Alla prima

To see something and exclaim to oneself, "Isn't that beautiful and extraordinarily pleasant to behold!" and then try to capture that feeling on a canvas by painting what is before one, as simply and directly as possible, is what could be called "direct painting". Sometimes it is named "alla prima" meaning "in one go", or "au premier coup", in the first attack.

One drawback of "alla prima" is that it is clear to all when the intention fails or the skill to pull it off falls short. Like writing simply and directly: if all can clearly understand what you are saying, they will be able to see mistakes and points of disagreement. As with performance arts and sport, there can be (though no longer perhaps prevalently) an appreciation of the skill required in pulling off the feat and at the same time "making it look easy". Some of the best examples of this are found in the bravura - performed with great skill, a display of daring - brush strokes of the likes of Velasquez, Hals, Sargent, Zorn, De Lazlo, Sorolla.

As a musician, I am often intrigued by the sense of time that paintings can produce. Sometimes when playing music, one makes gestures in the service of producing an extraordinarily moving sound which are akin to those bravura marks left by a skilled painter which although "frozen" in time suggest a movement or transition that we recognise elsewhere in the tempo of life. And so this may be one way that paintings may move us.