When I came across the work of Pennsylvania painter Robert Heilman at the F.A.N. Gallery here in Philadelphia today, I was initially captivated by his direct, painterly approach, deft use of light and controlled color.

It was on further looking through the show that I began to notice some fascinating patterns in Heilman’s work. One is that he creates compositions that fly in the face of the usual conventions of composition — and pulls it off quite nicely.

He often defies the rule of thirds, placing significant objects in the composition almost on center, or in between thirds and centers. He plays with breaking the composition into squares, and frequently places tall vertical objects, most often utility poles, overtly in the foreground of his paintings, further dividing the canvas. He handles all of this defiance of the ordinary with aplomb, and the resulting compositions are fascinating.

Also fascinating is his interpretation of nighttime scenes. with glows of street lamps creating geometric patterns of light and dark that often recede in multiple planes. Combining both his fascination with light and dark and his penchant for defying the standard compositional rules are his paintings in which courses of dark and light recede like recursive frames, at times often almost dead on center in the composition.

All of this playfulness is within the context of small canvasses, in images of small town streets, alleys and corners.

Heilman apparently does not have a dedicated website or blog, but the F.A.N. gallery has a selection of his work on their website. There is also an article, A few words with Robert Heilman, on the F.A.N. Arts Blog

Unfortunately, I’m late in telling those in the Philadelphia area about the show, though you still have two days to catch it. Robert Heilman: Recent Paintings is on display until this Saturday, September 29.

“Veduta”, from the Italian for “view” is a subset of landscape painting and graphics in which the artist creates a reasonably accurate, usually large and detailed representation of a specific place. Most often the view is of a city that is remote and exotic to the intended audience for the works.

The genre reached a pinnacle of sorts in the 18th century, particularly in views of the astonishing and magical city of Venice as portrayed by Giovanni Antonio Canal, better known as Canaletto, and Francesco Guardi, whose works are less well known to contemporary audiences, but are also stunning.

These two masters of Venice are featured in a new exhibition by that name, Canaletto — Guardi: The two masters of Venice, at the Jacquemart-André Museum in Paris (my links are to the English language versions of the sites). The exhibition runs to 14 January 2013.

There is a dedicated website for the exhibition that includes six sections on the exhibition’s themes, each of which features several images that may be clicked on for versions that have mouse-over enlargement features (why they don’t just feature large images, I don’t know, these paintings are in the public domain).

It’s interesting to compare the views of Venice by these two artists, their similarities and differences, as well similar venduta by other artists in the show, and “capricci” or imaginary landscapes by the two main artists.

I’ve also linked below to some additional resources for images by Canaletto and Guardi, as well as my previous post on Canaletto which include additional image resources.

(images above: Giovanni Antonio Canal [Canaletto], top five, Francesco Guardi, bottom five)