Governor’s Park, Quebec City
Edward Loper Sr.
2001
30" x 36"
Oil on canvas

Essay: Harriette Nadler

Edward L. Loper, Sr. is a 90-year-old African American artist from Wilmington, Delaware. His career started in the 1930s when, at 20 years old, he worked with the Works Progress Administration, a federally funded program for artists during the depression. He received training by the American Index of Design which prepared artists to record objects from the decorative arts in a realistic fashion. This led to his participation in the Easel Division, a program which outfitted artists with the materials to paint so they could display their work in public venues. Independently, he studied the work of the Great Masters at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. In the 1940s and 1950s he started to teach art and paint in the Wilmington, Delaware, area. His subjects ranged from buildings to neighborhood and domestic scenes. Subsequently he began to study modern techniques, e.g., cubism and abstract expressionism. After 1960 he began to increase his focus on color for which he is well recognized. Rather than shading, he juxtaposes colors incorporating a glow or permeation of light and works from darks to light and vice versa creating dramatic works of art. He also found new painting locations outside Wilmington, Delaware in New England and Canada.

I have studied painting with Edward Loper Sr. for 6 years. I experienced an immediate connection to Loper’s Governor’s Park, Quebec City, an oil painting on canvas, 30 x 36 inches, because I painted with Loper and his students in the same location. I purchased the painting and placed it in a prime location in my living room. Halfway through course, “Informed Perception,” I realized I did not understand Loper’s picture idea, and I had minimal understanding of how he used plastic means to support his idea. Consequently this art work became the subject of this analysis.

Loper’s main idea was to present a powerful color/light drama set on a horizontal platform and receding into deep tunnel-shaped space from the foreground. The composition is side-pinned or bracketed by massive vertical volumes (‘repoussoirs’) and organized through a rhythmic color movement of undulating (warm/cool, light/dark gradients) or accordion-like vertical planes. The platform is formed by heavy red or brown lines originating from the right wall (extending out of the painting), reaching out towards the edge of the retainer at the base of the left massive tree, and extending along the sides of a darker horizontal band within the central path. On either side of the lighter bolder central plane are two darker cooler planes containing the repoussoir trees and then two lighter warmer planes on each edge of the painting. The three inner vertical planes contain the subject-matter closer to the viewer.

This painting has an underpinning architectural-like structure consisting of strong verticals counterbalanced by some horizontal bands. From the foreground, narrow brilliant warm colors abutting cool colors are banded horizontally along the saw-tooth central path. They are followed by the wall, a resting place stopping the spatial recession and leading up to the trees and sky. Continuing to move vertically, a lower band of cool trees and city scenery on the sides is punctuated by frequent luminous bursts of warm light blue color placed at irregular intervals. Finally the upper canopy of trees is also similarly punctuated with light bursts. These horizontals connect the verticals (planes, lines, and volumes). The trees on each side and buildings and wall on the right also help to connect the horizontal bands.

The broad human qualities of this painting are glow, colorfulness, vividness, richness, powerfulness, massiveness, heaviness, verticality, drama, and angularity. The transferred qualities include that of kaleidoscopes, fireworks, laser shows, and stained glass.

This color/light drama is highly expressive. To a lesser extent it has illustrative qualities as it portrays a city park scene. However, there is little precise detail. It is also, to a slightly lesser extent, decorative. Dramatic dark thick linear edges are used to emphasize important volumes like those around the massive trees, the retainer at base of tree on the left, the horizontal wall, and the buildings. Lights are juxtaposed with darks or warm colors with cool colors, contrasting colors are placed next to each other, and rich bands of color are contained within volumes/spaces. These bands give dimension and direct the eye in different directions—up/down, across, or swirling. There is an absence of decorative patterning, although motifs (squares, angles, and rectangles) are used.

Distortion in the details of volumes, spaces, and line provides a push back into deep space, directs attention to the main idea and the important central vertical plane, and unifies the subject-matter of the painting. Loper used insistent heavy line to contain important volumes and spaces. At times he used a stop and start line of outlined volumes or spaces to assist space recession, such as on the right outlined edge of the curving central path. Each vertical plane is defined by a soft line demarcating warm from cool and light from dark. For example, on the left side of the painting, the soft line demarcating the first and second planes is created by the right edge of the corner pillar that continues with a thin vertical line of light that extends to the left outline of a tree trunk.

The brilliantly colored greatly exaggerated curving large path draws you into the central plane. The important tunnel-shaped space in the central plane results from the unusually large, bracketing trees. The angle of the retainer at the base of the tree on the left is also greatly exaggerated (its angle much greater than 90 degrees, unlike a real retainer) to accomplish the push back in space. The brighter areas of the wall are distorted (slanted to the left) to force the movement to the important central plane. Also the wispy trees along the wall have a similarly distorted curve. The bracketing trees have a gentle arching. All of these ‘left’ distortions echo the movement of the curving path.

