With Geminis, there’s always more than one

   

Hey, we're still in Gemini's section of the zodiacal calendar, so why have just one Gemini-themed painting when we can have two?  (Or as the irreverent have been known to say about Geminis, "Double Trouble")

I happened to meet a Gemini twin, or at least a somewhat kindred spirit with the same birthday, in my high school biology class.  That was the year I won an honourable mention at the school's Science Fair (who, me???!) for...heh, heh...craftily fitting my outdoor and art inclinations into the entry requirements with a show-and-tell of my own drawings and nifty little clay sculptures illustrating mushroom structures and varieties.

It was inevitable that my background research touched on the illustrious Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus, the creator of our enduring system of plant classification, an eccentric character (aren't they the best?) about whom the Swedish author August Strindberg wrote: "Linnaeus was in reality a poet who happened to become a naturalist."

Imagine my delight on an early BC hike when we spotted an expanse of the tiny flower that Linnaeus had declared as his favourite and which eventually received his name: Linnaea borealis, commonly "Twinflower."

Imagine, too, a more recent delight when I found the corner of VanDusen Garden that features statues of great botanists, of course including Linnaeus.

 -- complete with the Twinflower reference!

Well, there and then, I hatched my plan to hook up these botanists with my roaming art students who love to check out statues in our local parks.  You might remember last year's starting point, "Dr. Menzies Holds the Pose."

Intrigued by the garden setting of Linnaeus' statue, I quickly came up with a title, "The Twins Put Linnaeus in Perspective".  As the dark closed in last November, I spent a good bit of time letting the twins do some acrobatic stunts in the foreground.

I finally admitted that the landscaping and topiary that had enticed me resulted in a maze from which there was no exit.  The only thing to do was to send  the whole works to The Place of Abandonment until it was time for Renewed Effort 2020.

This time, I decided to be explicit about the lines of linear perspective.   Working through a half dozen small studies, I again made some false starts such as these:

I began to wonder if I'd wandered into another maze that tempts me -- having a better IDEA than an IMAGE to express it.  That sober self-talk helped me hone in on a simpler depiction of the elements of linear perspective.  I also decided to suggest aerial or atmospheric perspective, in which things in the distance become lighter, bluer, and less distinct .  Here's the launching pad:--

...and we have lift-off, with the first under-layer in the colour complements of my intended colour scheme:

Hmmm.  How do I carry on with this analogy? -- by going into orbit?  In any case, here's the final outcome, "The Twins Put Linnaeus in Perspective" (copyright 2020)

  

Call it "Botanical Surrealism" or "Botanical Enthusiasm," there's just a chance that Linnaeus might have approved since it's said that, like many an ardent naturalist, he played hookey himself to take long rambles in the fields.  Or maybe he's become too set in stone.