The Eye and the Heart:
The Watercolors of John Stuart Ingle
I don't want to make arbitrary changes in what I see
to paint the picture, I want to paint what is given. The whole idea is
to take something that's given and explore that reality as intensely as I
can.
— John Stuart Ingle
John Stuart Ingle paints still-life watercolors of
golden-ripe pears and deep-red strawberries, antique tables and hand-thrown
pots, crystal bowls and lace doilies, and cold-steel paring knives, oriental
carpets, arabesque tile, and gourmet candies as real as small
children.
His works have an astonishing sensuality and a riveting immediacy. They
are created in the most homely of circumstances, in a light-and-plant-filled
studio on a shady side street in Morris, Minnesota.
John Stuart Ingle was painting watercolor landscapes, when, in 1975, he
found his "style changing to a more textured and meticulous view of the world."
At the same time, he decided "to explore how color feels" and "to impress a
viewer with the results of a highly concentrated awareness."
The extent to which the artist has succeeded in this endeavor is strikingly
evident in the thirty-two oversized watercolors and eleven details splendidly
reproduced in full color in this book. Here viewers can enjoy the recent
products of Ingle's formidable technique in masterful compositions that shimmer
with color and light and transform common domestic objects into haunting and
resonant visual experiences.
In his accompanying text, John Camp, a reporter for the St. Paul
Pioneer Press and Dispatch and longtime follower of Ingle's work, examines
the artist's life and art with the perception and candor that in 1986 earned him
both the Pulitzer Prize for Journalism and the Distinguished Writing Award of
the American Society of Newspaper Editors.
Frank H. Goodyear, Jr., president of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine
Arts and author of Contemporary Realism since 1960, comments in his
introduction on the significance of Ingle's work and places him within the
context of contemporary American realism.
ISBN 0-8478-0888-2