The lights vs. darks and warm vs. cool colors along the saw-tooth path also help the rhythmic push back into space. The diagonal on the left formed by the pillar and right side of the tree retainer and the diagonal on the right formed by the bottom edge of the bright wall section, the edge of the bright path on the right, and the base of the massive tree and corner wall imply movement and direct the eye along the central path.

To accentuate the sense of depth, objects in the foreground loom large. For example, the first tree on the left has an unusually large and distorted retainer and the corner pillar also extends out of the painting. The tree on the right is also large with the right wall section and buildings extending out of the painting. These extensions provide a sense of massiveness (fill up of the painting in the foreground, which helps the remainder of the subject-matter recede). In addition, relative positions in space are indicated by the bursts of light sky between tree branches or patches of grass between tree trunks. Trees and buildings in the mid to back ground are smaller. In addition, rhythmically staggered placement of the bracketing trees and nearby objects on either side of the path give a sense of depth.

The painting has textural qualities through use of vigorously and thickly applied bands of colors to fill spaces. Heavy lines or sharp to subtle demarcation between lights and darks (or warm and cool, often contrasting colors) contain the colors in volumes and spaces. Colored bands are reminiscent of those of van Gogh or Cezanne. Colors are permeated with Venetian-like light creating a color glow. The upper canopy has an atmospheric haze (purple red or brown of the trees and the blue or yellow or pink of the sky) present in both the tree tops and light bursts.

Use of color and light are closely intertwined (light/dark and warm/cool contrasts and light-embedded structural color). Light is of varying intensity and colors of varying luminosity throughout the painting. A large arc of luminosity rises up through the left and right sides of the painting and connects horizontally to the trees punctuated by bursts of light sky, especially prominent towards the center. A second arc of luminosity starts with the right side of the central path, rises above the light side of the wall, runs horizontally across the sky to the tops of the visible tree trunks, and then descends on the left side to the foreground. There are also gradual transitions of light to dark in places (the joints between the vertical planes are El Greco-like). In other places there are sharply demarcated lights and darks and warm and cool colors. For example, in the upper right corner, the heavy dark outline of the tree trunk contrasts sharply with the warm light bursts next to the branches.

Volumes are three-dimensional, solid, and distinct units distributed in space in a symmetrical fashion around the central plane and path. The fact that repoussoir trees and the deep space including the central path fill a substantial portion of the painting says “power.” The intervals between volumes are varied as are the degrees of solidity or massiveness of the volumes. The subject-matter within each light vertical plane on the sides of the painting (distant buildings, trees, seaway) is less massive or solid compared to that of the three inside vertical planes. This creates a picturesque variety of volumes. For example, each tree is unique (color, placement, shape, size) but they all say “tree.” Recession into deep space is contrasted by the flattened canopy of trees punctuated by light bursts of sky.

Contrast (light/dark, warm/cool, moderately/highly luminous colors); multidirectional brushstrokes; verticals and horizontals; verticals and angles/arches and swirls) are used to achieve a powerful drama; however, color and light are the most active agents of unification. For example, each vertical plane is unified through use of essentially similar colors (warm vs. cool) and lights vs. darks, respectively.

In addition, warm-colored luminous arcs hinge together the vertical planes and serve as a counterbalance to the echoing verticality (undulating vertical planes, trees, buildings with windows and wall on right, fence posts of walkways to the right, pillar and wall in the bottom corners). Curving lines (arches on each side of the tree on the right, arches in wall, curving path with echoing patch of grass, and distant trees) counterbalance the echoing verticality and angularity (tree retainer, wall outline and component bricks, left corner pillar, building outlines, windows, saw-tooth sections of central path). The repeated color shapes of squares, angles, rectangles, verticals, and arches also create unity with variety. The swirling brushstrokes at the top, especially in the central area, also help to counterbalance the angularity.

The power and sense of movement increase toward the tree tops. The central plane has a pervasive sense of luminosity starting with sharply demarcated light vs. darks, warm vs. cool colors in the foreground and continuing with atmosphere created in the canopy of trees punctuated by bursts of light sky. The purple red or brown of the trees and the blue, yellow, or pink of the sky have hazy or fuzzy demarcation from one another. This provides a unification device. Scumbled multidirectional brushstrokes giving the appearance of swirls, especially in the upper canopy of trees, accentuate the sense of movement and provide dimension, unusual for distant background. They mimic the implied movement into deep space along the curving path, curving trees, and curving arches. The vertical planes on the left and right sides of the painting reflecting distant subject-matter are distorted in that they are light, rather than dark.

The texture created by the vigorously applied directed brushstrokes also unifies the painting. Accents in the darker planes (e.g., orange) which are similar to colors used more frequently in the lighter planes (yellow, orange) unify the subject-matter.
For example, colors in the bright warm section of the saw-tooth path may be found as small accents on either side of the path.

Loper uses color and light as a unifying device and in a distinctive collaborative fashion to create his powerful drama.