THE SWASHBUCKLING CHARACTER is well known. He engages in sword fights on the prow of a ship, then leaps to make the fatal blow. He scales castle walls or rock faces. We are on his side. In sum, he is fearless in the face of hardship and Nature.
And so it is with a new kind of character on the American art scene: the swashbuckling plein air painter. There is no weather too hot, no mosquito-infested forest too daunting, and no ocean cliff too high to set up the easel. Then, our hero posts the exploit on Instagram.
That’s where we are today. In this description, I have turned the sincere craftsmen into a kind of cartoon character, of course. Not a few people today are trying to be a "YouTube star," so we could predict that plein air painters would take up the trend as well.
Some painters update us daily (even hourly!) on their painting. Others commence on a painting “challenge”—several days straight of painting outdoors, sometimes on a camping hike, all of it posted online as it unfolds. Then there’s the painter who posted his map of European sites, followed by daily posts of his paintings at each. A woman painter does likewise for a ten-days-and-ten-paintings marathon at picturesque locations.
In this era of Reality TV, outdoor painting is no longer for the faint hearted or the circumspect. Nevertheless, even “heroic” painting boils down to the basic thing every painter has to do, whether in a studio or outdoors, fast or slow. In this view, painters make lifestyle choices, and some pick the swashbuckling one, others do not.
While some have likened the recent plein air “movement" to the "new golf"—relaxing, skillful, and social—another analogy is competitive sport. Many artists who advertise themselves as plein air Spartans are in it for the competition, either in a contest or in establishing a marketing brand. The brand is this: Rapid painting outdoors is harder than any other kind of painting, which makes it at least romantic, if not heroic.
Like all sports, plein air painting accumulates a specialized equipment. Paint box, tripod, palette, umbrella, and broad-brimmed hat. There is also style. One delightful account of German and French outdoor painters in Italy in the 1800s notes how the Germans hunkered down to limn infinitesimal detail, while the French slathered on paint "a finger thick."
The thick approach has become the norm, and adds to the romance. It is not only wrestling with Nature, but now wrestling with mounds of unruly paint. The artist who can do so methodically, and quickly, rises above the crowd for the obvious skill and experience displayed.
Now we have iPhone cameras and You Tube. Not a few plein air painters have gone this route. Some affix banners to the side of their SUVs saying, “Mary Jones, Plein Air Painter,” as they travel about. There are now glossy plein air magazines, acres of online promotion, and a few hundred annual plein air contests across the nation.
It is usually the younger painters, reared in the digital world, who were first to take their swashbuckling onto the Internet. They have the physical stamina and a future to build in a crowded market. They dominate the “extreme sport” end of outdoor painting, while the growing number of older folks who do outdoor painting tend to favor the softer “Sunday painter” mode.
In a digital age of media “influencers,” who can blame the painters? Make no mistake, though. Every painter would rather be sitting in the shade, with good light and refreshments at hand, to make it as easy as possible to produce a good painting. Yet to be like the swordsman on the ship, one must make the exertion. Then: lights, camera, action.