Daniel E. Greene, N.A., Rothko & Diebenkorn, Oil on canvas, 40 x 50 inches
Bernardo Strozzi (1581–1644) was the classic Counter-Reformation painter. He had a supreme command of color, and was able to combine brilliant passages of jewel-like colors, swirling shapes, and deep pictorial space with a skillful attention to minute detail. This invigorated expression constituted a highly evolved aesthetic response to the Church’s call for art that depicted the world with greater realism while heightening the viewer’s receptivity to a spiritual experience.
Strozzi is one of Daniel E. Greene’s favorite artists. Like Strozzi, Greene combines strong tonal contrasts, sculptural form, fine colors, intricate compositions, and attention to detail in a remarkable production that explores a wide range of subjects and themes. Greene’s work owes considerable debt to this Genoese master, an influence that lands him in very good company. Several of Venice’s greatest 18th-century artists, including Tiepolo, Piazetta, and Guardi, developed pictorial styles that incorporated many of Strozzi’s discoveries. As heir to this repository of techniques and motives, Greene offers an important forward link in the development of contemporary realism.
Greene recently exhibited works from his subway and auction series at Gallery Henoch in New York City. Works from the latter grouping often set up clever visual puns aimed at critiquing modernist art trends. Rothko & Diebenkorn depicts an auctioneer singling out a bidder during a sale of abstract works done by the artists noted in the title. In signature Greene fashion, the work’s imagery is painstakingly rendered in minute detail. The auctioneer’s full frontal pointing gesture (the viewer becomes the spied bidder) is a realist tour de force in its masterful handling of foreshortening and perspective. As an expression, the pointing gesture is aggressively accusatory. One feels either caught or trapped by this fictive gesture which nonetheless successfully halts time; the latter feels like real life --when events escalate and senses are heightened. One wonders what is really being sold here---abstract art or Greene’s skills as a realist painter? The title is curious as well; Rothko & Diebenkorn sounds more like an investment firm than two painters—but this is stating the obvious.
Greene is no art world arriviste. He notes, “I knew the artists that hung out at the Cedar Tavern during the heyday of the Abstract Expressionist movement. I tried to absorb the art trends that were then current and even produced a few works that were loose and expressionistic. But this manner of working seemed too easy, and I couldn’t see a path to improvement—it felt like an endgame. I needed to be challenged, and realism provided that challenge.”
Lot 134 - The Water's Fine equally exemplifies Greene’s formidable painting ability—and his not so covert proselytizing delivered through clever image choices and compositional strategies. The masterpiece pictured in Greene’s painting is by the American Impressionist Edward Henry Potthast (1857 – 1927). It sold at a Christie’s auction for $1,384,000—no small figure until you compare that sale to Rothko's No. 1 (Royal Red and Blue), which fetched $75 million at a record-breaking Sotheby's auction. Clearly, the water isn’t fine—if this plunge symbolizes the investment risk of American Impressionism. But again, Greene’s pictorial rhythm seems to stop time and leads us to pause. The painting depicts an auction staff member taking a telephone bid—but rather than record the amount she appears transfixed by the painting whose reflection is mirrored on top of her work counter. As many artists can attest, viewing a painting’s reflection in a mirror is a standard critique method---one can more easily spot compositional flaws, when not distracted by the imagery. The underlying assumption here is worth noting: what truly makes a work masterful and beautiful is not its imagery—but rather its ability to successfully employ pictorial strategies (such as color harmony and tonal rhythm) which are essentially abstract qualities. It appears that the auction staff member has been stopped dead in her tracks with this new discovery --- and sees now that the painting by Potthast is surprisingly good.
In the above noted examples, and in much of Greene’s work, a remarkable verisimilitude gets our attention---but that singular skill, though noteworthy, is not what holds our attention. Rather, Greene’s artistic power derives from his ability to dramatically arrest movement and realistically capture the flashing moment that is a New York minute—that seemingly infinite instant that stands in high relief (like one of the artist’s figures) against the morphing tableau of an urban culture forever on the move and on the make. His paintings display coveted artifacts, beautiful women, the stall between auction bids, the slow and deliberate collide of toasting wine glasses, the just-missed subway, and the fugitive glance of a stranger; all a carefully orchestrated scheme to stop us in time.
Well done. We are a discontent and anxious culture consumed with impatient striving and addicted to what’s next. We never seem quite happy with what we have, where we are, or whom we are with in any given moment. Perhaps, then, Greene’s art can be seen as a parable about life and the futile and ceaseless yearnings of the modern spirit. Greene offers a divinely simple, though hardly austere, anecdote. It recalls the prescription offered by Strozzi: an art that inspires the viewer to stay, meditate, and become conscious of the peace and plentitude the present moment has to offer.
“I am enamored with works by the great masters—specifically Strozzi, Rembrandt, and Velázquez,” Greene says. “Their works resonate with me on many different levels. I am awestruck by their technical mastery and the originality of their compositions. At the same time, I am profoundly moved by their sensitivity to both their subject matter and their audience. The best of these works are meant to be inclusive and willingly invite the viewer to share the experience of the artist. One can see and feel what the artists saw and felt in relation to their subjects. This convergence, this identification, transcends time.
“For me, this shared experience can only be described as spiritual,” Greene continues. “I would have that experience in front of the same masterpiece over and over again. I was responding to a highly evolved visual language. To this very day that language, as applied to the art of painting, remains a powerful aesthetic force.”
Only history will tell if Greene’s work attains similar eternal status. Yet this much can be said: His long career and expansive production argue for a reconsideration of the trajectory of contemporary art, in which he has played a significant role. His most important work veers away from the dominant art-historical narrative that privileges a single ascendant style. Greene’s painting instead champions art making that is essentially idiosyncratic and resistant to historicizing. At the very least, Greene will be remembered as a forceful outsider and an influential role model to young realist practitioners—and for that matter all fledgling artists who hazard to create work outside of the prevailing modes and styles of their time.
In addition to being a leading figurative painter, Daniel Greene is an accomplished portraitist represented by Portraits, Inc. For further information about Greene’s work, or to inquire about commissioning a portrait by this noted master, please contact us.
Portraits, Inc. was founded in 1942 in New York on Park Avenue. Over its 70-year history, Portraits, Inc. has carefully assembled a select group of the world’s foremost portrait artists offering a range of styles and prices. Recognized as the industry leader, Portraits, Inc. provides expert guidance for discerning clients interested in commissioning fine art portraits.