Robert Bateman's wildlife compositions

In February 1995, I studied for a GCSE in Critical Studies In Art & Design and looked at the influences on Robert Bateman, Canadian wildlife painter. So interesting was it, that I was awarded an A* grade.

Robert Bateman sees wildlife as an acceptable subject for Art. Many others dismiss wildlife art as "something else", as illustration. But Bateman is a painter, not an illustrator. His paintings express the 'experience' of wildlife watching and discovery. An illustration might communicate something much more specific, perhaps anatomical and scientific accuracy. Painting is different. Painting is Art.

Bateman does something very interesting. He accepts the contemporary influences in North Anerica; the Groups of Seven (artists) of Ontario, Canada and the wider Abstract Expressionism of the United States. But, instead of "abstracting" elements of a scene to explore in painting, Bateman leaves them in place. 

Not out of context, you don't at first see these elements of his paintings and compositions. They remain hiden just as if you were looking for those elements yourself. You have to explore his paintings just as an artist might explore the scene. 

This is Bateman's well known composition...

Red-Winged Blackbirds and Rail Fence (1976) Acrylic, 36" x 48"

At first, you only see the scene painted in a style of realism...

But if you deconstruct the image you see the real subject of the scene in the light on the water with the silhouette and the shadow of the fence...

Once you see this, the similarity to the compositions of Franz Kline becomes obvious...

This is "Mahoning" by Franz Kline (1956), original size of 6'8" x 8'4".

The birds are almost incidental to the scene as a whole and the "slashing of a samurai sword" that are the strong shapes of the split cedar fence. "They should be the dominant shapes here but they are fighting for dominance with the shimmering white negative space of the swamp behind them." RB.

In "The Art Of Robert Bateman", Bateman says; "An artist recreates the world and so can make his own rules, but he must pay the price of those rules. In terms of composition I think I placed these birds succcessfully, but after the painting was finished an ornithological friend pointed out to me that a dominant red-winged blackbird would never allow himself to get below another male that he was driving from his territory. This bothered me but here I have decided to let the artist's world prevail over the natural world."