop. "For a painter, it is a very long process before you get to the point where the Muse will run itself," he explains.

"You start working on sketches, the medium, and the vision of what it is you want to accomplish, and it's essential to always be true to what is inside of you. It takes a long time to bring forth what you want to be seen on the canvas."

Johnson was born in Hopewell, Virginia. He attended Duke University on an athletic scholarship, then attended Duke Law School and later received his artistic training at the Art Student's League of New York.

After serving for years as an assistant Attorney General, Johnson packed all his belongings into a trunk and headed for Europe where he spent two years living in the small, rural German village of Kleiningersheim.

"While living Kleiningersheim, I learned German, read a lot, and travelled to see the best art Europe had to offer. I feel that period in my life gave me the confidence to make whatever changes might be necessary to live a fruitful life - including giving my art my best effort" Johnson says.

The painters who he admires most include Rembrandt, Velazquez, and Halsall, all of whom he studied while working as a certified copying at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Johnson was also influenced by the nineteenth and early twentieth century painter Anders Zorn (Sweden), Joaquin Sorolla (Spain), William Werritt Chase (USA), and Winslow Homer (USA).

There were three individuals who also had considerable influence on Johnson's painting and artistic development. First, his brother Ben, who served as the Director of Conservation for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. "Ben pushed, criticized, and encouraged me to set the highest goals and standards of excellence as I was maturing as an artist," Johnson recalls.

The second, and most influential, was the brilliant teacher and master painter, David Leffel. "I studied with David for five years at the Art Student's League of New York. His standards were extremely high and an approach to teaching the principals of painting blended a warm human nature with an ability to articulate the concepts of painting that I have not encountered elsewhere."

The third influence was from the master, Lajos Markos, a Hungarian trained painter, now living in Houston, Texas. "He is now seventy-years-old. I had the good fortune to spend some time at his studio. His constant message to me was 'strive to make it just perfect, Bob.' He did not mean perfect in the tight, photorealistic sense. His paintings are loose and painterly, but perfectly accurate in value, hue, and draftsmanship," Johnson explains.

Robert Johnson's works now hang in many private collections in the United States and abroad. The sizes of his works range from 11" x 14" to 30" x 40". While he has worked in pastels, watercolors, and all drawing media, the majority of his art is done in oil.

"For me, oil is the 'king' of all mediums. It gives color and richness, a range of transparency with color," Johnson says. "I love the beauty of paint itself, the lushness and richness, the color and texture. It's not shoveling the paint on the canvas that attracts me. It is the fact that in a painting you can have lush thickness in one part and a very thin area in another part."

Robert Johnson has the rare ability to observe exciting, simple moments in life and to translate even the commonplace onto canvas with a skill reminiscent of the old masters.