RIPPLING CREEKS AND small flowing rivers have always been a favorite in landscape painting. Few painters worth their linseed oil, however, would title such works a “Babbling Brook.” The too-sugary words are hard to escape, nevertheless.
These words came to my mind one morning as I chose to paint a winter creek, standing on a small bridge, which allowed me to avoid the muddy terrain. In the quiet woods, I suppose it was a “babble” I heard, but perhaps more a rustle. Still, with a chuckle, I thought “babbling brook.”
If you’ve ever seen a Bob Ross “The Joy of Painting” television program, it was likely that he spoke about a “babbling brook” as he performed his painting demo, all part of the almost cute way he talked about nature. His self-produced programs aired on PBS and other public stations for a decade beginning in 1983, and reruns can still be easily found. This might not be worth noting, except that Michael Kimmelman, the storied New York Times art critic, once wrote an essay arguing that Ross was “the most influential artist of the twentieth century.”
Though looked down upon by art sophisticates, the home-spun Ross (with his trademark halo of frizzy hair) drew thousands of viewers, young and old, into painting. I’ve met a few of today’s top thirty-to-forty-something landscape painters, and their story is this: they watched Ross in their youth, and that planted the seeds of serious study. Ross also predates the tsunami we now have of instructional CDs that help many painters make a living.
I’m of the older art school generation that never heard of Bob Ross, except accidentally, and long after his heyday I’ve enjoyed the strangely calming effect of a few of his programs, each dedicated to completing a painting. So on that bridge over that gurgling winter creek, I heard the words “babbling brook,” though I’d never be forgiven for making that the title.
larrywithamfineart@gmail.com