Deborah Paris

Against the Tyranny of the Real: Deborah Paris on Tonalism, Historical and Contemporary

Deborah Paris has been a leader in contemporary tonalism for decades, adapting and extending the aesthetic of the nineteenth- and early twentieth century movement without imitating or repeating the historical Tonalists’ methods or compositions. 

Paris was also an early pioneer of online art classes; 2019 marks the 10th anniversary of The Landscape Atelier (https://thelandscapeatelier.com) through which she has taught landscape painting to hundreds of students from all over the world. Her first book on landscape painting, Painting the Woods: Nature, Memory and Metaphor, will be published in 2020.

Texas-based, Paris has shown her work throughout the U.S. in galleries and museums and appeared in many national magazines such as American Artist and Southwest Art, and her paintings are rooted in a combination of close observation, drawing, memory and imagination, executed largely through indirect painting techniques. 

Morning Light

Tonalism.com: Do you call or think of yourself as a tonalist? 

Deborah Paris: I do consider myself a tonalist. I use that term both within the context of historical Tonalism as well as the aesthetic qualities I consider tonalist work to include. My work is certainly influenced by the artists who were part of the Tonalist movement in America in the late 19th century, in terms of both art-making and conceptually. Generally the emphasis on mood and atmosphere, the interest in depicting transitional times of day, the reliance on memory as an important part of the creative process, and an elegiac perhaps melancholy approach to the landscape are part of that tradition and part of my own work.

Blackbird and Pool

In addition, there are cultural and aesthetic threads that link historic Tonalism to our own time and, in my opinion, make it a particularly apt source of influence for landscape painters today (and perhaps account for the resurgence of interest in it). Historical Tonalism was in part a cultural response to a post Civil War society that no longer had the optimism of previous generations of a glorious future for the new American nation. The cultural zeitgeist of the late 19th century looked back on earlier times that were perceived to be better, more in tune with nature. The expansion of cities and towns and industrial development took people away from family farms and rural living. The abandoned post war farms and homesteads of New England became a favorite motif of Tonalist artists. Society in general became more secular and the Transcendental philosophy of Emerson and Thoreau, espoused by them decades earlier, became popular. Without being overtly narrative or political, historical American Tonalists reflected their time. Similarly, in our own time our fraught relationship with nature, the lack of any real experience of nature on a regular basis by many urban dwelling Americans, and the fractured fabric (whether real or perceived) of our national identity echo many of the same issues.

Tonalism is a uniquely personal art and perhaps inherently modern as a result of that. It makes no sweeping claims or manifestos but rather focuses on an individual’s response to nature and its transitory effects. It is not loud and it requires a contemplative, quiet mind, a rare commodity in contemporary life. My own work reflects this and the process I use to make it requires an engagement with nature in a different way than the approach taken by many contemporary landscape painters. 

Tonalism.com: What’s been the story of your journey as an artist? 

Deborah Paris: When I was six years old, I made an anthology of my stories. I used a Nancy Drew mystery as a template for the pages that I carefully cut to size and then printed my stories on each page. At the same time I started my first large-scale artwork on the walls of my brother’s room. I have been making art and writing ever since.

Autumn Twilight

I spent my childhood riding horses, exploring the woods around my home in Jacksonville, Florida, swimming in lakes, and catching crabs off the dock. When I went to college I never considered anything but a degree in art and I graduated with a BFA with a double major in art history and studio art. Facing a decision to go to graduate school in art history or law school, I chose the latter. I had a successful career as lawyer and I stopped making art, but I kept writing. After about ten years, I came to my senses and starting painting again, and never looked back. Landscape has always been my subject. I have been a full time professional artist for almost twenty-five years. My first book ​Painting the Woods: Nature, Memory and Metaphor, will be published by Texas A&M University Press in 2020.

Tonalism.com: What are the main objectives of your current approach?

Deborah Paris: In my work I try to use technique as a means to suggest and emulate the felt life of nature in a constant state of becoming (as opposed to a more impressionist approach of capturing a particular moment), to suggest the idea of layers both visually and conceptually, and to address the ideas of time and memory.

I’ve been asked about the balance between Realism vs Abstraction. I don’t think my work really fits into either of these categories. Although observation plays a significant role in my process, I am not ultimately after an image that reproduces exactly what I see in nature but something that is a reflection of it. Nature is one thing and art is another. My job is to make art.

As far as abstraction is concerned, it isn’t part of my thinking when I make art. My work is certainly more suggestive than rendered in many respects, but this has more to do with the fleeting sense of light and atmosphere that I often try to depict than anything else. Mystery plays a role in my work and tonalist art in general, so I think that drives my choices in that regard, more than formal distinctions between realism and abstraction.

