"He is great who is what he is from Nature, and who never reminds us of others."
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Joseph Raffael's romantic journey pauses ever so briefly to share what has
been revealed-revelations so beautiful that we quickly send him on his way
to discover more.

Cezanne and generations of painters before him knew that ultimately nature
stands as the greatest of teachers. Joseph Raffael's homage to natural form
and clear dedication to timeless notions of beauty remain his strength.
Aesthetic issues have some how been abandoned in recent years by numerous
artists whom I believe are humbled by historical achievements. Raffael on
the other hand appears to revel in the challenge. His is an art of honest
and passionate exploration. In both concept as well as technical execution,
his reach is toward that universal manifestation of beauty which Santayana
has called an "expression of the ideal ... the finest flower of human
nature." The paintings of Joseph Raffael are a clear reminder of what it is
about art that we hold dear.

The artist's interest in Eastern thought is not surprising given his
steadfast devotion to the concept of a true human partnership with and
interconnectedness to all living beings. His paintings have long celebrated
the miracle and mystery of life and the environments which sustain it.
However his incorporation of Tibetan Buddhist imagery in the work serves to
accentuate the significance of the tanka intellectually as well as visually.
But on a strictly formal level the inclusion of the tankas in such works as
Illuminations Spring and Illuminations Summer makes for extraordinarily
complex visual poetry. In juxtaposing the tankas over a hand colored
lithograph created over 20 years ago and then restating the combinations in
watercolor, he has created offspring of an entirely different personality.
The intrinsic symmetry of the Buddhist pieces placed dead center on the
organic field of water and marine life produces a sense of unity which on a
purely visual level is not as easily accomplished as it appears. The
artist's reliance upon intuition and experience make it work. Interestingly,
Western art from the golden mean onward has discouraged the centrally
oriented composition. Virtually all of the works in this exhibition adhere
to the tanka's central focus, a perceptual blending of east and west
independent of the more obvious symbolic or conceptual mixing of cultures.
We must also recall that Joseph Albers was an early influence making the
centering of imagery a not so unconventional approach in paying "homage to
the square."

<-- Illuminations- Spring watercolor on paper 60 x 44 1/2 in. 152.4 x 113 cm 2000 --> Illuminations- Summer watercolor on paper 60 1/4 x 44 1/2 in. 153 x 113 cm 2000

Vincent Van Gogh's generation of painters was also drawn to a strong
non-western influence, the Japanese print. The effect of Japanese art on
these earliest of modem painters is well known, but the influence of
Japanese culture moved well beyond its known impact on pictorial space. Van
Gogh for one was truly taken by the non-western perspective on daily life.
"Come now, isn't it almost a true religion which these simple Japanese teach
us, who live in nature as though they themselves were flowers?" (Letter to
Theo-Sept. 1888.) It is no wonder that Vincent Van Gogh, his life and his
art, have meant so much to Joseph Raffael. In View, a self portrait by Van
Gogh is superimposed over Tibetan imagery. It is Van Gogh's suffering and
his response to it which has especially touched Raffael. Suffering exists as
one of the four noble truths of Buddhism and is, in the words of the artist,
"what we share as humans."

View watercolor and acrylic on paper 53 x 44 1/2 in. 134.6 x 113 cm 2000

And just as Van Gogh was impressed by the Japanese artist's need "to live in
nature" and to study a single blade of grass and its ultimate relationship
to all of nature, so too has Joseph Raffael absorbed the non-western point
of view of the interconnectedness of all life forms. In Harvest Moon a pet
cockatoo (Joseph and Lannis Raffael maintain an aviary of pet birds) is
painted on an orange tree branch with an oriental landscape and a freely
brushed border serving as a ground. Spatially this work is extraordinarily
complex. In it the most prominent shape, the white bird, rests on a branch
that transverses the landscape, which very typically portrays an oriental
flatness. Add to the mix the blue sky-like border, which even without
consideration of the dynamics of color within the Buddhist piece, offers us
a breathtakingly beautiful ambiguity.

Harvest Moon watercolor on paper 44 1/2 x 62 in. 113 x 157.5 cm 2000

Although part of the same series, Bird and Tanka is distinctive in the
manner by which the Tibetan tanka integrates with the tropical bird
representation. At first glance, the piece resembles a Medieval tapestry, an
observation which Raffael welcomes. It reveals what the artist calls "an
interweaving of complexities" paralleling life itself as a tapestry in which
"one event, one thought goes to another." Technically, the work is a marvel.
The watercolor medium is shown to full advantage, as the tanka explodes
before us in a full spray of color harnessed masterfully to define every
element of this enormously complex composition. The freely color washed
border in one sense frames the work but in another possesses its own dynamic
as we appear to experience a vaporization of the edge, an abstracted
extension.

