Portrait of an Artist

by Stuard Derrick

Provincetown Magazine

September 20, 2002

In 1899, attracted to the light and atmosphere of Cape Cod and influenced by the revolutionary work of French painters like Monet, Sisley, and Pissarro, Charles Hawthorne began to conduct classes in Impressionist style in Provincetown, in the process founding what has come to be known as the Cape School of Impressionism. His protégé, Henry Hensche, took over the instruction of the School after Hawthorne and imparted his technique to a whole generation of artists who currently work and live on the Cape. Lois Griffel is the current director and instructor at the Cape School and continues the tradition of landscape and still life painting initiated by Hawthorne.

As part of the Fall Arts Festival, Provincetown Impressionist Chuck Anzalone, a student of Griffel, will be holding open hours at his combination gallery and working studio on the third floor of Whaler’s Wharf. Born in Somerville, Massachusetts, Anzalone recalls that he has always painted, even as a child, and took courses at the Massachusetts College of Art as a teenager in a Saturday program for high school students. He went on to major in graphic design, with a minor in painting, at the Art Institute of Boston. During and after his schooling, he concentrated in abstract and op art as he pursued a career as a graphics designer. “When I was in school in the early 1970s,” he recollects, “they didn’t teach you about color. Abstract painting was emphasized in those days.

“Monet has always been my favorite artist,” Anzalone continues. “In the 1980s a friend had given me a copy of ‘Monet’s Years at Giverny’ [the artist’s estate outside of Paris]. I had always wanted to paint that way, but I didn’t know where to begin. In the 1990s when I started coming to Provincetown, I took a workshop with Lois Griffel at the Cape Cod School of Art. I didn’t begin to explore or understand Impressionism until I studied at the Cape School. Taking the workshop with Lois opened the door for my exploration of this technique; she’s a very good teacher and has a way of getting you excited and more into it.”

Explaining the aesthetic approach to his art, Anzalone says, “I use the basics of Impressionism - the use of color theory in my work. You’re essentially trying to capture the time of day, the mood, the feeling, and the atmosphere.” He displays a wintry canvas of Bradford Street entitled “Twilight” - an evening scene of a snow-covered street bathed in cool tones of blues and purples and heightened by hues of yellow and orange illuminating the storefront of McNulty’s Market. “When you study color theory,” he explains, “you train yourself to see how light affects color, how light affects an object. For example, if you were to look at snow on the street, you might think the snow is just white or gray; but if you look closely you’ll discover that there are more colors like purples or blues in the shadows. It’s a matter of seeing these colors and painting them. It’s a matter of training your eye to see the color.”

“Usually I work on location,” he elaborates. “Fall is my favorite time to paint because of the light and the color of the foliage. In the winter I work from photographs - I’ll start a painting, do some photo references, and finish in the studio, especially for snow scenes. When you’re location painting you normally have about 45 minutes before the light changes. Then you have to pack up and return the next day if the conditions are similar.” He next displays a large painting entitled “Homeport Lane”, a study of a side street in Provincetown with a perspective of snow and shadow leading to a house at the end of the lane dominated by the branches of a bare tree. “It takes about ten sessions for a large painting like this,” he says.

In works like “Beech Forest” and “The Path at Clapp’s Pond” the artist reveals a more realistic re-interpretation of classic Impressionist technique in his renditions of fall foliage. “My style is tending these days to be more realistic - Impressionist colors with a more realistic edge. Being a graphic designer, I have to do things precise and exact. No matter how loose I want to be with Impressionism, I keep getting dragged back to a more realistic style. It’s a struggle between the two.” Indeed, Anzalone’s work seems a harmonious balance between these styles. For example, his canvas of “Spring” reveals an exploding, gorgeous burst of pink shrubbery enveloping a white picket fence that is rendered with an exquisite exactitude, yet still revealing Impressionist influences of light and shadow.

Anzalone expresses an admiration for Monet, Manet, Sargent, and William Merrit Chase. And his particular enthusiasm for 19th century painter Dennis Miller Bunker reveals a key influence on his technique. Bunker (1861-1890) was a contemporary of Sargent, and Boston’s colorful Isabella Stewart Gardner was his patron. He died at the early age of 29. “Had he lived, he would have been one of the pre-eminent American Impressionists,” Anzalone states. In works like “Roadside Cottage”, created in 1889, Bunker reveals the same paradoxically harmonious tension between Impressionist technique and realist depiction. In discussing the work of Bunker, Anzalone says, “What attracts me to his work is its composition, the interplay of light and shadow; what intrigues me is a little spot of light he will use on a road or cottage.”

Travel plays an important part of Anzalone’s work. Having been to Giverny in France, the artist anticipates going to paint in Provence where Cezanne and Van Gogh executed some of their finest work. A recent trekking expedition in Asia resulted in works like “Pokhara”, a rustic setting of meadows and haystacks that appear to be located in rural France or Italy, but in actuality reside in the mountainous regions of Nepal. In addition to painting “en plein air” in these natural locations, he will photograph his settings for later studio work.

“I expect to spend this winter experimenting,” says Anzalone. “My style continues to evolve. I want to work larger, work with still life, get looser. I just like to paint. I really don’t like to think about it. It just comes out. I just do it.”

Chuck Anzalone’s work is on display at Studio 34, his gallery and studio at Whaler’s Wharf on Commercial Street. For the Fall Arts Festival, the artist will have open studio weekends, noon to 4 pm, Saturdays and Sundays, September 22-23 and 29-30.