Luminism was a poetic art movement of the late nineteenth century that was concerned with the study and depiction of the effects of light and atmosphere. It was derived from the Hudson River School which was influenced by European Romanticism.

The first time I saw a painting by JMW Turner, the British Romantic landscape painter, I felt a kinship to his work through my poetry. He painted what I aspired to describe in words. Commonly known as “the painter of light,” his work was the Romantic preface to the Luminists and the Impressionists. His paintings took the free expression of the feeling of the artist as a starting point. Studying the landscapes of Turner, I recognized his influence on some of the greatest artists of the 19th century. In North America, artists such as Albert Bierstadt, Martin Johnson Heade, Frederick Edwin Church and John Frederick Kensett, often depicted majestic landscapes and cool waterscapes reflecting nuanced skies. Their works reached a spirituality that transcended the notion of a landscape painting.

I loved the grandeur of their scenes, yet I knew that I could not nor did I wish to paint in their style. Yet, I had one thing in common with the Romantics and their offspring, the Luminists, and that was the need to capture light…from the sun, the stars, the earth. This was a ongoing exploration into how the sun effects the eye. Where do reflections come from and why? How can I apply color to capture a moment in time?

My paintings began to chronicle the infinite forms of LIFE in an unlimited universe from the birth of a star to sunrises and sunsets visible to the human eye, and to more tangible aspects of life on earth such as fire and water. It is to this end I search for the expression of light and shadow, for inexhaustible combinations of a visually aesthetic and spiritual language that transcends and unifies worlds. My goal is to express the interconnectedness between human beings and the universe. Specifically, I explore free organic forms through the layering and sensual deployment of color by bringing attention to the rich, spectral underpinnings of the simplicity and richness of the earth and its universal counterparts.”

The Luminist, Thomas Moran painted in his homage to Turner “Fiercely the red sun descending/burned his way along the heavens,” his title taken from the Longfellow poem, “Song of Hiawatha,” a recounting of the heroic exploits of a native American chief. The explosion of colors, the sun, the drama of the scene perfectly depicts the power of the poem. It is one of the most passionate paintings I have ever seen.

As the German artist Caspar David Friedrich once wrote, “The artist’s feeling is his law.” Poetry and painting, using the symbol of the sun, the grandeur of the sky, earth, water, has inspired human beings for millennia. William Wordsworth summed it up by stating that poetry “should be the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.” And I believe that painting should be poetry.