Charles William Pollard
Couple of weeks ago one of our users, Cleda wrote me an email. She shared with me the story of her brother Charles, who was an artist and art teacher but died too young - in 1965, just four days into his twenty-ninth year. I fell in love with his works, so we have decided to present one of his paintings, which for me looks like a modern version of classic motif of idyll, entitled by his sister "Nature's Solitude".
Nature was a frequent motif for Charles William Pollard. He painted from his imagination - many of his paintings were of distant places he had never seen, since his travels were few. He painted incredible desert scenes, ships and the sea, castles, volcanoes, quaint villages reminiscent of the Mediterranean. He also painted still lifes, animals, and occasionally women and children. Although it's hard to tell which artists were his biggest inspirations, this particular creation of mind we present today reminds me of a fantastic landscapes of Max Ernst.
As he wrote in his personal essay:
"I can recall having spent many glorious moments in my life-time, but of them all, the solitude of Nature and her wonders I hold as most dear. I guess that from my Nature I have gathered my hobbies of writing and painting. These two activities engulf me immensely. In both, I have passive moods and, though my styles don't change too much, these moods do.
I have come to believe that my imagination is quite my only asset, to be applied by various tools—my mind and hands. Without these, life would seem worthless to me.
I seem to have my own “Walden's Pond” as Thoreau had. My only wish is to make other people happy or just to get them to think once in a while."