Bird and Tanka watercolor on paper 63 1/2 x 44 1/2 in. 161.3 x 113 cm 2000

Photography has long been a valuable tool of Joseph Raffael, using it as a
point of departure and to assist in the early conceptualization phase of the
works. In Millennium as in Bird & Tanka, the bird is photographed and its
cut-out image is carefully placed on the tanka, re-photographed as a unit,
and then re-interpreted in paint. In Millennium, the artist pre-visualized a
favorite white cockatoo on an orange branch in a lush environment of plant
life. The photo montage affirmed his vision, which was a far more logical
juxtaposition than what occurs in Spring Bridge. In this work, a Chinese fan
is placed atop a sheet of scrap paper from the studio which had been used by
the artist to blot his brush. What a truly arresting work results as the
regularity of the fan shape, with its intricate classical oriental decor, is
set against a purely improvised, spontaneously applied ground. It works, and
works very well. Perhaps the artists comfort with such dissonant visual
elements stems from his early works with abstract expressionist painter
James Brooks at Yale back in the 1950s. The spontaneity of the abstract
expressionist method interested him then and perhaps it can be said
continues to reveal itself in more whispered tones. But Spring Bridge
demonstrates the amazing ability of Raffael to appropriate the unexpected.

Millenium watercolor on paper 45 x 67 1/2 in. 114.3 x 171.5 cm 2000

Spring Bridge watercolor on paper 44 1/2 x 65 1/2 in. 1992

In Spirit in which three tropical birds harmonize through color and
placement with the Tibetan circular from, the artist enriches the dark green
border with painterly markings. The freely brushed acrylic presents a
wonderful contrast to the finely tuned technique demonstrated within the red
square. In both works two distinct sensibilities link effectively as one.


 

Spirit watercolor on paper 46 1/4 x 44 1/2 in. 117.5 x 113 cm 2000

In Late Winter Bouquet and The Gift we see the artist returning to the
familiar floral theme but with a wonderful freshness as if approaching the
subject for the very first time. In Winter Light a Chinese vase picked up at
a flee market, with its stylized ceramic flower forms, hold fresh cut garden
flowers against shadowed foliage. Nature has not given man a more beautiful
sight and Raffael manages, as no other artist before him, to extract that
beauty. The device of the Chinese floral vase, the contrasting cold metal
table and the darkened organic ground conceptually and perceptually are a
tribute to the universal and timeless allure of floral beauty. The Gift,
roses given to Lannis Raffael, speak not only of the magnificence of the
flower but also of the delicacy of nature and the need for humankind to see
it as a gift to be cherished.

 

The Gift watercolor on paper 26 x 40 3/4 in. 66 x 103.5 cm 2000

Late Winter Bouquet watercolor on paper 64 1/2 x 44 1/2 in. 163.8 x 113 cm 2000

In Morning Bird Joseph Raffael returns to his signature theme of water and
does so in glorious fashion. The dramatic horizontality of the work adds to
the serenity of this most beautiful of subjects. So convincing is the
portrayal that we expect to hear the chirping of the bird so gingerly
perched on the lily pads. Joseph Raffael is the master of this genre. He
supports a remarkable eye for the romantic in nature, with a level of skill
which is without peer.

Morning Bird  watercolor on paper 17 3/4 x 66 1/4 in. 45.1 x 168.3 cm 2000

Morning at Kodai 2000 is at once an etherial abstraction and a wondrous
document of natural phenomena. In presenting and interpreting this
particular slice of nature, the artist has chosen a perspective in which the
simplest of forms build toward a dramatic illusionary display. Water and sky
are as one establishing a floating stage in which the plants move
rhythmically away from the viewer. Adding richly to this visual treat is the
sense of a gestalt in which the individual disk shaped lily pads are seen by
the eye as individual elements and then as a unified whole. This ³grouping"
effect presents a tasty icing to an already visually luscious work.

Morning at Kodai watercolor on paper 66 3/4 x 44 1/2 in. 169.5 x 113 cm 2000

Along the Way carries a baroque-like quality in which stunningly beautiful
flowering water plants appear to sway horizontally across the work. As in
all of nature, what appears at first glance to be a sameness, is not at all.
The artist has scrutinized each plant--honestly portraying its individual
characteristics and praising that uniqueness. What a lesson we learn daily
along the way--if only we pause to notice and hopefully applaud what is
found. It is said that Beethoven spent as much time in nature as at the
piano and that Einstein spent a lifetime trying to decipher the mystery of
its beauty. The Bible certainly reminds us of Gods pleasure with what He
brought forth. The artist's role is perhaps to remind us of that.

Along The Way watercolor on paper 41 1/2 x 68 in. 105.4 x 172.7 cm 2000

Raffael is dedicated to an imagery that first and foremost is most
meaningful to him. Tigre's Spring recalls a favorite pet, painted in the
twilight of his life within the environment which he loved. This is
obviously a very special portrait, a tribute to a treasured companion. The
form of the cat somewhat concealed by the brush and its natural markings,
emerges with the grace and nobility of a great jungle tiger. Joseph
Raffael's reverence for and admiration of all things living extends also to
the weeds. This is not a generic ground cover but rather individual plants
carefully indicated and painted as if each were atrophied flower.

Tigre's Spring watercolor on paper 41 3/4 x 60 3/4 in. 106 x 154.3 cm 2000