Re: GG: David Blackwood

[Brookemail <wbrooke@uniserve.com>]

Dear Junichi:

David Blackwood is, indeed, a Canadian artist of some national
renown.  I would pause before appropriating the title "famous"
to his name, but most students enrolled in any sort of visual
arts program become familliar with his works. I think that the
national heavyweight champion in the eyes of the general
public (as far as the visual art scene is concerned) goes to
Bateman, which is unfortunate. Bateman's works hang above every
fireplace and mantle across the land--that is to say, if
your household has any prestige. Any struggling artist
simply won't do--no Mary Pratt, David Blackwood, Laurie
Papou, etceteras.

Many galleries and public buildings (schools, recreation centres)
all across Canada are dedicated to artistic luminaries and dignitaries
af many sorts. Unfortunately, the dedication plaques seem to go
(for the most part) ignored by the masses, who are much too busy to
pay mind-time to anything but the greatest of tributes.

> Very Gouldian, isn't it?

Quite so!  One would almost expect the battleship-gray submarine of
Gould's dreams to suddenly break the waterline in a nature-related
Blackwood print, no?

> Are the landscapes of Newfoundland really like what Blackwood
> describes?
>

My accounts, as a westerner (British Columbia) are slightly warped,
of course, but Mr. Blackwood seems to have described  very precisely
the natural conditions that I have seen. But Newfoundland is a
wonderful place; it is colorful and magnificent in its diversity of people,

land, culture--and so on.

In a book somewhere around my library I recall a snippet about
the nature of the F minor prelude and fugue from Book 1 of the Well
Tempered Clavier, singling out the two pieces as being unmatched
in all musical literature in terms of their excellent relation to their key

signature. More simply put, there are no musical pieces in Fminor
which are more inherently Fminor in nature. The book then continues
to draw an example to this unique feel of Fminor to visual art.
I believe the artist mentioned was Albrecht Durer--the European
print artist of so long ago. I'll find the book, and repost the information

when I find it.  Indeed, Blackwood seems to fit right into this
Fminor nature.


Will