art fecundity

I have just recently come across the work
of William Gorge, whose work is clearly
the result of the mating of the work of
Arie Zonneveld and the work of Frances Gearhart.

dutchman in california?

just over a year ago i happened across a website for an artist who was new to me: arie zonneveld.

but i found the site incredibly frustrating because all you got were thumbnails, and most of those without the color.

then clive received a wonderful gift from gerrie in the netherlands -- larger zonneveld images! then i realized even more had been put on youtube! (also from gerrie?)

but the thing that struck me was so improbable i still don't understand it. why does this artist's work look like he came from california?!!

i had never even really considered the fact that there was a "california look," but somehow zonneveld's work reminded me of the work of three california artist of that same time: william rice, frances gearhart, and pedro de lemos.

this strikes me as so uncanny; even when painting in oils, there is a similarity. the choices of scene and the layout, the choices of manners of portraying trees, skies, shadows.

look at all of these flowers!

can you even pick out whose is whose?

even the choices of what flowers to paint; both places no doubt have poppies... but cactus flowers??!

gearhart and de lemos both studied with arthur wesley dow, and rice studied with howard pyle; i wouldn't be surprised if zonneveld had never heard of any of them.

are the landscapes similar, or the trees? was the look by then so ubiquitous that regional differences had evaporated?

no!

and thus we are left with another mystery. but what would life be without regular mystery?