Shades of a Lionfish

They say measured silence spaced enchantingly in between a stream of sounds is what turns artless cacophony in to soulful music. If that is true, in the case of this picture of a Lionfish then, Clint has turned his plain canvas in to a masterful visual symphony. Without a doubt, a creation that boasts of an artistic vision that must certainly go beyond the limits of small child's mind... yet, more than three decades later now, we still sit here looking at it... moved by the beauty and in awe of Edmund Thomas Clint.

Where does one begin to praise it? Apologetic now on behalf of my lack of proper training and deeply respectful of the brilliant mind that birthed this image, let me try as an observant layman, to point out the touch of genius in this one.

The fact that even if we ignore the bright shades (impossible!), the detailed sketch of the sea creature that lies underneath is precision work in terms of shape, proportions and features, should be one reason.

Or maybe, we should just focus on the obvious here and see what it is that makes it so unique.. 

For example, let us start with the  unavoidable reality here. The attention grabbing play of colours is not an accident by any means. It is 'obvious' because Clint wanted it to be obvious. In many of his paintings, the master artist in him revealed a remarkable understanding of the techniques of manipulating colours to achieve or showcase depth of field, effects of light, angle of view, the emotional tone of the scene and such.

In the case of this unassuming Lionfish, we see a lot of yellow, orange, red, blue, green and purple. Now, with such a selection of dominant colours, two things are of paramount importance - choices of placement and restraint in their use. Clint effortlessly achieves both..

Like the silence placed between the noise which creates music, the lack of colours in certain portions is what makes this painting so stunningly elegant. It would have been easy for a passionate and enthusiastic child to fill the image with all kinds of shades, but Clint chose to create a stimulating contrast instead. The overpowering hues are balanced against the black and white portions on the body of the fish. Restraint indeed. 

Then, there is the way he has paired and placed the colours together to achieve naturalism and not, in effect, substance less 'visual junk food'. A simple mistake in putting the purple in the wrong spot and we would have a whole different picture with a much diminished impact on our aesthetic sensibilities.

The almost soft blending of the orange with the yellow and spatial concentration of the red, blue and purple in combination with each other, almost brings this inhabitant of the deep blue waters to life before our very eyes. A feat worthy of applause from anyone who has ever ambitiously picked up a paintbrush.. and failed.

In the end, regardless of how we try to quantify it, the unspoken variable in this remains. Beauty - that can only truly be felt by our hearts and our minds. If a picture says a thousand words, one must inevitably wonder.. how much does Clint speak to us all still?