Regarding viewer perception, on one hand I am very concerned about it. Art making is a way of communicating so if I fail to make a connection with a viewer then I have missed that opportunity. So, I definitely want to elicit a response, and hopefully do more than simply say “this is the way I saw it”. I like to think of paintings as portals that can invite the viewer in to have their own experience and rekindle their own memories. On the other hand, that doesn’t really happen in any genuine way, in my experience, unless the work is an authentic reflection of my response to nature. Also, I respect my viewers. I don’t have to dumb things down for them.

Edge of the Woods

Tonalism.com: What was the actual process or series of events that led you to paint as you do now? 

Deborah Paris: My training as a landscape painter was in the alla prima, plein air tradition. I painted this way for many years. Because of my art history background I continued to explore the work of 19th century artists both in Europe and the US. I was somewhat shocked to discover there was a whole movement of American landscape painting that I was almost completely unaware of—Tonalism. I also discovered a group of late 19thc. Russian landscape painters I became particularly enamored with, particularly Levitan and Shishkin. At about the same time I became interested in indirect painting techniques. There wasn’t much information out there about it and nothing for landscape painters. I did a lot of research and I experimented a lot. As a result of those two things, my work, my process and my approach to nature completely changed.

Tonalism.com: Can you detail your painting process a little bit for our readers?

Deborah Paris: I work from observation and memory, so I spend a lot of time in nature just looking. This is foundational to my process. When I first started working this way I also spent a lot of time drawing from nature. I still do this but less. I rely more and more on memory. I found separating my art-making mind from my observational mind helped me to experience nature in a new, different and deeper way.  As a result almost all my work is produced in the studio these days. This not only encourages me to use memory but also keeps me away from what I call “the tyranny of the real.” 

Fire and Ice - Deborah Paris

I usually do a series of small thumbnail drawings in the studio to explore ideas. My studio sketchbooks are repositories of ideas and experiences in nature. I can dip back into them and pick up a lost thread or see how something I worked on years before can be readdressed. After deciding on the motif, a format and size, I start with a transparent underpainting. Occasionally, I do a very simple placement of forms on the untoned panel with charcoal before starting (particularly with larger works). But usually, I just jump right in with paint. 

I use brushes and rags to locate forms, wipe out lights and create suggestive brushwork. The underpainting is important because some of it will most likely remain visible in the finished piece. My go-to pigment in this process is Vasari Shale, which is also the workhorse dark on my palette. It has a wonderful violet undertone that can shift warm or cool depending on how transparent it is and of course what is placed near it. It is usually one or two steps lighter in value from where I intend to end up to allow for the darkening effect of glazes. 

I then build up a couple of layers with glazes, slowing shifting the piece in both tone and color in the direction I want it to go. It’s all very loose and suggestive at this point. After letting the initial layers dry I work in layers, building up glazes, scumbles and velaturas, as well as opaque passages. My aim is to create an optically complex surface that visually vibrates as well as suggests the effects of time and memory. It is my hope that the painting, like the landscape that inspired it, is in a state of becoming. At the end, if the surface retains some element of that transforming quality, it remains open not fixed, susceptible to a fresh look and evoking new and varied response with each viewing.

For many years I painted alla prima and worked with a very limited palette and mixed all my greens. As I began to transition to indirect techniques, I added more transparent pigments to my palette. Today I use many of the Gamblin transparent pigments like transparent yellow earth, gold ochre, olive green, viridian, brown pink, ultramarine violet and hansa yellow light (semi-transparent). I also use the Vasari transparent earth greens as well as their Shale. I also recently started using Vasari’s Lead white which I love.  Using the transparent pigment allows me to mix both glazes and translucent mixtures that work well with my process.

Nevertheless, I recommend to my students that they start out by mixing greens using a base of Gamblin Chromatic black (transparent) and hansa yellow light (semi-transparent) and modify from there. It’s a great way to learn how to modify and mix accurately for value, temperature and chroma.  I also use Liquin as my medium. I use several different kinds of Rosemary brushes—Master’s choice, Ivory, Eclipse-- as well as hardware chip brushes, rags, palette knife, and putty knife.

I use an alkyd primed linen (New Traditions) and also lately Rublev’s Lead Alkyd Ground on ACM panels.

Moonlit Pines

Tonalism.com: Saving the big question for last: What is art’s purpose in the world? And/or is there anything I didn’t ask that you want people to know about your work and/or your personal practice? 

Deborah Paris: I guess the first thing I would do is take issue with the question. ☺ I don’t think art making can be thought of as something with a purpose outside of ourselves any more than breathing can. It is in our bones. I think the need to make art is integral to us as human beings. For whatever reason we as a species have been compelled to make pictures and tell stories from just about the beginning. Emerson said language is fossil poetry and I think the same can be said for picture making. Our words and pictures have from the beginning been fastened to the natural world and our human experience of it. No matter how many postmodern layers we use to paper over this basic fact, it still remains elemental to who and what we are.