The art of illusion
How Michael Newberry rediscovered the role of color in creating the illusion of depth and space.
The Grizzly Professor
Edgar Ewing came through the door. The students beheld a tweed suit topped with a grizzly gray mustache and sparkling blue eyes. He moved with the melody of confidence and the whimsy of delight. He set down his case on the table, spread his arms, and smiled at the the classroom of freshman students. “Making art,” he announced “is like making love.”
The students looked at one another with sidelong smiles, most of them inexperienced with one or the other part of the metaphor, and certainly not fathoming the connection between the two. It was the first day of a fundamentals of oil painting class at USC. The year was 1974.
In the 1970’s, the art department at USC was dominated by abstract expressionism. Ewing was the exception in the department, he was an artist with technical skill and a deep passion for art. Representational art, that is — the kind that depicts the world around us (figures, landscapes, still lifes) in a way that reflects how our sense organs experience the world.
While other professors taught classes on conceptual or found-object art, Ewing taught his students how to paint. Never having had a…
