Bruce Macdonald

“Painting is a compulsion to me, a most welcome one.

I view painting as a language that can express qualities of experience impossible to express in other terms –an experience that over time all artists seek and develop for their own style, own theme.

I consider these barns to be not unlike the cathedral that Monet painted so often in Rouen, or the haystacks he loved so in Normandy.

Clearly, our barns are the “cathedrals” of Rockbridge, through their design, their shape, their rich colors and earned textures.

This is now, my compulsion.”

My search began as a young student in Chicago, when an accomplished watercolor artist ( Earl Gross) mentored me, taught me how to “see” and then how to express it on paper, eventually on canvas. A later influence was William Mosby, a professor at the American Academy of Art , who showed me how important design is in defining shape and form, of learning from the paintings of such old masters as Reubens and Rembrandt.

The US Army sent me to Europe in the late 1950s where I was turned on big time by the scene, the people, the history. On Saturdays I was allowed to sketch or paint copies from the excellent art collection of a small, local museum. In addition, I traveled, filling sketchbooks with my impressions of the people and the landscape (the villages, castles, mountains etc.). The European culture and experience captivated me, changed my life – and influenced my work. 

But the larger issue remains.: what to paint, how to express it? This requires one to dig deeper., to be open to new ideas, opinions. My wife and I moved to London from Chicago in the mid 1960s, where I was exposed to new ideas emerging in painting, in music and theatre. New York followed in the 1970s to the same effect. Then in 2000 we came to the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia – with its rich heritage and natural beauty. Today I paint barns, all kinds, big, small, angular, dark barns, light barns, with slate-blue ridges behind. What I see and experience here is now my focus, my palette.

Essentially it is the look of the barns, the faces of the farmers, the craftsmen, the woodcutters, the musicians – those who live, work and play here. These barns are the projection screen of the land, the sky, clouds, storms – the passing of time. I paint them in a representational style, yet over time my work has evolved to a more design-oriented, color-dominant look today. Visual detail is not the intended result – the essence, the impression is.”